Good evening. Let's begin our
evening service by standing and singing, Revive Us Again, 485. Revive Us Again, 485. Yeah. We praise Thee, O God, for the
Son of Thy love, for Jesus who died and is now gone above. Alleluia, Thine the glory, Alleluia,
Amen. Alleluia, Thine the glory, revive
us again. We praise Thee, O God, for Thy
Spirit of light, who has shown us our Savior and scattered our
night. Alleluia, Thine the glory! Alleluia, Amen! Alleluia, Thine the glory! Revive us again! ? All glory and praise to the
Lamb that was slain ? ? Who has borne all our sins and has cleansed
every stain ? ? Hallelujah, thine the glory, hallelujah, amen ?
? Hallelujah, thine the glory, revive us again ? ? Revive us
again Fill each heart with Thy love. May each soul be rekindled
with fire from above. Hallelujah, Thine the glory. Hallelujah, Amen. Hallelujah, Thine the glory. Revive us again. Our next hymn is going to be
Rock of Ages, 126. Sorry. There we go. Archimages cleft for me, let
me hide myself in thee. Let the water and the blood from
thy wounded side which flowed Ye of sin, the double cure, Save
from wrath and make me pure. Could my tears forever flow? Could my zeal no longer know? These for sin could not atone,
Thou must save and Thou alone. In my hand no price I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling. While I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eyes shall close in death, When I rise to worlds unknown,
And behold thee on thy throne, Rock of ages, cleft for me, let
me hide myself in thee. Thank you. I would like to read from Ecclesiastes
3. 1 through 14, Ecclesiastes 3. To everything there is a season
and a time, to every purpose under the heaven, a time to be
born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck
up that which is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, A
time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep and
a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to
dance. A time to cast away stones and
a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time
to refrain from embracing. A time to get and a time to lose.
A time to keep and a time to cast away. a time to rend and
a time to sow, a time to keep silence and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time
of peace. What profit hath he that worketh
in that wherein he laboureth? I have seen the travail which
God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He
hath made everything beautiful in His time. Also He hath set
the world in their hearts, so that no man can find out the
work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. I know
that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice and
to do good in his life. and also that every man should
eat and drink and enjoy the good of his labor, it is the gift
of God. I know that whatsoever God doeth,
it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor
anything taken from it. And God doeth it that men should
fear before him. Our heavenly and merciful Father.
We thank you for once again assembling us as a local assembly from week
to week. Father, what a great blessing
it is that you continue to give us a place, a building, and also
the financial wherewithal to gather together when there is
so much religion around us, Lord, but it is so rare to hear that
pure gospel preached. Salvation is of the Lord, and
it is by free grace only. Father, will you continue to
allow us to assemble here? It is all in your hands perfectly.
And remember Brother Eric as he comes before us again this
evening. Father, continue to be with him
with his health and strength. and give him, especially this
evening, the unction of your spirit, that he may declare the
everlasting gospel to us once again. And remember us, Lord,
as we sit and hope to listen. Father, give us receiving hearts
and that we may have an appetite for the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember
those also that listen on the YouTube channel and also those
sermon, audio sermons that go out. Father, we do not know where
they go. but you do. Father, will you bless these
simple means and remember us, Lord, as a small flock here. Some are struggling, and we think
also of Brother Scott, who has some illnesses and has gotten
somewhat worse. Father, will you remember him
where he is and bless him and comfort him only as you can comfort. And Father, remember us in this
community. Give us, Lord, the opportunity
that we may speak the glorious gospel, that we may speak and
boast of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, remember us in mercy
for Jesus' sake alone. Amen. Good evening. All right, we'll
be in Isaiah 30, verses eight through 17. And tonight we're
gonna continue where the Lord by the prophet Isaiah is exposing
the folly of this people. And their folly being that they
were putting their trust in Egypt, right? They were looking to Egypt
for a covering and for help and for strength against their enemy. who they were threatened by and
glorying in. If it's Assyria during the time
of Hezekiah or one of the kings of Israel, then it's Assyria
that they were glorying in, right? They were fearing them rather
than fearing the Lord, and their fear of men was turning them
to man, to the flesh. to save them and deliver them.
And so the Lord addressed them as rebellious children in verse
1. If you look there in Isaiah 30 verse 1, he said, Woe to the
rebellious children, sayeth the Lord, that take counsel but not
of me." There's nothing wrong with taking counsel, but let
us take counsel of the Lord. Let us seek the Lord for His
counsel and lay our hearts and the burden that's on our heart
and minds lay before Him. and that cover with a covering,
but not of my spirit. They were seeking for shelter,
some protection, some deliverance from what they were fearing,
but they weren't seeking that deliverance and covering and
protection from the spirit of God. They were trusting in the
arm of flesh. And our Lord says to them, you're
trusting in Egypt, You're trusting in the flesh and having confidence
in the flesh is going to prove to be your shame. You're not
going to be able to glory in it, it's going to be your shame.
And he said at the end of verse 7, their strength is to sit still. To sit still, to look to the
Lord, to trust Him, to cry out to Him and look to Him. And so
throughout the scriptures, here we come again, throughout the
scriptures the Lord is upholding two men before us. One is the
old man of Adam, which is the flesh, and the other is the new
man, Jesus Christ, whom we are to look to. So he holds up Adam
and says, Look, this is a man full of sin and folly, and in
Adam we are corrupt, we're dead in trespasses and sins, everything
we do is an act of rebellion against God, and we glory in
what we do and in our works. We don't give thanks and praise
to God, we're glorying in ourselves, and it's gonna be our shame.
But here is Christ, here is your rest. look to him, I've provided
him for this very purpose, to be your salvation. Alright, and
so this passage here highlights to us again, as we've been seeing
throughout the scriptures, it highlights to us again the ugliness
that we are in Adam. That we're not going to provide
a safe haven for ourselves. We're not going to deliver ourselves.
We're not going to be our own salvation and the Lord's going
to see to it. You that are His, He's going
to strip us of that now. That when we face Him, we face
Him standing in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And that's our
hope, right? That's our hope because we see.
The Lord's brought us to see the ugliness that we are in Adam.
He's brought us to see what sinners we are in Adam, but we trust
him that just as he died to justify us, so he it is that sanctifies
us and turns us from these dead works and the dead hopes of man
to the living God, to Christ, who God provided for our salvation.
So our title is, The Pursuing Rest of God. The Pursuing Rest
of God. Alright, so let's begin here. We'll pick up in verse 8, and
the Lord here is making known man's folly, and so he instructs
Isaiah write this down. I want you to document this,
Isaiah, so that it's available for all to see. And he tells
them, he writes it this way, he says, now go write it before
them in a table and note it in a book. So it's a double entry,
it's a double recording of this word. That, it's for this purpose,
that it may be for the time to come forever and ever. And so I don't exactly know what
the table is. Some said that was probably what
they did initially for the people of that day to see it. It was
made available to those people alive in that moment. who this
word was coming to initially, historically, they could see
it and then in a book so that it was a scroll that could be
protected and live on into the future so that people, generations
like us, could read it and see this. So the Lord's saying, look,
this is a problem in man, descendants of Adam, that all generations
need to see because it's true of us all. We're all like this,
we all trust in our flesh naturally we all trust in the strength
and the wisdom of our flesh rather than trusting the Lord. How many
times do you catch yourself you're off and running doing your own
thing and then you realize I've not even thought to pray to the
Lord about this and seek him what he would have me to do.
It's so natural for us to do it in the flesh. And so the Lord's
saying, when you take counsel, take counsel of me. Don't be
like this rebellious people. When you seek a covering and
shelter, Seek me for that shelter and that safety. Seek me, right?
Seek the Lord's Spirit regarding this and trust Him, right? We
look to Christ. We believe that He is our justification
and our sanctification so that when that day comes and we stand
before Him in judgment, He's all our hope. We're not looking
to other works. We're not looking to our own
righteousnesses. or the things that we've done
here in the flesh. Our eye is to be fixed on Christ
alone, right? Not even the faith that we have. We don't put our trust in the
faith that we have. We put our trust in the object
of our faith, Christ. We look to him. and believe him. And so, man has this problem,
right? He does something that's religious
and he slaps God's name on it, right? He says, well, this is
for the Lord or this is of the Lord, you know? And he just thinks
that if he applies Christ's name to it or the name of God to it,
that suddenly makes it a religious thing. And all it is is his own
imagination. And we see that with faith, right? A lot of people, their confidence
is in the decision they made. And that's their hope. I know
I'm going to heaven because I made a decision when I was 13 years
old. That's people's hope. Their religious work that they
did. Not the object, which is Christ. And we see it again in
sanctification. Sanctification, a lot of people,
some people think our salvation is, our justification is our
work and our sanctification. Some people know that justification
is Christ. But when it comes to sanctification,
they try to steal that, right? And they try to take that aspect
of salvation so that they have something to glory in. And they
make it sound good, right? They make it sound like this
is something that you should be doing. Don't you want to be
doing what's right? Well, yeah, you want to be doing
what's right. I love the Lord. I hate my sin. Of course I want
to do what's right, but how am I going to do what's right? Turning
back to the flesh and putting my neck under the yoke of the
law, which is working in the flesh? Or is it looking to Christ,
begging him for a spirit, and walking in the Spirit, looking
to Christ, so that the fruit that's born in me is of the spiritual
seed of my Savior and my husband, my Lord and my God, not of this
flesh, not of my works, doing what I can do, but of Him. So
believers are brought to see that even our faith is of the
Lord, it's a fruit of His Spirit, and our justification and our
sanctification. All our works are of the Lord. They're all of His work. Turn over to Ephesians 5. Ephesians
5. We saw how in verse 1, and even
back in Isaiah 1.1, the Lord's been addressing His people as
rebellious children. These are rebellious children,
He says. But look over in Ephesians 5, verse 1, And what do we see
there? He says, be ye therefore, this
is Paul writing to the church, be ye therefore followers of
God as dear children, dear children, not rebellious children, but
dear children. Well, how did they get this description? How does anyone get the description
of being a dear child of God? Is it something that we do? No,
it's his work, it's all his, His grace, it's due to the hard
labor of love of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who came and sacrificed
himself. Look at verse two. He says, walk
in love as Christ also hath loved us and hath given himself for
us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. And so, you see there, the apostle
didn't turn us, his dear children, now get working under the law,
you better study that law, you better whip and beat yourself
and keep yourself under that law. No, he turned us to the
love of Christ because it's the love of Christ that constrains
us. It's his love that constrains
us, it's his spirit and so that the works we produce are a sweet-smelling
savor because they're works of Christ, not works of the corrupt,
rotten, smelly flesh, right? It's a good picture, because
that's what we bring forth in the flesh, is rotten fruit. Turn
back to Ephesians 1. Look at Ephesians 1. And this is affirmed for us again. Look at verse 4. Here's how we
become dear children. It's according as he hath chosen
us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be
holy, and without blame before Him in love. This is the purpose
and the will of God for us. He chose us, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children. That's how we're made dear children,
by His work, 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, in whom
we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins
according to the riches of His grace. And so the Apostles are
always turning us back to see where our hope and our source
of joy, our source of life, our source of love is from the Father
who committed us to Christ who loved us and gave himself for
us. It's all of grace, not of our
whipping and beating but as long as we whip men and threaten men
and we turn men not to look at Christ but to look to their own
flesh what's going to happen? You're going to get works of
the flesh. They're going to be motivated
by some fear or some motivation in the flesh to try and produce
fruit. But we know that all that we're
capable of producing, that this flesh is capable of producing,
is dead works. Works of the flesh that are corrupt
and not pleasing to the Lord. He only accepts that which is
of his son, the sweet smelling savor of his son. And he's going
to know if we bring him false fruits. He'll know who made them.
But we don't trust in those things. We don't look to those things.
That's not our focus. Our focus is on Christ, trusting
him that he's done everything necessary. As soon as we get
racked up in what we're doing, we go down from there very quickly. All right, so turn back to Isaiah,
but go back to chapter one. Before we go to our text, let's
stop at chapter one. Because I really believe this
aids in our understanding of what the Lord's dealing with
here in this people in chapter 30 because It's quite possible this is when
Isaiah went back and started recording all the things that
he was used of by the Lord in his ministry there. Maybe he
assembled them together because it started off a little bit initially
and then now it's become greater under the kings that he's ministering
to. But look at verse five, Isaiah
1.5. The Lord tells us that as long
as we're looking to and putting the focus on man and beating
man, it's not gonna produce good fruit. And he says, verse five,
why should you be stricken anymore? Ye will revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. From the sole
of the foot, even unto the head, there is no soundness in it,
but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed,
neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment." And he tells
them, look, your country, I've been hitting you guys with all
sorts of punishments and chastenings and stripping you down. And he
says, verse seven, your country is desolate, your cities are
burned with fire, your land, strangers devoured in your presence,
and it's desolate as overthrown by strangers. and the daughter
of Zion, these are the deer children, is left as a cottage, a small
little tiny house in a vineyard as a lodge and a garden of cucumbers
as a besieged city. And that's tough because I grew
a lot of cucumbers last year and when those things get to
growing and weaving they hurt when you're trying to stick your
hand through there and they're cutting you and it's binding and they thicken
over time so they get kind of woody and hard so they don't
break easily and that's what the picture is is that here's
the remnant in this nation that's supposed to be a godly nation
and she's like a little cottage in a besieged city right of cucumbers
all around her but except the lord of hosts had left unto us
a very small remnant we should have been as Sodom and we should
have been made like on to Gomorrah. And so this delusion, it's a
way of life for man. He's just deluded. He's just
into this religion and he thinks he's doing the right thing and
he thinks he's fine. But we see here how the Lord,
even in dealing with the enemies and the hard-hearted rebellious
children, He'll take that, he'll punish the wicked, but his children,
he'll chasten them as they need chastening, and he'll protect
them. He'll strip them of all their
false hopes, right? He'll strip them of all that
dead religion. They'll go through their pilgrimage, but He'll strip
them of everything until they're left just a small remnant with
nothing to boast in except Jesus Christ. It's all part of His
sanctifying work that He does. And so, the Lord has Isaiah write
it down for them, for a witness against them, and for a witness
to us. And if there's any here that
don't believe, if there's unbelievers, search your own heart, because
you can see how the natural heart of man is just like the heart
of this people Israel. They didn't want to hear it.
They said, I don't need to hear that. I don't need to hear this
over and over again. I don't need to hear about the
Lord. I don't need to hear about how bad I am and how salvation's
of Him. I don't need to hear that. But
that's what the Lord's saying is write it down because I don't
want you to forget. I don't want my people to lose
sight of this. They're going to know so that they don't trust
in the flesh. They're not turned back to the
flesh. And so that's what we see in verse 9. Look in our text
now in Isaiah 30 verse 9. So Isaiah writes it down, and
he says that this is a rebellious people, lying children, children
that will not hear the law of the Lord. The law of the Lord. Now I have no doubt that in Israel
or Jerusalem there, they thought they were good religious people.
They thought they were good religious people, but the Lord's saying
to them, you're not hearing the law. And they're saying, well,
wait a minute. I'm doing the sacrifices that
are in the law. And I'm doing what's prescribed
in the law. I have a good relationship with
the priests and the people working in the temple. I hear the law. I know what the law is saying.
And the Lord's saying, no, you're not hearing it. Because the natural
man receiveth not the things of God. And he doesn't understand
that the purpose of the law, the law of the Lord, is that
the Lord has given the law to strip the flesh, to kill the
flesh, to show us that we ourselves are sinners. Anyone that's looking
to the law shouldn't be coming away thinking, boy, how good
am I. I'm really good. I don't think
I've sinned at all today. No one should be coming away
with that if they look at the law, truly. We see what sinners
we are, so that we have no hope in the flesh, but put our hope
in the salvation of God, which is Jesus Christ. So, the law's
ministry was given to kill the flesh. As we saw recently in
2 Corinthians 3, the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. So the Lord gave the law because
the letter kills. It puts to death the flesh. It
puts to death any boasting. It silences us, but it doesn't
give us any hope because all we see is what sinners we are.
It's the Spirit of God that gives life and hope fixed in Christ
so that we were delivered from the flesh and delivered from
The law no longer has dominion over us. He gave the law to man
because of the fall of Adam. It's a ministration of death
to man. It cuts him down. If a man will hear it, if he
does hear it, then he'll be listening for the gospel, to know, well,
Lord, if I can't be righteous by the law, then how can a man
be righteous? And he'll begin to hunger and
thirst for righteousness. And he'll want to hear, and he'll
beg and cry out to God, Lord, how is it then that someone could
be accepted with you? If I can't be righteous before
this law, he'll want to hear it, right? But if you think you
hear it, and you continue in it, then all you have is that
judgment that's fixed to come upon all the wicked. And it's
what our Lord said back in John 539, I'll read it. He said to
them, search the scriptures, for in them you think you have
eternal life, but they are they which testify of me, and you
will not come unto me that you might have life. because they're
looking at the law, but they're not hearing it. And so they're
not looking for Christ because what they see in the law satisfies
them. They think this is good enough,
and I'm doing it, and I'm making advances, and I'm really proud
of my accomplishments, and I'm gonna keep doing this because
I think God's happy with this. And that's what the prophet said
is, you don't hear the law. You're not hearing the law of
the Lord at all, all right? So man doesn't wanna hear the
truth that he can't save himself. That's offensive to man. And
it takes all the power, right? He doesn't wanna be stripped
of his power. He thinks he's on the road of righteousness.
And he's really on the road to hell, fast. And so, it's not
going to help him. But he does want to hear the
truth. And so, even if he thinks Christ is justification, apparently,
Christ is insufficient to save to the uttermost. He can't save
him in sanctification, apparently, because that's why he's turning
back to the law, to finish him and fill the gap in that Christ
left open for him to work on, I guess. And that's not true.
That's not what the scriptures say. They say that Christ is
everything, that we died with him, that he died for our justification
and was raised again for our sanctification. He's raised again
for our life. That's our life. That's our living
is in him, all right? So verse 10, this is what man
thinks of or thinks that salvation is. So man, what man wants to
hear is not what the Lord would have us to hear, which is Christ,
right? So verse 10, would say to the seers, see not, and to
the prophets, prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us
smooth things, prophesy deceits. They don't mind the preaching.
They just don't want to hear the preaching of Christ. They
don't want to hear the preaching of the truth. They don't want
to be stripped down and brought to nothing, that they might find
they're all in the one who is all to his people, the Lord Jesus
Christ. All right, in Jeremiah, he dealt
with the same type of people. He was ministering there in Jerusalem
when it was under, you know, being the, I guess this is before,
but he said, from the least of them, even unto the greatest
of them, everyone is given to covetousness, which again, as
we saw last week, that's being angry and upset with God for
his providence, what God has given us, right? Well, I want
what that person has. I'm not happy with what God gave
me. I want what the other person has. That's covetousness. That's rebelling against God
to say, I don't like the way things have fallen out to me.
And so they want what's been forbidden from them. And then
from the prophet, even unto the priest, everyone dealeth falsely. In other words, they found a
way to justify their covetousness and going after those things
which God said I'm not giving you those things. They're not
for you to have. It's for that person to have.
And so they figured out a way to justify their rebellion. They've healed also the herd
of the daughter of my people, slightly saying, peace, peace,
when there is no peace. And we know from what the apostle
says, because it's applicable throughout it all, right? In
that generation, And in every generation since, the apostle
Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5.3, when they shall say peace
and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail
upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape. All right, so here's what the
people say to the preacher now. Back in Isaiah 30 verse 11. They
continue saying, get you out of the way, turn aside out of
the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before
us. Because we've got some religious
charades to get back to. We don't want to hear this. We're
happy with our gods and our false god, and we're happy with our
vain, dead religion, and this is where we want to be. Everything
seems to be going good for us, so don't mess this up right now.
We don't want to hear about the God of Israel. And so the Lord
faithfully warns his dear children. And so he had this written down
for you and me so that we would see and be reminded of what we
are in the flesh, lest we should think too highly of ourselves.
And we see there's countless religious denominations that
are very comfortable and very confident in where they've what
they've become today, right? With their catechisms and their
scholars and their creeds and their confessions and things
like that, right? They're very confident in that
so that that becomes what they highlight and boast of and fall
back on and say, well, we've got hundreds of years, right?
How dare you have thousands of years from the Lord himself?
We've got hundreds of years of our catechisms and hundreds of
years of our confessions. Well, big whoop-dee-doo. Who
cares? Because we're fallible men. And
we want to hear what the Lord says and know what He says. And since He clearly speaks of
Christ, and you clearly are speaking of works in the flesh, shouldn't
we listen to the Lord? Shouldn't we just stop the foolishness
of what we're doing in religion and go back to the Lord and say,
Lord, have mercy on me? A sinner, we've gotten off, Lord. We're looking to men rather than
to Christ. who you've provided to save us,
right? And I like what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians. You can go
there, because there's a few verses. We'll look at 1 Thessalonians
5, and look at verse four. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse four.
Remember, Paul's writing, just like he said to the Ephesians,
these are dear children, dear children of God made to be dear
children, rather than rebellious children. And I think you'll
see that here in this text. Verse four, but ye brethren are
not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
All right, wicked man is always stealing God's glory, wanting
to take that which is his. And so the Lord says, well, since
you're stealing, trying to steal my glory, I'll come as a thief
at night and you won't be expecting it. and I'll come at a time when
you think I won't come. All right, verse five. Ye are
all the children of light, and this is now the Lord speaking
to us as dear children. Ye are all the children of light
and the children of the day. We are not of the night nor of
the darkness, therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let
us watch and be sober. All right, what are we watching
for? We're watching for Christ's return. We're waiting for His
return. And in the meantime, we serve
Him and one another in love. Believing Him and trusting Him
and serving one another in love. Four, look at verse nine. Drop
down to verse nine. For God hath not appointed us
to wrath, like those that refuse the truth, but to obtain salvation
by our Lord Jesus Christ. who died for us, that whether
we wake or sleep, we shall live together with Him. Wherefore,
comfort yourselves together and edify one another, even as also
ye do. And he goes on in regards to
our hearing the truth, right? Because these people would not
hear what the Lord was saying. They wouldn't hear his word,
and they didn't hear what the law said because they had no
spirit. And they wanted the prophets to preach lies and deceit to
them to keep them happy in their deception. but what does he say
to to the dear children verse 12 and 13 and we beseech you
brethren to know them which labor among you and are over you in
the lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in
love for their work's sake and be at peace among yourselves
so what he's showing us here is let us not be like rebellious
israel let us not be like those rebels, rebellious children that
didn't want to hear the truth, that just don't want to hear
the word of God. Let us be patient and bear up
under the admonition, if that's what it takes. Let us hear that
and pray that the Lord help us to hear it, all right? Because
that's all we're doing is saying we're not of the night, we're
of the day. and we're looking for Christ's
return. We know he's coming, we believe him. In spite of what
this world would tell us, and in spite of the challenges and
the afflictions that we might face in this life, let us ever
keep looking to the Lord and not trusting in the flesh. All
right, now, the word to the rebels, those that refuse to hear his
word, verse 12, back in our text. Verse 12 there. Wherefore thus
saith the Holy One of Israel, because ye despise this word,
and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon. All right,
they were turning back to Egypt, which was beaten already by the
Lord, rather than the Lord himself. They're returning to the flesh.
So they're turning anything but the Lord. Now look at verse 13
and 14. Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach,
ready to fall, swelling out in the high wall whose breaking
cometh suddenly at an instant. And he shall break it as the
breaking of the potter's vessel that is broken in pieces. He
shall not spare, so that there shall not be found in the bursting
of it a shard to take fire from the hearth, or to take water
withal out of the pit. It's going to be so finely broken,
not in a good way, but so fine the pieces, so small the pieces,
there won't be any good that you can use it for. You can't
even pick up some water with it or pull something out of the
fireplace with it, nothing. It's all going to be worthless.
And that's because Christ shall come as a thief in the night
when he returns. You're not going to, if you're
waiting to look to him and trust him because you're waiting for
some sign he's going to come as a thief when you don't expect
it and he's going to come suddenly whether it's your life being
taken or it's his return when he comes again. but it's gonna
come in an instant. But again, our Lord is showing
us. He's reminding us of our salvation,
which is Jesus Christ. It's Christ our Savior. He's
the one whom God, this is from Romans 3, 25 and 26, whom God
hath set forth to be a propitiation, right, the means of forgiveness
through faith in his blood to declare His righteousness for
the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God. To declare, I say at this time,
His righteousness. Forget about your righteousness
and my righteousness. The Word of God already answers
it. We have none. We have none. Stop trying to
work up yourself to be good enough to come to the Lord. We'll never
be good enough to come to Him. Come as a guilty, filthy sinner
crying out for mercy and you shall find it in Christ because
that's why God provided him to put away the sins of his people
perfectly and to be their righteousness. And he did this that God might
be just. just to forgive us and the one
who is the justifier of our sins. He's done the whole work from
beginning to end, the author and finisher of our faith and
so that's why we see the Apostles so clearly emphasizing to us
over and over and over again the Lord Jesus Christ, everywhere,
laced throughout the scriptures with all the admonitions and
exhortations to us, overemphasizing Christ, because the flesh latches
so quickly on a word. Oh, that sounds like a law, sounds
like a duty, that sounds like something I've got to be doing.
And so we run off in the flesh. And so they were careful to lace
Christ throughout because He's the one who gives us the heart
and the willingness and the strength and it's His seed in us that's
bearing the fruit of His righteousness, not our seed, it's not of Adam's
work, it's of Christ in us that bears this this fruit out unto
the Lord. So, we need the Spirit of Christ
in us to reveal this word to us, right, lest we look back
to the law for righteousness as these people did. All right,
now in our text, in Isaiah 30, verse 15, here we see the Lord does the
same. He brings their hope back to
His salvation, Christ. Isaiah 30, 15. For thus saith
the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest
shall ye be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be your
strength, and ye would not." All right, there's the rebellious
children. He would not. But to you that are his, you
hear it. You hear what he's saying, that Christ is your rest. Christ
is your strength. Christ is your hope. And that's
why we preach them. It reminds me of the fifth seal,
actually, in Revelation 6, verses 10 and 11, there was the souls
under the altar, and they were crying out, how long, O Lord,
till you avenge us of our death? And it says that in verse 11,
that white robes were given unto every one of them, and it was
said unto them that they should rest, yet for a little season. And so, that's our confidence
and our hope is the Lord. He's our rest. You rest in Him. His blood is sufficient to save
us to the uttermost. There's no sin so dark and so
stained that it can't be purged by His blood. He's done all the
work faithfully and He's a faithful Savior and will come back to
reclaim that which He's redeemed with His own blood. All right,
but the wicked, they can't wait. Verse 16 and 17, Isaiah. But ye said, no, for we will
flee upon horses. Therefore, the Lord says, ye
shall flee. And here they say, we will ride
upon the swift then. And the Lord says, all right,
well then those that pursue you will be swift. And he says, 1,000
shall flee at the rebuke of one. At the rebuke of five shall ye
flee till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain and
as an ensign on an hill." So, the Lord is saying that you that
refuse Him, that will not hear the Lord, and won't look to Christ
and just want to do your thing, your way, He says you're never
going to know peace. Everything you do to try and
establish a peace for yourself through your own works, you're
never going to know peace. Alright, in fact, That's a mark
of a curse of one who's shut out from the Lord if they can
find peace in their own works and the things that they're doing
without Christ. If you're the Lord's, you're
never gonna find peace. You're never gonna find peace or no
peace, except you find it in the Lord, right? In glory in
Him. And he says here that, speaking of the remnant, he says, till
ye, at the verse 17, till ye be left as a beacon upon the
top of mountain, and as an ensign on a hill. And what this shows
us is that the Lord pursues His people. That's the mercy and
the grace of God that we in the flesh, in Adam, are rebellious
children. We refuse to hear the truth. We don't want to hear it. We're
out there in our flesh doing all manner of sin and trespasses
and iniquities and are careless, meaning we could care less. We
don't care and just doing what we want to do. until the Lord
determines to show us mercy and grace in the time of His love
and He pursues us. And it's not even in the beginning,
even when we should know better, even when we've heard of Christ
and heard of His Spirit and have tasted of the goodness of the
Lord, how He continues to pursue us. Right? Because how ignorant
and willfully ignorant we were so often in hearing the truth,
and almost hearing it, and kind of believing it, and then fall
right back into our deadness, and the Lord pursues us again
in grace and mercy, though we don't deserve it. And we see
this over and over again, how we don't deserve His mercy and
grace, and yet He keeps pursuing us, and drawing us back to Him,
And all the while, he's stripping us of those things that we had
confidence in, in this world, and in our strengths, and in
our might, and our wisdom, and whatever it is that we're holding
on to, and looking to those things, the Lord, in his mighty power
and grace, has a way of just taking those things away from
us, so that we find that we're left as nothing except a little
beacon on a mountaintop, A little ensign on a hill. And the purpose
of that is showing us that we're stripped of everything but Christ. Because Christ is the ensign. If you remember, look back in
Isaiah 11 with me, and this will be our last passage. Isaiah 11, verse 10. When we become nothing in ourselves,
that's when Christ becomes all to us. He's everything to us.
And he says there in Isaiah 11 verse 10, in that day, there
shall be a root of Jesse, right? Israel's destroyed, there's like
nothing left, but here's this root, a root of Jesse, which
shall stand for an ensign of the people. To it shall the Gentiles
seek, and his rest, there's that rest of the Lord, his rest shall
be glorious, because we'll cease from all our labors, trying to
work a righteousness for ourselves, will rest in him, and it shall
come to pass, verse 11, in that day that the Lord shall set his
hand again, the second time, here he is pursuing, to recover
the remnant of his people, which shall be left from Assyria, and
from Egypt, right, those that we're talking about now, and
from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar,
right, that's Babylon, and from Hamath, and from the islands
of the sea, and he shall set up an ensign for the nations,
and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together
the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." And
so Christ is the ensign, right? We're stripped down to have nothing,
right? And you that are outcasts and
cast off by family and friends and and whole communities because
of your hope in Christ. You don't have a hope in your
works and in religion. You that are the outcasts of
Israel, he says, look to me, come to me, be drawn to me. and I'm your salvation. Christ
is. Christ says that. He's our salvation. He's all
our glory and our hope and the one that we glory in. So, I pray
that the Lord would bless that word to your hearts and encourage
you in Christ and keep looking to Him, brethren. All right,
let's pray. Our gracious Lord, we thank you,
Father, for your grace in pursuing us Lord, in not letting us go,
Lord, that you continually strip us of our confidences in the
flesh, those things which we had so much hope in when we were
dead in Adam. Lord, you mercifully and graciously
stripped us of those things, showed us our weakness, and brought
us to see that Christ is all, all that is needed, and all that
you need. that in Him and Him alone do
we find acceptance with You. Lord, we pray that You would
bless this Word, make it effectual in the hearts of Your people,
that we not forget, that we not be rebellious children and turn
away from the Word of God. look back to our works in the
flesh or look to the law as our duty, but Lord, keep us looking
to Christ and let Him be our fear and let Him be our dread.
That is, let us serve Him in love and be constrained by His
love and know the fellowship of His Spirit in us, Lord, that
we may walk faithfully before You by Your Spirit, bearing the
fruits of our in Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray and
give thanks. Amen.