What a great song to lead into
tonight's message. Take it to the Lord and leave
it there. I have some words of comfort
tonight. We're going to look at several
different verses. We'll begin with Isaiah 40. I'll
try to keep it Jumping around back and forth
I've changed up the sequence of the words a little bit So
that way we would stay in in each chapter or in each book And not spend too much time jumping
around Mike and I were talking today
about Trials. Tribulations. It seems
like since the Lord called us out of darkness, it seems like
no sooner do we get out of one trial, we're going right into
another. And we both were referring to a statement Henry Mahan had
made about that. There's so many things in this
world that we can't do anything about, huh? What about the things inside
of you? What about what happens in here? I could stop screaming at the
guy that cut me off on the freeway. Why don't I? I could Stop slipping words that are
hurtful to others? Why don't I? You're going to
make me cry. Thinking about these things that
eat at us. You see, it's not the stuff out
there that bother me the most. It's
the things inside of here that I know I could stop. But I don't. That's what Paul
was talking about when he tells us in the Scripture that he doesn't
do the things that he should and he does the things he shouldn't.
That's exactly what he was talking about. Do you think that might
have been the thorn? You know the thorn that he went
to the Lord three times with and asked, you know, Lord, remove
this from me? What did the Lord say to him? He said, My grace
is sufficient for you. We don't know. He might have
carried that thorn all the way to his grave. Oh, that's hard. That's hard to think that those
things you could stop and you don't. You're going to be carrying
with you to the day the Lord takes you out of this world. You know what that is? That's
the conviction of sin. I've heard the phrase, playing
church. That makes me think you're pretending. Is there anybody here tonight
pretending that they're sinners? Why would somebody pretend that the thoughts within, things that I think of against
my God, doubt, pride, all these things that
Paul listed off in Ephesians 2, verse 1 that fit John Reeves
to a tee. I don't believe there's anybody
here pretending to be a sinner. I don't believe there's anybody
here who's pretending to love the Lord Jesus Christ because
He first loved them. There's no plain church here.
There's a group of people here in San Diego who can only survive
the chaos that is in the world around us right now. by coming together and hearing
about the Master, the One who's the government. You know what
that means? That means everything. That means He rules over all
that is. We've been talking in our Sunday
morning Bible study about the mysteries of God, and the last
two Sundays we've studied what's called the mystery of His providence. The world doesn't understand
this. The world thinks that God has put everything out there
and let it start going and oops, oops, oh, men sinned. Uh-oh, God made a mistake. He's
going to plan B. Alright, I'll send Him a Savior.
That's not the case at all. If the God that we serve The
God that we love, the God that is described in this book is
not full, full on sovereign of every single detail, then we're
wasting our time. And we have no hope. But the
Bible tells us we have hope. Not in anything of this flesh.
Not in anything that we can do. Not in anything that we can think. But in what He has done, that's our confidence. And I've
got some words for you tonight. I'm praying. I don't know. We might not even make it through
the full list. But I'm just going to go through what I can, all
right, in the time we have. And may God give us some comfort.
It begins with that here in Isaiah chapter 40. Comfort ye, comfort
ye, my people, saith your God. I can't give you any comfort.
There's nothing I can say that has any comfort from these lips.
Any wisdom from this man who stands before you? But God's
got some things. Let's go on. Comfort ye my people,
saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem. That's God's people right there,
Jerusalem. He came to Jerusalem. He didn't
come to the world. He came to a particular people.
He didn't have to do that. It's only by His grace that He
comes to you and I at all. It has nothing to do with what
we have done in the flesh and what we can't do, what we can't
stop from doing. It has to do with His Son. In Christ, there is love of God. In Christ, there is holiness,
the righteousness of God. If we're not in Christ, we have
none of that. Go on, speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem and
cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished. That's our first word. Accomplished. I want you to think about that
for just a moment. What is that saying? Tell her,
Jerusalem, you're going to lose if you fight
it on your own. If you try to fight it on your
own, you're not going to be able to. Take it to the Lord. Set
it at His feet. Oh, what a great song. I've never
done that. Said amen in the middle of a
song. I didn't know he was going to sing that song tonight. It
just went so well with what these words are all about. Your warfare
is accomplished. That means it's done. Notice
the past tense. He didn't say I'm accomplishing
it. He says, you know, it will be accomplished. If you do this,
it'll be accomplished. No, it's accomplished. It's done. This is good news to a guy who
stands before you who can't stop doing the stupid things and the
things that are against my God. Now, if you folks don't have
that problem, then I apologize for wasting your time. I'm sorry. I don't mean to bother you. But
if you have that problem, here's good news. It's accomplished. It's accomplished. Turn over
to Romans, will you? We'll look at a couple more words
over there in Romans chapter 11 first. Isn't grace good? This is why
the providence of God is such a mystery to the world. They
don't understand grace. They just don't understand it.
I didn't understand it. I had no idea what grace really
was until the Lord broke my heart till He took that old stony heart
and cut it out and gave me a heart to love Him. I'll bet the same
thing is with you, isn't it? That's why I love coming down.
I'm so honored to be here. I love the folks in rescue, don't
get me wrong. But I could be here or there
either way and it would be just as well with me. I love coming
down here. I love seeing this young lady
right here smile as I preach to her, tell her about my Lord,
my Savior. I see the heads. I used to do
that. I used to get to do that a lot.
Sit down in the seats down there. That's right, Pastor! Amen! Over
here in Romans 11, look at verse 4 with me. But what saith the answer of
God unto him? The Lord was talking to Elijah. Elijah was crying out. They seek
to kill me. There's nobody left but me. Boy, that sure makes us feel
like that sometimes with this little small group, doesn't it? Lord, why not bring some more
folks in? Couldn't you grow us a little
bit? We'd be so happy to see a new person once in a while.
That's what Elijah was crying. And the Lord here in verse 4
says, But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved,
and that's the word. Reserved. Now look what it says
after that. I have reserved, I have reserved to myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee
to the image of Baal. You know how he could say that
they had never bowed the knee to the image of Baal? When he
looks upon you and I. When he looks upon all of his
children. The only thing He sees is the
blood of His Son. I know. That's pretty cool. If
He looked upon John Reeves, He'd have every reason in the world
to walk away and say, I don't want any part of that. Seven thousand men He reserved. That's our word. That's our next
word. I pray this word is a word that will bring blessings to
your heart, because once again, it is in past tense. You know
why that's a good thing? It's because that means there's
nothing for me to do. If I try to do anything, I'm
just going to dirty it up. My filthy rags are going to mess
it up. That's what I am before God,
a filthy rag. If He's not looking on His Son,
He's going to see the truth of what John Reeves is. Well, see,
He looks upon me as never bowing the knee to Baal only because
He looks and sees the blood of His Son. That's what covers us. Just like God did with Adam and
Eve in the Garden of Eden. He covered them with His righteousness. It was the skins of an animal,
but it was a picture. It was a picture of His Son who
would go to the cross and shed His own blood for us. This is
good news. These are words of comfort, especially
when I'm looking at myself in the mirror and seeing what God
could be looking at if He didn't see His Son only. Folks, we deserve
the wrath of God. You know, that's a mystery to
the world. That was a mystery to John Reeves at one time. What
do you mean I deserve the wrath of God? I haven't done anything
to hurt anybody. Yeah, I was a little crazy. I did this. I
never killed anybody. I never lied like that guy over
there. Or I never cheated like those people over there. Or whatever
you want to put in there. Folks, I need to hear these kind
of words just as much as you do. We were reserved by God. What does it say in Romans chapter
8? Well, I'll just turn over there one page and look at it.
What shall we say then to these things in Romans 8 verse 31?
If God be for us, who can be against us? Let's turn that word
over to if God had reserved us. Isn't that what he says over
here? But once I get the answer to God in the end, I have reserved
to myself seven thousand men. I have reserved to myself, if
God be for us, who can be against us." Isn't that good stuff? Let's look at another word, shall
we? Turn over to Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5. Look at verse 10 with me. For if when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more
being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. Reconciled. What a wonderful word. John Reeves sinned against God
from the day he was born till the day he was born again. I know we see in our flesh the
troubles of the flesh, the weaknesses of the flesh, I love what Mike
quoted earlier today, and I'm not going to say it exactly the
way the scripture says it, because my memory just is total bad. Something to the effect of your,
my, how's that go? My strength. My strength is made
perfect in your weakness. If I had one inkling that I wasn't
weak all the time, and that happens on the golf
course, you know, you hit a ball down the fairway, you guys know
what a golf game is, you know, you hit it down between the trees,
once in a while. Most of the time, it's off into
the trees. But every once in a while, you hit it down the
middle. And all of a sudden, you think to yourself, I can
play this game. You see that? I can do that again,
maybe. But then the Lord allows me to
see that, no, I'm just, I'm glad I'm not a real good golfer for
that very reason, that it keeps me humble. See, that's what these
things do. They keep us from getting prideful
of ourselves. That's what these trials that
we no sooner do we come out of one, we go into another one.
Why? Because pride can lift its ugly head in a moment's notice. God reconciled us through the
blood of His Son. Look at verses, here's another
word for us over here, 6-9. For when we were yet without
strength, speaking of that very thing, Mike, in due time Christ died for the
ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die, yet preadventure for a good man some would even
dare to die, but God, commendeth His love towards us, in that
while we were yet centered, Christ died for us, much more than being
now justified." There's another word. Notice that the words that
we've seen so far, have you caught a little bit of a glimpse, a
similarity with them? They're all past tense so far,
aren't they? They're done. I don't want to get too far ahead
of myself on that, but it's going to get better. Before we're done
with this message, you're going to see that past tense part as
being really, really good. It's over. It's accomplished. It's done. We were justified. The justice that we deserved. Our Savior took on Him. What
does it say there? By His blood. We were justified
by His blood. We will be saved from the wrath
through Him. Through our Savior, the Lord
Jesus. Saved from what wrath? The wrath that we deserve. Has
it ever grabbed a hold of your mind in considering the depth
of that? Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ,
God in the flesh, had God His Father, who is one with Him,
turn His back on His Son. I can't even imagine what that
is. That's more than this little
pea brain can accept. God turned His back on God. That His justice, the very justice,
the very wrath that I deserve, that was laid on Him, He who
knew no sin, He who knew no sin that was made sin, that I would
be made the righteousness of God in Him. I'm justified in
Him. When the Lord Jesus Christ went
to the cross and shed His own blood, it paid the price. It redeemed us unto God. It justified us before God because
the justice of God was satisfied. The Lord Jesus was perfect. He
walked perfectly before His Father. He did everything that pleased
the Father. He says, not my will, when He
was looking at this cup, This cup of sin that he was going
to be made. This cup of wrath that you and
I deserve. When he was considering that
in detail right before his face, he said, If it's possible, Lord,
could you remove this cup from me? Nevertheless, Thy will be
done. I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that. Except for
God. If it wasn't for Him, I couldn't
even be believing that. I'd be just like the world, running
from it as fast as I could, running to something of my own doing.
And if you're a child of God, you know exactly what I'm saying.
You know exactly that you'd be right there doing the same thing. What grace that God would show
us that we're that much of sinners. and in need of that much of a
Savior. So, we have looked at reconciled,
justified, reserved, accomplished, here over to Hebrews. Let's look
at a couple of words over in Hebrews, shall we? We might get
through all of this as it is. Turn over to Hebrews chapter
1. Now don't get too far ahead of
me. I'll catch up to you here in
a minute. Hebrews chapter 1. Okay, so our warfare is accomplished. We've been reserved in Christ. We've been reconciled by His
blood. We've been justified by His sacrifice. And here in Hebrews chapter 1,
this is the best word of all right here. This, in my opinion,
just my humble opinion, I love this word better than anything
because this is a word of cleansing. Look at verse 3. Hebrews 1 verse
3, who being the brightness, speaking of Christ, of His glory,
we just talked about that a moment ago, He's God in the flesh, the
brightness of God's glory, and the express image of His person,
and upholding all things by the power of His word. Folks, Christ
is God Almighty in sovereignty as well. As we read in John chapter
1, he's the creator of all that is. There was nothing that was
created that he didn't create. And it was created for his purpose. For his providential care. He's
the governor. The government is laid upon his
shoulder. Isn't that what we read in Isaiah chapter 6 verse
9? The government is laid upon his
shoulder. That's the very one this is talking
about. The one who upholds all things by the word of His power.
When He had by Himself, and see, here we come back to that cross.
This is Christ in Him crucified. When He had gone to that cross,
when He had by Himself purged, there's our word. And again,
notice that it's in past tense. When He had by Himself purged
our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.
I love to describe this word. This is a word that means more
than just wiped clean. You know, we wipe something clean
and you can come back minutes later and wipe it again and probably
get some more, huh? Yeah. Christ, He's perfect in
everything He does. Everything He has done has been
perfect. Wrap your minds around this one. When Christ was made
sin, I don't even understand what this means, but when Christ
was made sin, He was made sin perfectly. You and I can't even sin perfectly.
He was made sin perfectly. He was made our sin perfectly. He had to be. Every drop of my
iniquity had to be laid on Him. Every filthy thing in this man,
my God, had to take upon himself. To be purged from that means
to have it burnt out of you. When you mine for gold or silver or copper
or any of those kinds of things, it doesn't come in pure form.
The purest we have ever gotten silver by our own hands is 99.7%
pure. And the way they do it is cook
it. They burn it. They burn it to a heat that's
so hot that it burns all of the iniquities, all of the impurities
out of it as best they can. Christ is burning Our iniquities
are imperfections out of us to perfection. He is purged. He's not purging right now. He
has done it. It's past tense. It's over. We stand before God this very
moment and He looks upon us as white and as pure as His Son. I know that's hard for us to
understand. But that's His Word. What does it say? Read it again,
will you? Verse 3, "...who being the brightness
of His glory, upholding all things by the power of His Word, He
had by Himself purged our sins, and sat down at the right hand..."
Let's look at another one here in Hebrews. Shall we? Chapter
10. There's a couple over there in
chapter 10, verse 14. For by one offering he hath perfected. That's purging. That's purging. He didn't do it 99.7%. Our God does it 100%. He does
everything 100%. He doesn't try to save His people. He saves His people. That's what
angers me so much about religion. God's trying to do something
if you would just let Him. You know what that does? That's
what the devil told Eve in the Garden of Eden. You will be as
gods. Well, that's what that is. That's
making yourself as God when you think that you have the power
to accept or to refuse God. Did Lazarus have the power to
refuse God laying there in that grave, dead as a doorknob? Stinking
dead is what his sister said? No. God gave him life and he
came. He came because the power of
God called Him. That's exactly what happened
to each and every one of us. That's what the Lord does under
the preaching of His Gospel. He calls His people. And then
He grows you in faith and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus
through the preaching of His Word. Faith cometh by hearing.
Hearing by the Word of God. Isn't that correct? Isn't that
what the Word of God says? Perfected. Let me ask you something. What does the word perfected
mean to you? My dad was a perfectionist, you might say. He would resurface
furniture. He would take furniture and sand
it down. I mean, he would get the greediest. And he tried to
teach me this, but I was just too dumb to learn. He would,
you've got to take that sandpaper, you've got to get all the way
down in those little teeny cracks. And then one day he told me,
he said, you know what, though? If you pull those two parts apart
and get the glue out of there, it's still inside all the bad
stuff in there. So you haven't gotten it. I'm not pulling that
apart. Okay, we're done. Christ pulled it all apart and
purged and perfected every bit of His people. Notice once again,
it's in past tense. We're going to get to some really
good point on that a little bit further down the road here. Let's
go to the next word. There's another word here in
that very same verse. Look what it says next there,
sanctified. Now, you may say, well, John, you were sanctified
first and then perfected. You know what? It doesn't matter.
It's still past tense. It's still past tense. Isn't
that what it says there? Perfected forever, them that
are sanctified." Set apart. Made holy. Oh, what it means
to be done already. What it means to be sanctified
by God. Oh, I'm telling you. One more. No, two more. Turn over to John chapter 19. John 19. Look at verse 30. When Jesus, therefore, had received
the vinegar, He said, It is finished. We're talking about words that
bring comfort to God's people. How do these words bring comfort? Well, we've mentioned what they
have already, but if you add them all together, and you sum it all up, it comes
to these very words right here. It is finished. When my Savior laid down His
life, my salvation was complete. I hadn't been called yet. The
Holy Spirit's job to give me life and hear the words of God
had not come yet. But the day was already marked,
and when God looks at the Son, He sees things as done. That's why He looked upon His
Son before the world was ever created as the Lamb slain before
the foundation of the world. Christ made a commitment that
he would come to this world in the flesh, in the body that was
prepared, as we read over in Hebrews chapter 9, the body that
was prepared for the Son of God, the eternal Son of God. He came
to this earth and laid down his life willingly, with joy in his
heart, knowing that the result was, all my people are going
to be saved. We call Him Jesus because He
shall save His people. Isn't that good news? Look at
another one with me, if you would, and then we'll wrap this up.
Go over to Revelation chapter 5. Revelation chapter 5. Look at verse 9. and they sung a new song." Now,
I want to stop there. We were talking about this with
loved ones who have given no indication that they knew the
Lord, or that they loved the Lord, or anything. I'll share a story with you.
A man came and lived with Kathy and I for about seven months. It was my neighbor. He was in
his 90s or upper 80s, somewhere up there. I don't remember. He
was quite old. And he was waiting for a place
in an assisted living facility. So he came to live with us there
at the church. And I was expressing that, what did Henry Manning call it?
He called it, it'll leak out of you. It'll leak out of you.
I was expressing how, though he didn't spend a day in the
church with us, living there with us at the house, he knows
who my God is. He knows where my trust is. You can't help it. You can't
help it. When you're with those that you
love, they're going to see who your God is. When I was on a
motorcycle riding through Canada, I'm looking at the most wondrous
scene of ice, hundreds of feet thick, and I looked up and I
said, look what God has created. It just leaked out. Well, it
did that with this man. I had to help him shower. I mean,
we had all kinds of conversations. And every conversation that I
had with him, something about who my God is leaked out. Well,
it does with all of us. If you belong to Christ, people
are going to know it. They may not like it. They may
call you holier than thou for no reason at all. They may do
those kinds of things, but they're going to know where your trust
is, and it's in our Savior, the Lord Jesus. We don't give credit
to anything that we do. We have no confidence in this
flesh. Our only confidence is in Him, and that leaks out. I sing a new song, and so do
you. It might have been a song before
that was, I, I, I, but now it's a song of Him, He. You get it? You understand where I'm going
with this? Isn't that what that's telling us right here? And they
sung a new song saying, Thou art worthy. There's no worthiness
in this man who stands before you, but there's all the worthiness
needed in my Lord and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thou art
worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for thou
hast slain and hast redeemed." There's our word right there.
Redeemed. Paid the price. All that I have
owed my God is paid for in my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And yours too, if you belong to Him. Redeemed us to God by
what? Thy blood. Out of every kindred, and tongue,
and people, and nation. So what do all of these words
have in common that bring us to this very point that we might
be comforted. They're all past tense. Turn
over to Ephesians chapter 1. And we'll ask our brother Mike
to come up and lead us in the song, I think, after that. Read with me Ephesians chapter
1. There was a man by the name of Tom Sawyer. Tom Sawyer When
he came to rescue for the first time, he was just driving by,
and I saw the little church off across the creek there, and he
said, I'll swing in there one of these days. And he did. And
he heard for the first time in his religious life that gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace. And Gene made the comments that
you're not going to hear these words from other churches. You're
not going to hear this kind of message. This is a message for
sinners. And Tom came to him afterwards
and he goes, I'm going to prove you wrong. He says, I'm going
to go out to every church I can find within so far, how many
miles? I don't remember how many miles
it was. I'm going to go out. I'm going to go to every single
church. It took him three and a half months. Every Wednesday,
every time one of the churches that he picked was getting together,
he would go and listen to it. He came back just over three
months later, and he said, you know what? I've been to over
a thousand churches, over a thousand churches, and not one of them
preaches what you said. And he goes, what you said is
right here in the Bible. From that time on, Tom was a
faithful member of Rescue Baptist Church. Whenever he was asked
to read Scriptures, he read these words of God. This was his comfort. Look with me at verse 3. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us. The Lord Jesus has blessed us,
folks. These blessings we have of knowing
who He is, where He is right now, sitting on His throne, making
intercession for us, is because of Him. It's not because we're
wiser. It's not because we're smarter.
It's because of Him. It's a hymn book. Search the
Scriptures. In them you think you have eternal
life, and they are those that speak of Me, He says. Be ye to God, the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ, according, because of, as he
hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy, there is that sanctified, and without
blame before him." And I like to stop there. You know, the
original language, the original writings didn't have commas and periods and chapters
and stuff like that. I like to stop it right there
because it flows better when you read it without blame before
Him, in love having predestinated." It doesn't change the meaning,
it just puts more emphasis on that very fact that because His
love for us, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to Himself, according, because of, to the good pleasure
of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein
He hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption
through His blood and the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of His grace. I pray. If you weren't writing those
words down, I'd be happy to give it to you again afterwards, because
when those things inside of you that you fight every day, that
we talked about at the beginning, the very thorns in our side that
we battle with every day, not the things outside in the world,
but the things inside of us that we know we could stop if we just
would do it, but we don't. When those things raise up their
ugly heads, and the Lord uses them to grab a hold of us and
show us just how weak we are, take a moment and look up these
words. And remember that it's not what you're doing. Now, don't
get me wrong. The world would take that so
quickly and say, you're saying it's okay for us to go out and
sin. No, I'm not. If it was okay for us to go out
and sin, I wouldn't stand here and tell you how bad it bothers
me. And if it doesn't bother you,
then there's something wrong. Be ye holy, for our God is holy. But when you sin, we have an
advocate in heaven who's making intercession for us. I shed my
blood for that one. You can't claim nothing against
him. Payment was made. You can't charge him with that.
He didn't do it. I did it. God bless you.