Isaiah chapter 51. We're looking at verses 17 through
23 this morning. Isaiah chapter 51, verse 17 through
23, and the title of the message this morning is, A Rousing Cry
to the Lost. A rousing cry. Our text in verse 17 says this,
awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which has drunk at the hand of
the Lord the cup of His fury, thou hast drunken the dregs of
the cup of trembling and wrung them Awake! Awake! Get up! You that sleep,
get up! This is the message. And last
Wednesday evening we looked at the first, there are three places
in Isaiah here that the prophet uses this very same expression. Last Wednesday we looked at verse
9, it says, Awake, O arm of the Lord! You see the trouble that
they were in. They were in trouble. Sweetie,
you can go ahead and take her back, please. Babe, go ahead and take her back.
Go ahead and take her back. Yeah. She's not old enough to
know. She can't hear yet. Maybe one
day. So the prophet here is in trouble. He's in deep distress and he
cries out to God. He's crying out to God, Are you
awake? He's asking God the question, Are you asleep? Do you not hear
our cries? And so he says, Awake, O arm
of the Lord. And he cries for God to display
his salvation. And so he says, aren't you the
same God that delivered Israel? Aren't you the God that delivered
Israel out of Egypt from the Egyptian captives? And he says,
even so, Lord, do today. Bring your salvation. Show your
strength and power in salvation. And he says, God says to this
cry, to this cry, he says in verse 12, I, even I am he that
comforteth you. And so by this the prophet is
comforted. He is comforted by the Word of
God, which is Jesus Christ. That's who the arm of the Lord
is. The strength of God's salvation is in a man. His name is Jesus
Christ, the Son of God. In him alone is salvation. There
is no salvation anywhere else. And he said, God said, I'll comfort
you with this message, Isaiah. And he did. And Isaiah was comforted. He saw that salvation himself
was of God. And then what does he do? He
turns around to Jerusalem. And he says to Jerusalem, Awake! Awake! I've got a message. Jerusalem,
I've received a word from God. He's not asleep. He knows our
trouble. And matter of fact, He has sent
a Savior to redeem us, to save us. And so now He cries out,
a rousing cry, He says, Wake up, Jerusalem. And that's what
I'm doing. I've heard a message, friends.
I've heard a message that Jesus is the Christ. That He has redeemed
His people by blood. He has redeemed them by His blood. He has saved them from their
sins. He has sent His Spirit into the
world. And this same Spirit has come
into my heart. And I've believed on Him. And
He has saved me. Therefore, He has sent me as
a witness, as a testimony. To who? Those who are asleep.
to you who are asleep, wake up! Wake up, O Jerusalem. Now this cry is not to everyone,
is it? It's to Jerusalem. He didn't
say wake up Ethiopia, wake up Egypt, wake up any other nation,
he said wake up specifically Jerusalem. Jerusalem! What is this saying? This is
a picture. This is a picture of God's elect. God's elect. The people in Jerusalem were
of the nation of Jacob. They were born of this man Jacob.
And Jacob was God's chosen man. He said, Jacob have I loved. And it was out of Jacob that
his people came. Now we know that not all the
Jews were saved, but they were a picture, they were a type of
his church that God has chosen a people and he tells these people
to wake up. Now what is this sleep? Why are
they asleep? He's not physically telling Jerusalem
to wake up out of bed. He's telling them to wake up
spiritually. This is because they are by nature
dead. Dead. Go over to 1 Corinthians
chapter 2 and verse 14. Wake up, you elect, Jerusalem,
people of God, Why would he call them to awake even because they
by nature are dead spiritually? In 1 Corinthians chapter 2, look
at this in verse 14. But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God. This morning, I want
to preach to you the gospel, but listen to me very carefully.
You who only have a natural man, who are by nature lost, you will
not receive this because you can't. You won't receive it because
you don't want to, that's true. But I'm going to tell you something
else about yourself. You won't receive it because
you can't. The natural man receiveth not the things that be of the
Spirit of God. Why? For they are foolishness
to him. Preaching to you who are lost
is what? Foolishness. You'd rather be
somewhere else. I understand that completely.
Neither can he know them. Now we're dealing with two things
here, will and ability. Will and ability. You will not
receive the things of God even because you cannot receive the
things of God. Cannot. Why? Because they are
spiritually discerned. We don't use that word very much,
but it just means judged. You know what a judgment is?
When a judgment is passed, the sentence is handed down, it's
executed. What is the judgment? The judgment
was death. The reason you won't receive
the things of God, the reason you can't receive the things
of God is because you are spiritually judged of God. Spiritually judged. You're spiritually discerned
and judged. Therefore you cannot and will
not know the gospel. Paul in this same chapter calls
the gospel like I preached this morning already. It's a mystery.
The gospel is a mystery to you. You don't understand it. You
don't receive it. You don't want it. You don't
like it. It's a mystery. I could be speaking
gibberish. It would be the same to you.
You wouldn't understand it because you're spiritually discerned.
Why is it that you're judged already? Condemned. Condemned. Go over to Romans chapter 5. I'm going to tell you why you
can't and you won't receive this by nature. It's because you are dead. When I prayed this morning that
God would raise the dead, I meant that. Because some of you are
dead. spiritually dead to the things
of God. And this is the reason, verse
12, Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and
death by sin, so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned. So in our text, in our text,
This fall of Jerusalem, this sleep of Jerusalem is the same
sleep that everyone by nature is in. It is the sleep of death. Go back and read it with me now.
Read this. In verse 17, awake, awake, stand
up, O Jerusalem, which has drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup
of His fury. Thou hast drunken the dregs of
the cup of trembling, and wrung it out." Now in a historical sense, Israel
was suffering under the hand of the Assyrians. They disobeyed
God, they rejected God's law, and God sent them into captivity. And now he likens them to a drunken
man at the point of paralysis. He said, you are so drunken in
iniquity that you're like a man who has passed out and has a
seizure. One thing I was talking to Rick
about when he had the seizure is that he felt this one thing. He had no control at all. That's a good illustration. You
by nature are dead in sins. You have no control. All you
do and all you want to do is sin. You can't do anything else. You can't. And you don't want
to. This is the way it is by nature.
Spiritually speaking, even so, you and I by nature have drunk
the fury of God's justice even when Adam sinned. When the first man sinned against
God, he was our representative man. He represented us all. And when he sinned, he died. That was the law. The law of
God was this, Adam in the day, thou eatest thereof, thou shalt
surely die. And I'll tell you this, when
your father ate, when my father ate, against the law of God,
he died. He lost all ability to understand
and know God. And so when we are born into
this world, we lose, we have no ability or desire to know
God. The Scripture says that he did
eat, and the very moment he did, he drunk the fury of God's wrath
and wrung it dry. And see the mercy of this plea. that it is the plea of God to
His people, Awake! Awake! Isn't this merciful that
God would even call for men to awake? Is that not mercy? Does
God have to call? Did God have to go after Adam? When the angels fell, did God
go after them? No. There was no Savior for them. Yet God in mercy went after Adam. And even so now, His word echoes
through the channels of time and it says this to every dead
sinner awake. Wake up! It is a plea. Wake up! And see, rouse yourself
from your slumber and see your absolute and utter depravity. Look at what you are. Don't run
from it. Why do you think people do drugs?
Because they hate themselves. Really, they love themselves,
but they want to feel something other than what they are. You are, by nature, absolutely
and utterly depraved, wicked, evil, full of sin. That's what we are. Dead in sin. And therefore, as a preacher
of the gospel, I'm called like Ezekiel was called, Ezekiel the
prophet. As a matter of fact, go over
there. I want you to see it, Ezekiel. This is how it, if you
want to know how it feels to preach, go to Ezekiel chapter
37. I'll show you how it feels. Ezekiel was carried out by the
Lord. And he was sat down in the middle of a valley full of
dead bones. Just bones. Full. Must have been a battle or something
and there was just dead bones lying all over the desert. And
he passed by these bones and he looked at the bones and inspected
them. And you know what there was?
No moisture at all. He said they were very dry. You
remember when those scientists got real excited that there was
water on Mars? They said there was a drop. Because
water, where's water? There's life. There's life. And
you know what he saw in these bones? He saw no water. He saw
no life at all. And God asked him a question.
He said, son of man, verse 3, can these bones live? And I answered,
Lord, you know. I can't give these bones life,
but if there's anybody who can, it's you. And again, He said
to me, prophesy to these, preach to these bones, and say unto
them, O you dry bones... Now you know what it's like to
preach to you who are dead? That's exactly what it's like. It's like preaching to dead bones. That's what it's like to preach
to sinners. But I do it because I know this, God can give life. I know that. That's why I do
it. If I didn't believe God couldn't give life, I definitely wouldn't
preach to you. Oh, dry bones, live! Here, He
said, I will cause breath. I will cause breath to enter
you. And you shall live. I will lay
sinew upon you and bring up flesh upon you and cover you with skin
and breathe in you. And you shall live and you shall
know that I am the Lord. So what did He do? He said, I
preached. And you know what happened? Those bones lived. Why? Because God said, I will put
breath in you. I will give you life. This is
why I preach, wake! Awake, O Jerusalem! Because I
know this, God is able to give life. He's able because He said,
I will give life. I will give life. Awake, dead,
rouse yourselves, see your drunken condition in the cup of God's
fury. Now, go back to your text, verse
18. Notice this. There is none to
guide her among her sons whom she hath brought forth, neither
is there any that taketh her by the hand all of the sons that
she hath brought up. These two things are come unto
thee. Who shall be sorry for thee? desolation and destruction and
famine and the sword, by whom shall I comfort thee? Thy sons
have fainted. They lie at the head of all the
streets as a wild bull in the net. They are full of the fury
of the Lord and the rebuke of thy God. O Jerusalem, behold, even the
elect of God are among these in whom there is no righteousness
at all. That's what he's saying. There
is none. There was none to guide Jerusalem. And listen, there
is none among you who are righteous. There's none righteous. No, not
one. There's none that understandeth.
There's none that seeketh after God. They are all together become
unprofitable. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. That's what he's
saying. Same thing the Apostle said in
Romans 3. Just what I quoted. Romans 3. There's none that doeth
good. There's none that can take you
by the hand and save you. And I tell you, the best religion
that man can come up with is works. Because of his depravity,
the best thing that you can come up with. When I come and tell
you that you are depraved and lost, the first thing you'll
start doing is trying to look for good in yourself. That's
the first thing you'll do. You'll start looking for something
good you did well. I did this. How dare he say things
like that about me? I did some good. No, you didn't. Not one. Not
one thing. And so you'll start looking for
a religion to try to help prop you up. You'll start looking
for somebody to make you feel good about yourself. They'll
start saying, well, you need to join the church, and you need
to do this, and you need to do that. That's the best thing man
can come up with, is works religion. You just need to strive to be
good. A man knows that God is. I don't have to convince any
of you that God is. You know that. I don't spend
my time arguing with fools, atheists. I don't spend time with that.
They know there's a God. Stop lying. They're just lying. They know there's a God, and
you know this, you have not obeyed Him. You got that written in
your heart. You know that. You ever felt
any guilt at all? You know why? Because the law
of God's already written in your heart. That's why. And so what
do you do? Man tries to start covering himself
up. That's what your father did,
my father did. He took thick leaves, tried to
cover his nakedness. And when you start learning about
your sin, the first thing you'll start trying to do is grab religion
and start covering yourself with it. But you know what? That won't
work. That won't work. Men watch and toil. You look
at a religion. Look at them. They're running
around like ants. Man, they're just running around
and they're just doing and doing and doing and doing and doing
and it's never enough. It's never enough. They work
and they toil and they labor. But it's never enough. They go
about to establish their own righteousness or what they think
is righteousness. Listen, whatever you think righteousness
is, you've missed the mark. It's not near as perfect as you
think it is. It's more. It's much more. And listen, all your righteousnesses
are as menstrual cloths. That's what God says. And yet
watch people toil and struggle. They try, they fast, they give,
they strive to be moral, good people. These people are ever
in the church and even among the church of God. They profess
to be believers, still striving to mix their righteousness with
Christ's. But listen, there is none among
us able to merit God's acceptance. Because we are all the sons of
Adam, we have all fainted and have drunk the fury of God's
wrath. We are all as men, drunken in
the night and passed out, exposed in the streets. That's what he
says. He said, your sons are nothing more than drunken fools
who lay naked at the head of the street. You know, as a parent, if I saw
my son, if I saw him at the head of Main Street laying out there,
passed out, drunk, you know what? I'd be ashamed. That's what God
says. He said, I'm ashamed of you.
That's what he says. He said, you're nothing more
than drunken fools passed out. And he said, listen, And look at verse 21. I want
you to see this. Because these are analogies. These are just
analogies. Look at this. He said, Therefore,
hear now this, thou afflicted and drunken, but not with wine.
See, He's not talking about a physical drunkenness. He's talking about
your spiritual drunkenness. He's talking about your spiritual
depravity, your spiritual state before God. And listen, those who are depraved,
is there anyone that pities you? Listen, if you go to hell, it
will be what you deserve. You get that? It'll be what you
deserve. God will never pity a person
in hell, ever. And from eternity, he will never
pity them. He will never comfort them because they get exactly
what they deserve. Listen, if there's one thing
to own in this world that's yours, It's sin. That's all you get
to own. It's our guilt. And if a man
go to hell, it will be a just reward. Yet behold the mercy
of God here. He's still crying, Awake, O sinner! Is this your condition? Did I
describe you? I took great pains to describe
you. And you know what I use for an
example? Myself. I know what I am by nature. Everything
I've described to you this morning is exactly what I am by nature. I know what I am. Do you know
who you are? Do you know what you are? If
you do, That's good. That's good because I've got
a message for such a person as that. I've got a message for
such a person in that condition. Are you so dead in sin that you
need to be awakened? Then look at verses 21 through
23. Here now therefore this thou
afflicted and drunken not with wine but with sin Thus saith
the Lord, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold,
I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the
dregs of my fury. Thou shalt no more drink it again. This is the message of God to
the afflicted sinner. Does your sin afflict your soul? Does thoughts of facing a holy
God cause you to tremble? Do you hunger for righteousness? Do you long to be accepted of
God? Then this is the message. This
is the message of God to you. Go over to Isaiah 55. Listen
to this message. everyone that thirsteth. Come ye to the waters, and he
that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat, come buy wine and
milk without money and without price. This is the message of
God. He's calling out only to the
hungry. Are you hungry? Are you hungry
for righteousness? Do you need it? Then he says, come, come. You that have no money, no means
by which to buy righteousness, come, come. Listen, so long as you have something
to hold on to, you'll never come to Christ. You got that? So long as you're hanging on
to my good deeds, or you're hanging on to your sin, or you're hanging
on to this, you cannot come to Christ. You must be empty! Empty! He that hath no money,
he that hath no righteousness, he that hath nothing to offer,
come! Come buy wine and milk without
money and without price. As long as you have something
to pay, you'll never come. Behold, Christ is the river of
the water of life that is given freely, without price. Without
price. In Jeremiah 23 and verse 13,
the Lord said this. He said, My people have committed
two sins. I'm sorry, Jeremiah 2. Jeremiah 2 and verse 13, he said,
my people have committed two evils. Listen, the first one,
they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters. And second,
have hewn them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold
no water. You know what a cistern is? It's
a bowl. They used to do this in the desert.
They used to carve out these big bowls and when it had the
two rains of the year, the former and the latter rain, they would
store up this water. They would get the rainwater
and store it up. Now God uses this picture. Behold
the picture. On this side is a river that's
flowing, constantly flowing, crystal clear. See it coming
out of the rock that's been bore open and the fountain of this
water is flowing in the middle of the desert. And there's a
man, and he's red from the sun, he's blistered in the sun, he's
filthy rags on his flesh, and yet he will not bow down and
drink. So then he begins to put his
hands into the dirt and dig and dig until he finds some solid,
something that he can start to chisel on. And he chisels out
for himself a bowl. There's a river full of water,
ever flowing, crystal clear. And over here's a man working
and slaving and sweating, and he's chiseling out a bowl. And
all of a sudden, the latter rain comes, and it fills his little
bowl, and he's so happy. Oh, he's got some water. I don't
know if you've ever seen those cisterns, but man, they're not
clear. They're not pure. They're made out of dirty rock. But he's got some water in it,
and he's so happy, and he sprinkles a little water on his flesh,
and he feels good for a minute, and he lays down to sleep. He
gets up the next day in the heat of the day, and water's gone. His cistern's broken. There's
a crack in the bottom of his bowl, and the water's run out. Don't you see that's a self-righteous
man? Don't you see that's a man who
labors to enter into the presence of God? That's a man working
for his salvation. That's a man filling his own
bowl with his own righteousness. But because of the fatal crack
of the fall of man, his bowl is filled one minute and it empties. And he's got nothing the next
day. He's got to fill it again. Don't you see why religion is
continual? They're always working, always
working, always doing. Because their bowl has got a
crack in it. Listen, your bowl has a crack in it. You'll never
satisfy. That's why he says in Isaiah,
he says, Why do you labor for that which satisfieth not? Have
you been satisfied by your sin? You thought you would. If I just
had this, oh, if I could just get this, then I'll be happy. And you've not been happy. Your
little bowl is empty again and you got to fill it up again.
Never happy. Why? Why do you work so hard
only to have it drain out? Behold the fountain of living
water, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Behold the holy hope, the only
hope for sinners. And it's free. It's free. And yet you say, I will not have
it. Why? Why will you die? Why will you die? Oh, that God would get hold of
your soul and arrest you. Bow down to Christ. Behold, he has by his own offering
for sin forever put away sin. He's forever removed sin. Wake up! Behold, God is pleased
with his offering. God is pleased with his righteousness. God says in our text, He says,
I will take away that cup of dregs, I will take away that
filthy cup of fury from you. But I tell you, God cannot show
mercy at the expense of His justice. Do you get that? God is holy. And so God can't show mercy to
you unless His justice is satisfied. So the cup of dregs and sin that
He had to take from you, it had to be drank. It had to be paid
for. That's why Jesus Christ came
into the world. He came into the world as a man.
And you know what He said? He said, Shall I not drink the
cup which My Father hath given Me? What cup is that? That was
the cup of my sin. That was the cup and dregs of
my flesh. He came and He drank it. I like this text in Psalm 110,
it says this, "...he shall drink of the brook in the way." You
know what that brook is? It's not a little stream. They
didn't have much plumbing then, but they did have this way to
drain all of the blood and dung from the sacrifices of the temple.
They dug a ditch and that ditch ran down with all the blood and
dung and waste of the sacrifices. That brook was called Kittron.
And the text said he shall drink of that brook in the way. What did Christ do? He took my
sin and he drank it. God made him to be sin for us. And there upon that tree, Jesus
Christ died under the full measure of God's wrath for sin. And when
he was finished, God said, I'm satisfied. And Christ Jesus said,
it is finished. Redemption accomplished. Sin
forever removed. Now He says, Awake, O Jerusalem! Awake, O Jerusalem! Come and
drink of the water of life that I give freely. I give freely. Isn't that something? To us who deserve nothing but
hell, He gives righteousness. Righteousness. This is the work of God that you believe on Him whom
He has sent. Can you believe? then believe. But know this, if you will not
believe, it will be your fault. I know that God has an elect
people and I know Jesus died only for those elect people.
I know that the Holy Spirit only called those elect people. but
I know this if you refuse to if you refuse to believe you
will go to hell because you refuse to believe now if you do believe that'll be God's fault if you do believe that's because
God gave it to you you not see then that all the glory of this
belongs to God And I'll tell you, if you won't come, it's
because you want to have some of that glory for yourself. And
God won't share it with you. You must come. You must come
empty. And you who come empty, He will
fill you with all the righteousness of God through His Son. And now that he has taken my
sin, guess what? I am accepted of God, who by
nature was depraved and wicked and vile. But Jesus Christ has
come in the flesh and died for my sins, and now, by the grace
of God, I do believe, I now believe that Christ died for me. And
you know what I continually do? I continue to believe. I continue to believe. That's what we all do. If we're
believers in Christ, is that not your walk? See, I'm not trying
to earn my salvation. My salvation has already been
earned by another, by Christ. So all I do now is believe and
wait on Him. I obey Him because I love Him. I serve Him. He is my God and
Christ is my King. And because I love Him, I love
you. Because I love you, I cry awake,
awake, you filthy, drunken sinners. Come to Christ, and you will
find that he's already drunk the cup of your sins and drained
it dry. I'll close with this. Jeremiah
chapter 50. Look at how God sees all those
that come to Christ. All of his Jerusalem. Isaiah
50 in verse 20. One of my favorite passages of
scripture. I mean, Jeremiah. Jeremiah 50. Did I say Isaiah?
Jeremiah chapter 50 in verse 20, in case I messed that up. In those days, And in that time,
saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for,
and there shall be none. The sins of Judah, and they shall
not be found. You know what's amazing about
this is it's God's doing the searching. God's searching for my sins.
God's looking for my sins, and you know what he says? They can't
be found. Why? Christ paid for them with
his blood. And God's satisfied. For I will
pardon them whom I reserve. Do you believe on the Son of
God? Listen to this word, alone. Do you believe on Him alone? All who do believe, you were
reserved by God. pardoned by Christ. And now you are kept by the power
of the Holy Spirit. And all I'm doing now is waiting
for Him to come back. Or I'm going to go to Him, whichever
comes first. Awake. May God cause you to awake and believe on His Son. The stand will be dismissed in
prayer.