Well, evidently it's working. James, could you read scripture
this morning in church? Sure. Acts chapter 17, 22 through
34. Okay. Thank you. But for now, we're going to go
to Isaiah. Fifty-five. I need to slide this over so I
have enough room, but make sure I don't slide it so far it does
this. Oh, yeah. Couldn't do that, but
I think we're OK. I'll hear about it from the people
watching. If there's anybody watching and they don't like
the way it worked out. As long as I do it right handed
over here, I'm OK. All right, let's pray. Our Father, thank you for choosing
us as your own, for sending your son to redeem us and your spirit
to call us. We thank you that you did not
leave us to ourselves because we know what the result of that
is. Bless this time that we look
at this portion of scripture and may it have the effect on
us that it should have. In Christ's name we pray, amen.
Isaiah 55, Isaiah 55. Now we spoke in the morning service
last week from the first part of the chapter And we're going
to begin now with verse 6 of Isaiah 55. It says, Seek the
Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way
and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord and
he will have mercy on him. and to our God, for He will freely
pardon." Now, it is a great grace on the part of God that He tells
us to seek Him. After all, we are members of
a race that rebelled against Him, rebelled against Him, the
very first member of our race rebelled against Him. And that
nature of rebellion has been passed down for however long
it's been, and we don't know for sure. The scriptures are
not plain on that matter, how long it's been since God created
the heavens and the earth. But for however long that's been,
that rebellious nature has been passed down from generation to
generation. There's only been one human being
born who did not have that nature, and that's our Lord Jesus Christ.
And he did not possess that nature for his ancestry. His biological
ancestry does not involve Adam. His father is quite literally
God. And so the rest of us have this
rebellious nature. Now, if people human beings had experienced
what God experienced in our rebellion. There never would have been this
seek me, as though seeking us would do any good. Rather, we
would have reacted simply in wrath and destroyed the human
race on the spot. And seeing that that rebellion
that Adam started has been going on continually, Ever since the
days of Adam, we should be more surprised that
we still have the word of God here saying to us, seek the Lord. In other words, God is extending
his gracious hand toward us. Seek the Lord. But it comes with
a caveat. It comes also with a word of warning. Seek the Lord
while he may be found. It sometimes bothers me that
people can listen and listen and listen to the gospel being
preached and not do anything. Now, I know the theology behind
that. I know they're dead in trespasses and sins. They don't
have what it takes to respond. But still, When the gospel is
preached and it seemingly has no effect on people, you wonder
what are people thinking? Do they believe that this day
of opportunity just will go on forever? No, there is an end
to it. We know there's an end to the
day of opportunity when a person dies. If he has not sought the
Lord by that time, there is no seeking of the Lord afterward.
The Bible describes it in this fashion, it says, where a tree
falls, there it lays. That's true. You cut down a tree,
once it hits the ground, it's got no capacity to change its
condition. And when men fall, that is when
they have been cut down by death, however and wherever it is they
are, when they fall, that's where they stay. In the book of Revelation,
In describing what we might call the eternal state, it says, let
him that is filthy be filthy still. So seek the Lord while
he may be found. Call on him while he is near. How is God near? Well, he's near
in his word. He comes near to us by this message
which he has recorded for us in writing. It is a remarkable thing. that
you and I, that is a remarkable blessing, let's put it that way,
a remarkable blessing that you and I have ready access to what
God inspired the prophets to say and write. That's actually, in world history,
that's a fairly recent thing. I mean, God spoke a long
time ago, the message has been around ever since God spoke there
in Genesis chapter 3. That is a message of the gospel.
When he said that the seed of the woman would crush the head
of the serpent, the message of grace has been around. But we
know that for at least the first 2,500 years of human history,
There was no written testimony of the Word of God, not until
God spoke to Moses and Moses wrote the first five books of
the Bible. And then over the next 1500 years,
God added more and more to it. And finally, he spoke in his
son. And those who saw him were eyewitnesses of his glory and
his work. They wrote down what he said.
and the end of the book came. But you know what? It would be
another 1400 years before someone invented what they call movable
type so that things could be printed in mass quantity fairly
inexpensively. Certainly compared to having
to pay a scribe to handwrite everything. When the Bible became
available in print, It actually shook the world. You know, there
were many people before Martin Luther who stood up to the Roman
Catholic Church and the false doctrine they were preaching.
And most of them who stood up got killed for doing it. Now,
we know that the reason that it worked, shall we say, that's
the right word in the days of Martin Luther. We know it's because
that's when God ordained it. But the thing, the, shall we
call it, natural thing that had come about by the time of Martin
Luther that wasn't present for the other men who tried to stand
up against the false doctrine was very simply Gutenberg's printing
press. And the reason they couldn't
silence Martin Luther is because somebody printed what he said
and it got spread everywhere. Not only that, Martin Luther
translated the Bible into German. And it got spread around. And
when people could open up this book for themselves and find
out what God had inspired the writers to put in here, they
could say, well, that's not what the priest told me. They claim
it's amazing how ignorant the priests were of the scriptures. Most priests were just hirelings
who'd been taught how to do the ceremonies and collect the money. And what they had said about
God was the imaginations of men. And when people opened up this
book, they said, well, what I've been told is not what God says.
But you and I. I was thinking as I came down
here, you know, I do most of my studying on the computer,
but I bring a Bible along when I'm going to stand up and preach
and I look for a Bible. Oh, Well, fortunately, I did
have one in my backpack I brought with me, but I thought to myself,
I have three copies of the Bible in the New International Version.
And I thought, it seems like maybe not one of them is here
at the church. But think about it, I've got
three copies of it. And that doesn't count all the copies
of it I've had before and wore out and all the copies I have
in other translations. You and I have absolutely no
excuse for not knowing what God says. But we do have the blessed privilege
that right at hand and even for absolutely free on the Internet,
we can have a written record of what God has said. God draws
near us in his word. He drew near us in the sun when
the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world. He was and this is
what we learned way back in chapter nine of the book of Isaiah. He is Emmanuel, which means God
with us. God with us. Now, that doesn't mean simply
God with us in the sense that he is on our side. Rather, it
means God is present among us. And that's why that name was
applied to our Lord Jesus Christ, because that is God with us,
as one of us. A miracle. But God drew near
that way. And, you know, that is when we
seek the Lord. While he may be found and call
on him while he is near, when we call on the Lord, It's written,
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
How do we do that? By calling upon the Lord Jesus
Christ to save us. Because he is God, he is the
Lord Jehovah with us, near to us. And he comes near to us in the
preaching of the gospel and in the gathering of the saints. Our Lord said, where two or three
of you are gathered together in my name, there I am in the
midst of you. Why would anyone that knows God
want to miss the assembly of the saints when they know that
Christ will be there? I know we can't see him with
these eyes, but we have his promise on it. I know there's times we
can't get together. There's time. I mean, we just
went through a stretch of it. The weather just made it impractical
at best, impossible at worst to get here. And that's actually
why I suddenly started trying to stream this on Facebook so
that some who were stuck at home could could watch. And we know
that sometimes illness keeps people from. But when when a
professed believer can come, It's a remarkable thing when
they don't come. Or what they miss. What they
miss. I know Christ is everywhere.
I know that he is with each of his people individually. That
by his spirit he is in them. But he made a special promise
regarding the assembly of God's people. And that's why the writer
of Hebrews went on later to say, do not forsake the assembling
of yourselves together as the manner of some is. And he goes, let the evil or
let the wicked forsake his way in the evil man, his thoughts. The wicked man's way is the way
of self-righteousness. The evil man thoughts are thoughts
of his own goodness. The greatest obstacle to a person
calling upon the name of the Lord is not some sense that he's
utterly unworthy to do so. Rather, it's his belief that
he is worthy to do so. The Lord will not be called on
by the worthy. He will not hear their cry. And
here's why you won't hear their cry. They don't cry for the right
thing. They don't cry for mercy. They don't look for His grace.
They don't approach Him as they truly are, bankrupt, in need
of His charity. They are too proud. But it says, Let the wicked forsake
his way, and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the
Lord, and he will," and notice this, have mercy. He will have mercy on him. See,
the wicked, the evil, they weren't looking for mercy till they turned
to him, turned away from their own way of seeing things. And
he says, turn to our God, for he will freely pardon. The Scriptures
say we are justified freely by His grace. Now, what does that
word freely mean? It doesn't mean simply without
cost. Now, that's one way it can be
taken. Certainly, we don't pay for it. What shall a man give in ransom
for his soul, says the Scriptures, seeing that it is very costly? But the word freely actually
means, it's a broader concept than simply without cost. It means without cause. It says here, let him turn to
the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God and he
will freely pardon. But we also understand this,
God does not show us mercy or show us pardon because we turn
to him. Now He won't if we don't, but
when He does, it won't be because we did. You say, how do you put all that
together? Well, know this, that when we turn to the Lord, it is because He turned us. Being turned, I turn. Yes, indeed, we turn, but we
turn only because God turns us. And therefore, we do not even
bring our turning, our repenting, our calling, our believing, our
coming to him, or whatever else the scriptures use to describe
looking to him. Whatever we're doing, we don't
even use that as the reason why he should have mercy on us. You
know what we plead? One thing and one thing alone.
Christ. That's the only reason for God's
mercy. Now, we might say that mercy
is the reason for Christ, and I guess that's true. If God had
not been merciful, he never would have sent the son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. But the only justification for
God's mercy is Christ and the work that He did. You see, God
is just, and He must always, when I say He must, not because
He's under obligation, simply because it's His nature. Because
He is of a just and righteous nature, He is compelled by His
own nature to punish all sin. He cannot simply show mercy. He can't let anything go. So in mercy, he caused our sins
to be laid on Christ and dealt with there. And that satisfied
his justice and his righteousness. And therefore, because of that,
he can show mercy to us. He already had a merciful heart
toward us, but in order to show that mercy, he had to deal with
our sin in the Lord Jesus Christ. But so far as anything we do,
he pardons freely. And then he says, verse eight,
for my thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways
my ways, declares the Lord, as the heavens are higher than the
earth. So are my ways higher than your
ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. Now, I said it's a great blessing
that we have this book, but it's also a great wonder that with
this book in hand. People don't think the thoughts
of God. they still go to this wicked and evil way of self-righteousness. They will stand here with the
testimony of God right in their hands, and yet they will find
some way to twist it to their own condemnation and twist it
to the condemnation of others, saying that the way to God has
something to do with how we act. I preached a funeral yesterday.
Preaching over in Dune, a man that, as far as I know, I never
met him. Never was in the same room with
him. But I preached a funeral for someone else in that extended
family a couple of years ago, so they called on me again to
do so. And what was interesting to me
And I can understand why they said these things to me. One
person was concerned that I would preach this man into hell because
it looked to them or it looked like what most people would think
was a hell deserving life. I said, I don't know the man,
so I can't tell you what his life was like or anything like that.
Another man told me afterwards, I'm just so glad you didn't preach
him into heaven. To both of these men, I said, I'm not saying this
to put them down because I understand fully why they think that way.
What I said to both of them was that I don't preach people anywhere.
I said, that's beyond me. I don't know what's become of
them. I'd rather set forth the Lord
Jesus Christ and what God has said about Him. And the fact
of the matter is there is nothing that you and I can see about
someone else and be able to use that as sure and certain proof
of their eternal destiny one way or the other. Now, normally speaking, we would
think if a guy dies cursing God, Well, I'm not going to hold out
a whole lot of hope for him. But just because somebody dies
praying doesn't mean that they left this world to go into the
presence of God faultless and full of joy. Now, the people
of this congregation that have passed on, I didn't have any
trouble assuming that they were under the grace of God. It can
never be said with certainty, but I do kind of believe if people
will sit around and listen to me preach this message over and
over and over again, it must be they believe it. I kind of
figure that, you know, it can take some time, but I figure
that normally speaking, someone who doesn't like this testimony
and doesn't believe it will leave. And so those who have professed
to believe it, we take the word for it and we'll act accordingly. And particularly if they stay
with it year upon year upon year. But here's one thing we know.
God's ways are higher than ours and his thoughts are higher than
our thoughts. Because our ways and our thoughts
are always naturally about us. And so on the one hand, we might
say, well, he was such a so-and-so, he can't possibly have gone to
heaven. Or we say, oh, she was such a
godly woman. If anybody made it to heaven,
she did. Oh, God's way in God's thoughts
concerning salvation are not about us at all, except as the
objects of his salvation. They are all together about Christ. And so he goes on to say, and
I'll just touch on this and we'll pick up here next week, but as
the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return
to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater.
So is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return
to me empty, but it will accomplish what I desire and achieve the
purpose for which I sent it. Now, there is two ways to take
this. Both of them are absolutely true. The first and most natural
way is that when his word is preached, it always accomplishes
whatever he intended to accomplish by. I was asked early on in my ministry. Actually, it was I can tell you
just exactly what it was. It was in December of 1987. We
didn't know this building yet, but there was a funeral that
went on here. because the pastor of the previous church in this
building had passed away. And I ran into someone, and he
asked me, he says, are you feeling the burden of the ministry? I said, well, to be honest with
you, I kind of like it. I'm enjoying it, which caught him a little
off guard. You know, one of the things and
I'm not saying there's no burdens involved, there's heartache involved,
but that's life. There's heartache involved in
raising kids. There's heartache in virtually all the relationships
we have. That's just the nature of things.
But when it comes to preaching the word. There's very little
burden to it to me for this reason. My sole responsibility is to
preach it. And I know this, if I tell the
truth, it will accomplish everything God intended to accomplish by
it. And so we can say, to whatever
degree I have stood in this pulpit for these, what seems like to
me, many years, there has never been an unsuccessful
worship service. unless on some occasion I did
not preach the word of God. Every time I preached his word,
it accomplished everything he intended to accomplish at that
gathering. It may not have accomplished
what we were looking for, but it accomplished what he was looking
for. But there's a more important application of this. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us. This is a faithful saying
and worthy of acceptation by everyone. God sent his Son, the
Word, into the world to save sinners. and the Lord Jesus will
accomplish everything he was sent here to do. He said, I did
not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
And what was that? To save sinners, to save God's
people. He said, of all that you have
given me, I have not lost one. And he never will. We'll pick
up there next week.