If you take your Bibles now and
turn with me to Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 17. We're looking
at verses 10 and 11 this morning. Isaiah chapter 17, verses 10
and 11. And I've entitled this message... I told Scott this was a cheerful
title, so get ready. It's, The Misery of Self-Planted
Afflictions. The misery... of self-planted
afflictions. And I promise this, if we avoid
this, it will be joyful. If we can avoid this, if God
would be gracious to us to avoid this by this, take this warning
to heart and cause us to avoid self-planted afflictions, then
I promise it won't be miserable, it'll be joyful. So I pray the
Lord would use it in that way today. So let's read these verses
together. The Scripture says, Because thou
hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been
mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore, what's the result
of not being mindful? Here it is. Therefore shalt thou
plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips." That
means foreign seeds. Foreign seeds. They don't belong
there. They're foreign. They don't go with this. And
He says, "...in the day thou shalt make thy plant to grow,
and in the morning thou shalt make thy seed to flourish." In
other words, these strange seeds, you're going to nurture them.
You're going to watch them. You're going to anticipate good
fruit from them. You're going to take care of
them. You're going to rise up early in the morning and you're
going to take care of these strange seeds. But notice the result. The harvest is not going to be
what you think it is. He says, It shall be a heap in
the day of grief and of desperate sorrow. Some translate that Deadly despair. Deadly despair. Now, the Word
of God. We know this, that the Word of
God is plain concerning the lot and the circumstances of fallen
man. When our father sinned, when
our father sinned, the judgment of God fell on him and, listen,
his whole race. Wherefore, as by one man's sin
entered into the world, and what was that? What was the result?
The result was death. Death by sin. But it did not stop at Adam,
did it? It passed. Death passed upon all men, for
all have sinned. And when Adam sinned, what's
the first thing he did when he heard God's voice? He ran. What
does natural man do when he hears the voice of God, the Word of
God? He runs to hide himself. He does not desire to hear the
living God. Now, I drove by several churches
this morning and many of them are full. They're just full.
But most of them in our day, they don't know this God and
yet they're full. Man loves a God He's religious. Man is very religious by nature. And he loves to make a God, a
God of his own imagination. And that God he has no problem
with. That God he will hear, because that God he can hide
from. That God he can put in a corner. Why do men do this? Because the
carnal mind is enmity against God. It's not subject to the
law of God, neither indeed can be. Therefore, the only hope
for such sinners... Now, this is why we're here. We have hope for such sinners
as that. The only hope for sinners is in our text. Look at this. The God of thy salvation. The
only hope for sinners is a God of salvation. And, listen, He's
also described as a rock of strength, a fortress, a foundation stone,
something you can rest your soul on, something that can actually
shield you from the wrath of God. It's Christ Jesus the rock. That's the hope of Adam's fallen
race. And we'll soon see that He alone
did actually redeem the elect of God. And all who rest upon
this rock, this foundation, listen, they shall not be ashamed. When this is all over, when this
is all done, when we stand before God, we are not going to be disappointed. I'm going to talk about disappointment
today, because these pleasant plants, and we're going to describe
what they are when we plant them, when God's people plant them.
And we expect something out of them. We're going to be disappointed.
But there's one thing you're not going to be disappointed
in if you're in Christ. You're not going to be disappointed.
God is going to give you the kingdom. You're not going to
be ashamed. Listen to what it says in Zephaniah
3, verse 11. It says, In that day thou shalt
not be ashamed. Disappointed. for all thy doings wherein thou
hast transgressed against me." Now that's something to be ashamed
of. And yet he says, even though you've done this, in that day
you will not be ashamed. Now why is that? For, I will
take away out of the midst of thee them that rejoice in thy
pride. And thou shalt no more be haughty
because of my holy mouth. And he said, I'm going to take
away your enemy. That's why you're not going to be ashamed. I'm
going to take away all your enemies. What are your enemies, believer?
Sin is your enemy. Self is your enemy. Satan is
your enemy. The world is your enemy. And
God says, you're not going to be disappointed. Why? I'm going to remove those
things. And He did. Christ removed those things at
the cross. He destroyed our enemies. He removed them out of the way.
He removed our sins. How far? Tell me how far He removed
your sins from you. Scripture says as far as the
east is from the west, so far as He removed our sins. Therefore,
we may come before this throne of grace and never be disappointed. We shall receive the full inheritance
of Christ that He merited and purchased with His blood. And
so in that day when He comes, or either we go. We may go. We
may die before He comes back. Or we may live until He comes
back. But either way, we're not going
to be disappointed in that day. None of those who believe in
Christ. Why? It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the
kingdom. You know it's God's pleasure to give it to you. That
sounds foreign, doesn't it? Why? Because of all of our sins. Are you sure? Are you sure He's
going to give it to me? Yes. It is your Father's good pleasure
to give you the Kingdom. Those on the Shepherd's right
hand, He shall say, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit
the Kingdom, listen, prepared for you from before the foundation
of the world. Believers in Christ, you are
born again of the Spirit of God, you should rejoice, for it is
your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom, and He
will give it to you." He will give it to you. But until then, until then, we know this to be
true. Because of Adam's fall, there
is a secondary curse. It is a curse upon the earth.
He not only condemned man by nature, He cursed the earth in
which man lives. So all that we do in this world
is full of trouble, difficulties, sorrows, pains. That's because of the curse.
He said this, Cursed is the ground for thy sakes. In sorrow shalt
thou eat of it. Do you eat of it? Well, how are
you going to eat of it? and sorrow. I'm not a used car
salesman. I'm not here to tell you that
this life is going to be happy, healthy, and you're going to
be wealthy and satisfied. No, that's a lie. That's not
true. Not for believers anyway. That
may be true for the lost because this is all they have. For us,
our Lord said, in this world you shall have tribulation. This world is full of thorns
and thistles and briars, which is a picture of vexation and
disappointment. Now, in that day, you won't be
disappointed. But in this day, you are. We have many disappointments. Is that not true of you? Because
I know it's true of me. There are many disappointments.
I am disappointed every day. Every day. That's why Solomon
said, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, and vexation of spirit. You've not found that to be true?
Isn't it vexing? If you just look upon the things
under the sun, it's vexing. It's discouraging, isn't it? Therefore God, having decreed
disappointments, These disappointments are not isolated, they're not
accidents, they're not happenstance, they're decreed disappointments. They're decreed sorrows. And
listen, no man escapes the sorrows of this life. No man. You can
work as hard as you want to, you can try. I do. I try to escape every sorrow
I can get out of. I don't want to be in any trouble. And yet, no matter how hard I
try and labor, I fail. This is a result of the curse.
But understanding this, knowing that we won't escape these, should
encourage us to prepare for them. Though we are heirs of old things,
yet we are also heirs of trouble. In this life, disappointments.
In the other life, no. No disappointment. But here,
full of disappointments. We should prepare. I'll illustrate
it like this. You have a good sailor, and he's
going out to do business in great waters. There's a Scripture.
I'm not trying to go back to Psalm 107, but that's just true
of us as believers. We are set out to do business
in this world, in great waters. And this sailor, he starts out,
and the water's calm at the port. Everything's well. Do you not suppose if he is a
good sailor, he would anticipate storms? He would prepare before
leaving port that he's going to be in a storm, if he's a wise
sailor. If he's a foolish sailor, he'll
just put his finger in the wind and say, ah, look, it's calm
here. I just suppose everything's going to work out. Presumption. He's a presumptive
sailor, isn't he? He's just assuming everything's
going to be just like this always. We would count that sailor a
fool, wouldn't we? He's a fool. If that sailor goes
out and he's a wise sailor, he anticipates the storm before
it gets there, he sees the storm coming and tries to avoid it. That would be a wise sailor.
Now, he always can't do that, right? Can't always avoid the
storm. And so he's trying to avoid the storm. If that sailor
and his ship went down, we would honor that man. We would say
he tried everything he could to save his crew and that vessel. He was an honorable man, though
he went down with the ship in trouble. You take the other man,
the foolish man, and he goes in the storm, and he says he
just presumes he's going to make it through and doesn't try to
avoid it at all. We would call that man a fool. Well, everything's
just going to work out. That man's a fool. And when that
ship went down, we would cast him as a fool. He would be responsible
for the death of his crew. And I'll tell you this, if that
man were so foolish, it would be very cutting to him. If he
survived, it would be very cutting to him. that it was his fault.
It was his fault. In other words, it was self-inflicted. Self-inflicted. Believer, seeing
that sin remains in this flesh and this world opposes us, seeing
that we are promised troubles and afflictions, let us not have
self-inflicted wounds. To be a foolish sailor is a self-inflicted
wound. To not prepare for trouble is
foolishness. The most cutting sorrow is that
we may face, and the most keen miseries we feel are those that
are self-inflicted. Is that not true? I mean, there's
something somebody does to you. You can't help that. But then
there's something you do that you can help, and you do it anyway. And the consequences are grave.
And you see that that's self-inflicted. God's Word stings the most against self-inflicted
miseries. It says this in Jeremiah. He
says, Hast thou not procured this? And what he's talking about
is misery. He's talking about judgment.
He's talking about the chastening hand of God. He said, And this
chastening hand, this misery, You have procured unto thyself,
in that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God. You willfully forsook
God, you willfully neglected the only refuge in the storm,
and what you are receiving is a just reward of your foolishness. In verse 19 of that same chapter,
he said, Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backsliding
shall reprove thee. Therefore know and see that it
is an evil and bitter thing to forsake the Lord." Self-inflicted wounds teach us
one thing, it is a bitter thing to neglect God. It is a bitter
thing. Believers in Christ, this world
is full of sorrow and griefs and dangers and troubles, full
of enemies. We have an enemy. Satan walketh
about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. We have this
world as an enemy. We have this flesh and self as
an enemy. Our nature is pitted against
us to drag us away from Christ, and we are constantly battling
Him every single day of our lives. We are lured by the affections
of the world, the affections of the flesh, the pleasures of
earth, and therefore let us as wise sailors then anticipate
these things. Anticipate these things so that
we will not suffer the misery of self-inflicted wounds. We won't suffer the painful sting
of our own folly in willfully neglecting Our God, and that's
what our text is. Because thou hast forsaken, forgotten
God, the God of thy salvation. Because you were not mindful
of the rock of your strength. Therefore this calamity has now
come upon the people of Israel. And this message is for believers.
Believers. I tell you this, it's not possible
for us to be separated from God, is it? It's not possible, is
it? Listen to what Christ said. He
said, No man shall pluck them out of my hand. The Father which gave to me is
greater than all. No man shall pluck them out of his hand. We
are in a vital union with the Lord Jesus Christ. You are believers
in Christ. You're in a vital union with Him. And I know this
for sure, that our salvation is sure. Sure, it's steadfast. I know that it's steadfast. But
I know this, we still, we can forget God. God can't forget
us. God won't forget us. God won't forsake us. But I'll
tell you this, we are capable of forsaking Him. We are capable
of leaving Him. Over in 2 Timothy chapter 2,
Paul said this, If we believe not, listen, he cannot deny himself.
You see, we can have unbelief. But see, God cannot deny himself.
But I'll tell you this, if we do forget God, it is a painful
thing. It will be a painful thing. Paul
said this in another place, If any man thinketh he sin, take
heed, lest he fall. And here God warns us of this
miserable sin this miserable sin and prescribes
for us the consequences of willful neglect, of foolish neglect to
forget Him. And He tells us what you're going
to do if you forget Him. This is just plain. You shall
do this. If you are forgetting God, this
is what you'll do. You'll plant pleasant plants
and thorn seeds. You'll nourish them. You'll cherish
them. And this will always be the result.
they will always be sorrow. So what's the point here? Forget
God equals misery. Forgetting God. And so I've got
four things. I've got four things here for
you in this text I want us to see. First of all, the forgetting
of God. Who is the God we are forgetting? He is thy salvation and the rock
of thy strength. Secondly, the cause and result
of our forgetting. What do we do when we forget
Him? We plant these pleasant plants and foreign seed. Third, we're going to see the
temporary prosperity of such planting. And fourth, we're going
to see the harvest of such plants. So first of all, let us look
and behold the God we are forgetting. It's always important to set
Him first, isn't it? It's always important for you
to see Him. And that's my desire out of this
first point is that you see Him. That you behold Him. And I want
you to know this text is not talking to unbelievers. It's
talking to believers here. This is talking to God's people.
Notice what He says, the God of thy salvation. You see? These are people who are saved
by the God of their salvation. They have forgotten Him, but
they've been saved by Him. They were mindful of the rock
of their strength, but now they are not mindful of the rock of
their strength, which is Christ. And so we see this is God's people
that it is speaking to. And behold, hear the warning,
God the God of thy salvation And so let us see our eyes set
our eyes on him consider the goodness and loving-kindness
of such a God Consider the God we are we forget that God is
merciful Gracious Slow to anger and plenteous in redemption Now,
why would you forget a God like that? How foolish is it us to
forget a God of such grace, a God of such mercy, set our minds
and hearts upon Christ, who is not only the God of our salvation,
but the rock of our strength. How is it that we should have
strength to stand before God? It is because we are on the foundation
of Christ. Because Christ is our mighty
fortress that shields us from the wrath of God, who endured
the wrath of God in our stead. He is a mighty rock, a mighty
fortress. Why would we be so mindful to
not be mindful of Him? Why would you not be mindful
of Him? What great things He has done. Consider the God of
our salvation. He planned our salvation. He
accomplished our salvation. He applies our salvation. And
He keeps our salvation. In other words, He does it all.
Why would you ever forget a God like that? Our salvation was
no accident, was it? It was on purpose. It was a matter
of love. God says, My heart is indicting
a good matter. My hand has a pen and is ready
to write. That's what He says, ready to
write. What does he write? He writes
this. I created thee. I formed thee. I redeemed thee. I called thee. I did that. God did that. The God of our salvation. So
see the whole mind of God and the heart of God and the glory
of God set forth in our salvation from eternity. Paul says in Ephesians 3 and
verse 10, he says that all things were created by Jesus Christ
for this intent, that the church should know the manifold wisdom
of God. That you should know Christ. That's the purpose of
God creating everything. is that you should know Christ,
who is Himself the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose
which He purposed in Christ Jesus. Don't you know this, that God
put us in Christ Jesus, in love, put us in Christ Jesus before
the world began? It's an act of love to predestinate
us, to be conformed to the image of His Son. It's an act of purpose,
an act of will, sovereign will that God purposed you be put
into Christ. And God in love purposed that
Christ should be everything. That Christ, by Him, you should
be made holy. By Him, you should be accepted.
And so what did Christ do? He did exactly what the Father
purposed Him to do. And in love, He received us.
Isn't that something? God says, okay, this one's yours,
this one's yours, this one's yours, this one's yours, and
Christ says, I love them all. I love them all. I will be surety
for them. I will be responsible. I will
be the rock of their strength. And so Christ came into this
world. I love the way the Lord talked
when He came into this world. He's very sure, wasn't He? I'm
not sure about much of it. I'm sure about this. I'm sure
about what I'm telling you this morning. I'm just not sure about
much of anything else. Christ was sure about everything.
And this is what He was sure about. Of all that the Father
had given me, I should lose nothing. I would lose nothing. And this
salvation that was purposed of God was not laid upon the elect,
but it was laid upon Christ. Don't you get that? That the
responsibility fell on Him. All the responsibility, none
of it is left up to us. God says, by Jesus Christ, you
should be made holy and without blame. And so when Christ came
into the world, that's exactly what he was doing. He was accomplishing
what the will of the Father was. Lo, in the volume of the book
is written to me, to do thy will, O God, by the which will, Paul
said, we are sanctified. Holy, holy. by the accomplishment
of that will, election and predestination of God, is that Christ do all
of the work. You see, election is the plan,
isn't it? Election is the plan. It's like
an architect drawing a plan. But then somebody has to come
and build it. Well, who's that builder? That's
Christ. He's the builder of this salvation. Christ is the master builder
who is also the foundation that is laid of God. God laid the weight of all the
church, the responsibility of their salvation solely on the
Lord Jesus Christ. And you know what Christ did? The God of thy salvation accomplished
thy salvation. He accomplished it. He finished
it. He Himself stitched the robe of our righteousness. When you put on that robe of
righteousness, He stitched it Himself. It is His own righteousness
He's giving you. It's not an imitation. These types break down, right?
Because if I sew one robe for you, I sew one robe for you,
they're different robes, right? Not the same material. This is
all made of the same material. His righteousness. It's His righteousness
you get. It's what He earned. And by His
blood, He has forever redeemed you and reconciled you to God. Consider the God of thy salvation.
Consider the rock of thy salvation. Consider the fortress of Christ
as our rock. Consider the wrath of God that
He endured, like that ark of Noah. It endured the storm, the
fierceness of God's wrath against humanity. The ark endured the
storm. Noah, in the ark, felt none of
it. You, in Christ, will feel none
of the wrath of God, because He, on the cross, felt all the
wrath. The reproach of them that reproached
thee fell on me." Why would we ever neglect such
a God or not be mindful of such a Savior? How can we forget what great
things He's done for us? And this doesn't stop because
all He that He that purposed our salvation and accomplished
our salvation must also apply it. And He did when Christ rose
from the dead. God set Him on the throne. And
this is His decree. That all that the Father should
give Him should have eternal life. I should give unto them
eternal life. That's what He's doing by the
power of the Spirit of God. He applies the gospel that is
preached and life comes. Like those dead bones. All the
dead. They're all dried up. There's
no life in them. Can these bones live? Well, God,
you know. He said, you preach to those
bones. And the bones began to rattle. They came together, bone
to His bone, sinew upon flesh, and no life. And He said, prophesy
to the wind, preach to the wind. And the wind came, the Spirit
of God, and gave them life. That's what happened to us. You
were dead. And now you live. Now you're
alive. You could not believe, but now
you can. You did not love, but now you
do. What is that? That is the God
of our salvation. The rock of our strength. And
not only does He apply it, listen, He doesn't just apply it and
give you a little push and say, okay, now then the rest is up
to you. What if He did that? What if
He left one thing for you to do? One law to obey, one thing to
fulfill. You suppose you could do that? No, but the rock of my strength,
Pat, He's the rock of my strength
because He keeps me. Peter said, you're kept. Why do you still believe after
all the trouble, after all the sorrow, pain, and misery that
comes with believing in Christ? Why are you still here? Because you're kept. You keep coming back because
you're kept. You keep eating because you're kept. Do you not
see the God of our salvation? How glorious, how wonderful is
the God of our salvation who keeps us. And listen, He will
never forget you. He will never leave you. This
is His promise. I will never leave thee. I don't
feel it. It doesn't matter. He has not
left you. He has not left you. He will
not forget. Can a mother forget her sucking
child? Yes, she can. But I will not
forget you. I will not forsake you. Even though God in love has planned
and executed, accomplished and keeps us, which should, by that
love alone, should restrain us from sin. Should that not restrain
us from forsaking Him? He will never forsake us, and
yet we are prone to forsake Him. Should not His love restrain
us from that? If we were to keep our eyes fixed on the God of
our salvation, should we not then plant these foreign seeds
that are coming? Yes. We should if we would keep
our eyes fixed on Him. But even when you backslide,
even when you do forget Him, listen to what God says. He says,
because of our backsliding, He says, I will heal thy backsliding.
Even in knowing you're going to forget him, he even promises
this, that I will heal it. Now listen to me, how he heals
it is not how you think he heals it. We think that one day, miraculously,
somehow this is just going to heal without any pain or suffering
at all. That's what we want. But if we
neglect Him, He promises to heal our backsliding, but it is a
very specific process by which He heals, and it is surely through
chastening and suffering. So you may rejoice in this, that
God will never forsake you. But then let us be mindful of
this, that we are often prone to forsake Him. And so as we
are sailors now, navigating through, and remember, what is our sail? What is our rudder? It is faith. Love. Those are our laws. Those
are our means of sailing. Faith and love. I'll tell you,
if we cast off those things, we are sure to be in trouble.
We are sure to be in trouble. Now the second thing is this,
the cause of forgetting God. We behold the love of the Father,
and the grace of the Son, the power of the Spirit, and we do
forget Him. And what is then the result always
of forgetting Him? It is chastisement, always. Paul
said, if you are without chastisement, then you are what? Bastards,
not sons. Whomsoever the Father loveth,
who won't forsake them, what does he do? He chastens them. He chastens them. Notice, "...the cause of our
forgetting God, thou shalt..." Look at this. "...plant pleasant
plants, and set them with strange or foreign seeds." Now the church
is compared to a garden in many places in Scripture compared
to a garden. In the Song of Solomon it says, my garden is closed
is my sister and my spouse. We are as a garden. We are planted
of God. In Isaiah 61, we are as trees
planted of the Lord. We didn't plant ourselves, did
we? We didn't plant ourselves. Behold, the seed of the Gospel
fell upon our heart as the Spirit prepared the soil, right? The
Spirit of God raked up the soil. And the Word of God was by grace
given to us. And what happened? We grew. We had life. We became fruitful
in the things of the Spirit. But because the flesh lusts against
the Spirit, we are often prone to forsake our God. And by doing
so, we sow foreign seeds. We plant seeds of sin in the
garden of grace. And they don't belong there.
They don't belong there. We begin to plant these seeds,
and these plants, what do they do? They take precedence over
the grace of God. Over God. Even us who are called by the
grace and power of God, we still carry in our body this old nature,
prone to sin, prone to lust, prone to greed, prone to pride. We cry, prone to wonder, Lord,
I feel it. prone to leave the God I love.
And so as we begin to forsake our God, when we begin to leave
our God, what are some of these pleasant plants that we begin
to sow? What about this one? The pleasant
plant of family. Family. Surely God instituted marriage. Marriage is a good thing. He that findeth a wife findeth
what? A good thing. God said that. So marriage in
and of itself instituted by God is a good thing. It is a pleasant
plant, isn't it? It's wonderful. There's nothing
wrong having children. Children are an heritage of the
Lord. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. Children
are a blessing. If you have children, and I've
seen some grandparents, and I've watched, I know my mother, she
sees her great-grandchildren, and maybe even her great-great-grandchildren. We have a large family. So she
looks at it, and I know she's very joyful. When we all get
together, I can see it on her face. It's just a joy. There's
nothing wrong with that. That's a good thing, isn't it?
To have a family. To have people who love you and
care for you. That's a good thing to have a
family. You know, husbands, they should
love their wives like Christ loved the church. That's a good
thing, isn't it? Nothing wrong with that. That's
perfect. That's what God said to do. Wives, obey your husbands
as to the Lord. Why? That's a good thing. That's
not a bad thing. That's a great thing. Children,
obey your parents in the Lord. Is that not a good thing? It
is. All of those things are wonderful.
Family is a pleasant plant. It is enjoyable. It is a blessing
of God. So then what is the danger of
this pleasant plant? If we're not careful, these blessings
will become grief if we plant them in the wrong place. If they
lose their place, they no longer are pleasant plants. but they
will be plants of misery and grief. What do I mean by planting
them in the wrong place? I mean this, by exalting them
above the God of thy salvation. Exalting them and the family
taking precedent over Christ and His worship and His service
and His love. How easily are we seduced to
set aside, to set our love on loved ones above Christ and make
them our idols. Listen, you can make your husband
an idol. You can make your wife an idol.
You can make your children an idol. You can set them above
Christ. David did. David loved. Absalom. And his love for Absalom excelled
his love for God in many ways. God told him that he knew what
he did with Absalom was against God, and yet he did it anyway.
Why? He loved Absalom. Eli. His sons were ungodly men,
and God told him to correct his sons, and he refused. His love
for his sons silenced God's command for him. Jacob set Joseph over all his
other children, and look what happened. Was that a pleasant
thing? Or did it turn out very grievous
for him? All of those instances turned
out to be miserable. What should have been a blessing
became a misery. Why? They planted it in the wrong
place. They set it above God. set their family above God. These
pleasant plants, they rotted and withered before their eyes
and misery was the result. How many of God's people have
set the worship of God aside for the sake of family? Is that not true? How many of us? How many have determined where
they live based on family rather than is there a church there? Is the gospel being preached
in this place? They think that's secondary.
I know people that have moved away from the gospel, moved to
a place where there was no gospel for the sake of family. You see,
you planted family in the wrong place. Family is pleasant in
its place, but you plant this in the garden of grace and it
becomes a foreign seed. It becomes a foreign seed. Second plant is business. Business
is another pleasant plant. It's good for a man to work,
isn't it? It's good for a man to be industrious. We live in
a lazy generation. We do. We live in a lazy generation
where men don't want to work. They'd rather just mooch off
the government or mooch off other people, and they don't want that.
They don't want to work. Paul said, that man, he said, if he
don't work, he shouldn't eat. Working is good. There's nothing
wrong with being industrious and having a good business. Work
is good. And believers should be the best
at their jobs. Oops. Get for paper, huh? Believers should be the best
at their jobs. But we work not only to eat,
we also work for another reason, to support the ministry. That's
what we do. We support the gospel of God's grace. That's what we're
here for, isn't it? We're not really here to work.
Work has a benefit, and that is that the gospel go out in
power and demonstration of the Spirit of God, and God calls
elect. But let us not be fooled that
the blessing to set business above God is to set an idol. It is to make it an idol. It
is to set greed above grace. And it becomes a pleasant plan. The third pleasant plan is that
just plain sin. Now listen, if your flesh and
my flesh knows this, sin is pleasant to the flesh. And you say, I
just don't know, I know sin's pleasant to me. I think you're
just lying to yourself. You're just lying to yourself
because sin is pleasant to the flesh. It always is. That which
is born of flesh is flesh. It'll live flesh and die flesh.
I met a man, he was a believer and he was having trouble. He
committed adultery and he was having problems with this. He
was addicted to this thing. And these people in the church
were telling him, one day all that's just going to go away.
You'll never think of another woman again. I said, you're crazy. You've got to understand that
the flesh is always going to be flesh. It has to be mortified. It has to be killed. It can't
be coddled. And so by forgetting God, sometimes
we just For the longing of the lust of our flesh, the things
of the world, what do we do? We set aside God. David did that
with Bathsheba, didn't he? You remember he looked. First
of all, he wasn't where he was supposed to be. He was supposed
to be in battle. And there he was on top of the house, looking
out and watching a woman bathe. He looked. Then what did he do? Did he turn away? No. He coddled
it. He planted that seed and he coddled
it and he inquired about it. I'm just going to ask a couple
of questions. No harm in that, right? He said, well, her husband's
in battle. I'm just going to have her over
for dinner. That's not going to be a big thing. No. He coddled that seed. And what
was the result? Misery and death. Misery and
death. You remember Lot did that too,
didn't he? Lot, he looked. He looked out there and he said,
well, here's the green pastures of Sodom. Here's the desert of
the wilderness. What do you do? He said, I'll
take that. I'll leave the Word of God that's with Abraham and
I'll take that. Well, I'm not going to go into
Sodom. I'm just going to sit outside Sodom, right? He pitched
his tent toward Sodom. And it wasn't long, then he was
where? In Sodom. And what was the result of that?
Misery. See, these are pleasant plans.
Pleasant to the eyes. And I'll give you one more pleasant
plant. For those of you who don't seem to have any of these pleasant
plants, I'm going to show you, you have one. Here it is. Pride. The pride of grace is a pleasant
plant. You say, well, Preacher, I sent
my family in the proper place. I'm not like this man over here.
who's ruined his family. I set mine in the proper place.
You know, pastor, my business is important to me, but the gospel
is more important to me. I don't do that. I don't set
my business above. And you know, sin. Oh, no. No.
I don't have any of that. What does he sound like? Does
he not sound like that Pharisee? I thank God that I'm not like
this publican over here. He has all these foreign seeds
and I have none. Oh yeah, you've got one. It's
pride. I know of some men who are struggling
with sin, and then I see a believer look down upon that man and condemn
him as though he has no sin at all himself. That's a pleasant plan, and we
should be very careful with that one. It's probably more stealthy
than all the others. And so the third thing is this.
What is the temporary prosperity? Look back at your text. Now,
He said, "...in that day thou shalt make thy plant to grow,
and in the morning shalt thou make the seed to flourish." In
other words, all these sins, they're planted so they're hidden.
And then we nurture them. We go there secretly in the mornings,
and we water them, and we nurture them, and we want something to
come out of it, right? I mean, what do you want when
you're talking about family, setting family above God? What
do you want? You want a nice family. You want that thing to
prosper and you want to have your grandchildren admire you
and honor you. Business, you want to be successful.
Sin, you want the pleasure. Pride, you want the praise. And
so you nurture it and you try to grow it. And you know what
God does? He doesn't stamp it out right away. He lets you nurture
it. He lets you coddle it. He's pleasant
plants. They come very quickly, but God
doesn't stamp them out right away. He doesn't crush your plants. And so what happens? We give
more and more of our hearts to the foreign seed than we do the
seed of grace. You see, your family, you put
it above God. and how they love you. Oh, how
they love you. How they cherish you for a time.
Oh, what a joy. You put all your labor, all your
wealth into their education. You sacrifice for your children.
And you expect it to grow. You expect these children to
love and serve Christ. You expect them to have a good
education and be good people. Your business, you expect it
to flourish and grow. Your sin, you feel. Sin makes
us feel good, doesn't it? We say, surely, this seed won't
hurt anybody. It will be fine. And God lets this stuff to grow
for a little while. And then what does it do? It
keeps us from the Word of God. And I want you to know this.
If things are going well for you in this life, that does not
prove God's acceptance or love. We think it does, don't we? Everything's
going well, so God must be smiling on me. No. He's probably letting
your plants grow. He's probably letting these pleasant
plants grow. And they keep us from the worship
of God To what will you look as proof
then of your salvation? Is it not Christ? If it is not
Christ, alone is not the object of your faith. It is a pleasant plant, foreign
plant. He calls it to prosper for a
season. But if you are Christ, if you truly belong to Him, if
you truly have faith in Him, listen, God will not let it grow
for long. He'll let it grow. but He will
not let these pleasant plants take precedent over His salvation,
over His glory. And so God lets these nourish
for a little while, He lets you grow them for a little while,
but I want you to know this is not for your destruction. It's
for your benefit. Notice the end of every pleasant
plant, every foreign seed, but, verse 11, But the harvest shall
be in heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow. Of these tender plants that you
have planted, that are dear to you, though they may prosper
for a season, they will all become in heap of vanity in a time of
sorrow. You remember Jonah and the gourd?
Jonah, he was so angry at God. I mean, he had to go out there.
Most reluctant preacher ever. I mean, his message was so... It was all of doom. I mean, it's not a message you
want to preach. God's going to kill you! God's
going to kill you! God's going to kill you! And
he goes out there and watches. He said, I'm going to see if
God's going to kill him. You know what? He knew God wouldn't.
And he was angry. You know what God did? God gave
him a little pleasant plan. That gourd. A little gourd sprung
up overnight, shaded over his head. He loved that gourd. What did God do? He prepared
a worm, and the next night the gourd was gone, and Jonah was angry with God. When God takes your pleasant
plant, you will be angry with God. But really, whose fault is it? It was self-inflicted he loved
that gourd more than he did God. If we cherish our pleasant plants
more than God, when he takes them away, and you listen, he
will. Thank God he will. But it will be miserable. It is a misery. The God of our salvation is not
exposing our heaps for our destruction, but rather for our good. He does
this to cause us to feel more of our need for Him and to despise
the self planted afflictions. Do you not despise your plants? Your sin? When God makes them
a misery, you will. In the day of sorrow, you will. They're called pleasant plants,
but God makes them a heap and we loathe ourselves so that we
might magnify more His grace and mercy. You remember that picture of
Joshua, the high priest? I love this picture. He's standing
there in these filthy garments. Remember, the high priest was
supposed to be in white linen, pure, with all of his miter,
Breastplate on, he's supposed to have all the garments. And
here he is, he comes filthy before God. You see, he had pleasant plans. And God is exposing them, and
he comes before God stripped of them, filthy. Satan ready
to accuse him. You know what Joshua says in
his defense? You have anything to defend yourself
with? You planted it. You nurtured it. God warned you
of the misery, and yet here you are. But it's always a happy ending
for God's people. Misery is always turned to joy. Because Christ rebuked Satan's
accusations before he could say anything. Is this not a brand
pluck from the burning? Grab the robe, put it on him.
Grab the crown, put it on his head. Why? He's my son. My son. I'm the God of his salvation. I'm the rock of his strength,
though he has forgotten me. I never forgot. Aren't you thankful for such
a God? Such a merciful God. Why would we ever abandon Him?
When you do, and He strips you of everything, there's still
hope. There's still joy. Turn again
to the God of thy salvation. You know why? He never left.
Not just you. He never left. May God give us
such wisdom to be wise sailors. Prepare for the storms. And when
we have fallen, give us grace to look to Christ, the God of
our salvation.