Thank you. Daniel played that
for us when he and his family were with us over the Thanksgiving
holidays and Ray and Bill recorded that, thought we might use that
if there were no offerings to provide special music for us
during our Sunday worship service. I just want to say that Daniel
is a very talented guitarist. And I cannot take any credit
for that although I was an instrument in getting him started. I showed
him a few chords and placed his little fingers when he was very
young on where to hold him on the guitar and taught him to
strum and he took it from there. But his love for the guitar,
his desire to learn motivated him to where he has excelled. He has forgotten more than I
ever knew as far as playing the guitar. And I say that to say
this, God's children are taught by the Spirit of God. We as God's
preachers have the honor and the privilege of being those
that God has chosen to place your tender heart upon the Scriptures,
the Holy Scriptures. It's God who has given you the
heart and He is the one who gives the desire, the interest to grow
in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Savior. And
that desire, that love for Him, the love for His Gospel truths
and for Christ and His people, motivates God's people not only
to want to be where the Gospel is preached, that we might learn
more, but also in our own private devotions, in our own homes. just like Daniel, get off by
ourselves and search the scriptures and pray and ask for God to give
the increase. And this love and this interest
is what God has given to each one and has chosen instruments
as preachers of His gospel. We delight in those who have
received the truth and who are growing in grace and in the knowledge
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, because we know our gospel
came not in word only, but in power, and much assurance, and
in the Holy Ghost. And so we thank God for you,
and we're thankful for God's answered prayer and healing many
of you who have been sick and have been brought back into our
fellowship. So, with that in mind, if you would please turn
to Isaiah chapter 12, We are going through this 12th
chapter of Isaiah. I have been in it for several
weeks. There are only six verses. in this chapter, and we laid
the foundation for this study by starting out with verse 6.
I know that sounds strange, but I felt that verse 6 would be
a good place to start to lay the foundation for those other
verses, verses 1 through 5. Verse 6 says, Cry out and shout,
thou inhabitant of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel
in the midst of thee. Zion refers to the church of
Jesus Christ that He purchased with His own blood. The inhabitants
of Zion, those are the members of His precious church, precious
in His sight, His blood-bought church. Zion is the church inhabitants
or those who have experienced the new birth, the miracle of
the new birth. Israel refers to God's holy nation,
spiritual Israel. And the Holy One of Israel is
Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior, who is wonderfully great
in the midst of us. And all of God's enlightened
saints believe this and are delighted and honored to shout, to cry
out, to witness to anyone we have the opportunity to witness
to that Jesus Christ is the Holy One of Israel in our midst. He's great. He's great. Great
is He because of who He is. He's our sovereign God, our Creator
who created us. It was God who formed us in our
mother's womb. I know he created Adam and Eve
out of the dust of the earth, breathed into their nostrils,
they became living souls. And I know we come into this
world through the process of procreation. But it's still God
who forms us in our mother's womb. It's God who breathes into
us the breath of life, and so He's great because of who He
is. He's great in what He has done. He humbled Himself. Our great
God humbled Himself so that He could be born of a virgin, so
that He could become a man. Only as a man could He establish
a perfect righteousness for us by His obedience to the Law of
God, by His perfect obedience to our Heavenly Father's will.
Only as a man could He have blood to shed at Calvary for the sins
of His people. Only as a man could He lay down
His life by doing so He perfectly satisfied
the holy justice of God for all of His chosen people. And so
we shout, Great is the Holy One of Israel. Jesus Christ is great because
of where He is. He's the resurrected Christ of
God who is seated on His sovereign throne in heaven, who is working
all things after the counsel of His own will. All things are
under His feet. God has put all things into His
hands. All power in heaven and earth has been given to the God-man.
If we don't bow down to Jesus Christ, we have never bowed down
to God. It's not just that Jesus Christ is the way,
the only way, that a man can approach God. When we come to
Jesus Christ, we come to God the Father. Any man that sees
Jesus Christ sees the Father. In Him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead. And He is great because He's
our great High Priest making intercession for all of His chosen
people. He's great because as our heavenly
Joseph, He opens the granaries of heaven and showers us with
our daily benefits, those things that are needful to sustain us
physically. Every good gift that's been mentioned
already, every good gift and every perfect gift comes from
our Father which is in heaven, but it's through His Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And He's great because He has
given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. And
He's great because He's our blessed surety. That means He's going to make
sure that all of His chosen people that He purchased with His own
blood will be delivered from the power of darkness and brought
into this living union with Himself. And He's going to make sure that
all of us will be with Him where we may behold Him in His glory.
All of His wondrous beauty will be seen by every child of God
for all eternity when we're ushered into His presence. And He's great
because He has all power in heaven and earth to make sure that these
things happen just the way He has decreed them to happen. Now
verse 5 will be our text for this morning's message. This
will cover all the verses of this 12th chapter of Isaiah,
but let me say this, we have not even begun to exhaust all
of that which is contained in these verses. We could go through
these every week and come up with things that are true, that
give God the glory. So what we have seen is just
a limited amount of the truths that are contained here, but
this is the closing verse of the six verses that we have had
the opportunity of studying together. And verse 5 says, Sing unto the
Lord, for He hath done excellent things. This is known in all
the earth. So God's people are to sing unto
the Lord. And Jesus Christ is Lord of all.
We sing unto Him. He's the one who is the object
of all worship and praise. And when we gather together,
We are worshiping Jesus Christ. And when we worship Him, we're
worshiping the great three-in-one. We're to sing with the saints
during our public worship. Sing from the heart with understanding. We're to sing in the shower.
Sing when you're driving down the highway. Sing when you're
working. Sing when you're out in the yard
planting flowers. You might not want to sing out
loud, but you can make melody in your hearts. It's unto the
Lord. This is the desire of the hearts of all of God's enlightened
people that we would just be filled with joy and melody in
our hearts to the One who loved us and gave Himself for us. So
why should we sing unto Him? For He hath done excellent things,
our text says. As Pastor Don Fortner stated,
sing unto the Lord songs and hymns and spiritual songs. Sing
how great and good He is. Sing of what He is in Himself
and sing of what He is to His people. For He hath done excellent
things. He has brought out and excellent
salvation. He has brought in an excellent
righteousness. He has offered up an excellent
sacrifice. He obtained an excellent victory.
So you just go on and on and on. Everything about Jesus Christ
is excellent. Our text says this is known in
all the earth. And the apostles and the early
New Testament preachers of our Lord Jesus Christ had the honor
and the privilege of taking the gospel to all the known world
at that time. The apostle Paul, the apostle
to the Gentiles, went into the known world preaching, turning
the world upside down, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. And
God added to the church, daily, such as should be saved. And
all over the known world, at that time, people were singing. to the Lord Jesus Christ, because
He had purchased them with His own blood and had forgiven them
of all their sins and their transgressions. And all of God's preachers throughout
the gospel age, and up until this time right here today, we
continue to preach the gospel, and continue to preach the gospel,
and continue to preach the gospel, but only God can give the increase,
and when He does, When He makes His Gospel effectual, we are
delivered from the power of darkness. We're translated into the Kingdom
of Jesus Christ. And there's a new song that He
puts in our heart. A song unto Him. Yeah, even praise
unto our Lord. Because He has delivered us.
from that old, slimy, awful, ugly pit that we were wallowing
in, that we loved, and He has lifted us up with princes. He
has set our feet on a solid rock. He has washed us clean in His
blood and put that new song in our hearts. Yea, even praise
unto our God. And this is known throughout
all the earth because God sends His preachers where He has His
elect. And those preachers, as they
preach the gospel, realize and know that only God can make His
Word effectual, and when He does, what a change. We echo the words
of Pastor Fortner. He has brought out, our Lord
Jesus has brought out an excellent salvation, an excellent righteousness,
an excellent sacrifice, and He has obtained an excellent victory. He offered an excellent sacrifice.
So I've titled this message this morning, Divine Revelation of
Excellent Things. Divine revelation of excellent
things. Sing unto the Lord, for He hath
done excellent things. This is known in all the earth. So it is by divine revelation
that we know who Jesus Christ is and what He has done. We know
because God has revealed this to us. Flesh and blood cannot
reveal it. Our Lord Jesus said that to His
apostles. We know who Jesus Christ is.
He's the promised Messiah. Yes, He's the anointed of God.
His name is Jesus. Yes, He saved His people from
their sins. But He's our great God. He's
Jehovah. He's our Creator. And flesh and
blood cannot reveal this. This is by divine revelation.
We know what He has done. And only God can reveal this
to us. This is by divine revelation
to know that Jesus Christ took care of the sin dead and full.
Not one thing can be laid to the charge of God's elect. As
Brother Steve said in his Sunday School lesson this morning, it's
not just what we did yesterday or the day before that Way back
when we came forth from our mother's womb speaking lies, it's the
sins that we commit today. And He's so very right. We can't
go through a day without sinning because that's what we are. But
it's also all the sins in the future, all of our iniquities
were laid on Him. God has made His Son, His darling
Son, Jesus Christ to be sinned for us that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. So it's what He has accomplished.
He has won the victory over sin, death and hell. He has defeated
all of His enemies, all of our enemies. And we have the blessed
assurance that we have entered into the finished work of Jesus
Christ our Savior. We cease from our own works as
God did from His and enter into that perfect rest. And this is
by divine revelation. Do we believe? I ask you this. Do we believe that Jesus Christ
by Himself purged our sins? If we do, God has revealed this
to us. Do we believe that all power
in heaven and earth belongs to Jesus Christ? That He's God Almighty?
If we do, then God Himself has revealed this to us. So let me
take you over to the book of Daniel. The book of Daniel chapter
4. Daniel is one of God's prophets. And what a prophet Daniel was.
And I want to use a passage of Scripture here in the fourth
chapter of Daniel to help us understand the subject
of divine revelation of excellent things. Speaking of spiritual
food, You don't have to turn there, but Hebrews 5.14 makes mention of strong meat. Clearly
stating that strong meat belongs to mature Christians, those who
are of full age. I was talking with a pastor years
ago, and one of his members, we were in the pastor's study,
No, actually we were at the pastor's house. And one of the members
of his church referred to the doctrine of election as being
strong meat. And I said, I don't believe that's
the strong meat that our Lord is referring to in the book of
Hebrews. I believe babes in Christ are
to be taught the doctrine of unconditional election. Ananias taught Paul that, when
he was Saul of Tarsus, three days after his Damascus Road
conversion. Ananias said to the apostle Paul,
the God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know
his will, and see that just one, and hear the voice of his mouth.
He, right from get-go, God's servant, told Saul, who became
Paul, whose name was changed to Paul, I should say, that God
had chosen him. And I believe all of God's chosen
people should have this taught them right from Babes in Christ. You want to know what strong
faith is? I draw your attention to an article
in this morning's bulletin by Pastor Don Fortner. It's on the
inside back page. The very last page is sermon
notes, but next to the last page is an article by Pastor Don Fortner. It's taken from Daniel 4.26, which in that verse it says,
the heavens do rule. Pastor Fortner said, sooner or
later, God is going to make everyone see and acknowledge what He taught
the proud King of Babylon. The heavens do rule. You may,
in your great depth of imaginary wisdom, presume that you could
run this world better than God does. Could not the Almighty
easily put an end to sickness, poverty and war, crime and disease,
famine, earthquakes and death? Indeed He could. But God Almighty
will not be dictated to by us. Who are we to dare set ourselves
up as instructors to the all-wise God? He worketh all things after
the counsel of His own will. God's providence is mysterious. Romans 11 verses 33 through 36. His judgments are great deep.
His ways are past finding out. But I know this, God always has
His way. His ways are not our ways, but
His way is always right and best. We simply must not question His
will, His ways, or His works. Pastor Fortner goes on to say,
God's providence is mine. Matthew 10.30. I'm sorry, God's
providence is minute. Matthew 10.30. He says, the very
hairs of your head are all numbered. Imagine that. So minute is the
providence of God that He, before the world began, numbered and
determined the hairs which would be on your head at every stage
of your existence from infancy to the grave. Divine providence
is all-inclusive. God rules everything, great and
small, everywhere and always. He is in control of all inanimate
matter. He who created the world out
of nothing commanded the flood to drown all who lived upon the
earth at one time. He divided the waters of the
Red Sea with the wind. God caused the earth to swallow
up the sons of Korah. He dried up the Jordan River
to make a path for his people. He made the fiery furnace a cool
fire for his servants. Our God has his way in a whirlwind
and everywhere else. Our great God is in total control
of all irrational creatures. The flies, frogs, and locusts
came and went at the will of God. He prepared a great fish
to swallow up his servant Jonah and carry him to Nineveh. He
caused an ass to speak to Balaam and a rooster to crow on cue
for Peter. And Pastor Fortner said this
also. The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens. His
kingdom ruleth over all. Our God and Heavenly Father controls
absolutely and totally all rational creatures too. He controls all
men and women everywhere, good and bad, in the good they do
and in the evil they perform. All angels, all demons, and Satan
himself are under the total control of our God. Many have a lot of
trouble with this. They do not understand that God
truly is God as fully in control of hell as He is in heaven. As
totally in control of wickedness as of righteousness. And, Pastor
Fortner says, God's providence is good. All things work together
for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according
to His purpose. All things work together for
good to God's elect, eternally, spiritually, and collectively.
Whatever God uses to accomplish the salvation of His people is
good. At your leisure, read Psalm 107
again. There we are given a detailed
view of God's providence. All things work together for
good. Our God is King in heaven, and
the heavens do rule. That is exactly as it should
be." Now with that in mind, follow along
with me as I read from this fourth chapter of Daniel. starting at
verse 30 down through verse 35. The king spake, this is Nebuchadnezzar,
that wicked king of Babylon. The king spake and said, is not
this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom
by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty?
He stood and looked at all that which is his, and being lifted
up with sinful pride, he said, look what I've done. Look what
I've done. Look how great I am. And it says
in verse 31, while the word was in the king's mouth, there fell
a voice from heaven saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is
spoken, the kingdom is departed from thee, and they shall drive
thee from men. and thy dwelling shall be with
the beast of the field. They shall make thee to eat grass
as oxen, and seven times, or seven years, shall pass over
thee, until thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom
of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. The same hour was the
thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar, and he was driven from men, and
did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of
the heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles' feathers,
and his nails like birds' claws. Verse 34 says, And at the end
of the days, God's appointed days, by the way, the end of
those seven years, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven,
and my understanding returned unto me. and I blessed the Most
High, and I praised and honored Him that liveth forever, whose
dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation
to generation, and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing,
and He doeth according to His will an army of heaven and among
the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand or
say unto Him, What doest Thou? Now, folks, listen. Daniel had
already told the king what was going to happen to him. He had
a dream. You all know the story. He had a dream. And he was troubled
by that dream. And he called all of his wise
men, all of his sorcerers, all of those who are supposed to
have some kind of power. And none could interpret that
dream. But someone remembered that Daniel was an interpreter
of dreams. And they called Daniel. And Daniel
came before him, and Daniel told him that God is the interpreter
of dreams. But when the dream was told to
Daniel, it astonished him so much that he was afraid to speak
for a while. He held his peace for some time,
until a king kept prodding him, saying, don't be afraid to tell
me what is the meaning of the dream. And Daniel told him what
was going to happen, told that king he was going to be hewn
down, but there would be nothing but a stump left, which was a
picture of him being knocked off his pedestal, so to speak,
taken off of his throne, but his life was preserved. Daniel
told him he would be like a wild beast in the fields for seven
years. He told him that. He told him
exactly, Daniel told him exactly what was going to happen. A year
later the king was walking through his kingdom and he said, look
what I've done, look at my greatness, look at me, look at me, look
at me. And just as the word came from
his mouth, the fulfillment of what Daniel prophesied fell upon
him. And he was removed from his throne,
removed from his people, those wise, prominent, muckety-mucks. And he went out into the field
like a wild man. And until God's appointed time,
as he dwelt in that awful condition, until God's appointed time, He
was as a madman. But when God brought him to himself,
when he had a right mind put in him, then he sung a different
tune. Before that happened, he was
marching to his old drumbeat, He was making melody in his heart
to himself. He was singing songs of praise
to himself. But when God showed him that
he was nothing, absolutely nothing, that God is everything, then
he sung a different tune and began to praise and extol the
Most High God who gives kingdoms to whomsoever He will. Look at
the last verse. of chapter 4. He says, Now I, Nebuchadnezzar,
praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all whose works
are truth and His ways judgment, and those that walk in pride
He is able to abase. Now folks, this is a picture.
Nebuchadnezzar is a picture of the natural man, all of us. You
say, well I never was a king on the throne. You were a king
in your own right, in your own eyes, in your own little world.
You looked at yourself, I looked at myself like I was something.
Look what I've done, look what I've accomplished. I am great. In my own eyes, all of us, in
our own eyes, we think we're something when we're nothing.
And it takes the power of God to knock us off that pedestal,
off that high horse we're riding on. Bring us down into the dust
of the earth where we recognize that we're nothing but hell-deserving,
undeserving sinners with nothing to offer God, that we're bankrupt. And God has shown us our need
of Him, our need of mercy. Then, then and only then, will
we sing a different tune. Then and only then will we sing
unto the Lord. Then will we see. that the Lord
has done excellent things. And this is all by divine revelation. Only God can do this. Now I ask
you to turn to Acts chapter 2, if you will, please. Acts chapter
2. I know that people just struggle
with this subject of man's total depravity. But it is a subject
that is set forth from the pages of Holy Scripture. When Adam
fell, we fell in Adam. We all sinned in Adam. We come
into this world with Adam's fallen nature. We are dead in trespasses
and sins. We hate God. We run from God. We will have a God of our own
imagination, but we will not worship the God of Holy Scripture,
our sovereign God who rules in the Kingdom of Heaven and who
considers all the inhabitants of the Earth as nothing and does
according to His will among the army of Heaven and the inhabitants
of the Earth. And we don't believe, not for a moment, that God cannot be resisted. We believe
that we can resist Him. And this is being taught in most
of your Armenian churches, if not all of them, that you can
resist the sovereign will of God. That is nothing but blasphemy. Put this short article in last
week's bulletin. I said, everything that happens
is according to the permissive will of our Lord Jesus Christ
for His glory and for our good. Knowing this, we should never
allow the actions of others to offend us. Now let me explain
that. This does not mean that our Lord
is giving anyone permission to sin. That is not what is meant
by that statement. The word permissive has more
than one meaning. It does mean to give permission,
but it also means to permit or to allow. As an illustration,
this parking lot belongs to Rescue Baptist Church all the way over
up to and including part of the sidewalk that's over on this
side of the fire department. But we have given the fire department
permission to use the parking lot to perform their training
exercises for the firemen with their fire trucks and other ways. And we have given them permission
to use that back part of the fire department, our parking
lot, as a place to park their vehicles, people who are working
there. There are times when they have
special events, a pancake breakfast on Saturday morning sometimes.
Right now they're selling Christmas trees. They use part of our property
to fence off their Christmas trees. People come in. And they
park in our parking lot for these special events. I haven't given
them permission, but I permit it. I allow it. You understand? That's a permissive will. That
doesn't mean I've given him permission, but it does mean that I permit
it to happen. Now folks, listen. God did not
give Lucifer permission to exalt himself above the Most High God. But God permitted it. God did
not give the third of His created angels to agree with Satan. But
He permitted it. He did not give Adam permission
to eat the forbidden fruit. But He permitted it. God allowed
all of that. Everything that happens in time
was purposed by God before time began. And He knows the end from
the beginning and everything in between because He purposed
the end from the beginning and everything in between. Nothing
is outside of God's permissive will. He allows these things
to happen. He permits them to happen. And
if we don't understand this, we don't understand the absolute
sovereignty of God who works all things after the counsel
of His own will. Now listen to this. We're in
Acts chapter 2. Starting at verse 22 of this
second chapter of Acts, we read, Ye men of Israel, Hear these
words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by
miracles and wonders and signs which God did by Him in the midst
of you as ye yourselves also know. Him being delivered by
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by
wicked hands have crucified and slain. God does not permit, in
other words, I should, let me rephrase that. God does not give
anybody permission to commit willful murder. That would go contrary to his
word. But he did permit those wicked men to murder the Prince
of Peace. Now I know that nobody took his
life from him. I know that Jesus Christ our
Lord and our Savior laid down his life voluntarily. But that
scripture, they murdered the Prince of Peace. They murdered
him. God determined that before this world was ever created.
Jesus Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
And what happened all the way from the fall of Adam up to and
including what took place at Calvary was purposed by God Himself
and executed in the fullness of His time for the glory of
His darling Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Wicked hands did what
they did. They entangled their fingers
in his beard, and they just jerked the hair right off of his face,
saying, prophesy. Tell us who it is that smoked
him when they smoked him in the face. They took the cat-of-nine-tails
and laid those 30 stripes across his back, and that executioner,
the one who had the whip, he knew how to use it. Just at the
right time, he would snap that cat-o'-nine-tails and the ends
of those tails were pieces of shell and glass and it just ripped
the hide from his back. You reckon that hurt? By his
stripes we are healed. They brutally beat him. The Roman
soldiers brutally beat him beyond recognition. Pilate thought he had come up
with a way that would cause those Jews to
be satisfied. He allowed his Roman soldiers
to brutally beat Jesus Christ. It's recorded that he was beyond
recognition. His visage was so marred it could
not be recognized. And when he presented, when Pilate
presented the Lord Jesus Christ And he didn't know he was the
Lord, but when he presented him to those Jews, thinking that
they would be satisfied with the punishment he had already
received, they were like, A pack of hungry wolves who got a taste
of blood. They wanted more. Crucify Him! Crucify Him was their shout. All of them wanted Him crucified. But it was by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God, every event that took place
up to and including when they drove the nails through His hands
and His feet, suspended him between heaven and earth. They lifted
up the pole with Jesus on it and dropped him in that hole
that was already dug. And they jarred all of his bones
out of joint. And that was painful. That was
determined by God. It was wicked hands that did
it, but it was determined by God. And they mocked Him. Mocked their own Creator, the
eternal Son of God. saying, you saved others, save
yourself. If you're the Son of God, come down from that cross.
Folks, He had to do what He did. There was no way for us to be
saved. He had to go to the cross and
He had to continue through that which was ordained by God the
Father. He must finish His work. And when He, just before He gave
up the ghost, knew that the work of redemption was finished, He
pillowed his chin on his chest, said, it is finished, and gave
up the ghost. And that secured the salvation
of all of his chosen people. And because he was obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross, God has raised him from
the dead. Jesus Christ had the power to
not only lay down his life, he had the power to raise it up
again. That's not a contradiction. He is God. And God has highly
exalted His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, giving Him a name which
is above every name. If we don't bow down to Jesus
Christ, confessing Him as our Lord and our Savior, believing
in our heart, that He by Himself purged our sins, that He is our
Savior, we are still lost. We're still undone. Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. We're right here
in the book of Acts. Go over to verse 27 of, or actually,
verse 32. Well, let me draw back to verse
21 first of chapter 2. It says, It shall come to pass
that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be
saved. We can't call on Him if we don't know who He is. And
this is by divine revelation. And this is our subject this
morning. Divine revelation of excellent things. Having Him
revealed. And if He has been revealed to us, we will call
upon Him. We will call upon Him for salvation. Go on over to verse 32. Down through verse 39, it says,
This same Jesus God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right
hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise
of the Holy Ghost, He has shed forth this which ye now see and
hear, which was the fulfillment of the prophet Joel. For David
is not ascended into the heavens, but he saith himself, The Lord
said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy
foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of
Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom
ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now let me stop right
there for a moment. There are some hecklers in this
world who claim to believe in the doctrines of grace, who have
lashed out at Pastor Don Fortner and others, myself included,
for believing that God our Father made His darling Son who knew
no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. They do not believe that God
was made to be sin for us. And one heckler, and it's posted
on the internet, referred to this passage of Scripture right
here in Acts 2.36, where it says that God hath made that same
Jesus both Lord and Christ. And here's what he said. We know
that God didn't make Jesus to be Lord. He has always been Lord.
That's the same word that is used over in 2 Corinthians where
it says God has made Him to be sin for us. Well, He's ignorant
of this. He's not reading what this is
saying. Jesus Christ has not always been the God-man. Yes,
Jesus Christ has always been the Eternal Son of God. He's
always been the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. But He
has not always been a man. He was made of a woman, made
under the law that He might redeem His people from the curse of
the law. And it was God who made Him, made His Son, the God-Man,
to be both Lord and Christ, ruler over this whole universe and
everything in it. And read on. Verse 37 says, Now
when they heard this, those who were listening to the apostle
Peter preach this message, when they heard this, they were pricked
in their heart and said unto Peter and to the rest of the
apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Now folks, listen.
Only God can prick the heart. If we haven't been convicted
by God the Holy Spirit of our helpless and hopeless sinful
lost condition, then we will strike out at the
truth every time we hear it. But when God pricks the heart,
when God deals with the heart, and it's a heart issue, when
He makes us aware, and every one of us have this in common
if we're in Christ, we have a need. That need is God's sovereign
mercy. And until God Himself makes us
aware of the fact that we deserve nothing but His wrath, and that
we can get mercy nowhere but from God our Father through the
finished work of Jesus Christ our Lord, If we have not started
right here, God has not begun the work in us. It's God who
begins this work, and He will finish this work. And so when
we hear the gospel, of the crucified Savior, according to the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God, who has gone into the grave,
come out of the grave, and is seated at the right hand of the
Majesty on high. When we hear this, when we hear
that He by Himself purged our sins, and He's our Lord and our
God, and that we can do nothing to help ourselves, we will cry
out to Him for mercy. And that's what these people
have done. And listen to what Peter says in verse 38. Then Peter
said unto them, Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in
the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye
shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Then he goes on to
say, For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and
to all that are far off, this and this, even as many as the
Lord our God shall call. So God has made a promise to
his darling son upon meeting all of the conditions of the
eternal covenant of grace. that He will have a people who
will be just like Him, who will inhabit eternity with Him, giving
Him all the glory and all the praise for His unspeakable gift,
eternal life through Christ our Savior. And when we are pricked
with the Holy Spirit, when we are convicted by the power of
the Holy Spirit, We'll see this promise. It's not only to the
Jews, the elect Jews, not only to the Jews' children, to the
elect children, but to those who are far off, the Gentiles.
God's elect in every Gentile nation. And God, like I said
earlier, will send His preachers to every corner of the earth
where His elect are, get His people under the sound of the
gospel, so that we will be brought out of darkness into the marvelous
light of Christ our Savior by the sovereign, irresistible,
drawing power of God the Holy Spirit." Now folks, Jesus Christ
is the Holy One of Israel. All the inhabitants of Zion sing
this song to Him. Jesus Christ is our Lord and
Savior. He is great in our minds. Will
you look at Acts chapter 4? I'll bring this to a close in
just a moment. Acts chapter 4 starting at verse 27. We read, for of
a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed,
both Herod and Pontius Pilate. Now, before we read any further,
this is the prayer of the early New Testament church, and they're
praying. This is how they pray. For of
a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed,
both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people
of Israel were gathered together. Now look at this. Verse 28, For
to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before
to be done. Now, that's not a misprint. That's
not a mistake. That's a declaration of the absolute
sovereign purpose of God Almighty and His accomplishment of what
He has purposed. God is in control of everything
because He purposed everything. Nothing happens apart from His
permissive will. Read on. And now, Lord, behold
their threatenings and grant unto Thy servants that with all
boldness they may speak Thy Word. And Brother Ray brought before
us this morning the awesome responsibility of standing before people, bringing
spiritual truths before them according to what is written.
took us over to the book of Revelation, the 22nd chapter, showing us
that if we add to or take away from this blessed book, what
is written here, what is taught here, God will add the plagues
of this life, this world onto us and take our name out of the
book of life. That's not the Lamb's book. God will never take
any name out of the Lamb's book of life. We're His forever. But
the book of life, which is physical life, Did you know if we come
to the table in an unworthy manner, we're just asking for God to
kill us. Folks, God is God. He's in control. He has always been in control. And all the inhabitants of Zion
praise the Lord Jesus Christ for turning God's anger away
from us, for making us acceptable in Him, for removing our sins
from God's sight forever by His perfect redeeming work. All the
inhabitants of Zion acknowledge Jesus Christ as our God, as our
salvation. All the inhabitants of Zion draw
water out of the wells of salvation, the well of electing love, the
well of redeeming love, the well of sanctifying love. All of the
inhabitants of Zion praise and extol the God of heaven, who
rules and reigns over this whole universe and everything in it,
and for His divine revelation of excellent things. Let me leave
you With this excellent article that's in today's bulletin, under
food for thought by Joseph Charles Philpott, he titled this article,
with scripture taken from Mark chapter 6 and verse 50, Be of
good cheer, our Lord Jesus said, it is I, be not afraid. Mr. Philpott wrote these words
way back over 100 years ago, 150 years ago. He said, it is I who formed you,
speaking of God. It is I who formed you in the
womb and brought you forth into your present existence. It is
I, the Lord your God, who has fed you and clothed you from
the hour up to the present moment. It is I, the Lord your God, who
has preserved you on every side. When you were upon a sick bed,
it was I, the Lord your God, who visited your soul, raised
up your body, and gave you that measure of health which you do
now enjoy. It is I, the Lord God, who placed
you in the situation of life which you do now occupy. It is
I, the Lord your God, who deals out to you every trial, who allots
you every affliction, who brings upon you every cross, who works
in you everything according to my own good pleasure. When we
can, Mr. Philpott wrote, when we can thus
believe that the Lord our God is about our bed and our path
and spying out all our ways, when we can look up to Him and
feel that He is the Lord our God, there is no feeling more
sweet, more blessed, more heavenly. Our Lord says, be of good cheer.
It is I. Be not afraid. One of God's faithful
prophets made this statement. There is no true worship except
at the throne of absolute sovereignty. Our Lord Jesus said, without
me, ye can do nothing. All the saints of God who have
gone on before us had this testimony as they walked before the people
of this world. Our Lord Jesus is Lord of all.
He works all things after the counsel of His own will. Absolutely
nothing happens apart from His permissive will. And He knows,
our God knows, and we know, that all things work together for
good to them that love God, to them who are called according
to His purpose. All things. That could not be
true if God was not in control of all things. So what is our
testimony? It is the same as those who have
gone on before us if we have experienced divine revelations
of excellent things. Our God is excellent, excellent
in all of His being and in all of His ways. And all God's people
say, Amen.