Last night, Bonnie and I were
watching, it was a two-hour special on the song Silent Night. And as is customary when I'm
watching television, I've got my phone in hand, and if they
say something I want to check out, I'm quick to look it up. And someone has re-translated
those words. They were originally written
in German. And it said that the person who retranslated them
stayed closer to what the original text was. And that line, round
yon virgin, mother and child, holy infant, so tender and mild,
was translated, circled round the tender pear, something child
with curly hair. That's actually what it says.
in the original. Not that it's important, I just
thought that was kind of interesting to see when people translate
these hymns from other languages. They take a lot of liberties
with it. Not only that, there are six
stanzas to it, not just three. But it very well may be the most
well-known Christmas carol in all the world, and it's the one
that in 19, Christmas of 1914, when World War I was going on
and the Allies fighting the Germans. And on Christmas Eve, somebody
over on the German side started singing Still Nacht Heilig Nacht. And Silent Night, Holy Night,
and of course, was using this tune. And people on the British
side recognized it, and they began singing it. And that next day, a sergeant from
the German army tied a white flag to the tip of a rifle and
started coming up out of the trench with that flag on it.
And somebody on the British side said, hold your fire. And he
went out there with that. And they spent Christmas Day
playing soccer, enjoying one another, you know, and then went
back to fighting. Such is the nature of man that
he can do such a thing as that. But there is coming a time when
the Lord will put an end to all that. If you'll open now to Isaiah
chapter 26. Isaiah 26. Let's pray. God, our Father,
bless us now. We rejoice to gather in your
name and wish that more opportunities were available to us for that. For in these gatherings, you
have promised to meet with us. And we recognize and we feel
indeed your presence at these times more than we do at others. Lord, there's nothing we want
more than to see you, than to behold
your majesty. It is written, there is no majesty
that we should desire him. And Lord, that was us in our
natural state. We could not see your glory. But with the psalmist, we say
this one thing I ask, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
forever and gaze upon the majesty, the beauty of the Lord. Lord, we realize this building
is not your house. Your house is your people. And
when we gather like this, Lord, we are able as much as humanly
possible to gaze upon your glory. Lord, we pray for fresh revelations
of all that you are. Forgive us our sins, Lord, they
are many. But who but a God like you would
forgive sin? and forgive so freely, yea, more
than freely. You forgive at your own expense.
Bless us now as we open your word. May Christ be evident to
us in it. In your name we pray, amen. Now
normally on a Sunday before Christmas I do preach a message that at
least has some tangential reference to the holiday Not that we take
note of days, it's just on a particular day of the year we take more
note of the incarnation of our God. There's nothing wrong with
that. The Puritans, I believe it was, in their resistance to any form
of Catholicism, They studiously avoided celebrating Christmas,
so much so that they would purposefully, some of them, purposefully schedule
outdoor labors so everybody would know they're not inside enjoying
themselves. I can partially understand that.
If you're brought out of a system that made something out of days
that said, if you'll come to church on this day, it counts
a little extra points to you and this sort of thing. I can
understand why you'd resist taking note of any special day. But as I say, it's not the day
we're recognizing. It's the event that traditionally
is associated with that day. And I had prepared a message,
or begun to prepare it, and last night as I was putting a bulletin
together, one of the articles I put in it referenced this scripture,
and I began to read it, and decided to change directions. Because
it, I would say it spoke to my heart, but it was more than that. It was the prophet speaking my
heart. One time I preached a message
in a conference that was up in Michigan. Tim James was one of
the scheduled preachers as well. And after I was done preaching,
and it was a message on, I think it's the 77th Psalm. I call it
the life of faith. And it doesn't sound like the
life of faith because there are six soul-wrenching questions
asked in that psalm, and they're questions that are asked by believers.
One of them is, has the Lord forgotten how to be merciful?
What a question. But we get in a state of mind
where we think that, don't we? But when I got done preaching,
I went down, and Tim was sitting on the front pew, because he
was next, and so I just sat down there next to him, and he leaned
over and said, you've been reading my mail. And I read this, and it's like
Isaiah's been reading my mail. But that should not surprise
us. All us believers are the same. We're human beings. We're human beings still in this
flesh, still wrestling with it, still struggling, still longing,
still dissatisfied, barely able to achieve a level of contentedness.
much less satisfaction. But let's just dive into this
chapter. We're gonna dive in at verse
seven. And just note the things that Isaiah says. And I want
you to realize Isaiah was prophesying concerning events that wouldn't
happen, I think it's for about another 150 years. He prophesied
of them in detail, so much so that liberal Bible scholars claim
the book of Isaiah was not written until after the Jews returned. Because there's no way somebody
could have known with this kind of accuracy what was going to
happen. I mean they even named Cyrus in this book. And Cyrus
was probably, you know, at least 100 years from even being born.
And Isaiah names him. But why should we be surprised
that the God who has ordained everything couldn't tell one
of his prophets what's going to happen and tell them accurately?
I don't see anything, if I can use this, I don't see
anything miraculous about this at all. Everything that happens,
happens because God said it's going to happen. So all of these things that Isaiah
prophesies about God had ordained and it's no big deal for God
to tell Isaiah about it. So I have no problem with the
fact this was written a century and a half before any of it came
to pass. And yet I think there's an advantage
even in that because these words being written the historical
people about whom they were written even existed. It tells us it's
not just for them. If what Isaiah had to say was
only for those Jews who were in the captivity and were going
to come back, then maybe God would have had one of his other
prophets write it, one of the ones that was up there in the
captivity with them. But he writes this a century
and a half before anybody, quote, needs to know about it. Why?
Because it isn't written just for them. It's written for you
and me. It says in verse 7, the path
of the righteous is level. Now, who are the righteous? Paul says there's none righteous,
no, not one. Well, there's only one class
of people in this world who are righteous in the sight of God,
and that is those who have believed, as it is written, Abraham believed
God and righteousness was credited to him. And so the righteous
are believers. One of the reasons that people
get so confused with the Old Testament is that they associate
righteousness with the keeping of the Ten Commandments. I suppose
if you could keep them, you would be righteous, but nobody has
ever been able to do that other than our Lord Jesus Christ. And
so they read things like this, the path of the righteous is
level, and they say, okay, I've got to start living righteous
so God will make a smooth level path for me. There's only one who ever kept
those commandments, and his path was anything but smooth, anything
but level. Who are the righteous? It's us. Wicked as we are, sinful as we
are, transgressors all, but God calls
us the righteous. And brethren, if God calls me
righteous, that's good enough for me. Now, I want to maintain
a good reputation. I mean, that's just, I guess
some of us for pride's sake, but particularly as a minister
of the gospel, it's important that I maintain a good reputation
so as not to bring insult to Christ and his gospel. Same thing
with you. But why should we care what the
religious world thinks about us? If God says you are righteous,
then friend, you are the righteous. And that path is level. Why is
it level? Well, in another place, Isaiah
says, the voice of one crying in the desert, make level the
path, make a level path in the wilderness for the Lord. Now
he is the righteous one. And the one crying in the wilderness
was John the Baptist. He made the level path for the
Lord, so to speak. He prepared the way of the Lord,
and the Lord showed up. But it's as though this level
path was made for the righteous one, and that's the path we walk. In Him, we walk that path. It says, O upright one. That's
reference to God. You make the way of the righteous
smooth. Now, that does not mean that
our way in this world is easy. You know, for the righteous,
life in this world can be very difficult. For those who believe, life in
this world is not easy. What a deception. So many preachers deceive their people with. Of
course, they're as deceived as they are deceiving. But they
have this idea that the Bible is full of ways to live, and
if you'll just do that, you'll be successful. Things will go
right with you. They get so crass as to act,
if you'll just follow these things, you'll get rich. If you'll just
raise your children this way, they'll all turn out wonderful. Bible's not about that. said
to Timothy, you have known from your youth, you have known the
Holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise unto salvation. That's what this book is about.
It's about eternal things. If you're a believer, you will
have trouble in this world. You'll have the same kind of
trouble everybody else has. And then you'll have the added
trouble of a follower of Christ living in a world that hates
Him. Now they wouldn't admit they
hate Him, but they do because they've invented another Christ,
they love Him. And in loving the false Christ
they have hated the real one. And the more you conduct yourselves
and the more you speak concerning the Christ of Scriptures the
more their animosity grows. I'm glad we live in a country
we do. We don't suffer much by way of persecution. But the Lord's scriptures say
those who would live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But in spiritual things, brethren,
the way is smooth. It's not up the hills, down the
hills, and all that. It's not climbing over rocky
crags. The spiritual life of a believer is not like trying
to climb a cliff without proper climbing gear. It's not. It is a level path. You know
that song, I'm pressing on the upward way, new heights I'm gaining
every day? Well, then you're on the wrong
path. Because the path of the righteous is level. smooth. Your flesh may restrain you and
frustrate you, but the path never will. It is a path made up of Christ
that leads to Christ. Christ from beginning to end. And it was designed so that people
like you and me can walk it. And if you are in Christ, you
are walking it. Spiritually, you are walking
it. This is not a path that you should
walk. It's a path that you actually
do walk if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse
8, Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for
you. Your name and renown are the
desire of our hearts. Now imagine listening to this
in a church that loves to put people in bondage. All right,
if you need to keep all them commandments. Isaiah knew that
nobody could keep those commandments, those 10. Those Ten Commandments
are an indictment. What commandments is he talking
about? He's talking about all those laws that God wrote governing
worship, governing how you approach God.
And how is that? How is a man in Israel supposed
to approach God? Well, he was supposed to approach
God in only one place, and that was the temple, representative
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's, we approach God in
Christ and nowhere else. We come to church, but we don't
come to church thinking that we're approaching God by coming
to church. We come to church like this, we come to, or as
Donny Bell likes to say, come to meeting like this, and together,
approach God in Christ. Secondly, according to those
laws, no one would ever think of approaching God without a
proper sacrifice. The sacrifice of a spotless animal
whose blood was shed. Not even a high priest would
go into that Holy of Holies where God's presence was symbolically
demonstrated in the glory that dwelt between the cherubim. He
wouldn't go in there without blood. Why? To do so would be
to die. And so they brought these sacrifices
and they came to him in faith. Now, not all of them. You know,
Israel is just like the visible church of our day. It's made
up of a whole lot of people professing faith and a few of them that
actually possess it. And I don't know how many Jews
were actually believers. I know that the Bible talks about
a remnant. A remnant. And a remnant is what's
left over after most of the bolt of cloth has been used up. A
remnant is a portion so small nobody thinks it's worth keeping. A remnant, according to the election
of grace, says the scriptures. The Lord has reserved his own,
but they aren't in the majority. But those who were walking, truly
walking in the way of God's laws, approach to him were walking
in faith. They knew that that lamb, precious as it
looked, that lamb killed and burned in their behalf would
not put away their sin. They knew that. They knew that
their appearance at the temple three times a year, though it
was a commandment, they knew that that would not make them
right with God. They did what even many in the
church, the modern church, don't understand. They saw those ceremonies
as mere symbols of the reality. That they were
not pointing to themselves, they were pointing to someone who
would come and would fulfill all those things. Our Lord said,
I didn't come to destroy the law. I came to fulfill it. And once fulfilled, it's set
aside. But He didn't just come and say,
ah, let's just get rid of the law and start doing things a
different way. He fulfilled it. He is. the Lamb of God that takes
away the sin of the world. He is our great high priest who
offered himself without spot to God. He is the great high
priest who entered into the most holy place, not the one made
with hands that's part of this world, but into the true one,
into the heavenly holy place. And there, even as his body was
on earth, yet he was in the presence of the most high God, bearing
our sins in his presence. and bearing the punishment of
them as our great high priest. And he is that priest that came
out after the offering and lifted his hands in blessing. And he
blessed the people. He blesses us. Having accomplished
all those things that were written in the law concerning him, he
came forth out of the grave, which was like coming out of
that temple. And I don't know if he raised
his hands, but he did bless his people, didn't he? He said, all authority in heaven
and earth is given unto me. And behold, I am always with
you. And therefore this fellow writes,
walking in the way of your laws, we just wait for you. We're not going to try to work
out our own salvation. We're waiting for that one to
come who will fulfill what these laws only picture. We're not trying to make our
own salvation. We're not trying to establish
our own righteousness. We're not trying to make our
own suitable sacrifice. We're just going through the
motions of a religion that pictures and points to a reality. Your name and renown are the
desires of our hearts. Let me ask you, child of God,
in this world, what would make you happiest
of all? You know one thing I look forward
to? is when our Lord appears and every eye shall see Him.
And they won't see Him as He was. They'll see Him as He is
in the full splendor of the glory of the God-man. And I don't know if it's nice,
but I'm gonna say I told you so. I told you. And it will do my heart good
to see every knee bow and hear every tongue confess that He
is Lord. And that's why I like coming
here. Because when we come here, what do we do? We talk about
His name and His renown. I even like it when I hear His
name and renown spoken of by those who don't even understand
I went to watch that movie called Amazing Grace. It was the story
of William Wilberforce. And he was
in the House of Commons back in the late 1700s and early 1800s. And it took him 20 years, but
he worked and finally got slavery outlawed, or the slave trade
outlawed. England. And he had as a child been a
member of the church that John Newton pastored. And remember
John Newton is the one who wrote Amazing Grace. John Newton had
been a slave trader before the Lord saved him. And he was deeply
interested in what Wilberforce was doing because you can imagine
the sight of a slave ship would pain his heart. Because he'd
remember. But there's a scene in there
in which the actor was Albert Finney. He was playing John Newton.
And part of the script had him saying one of John Newton's quotes. And he said, I am quite old and
my memory is failing. But I do remember this, I am
a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior. I wanted to jump up and say amen,
you know, but you don't do that in the theater. And I rejoiced
just to hear those words again. I'd heard that quote before.
But I also rejoiced that a man who didn't even believe that
said it. and spread abroad the fame of
Jesus Christ, even though he himself evidently had no interest
in it. Isn't it amazing what the Lord
can do? I went to that movie to be entertained. I went there
and I got blessed. God can speak to his people out
of the mouths of those who have no interest in the truth. And
he blesses them with his word. Oh, your name and renown are
the desire of our hearts. We're not interested in us being
famous. We're not interested in us being
what the world looks at and says, boy, that's great. We want them
to look at our God. We want them to see Christ, to
behold his glory and to worship him right along with us. Now verse 9, this is what really
caught my attention last night. My soul yearns for you in the
night. In the morning, my spirit longs
for you. Now there's several things that
can be drawn from this. First of all, I ask you this.
Is this your experience? Do you ever feel this way, longing
for the Lord? I can imagine that when men are sent overseas to war, that on the Ignite when they're alone, or
at least everybody's quiet and you're alone with your thoughts.
They long for home. They long for their loved ones.
And why do they long for them? Because they're separated from
them. Now, I know that our God is with us and I know that we
approach him in a spiritual fashion through prayer and praise. But don't you long to see him
face to face? Don't you long to hug him? I was brought up
in a men don't hug men home. And I mean, you know, it never
was a rule laid down. It just didn't happen. But when I started
going to 13th Street Baptist, you know, they're kind of a hugging
group. And I got accustomed to the idea, and I liked it. You know, as human beings, we
like touch. Real love doesn't just reach
out in affection. That's why it's so painful to
the heart to be separate from those you love. That's why even
though now with our technology we can get on our phones or our
tablets or computers or whatever and we can see their face and
we can talk to them and that's better than just writing letters.
That's better. But it's nothing like being right
there. When you reconnect with loved ones, what's the first
thing you do? I remember when I was called to pastor in Owensboro
Uh, it was six months before we got back, back to the, uh,
West Virginia, Kentucky area where I grew up. And that's the
longest I'd ever been away from my mother. And, uh, so Bonnie
and, well, at this point it had been all three kids and me got
in the car and drove from Owens where six hour trip. And I came
in, drove in, guy in the States, and it's one of those housing
developments that the main entrance is a boulevard, you know. It's
got the median strip in the middle. And I pulled in, and right there
in the grassy median strip is a sign. Welcome home, Joe and
Bonnie Terrell and kids, or something like that, you know. And that
brought a smile to my face. And I drove on down the road,
down the hill, around the curve, pulled into mom's driveway, mom
and dad's driveway. And before I could get out of
the car, here comes mom. And I'm not lying to you. She
came at me like that. Why? She longed for me. And that longing could not be
fulfilled at a distance. And brethren, we long for Him. And that longing cannot be fulfilled
at a distance. So long as we are here, we long
for Him. We long to hear His voice with
ears. We long to see His glory with
eyes. We long to embrace him with arms. We long to tell him we love him,
that we thank him. My soul yearns for you in the
night when the lights are out and there's nothing to crowd
your thoughts. And you're alone in your own
mind. That can be a scary place. When you don't have anything
else to distract you, quite often you think on it, particularly
if, as you lay down in your bed, or whether you're pacing the
floors. Really, this doesn't say, in my bed, It just says,
in the night. But there's something pressing on
your mind. There's struggles. There's conflicts. There's sin. There's trouble. And you're trying to work it
out. That's just our way. And you can't. And you say, oh Lord, I long
for you. If you were here, all would be
well. If you were here, none of this
would matter. We long for him. And then he
goes on and says, in the morning, my spirit longs for you. When I get up, before the world
gets a chance to get its hooks in me. I remember at one time going
through some pretty serious struggles, and I made it a practice. I tried,
and I should have kept it up, but when I'd wake up, I would,
as soon as I thought of it, I'd begin praying. Why? to set my mind on Him. Set my mind to think about Him. To get control of my out-of-control
mind. To lay hold of it with the truth
of God and the grace of God before it spun out of control. It was
helpful. I saw I think this was before Facebook,
actually. I can't even remember where I first saw it. Maybe it
was a poster. But it's a prayer. And somebody said, Lord, so far
I haven't got mad. I haven't yelled at anybody.
I haven't cussed. But I'm about to get out of bed.
I think I'm going to need your help from now on. Isn't that
how you often feel? Oh, this world's a tough place
for a believer to live. in the morning, long for him,
reach out for him. Even if you're not able to embrace
him with these arms in your heart, reach out for him. Well, there's so much more that
could be said. Let me just skip down here to
verse 13. Lord, you establish peace for us. All that we have accomplished,
you have done for us. Sound familiar? We have believed. Yeah, the Lord
did that for us. He worked it in us. We have remained faithful. Yeah,
the Lord did that for us. We have preached the gospel.
The Lord did that for us. Through the ministry of this
congregation, there have been some called out of darkness into
light. Yeah, the Lord did that for us.
We have dwelt together in peace. Yeah, the Lord did that for us. There's not a thing of spiritual
worth that has ever been done upon which one of the sons of
Adam could put his name and say, I did that. Because we don't
do it, he does it. He established peace. Being justified
by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I hear people say, make your
peace with God. The story is told of a fellow
who was near death and a preacher, maybe it was a chaplain in a
hospital, but this preacher come up to him, was talking to him,
finally said, Have you made peace with God? And this man answered,
no. Well, would you like to? No. And he said, well, man, he said,
you're going to be leaving this world shortly and facing God. Don't you want to make your peace
with God? No. Why not? Because Jesus Christ already
did. I have nothing to offer God which
would establish peace between Him and me. But Jesus Christ
has reconciled God to me and has reconciled me to God. I don't
need to make peace. It's already been made. Are you at peace with God? Is
He at peace with you through Jesus Christ? He establishes
peace for us. Well, I'm just going to read
this verse here, verse 3 now. You will keep in perfect peace
him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts you. Now the King James
puts it this way, thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind
is stayed on thee, for he trusts thee. Ours is more accurate, but the sense of where it says
whose mind is steadfast means to be stayed, means to be grounded,
anchored, unmoved, and it's implied for certain that the mind is
steadfast in God because we trust Him. If our minds, our consciousness,
is looking to our God and Him alone, if we trust Him And I
don't mean that just, you know, we pray the sinner's prayer or
something like that. I mean, we trust Him with our
souls. We trust Him with our lives,
our natural lives. We trust Him with the affairs
of our natural lives if we do. Oh, what peace. Say, yeah, but
you could get to COVID and die. I've trusted that to God. Doesn't
mean we don't use good sense. You know what I mean. Yeah, but you could lose your
job. Yeah, I could. But I've trusted everything to
God. And I know that he will take
care of me. And that so long as God lives,
No harm can come to me. There may be pain, there may
be suffering, there may be natural want, but there'll never be any
harm. Because whatever the course our
life takes, if we are children of God, whatever course our life
takes, where does it end? in His presence, faultless and
full of joy. In the night, my soul longs for
Him. In the morning, I want Him. Throughout the night time of
my life, I long for Him. And when the morning comes, and
I awake to behold His likeness, I will be satisfied.