Alright, our text is found in
Isaiah 28, and we're just going to be looking at verses 14 and
15, and what we'll be looking at
here is what can only be described as the refuge of the wicked. And it's helpful to see this
because then it shows us or it helps us to see the difference
between the refuge of the righteous. So this is this text is dealing
with the refuge of the wicked and what we find is that the
wicked they trust in lies, they trust in falsehood. So we ourselves
don't want to be found to be trusting in a lie or in a falsehood
ourselves, because the wicked, here as they're described in
this text here, they're supposed to be the people of God, they're
in Jerusalem, they have the law, they have prophets speaking to
them, they have teachers, But they're trusting in imaginary
things. They're trusting in that which
is a lie and a falsehood. And yet they think that God is
pleased with them. They think that God's pleased
with what they are doing and what they believe. And yet God
is showing them this isn't what I'm teaching you. I'm not revealing
this this which you hold to. I'm not revealing this to you.
And so the Lord is the one that needs to teach us in the heart.
He needs to teach his gospel to us in the heart because it's
a heart religion. It's not just an outward show
of religion in the flesh. And so we find that man thinks
many things. He thinks many things in the
flesh, and he thinks that what he thinks and what he does pleases
God, and yet it doesn't. Our Lord, when he was here in
the flesh in Matthew 15, 9, said, in vain they do worship me, teaching
for doctrines, teaching these teachings, teaching for doctrines
the commandments of men, which means that men were inventing
what they thought God was pleased with, or interpreting the Word
of God as they thought it meant according to the flesh, which
as we know in the flesh is a natural sense, a natural reasoning of
things, which we've gained naturally, just what we've been taught in
the world, what we grew up, what we heard in dead letter religion. And men without the Spirit of
God, the teachers, will teach the Word of God according to
the flesh as well, natural things, and they'll turn you to things
that are very tangible, things that make us feel good in ourselves,
but still have no spiritual power or benefit for us. Paul spoke
of it saying to the Colossians, to warn them, why are you subject
to ordinances? Why are you subject to human
things, the things that man is worried about. And he gave us
an example, which they say, which is touch not, taste not, handle
not. Don't touch this world, don't
have anything to do with the world. And we're not to love
the world, but these things, that which comes from without
doesn't pollute us, it's the pollution in the heart, right?
It's our heart that's wicked. And so he says all these things
that they're telling you not to use, they're all going to
perish. not to abuse these things and to misuse these things, but
they're all perishing, and these are after the commandments and
doctrines of men. And so we want to be careful
not to just hear a speaker, someone who's good with words and makes
you feel good in yourself and exalts the flesh and exalts man,
We don't want to be deceived in that way, and we're not to
follow men like that, because that's natural, and man is twisted,
man is backward, he gets things wrong all the time, and we see
constantly the word of the Lord goes against the flesh, it grates
against the flesh, and so it's a spiritual thing that the Lord
must work in his people. And so, as opposed to the wicked
though, The righteous, they hear and believe the rest that God
has provided, meaning that peaceful rest that the Lord declares to
his people, and he declares it to many people, and the righteous
They hear that word of rest and they receive it and they believe
what the Lord is saying to them because God's provided this rest
to deliver His people, to save them from the coming wrath because
of our sin. Our sin is what makes us worthy
of the wrath and judgment of God. but he's provided his son
to put away the sin and thereby putting away the wrath of God
for us. And so we're told in Hebrews
4 verse 9 it says, there remaineth therefore a rest for the people
of God. And the wicked, we know they
don't enter that rest, just like the Jews who came out of Egypt,
but were nothing more than just seeking the Lord in the flesh.
They didn't enter the rest because they sought it not by faith,
it says in Hebrews 3. But the righteous, they enter
that rest that the Lord's provided. And it says, for he that has
entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works
as God did from his. And then he says something very
interesting. He says, let us labor therefore. Let us labor
to enter that rest. Well, how do we labor to enter
the rest? We look to the Lord Jesus Christ. We look to his
labor, to his work. We seek him and trust him, believing
him because he's our entrance into the rest that God has provided. All right, so let us labor therefore
to enter into that rest. So tonight though, we're gonna
focus more so on the refuge of the wicked. And our title is
A False Refuge, A False Refuge Is No Hope. A False Refuge Is
No Hope. Now we know that the gospel of
our Lord, it'll always find success. it always accomplishes what he's
purposed it to do. The Lord's gospel will find success
among the people. Now, we consider what the Lord
has done in declaring his rest, right? We declare his rest. And what does the Lord mean by
this rest? Now, look in the text there. Actually, if you go back to verse
12, we see what he says there, to whom he says, this is Isaiah
28, 12, to whom he said, this is the rest wherewith ye may
cause the weary to rest. And this is the refreshing, yet
they would not hear. They would not hear. So we see
here that the weary, those that are weary, those that have no
righteousness of their own, those that can work no righteousness
and can't, just aren't good enough. They know they're just not good
enough for the Lord. They're not perfect. They're
not holy in themselves. They're weary in their labors.
They don't know how to please the Lord. And when they maybe
do something that seems like it would please the Lord, they're
not even consistent in it, and they fall far short of doing
that which is right. So the weary hear the rest that
God provided, and they're glad to hear it, and they rejoice
to hear of the Lord Jesus Christ, that Christ has put away all
their sin, that he's done the work that they cannot do and
made them righteous. We're righteous now in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so, the Lord's Word shall
find success. It shall find success. And we
see how it isn't just that Christ put away our sin on the cross,
but His death not only put away the sin, at that point, but it
ensures that every part of our salvation shall come to pass. Everything God has purposed to
do in and among us shall be brought to pass. It cannot fail because
our Savior did not fail. He cannot fail, so it's going
to come to pass. And that means that we will be
brought under the sound of the gospel. we shall be made to hear
the gospel with that ear of faith, not just hear it like others
hear, but to hear it differently, by faith, and to receive that
word, and to believe that word, and to be filled with his spirit,
so that we desire him, and hunger and thirst for his righteousness,
and we follow after him. and were made willing to gather
together. The Lord does that work. That's the success that he gives
to his people. He's going to bring it to pass.
He's going to work all things which Christ obtained for you.
Each one of you, according to the measure of the gift of faith
which he's purposed to give you, he's going to work that in you.
And all the good works which he's purposed and ordained for
you to walk in, you're going to walk in them. And he's going
to do that, that's what he's going to do, alright? But there's
also many who would not hear, it says there at the end of verse
12, they would not hear. Now, That doesn't mean that God's
gospel isn't successful with some. That doesn't mean that
God's gospel has failed to accomplish the purpose that God sent it
to do. Our Lord isn't a failure. Although we know when free will
works religion, they declare a God who's a failure. They say
that Christ died to make it possible for you, but he's trying, but
you just won't let him. And so many go to hell, and their
God is a failure, but we don't teach that. But Paul says in
Romans 9, 6, it's not as though the word of God have taken none
effect, for they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. So there's two different kinds
of people. One hears it, and one will not
hear it. One won't hear it. They have
no will or desire to hear it. But it still accomplishes the
purpose of the Lord. Look at verse 13 in Isaiah 28,
13. But the word of the Lord was
unto them, precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon
line, line upon line, here a little and there a little. In other
words, he's saying it seems very simple, Very plain to them. And that's exactly what God did.
He actually, what was it, verse 10 says that's exactly how the
Lord preached it to them. Precept upon precept and line
upon line. Here a little and there a little.
The Lord made it very simple because that's what we need.
We have no spiritual knowledge until the Lord gives us the spiritual
knowledge, and so we are very simple people. We don't know
the things of God unless he reveals them to us. And so he brought
it to them very simply, and he's showing that in the flesh, no
man will receive it. He won't receive these things.
And all he heard was simple things, and it was too simple in his
mind. And it's a good picture of how men and women just reject
the simplicity of Christ because it really is simple. It really
is simple. We cannot save ourselves and
God has provided the salvation in the Son and everything necessary
shall be brought to pass for His people. It really is the
simplicity of the Lord Jesus Christ and it's so simple but
why is it so simple and that they rejected it? That at the
end of verse 13 that they might go and fall backward and be broken
and snared and taken." So, the Lord's Word is going to accomplish
its purpose. We're going to hear it, and we're
going to be stripped of all our vain confidences and our self-righteousness,
and we'll be brought out of the kingdom of darkness and brought
into the kingdom of light, and the wicked are also going to
hear it, but they're not going to enter in. And we know that
the word of the Lord has success because he tells us in Isaiah
55 verse 11, he says, so shall my word be that goeth forth out
of my mouth, it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish
that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing where to
I sent it. All right, so, Let's look a little
more closely at those that would not hear it for the purpose that
they might go and fall backward and be broken and snared and
taken. And the Lord tells us, if you
read the text in chapter 28, he's bringing out that we're
full of pride naturally. All men are full of pride. All
men are just drunk with delusions. They don't hear, we don't know
naturally, we don't know things of God. And so man naturally
gets very proud and drunk with delusions about his salvation
and about what saves us and makes us acceptable to God and why
we find favor with God. And they imagine themselves to
be the children of God. These are inhabitants of Jerusalem.
They had teachers, and they were in Jerusalem, and they had the
Law of Moses, and they thought that God favored them. I mean,
they could see, I don't know exactly when, what year it was
that Assyria came up and took Israel, or Samaria, but they
weren't taken, and so they thought, well, God is favoring us, and
yet they didn't know the truth, and they were utterly deceived
by this falsehood. So, we don't want to be like
them. We could see, all right, well, these are people who consider
themselves people of God, so we hear it, too, with a soft
and a ready heart. We want to hear, too, because
the last thing we want to do is be condemned, imagining that
we're children of God, and thinking that we are, and yet having a
trust and a confidence in ourselves, in something we do, rather than
a trust and a confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ. and believing
in him, resting in him, that he's our rest. And what the issue
is here is that many hear the gospel, right, many hear, many
are called but few are chosen, many hear the gospel and yet
they don't believe or they hear some form of the gospel and they
don't even pursue it to find out these things whether they're
so or not. So they don't enter into the rest, right? They don't
enter into the rest. And yet, the delusion is that
though they don't enter that rest, they still imagine that
God loves them and God is their God, and that God is going to
receive them in the end for something in them, something they do, or
something that they think. And that's just a delusion of
man to think that I'm not entering his rest that he declares in
the scriptures, yet I still have nice warm fuzzy feelings around
this time of year. And so I guess that makes me
a Christian. I guess that makes me one of
his children. And so we imagine these vain
things and you can see Because you see it, surely you know people,
you know your own heart, where we are and where the Lord has
saved us out of and what he's shown us. And so you can see
this, that we hold on to so many foolish things. Some of us thought
in doctrine, right? That doctrine is what saved us,
because we know a lot of things about the truth. And we thought,
well, that must mean I'm a Christian. I hated studying, and now I study. Maybe that means I'm a Christian
now. We can hold on to all kinds of
foolish things. I didn't go to church for many
years, but now I go to church willingly. And so that's trusting
in what we're doing and not in the rest that God provided. We're
not resting in His Son. We're still resting in something
we're doing. And it's in all of us. We all
think foolish things. from time to time, and it's the
Lord that teaches us, don't trust that, don't put your confidence
there, keep looking to me, keep trusting in me. You know, so
he's always bringing us back to him. So, all right, now this
is what the Lord says in our text in verse 14. He says, wherefore
hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men that rule this people,
which is in Jerusalem. All right? Here they had these
teachers, and the teachers weren't doing these people any favors
either, because they were very good at getting them to do religious
things, things that they could put their confidence in, things
that they could see and touch and feel, and feel like they
were doing all right, but that's not the salvation. That's not
helping the people, and we know pastors are guilty So-called
pastors are guilty of polluting the minds of the people because
of the things that pastors speak of, and they turn people to falsehood
and to lies. in an effort to try and comfort
them, in an effort to try and make them feel at peace, and
make them to know that they're saved, but rather than preach
Christ, they either preach false doctrine, lies about Christ,
or they preach the law, so that people can be doing those things. Now, I'll get to that in a moment,
but historically, this time seems to be leading up to Judah's captivity,
sometime before they were taken. captive, but spiritually it points
to the time of Christ. It really is speaking of Christ,
and we'll see next week in verse 16 about the foundation, the
stone which the builders rejected. So it's speaking really of the
time when Christ would come in the flesh and when he came and
dwelt among the people and did much good and accomplished the
rest for the weary. He accomplished that work of
salvation for his people and so it began then and it continues
all the way until the Lord comes and redeems his people when he
comes to claim that which he's purchased with his own blood,
and then he'll deal with the wicked and punish them as well. So what the Lord does here though,
if you look at verse 15, is he calls their attention to their
confidence in their vain dead religion. Look at verse 15. Because
ye have said, we have made a covenant with death, and with hell are
we at agreement, when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it
shall not come unto us, for we have made lies our refuge, and
under falsehood we've hid ourselves. So the word's coming to this
people, the word of the Lord is coming to this people, and
the Lord has told them the rest, and they've rejected it, they
wouldn't hear it, and yet they're holding on to some confidence
and saying, wait a minute, we don't have to worry about the
coming judgment, You speak of the coming judgment of God. I'm
not worried about it because I have a lie I'm holding on to.
I'm under a refuge that's just death and confusion. It's falsehood. And I'm trusting in that. It's
going to be all right. Don't worry about me. You must
be talking to the guy next to me or the other person next to
me or the person behind me or in front of me, but that's what
the self-righteous do. They trust in their works of
religion. So the people's coming, I mean
the word is coming to this people, but they rejected the rest of
the Lord. And so they believed that whatever
they were holding on to was what was going to save them. It was
their their righteousness. And that's where we all were. That's where we all are until
the Lord delivers us from that delusion and from having confidence
in ourselves. So what are some of the common
lies of religion that we see in our day? Well, first of all,
many people just hear certain portions of the scripture. So
many, either they hear a good amount, but they only take what
they want to hear and believe that and disregard the rest because
they just don't like what it's saying. And then other times
you have preachers who are just taking parts of the word and
they're only teaching parts that go along with what they want
to teach the people. And so that right there, that's
just, just already starting the people off on a corrupt foundation
because they're not even hearing the word of God. And they're
not trusting what the Lord, or they're not hearing all that
the Lord is revealing in his word. And so we see in many,
because of the lies that are so prevalent and taught, many
trust in their own decision. They trust that they've made
a decision to follow the Lord. I can't tell you how often that
was hammered into my head. about making a decision for the
Lord and not doubting that decision. Or some have you walk an aisle.
I remember my preacher always had us put our heads down and
prayed and raise your hand if you were giving your heart to
Jesus that day. Or you go down the aisle and they take you down
through the Romans road, through some good scriptures in Romans,
and then they have you say a prayer after that. And so that's where
people have confidence in that, and so they have confidence in
what they did. And if you talk about that, if
you show them the Word of God, they get very defensive, because
now you're exposing that which is a lie, and you're saying,
wait a minute, I've made this lie my confidence, and you're
now gonna take that away from me? And so they get very defensive
about their lie, because they made a decision, they gave their
heart to Jesus, or they were baptized, Or they joined the
church. Something like that. Or something
they did. Or some spiritual experience that they've had. And that's
not... I'm sure many of us have had
spiritual experiences at various times in our lives. But that's
not our hope and our confidence. Our hope and our confidence continues
to be the Lord Jesus Christ. Because spiritual experiences
can be deceitful. If I've experienced anything,
I give God the glory for it, but I don't put my trust and
hope in that experience. It continues to be fixed in Christ. Because my feelings and what
I remember changes and I'm not trustworthy. I'm just flesh.
I can't, I can't have any confidence in that. So Paul says, it's not
of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that
showeth mercy. Right? And, and so these, what
we see in religion is all kinds of foolishness, like that God
loves everyone. And that's a false comfort, right?
Because if you hear, well, God loves me, then you begin to think,
well, if he loves me, he's not going to harm me. So even though
I don't agree with what you're saying, the Word of God says,
and even though I see it plainly in the scriptures, but God loves
me. So, I don't believe that, I'm not entering His rest, but
surely, if He loves me, He's gonna keep me and forgive me
and not punish me in hell. But again, we see how when, we
take the scriptures, and they say that we take it out of context,
because we show how the word means what it means. If you take
John 3, 16, that's a beautiful scripture, which gives us comfort,
but we know that he's talking to a Jew, to Nicodemus, and he's
saying, it's not just for you Jews only. God so loved the world
that he's sending that gospel out. He's declaring what he has
provided for all his people scattered throughout the world in his son,
Jesus Christ, because he's the rest unto the ends of the world,
unto the ends of the earth. He's the rest, the one rest that
God's provided, the one name that he's given to us to declare
under heaven, to declare that rest that he's provided for us. And some teach that Christ died
for everyone. And there again, that's just
more of that false comfort and hope but the word of God says
that by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place having
obtained eternal redemption for us. So if he died for everyone
but they're not saved, because the word says that he's obtained
that, and that means that there's still something hanging in the
balance that has to be finished by man, that Christ really didn't
obtain eternal redemption. He just made it possible, and
that's another thing that they teach, that he made it possible
for all men to be saved. But what that means is the deciding
factor comes down to your decision. that, you know, I think I've
heard it worded by some that God has cast one vote in your
favor, the devil cast another vote, the opposite, against you,
and now you have to cast the deciding vote yourself. No! The Word of God does not teach
that. It doesn't even talk about us
making a decision to follow the Lord. It declares that as we
declare what Christ has done, as we proclaim the rest that
God has provided in His Son for you that are weary, for you that
are sinners, for you that can't save yourselves, that He's provided
salvation in His Son, that He shed His blood to purge and put
away the sins of His people, that those who hear what He's
done, they believe it. They enter into that rest. They
believe. There wasn't a decision made. They just either believe it or
they don't believe it. They either hear it and receive
it by the power of God or they reject it just because they have
no heart for it. And so it's a work that God does
in us and we just are to be faithful in preaching and declaring what
he's provided in his son. So the Lord tells us that it's
not our decision that determines where we're going to be in eternity,
but it's sovereign God. He says to Moses, I will have
mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on
whom I will have compassion. It doesn't matter what decision
we make, if God's determined to be merciful and compassionate
to us, He's going to be merciful and compassionate to us. His
word is going to have success in our hearts. We're going to
believe it. If He wills, we shall. It's His work in us. So the choice
to save a person doesn't rest with us, the sinner, but with
God. We hear in the Word that we that
believe were born, born again, not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. God is the one who makes us born
again, so that we hear that Word. And though we've rejected it,
or denied it, or were afraid to believe it all our lives,
when we hear it by the Spirit, we believe it, and we're thankful
for it. Even though it's a weak little
mustard seed faith, nothing to boast of or glory in and of ourselves,
but Lord, where can we turn? You alone have the words of eternal
life. Where can I go, Lord? The flesh
doesn't talk like that. wants what it wants when it wants
it. But the Spirit says, Lord, I trust you. I trust you. You're stripping me, you're emptying
me of self-confidence and self-righteousness and vain confidences, Lord. I
trust you, it's your work. It's your work and you're perfect
in what you do. Right? And then there's even
still others who say, well that's good that you believe on Christ,
but now you've got to study to make yourself sanctified and
righteous. You've got to be turned back
to the law of Moses. You've got to turn your attention
to Sinai and study that law to show yourself approved by the
law. You've got to now make yourself even more sanctified and righteous.
Because why? Because Christ isn't sufficient?
Because Christ can't lead his people and teach us? Because
Christ's spirit can't convict us when we're wrong and when
we have need of stopping doing something and be turned from
it? He's able. He's able. And he does it through
the preaching of the gospel. He teaches us and reminds us.
You don't need that. Don't do that. He turns us from
it. He turns us. We have His Spirit,
whereby we hear Him. We hear His Word. We know, Lord,
this isn't right for me to be here or doing this or that, and
the Lord turns us. And He gives us strength, though
for a time He may let us sit in it for a bit to strip us of
pride and arrogancy and bring us low in ourselves to seek Him
for it, but He knows how to do it. He knows how to speak to
us, all right? So then why did the law come?
Well, it entered so that the offense might abound. The law
was given to make us to know what sin really is, how exceedingly
sinful it is, and how utterly incapable we are of perfecting
ourselves. by the law, before we believe
and after we believe, because the flesh isn't changed, but
we walk by his spirit, we trust him and his spirit. So, what's
going on here with these with these people. Well, and I say
all this because, again, we're professing Christians, we know
many professing Christians, and you can see how, just like the
Jews, the Jews had the law, they had so many things that should
have been helped to prepare them, they should have been weak in
the flesh. They should have been made to
see, I can't do this, Lord, so that when Christ came, they would
have received him, but they didn't. And so the law, just like that,
so-called professing Christians today in many denominations and
such, they think that because they practice certain things,
that that makes them a Christian. Because they're involved in certain
programs, or certain Bible classes, or certain neighborhood things
that they do. We come up with so many different
things to trust in those things and say, well, I guess I'm a
Christian because I'm doing what they told me to do. But we never
find our rest in Christ. Because that's what the law did.
The law was pointing to Christ, but they were stopping, they
weren't seeing Christ, they were trusting in Well, this is my
righteousness here. What I'm doing is my righteousness.
And not seeing He who is our righteousness. Because when we
look at our works, do you look at your works and say, wow, I'm
really perfect. I'm doing good. No, which of
us does that? We all know that we're sinners.
And so, that's not our hope is in what we do or don't do. Our
hope is in Him who has provided as our rest. He is our rest,
the one whom the Lord sent to save us from our sins, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Alright, so, these people, they
made a covenant with death, and with hell, they said, are we
at agreement? So, they heard, they hear of
the coming wrath of God, they hear that the Lord hates sin,
that he's going to destroy the earth and punish the wicked for
their sin, but They're not worried. They don't hear the rest, and
they don't enter the rest because they say, well, wait a minute,
when the overflowing scourge shall come, when the Lord comes
to punish the wicked, and when it passes through, it shall not
come unto us, for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood
have we hid ourselves. And that's what we say in the
flesh. We don't use those words, but we just say, well, I'm holding
on to this, this lie right here in my fist. That's the thing
that's gonna save me. Keep my head above water. and it's just
going to be the thing that sinks us. So, the Lord, He tells us
why these things are happening. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians,
he said in 2 Thessalonians 2.7, he said, for the mystery of iniquity
doth already work, and he's speaking of the spirit of Antichrist who
comes, he says in verse 10 there, with all deceivableness of unrighteousness
in them that perish, Because they received not the love of
the truth that they might be saved. They received not the
rest that the Lord declares in His Son. It's too simple. It
can't be that simple. It's Christ. So they look to
what they do. And I know because I can't tell
you how many years I spent in religion worried and striving
and struggling to have some sense of peace that I knew the truth
and it was right there, right in front of me all those years
and I never never rested in Christ. I just kept looking to myself. I kept looking to my flesh and
looking to my feelings and looking to my thoughts. And it was always
me. And I was just trusting that.
And so I was never at rest. I was just a sea just kicking
up all kinds of dirt and mire all the time and never resting
in Him. Because who could believe that
it's really Christ and Christ alone. And so, for this cause,
God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie,
that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but
had pleasure in unrighteousness." And that's pretty scary when
you think about it's their religion that's their unrighteousness.
You know, it's what they're doing in the name of God that's their
unrighteousness, first and foremost, alright? So, that's why It's
good that we're here. It's important for us to be here
and to be hearers of the word and to pray for a soft heart,
to remember to pray that the Lord teach us in the heart, because
we don't want to be like them. We see it, how so-called professing
believers today are just like the Jews of old. They have their
practices, they're just different. They look different, but they
still trust in those things. We want to hear it because we
only harm ourselves when we harden up and stiffen up under the truth.
If the Lord's convicting us and showing us something, we only
harm ourselves if we're refusing to hear it and we're discomforting
ourselves in lies because it's something that we've made up.
If it's a lie, it's not the rest of God, and it won't help us
in the day when we stand before the Lord in judgment. So, the
truth is that in the Word of God, the Lord teaches us. He
shows us. There's none of us righteous.
We're all sinners. We're all unworthy of eternal
life. None of us has done anything
to deserve His mercy and compassion. Yet, God has provided, in mercy
and grace, provided his son, sent his son to be the propitiation,
to be the one who sacrificed himself on behalf of his people,
bearing their sin, bearing them in his own body. When he died,
we died. So that we died unto the law.
And the law, any law, the law given to Adam, the law given
to Moses, and any other law you can think of, all perished, we
died to that law when we died in Christ. And now in Him we
fulfilled all righteousness because He is our righteousness and we
fulfilled His righteousness as our righteousness by faith, the
faith which He's given, which cannot fail because He obtained
it when He obtained eternal redemption for us. Everything necessary
for salvation shall be brought to pass in His people as He's
determined it to be so. And so He gives His Holy Spirit,
in the time of His appointing, in a time when it pleases Him,
He sends His Spirit into your hearts, giving you a new birth,
causing you to hear, to hear by the ear of faith, to receive
it, to believe what He said, and you rest, you rest in Christ. And we preach it to Sovereign
God, we don't have to change the Word of God and twist it,
because salvation doesn't depend on us, we just declare the Holy,
sovereign God and what He's done, what He said in His word about
you and me, to put our faces in the dirt and exalt our Savior
and our Lord. And He's the one who works that
faith in us and reveals it. As Peter said, it's going to
happen, as he said in 2 Peter 3, 9, that the Lord is long-suffering
to us-ward, to us-ward, not willing that any of us should perish,
but that all of us should come to repentance. So it's going
to happen. What he's determined to do, it
shall be. So the gospel either hardens
us, we hear it, and we get angry, and we get offended, and it hardens
us and turns us away, or the gospel is it hits the mark. It always hits the mark and it
either hardens or it hits the mark and it softens and it breaks
the heart and it causes us to let go of the lie and the deceit
that we were holding on to and delivers us from that false refuge. And so next week we'll see more
of the Lord, the foundation that the Lord has provided in his
son. I'll just read verse 16 but we'll close there. where
he says, therefore thus saith the Lord God, behold, I lay in
Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, or a trying stone,
a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth
shall not make haste. And so the Lord, he's gonna hit
his mark. He always does. So I'm thankful
for that though, aren't you? That he doesn't leave it to us.
Aren't you thankful he didn't just make it possible? That he,
everything necessary, when Christ rose, arose from the dead, it
was for our justification. Everything necessary came in
his train. When he rose up, he led captivity
captive and gave gifts to men. And that includes you women.
He gave gifts to all his people, so you could be confident in
him and rejoice in him. All right, let's pray. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you, Father, for your great mercy and compassion
to your people. Lord, we thank you that you provided
your Son, the rest for the weary. Lord, help us to hear it. We
know that except you make us to hear your word, except you
give us life from the dead and make us born again, Lord, we
cannot hear it, we cannot receive it or believe it. So, Lord, We're
asking you to deliver us from the lie that has gripped so many
and the death that so many lie in, Lord. We pray, Lord, that
you would soften our hearts and strip us of vain righteousness,
self-righteousness, and Lord, cause us to indeed be weary sinners,
but not those who have nothing, but weary sinners who have a
good hope, a good hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we know
that you can do this, that it's your work and it's your good
pleasure to glorify your Son in the hearts of your people.
So Lord, we ask that you would do this now and in your people
here, that you would bless this church, bless this congregation. Lord, that you would have mercy
upon your people, that you would recover those, Lord, that are
sick and weak and struggling with sin and unbelief. Lord,
that you would have mercy upon them. that you would cover our
sin and cover our offenses with the blood of Christ, and that
you would send a kind and gentle spirit among us, Lord, that there
would be peace among us. And Father, we do pray for those
that are ill physically and struggling mentally, Lord, and just suffering,
that you would give them peace and rest in your son as well.
Show them the great physician. And Lord, that you would bless
your people with all that we have need of, Lord, that we would
not worry or fear or be afraid of the many troubles about us,
Lord, but that we would see the provision and the grace, the
abundant grace and mercy of our God about us. And Lord, we pray
that your word would have success in this in this community, Lord,
that you would cause your people to come and rest in your Son,
and that, Lord, if there are some that will not hear, Lord,
that you will, we trust and know that you will deal with them
in your time as well. And we pray all this in the name
of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior. Amen. All
right, brother.