All right. Okay, let's read Psalm 30. Psalm
30. I will extol thee, O Lord, for
thou hast lifted me up and hast not made my foes to rejoice over
me. O Lord my God, I cried unto thee,
and thou hast healed me. O Lord, thou hast brought up
my soul from the grave. Thou hast kept me alive that
I should not go down to the pit. Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints
of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.
For his anger endureth but a moment. In his favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night,
but joy cometh in the morning. And in my prosperity, I said,
I shall never be moved. Lord, by thy favor thou hast
made my mountain to stand strong. Thou didst hide thy face, and
I was troubled. I cried to thee, O Lord, and
unto the Lord I made supplication. What profit is there in my blood
when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? Shall
it declare thy truth? Hear, O Lord, and have mercy
upon me. Lord, be thou my helper. Thou
hast turned for me my mourning into dancing, and thou hast put
off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness. To the end that
my glory may sing the praise to thee and not be silent, O
Lord my God, I will give thanks unto thee forever. Let's pray. Father, we come to you again
tonight, thankful for our time together. And Father, we're thankful
to hear the word that you're gonna send to us through Eric.
Father, we ask that you open our ears and eyes and hearts
to hear the message that you bring. And Father, we ask that
you always bless this congregation, and Father, always bless our
pastor. And Father, we ask that Christ always be glorified here.
We ask this in Christ's name. All right, we're gonna be in
Isaiah three. Isaiah three, and tonight we're
gonna go through verses six through nine. Isaiah three verses six
through nine. And I'm not going to read that
text. I just want to read verses 10
and 11 again, because here we see in this judgment the overarching
comfort that comes to the believer, even in the midst of judgment
coming upon the wicked, where we may live and see and witness
it. And he says, say ye to the righteous
that it shall be well with him. for they shall eat the fruit
of their doings. Woe unto the wicked, it shall
be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be given him."
Now we've been looking at the Lord's Word which speaks of the
Lord bringing a judgment upon the house of Jacob. And it comes by a great and a
terrible shaking. That's how he describes it, a
great and a terrible shaking that's going to come upon them
so that there are things that will be removed and things that
are given. And all of the judgment is going
to be woe and ill to the wicked, but it shall be well with the
righteous. And we saw how God removes vital
occupations, from the wicked so that they are stressed and
it comes as a judgment to them so that they don't have the things
that they have need of or the things that they're used to having
and they're discomforted by these things and moved by them, you
know, and the Lord also gives them fools to lead them. So it
just gets worse and worse and worse for them. But we looked
and saw how that God through Christ provides everything necessary
for the believer. It's, you know, if and when we
see, you know, judgment come upon a people, even if we're
in that city and there's things that are removed and things that
are terrible to behold and witness, the comfort is that Christ has
made everything to the believer so that even if we go through
the experience and seeing and beholding these things occur
and happen to a people before our very eyes, We have the comfort
of knowing that that God blesses us in his son Jesus Christ. It will be well for us. And you'll
see as you're looking to him that he does fulfill and bless
us in the Lord Jesus Christ. You'll see how things are are
taken away that are made a woe and a painful thing that the
wicked cry out about and are and are distraught by. But you'll
have the peace and the comfort of Christ in your own heart.
Now, if your heart is set on the world, if you love and pursue
the things of the world, then yeah, you're going to feel these
things as a woe to your own heart. But if your love and your affections
are set upon Christ, then you'll see how he provides and sustains
you and keeps you through that time of trouble and judgment
coming upon the wicked. Now tonight, we'll see more how
at the root of it all, the problem is with man. Man is the problem,
right? He is utterly ruined so that
he lies under a cloud, a thick cloud of darkness. He lies in
sin, and because of sin, he's dead. He's dead in trespasses
and in sin, so that man can't save himself. He can't provide
a righteousness for himself. He can't undo what's been done. He can't make right everything
that's been destroyed. He's utterly ruined. And that's
our title, is utterly ruined. And we'll just have two divisions,
and see the ruin of man, and then we'll see the pride of man.
All right, let's read the text in Isaiah 3, verse 6 through
8. When a man shall take hold of
his brother, of the house of his father, saying, Thou hast
clothing, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy
hand. In that day shall he swear, saying,
I will not be a healer, for in my house is neither bread nor
clothing. Make me not a ruler of the people.
for Jerusalem is ruined and Judah is fallen because their tongue
and their doings are against the Lord to provoke the eyes
of his glory. So the first thing we notice
here on the surface is that the situation is really a whole lot
worse than what our imagination is thinking it to be. Because
if you know anything about man, you're never in need of some
man not willing to step up. There's always going to be somebody
willing to step up because he thinks that he can fix it and
he can do it because that's how a man is. He's very ambitious.
There's always ambitious men full of pride and arrogance who
think, I can fix this. Give it to me. I'll take care
of it. I'll set things straight. So we see, though, that it's
so bad because no man is stepping up. And no one wants to lay his
hand to this thing because it's so utterly ruined that He can't
see how this can be fixed or corrected and brought to to to
be corrected in any way Isaiah 1 verse 6 and 7 says from the
sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in
it But wounds and bruises and putrefying sores they have not
been closed neither bound up neither mollified with ointment
your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire,
your land strangers devoured in your presence, and it is desolate
as overthrown by strangers." So the next thing we see here
is that this picture is man's total ruin and sin. The lack of soundness spoken
of in Isaiah 1 6 it's way more than just what has come upon
a city this is what our condition is that we are totally ruined
by sin from the sole of the foot to the to to our head there's
no soundness in us we're just full of sin and full of darkness
and this is the whole condition of man turn over to Genesis 2
and we'll just look at a couple verses in Genesis 2 and 3 but
in Genesis 2 look at verse 16 and And we'll see the root, we'll
see where this begins to, why this is a problem for us today.
The Lord said in Genesis 2.16, the Lord God commanded the man
saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat,
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Thou shalt
not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou
shalt surely die." And we know what Adam did. He ate the fruit,
and from that day, the fellowship that he had with God, it was
severed, and sin entered, and therefore death entered. And
Adam died just as God said. And with that death came the
promise of eternal judgment. Romans 5 12 says wherefore as
by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin and so
death passed upon all men for that all have sinned and so the
scriptures teach now that we're so dead in trespasses and sins
where there's nothing that we can do now we can't do a spiritual
work to provide a righteousness for ourselves or to heal ourselves
or to provide a Covering for ourselves because we have no
righteousness to give ourselves that we can work life in us and
produce any good fruit That's pleasing to God Almighty and
God and man is not going to be able to alter God's holy commandment
because God said in the day you eat of it You shall surely die
or dying thou shalt die and man died spiritually immediately
and his death naturally in the flesh began to work. From that time on he began to
die in the flesh. Now turn over to Genesis 3, Genesis
3 and verse 22. Genesis 3.22, And the Lord God
said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and
evil. And now, lest he put forth his
hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for
ever. So what God is saying is, he's
preventing He's preventing forever man's ability to reach forth
with his own hand and work an eternal life, to give himself
life by his own works and by his own hand. God is saying we're
not going to allow him to take of the tree of life that he may
fix himself and that he may give himself eternal life and right
what he has wronged. So God prevented that. And he
drove him out because God cut him off because of his corruption
and his sin. It says in verse 23, Therefore
the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Edom to till the
ground from whence he was taken. So that we understand that all
that man can produce right now is that which comes forth from
the earth. The only fruits, the only productive
thing that he can do is work the earth, work the ground so
that all he can produce is that which is of The earth he can't
work a spiritual work. He can't fix himself or heal
himself And it's just as Christ said in John 3 6 that which is
born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit
His Spirit. It's nice and simple. It couldn't
be any easier for us than to hear what the Savior said, that
in your flesh you're not going to produce any good work. In
the Spirit, which Christ gives, that's where we bear fruit unto
the living God. So natural men can't do it. So
verse 24, God drove out the man and placed at the east of the
Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned
every way to keep the way of the tree of life. And then we
saw, right after Cain and Abel were born, we see the corruption
of man begin to strike out and begin to work its evil, right? Sin entered the world, it entered
into the heart of every man so that all of us who came forth
from Adam had that sin nature in us. And it strikes, it shows
itself very early in Cain because Cain would slay his brother Abel
because God respected the offering that Abel brought, but he did
not respect the offering that Cain brought to him. So that
in Cain we see immediately a man who's attempting to earn the
favor of God by his own works, by what he thinks God should
accept and what God should be pleased with, right? And because
he can't, he gets angry and he persecutes those whom God loves
and whom God does accept and receive in himself. So in Genesis
4.8, Genesis 4.8, we see that Cain talked with Abel, his brother,
and it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose
up against Abel, his brother, and slew him. So we see that
working of sin and death in us very early in the creation, very
early in the time of man. But in the passage of time, God
would establish a nation, and he would set up a people in whom
that he would reveal his name to them. And he would give them
a law that they might know him. or rather that they might know
the evil that's in their heart. And seeing that evil, that they
would fall on their face and cry out to God and seek Him for
mercy and for forgiveness and to help them by providing a salvation
and a covering for them because they should see that they don't
please God by their works. Romans 3.20 tells us. Romans
3.20 says, By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified
in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. In Romans
5.20 it says, The law entered that the offense might abound. So that when we see the law,
if you look into the law with an understanding, you see and
you begin to recognize, wow, I'm way more sinful than I ever
thought because I offend God in all things. Everything I do,
everything I try to do is an offense to God because I'm not
perfect. So when I put my hand to the
work, All it does is that which destroys and corrupts and is
sin and doesn't work any good for the people. Certainly the
Lord himself is not pleased with what we do. And in Romans 3.19
it says, now we know that what things soever the law saith,
it saith to them who are under the law that every mouth may
be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God.
But carnal man, being what he is, he doesn't hear what the
law is saying. He doesn't understand that the
law is saying you're not going to please God by coming to him
through the law. You can't do it. You don't measure
up. You're supposed to see that you're
falling short and that you can't do that which is accepted. So
does man shut his mouth and fall before the Lord and bow before
him and seek him for mercy? No, he doesn't. He continues
on in his way and he continues looking to the law. And in Isaiah
3, verse 6, we see a picture of what happens when a man turns
to the law and seeks the law for righteousness. In Isaiah
3, 6 there, it says, When a man shall take hold of his brother,
of the house of his father, saying, Thou hast clothing, be thou our
ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand." So man looks to the
law here thinking that it will be his righteousness, thinking
that it's going to help him and provide for him and be his righteousness. And he says, Thou hast clothing. But the law, we know, can't provide
a covering for sin. All that the law does is expose
our sin. It makes plain and obvious what
sinners we really are. The scriptures teach that Christ
alone provides the clothing for his people. He's the one who
provides a covering. It says in Isaiah 61 verse 10,
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. This is the believer who's
been shown that he's nothing with the law, but that Christ
has provided everything for him. And he rejoices in the Lord. And he says, my soul shall be
joyful in my God, for he hath clothed me with the garments
of salvation. He hath covered me with the robe
of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments,
and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. Now man also
thinks by looking at the law that he can restore the ruin
that has come upon man. He says to the law, let this
ruin be under thy hand. But the scriptures teach that's
not why the law was given. It wasn't given to restore man
and to make him to be righteous and holy. It was given that every
one of our mouths would be stopped and that the world would become
guilty before God. So it's not to restore, it's
to shut our mouths and cause us to see that we're nothing.
that we can't save ourselves, we can't do a good work. So God
alone has to write the law upon our heart, and not that law of
Moses, but the law of Christ, that he is everything, that he's
our salvation, that he's our covering, and he provides our
righteousness and the forgiveness that we need to stand before
holy God. It says in Hebrews 8.10, for
this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their
mind and write them in their hearts and I will be to them
a God and they shall be to me a people. So God has provided
the restoration for the people. He's the one who restores fallen
man so that man now may know God and have fellowship with
him and serve before him in true righteousness and in true holiness.
But it doesn't come by the works of man, it comes by the work
the Lord Jesus Christ whom the Father has provided he gave his
only begotten Son to fulfill all righteousness in his people
so that Christ paid the redemption price to redeem his people that
price being his own blood that he shed willingly to redeem us
from from the The works of a sinful dead man when he sinned against
God when he transgressed his holy law All right, and so some
69 for says this is Christ speaking. He says then I restored that
which I took not away. Christ didn't sin. Christ didn't
ruin this. He didn't wreck this work. This
was between man and Satan. Satan saying some things and
the man believing it and saying, all right, yeah, I think that
sounds good. I think I'd like to be like God and know good
and evil. And he plunged himself and all
of us into sin and into death. And yet Christ is the one who
paid the price to restore us back to that fellowship that
we had with God before we fell in the garden. So Christ restored
that. He paid the price with his own
blood. And yet man still refuses to
hear. And so the law goes on and says
to the man even further in Isaiah 3 verse 7, in that day shall
he, the law swear, saying, I will not be a healer. For in my house
is neither bread nor clothing. Make me not a ruler of the people.
The thing is, if there's anyone here that is still looking to
the law, or anyone who hears my voice later on, if you're
looking to the law for your righteousness, how is it that you can be content
with your works? Your works are not going to stand
for you in that day when you stand before God who is holy,
holy, holy. Our works are not going to stand
up for us in that day. We're going to then see and know
just how weak and flimsy and foolish we were to trust in the
things that we have done here in this flesh. The law cannot
heal. All the law can do is condemn.
Paul called it a ministration of condemnation. It was in 2
Corinthians 3.9, a ministration of condemnation. And he called
it a ministration of death, written and engraven in stones. written
in engraving stones, that's in 2 Corinthians 3.7, Christ alone
is the one who heals his people. In Malachi 4.2, but unto you
that fear my name shall the son of righteousness arise with healing
in his wings and ye shall go forth and grow up as calves of
the stall. so that we who fear his name,
it isn't that it drives us to the law where we try to work
up a greater amount of righteousness, that's what we did in the flesh
when we were dead in trespasses and sins and didn't have the
spirit of Christ, but now we who fear his name know All my
salvation is in Christ. Lord, please don't withdraw Christ
from me. Keep me looking to and loving
the Lord Jesus Christ and trusting in him alone because we know
the wickedness of our own heart. And we know that that drive that
we had that turns us away from Christ naturally to go after
foolish things, especially thinking the law is our righteousness.
So we're looking to him to keep us, to keep our heart and keep
us looking to the Lord Jesus Christ in him alone. Turn over
to John 6. Here we'll see that the law cannot
satisfy us with bread, because there's no bread in the house
of Moses. There's no bread in Moses' house.
So in John 6.31, the Jews said to Christ, John 6.31, The Jews
said to Christ, our fathers did eat manna in the desert. As it's
written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. And Jesus said
unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not
that bread from heaven, but my father giveth you the true bread
from heaven. For the bread of God is he which
cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. Drop down
to John 6, 48. Christ continues saying, I am
that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in
the wilderness and are dead. Dead. So you who are a law man,
who look to the law for your righteousness, do you hear what
it says? They had the law in the wilderness and they all died. They all died under the law. It didn't profit them. Christ
says, this is the bread which cometh down from heaven that
a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which
came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh. which I will give for the life
of the world." So these are spiritual words, brethren, which if a man
is born of the Spirit of Christ, he'll understand. He'll understand
what Christ is saying because Christ himself is the very life
of the believer. And Christ himself is the very
righteousness of the believer. And the believer is given life
and light to see in Christ all his hope, all his salvation,
all his peace, all his rest. Everything that God requires
is given to the child of God in Christ Jesus, fully and completely
set. There's nothing left for us to
do. The very act of giving his life
and dying for his people in that our Savior justified his people
with God and he reconciled us to God so that now we have that
fellowship restored with God our Savior and he sanctifies
us completely so that we don't even have to look back to the
law for our sanctification. because Christ has made unto
us sanctification along with wisdom and redemption and righteousness. He's made all those things to
us, 1 Corinthians 1.30. So we don't need to do it. Christ
does it in us. He works it in us. He'll be sure
to give us and keep us everything that we need. So those who believe
that Christ accomplished their salvation in his death, they
are eating his flesh. You who believe on Christ and
stay upon Christ, you eat his flesh.