Okay, returning to Isaiah chapter
8. Isaiah chapter 8, and we'll be
in verses 19 and 20. Isaiah 8, 19 and 20. Now, as you will recall, we've
been looking in Peter, and Peter's warning to us about false teachers. And he said in 2 Peter 2, 1,
but there were false prophets also among the people, even as
there shall be false teachers among you. And so here in Isaiah
8 verse 19, that's exactly what we see Isaiah speaking about.
He says in verse 19, and when they shall say unto you, and
this is now the false teacher speaking, seek unto them that
have familiar spirits and unto wizards that peep and that mutter,
should not a people seek unto their God for the living to the
dead? Now that's what the false teachers
were saying in Isaiah's day. Now it's true, we should seek
unto our God, but we won't find the Lord among the dead. I'm not going to find him among
the dead because he's the God of the living. Our Lord, when
he was speaking to the Sadducees, Christ said, I am the God of
Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. God is
not the God of the dead. but of the living. And so we'll
find the Lord when we seek him, we'll find him dwelling in light. As Paul said to Timothy, who
only had the immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can
approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor can see, to whom be
honor and power everlasting. Amen. And thanks and praise be
to our Savior because through Christ, we approach unto God
and we come boldly before the throne And that's because Hebrews
4.15 tells us that we have not in high priest, which cannot
be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He's not distant
and removed from us so that we can approach unto him and we
can't Be honest with him and confess our sins and our need
to him, but he was in all points tempted like as we are. He knows
that we are but dust, yet he himself was without sin, that
we might have life through him. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need. Our title is, Seek Your God. Seek Your God. And we'll have
two divisions. We'll look at these peepers and mutterers,
and then we'll see the light of God in our second division. So in verse 19, let's look at
that again. And when they shall say unto you, seek unto them
that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and that
mutter, saying, should not a people seek unto their God for the living
to the dead. Now, when they say, seek unto
them that have familiar spirits, they're saying we should be looking
to, we should be asking those that are dead, those that have
been here and now have passed on. we should be seeking those
that are dead. And they thought that in seeking
the dead, they would know the mind of God or the will of God
concerning something that was troubling them or something that
they needed to know. And so when they say unto wizards
that peep and that mutter, well, these were necromancers. These
are people that claim that they could speak with the dead and
go on behalf of another who had an inquiry for God, they would
go to the dead and speak to them. really these businesses, these
dark arts are still going around today. You have palm readers
and tarot card readers and others that put on these, I guess, seances
and things like that where they speak to the dead. And so these
things still go on around us. But in our text here, they try
to sound very honorable, right? They try to make it sound Like
what they're doing is a good thing, and that it's honorable
in some way. They say, should not a people
seek unto their God? And the answer, of course, is
yes. Yes, they should seek the Lord. But through their teachings,
what they were doing is they were pointing people to death. They were pointing people to
that which is dead. and not to the Lord God of the
living. And they practiced, they were
practiced by those, these things were done by those that are themselves
spiritually dead. There's no light in them. They
don't know the truth of God. They themselves are dead and
so they were practicing these dark and deadly arts. But what
we need to consider for us today is that there's others besides
those businesses, besides those things, there are many that would
point us to dark and ways of death. When they point you to
the flesh, they're pointing you to death. That's not pointing
you to the Spirit of God. That's not pointing you to Christ.
That's not pointing us to the hope of our salvation, which
is to the God of the living. It's not pointing us to Christ,
it's pointing us to that which is dead. Remember what the words
of our Lord Himself said, many false prophets shall rise and
shall deceive many. And these that are the many are
those that are turning the people to the flesh. They're turning
you back to your flesh and wording it in such a way so that you
come away thinking that there's something that you must do, something
that you can do, that you need to do in order to secure your
salvation or to make it more secure. either to justify yourselves
or to sanctify yourselves in some manner, though it might
be subtle, to improve upon what Christ has done because Christ
isn't sufficient for them. So there's something more that
the person professing to believe on Christ needs to do. And Peter
went on to say, saying, but chiefly then that walk after the flesh
in the lust of uncleanness, right? So that either they're turning
you to the lust of your flesh By convincing you that it doesn't
matter what you do now, you can do these things because it feels
good, it feels right. Just do what makes you happy.
And that's throughout all of entertainment today. Just do
what feels right. Do what your heart tells you
to do. But those are ways of death.
Those are things that lead to death. It's like that man who
hearkens to the voice of the adulteress. And the Proverbs
tells us in 727, her house is the way to hell going down to
the chambers of death. And as Peter said in 2.11, we're
to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. So
we know, we know that that's not what we should be doing.
We know that doing that, which we know is rebellious and evil
and hurts our brethren and sins against our own flesh. We know
that those things aren't right for us to do. They're not profitable
for anybody. They war against the soul and
we have the spirit of Christ that shows us and teaches us
that which is true and right. And then the other thing we saw
is that they teach you to despise government. They teach you to
despise the authority of Christ, that we're not our own. Christ
has bought us. He's purchased us with his own
blood and therefore we're not to use our liberty for an occasion
for the flesh just to secretly do what we would do or to boast
in our own sanctification, our own justification. We boast in
Christ because it's Christ who has justified us and Christ who
has sanctified us and Christ who gives us all things necessary
for our life. and to be able and to be clean
and to be righteous and to stand before him confidently, to come
before him boldly. It's all in Christ and what he's
done. And so that despising of government, you see that when
they seek to establish their own righteousness. That's a despising
of the authority of God and salvation. As Paul said in Romans 10, 3
and 4, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going
about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God. They're despising the
government. They're despising the authority
of Christ. He's provided the way of salvation.
He's provided righteousness for his people, and yet it's not
enough for them. It's not sufficient for them,
so they seek to improve upon it. But the scriptures tell us
that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believe it because it's by faith. We are made aware, we come into
the knowledge of what Christ has accomplished for us through
the faith which he's given to us. That's why we have faith
that we might know the things that are freely given to us in
Christ Jesus our Lord. Now turn over to Romans 4. Romans
4, and let's look there at verse 13 and 14. And Paul affirms this, saying,
for the promise that he should be the heir of the world, Romans
4, 13, speaking of Abraham, for the promise that he should be
the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through
the law. The law wasn't even given yet.
It wasn't through the law, but through the righteousness of
faith. For if they which are of the
law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none
effect. Now, I realize that it is a scary
thing to trust Christ and to believe that Christ really is
sufficient, to really, to just rest in Him and to believe that
God is, He accepts us on the basis of Christ and Christ alone. He's pleased with the Son. He
sent Him for this very purpose and He's given us assurances
by raising Him from the dead that in Him is life. In Him, we have peace with holy
God the creator, the judge of all the earth, who hates the
wickedness and the sin of men, yet he's established peace for
us through his son Jesus Christ. And it's fearful to those that
are in the flesh, it's fearful to rest upon Christ wholly and
completely, but to stand on any other ground to look to add anything
to Christ is to stand on sinking sand. It's not going to be good
for those who are trusting in their works plus Christ or their
works alone or anything that is in addition to the Lord Jesus
Christ, whether it's for justification and even for sanctification.
Now, false prophets in our day, they're no different than the
wizards that were in Isaiah's day. These were religious persons. Back in Isaiah's day, they were
religious persons. In our day, these are often very
religious persons. And they set themselves up as
guides and as teachers. They're wizards that peep and
that mutter. And in that day, they actually
did some form of muttering, some kind of weird talking over what
they were trying to do and accomplish. And it was just an evil thing
that they were doing. They were trusting in their works
and what they were doing to provoke some kind of spiritual happening
of some sort. But the Lord said, in vain do
they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of
men. Let them alone, they be blind, leaders of the blind,
and if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. So false teachers, they're just
wizards of the flesh, and they deceive with good words and fair
speeches by their works, by their words which are darkened. They're
not speaking of that which is light, they're not being clear
and honest with the scriptures that Christ really is our salvation
and he's our confidence and we are to rest in him. And it's
better to sit under a man who's like Paul was described. His
presence is weak and his speech is contemptible but that he faithfully
preaches Christ. It's better to sit there under
someone who, though he may not be the greatest of speakers,
but he faithfully preaches Christ. As Paul determined not to know
anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. That's much better than sitting
under a brilliant orator, someone who can just weave and spin words
with grace and like butter and yet all they're doing is speaking
of the flesh and things that leave you with a sense that there's
something that you must do to complete the salvation. There's
something that you must do to ensure your preservation. There's
something that you must do to make yourselves more holy, more
acceptable, more pleasing with God. God is God. He's going to grow his people. He will teach them and lead them
and guide them as they need to grow in our salvation and to
be used as God sees fit to use us. He's not going to allow us
to just go off wildly into sin. We may stumble and we sin because
this flesh is evil, but the Spirit of God knows how to chasten us.
He knows how to bring it to our mind. He knows how to show us
that which we're doing which is not profitable. and is not
good and how it's just working a warfare against our soul and
is hurting the Brethren in some way. He knows how to do all that.
Trust him. We can really, really trust him. So we don't want to be directed
away from Christ. We need to hear Christ. We need
to hear Him more and more and more because that's where we're
comforted and that's where we're given hope. And that's where
He instructs us and teaches us in the way of life. Now turn
over to Romans 8. Romans 8, verses 5 through 8. I think there's a few more verses
I have from Romans, but Romans 8. And we go here a lot, but
it's so true. But Romans 8, 5 says, for they
that are after the flesh, because that's what they are. They're
after the flesh. They're talking by the flesh. And they're using
human reason and logic to describe salvation, to make it something
that's obtainable to the carnal mind, to the flesh. And they
that are after the flesh, they do mind the things of the flesh.
But they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For
to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded
is life and peace. Now he's going to say, the problem
with cunning words that are produced from carnal minds, it's because
the carnal mind is enmity against God. That's why they're not good
for us. That's why they're not profitable. For it is not subject
to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are
in the flesh cannot please God. so don't be turned to the flesh.
So when they shall say unto you, should not a people seek unto
their God? And then they turn you to the lust of your flesh,
or they turn you to the law of Moses. What they're saying is,
seek unto your God for the living among the dead. They're just
turning you to the flesh, and the flesh is dead. The flesh
is not spiritually alive, and the flesh doesn't produce that
which is pleasing to God. It earns us no merit or favor
with God. So our response is, no, we shouldn't
seek unto God by looking to dead things that have no life and
no help. for us. We're to seek God among
the living. As the angel said to the women
at the empty tomb, why seek ye the living among the dead? Why
go unto the dead to seek him that's alive and has been raised
from the dead? He's in light. He's our God.
Seek unto the Lord among the living, in living ways, in paths
that are light and that are blessed and that the Spirit leads us
through. Alright, and that brings us to
our second point, the light of God. So in verse 20 now, in Isaiah
20, we read this verse, to the law
and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word,
it is because there is no light in them. So the law and the testimony,
the scriptures and the spirit both testify the same thing.
They both testify of the Lord Jesus Christ. In John 5.39, Christ
told the Jews, Search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have
eternal life, and they are they which testify of me, of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the Scriptures. And then
he also spoke of the Spirit, saying in John 15, 26, but when
the Comforters come, whom I will send unto you from the Father,
even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he
shall testify of me. So the Lord's saying the scriptures
are testifying of me. The Spirit is testifying of me. So if both the scriptures testify
of Christ and the Spirit, the Holy Spirit testifies of Christ,
then shouldn't we, shouldn't that be the substance of of our
speech and that be what we preach and what we declare that it's
Christ is our salvation and that he is sufficient and able to
save us to the uttermost, that we don't need to look to other
things, to the law of Moses, which works wrath, which was
to show us our sin. We don't need to look to that
for life and to understand how to love our brethren. We have
the spirit of Christ that teaches us and you know how he deals
with you. He's dealt with me, I'm confident
he's dealt with each of you. When there was something that
had to go, he knew just how to put his finger on it and to remove
it. And just how to deal with you
in such a way so that it was removed. And it wasn't by your
flesh, and it wasn't because you just dug your heels in and
said, no, I'm not going to do that anymore. The Lord dissolved
it. The Lord took it away. Through
whatever chastening or whatever means he chose, he removed it. Because he knows how to do it.
and it comes through the preaching of the gospel of Christ. It comes
through declaring Him and Him bringing us back to the Lord
Jesus Christ over and over and over again. Now, turn over to
Romans 1. Romans 1. We'll look at a few
more passages in Romans. In Romans 1, in verse 1, we're
going to look at the first six verses here. Romans 1. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God. gospel of God, which Paul, when
he was writing to the Ephesians, just stay there in Romans, but
when he was writing to Ephesians in Ephesians 3, 5, he said, which
in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men as it is
now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. So that through their writings,
through the writings of the prophets, through the writings of the apostles
and by the Holy Spirit, this gospel of God is now made known
unto us as well. We know and understand what the
gospel of God is, what the good news is. Verse 2, which he had
promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning
what? Concerning his son Jesus Christ
our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the
flesh. and declared to be the son of God with power according
to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead
by whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience
to the faith not the law of Moses not obedience to Moses but obedience
to the faith to this gospel of God but among all nations for
his name among whom are ye also the call of Jesus Christ. So you see how the apostles who
looked at the Old Testament, who had the Spirit, and saw that
the prophets were declaring Christ, they spoke of Christ as our hope,
of Christ as being all our need, and all our salvation, and all
our sufficiency, that he would teach us that we might understand
what the scriptures are saying, that the scriptures are declaring
to us We ourselves are sinners, dead in trespasses and sins.
We don't know how to even worship God, who is a spirit, who seeks
for those to worship him in spirit and in truth. But we see now
in Christ, we have all the spiritual blessings of God poured out upon
us so that we have the spirit whereby we may worship God in
spirit and in truth, because he reveals it to us that it's
all in Christ. He reveals this to us more and
more so that we're settled in Him and not moved by all these
various teachings and all these different denominations and all
these various doctrines and systems of theology. We're not moved
from Christ. We understand that Christ is
our hope and He's our salvation. So the natural man yet dead in
his sins, he does not see, when he's looking to the law, he doesn't
see that it's condemning him. He doesn't see because he's blind
and he's in darkness. Now turn over to Romans 2 and
we see this in Romans 2 verse 17. Romans 2.17 Behold, thou art
called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast
of God, and knowest his will, and approvest the things that
are more excellent, being instructed out of the law, and art confident
that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them
which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of
babes, which hast the form of knowledge, and of the truth in
the law. Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou
not thyself? Thou that preachest a man should
not steal, dost thou steal?" And they do. When they boast
of their righteousness, when they speak of how they themselves
are now keeping the law and how they're incrementally climbing
the ladder of sanctification, They're stealing from God. They're
stealing the glory, which is the Lord's, that He Himself is
our Teacher. That He Himself, by His power,
and according to His divine will, grows us and enables us to rest
in Christ and to understand that He's everything to us. Verse
22, Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou
commit adultery? Yes, yes they do. When they point
the bride of Christ, when they speak to the Church of Christ,
and point them to another lover. When they point them away from
Christ, the law of Moses, or any other thing, yes, they're
teaching them adultery. They're turning them away from
our husband, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thou that abhorrest idols, dost
thou commit sacrilege? Yes. By worshiping the God of
your own imagination, by bowing down to that stump, you're committing
idolatry. You're looking to the God of
your imagination. Verse 23, thou that makest thy
boast of the law through breaking the law dishonest thou God. You
don't even see. The carnal man doesn't even see
the plague of his own heart that from the head to the toe he's
corrupted with the plague of sin and he can't set himself
free and he can't even see his own darkness. for the name of
God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you as it's written."
And that's true because when we set ourselves up to be something
when we're not, everybody else can see through us, everybody
sees our hypocrisy and they know that we're just putting on a
show and so the name of God is blasphemed because of that. And
they're not looking to Christ and they don't want to hear the
truth anymore. So there's one we are to hear and one that we
are to preach and to teach and to declare among the sheep, and
that's the Lord Jesus Christ as our salvation, as our hope,
as our rest, as our confidence, as our deliverance. He's our
sanctification. Christ, the Word of God, it says,
to the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to
this word. It is because there is no light
in them. We are to speak according to
Christ who is the word of God. Christ who is the gospel of God. Christ himself is the very word
of God for he is the revelation of God. We understand in no who
God is. We understand His mercy, His
compassion, His kindness, His faithfulness, His justice, His
holiness. We see and understand this all
by looking at Christ because He reveals the Father to us.
When we see Christ, His perfection, and how He had to sacrifice His
own self because of justice, because of God's holiness and
justice to put away our sins, we understand that God is holy
and He doesn't just wink at sin and pretend he doesn't see it,
he dealt with our sin. He put it away justly and righteously
so that we stand before him perfect and whole and just and accepted
of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. So John 1, 4 and 5 says, In him
was life and the life was the light of men and the light shineth
in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. But Christ
is the true light, verse nine, which lighteth every man that
cometh into the world. Now, our Lord said, when he was
speaking to Philip, he said, he that hath seen Christ, he
that seen me, seen Christ in his glorious light, hath seen
the Father, right? If you see Christ, if you know
him and rest in him, you see the Father, you see the fullness
of the Godhead, bodily in the Lord Jesus Christ. In Matthew
11, 27, our Lord said, all things are delivered unto me of my Father.
The whole work of salvation in securing his people and bringing
them to himself, the whole work was given to Christ. by the Father. And no man knoweth the Son, but
the Father. Neither knoweth any man the Father,
save the Son. And he to whomsoever the Son
will reveal him." The law of Moses isn't going to reveal God
the Father to you. All you'll see is his wrath. You'll see his hatred against
sin. You'll see his holiness. But you don't see any mercy.
You don't see compassion. You don't see forgiveness. You
don't see those things. They're in Christ and Christ
alone. And that's because the law worketh wrath. That's Romans 4.15. The law worketh
wrath. But Christ is the revelation
of the grace of God toward his people. You see there the grace
of God in working salvation for his people. So when they speak
of death by turning you back to your flesh, saying unto you,
seek unto them that have familiar spirits. and unto the wizards
that peep and that mutter. They're just liars and they're
speaking of a liberty that they know nothing of. They that would coerce us with
good words and fair speeches, and I get it. When we see our sin and we see
the corruption of our own heart and there's someone there to
tell you, well, if you just looked at the law, if you turned to
the law, this wouldn't happen. And when you're in that fragile
position, you might be willing to hear them. But that which
is most needful, and that which is life, is being turned to the
Lord Jesus Christ. He is our salvation, and we're
to rest in Him. And these trials and these temptations
do come to prove us in the sense that God knows that we're His. He knows. It's to show us and
to draw us near to Him and to show us that this world is full
of deceit and deception and things which will not stand and speak
well for us in the day that we need them to speak for us. But
there's one that will speak well for His people. There's one that
will stand and call us brother and call us his friend and call
us his bride and call us his love and his joy and call us
precious. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
There's none like him who is so faithful and kind and just
and compassionate. We've seen that many times now
in the scriptures together where we've seen that mercy of Christ. Don't doubt that mercy. Don't
doubt that grace and don't doubt his sufficiency and his ability
to do for you what you need that you may stand before God confident
on that day. If we're looking to our works
and we're looking to our own flesh and something that we've
done we tremble and we fear because for every so-called good thing
we can find something that knocks that thing right out more than
just one to one but even ten or a hundred or a thousand to
one We see so many things that just show the corruption in our
heart, but we're confident in Christ. We trust Him, and that's
what I want us to see. We'll just skip down to 2 Corinthians,
2 Corinthians 2, 17. Paul's writing to the Corinthians,
and he has much love and tenderness for that
people. And he said in 2 Corinthians
2.17, he said, For we are not as many which corrupt the word
of God, but as of sincerity, but as of God and the sight of
God speak we in Christ. Because it's Christ that was
crucified for you. It's Christ who shed his precious
blood and that his blood redeems us. He purchased us and he gave
his life for us and he gives us life by his Spirit. So we're
alive in him. We're regenerated and have life
and know the truth of God as it's revealed in Christ because
he's brought us out of darkness into light, into fellowship with
him by his Spirit. And down in 2 Corinthians 3 verse
2, he says, Ye, by the Spirit, ye are our epistle, written in
our hearts, known and read of all men. When they look to us,
when they look to you, when they see you, they know what we believe
and what we teach and preach because they see you. You're
an epistle. You're working out that which
you believe. And he says, verse three, for
as much as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of
Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit
of the living God, not in tables of stone. That's a clear reference
to the law of Moses, who came down off the mountain holding
two tablets of stone. He says it's not in tables of
stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart, because the spirit
of God has given us a new heart, and he's written this law to
love your brethren, to love your brethren. And so he's written
that in our hearts, that we're not looking to sin against one
another and just get for ourselves, but we do take thought for one
another and care for one another and lift one another's burdens.
There is a care there. And then look at this next word
in verse four. And such trust have we through
Christ to God. That's how confident we are that
Christ is all we need. Paul himself said, such trust
do we have in Christ to God. We know that he is sufficient
to save us to the utter most. That's the kind of trust and
confidence that we have, that we're putting everything on him. So we stand before God, we're
coming in the hope of one, the hope of the Lord Jesus Christ
and him alone. So he says in verse five, not
that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves,
but our sufficiency, it's of God, who also hath made us able
ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, not the letter,
because the letter kills, but of the spirit, for the letter
killeth, but the spirit giveth life. Drop down to verse 12.
Seeing then that we have such hope, We use great plainness
of speech, and not as Moses, which put a veil over his face
that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end
of that which is abolished. It's been put away. Christ has
fulfilled all the law. It's abolished now. But their
minds were blinded, for until this day, even this day today,
remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old
Testament, which veil is done away in Christ. The veil is done
away in Christ because we understand now, by his spear, he's my hope,
he's my righteousness, he's my confidence before God Almighty. And in Romans 3, 19 through 22,
we see that our righteousness is Christ. As Paul declared,
but now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested,
being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness
of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon
all them that believe, because there's no difference. There's
no fleshly advantage, whether you're a Jew or a Gentile. So
they're witnessed by the law and the prophets. So it's You
know, it's so simple, yet we miss it so often, we don't even
see it. But as Paul wrote, their minds,
it's that their minds should be corrupted from the simplicity
of Christ. So, we preach Christ because
that's the grace of God towards sinners. That's how we have confidence. That's how we have such trust.
It's trusting Christ to stand before Him. This is the condemnation,
that light is coming to the world, and Christ is that light, the
one who God sent to be the propitiation for the sins of the people, to
be the means of forgiveness. And men love darkness rather
than light, because their deeds were evil, which is true of every
one of us that's born of Adam. We all come forth bound in darkness,
spiritually dead. For everyone that doeth evil
hated the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deed should
be reproved. because the natural response
of man, our natural response is to reject the provision of
God's salvation in his son, Jesus Christ. But he that doeth truth
cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that
they are wrought in God. So that is that we come to the
light, we have fellowship in the light, confessing our sins,
knowing that he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins in
the Lord Jesus Christ, and we have that light by the Spirit,
by the regenerating work of the Spirit. So that's our confession
and that's our hope. And I actually wrote an article,
which you'll see if you can read it, but it speaks to what we
just spoke of tonight in the message. And give it a read.
I word things a little bit differently in there, but it's about the
confidence that we have. Such trust have we in Christ
to God. That's so sweet. That shows that
that's why we preach Christ. That's why we know we can preach
the Lord Jesus Christ and know that He keeps His people. He directs His people. He corrects
His people. He blesses His people. He gives
them everything necessary. That's the kind of confidence
we have when we're preaching Him. Otherwise, we'd be preaching
law because we don't have full confidence in Christ to do it.
That bears witness to what we really believe when we're preaching. I pray the Lord to bless that
to our hearts and we'll just close with this prayer because
we already sang our closing hymn, so let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
we thank you for your Son, Jesus Christ, and we thank you for
the light that we have concerning him, Lord, because we know it's
not of the flesh that teaches us that. It's not by the flesh
that we believe these things. It can only be by the life of
your life-giving spirit. It can only be by your work in
us and we confess and make our boast of God through Christ the
Son who as a faithful servant to his Father and as a faithful
husband to his Bride came and did this beautiful work of salvation
to put away our sin and to make us complete and whole and to
clothe us with his righteousness to stand before God in that that
great and terrible day which is coming upon the earth. We
thank you, Lord, and ask that you continue to strengthen us,
Lord, that you would be pleased to make us your epistle, that
you would write your name, your law of love on our hearts, and
that we would walk in your light, having fellowship with you. We
pray this in Jesus' name, our Lord and Savior. Amen.