Good evening. Let's all stand
and begin singing 283, yesterday, today, and forever. 283. Oh, how sweet the glorious message
sinful faith may claim. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus
is the same. Still he loves to save the sinful,
heal the sick, and lame. ? Cheer the mourner, calm the
tempest ? ? Glory to his name ? ? Yesterday, today, forever,
Jesus is the same ? ? All may change, but Jesus never ? ? Glory
to his name ? ? Glory to his name ? Glory to his name. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to his name. He who pardoned Aaron, Peter,
never needs thou fear. He who came to faithless Thomas,
all thy doubt will clear. He who let the love disciple
on his fulsome rest, bids thee still with love as tender lean
upon his breast. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus
is the same. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. All may change, but Jesus never. ? Glory to his name ? He who
amid the raging billows ? Walked upon the sea ? Still can't hush
our wildest tempest as on Galilee ? He who wept in pain and anguish
in Gethsemane ? Drinks with us each cup of trembling
in our agony ? ? Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus is the same ?
? All may change but Jesus never, glory to his name ? ? Glory to
his name ? ? Glory to his name ? All may change but Jesus never
? Glory to his name ? As of old he walked to lay us with and
to abide ? So through all life's way he walketh ever near our
side Soon again we shall behold Him, hey, St. Lord, that day. But we'll still be listening,
Jesus, as He went away. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus
is the same. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name. If you would, turn to 447. 447, the Lily of the Valley. I've found a friend in Jesus,
He's everything to me, He's the fairest of ten thousand to my
soul. The lily of the valley, in Him
alone I see, All I need to cleanse and make me fully whole. And
Sorrow, he's my comfort in trouble, he's my stay, he tells me every
care on him to roll. He's the lily of the valley,
the bright and morning star, he's the fairest of ten thousand
to my soul. He all my griefs has taken, and
all my sorrows borne. In temptation He's my strong
and mighty tower. I have all for Him forsaken and
all my idols torn from my heart and now He keeps me by His power. Though all the world forsake
me and Satan tempt me sore, through Jesus I shall safely reach the
goal. He's the lily of the valley,
the bright and morning star. He's the fairest of ten thousand
to my soul. He will never, never leave me,
nor yet forsake me here, while I live by faith and do His blessed
will. Of all the fire about me, I've
nothing now to fear. With His manna, He my hungry
soul shall fill. Then sweeping up to glory I'll
see his blessed face where rivers of delight shall ever roll. He's the lily of the valley,
the bright and morning star. He's the fairest of 10,000 to
my soul. Thank you. I would like to read from Hebrews. Let's see, I thought I had it
marked here. Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10. For the law having a shadow of
good things to come and not the very image of the things that
can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year
continually make the comers there unto perfect. For then would
they not have ceased to be offered because that the worshipers once
purged should have had no more conscious of sin. But in those
sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.
For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should
take away sins. Wherefore, when he cometh into
the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering, thou wouldst not,
but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sin, thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come, in the
volume of the book it is written of me to do thy will, O God.
Above, when he said, Sacrifice and offering, and burnt offerings,
and offering for sin, thou wouldst not, neither hast pleasure therein,
which are offered by the law. Then said he, Lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that
he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified,
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Our heavenly and merciful Father,
we thank you for allowing us this opportunity to come and
assemble as a local assembly round about this glorious gospel.
Your word. And Father, what a great, great
blessing it is. It is the highest blessing this
side of heaven to be able to have this assembly and to hear
the Lord Jesus Christ declared as our only hope, as our only
comfort, our only righteousness, our justification and our sanctification. Father, we have no other hope.
And Father, will you allow Brother Eric this evening to once again
declare this glorious gospel to sinners. and that we may have
receiving and understanding hearts. Father, give us an appetite for
you and for the gospel. And Father, we thank you that
you have taken complete control and have completed everything
necessary for a poor sinner, for your elect. There has been
nothing left to do for us sinners, but all has been accomplished
perfectly by the Great Shepherd. Father, allow us to enter into
this more grow us, O Lord, in faith and in grace and in the
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, allow us to continue
as this local assembly. Continue to give us all that
we stand in need of, whether it's financial and the energy
and the health. Father, continue to be with us
and our loved ones. You know exactly where they are
located. And could it be, Lord, will you
pour out your grace and your love in their hearts that they
may also have a desire to assemble together? Father, remember us
in mercy. For Jesus' sake alone, amen. Good evening. We'll be finishing
up Isaiah 29 this evening. Isaiah chapter 29. And what we see here in this chapter,
what the Lord's been showing us here is how that He's chosen
a people in eternity. He's chosen a people elect that
He is determined to redeem by His Son, His salvation, Jesus
Christ. And in doing that, though, we
see how we've fallen. We've all fallen in Adam. We're
all sinners. We've all died in trespasses
and sins. And He's delivering us from that
body of Adam. He's taking us out of that death
and showing us our need to be delivered by His grace and His
power. And yet, we see in this chapter,
we're reminded of just what sinner's man is. We see what sinners we
are. We see what he's delivering us
out of and what we must be delivered out of. And so, I've titled this,
Brought to Nought, Brought to Nought, and it's a reflection
on wicked man and that which is
evil and that which is false and a lie is brought to nothing
and how the Lord delivers his people and saves them in Christ. So if you remember in this chapter
we've been going through it, and we saw how these are very
religious people. This is Israel and Jacob being
spoken of here, and they continue in their religion, right? If
you look at verse one, he says, woe to Ariel, right? It's another
name for Jerusalem. Woe to Ariel. To Ariel, the city
where David dwelt, add ye year to year, let them kill sacrifices. And so the Lord is giving them
a sharp warning that he's going to utterly destroy them even
though we see right here that they are practicing regularly
their religious service. Year upon year, they're doing
the sacrifices that they were required to do in the law. And
so the Lord is showing us that religion isn't the thing that
saves us, but his son, Jesus Christ. He's turning our hearts
to see the light of the gospel. He's shaking us. He's showing
us religion isn't what saves anyone. It's my son, Jesus Christ. And so as we went through this
chapter, he showed us our need of Christ to reveal to us the
light of the gospel. We need the light of God to shine
upon this word and shine upon our dark hearts so that we see
what's being declared to us. That we see salvation is not
in the things of religion and in the things of our doing under
the law or under religion and some form of religion. but that
salvation is seen in the face of Jesus Christ and that's whom
God, the Spirit, shines the light upon. That's what he's revealing
in this word. And so all of religion misses
this because it's a sealed book. It's a sealed book. You can go
into this book. You can open it and read it and
see all the Bible stories and different things that might get
your attention. You can read about the law, and
you can read the gospels, and you can read the epistles, and
the acts, and learn about the history, and get some good moral
lessons and teachings. You can get that here. You can
learn how you can come away with how you should conduct services,
what you should do or shouldn't do, and you can make up all kinds
of religious orders and services based on what you find here.
But that's not salvation. And that's not, and there's no
other salvation in all the other religions of the world, but just
having this book and reading it and being in a church or in
a denomination, that's not salvation. And so it's a sealed book. It's unknown to common man. until Christ shines the light
of the gospel upon it. And wicked man hates that. He
does not want to hear that. He gets angry and he turns away
and he goes away angry. So everything that we've seen
here In this word and what he's showing us, it's revealed to
us, it's revealed to us plainly in the gospel age that man is
dead in trespasses and sins and that Christ must give him life. Christ has to reveal this book.
Christ has to open it up to us, right? We saw in one of the messages
in this chapter where we quoted from Luke 24. Verse 45, he said,
then opened he, this is Christ speaking to his disciples, then
opened he their understanding that they might understand the
scriptures. And so that's what we need. We need the Lord to reveal the
scriptures to us. We need his light and his power,
his grace, his glory to teach us the truth of the gospel. And
then as we went through, we saw that man gets angry over this. And he has a will, and he says,
well, I'm going to do what I'm going to do. I'm going to do
it my way. I'm going to do what I want to do. And the Lord says,
no, you're not. No, you're not. Man schemes,
and man has his ideas and his ways of doing things of what
he's going to conduct and inflict upon the earth and upon the inhabitants
of the earth. But God says, no, you're not
going to do what you will do. I'm going to do what I will do.
And he spoke about the potter and he compared them to potter's
clay. And just like the potter's clay
doesn't have a say in what the potter does with that clay, so
it is with the heart of wicked man and us. We don't have a say in what the
Lord's going to do. The Lord's going to have his
will and his way. and his will shall be done. And none of us can say to him,
what doest thou? Or why have you made me like
this? Or you can't make me like that, I'm gonna do this. No,
you're not. And we see how the Lord's will
is what's done. And so wicked man fights against
God, God's will is done, and it shows us, it teaches us, with
the light of the gospel being shined upon him, it teaches us
that there's none righteous, no, not one, unless we should
think more highly of ourselves than we ought, there's none that
understand it, there's none that seek it after God, until Christ
himself gives us understanding to understand the scriptures,
and that they're all gone out of the way, they are together
become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no not
one. And so, the reason why the Lord
is unfolding this revelation to us in this way, the reason
why he's showing us behind the curtain of religion, showing
us the dirty little secrets of religion, showing us how they
went and were hiding things that they were doing and trying not
to, you know, thinking that God couldn't see them. And remember,
we saw how the Lord had Ezekiel see behind the walls what they
were doing, the elderly men, the elderly women in idolatry
and all those things. We saw those things so that we
would hear what the Spirit's saying. That's not in religion,
that saves us. It's in Jesus Christ. As our Lord said, you search
the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life.
And they are they which testify of me. And so he's revealing
that to us. And so in seeing that it's Christ,
we hear what the Spirit says, which is, come out of her, my
people. Come out of that dead religion.
Come out of the false religion. Come out of it, because they're
going to perish. They're all dead in trespasses
and sins. They're going to perish. Come
out of them. It's a dead religion. All right,
look over in 2 Corinthians 6. 2 Corinthians 6, and we'll pick
up in verse 16. This is what the Lord's showing
us here in Isaiah, and what we see brought out to us by the
apostles, that we see that wicked man is so set in his ways, and
doing what he wants to do, that he rejects the salvation of God,
which is Christ, and in rejecting Christ, he's rejecting God. He
may say he loves God, but he's showing that he doesn't love
the true and living God. He hates the gospel, and he hates
the people who believe God. And so he's saying, come out
of her. Don't stay there in a dead religion. And so, leading up
to verse 16, he had said to us, I think it was verse 14, be ye
not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And then he
asks in 16, saying, what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? Because if you're just practicing
religion and thinking religion saves you, you're holding on
to and worshiping an idol. That's an idol God, because God
is showing us that's not how he saves his people. It's not
through dead religion like that. And he tells us, for ye are the
temple of the living God, as God hath said, I will dwell in
them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall
be my people. Wherefore, verse 17, Come out
from among them and be separate, sayeth the Lord, and touch not
the unclean thing, and I will receive you. So we see there
that the Lord is calling his people out of idolatry and out
of idolatrous religion. He's exposing that and making
us to know that and showing us that there's countless many that
that's all they see in this book. It's just idolatrous religion,
and that's what they practice, and so he's bringing us out of
that, all right? Then over in Revelation chapter
18, we see it again. I'll just read a couple verses
there. Revelation 18, we'll pick up in verse 2. Here in Revelation 18, verse
2, we're told that he sends an angel, and an angel cried mightily,
verse 2. mightily with a strong voice
saying Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen and has become the
habitation of devils and the hold of every foul spirit and
a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. Look at verse four, and
I heard another voice from heaven saying come out of her my people,
come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins
and that ye receive not of her plagues." Alright, so the Lord,
He's making these truths known to His people. He's making this
revelation very obvious to us that these here, they were practicing
religion as prescribed in the law. and yet it did nothing for
their heart. Their heart wasn't circumcised.
And it makes it so much more plain when you see what the Lord
is showing you, right? And how they love, there's so
many that love religion and just love their order of things and
their practice of things, but they don't love and delight in
Christ. And yet you, You've heard the Gospel. You hear these things. You hear how that salvation is
of the Lord. You've heard of His grace and
that He's all our salvation. Not only in justification, but
in sanctification. And you hear that and believe
that by faith and are seeking the Lord. Lord, continue to show
me that more and more by faith. Help me to see and believe and
look to Christ. And so, You don't think you've
heard it or understood it until you go back, right? And a family
member at where you used to be invites you to come to services,
and you go to services with them, and then you know, wow, what
a difference. Because their hope is in just
dead, legalistic religion, and they just harp on the law and
how you need to be doing more and more and more and how you
need to be put under the yoke of the law more and to do more
under fears and terrors and whipping you and beating you and there's
no Christ in it. Or he just gets a little token
mention at the end of the message. Just a little flash and don't
forget it's all the Lord. you know, after they just whipped
you the whole service and telling you what you need to do. And
really, it's the Spirit that helps us hear the exhortations,
right? We need to hear of Christ and
what He does for us so that then we can hear the exhortation in
the right spirit, knowing it's of Him and that we're constrained
by His love, not by fear and angst and anxiety and worries
and threats that we're going to hell. All right, so the Lord
gives us several descriptions here. And this is, as we end
this chapter, what he's doing is he's describing for us in
verse 20, we'll see he's describing these enemies of the church and
these enemies of the truth. All right, so let's look at verse,
Isaiah 29, verse 20. He says, for the terrible one
is brought to naught. and the scorner is consumed,
and all that watch for iniquity are cut off." All right, let's
break these down just a bit together. So he describes one as the terrible
one, and the terrible one is known for their persecution of
the truth, and their day in history This was likely pointing to Sennacherib
from, I believe, Assyria at the time. That was really threatening
Jerusalem and Judah there. They overtook Syria and Israel
and now they were going to threaten Judah there, the people of God,
the people who had the temple and were worshiping the Lord.
They had that threat. He'll come to nothing, is what
he says. And so we see that this enemy,
this terrible one, is always a persecutor of the church. In our Lord's day, when he walked
in the flesh and the apostles, it was largely the Pharisees
and the scribes and the chief priests. It was religion. It was the establishment of religion
that was persecuting them. And as the churches were established,
it was even the Roman government for a while there that was persecuting
the church. And so you see that it's this,
those that are operating under the spirit of Antichrist and
under the spirit of the evil one, it's Babylon. It's the great
whore church, right? We saw it in history with the
Catholic church where they persecuted. Whatever truth they may have
had at some point in the early church before they became what
they were known as as the Catholic Church was lost because they
became the whore. They just mixed, they just took
whatever truth that they may have had and just mingled it
with pagan religion and just hid it behind, you know, they
slapped a whitewash of so-called Christianity over the pagan religion
and called it Christianity and just were taken up into all kinds
of basically the habitation of devils and the hold of every
foul spirit and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird. It's
just various wickedness that has plagued them ever since there. So we see that spirit of Antichrist
in there that the Lord is bringing to naught. And that's what the
Lord did in the day of the Pharisees, right? Rome came and destroyed
them. and killed them and wiped them out. And the Pharisees are
alive in the church, though, now, but that sect of the Pharisees
is destroyed. They're gone. And so is their
priest lineage. That's been destroyed and removed
from them, because that's not the truth. That's not salvation.
And so it is with us. The terrible ones come to nothing.
And Paul writes of this in 2 Thessalonians 2, verses 4 and 8. 2 Thessalonians 2. And I'm giving
you the chapters, I'm just picking out some of those verses, but
you could read larger portions of these chapters and see how
descriptive the Lord is about it. But just picking up in verse
4, you know, Paul tells us that there's going to be a great falling
away first. And we see this pattern throughout history. It's not
necessarily a one and done thing, but this pattern happens Throughout
history, even in various generations, they see these things, and there
will be a great falling away first, he says, followed by a
revelation of that man of sin being revealed, the son of perdition.
Look at verse four. Who opposeth, right, this is
speaking of the terrible one. Who opposeth and exalteth himself
above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that
he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that
he is God. then in the Lord's time, verse
8, shall that wicked be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with
the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of
his coming. So the Lord assures us that all
who oppose the truth, they will come to to their end, their appointed
end by the Lord. He'll destroy them and bring
them to nothing so that we don't have to fear and worry. Cry out
to the Lord, but trust him and he'll destroy our enemies in
his perfect time. All right, next we see here that
the scorner is consumed. That was up there in verse 20,
the scorner is consumed. A scorner is one that mocks and
ridicules the truth. He mocks and ridicules the word
of God and he'll mock you for trusting God. Never be afraid
to speak the truth. If you hear something and you
feel like, and you're thinking, should I say something about
this? Because that's wrong. Don't be afraid to say the truth and
just say it as straight as you can and say the truth. if you're
so led to say it. Don't weaken it or soften it. Just say the truth as it is. You may be mocked, but they'll
hear the truth of the Lord. And maybe the Lord will save
them. Maybe the Lord will deliver them. But Peter speaks of mockers
in 2 Peter 3 at the end of his epistle, the last chapter of
his epistle that he wrote to the church. So 2 Peter 3, verse
3, he foretells of this in verse
three and four. He says, knowing this first,
that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after
their own lusts and saying, where is the promise of his coming?
For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were
from the beginning of the creation. And so man is always very bold
And he's willing to ridicule and point things out. And he's
very bold when he's not in fear or not worried. And he's not
under duress and faced with his own mortality. But as soon as
his world is shaken, then he changes his tune right away. But so long as he thinks he's
safe, he'll say whatever comes from his wicked heart. man will
find out that he cannot save himself. There's no purpose in
standing opposed to the truth of God because you'll see in
that day that the Lord is true and what he has said in his word
shall be brought to pass and the humble and the poor and the
weak shall prosper. They shall be established in
the Lord. You that have nothing but the
Lord, you have the promises of God that he shall provide for
you and care for you and take care of you. He promises to take
care of his people. And it says in verse 10, 2 Peter
3 10, but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night
in the which the heaven shall pass away with a great noise
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. The earth also
and the works that are therein shall be burned up. So the scorners, they'll mock
and they'll attack the truth and they'll belittle you for
the hope that you have in Christ. They'll try to destabilize your
hope in Christ and make you fearful. A legalist would attack the very
hope that you have that Christ is sufficient to save to the
uttermost. and not even understand what
they're saying, how they're attacking Christ. And they're claiming,
by pointing you to the law, they're claiming that Christ is insufficient
to save to the uttermost, and not think anything of doing that,
of turning you away from Christ to the law. All right, so next
we're told that, we're told of those, all those that watch for
iniquity, that they shall be cut off. All right, and we can
remember that with the Pharisees. I was looking in Luke and in
Luke 6 verse 7, I'll just read this one verse, it says the scribes
and the Pharisees watched him. They watched him. They were watching
Christ. That's all they were doing. They
were watching Christ whether he would heal on the Sabbath
day that they might find an accusation against him. Here is the one
who is our very Sabbath rest. He's our rest. We don't observe
a Sabbath day because we know that the Lord commands us to
rest, to keep the Sabbath in Christ. He is our Sabbath rest. He's our rest from all our labors
and our working for our righteousness of our own. We rest in the Lord
Jesus Christ, not in a day, and they were watching him. They
were watching him that they might accuse him of sin because he
healed a man on the Sabbath day, on Saturday of that holy day
of the Jews. And so, Luke recorded this two
other times, actually, that they watched him. So everywhere Christ
went, they never took the time to understand who he was, to
ask him. They saw the miracles. They saw
how this man was unlike any other man. They maybe didn't see him
stop the wind and the waves like the other disciples, but they
saw him give sight to the blind and heal the lame that they could
walk and heal people of diseases and cast out devils. They heard
the truth of his word and how they couldn't even assail it,
they couldn't come at it and attack it or discredit it in
any way. This man spoke the truth and
they never once paused and asked him, except for Nicodemus. And
for all we know, Nicodemus was brought to faith at some point
to know and to understand the truth of Christ, but most of
them didn't. They didn't come to him. and
they didn't ask the truth. All they did was attack and fight
him. So our encouragement though is
that the Lord isn't judging us based on our works in the flesh. He deals with us and gives us
our inheritance in his Son, Jesus Christ. And that's our hope and
our joy. Romans 8 verse 33 and 34 says, Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifieth. Who
is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather,
that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who
also maketh intercession for us." So, the Lord is showing
us that our enemies, they'll be silenced, they'll be brought
to nothing, and it's Christ that justified us. And so we're reminded
of that glorious truth there in Romans 8, 1, that says, there
is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. All right,
so remember that it's his spirit, right? We were dead in trespasses
and sins. We could not save ourselves.
We were of that lump of dead religion. We thought we knew
the truth. we believed the truth of God
and that it was in the things that we were doing. We were drawing
some comfort from what we did or didn't do under the doctrines
that we were told to follow and adhere to. And some of those
doctrines are true doctrines, but when they're not seen in
the light of Christ, they're of no help or value to us. It's
only in the face of Jesus Christ that we have any hope and any
comfort from the Lord, which is the hope and the comfort that
we need. It's to know Him who is our very
salvation, not in what we do or don't do. It's a person, Jesus
Christ. And that's who He's revealing
to us by His Spirit. So He makes that known. It's
the Spirit that he sent, the gift of the Spirit, which gives
us life, regeneration, whereby we know him and can look in this
book and see the Lord Jesus Christ. and see that our salvation is
found in Him, and stop looking just for a dead religion of things
to do or not, or to find some comfort in a verse without Christ
that doesn't reveal Christ to us. And so, if He's the one that
regenerated us, then we know and hear that it's by His power
that we'll continue to walk in that Spirit. We trust Him and
believe Him to the end, that He gives us our life. And so,
even in that sense, if it's God who regenerated us at the first,
and if it's God who gives us faith whereby we believe unto
righteousness, and if God has made Christ to us wisdom and
redemption, and righteousness and sanctification. If he's made
Christ to us all of these things, why would he turn us back to
the flesh, right, to just dead letter, trinket, plastic, fake,
bogus, shiny religion to save us under the law? Why would he
do that? Why would he turn us back to
the flesh? It makes no sense to me at all. All right, let's
go on to verse 21 there. All right, so those that were
just described above, this here in verse 21 is what they do.
This is their mode of operation here. 21, that make a man an
offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth
in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of naught. All right, so, and making a man
an offender for a word. Well, we see this, you know,
in our day. All right, we see this even Even
just in society where now in our society in America, right,
you can be told that you're using hate speech and speaking incorrectly
and you shouldn't talk like that just by describing things that
once were a very accepted thing to say and common things. But
you can be, you know, people are outlawed and forbidden and
turned away that say things that tend to be true. but if they're
not towing the narrative, then they get shut out and removed
from, you know, tried to be put into the darkness so that no
one can hear them. But if that can happen on like
social platforms, is what I'm talking about, if that can happen
on social platforms where you could be banned from, you know,
Google or YouTube or Facebook or things like that, think about
what they could do in the church, you know. Now, I'm so thankful
that in America, no one controls what comes from the pulpit, except
if it's of the Lord, then the Lord determines what's coming
from the pulpit. And I'm thankful for that, but
if they can do that there in the social network, eventually
they could bring it to the pulpit, try to bring it to the pulpit,
but I guess we would just lose some of the government tax benefits
or something like that if we didn't say what they wanted us
to say, which by the Lord's grace, we wouldn't say what they want
us to say. We would just speak the truth
because we judge that it's of God. We're His people, not the
state's people. So we're of the Lord. So they
can do that there. And then it says that they lay
a snare for him that reprove it in the gate. And today, him
that reproveth in the gate, right? That would be somebody that's
sitting in the gate and determining what goes on in the city, who's
allowed in the city and what business they have there. And
they might stop somebody that would be bringing in and that
which is sinful or wicked into the city. Well today that would
be a gospel preacher would be the equivalent of that. It's
not that the gospel preacher is anything special but it's
the message of the gospel that reproves those and people don't
want to be reproved, right? Religious people especially don't
want to be reproved because they've taking so much time to assemble
and build themselves up in that religion, that the last thing
they want to hear is, no, that's not the truth. You've just spun
your wheels for 40, 50 years in something that's a lie. And
they don't want to hear that, so they get angry with gospel
preachers. But that's what we're to do,
is to, the way we reprove isn't by lording over anyone, but simply
declaring the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ and making that
plain, making the light of the gospel plain to his people, trusting
that the Spirit lays it to your hearts and applies it to you
as you have need of hearing it and as he's teaching you and
growing you and assembling you in the part of his body, as a
member of his body, the church. Paul told Timothy, He said in
2 Timothy 3.16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God
and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness. That's true for me. and for you,
right? That's both of us. We all need
to hear that and be instructed by the Spirit laying that word
to our hearts. And he went on in 2 Timothy 4
verses 1 and 2, he said, I charge thee therefore before God and
the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead
at his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, be instant in
season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering,
and doctrine, right? If we're to preach the Word,
that's preaching Christ, who is the Word of God. And we do
preach the doctrines, we lay the doctrines out, and we deliver
the exhortations of the apostles, not because there's any power
or strength in this flesh. In fact, we don't want the work
of the flesh. But we declare these things knowing
that it's the Spirit who takes that word and breathes that word
into his people, into your hearts and your minds, whereby we're
made to hear it in the light of Jesus Christ. He's the one
who's making it relevant and alive to us, so that we're not
looking at it with blind eyes and just opening up a sealed
book, whereby we don't know what it's saying, but it's unsealed
by the Lord Jesus Christ, all right? We preach the truth and
I mean a great example is when Christ preached there in the
midst of the people and the Pharisees, I'm sure were right there, but
in Matthew 23, he just, I don't think anyone's ever delivered
so clearly just a stripping down of dead false religion where
it's in the woe to you Pharisees, hypocrites, that's all those,
he shows just the, the fallacy of dead-letter religion. And
so he's stripping that down from us, alright? And so this word
cuts the wicked heart of the dead religionists, and therefore,
because they can't hurt him, they can't touch him, they'll
seek to do harm to his people, right? And turn aside the just
for a thing of naught. So, brethren, this is what the
Lord is drawing us out of. He's calling us out of dead religion. He's showing us that there's
nothing there. There's no substance there. It's
the shadows and types, and they never see what the shadow is
from, that it's from Christ. We're to look at the substance.
The truth is Jesus Christ. So verse 22, and we'll go faster
here. Therefore thus saith the Lord
who redeemed Abraham concerning the house of Jacob, Jacob shall
not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale. So what
he's saying is when the Lord returns, you that are Jacob,
you're Jacob, because he chose you and he put you in the body
of Jacob and he's revealed these truths to you so that you hear
what I'm saying that you know that you've seen and experienced
dead religion which the Lord's brought you out of and he's making
that clear to you every day. He's revealing Christ to you
more and more, so he's going to punish his enemies. And what
they're doing is saying, no, no, no, you've gone away. You need to be under the law. You need to be straightening
up your life, and you need to be applying yourself more diligently
to these things in the law. And what the Lord is saying is,
no, my people, no, children. You stay upon me. You look to
Christ, and you shall never be ashamed. He's your righteousness. in justification and sanctification,
you believe Him. Don't be turned away. You will
not be ashamed. I mean, think about it. You who
hope in Christ, are you going to be ashamed at His return?
No. You that hope in your works under
the law, will they be ashamed? Yeah. Because when you see the
brightness of His glory shining upon all your works, and you're
trusting in those works, you'll see how filthy and dark they
are. But if your work is the righteousness of Jesus Christ,
and His glorious light shines upon His work, it'll be pure,
spotless, and there'll be no darkness in it. And if that's
your covering, and that's your righteousness, is the hope of
Christ, then you've got nothing to fear when He returns. You
have no shame, and you'll be just all smiles when He returns. Thankful in Him, right? So trust
Him. But, or the word in verse 23 could be translated, rather,
when he seeth his children, that's you, when you see his children,
the work of mine hands, his work in the midst of him, right? When
you see his children, his fruitful work in you, in each of you,
His fruit being born in you and in your midst, in your brethren,
when you see that, He says, they shall sanctify My name and sanctify
the Holy One of Jacob and shall fear the God of Israel. You that are being settled in
Christ, like never before, hoping in Him and believing He is my
God. He's my Savior. He's my salvation. I'm so thankful to know this
gospel. He's saying, like, we'll sanctify
Him. When you're just going through
your house and you remember as hard as your time or your day
might be or whatever you're going through, when the Lord reminds
you that you're His people, that you are one of His, right, Ken,
that you're one of His children, it just lifts the burden. There's
a hope there. There's a hope there and a peace
and a joy that whatever you're going through, the Lord knows,
He's in control. He does that. Verse 24, they
also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they
that murmured shall learn doctrine. So here we're seeing there that
that's where we were, erring in spirit, We were in deadness,
and in that dead religion, too, we were murmuring against the
truth, and we spoke against those, right, of whom now we're a part
of. We condemn them as easy-believers and who hoped and trusted Christ. Though there's nothing easy about
it in the sense that we see now how that Christ gave his life
for us and what he's done for us and is working in us, right? We're not just doing whatever
we want, we have the Spirit of God that turns us from the lusts
of the flesh and makes war with the lusts of this flesh, right?
So it's not because of anything special in us, it's of the Lord,
right? Ephesians 2, 4, and 5, but God
who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved
us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together
with Christ, by grace ye are saved." All right, so that's
what the Lord's teaching you, brethren. That's what he's teaching
us, right? He's showing us, there's that
dead religion I brought you out of. There it is. And he's saying,
come out of her. Come out of that whorish Babylonian
religion. Come out of her, my people, and
be gathered together with my people. We're thankful for that
and we're assured of our salvation in Christ. To you that Christ
is your hope, you take comfort because Christ is your salvation
and our hope. All right, I pray the Lord will
bless that word. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord, Father, we
thank you for your mercy in delivering us out of darkness, not for anything
that we have done, but for the glory of your name. And Lord, you show how tremendous
and great your grace and mercy is in your Son, Jesus Christ.
And you should save such worthless sinners as us, Lord. And you
would be pleased to reveal the light of your Son, Jesus Christ,
to us, who have nothing of ourselves to offer. not even a goodness
in ourselves. Lord, we did nothing. But rather,
in spite of us, you showed us mercy and grace and patience
and long-suffering. And Lord, you revealed your Son,
Jesus Christ, to us and have filled our hearts with His Spirit
and love for Him. And Lord, love for your people. Lord, help us, help us to walk
upright and help us to walk faithfully before our God, looking to Jesus
Christ, trusting Him for all things, Lord. Even when we stumble
and fall, Lord, that we would, that our eyes would be turned
to Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior. Lord, that you would
give us repentance and deliver us from the lusts of this flesh.
Keep us looking to our Savior. Lord, help us to be faithful
when speaking of our Lord and speaking of the things in our
day. Help us to ever be faithful to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ
and to trust Him. Lord, we're so thankful that
you have all things in control and that your will shall be done.
Lord, we pray for anyone here that is struggling with assurance
or struggling with comfort, Lord, who desires to know you, but
Lord, we pray that you would comfort those that are struggling,
comfort those that are fearful and trembling in their hearts
and their minds, and reveal to them that Christ Jesus saves
sinners. And Lord, we pray for those we
love and care for that are sick or not well, Lord, that are struggling,
in their minds and their physical ailments, Father, that you would
reveal yourself to them, that you would reveal Christ to them
and comfort them. Heal our minds, heal our bodies,
Lord, keep us ever faithfully looking to Christ. It's in His
name we pray and give thanks. Amen. Stand with me as we sing 291
as a closing hymn, 291. Guide me, O thou great Jehovah. Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land. I am weak, but Thou, Lord mighty,
Hold me with Thy powerful hand. Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,
feed me till I want no more. Feed me till I want no more. Open now the crystal fountain
whence the healing stream doth flow. Let the fire and cloudy
pillar lead me all my journey through. Strong deliverer, strong
deliverer, be thou still my strength and shield. Be thou still my
strength and shield. When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Did my anxious fear subside? Bear me through the swelling
current, land me safe on Canaan's side. Songs of praises, songs
of praises, I will ever give to thee. I will ever give to
thee.