Isaiah chapter 58, you're looking
mainly at the first two verses of this chapter. I put as a title of the message,
The Transgression of the Church. The Transgression of the Church.
The prophet here begins the message with this command of God to him,
cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet and
show my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their
sins. The prophet is commanded of God
to declare the transgressions, the sins, and the iniquities
of his people. Now, in our day and age, obviously,
this is not a very popular theme. This is not a very popular message.
Many of the modern preachers of our day do not even regard
sin in their message. They usually call it a mistake
or an accident or some form, but God calls it sin. God calls
it sin. And here the prophet is commanded
to cry out, to spare not, to lift up like a trumpet. In other
words, he is saying, strain your voice, Don't hold back. Cry out as loud and with as much
strength as you possibly can in order to do what? Show my
people their sins. Show my people their sins. Now, in the last chapter, the
chapter we had studied on Sunday, the prophet calls to those who
are born sinners, to the wicked. He says in the previous chapter
in verse 3, draw near hither you sons of sorcerers and the
seed of the adulterer and the whore. He calls those who are
born dead in sins to come to the grave of the righteous. He
calls them to a grave and He says, you wicked, you evil sinners,
you open sinners and rebels, come to the grave and see your
end. And then He points them to Christ. He points them to Christ in verse
13 of that chapter when he says, But he that putteth his trust
in me shall possess the land and inherit my holy mountain. That's Christ. He alone is the
one that put his trust in God completely and absolutely for
the righteousness of his saints and for their redemption. And
so, Surely, this is the mission of every preacher of the gospel. Surely, we are to call all sinners. We are to call all sinners. We
cry aloud to all of Adam's ruined race. And we say, Behold thy nativity! Thy father was an Amorite, thy
mother an Hittite. And this is always the nativity
of the natural man, to be born sinners. And because we are born
sinners, all we can do is sin. All man can do by nature is sin. That's it. That's it. Therefore, from the womb, we
are sinners and all we do in the flesh is sin. What does this tell us? This
tells us there is no hope by law. There is no hope for righteousness
by the law. There is no hope for any Adam's
race to be justified by the law. Flip over to Romans 3 and see
this. Romans 3 After Paul, in verses 10 through
19, explains that there is none righteous, there's none good,
there's none that seeks after God, there's none that understands
the righteousness of God or how to obtain righteousness, he says,
therefore, this is the conclusion of the matter, verse 20, therefore,
by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his
sight. No flesh shall be justified in
his sight. Paul says in another place, By
the deeds of the law shall no man be justified. This is evident. He said this is clear. This is
plain. Is that not plain speech for
everyone to hear? Is that not understandable to
every ear? God says there is none righteous. Therefore, no man shall be justified
by the works of the law. No man shall be justified by
the works of the law. That's evident. That's clear. What's the purpose of the law?
The purpose of the law is the knowledge of sin. The purpose
of the law is as a mirror. You put the mirror in front of
you and all it does is reflect what you are. That's it. It cannot
change you. It cannot make you whole. The law was never meant to make
sinners whole. It was only meant to expose us
to be what we are. Sinners. If you were to take a man who
was guilty of murder, say a man was convicted guilty. He did
it. He's convicted of murder. He's
sentenced to death. Don't you suppose that it would
be foolish for that man to think that somehow he could get off
on good behavior? That would be a foolish notion
if the law remained just. Now, I know our system is corrupt
and surely they do let them off. But I'm telling you, if the law
is just, if the law had sentenced a guilty man to death, nothing
should satisfy the law except death. And so no amount of good
works should remove that guilt. And even so it is with man that
is so depraved. Man by nature is so depraved,
he thinks that the law of God that sentenced him to death will
somehow give him merit for good behavior, will somehow give him,
if he just does his best, then he'll be all right. That's not
what the law says. Like the Jews in Paul's day,
even so it is in our day with Adam's ruined and condemned race,
they're ignorant. Man by nature is ignorant of
what? Ignorant of the righteousness
of God. The righteousness of God. And
how do I know they're ignorant of the righteousness of God?
Because they're going about to establish their own righteousness. This is how we know that man
is ignorant by nature because he goes around trying to establish
righteousness by his deeds. Man is ignorant to the righteousness
of God because he has not submitted himself to the righteousness
of God which is in Christ. Therefore, our gospel message
is truly to the guilty, isn't it? Our gospel message goes out
and it confesses that all men are sinners. All men are guilty
and in need of righteousness that they cannot provide and
therefore we point them to Christ and we say behold the righteousness
of God. For Christ, the Scripture says,
is the end of the law for righteousness. To who? Everyone that believeth.
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believeth. Sinners behold Christ the righteous. Paul says in that same chapter
that he tells us that Christ is the end of the law, he says,
Don't look up. He says, faith says this. Faith
says, don't try to ascend to heaven or descend to the depths. In other words, don't ask in
your heart, what do I have to do to be accepted of God? Don't ask what good deeds of
obedience I need to perform to please God. Don't ask that. Because
the answer is always the same. You can't. You can't. And he says, don't ask what sacrifice. Don't ask about going down to
the depth and seeing what kind of things you need to sacrifice.
Well, I need to give up this and give up this and give up
this. No, don't say that. Don't be so foolish. Don't ask
such a foolish question. Why? Because Christ has already
ascended to heaven. He's already obtained righteousness. He's already descended down to
the depth to obtain the sacrifice that God requires. See, Christ
has made it all. He's done it all. Christ has met the demands of
perfect obedience and offered the perfect sacrifice that no
one of Adam's race could offer. Not one of us could offer perfect
righteousness or perfect sacrifice. But there is one Jesus Christ
who has. Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Jesus, the Son of God, condescended from the throne of glory and
was made flesh and being found in fashion by nature as a man. He humbled Himself. He humbled
Himself and became obedient. Obedient. to the law of God and
to the will of God. He submitted himself. Why should he do such a thing? Why would the God of glory condescend? You know what? I don't like being
human. It's a mess. I tell you, this
world is a mess. I have a lot of troubles in this
flesh. I can't imagine why anybody who
was in glory would want to come down into this. Yet, He did it. Why? Because He had to obtain
righteousness for His people. His love for His people was so
great, He condescended to men of low estate. And he did so
to fulfill the law, to fill it full. The scripture says in Isaiah
42, 21, the Lord is well pleased. What a relief. For us who are
in Christ, listen to that. The Lord is well pleased. He's well pleased for his righteousness. He's well pleased for his righteousness. He will magnify the law and make
it honorable. I like this because I get those
apps on my phone, the map, and I like to zoom in and zoom out,
you know, make the map big and then shrink it down. You know,
if you look at that map and it zoomed out, It looks pretty small,
doesn't it? You take that little world, what
is it, Google Earth, and you just zoom out all the way, and
you just see the planet, and you spin it around like this.
It don't look hard. It looks easy. Everything looks
so small. Yeah, that's nothing. But I tell
you what, zoom in, and zoom in, and zoom in, and zoom in. You'll
find out how small we actually are. Do that with the law. Don't hold the law out there.
Magnify it. Zoom in. That's what he did.
He magnified the law in every thought, in every motive, in
every deed, and Jesus Christ fulfilled it. He honored it.
He magnified it. Consider what the Lord Jesus
Christ said in Matthew 20. He said, Accept your righteousness.
Listen to this. Accept your righteousness. Exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. You shall in no
wise, in no case, enter into heaven. Didn't I just explain to us that
we were all sinners? How shall any of Adam's ruined
race exceed in righteousness the most devout and zealous men
that ever lived? Listen to me, the Pharisees,
we look at them and sometimes we mock them. But I tell you,
nobody mocked them in their day. They were truly devoted. I promise you that none of us
are half as devoted as they were. None of us are as half devoted
as they were. They were devoted men. They were zealous for the
law. Paul says this in Romans 10,
he said, I bear them record. They have a zeal, a zeal for
God. But it's not according to knowledge.
Paul said, if any man had anything to boast about, he said, I am
more. He said, I was born a Jew. I was of the tribe of Benjamin,
an Hebrew of the Hebrews. As touching theology, I was of
the strictest sect, the Pharisees. And no one, no one could accuse
me of any outward disobedience to the law. Yet Jesus said that righteousness,
listen, that righteousness is not enough. You can be the most zealous moral
person in all the world, it's not enough. You can go to church
24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you can live on your knees, you
can cry, you can plead, you can confess, you can do all of the
religious ceremonies the world has to offer, and they are not
enough. They're not enough. And Jesus said, in no case. In
other words, there's no circumstances. Isn't that what our culture has
taught people, our children usually? They say, well, you just base
things off of your circumstances. No, God doesn't. God is no respecter
of persons. He's not going to base his judgment
on your circumstances. His judgment is based on absolute,
holy righteousness. And if you do not meet that standard,
you will in no case, in no case, in no case, enter the kingdom
of God. Then, are you such a sinner? Are you one who is without righteousness? then I point you to the only
one who has righteousness, Jesus Christ. He is the only one who has, by
obedience, obtained what we never could, righteousness. And I tell you, believe on Him. Confess your sins and plead for
His mercy. And listen, He will give you,
He will give you His righteousness. Did you hear that? He will give
you His righteousness freely. freely, without cost, without work, without
merit, without price. He will give you the righteousness
of God Himself. Paul says in that chapter in
Romans 3, he said, but now the righteousness of God without
the law. I like that. The righteousness
of God without the law is manifest, witnessed by the law and the
prophets. Even the righteousness of God, listen how, by the faith
of Jesus Christ. Did you get that? By the faith
of Jesus Christ. I'm glad it didn't include my
name there. That would have been, you would have had no hope if
my name was there. If righteousness came by me and my faith, you
would have no hope. But it didn't come by me or my
faith. Righteousness came by the faithfulness
of Jesus Christ. By the obedience of Jesus Christ. Not by the obedience of me. Not
by the obedience of you. But by the obedience of Jesus
Christ. He merited the righteousness of God. And listen, by the faith
of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe. Righteousness is imputed to those
who believe. It's charged to and imparted
to those that believe. The righteousness of God comes
not by our works or by our obedience, but rather is a product of the faithfulness of Christ
and received by the faith of grace. faith in Jesus Christ. Now that's how the gospel is
presented. It's presented to all the lost,
and I tell you, we call to all sinners and point them to Christ.
But look back at your text. I want you to see this very important
thing here. This is not a general call in
our text. This is not a cry to the masses,
but rather this is a cry to God's church, listen, cry aloud, spare
not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet and show who? Who? My people, their transgressions. The prophet in our text cries
out not to everyone in general, but to the saints of God, to
the elect of God. And he says, you bunch of sinners. You bunch of sinners. You are sinners, you are transgressors, and you know that you know the
thing about that is you know the only people are here that
are god's people man i can tell that the anyone and i do i cry
that everyone everyone's a sinner but i tell you this only god's
people take it to heart that only stabs god's people in the
heart that just Stabs me in the heart when he
says that you sinner Yes That's me That's my name
That's my name It stabs us in the heart Only the Israel of
God knows of depravity That true Depravity to me is
not just a doctrine to be learned, is it? People say, yeah, yeah, everybody's
sinners. Yeah, I know, I know, all men
are dead and sinned. Yeah, I've heard that before.
I can rattle it off. You know, I can total a private
limit. I got all that doctrine. I understand that. Check, check,
check. No! It's not a doctrine to be
learned in the head. It's one to be experienced. Have
you experienced a private limit? People say, move on from that.
Why do you talk about sin all the time? People, all you talk
about is sin. I understand that. Move on to
something else. No, we don't move on. You see,
God's people can't move on. Can we? God's people don't see depravity
as a doctrine to be learned or moved from. Because it's something
we experience every single day of our life. I truly know what the apostle
was talking about in Romans 7 when he asked, who shall deliver me
from this body of death? I've told you the illustration
before, how the Romans used to take the corpse of a dead man,
sew his fingers together, and wrap him around the neck of a
prisoner, and he was to carry that corpse until it rotted off. That's exactly how we feel every
single day, with this rotting old flesh around our necks, so
that we cannot do what we would. God says, show my people their
transgression. Is it not true of you, believer
in Christ, that even we who have believed on Jesus Christ still
sin, even because this dead, rotting
corpse remains around our neck? Is that true of you? I don't know, maybe the only
one, but I don't think so. I don't think so. Not God's people. How many fools are deceived to
think that when they believe in Christ that they're just,
that they're happy-go-lucky? I tell you, I see people like
that, and I don't know anything about that kind of Christianity.
I don't know anything about that kind of Christianity. Well, they
just run around with a big grin on their face the whole time
and life is just so carefree and so full of flowers and roses
and the sea parts in front of them. I have no idea what that
kind of Christianity is. Why? Because that Christianity
doesn't exist. My Savior said, in this world
you shall suffer tribulation. That's what my Savior said. The
gospel tells me that it is not only given in the behalf of Christ
for us to believe, but also to what? Suffer for His namesake. Now, when we believe on Christ, we're given a new nature. But
I tell you, what happened to that old man? Nothing. He's still
just as vile and corrupt as he ever was. Therefore, we continue to cry
aloud to show the elect of God's people their transgression. Why? Why does God do this? Why does God stab us in the heart
with this? Why are we constantly reminded
of this? Because it convicts our hearts
and drives us to Christ. Isn't that what it does? Isn't
that what it does? When we are convicted of our
sin, what do believers do? They flee to Christ. We run for
refuge. And we lay hold on Him and we
dare not let go. We fall to His feet and hang
on to those nail-pierced feet as tight as we possibly can by
faith and never want to let go. That's what He does it for. I
tell you, if he didn't have that, if we didn't do that, the sad
thing is we'd never come. Isn't that right? We'd never come. If everything
was just roses, we would forget God. Therefore when this comes I confess
with Paul in my flesh dwelleth no good thing and the more I
grow in grace You know what? I see more of when I grow in
grace. I See more of my sin The more I grow the more wretched
this old man becomes I And the more I see the sin of
this old man, the more I flee to Jesus Christ. I flee. I run. The righteousness of God
was obtained by Jesus Christ, and now the righteousness of
God is imputed and imparted to us who believe on Him. And because
of this great grace and the new nature, we flee to Jesus Christ,
desiring only to be found in Him. What did Paul say of all
that religious stuff I just told you about, about all his Phariseeism? You know what he said right after
he said, if any man had any boast, I got more? You know what he
said in Philippians 3? He said, all those things that
were gained to me, I count loss. That was nothing but loss. All of my life before Christ
was nothing but loss. It was an empty facade. It was worth nothing. It was worth nothing. And you
know what I count my life after I've come to Christ? Loss. All my preaching, you know how
much that gets me to Christ? It's loss. I count it as loss. This is not, this preaching the
gospel is not getting me closer to God. All this holy living
and all that is not getting me closer to God. No. I count all that loss. That I
may win Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness
which is of the law, but His righteousness. that I might be
found in Him. All my self-righteousness, all
my good works, so-called, I count them but dung. Pretty strong language, isn't
it? Dung. Crap. That's what it is. I count all that crap. And all I want to be found in
is Christ. Isn't that what this message drives us to? You tell
my people their sin and what does my people do? They flee
to Christ. They flee to Christ. See both
the faith of Christ that obtained our righteousness and the faith
of Christ that is given to us that receives the righteousness,
neither of which is of us. Isn't this amazing? I didn't
obtain righteousness by my works, and listen to this, it's not
even my faith. Faith is a grace of God. You know why I believe and the
mass millions don't? Not because I was smarter, but
because God gave me faith. That's the only reason I believe
and other people don't. If you believe, it is only because
God gave you faith to believe. Gave you faith. The scripture says the power
to receive Christ is not of the will of man, not of blood, nor
of the will of the flesh, but of the will of God. Have you
believed on the Son of God? Have you experienced your depravity? Do you experience your depravity? Oh, friends, drop everything
and run to Christ now. Don't wait. Don't wait. Leave it all and
go to Christ. That's what this does. He drives
us to Christ. Behold, the Lord Jesus Christ
is the only righteousness. And consider this. He has forever
put away our sins. Jesus Christ has put them away
forever. Even though God chose and loved
a people, their sins must have been punished because God is
holy. Listen, God cannot show mercy
or love at the expense of His justice. In order for God to show us mercy
and show us His love, His justice must also be satisfied. Therefore,
behold, Behold, sinner, God hath provided himself a lamb. Isn't that what we read in Genesis
22 when Abraham was commanded by God to take his only son,
Isaac, and sacrifice him? Consider the determination of
faith that Abraham had. Abraham knew that in Isaac all
the seeds of the world all the nation of the world is going
to be blessed in that boy and Yet he took him up with a knife
in his hand ready to kill his son Believing God would either
raise him from the dead or do something miraculous to rate
that that that was going to be the boy right there and And he
took him up the hill, and listen, Isaac was not a stupid boy. He
knew something about worship. He said, Father, we got the wood,
we got the fire, and you got the knife in your hand. Where's
the lamb? That boy knew there must be blood
to worship God. There must be death, the death
of a sacrifice in order to worship God. Tonight, if you do not go
to God with blood, you do not worship God. You can't worship
God without blood. But remember what Abraham told
his boy. He said, son, God will provide
himself. a lamb. And Jesus Christ who is both
God and the Lamb of God was provided for our sins. Sinner behold how
God can be just and justify the ungodly Behold, as we look by
faith beneath the cross of the bleeding Savior, flowing from
His five blessed wounds, the wounds of Jesus Christ, that
never-ceasing fountain, open for cleansing and forgiveness
of sins. The blood of Jesus Christ is
precious in that it alone has forever satisfied God's justice
for our sins. Do you realize this? When God
says to you, sinners, where does your heart turn? Does
it turn to argue? Well, God, you know what? I'm
just telling you why. No. No. Not the believer. We can't argue. All we can do is plead for the
blood. Plead the blood of Jesus Christ
and it does what? Cleanses us from how many sins? How many? All of them. Every one of them. And you know
what? God is faithful to do it. And
I tell you this, you're not faithful to believe it, but he's faithful
to do it. Even when our faith is so weak,
he's still faithful to do it. You know what God says about
your iniquities? He says, I will remember them
no more. Even my iniquities, even my sins, even yours. And you know what? The good thing
about God's justice is this. He cannot and will not ever charge
us with those sins. So in the day, believer, you
breathe your last. You will be assured as quickly
as possible into the arms of your Savior. Because there is
nothing between There is nothing that would ever separate Him
from you. Because your sins are gone. And
even though you're reminded every single day of them, you can run
every single day and be cleansed. Because Jesus Christ has paid
it all. Paid it all. My heart and prayer to God is
that that, that the spirit of God would take that and just
burn it into our hearts. Brand me. Brand it on my heart. That I might find rest, even
when the word of God says, cry aloud you bunch of sinners. Isn't
that what the church is made of? Sinners saved by the grace
of God. That's what we are. That's what we are. I know I'm
not going to get the rest of it. That's all right. I think
you got enough. I pray the Lord bless that to
your heart. Let's stand. We'll be dismissed in prayer.