Good evening. Alright, let's
be turning to Isaiah 25. Isaiah 25. We're going to be looking at
verses 6 through 8. 6 through 8. And what we have here in this
passage is a feast. And it's the Lord our God who
sets before us this feast. And this feast is our Savior,
Jesus Christ. And he sets it forth for his
people in Christ. And I know, we know, many of
us know here that the believer feeds upon, is nourished by the
Lord Jesus Christ. But some people are still learning
and growing and coming to that understanding, and it's always
good for us to be reminded that we ever need the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one that we feed upon,
and we feed upon Him in the hearing of the Gospel, by the hearing
of faith, so that by the faith, which God has given to us, whereby
we believe Him and trust Him and know Him, through that conduit
of faith we receive nourishment, we are fed and our faith is strengthened
and we're encouraged in the hearing of Christ and what he has done
for his people. And then, as the Lord grows us
and as we learn of him and are taught by him, we find that all
our enemies have been conquered. All our enemies have been defeated. The enemy of death, the enemy
of self, our own wicked self, this flesh, the enemy of sin
itself, the enemy of Satan, they're all defeated, all conquered by
the Lord Jesus Christ. And what we also find, as we
conclude, we'll see more of this in this message, but we find
that the rebuke of God, God rebukes the world because of sin. The
rebuke of God against the people of God is removed. It's removed. Christ has taken
away the just rebuke of God against us for our sin. And that's what
we see here in this passage tonight. And I've titled it, The Rebuke
Removed. The rebuke removed, and we'll
have three divisions. First, we see that this passage
speaks of Christ's exaltation. I'll show you that in the scriptures.
Christ's exaltation. And then, we see a feast. We'll
see these things in the first verse, verse six, that we look
at. And then in verses 7 and 8, we see Christ's victory. All the victories that Christ
has secured for us, or at least we'll look at a few of them here
because there's so much that he's done and accomplished for
us. Alright, so let's begin with Christ's exaltation. And I'm
going to read verse 6 in the full. Alright, in this mountain,
shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat
things, a feast of wines. Wines on the lees, of fat things
full of marrow, and of wines on the lees well refined. So we see here that there's a
feast set before us. A feast of fat things, of wine
on the lees. Wines on the lees. And we'll
get into that more in a bit. And so this feast is prepared,
but where is this feast prepared? Where do we go and where is this
feast? Well, this feast, we are told,
is in this mountain, in this mountain, and this mountain refers
to the exaltation of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior. So if
we look within the context where this verse is mentioned, we find
that the last place that the word mountain is even mentioned
is in the previous chapter, chapter 24, look at the last verse, 23.
Isaiah 24, 23 says, then the moon shall be confounded and
the sun ashamed when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount
Zion and in Jerusalem and before his ancients gloriously. So this verse is referring to
that great judgment day when all the world will be judged
by the Lord Jesus Christ. We've seen some of these verses
recently, and I'll just quote this one from 2 Corinthians 5.10.
And the Apostle Paul tells us plainly that we, we too that
are in Christ, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,
that everyone may receive the things done in his body according
to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. And I know
I've commented on that, but I'm not going to leave my brethren
hanging. We know that the good that we
do, that is the work of Jesus Christ in us. It's His work. So that we are made righteous
in Him. And all our sins are washed away. He has cleansed us of our sins
so that by faith, that faith which He's given to us, we lay
hold of Christ. We look to Christ and see He's
laid hold of me, a worthless worm of a sinner. And in His
mercy and grace, He washed me of my sins, so that He's given
me faith, and that's a good work. We trust Him, not ourselves.
We have no confidence in this flesh. We trust Him. That's the
good work. And we're coming to the one whose
work He did. He did that work. And we're coming
in faith in His work. And so He'll receive us. And
those that come to Him outside of Christ, trusting their works,
those are the ones that have done bad. even if they look like
religious works, they are filthy rags, they are works of unrighteousness,
which they've done in their own pride and zeal. So this Mount
Zion, and in Jerusalem, this is pointing to the exaltation
of Jesus Christ by the Father to His right hand. And He exalted
Christ because of the glorious work of salvation which He accomplished
in full for His people. So that we see and understand
by the revelation of God that Christ is the substitute. He's the substitute of His people. He came in the place of His people
to stand in the place of His people to bear the wrath of God,
to bear that divine justice that we earned. And He came as our
substitute and stood in our place. And He bore that wrath. And He
bore us in His own body, carrying all the weight of us and carrying
that guilt and that shame and that sin up before the Father
to put it away forever in the death of Himself. And He satisfied
divine justice perfectly. and He put it away, He put away
the sin and it's done so that Christ, His blood has cleansed
us of sin, cleansed us of guilt, cleansed us of shame and that
the Spirit of God takes the blood of Christ and purges us, washes
out that filthy stain, purges us of that stain of sin and removes
it so that we now are spotless to stand before the throne of
God and are accepted of Him. And we understand that Christ,
when He died, He died trusting the Father. He believed the Father. He understood that He is the
Son of God, and that He was sent to this world for this purpose,
to do this work, which the Father sent Him to do, to put away the
sin of His people. So He trusted God, knowing that
He's going there to the cross, in the place of his people, bearing
their sin and their shame and their guilt, and he died trusting
that God was pleased with his work and would raise him from
the dead. He trusted. He died bearing our
iniquity, our sin, to put it away, and he trusted that God
would raise him from the dead. In Psalm 22 verse 8, We find that the psalmist there
is quoting prophetically what the wicked persons around the
cross of Christ were saying. They didn't know it or understand
it. They said it mocking him, but they were prophesying of
the truth of Christ. It says in Psalm 22, verse 8,
He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him. Let him deliver
him, seeing he delighted in him. and the father didn't remove
him from the cross before he died because he had to put away
the sin of his people but the father did indeed delight in
him and we know that because he raised him from the dead and
all those apostles and many other brethren were eyewitnesses and
testified that they saw Christ with their own eyes they handled
him they saw him eat not a spirit but they saw Christ resurrected
in a new Body, glorified body. Alright, so Jesus Christ rose
from dead. That means God delighted in him.
And we see that the Father did this in Psalm 13, verses 5 and
6, where our Lord declares, But I have trusted in thy mercy. My heart shall rejoice in thy
salvation. I will sing unto the Lord, because
he hath dealt bountifully with me. He dealt bountifully with
Christ. And what we find is that we who
are made in the new man after the image of Christ, that's our
song as well. We rejoice and thank God for
his salvation. It says, He was kind and bountiful
to Christ for the work of Christ, so He abounds toward us with
all spiritual blessings in Christ for Christ's sake. So that's
our song too. We praise and rejoice in Him.
Now, because of Christ's faithful work, because He fulfilled the
will of the Father faithfully in all that He did, turn over
to Acts 2. Acts 2, verse 32. Acts 2 is where we find the apostles
on the day of Pentecost filled with the Holy Ghost. The Holy
Ghost and tongues of fire fell upon these men that were gathered
in that room and they went out into the streets preaching and
declaring the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. What I mean is that we see and
understand the glory of God through the preaching of Jesus Christ,
through the hearing of faith, that's how we see and know the
glory of God. It's in the face of Jesus Christ.
And Acts 2.32 says, this is Peter now speaking, he says, this Jesus,
hath God raised up whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore,
being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received
of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed
forth this which ye now see and hear." These men were speaking
in a language, in a tongue they had never learned, never spoke
before. And all those people that were
gathered there for Pentecost, coming from all the different
countries, heard these men speak in their own language. And this
yet happens today by the power of God, by the power of the Holy
Ghost, we speak a language that we didn't know, the language
of angels. And He takes that word and makes
it known to you so that you hear the glory of God in your native
tongue, and you understand what's being said, you hear the voice
of Christ and you hear it and you understand and you believe
the gospel of what Christ has accomplished for his people.
Now he goes on in verse 34 saying, For David is not ascended into
the heavens, but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit
thou on my right hand until I make thy foes, which are our enemies,
thy footstool. Therefore, let all the house
of Israel know assuredly that God hath made the same Jesus,
whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." So that's the
exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his faithful
work, because he satisfied God and fulfilled everything that
the Father sent him to do, and he did it perfectly, now salvation
flows to his people. It pours out upon His people,
including the gift of the Holy Ghost. So, that this mountain,
this mountain also includes and embodies the fact that we now
boast of and praise the name of Christ. We exalt Him. We also exalt Him and lift Him
up. In the mountain of praise with these lips, we praise and
exalt our God. We see this in Isaiah 25, verse
1. In our text, Isaiah 25, verse
1, where we've read, O Lord, thou art my God, I will exalt
thee, I will praise thy name, for thou hast done wonderful
things. Thy counsels of old are faithfulness
and truth. Alright, so in this mountain,
this mountain of the salvation, that glorious salvation work
which Jesus Christ has wrought for his people in making satisfaction
to divine justice, to pay the debt, the debt of righteousness
which we owed that we could not pay. He paid that debt in full
and in reconciling his people. In this mountain, this is where
God prepares the feast for his people. In the exaltation, because
of the work of Christ, God prepares a feast for his people. And that
brings us to our next point, the feast. Let's read verse six
again. And in this mountain shall the
Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast
of wines on the leaves, and so that the greatness of this feast,
right, this we see, it's directly tied to the greatness of Christ's
Word. This feast is glorious It's abundant,
it's overflowing because it's a testimony picturing the abundance
and the overflowing glorious goodness that Christ has wrought
in this work of salvation. So that it's a feast of fat things
full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. So what we're
doing is we're glorying in Christ, and the people are feasting upon
Christ. You're feeding upon the glorious
good news of what Christ has accomplished for you who believe
Him. When it says that winds on the
lees, the lees They're like a creaminess. They provide a creaminess and
a richness and a fullness of body and texture to the wine
so that it's not just a little watery, kind of quickly passes
through and you don't even know what you just had. This is the
thickness and the fullness, the richness, the flavor and the
savor of what Christ has accomplished for you. So that you're hearing
what He has done. And that savor of Christ is beautiful
and the aroma is overpowering and intoxicating so that you
rejoice to see Christ and to hear of what He's accomplished
for you. Christ our Savior is the very
fatness, and the joy, and the rejoicing of the believer. And
that's why we preach Him, and that's why we praise Him, and
glorify Him, and speak of Him, because He is, just as He's our
delight, it's because He's the delight of His Father. Just as
Isaac delighted in the savory meat that Esau prepared for him,
so the Father delights in the savor of Christ due to the work
which Christ prepared in sacrificing his own self a sweet-smelling
savor unto God, so that this feast is prepared for us in Christ
by Christ. Now turn over to John 6. John
6. And we'll look at a few verses
here. Go to verses 48 and 49 first. And I'm reading these because
we see through the scriptures the Lord teaches us using food
and drink as a picture, a type, for us to understand that we're
actually being sustained, that we're given life by Christ. He is our very food. He is our
drink. We're not strengthened by our
religious service. We're not strengthened by our
works. were strengthened by Christ,
were taught and edified and healed and grown by the hearing of faith. Hearing of the faithful work
of Jesus Christ. That's the hearing of faith,
alright? So he says in John 6, 48, I am that bread of life. And he goes on, speaking of the
Jews that were leaving Egypt, because they were saying, wait
a minute, our fathers ate manna. Moses gave them the manna from
heaven. And the Lord's saying, wait a
minute, this wasn't Moses that gave them bread. This is my father
in heaven. But they ate it. They ate that
manna from heaven in the wilderness, and they're dead. They're dead
because they didn't eat it in faith. They didn't need any faith. They were just bitter, angry,
and faithless people. And so he tells us plainly in
verse 55, he says, you're to look to me. And the reason why
we're to look to Christ, not just religious services and just
to be religious people and moral people, it's because Christ is,
he says, my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. And then our Lord explains this
more so in verse 57. In 58 he says, As the living
Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth
me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came
down from heaven, not as your fathers did eat manna, and are
dead. He that eateth of this bread
of the Lord Jesus Christ shall live forever. So that He's our
life in the beginning, and He sustains us all the way to the
end, and we shall live upon Him forever. Forever. Alright? So, our worship, our service,
and believing on Christ, it's described often in terms of feasting
or feeding upon Him. And we're to let go of those,
trusting in those religious works. It's like when you are going
to visit someone and they invite you over for a meal and you say,
well, I'm coming over Saturday night, what can I bring? Don't
bring anything. I don't need you to bring anything.
God has prepared the feast in full. There's no drink, no dessert,
nothing. Just come as you are because
God has prepared the feast in full. He's done all the works. And Paul shows us that in 1 Corinthians
5, 7 and 8. where he says, I'll give you
time if you want to go there, 1 Corinthians 5. Alright, he says, Purge out therefore
the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover
is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast,
not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and
wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."
So the Lord isn't looking for us to bring that old leaven of
works in the flesh, whatever they are, whether religious or
irreligious, that's not what the Lord is looking for us to
do to come to this feast. He tells us to come, empty-handed,
looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. So that we're just begging the
Lord, Lord, receive me. Lord, save me. except me. Have me, Lord, please forgive
me and deliver me from my sin." So we hear of Christ our Passover
through the gospel in the new man which the Spirit creates
in us, all because of the work of Jesus Christ. And his feast
is prepared, we're told, for all people. all people, Jews
and Gentiles alike. All right, now that new man feeds
upon Christ and his faithful work. And it's through that hearing
of faith, right, that we're nourished and fed and grown and strengthened
all by Christ. And our Lord tells us over, turn
over in Isaiah 55. Isaiah 55, and we'll begin in
verse one. And he says, oh everyone that
thirsteth, alright, this is the sinner who's shown their sin,
they begin to thirst for righteousness because they have none. And they
begin to hunger for righteousness because they have none. And he
says, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he
that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat, yea, come, buy wine
and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend
money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which
satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and
eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself
in fatness, and climb your ear, and come unto me. Here and your
soul shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with
you, even the sure mercies of David. Do you hear the voice
of Christ in that? Do you hear that Christ is our
fatness? That He is the savor of this
meal? That He is the very essence,
the very fullness of this feast? He is the one that we are feasting
upon and He says, come, I've finished the work. All your sins
are put away and you're spotless. You come, look to me, you who
hear my voice come and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." That's
what he's saying to his people. And so the Spirit, pleased to
attend that word, brings that word home to your hearts, helping
you to hear, to see your need of Christ, that you can't save
yourself. And he's not looking to your
works, and your filthy works aren't turning you away either.
not if you're Christ's. Christ is drawing you to himself
in spite of our wicked works and so he teaches us the gospel,
makes us to know that we're dead in trespasses and sins and can't
do anything to fix it or to make it right, that we need everything
that he has provided and so that we know that Christ is the Savior,
the one, the one sent of God to do this very work. And so
he draws us with these cords of love and mercy and tenderness
and forgiveness so that we know and understand all we need is
found in the Lord Jesus Christ. It says over in Psalm 36 verses
8 and 9, They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of
thy house, and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy
pleasures, for with thee is the fountain of life. In thy light
shall we see light." Alright, and we've said it many times,
Jesus Christ is the light and the life of men. And it's in
Christ, in His light, that we see light. He's the one that
makes us to see, and to know, and to understand Him, so that
we see God, and we see that He's Spirit, and that we don't know
how to worship Him, but in Christ. And that's how we worship Him.
Believing on Him whom He has sent. That's what He tells us.
believe on Him whom I've sent, believe Him, trust Him, and all
those who trust Him and look to Him, their sin and shame is
put away, and you shall be received of the Heavenly Father." Alright,
so Christ gives us rest and peace. We find rest and peace in Him
at this feast table there, that God has prepared for us. and
the exalted mountain of our Lord Jesus Christ, of that work which
he has accomplished and completed in himself. Alright, now that
brings us to our third and final point, Christ's victory. Alright,
so in Ephesians 1.3 Paul tells us that God hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Alright, we
know that all spiritual blessings are given to us in Christ. Now
these blessings we'll see here as we go through verse 7 and
8, we'll see that it includes the Holy Spirit because it's
the Spirit of Christ that regenerates us. we're dead in trespasses
and sins, he regenerates us. That means he's giving you life,
spiritual life, whereby in the spirit you know God who is spirit,
and in the spirit you worship God who is spirit. It's in that
new man that Christ has created in us, that new man. This is
not a work of the flesh. It's a work of God. It's the
power of Jesus Christ. And it's the Spirit now giving
us life that removes that veil of darkness. We all come forth
in darkness. We all come forth dead in trespasses
and sins. We don't know what we need to
know. We don't know how to worship
God, so the Spirit removes that veil, lifts that veil now because
Christ has accomplished that for us. He's earned that for
us, that spiritual blessing for us. Look at verse 7 in Isaiah
25, verse 7. And he will destroy in this mountain
the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil
that is spread over all nations." That's all nations. That's the
Jew that had a veil over their heart, and that's the Gentile
who is in darkness, just pagan worshiping, bound by Satan, worshiping
stumps and rocks and worthless things. He's removed that veil
of darkness so that we see him and know him. And Moses himself,
he was given, he had the spirit, he was given life. And he knew
and he understood God. He saw God without a veil on
his face. But the people who saw Moses
and heard Moses speak, they didn't see. They had a veil. They could
not look upon him. They did not understand the things
that Moses understood. They didn't have the knowledge
that Moses had because the Spirit hadn't come upon them. and lifted
that veil and given them that ability to see him. They heard
the law, but they didn't hear the law. They didn't see the
end of the law, that it was pointing to Christ, that it was shutting
them up to Christ. They thought they could do it.
They thought they could do that law, and so they didn't understand.
Turn over to 2 Corinthians 3. And Paul deals with this a bit
in 2 Corinthians 3. He deals with it a lot, but we'll
just look at a few verses. We'll start in verse 14. Paul,
speaking of these Jews that heard Moses, and speaking of the Jews
in his day, and he speaks of the religious, even so-called
Christians, that are binding themselves with the law of Moses.
He speaks to them as well. He says, but their minds were
blinded For until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in
the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ."
So, Paul is telling us that the only way for this veil to be
lifted, for this veil to be removed off of our heart, off of our
understanding, so that we see and know God, is by the Lord
Jesus Christ. There's not other religions,
there's not other paths, there's not other ways to God, it's through
one way. We have one name under heaven
given unto men whereby we must be saved, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Christ is the one that removes
the veil of death that's upon us, alright? And his death put
away the punishment of death for sin. So that now God is just
to forgive us. God doesn't just wink and pretend.
I didn't see that. I'm just going to pretend I didn't
see that. Go on. Finish up quickly now. Move on so I don't have
to see it. No, God is just to forgive us because Christ paid
the price for sin. He paid that debt of righteousness
that we owe to God. He fulfilled all that we owed. He bore the whole wrath of God
and he gave his life for his people. All right, now drop down
to verse 17. It was talking about when we
turn to Christ, that veil is lifted off of us. And he's talking
about the veil that's over our heart and our minds that we're
blinded. But he explains that's not a work of your flesh that's
turning to the Lord, and then the veil's being lifted. It's
a work of God. Look in verse 17. And he tells
us, now the Lord is that spirit And where the Spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty. But we all with open face, beholding
as in the glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the
same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the
Lord." So that's all the work of Christ. It's all the work
of the Lord showing us that we are sinners, Through that, there
was a form of glory there in the Law of Moses. There's a form
of glory in understanding the things that we understood as
Gentiles and darkness, but we're turned from that and brought
this, because that can't save us, we're turned from that to
the glory that God has provided freely and abundantly in His
Son, Jesus Christ. That's the glory that we see.
And when the Spirit turns us, there's liberty because He lifts
off that veil, and we now see Christ our satisfaction, Christ
our Savior, and that we are accepted and have gained entrance to the
throne of God spotless. We won't die, right? Remember
they used to say in the Old Testament, if a man sees God, he's going
to die. That's right, because you're
going to see what you are. You're a filthy, wretched sinner. We
die, but in Christ we have life and know we are now made fit,
thanks to the righteous work of Christ, made fit to stand
before God, who is holy and righteous and perfect. In Christ, we're
delivered from the curse of the law, we're made alive to know
that our salvation is not in some law-keeping and religious
service and religious dead works and all these things that we
used to try to do, but our salvation really is. It stops right there,
begins and ends in the Lord Jesus Christ. Useless religion will
try and turn you back away from Christ, turn you back to the
yoke, because they're under the yoke. And they want you under
the oath because they want to keep you there. Lest a spirit
of adoption should cry out, Abba, Father, have mercy on me. Save
me, Lord. I can't do this law. I can't
save myself or make myself righteous. Lord, have mercy on me. They
don't want you to hear the gospel or to know that because they
don't understand. They're bound under the yoke
of the law, and they want to keep their heroes bound under
the yoke of the law, so they don't want to speak of the glory
of Christ and what He's accomplished. But in that light of Christ,
in the Gospel, as He teaches us and He unwraps those grave
cloths so that our eyes are able to see the light, the light of
Christ, we begin to gain that understanding and to see more
clearly the victories that Christ has secured for His people. We
begin to see and begin to enjoy and rejoice in this feast and
in this work that Christ has done so that we see and understand
what He's done by faith. Until that day when there won't
be a need for faith because we'll rise up and we'll see Him in
the skies. Alright, Isaiah 25 verse 8 says,
He will swallow up death in victory. I'll give you a moment, Isaiah
25 verse 8. he will swallow up death and victory, and the Lord
God will wipe away tears from off all faces, and the rebuke
of his people shall he take away from off all the earth, for the
Lord hath spoken it. So this victory we know was accomplished
at the cross. We're told in Colossians that
Christ blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that were against
us. We couldn't keep the law and
all those ordinances and show of religion that we were supposed
to do, we couldn't do it. And he took that to the cross
and nailed it to his cross and put it away forever so that we
now as believing children we begin to experience the joy and
the rejoicing of the liberty that we have now in Christ. Because
we're told that Christ came in the flesh because his children,
his brethren, also came in flesh and blood, and so he partook
of the same, that through his death, he came that he might
die, that through his death he might destroy him that had the
power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who through
fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. So now you that know Christ and
believe him and are beginning to experience the joy of the
liberty of Christ. You're not afraid to die. You're
ready to die and to meet the Lord. You look forward to that
day. So you're not fearful of death
the way this world is fearful of death because they're wondering,
did I do enough? Are my works sufficient? Is there
really a God? I don't know. And then everything
falls apart there in the final hours. But you who know Christ
and know it's all of Him, He's accomplished the work, it's finished,
you rest and rejoice right there. So this current experience of
joy that we have here in the gospel as He heals us, and comforts
us, gives you peace and rest in Him. This is a foretaste,
right? It's a foretaste of the swallowing
up of death, of the destruction of death and all our enemies,
of sin, of Satan, of this flesh of ours. And Paul says it this
way in 1 Corinthians 15, 54, so when this corruptible shall
have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on
immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written,
death is swallowed up in victory. Alright, so us who have now taken
part of that first resurrection. By God's grace, this is our promised
end. I'll read it in Revelation 21.4.
We're told that God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither
shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed
away. Brethren, these are the rich
blessings that we have in Christ. This is the fruit that's produced
in us at the removal of the rebuke of God off his people. When we
were in darkness and in sin and in the death of useless religion,
we were under the rebuke of God. And we felt it. And we knew,
Lord, I don't know what to do. I can't seem to ever do enough. And I looked up this rebuke,
and this rebuke is used when God is rebuking sin in people. That's where you see it. God
is rebuking the people for their sin. In Psalm 39, 11, and 12,
it says, When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity,
thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth, surely every
man is vanity. And he goes on saying, Hear my
prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry. Hold not thy peace
at my tears. When we were perishing in our
sin, and we were toiling and laboring and rowing hard in debt-laden
religion, and we were trying to do our best and we were crying,
begging God to have mercy and save me Lord, have mercy upon
me Lord, save me. And nothing that we could do
ever turned away the wrath of God from us. We never had peace
and we never had rest at all. And that's because we had to
be brought to see that Christ and Christ alone really is our
peace and our rest. He really is our righteousness
and in him alone That's the only place that we're going to find
rest, is looking to Him and believing that God is satisfied with the
Lord Jesus Christ. So it's Christ now that has done
this work, it's Christ that has delivered us from the wrath of
God. And so now we rejoice with believers like Paul, where Paul
says, In Romans 8, 33 and 34, who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is 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 that now, seeing Christ,
our tears are wiped away because we're told the sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. God doesn't see them. We see
them, we know what we are, but God does not see our sin and
iniquity. So, thank the Lord God, thank
Him for sending His Son. that He gave His Son, that He
spared not His own darling Son to put away your sin, to prepare
this feast for you. Thank the Lord Jesus Christ that
He came willingly as the Lamb of God to do this work, to put
away your sin, to bear that shame and guilt and put it all away
to prepare this feast for you. Because it's through the stroke
that God laid upon Him to slay Him, to take his life in your
place so that the rebuke of God will be removed from you, taken
away, so that you no longer have that fear and those tears that
could not avail for you. Now the blood of Christ has availed
for you. And God has, in Christ, prepared
a feast for you. And He says, come. So I pray
the Lord will bless that word to your heart and help you to
believe Christ, to hear His voice, and to rest in Him. I pray the
Lord will do that for you. So let's close in a hymn, and
then I'll close us in prayer.