Tell you what, while we're waiting
on these two ladies, y'all go ahead and, well, go ahead and
turn to Isaiah 49. I'm only gonna have you turn two times,
and it's gonna be in just the first two or three minutes, so.
I'll give you fingers, it's just too hot to work today, so. I
won't even make you turn too many pages. I don't think so, that's just
heat. And Rupert asked me to go ahead
and say the prayer, but I would like to lift up the families
of those two boys that passed away this week at Triton. Also,
remember the teachers. My wife's taking it awful hard,
and according to her, there's a couple who are even, there's
quite a few, but there's a couple who are really, really taking
it hard. It's amazing how close they get to these kids. I go to work and I'm only surrounded
by just a few people in a couple day in the whole day and I'm.
And I still think I see too many, but they affect the lives of
so many and are affected by so many so. Remember those people,
please, as we pray. Dear Lord, take all these earthly
concerns away from us as we come to you for the next two hours.
Help me and build today to. Just for a few minutes, expound
upon your word and give us something that'll be beneficial to our
hearers this morning. Our eyes have veils over them,
unless you're pleased to remove those coverings, dear Lord, so
please do so today for just a little while. Bend our hearts your way. Melton to love you and your son
our Savior more and more. Amen All right, as I ask you
I just want to look at one verse here at Isaiah 49 14 don't even
have a Comment on it. I just want to read it since
we're Going in this direction. I just decided to let you stop
Isaiah 49 verse 14 but Zion said the Lord hath forsaken me, and
my Lord hath forgotten me." The people of Israel cry out, the
Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. All right,
turn over quickly to Isaiah chapter 58. I'm going to read just one
verse to you here. Once again, we have the people
of Israel crying out. They say here in Isaiah 58 in
verse 3, Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? Where have we afflicted our soul? And thou takest no knowledge. Lord, we're doing all this for
you. I mean, this is what they're
saying. We're doing all this for you,
and we're not getting anything in return. That's what it amounts
to. Now this is just two examples
of the murmuring and the complaints directed at God by His own people
here in the book of Isaiah. And though the people's dissatisfaction
is not always given a single voice in this chapter as it is
here in these two verses, their unrest and their unhappiness
with God, it's readily evident throughout this book. And what
may be the most egregious behavior during this time, so many have
returned to idolatry. They've turned to it because,
as I just read to you, they view this inactivity by God on their
behalf as His being absent, Him not even being the true God.
They turn to other gods. Just reminds you so much of the
forefathers, how quickly they turned there at the base of Mount
Sinai. Moses was just going on up into
the mount for just a few days to receive the law. By the time
he got back, a golden calf, they had fell down to worship a false
idol. But it's in answer to these malcontents
that Isaiah opens this 59th chapter And that's going to be our focus
on this morning. I'm going to try and get through
the whole chapter if I can. A verse here or there I won't
say anything about, but I would like to look at the whole thing.
This chapter caught my eye a few weeks ago, and it's there again. It just hadn't been able to let
me go. There's a lot here, and I'll just touch a few of the
highlights. But in answering these people,
their cries, their misbegotten cries out, and their complaints
against the Lord, and they're saying that you just don't do
anything for us. He opens this 59th chapter with
these words. Behold, the Lord's hand is not
shortened, that it cannot save. Neither his ear heavy, that it
cannot hear. Isaiah begins this. chapter with
what I view as a simple picture of faith. So many times in the
scriptures that when Israel sinned and they did something wrong,
they started dabbling in idolatry, so many times in the scriptures
the preacher or the prophet or whoever was speaking to them
at the time They would remind them of times past, all the times
past when God saved them from their trials and their tribulations
by His grace and His mercy, how He exercised His mighty power
on their behalf. Not so here in this case. Isaiah
just says, Behold. Now, it may be that by this time,
so many years have passed since they had been brought out of
the land of Egypt. These people by this time may
be looking at that as just old wives' tales. You know, a lot
of people nowadays, they don't believe that happened. Scientists
have always proven, oh, well, the holding back of the Red Sea
is because of this and that, and they come up with all these
excuses. It could have been that these
people were just so completely ate up with what I called, what
have you done for me lately, disease. They say to themselves,
never mind what you did for people a long time ago. What are you
doing for me now? But we're all selfless creatures,
aren't we? We've all got that in our heart. Isaiah just opens up with a simple
statement of fact. God is God and He has the power
to both act or not act whenever and wherever He chooses. But,
believe me, He does have the power. That's the message that
Isaiah is proclaiming right here in that verse. This reminds me
of the difficulty one can have when speaking to unbelievers
about our sovereign Lord. You can give folks examples of
God's answer in prayer. I'm sure practically everyone
here in this congregation, we have sent up prayers to God,
petitions to Him, and He's answered them. We can tell that to others. You
can tell them how God has directed your path and the path of your
life and how he's directing it now. Look back in your life. The decisions you've made and
how you ended up where you are sitting right here today. I thought
about it this past week and I just thought about it right now. I
came so close to taking a job with, I believe it was Enron
when I got out of college back in 83 or four. I mean, I had
gotten to the, I think I had one more interview to go. But
they couldn't tell me where I was going to be living. And that
was the one decision I made that has
me here today, instead of I do not know where. God was behind
it. I have no doubt about that. I
can tell that to you, and I'm sure every one of you have the
same stories you can tell back to me. But when you share that
kind of a message, that kind of testimony with someone else,
What's their reaction? Boredom? Denial? In some cases, even laughter.
Goes straight to your heart, doesn't it? Makes you leery to
even spread your message, your testimony. But that doesn't give us an excuse.
Isaiah faced those odds. and many more when he was proclaiming
the truth of our Lord Jesus Christ. He had much opposition, but still
he was brave enough and did not withhold his message to say,
Behold, look at our sovereign Lord. He hath done whatsoever
he pleaseth. But he doesn't stop here. He
continues to give the truth to this wayward people. He tells
them in no uncertain terms why God is seemingly absent and uncaring
to their current circumstances. Look right here in verse 2. It's
written, but your iniquities have separated between you and
your God, and your sins have hid His face from you that He
will not hear. What a lesson there is to be
learned in this verse. Most especially if you're a murmurer
and a complainer like I am. There was an article in the Bulletin
the other week, and boy, it hit home. I didn't look it up. I
don't even remember who wrote it, but more or less it said,
if you believe in the sovereign Lord, don't be complaining about
your current circumstances. He put you there. I haven't done
quite as much complaining in the last two or three weeks since
I read that. But whether these words are directed
to an individual or to a congregation such as ourselves, or in this
case to an entire nation, and I believe that this passage can
speak equally to each of these groups. Anytime that there is
an apparent absence of God, there is a fault. There is a reason
behind it. And the fault is yours. Or more
specifically, your sin. Don't we all go through periods
of time where we just seem to be alienated from the Lord? He
just seems so far away. We don't feel any, what I'll
term is revival in our heart at all. We come to church, come
to church faithfully. But the messages, they just don't
seem to quite do anything for us. Might go on for weeks, months. We just seem to be slowly drifting
away from our spiritual selves, and more and more of our concentration
and time and effort seems to be going toward our carnal self. That's the problem, but it's
also a solution. The problem is our sin. Isaiah
tells us of this, if we feel any alienation from God, it is
our sin. in no uncertain terms. But for
the solution, the next time you begin to feel this way, the next
time you begin to feel an alienation to God, instead of like these
people murmuring and complaining to Him and complaining about
Him, go to Him. Do the opposite. Go to Him and
confess your sin. Confess your unworthiness. And
you might find you get more than what you even bargained for.
Just might. But of course, this sounds easy,
doesn't it? It's just too bad that our nature,
our very nature that leads us to sin in the first place. Well,
it just sometimes makes it impossible to do that, doesn't it? But Isaiah, he just doesn't leave
it here. Just in case they may have forgotten, or I'm sure that
in certain circumstances they were not even aware that they're
doing it at all, Isaiah gives these people a little reminder
of what's alienating them from God. And as a note, and to make
sure I get this point across and I don't want to leave it
out later, As I move along in this message
this morning, I'm going to make a divide between the people of
God and most specifically the professors of false doctrine
of God. But remember this description
that Isaiah is about to give of the sins of the people. It's
a picture of all men, even believers before given grace by God above. See if, like me, if you find
this list of sins that Isaiah is going to list here, if you
find it interesting and disturbing. Verse 3, for your hands are defiled
with blood and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken
lies. Your tongue hath murdered perverseness. None calleth for justice, nor
any pleadeth for truth. They trust in vanity and speak
lies. They conceive mischief and bring
forth iniquity. They hatch cockatrice's eggs
and weave the spider's web. He that eateth of their eggs
dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Their
webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves
with their works, their works are works of iniquity, and the
act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they
make haste to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of
iniquity, washing and destruction are in their past. The way of
peace they know not, and there is no judgment in their goings.
They have made them crooked past. Whosoever goeth therein shall
not know peace. Now everyone knows what sin is.
And in case you don't, there are several reminders in the
scriptures. There's of course the Ten Commandments. And there
are also other lists to be found. Some of these sins, some of these
lists, they include the sins of adultery, envy, uncleanness,
lustfulness, malice, fornication, wrath, anger, strife. That's
just starting a couple of lists that we have in our scriptures.
But I told you that I found what Isaiah had both interesting and
disturbing And it's because the sin that he's speaking about
here, it's a little bit different than those sins I just listed
right there. We're more familiar with those
sins I just listed. They're more evident. We see
them going on all around us. Unfortunately, there's a few
of them that we've probably practiced. We know all about those sins.
But the sin that Isaiah is speaking about mainly here in this chapter
of Scripture, it's a little more subtle than that. Now I did a lot of preparation,
more than I've been able to do lately, preparing for today. And what I'm getting ready to
say mainly is just where I can condense and save a little bit
of time. Yes, these scriptures speak about
some of these sins. We all know that murder is sin
and the shedding of blood is nothing, you know, can be described
right to that sin. But I believe that the sin that
Isaiah is really speaking about here are some of the other sins
that Paul lists in that little list I got from you. I believe
it comes from Galatians Galatians and Colossians where he lists
out different sins. But there was another variety
or a class of sins that he mentioned that I didn't say. And I think
what Isaiah is saying here falls in this class. It's blasphemy
and sedition and heresy. That's what Isaiah is speaking
about. The overriding sin that Isaiah is speaking about here
in chapter 59 is that the people of Israel are
denying the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And just as much as an indictment
it is of the people in Isaiah's day, this chapter is also a prophecy. It was a prophecy of Christ's
day. I believe it's Matthew 17. You can read an example of how the same
thing was going on in Christ's day. It's also a prophecy of
the end days. I'll read a few verses from Revelation
later on to show you that. And unfortunately, it's a prophecy
of our day. If I just don't run out of time,
I'll get to that. But I want to just make a few
statements to point out what I'm speaking about and how they
were denying the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ here in these
few verses. Verse three, I'll skip around
quickly. Our lips have spoken lies. Your
tongue hath muttered perverseness. Our lips have spoken false doctrines,
some on purpose and some just repeating the falsehood that
they've learned. We have so many people in that
situation in our current generation. But there are those whose tongues
have murdered perversions of the gospel, and they've done
it intentionally and with premeditation. That's what this perverseness
is. Verse four, none calleth for
justice, and here we get to the heart of the matter. None calleth
for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth. They trust in vanity
and speak lies. They conceive mischief and bring
forth iniquity. This non-calling for justice,
it has the same meaning as non-calling for righteousness. So therefore,
none pleads or argues for righteousness. at least not the righteousness
that can only be had by being found in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The false witness would rather trust in vanity. And the word
vanity here in this verse, it has the same meaning as nothing.
They trust in nothing. They trust in nothing because
any righteousness which they promote is self-righteousness. It is not the righteousness provided
by the Lord Jesus Christ. So therefore, it's no righteousness
at all. It is nothing. And those who promote that are doing it willingly, mischievously,
and it is the height of iniquity. These people are denying and
preaching another doctrine, another doctrine besides this imputed
righteousness of Christ. They're denying the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And this word is giving me a
fit, but I've got to say it. Verse 5, and I'll skip, like
I say, I'll skip around a little bit. They hatched cockatrices'
eggs. He that eateth of their eggs
dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Now,
the best I could learn when studying this cockatrice, it's a mystical
creature that laid pretty eggs, but when they hatched, out came
the most poisonous of creatures. As I looked into it even more,
apparently the translators of the King James Version, at least
one comment I read on it, They came up, they used this mystical
creature because they didn't really understand what the word
meant in the Hebrew language, but through time and more study
and more learning and more reading the other documents and things,
the term used here actually means an adder or a viper, which we
know that's in the class of extremely poisonous snakes. So what this
has the meaning of is that the proponents of false doctrine,
what they say is very pleasing to the eye or to the ear. It is pleasing to the eye, like
it says here. And it makes the hearers, makes
them feel good. But upon further examination,
when you crack open this egg, so to speak, it leads only to death. When
you look at what the proponents of these false doctrines are
saying, it leads to death, both spiritual and eternal. Verse five and six, the combination
of men weave the spider's webs, their web shall not become garments,
neither shall they cover themselves with their works. Now, is there
any doubt that these words are directed to those who put self-righteousness
instead of the righteousness provided by Christ? Can you make
a garment out of a spider web? No, they'll disintegrate with
just the lightest of a touch. So it is with the robes made
with self-righteousness. They may be elaborate, and they
may be pretty in man's eyes. They look like good people, more
upright character. always doing what man terms the
right thing. In our eyes, they look pretty, but they fall apart when they're
touched by the justice of God. There's nothing to them. You
pull one strand and they all fall away. You see, having self-righteousness
It's the equivalent of having no righteousness at all. It's
the same thing. And verse 8 winds up, the way
of peace they know not. They have no peace with God.
Therefore, they have no peace in their hearts. They think that
they're the ones who have to make peace with God. They just
don't understand that it's God who has to make peace with them.
They've got the cart before the horse. That's why they're always
busy, always trying to do more and more. But they continually
feel worse and worse and worse. They have no peace with God. And there are no judgment in
their goings. They become so deluded and mistaken
with their false doctrines that when they are confronted with
the truth of the true gospel, and whether they're sitting right
here reading the scriptures or if they may happen to hear a
message by a gospel minister, they have no judgment to understand
the truth that stares them right in the face or pierces their
eardrum. And if they do, by chance, understand
it just a little bit, unless God touches them, they
hate it. They hate it. And they become
the ones who, back in verse 3, speak in perverseness. They do
it with premeditation and maliciousness. So what's the result of this
apostasy? Now we've already seen in the first two verses that
the people cry out about a separation from God and that He hears them
no longer. No wonder, no wonder. Isaiah
speaks further on these cries as a result of the people's sin
and it begins right here in verse 9. Therefore is judgment far
from us. Neither does justice overtake
us. We wait for light, but behold
obscurity. For brightness, but we walk in
darkness. We grope for the wall like the
blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes. We stumble at noonday
as in the night. We are in desolate places as
dead men. We roar all like bears and mourn
sore like doves. We look for judgment, but there
is none. for salvation, but it is far
from us. For our transgressions are multiplied
before thee, and our sins testify against us. For our transgressions
are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them. In transgressing
and lying against the Lord and departing away from our God,
speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from
the heart words of falsehood, and judgment is turned away backward,
and justice standeth afar off, for truth is fallen in the street,
and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth, and he that
departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. What a cry Isaiah makes
here for his people. He confesses their desire for
spiritual life, but he also confesses their sin, and he also confesses
the dire circumstances that they now find themselves in. From
verse 9, he confesses their, I don't even know if this is
a word, their religiousness. They wait for the light, but
because of sin, they walk in darkness. They grope for the
truth, but they grasp at straws. And in the spirit of this prophecy
I spoke about earlier, we can speak of ourselves. We now walk
in daylight. The Messiah has come. The Savior
has walked this earth. Yet we remain in the darkness
of night. And it's just not a regular night. I don't know if you walked
out this morning. It was very dark this morning. You could
barely see the stars in the sky. But this night, speaking about
here, no moon or no stars. Pitch black. And from verse 11,
and you can tell I'm already speeding up, they find no righteousness
in themselves, so there is no salvation to be had. They're
relying on self-righteousness. And as I said, that's no righteousness
at all. And in verse 12, their sin testify
against them no peace. Their guilty conscience allows
them to have no peace, no peace with God. And the verse that
put me down this idea that this sin that Isaiah confessing is
the denial of Christ is right here in verse 13. In transgressing
and lying against the Lord and departing away from our God,
speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from
the hearts words of falsehood. It was done in Isaiah's day,
it was done in Christ's day, it's done in our day, and it'll
be done in the final days. Man will not have this Savior
for his salvation. The one who does it all. They've
got to help him along. Paul said the same thing about
folks in his day. You all know the verses I'm referring
to in Romans 10. He talked about how they had
a zeal for God. But what did they do? They went
around to establish their own righteousness. That reminds me
of verse 4 right here in this chapter. None calleth for justice,
nor any pleaded for truth. No, they're not pleading for
God's righteousness. They're too busy trying to provide
their own. It's the same way in our day.
They say there are not that many people going to church anymore,
but I thought about it. It takes me 27 minutes to get
to work in the morning, and a good part of that is through Fort
Bragg, through the forest over there. I know of at least 13
churches. Somebody's going to church somewhere. The smallest one looks like a
renovated two-room house, and then there's that cathedral that
they call Northwood Temple. They're all going about to establish
their own righteousness. So many of them don't even know
it. Not even aware of their sin. Like I said earlier, I don't
even know that even all the people in Isaiah this day were aware
of it. I saw a sign this week to show you how subtle it is
and how Satan works subtly. You know, think about how he
approached Eve in the garden. A simple sign. Looked harmless. Got God. Got God. Ooh, what do they reference?
A TV commercial, Got Milk? As if to get God is to you, little
old puny you, go to the refrigerator, open up the door, get your glass,
and just take him off the shelf. And he's yours. I don't think this little old
baloney arm's going to take God too many places, what do y'all
think? That's subtle. That's subtle.
That's subtle. Now, Dennis may have mentioned
last week, I believe a couple of times, of how it was in Noah's
day. God looked down, found no man
righteous, no man worthy. What did He do in that day? He
provided an ark. Let's see what He provides in
this day. We've got to hurry up. The end of verse 15 right
here. And the Lord saw it, and it displeased
Him that there was no judgment. And he saw that there was no
man, and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore
his arm brought salvation unto him, and his righteousness it
sustained him. For he put on righteousness as
a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head. And
he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with
zeal as a cloak. According to their deeds, accordingly
he will repay fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies, to
the islands he will pay recompense. So shall they fear the name of
the Lord from the West and his glory from the rising of the
sun, when the enemy shall come in like a flood and the spirit
of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. And the Redeemer
shall come to Zion and to them that turn from transgression
in Jacob, saith the Lord. As for me, this is my covenant
with them, saith the Lord. My spirit that is upon thee and
my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out
of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of
the mouth of thy seed seed, saith the Lord from henceforth and
forever." Time's practically gone. I told
you that this chapter can speak to several different times. It
spoke to Isaiah's time. And God lifting up the King Cyrus,
a pagan king, who just all of a sudden had a change of heart
and told Israel, go home. I don't want you as slaves anymore.
I don't know that it's ever been done before or since in the history
of man that an enslaved people would just let go. It's a prophecy of the end times.
I'm not going to read the scriptures. I've got them listed out here,
but there are several of these verses I just read to you. You
go to Revelation, and especially chapter 16 and chapter 19, and
you'll see these same terms and these same words practically
repeated. Isaiah and John I probably should go to Revelation
and show you exactly what I'm talking about, but they're speaking
about the same one here. They're speaking about the same
person. But who is this person? Who is this person? Well, he's
this one who in verse 16, and he saw. And he saw. This is none other than the Lord
Jesus Christ looking down on the face of the earth. And just
as in Noah's day, there's not one single righteous man found.
So that when he searched, he says there's no man, there's
no intercessor. No man, not a single one worthy
to meditate between a holy, righteous God and this sinful, wayward,
blasphemous people. Not one. So man's in a pickle. We're in a pickle. We're religious. Just like the Jews here in Isaiah's
day and in Paul's day. We talk about God. We think about
God. We think we love God. The truth is we don't even know
Him. How can you love a being you do not know? And because that is our state,
we make up these phony doctrines and we try to gussy up ourselves
to make ourselves presentable to God. But if possible, and I say if
possible because we're as far from God as anything can be,
but these actions and these attempts, they only make us even more unacceptable
to God. It just allows our stench to
reach his nostrils faster. All this pretty and nothing,
putting on this false cologne. So we need a go-between. We need
someone to step between us and this holy God and His judgment. We need someone to make us acceptable
to Him. Not only hide the stench, but
we need someone to wash it away, to wash away our sins, to wash
away our filth. We need someone to pull us from
the wayside and to provide for us an acceptable wedding garment. We need someone to save us. The
Messiah looked down and he saw this. He recognized the disease
that we have. We're sick with sin, a sickness
that will lead to death, spiritual and eternal. We've taken medicine,
but it's made us worse. It's a medicine of our own making.
That's our own self-righteousness. We are in a predicament. But
how does verse 16 continue? Therefore his arm brought salvation
unto him. It's a bad analogy, but you know
how the saying goes. If you want a job done right,
well, you've got to do it yourself. Christ looked down, no one, no
one to do it. So he had to do it. He had to
leave heaven. He had to take on the flesh of
a man. He had to provide salvation for his people, for himself and
by himself. Only he is able to save the people
from the sins. We, we must have a Savior. And it must be this Savior. It
must be this Jesus. No other. Isaiah is telling this. Joshua told us this. Moses, Job,
John, Paul. All 66 books have the same message. Jesus and Jesus alone is the
Savior of His people. My time's gone. I'm just, I wanted
to give you, I got a couple minutes, just talking about the subtlety and how people are so misguided.
Sometimes even with well-intentions, this country is lost. The world
is lost, but this country most especially. Look at first, 17
for he put on righteousness as a breastplate and in the helmet
of salvation upon his head And he put on the garments of vengeance
for clothing and was clad with zeal as a cloak Two things like
this you think of war paul wrote almost these same words Believers
are dressed in this same clothing provided by the spirit Why do
we have this? Clothing we're in war. We're
in war with the enemies of god But we're defenseless to do anything
to fight them off. The Spirit provides everything
we need. So when they shoot those arrows,
false doctrine comes your way, it's like they hit the breastplate
and just fall off. But think here about Christ wearing
this. He has the garments of a warrior
on. We are at war. He is at war with
his enemies. He is no pacifist. I've been
reading a book on General Patton in the last couple weeks, just
a page here and there. In a few accounts, it's been
very detailed about the atrocities of war. It's hard to believe
that a man can do what happens in war to a fellow man. But if
God doesn't stay our hand, even we could do it. This is the kind
of battle that we're in. This is the kind of battle that
Jesus is fighting. Now, to get back to this subtlety
I was talking about, about how the message of today is so false,
but it sneaks in so easily. I saw another church sign this
week. Jesus is waiting. Come to Him. Does Jesus look like He's waiting
to you? We need a king, but we need a
warrior king. He has that on. He is proactive. He looked down. No one, no intercessor. He did it Himself. He did all that, and now He's
sitting in heaven, waiting, wringing His hands. Worried about you
and your decision? Come unto Him? I thought about that. That is
not an invitation. I'm sure they're getting it,
coming to me. Coming to me, all you that are
burdened and laden and heavy with sin. I'm sure that's where
they're getting it from in their minds. That's not an invitation. That
is a command. You have children. Most of you
do. A few of you don't, but you'll
know what I'm talking about. One of them's my child. When
I say, come, what do I expect? I expect him to come. The difference
between me and the woman we're speaking about this morning,
I don't have the power, really, to make him do it unless I go
beat him. When this Jesus says, come, You do His bidding. He's not waiting on you folks.
He's coming and saving whomsoever He pleases. Amen to that. Thank you very much.