Well, as Paul said, it's been
13 years. We first came here in 1990. That's
a long time ago. And then the last time was 13
years ago. And there's some familiar faces
and some new ones. And we're delighted to be back
amongst you and feel extremely privileged. And at the same time,
if you'll understand my meaning, a little bit daunted by this,
Back at home, I preach to my little group of 15, 20 people
at the most. And we have a few others who
listen on the internet. And it's not just that there's
a lot of you. I'm used to speaking to big numbers of people. At
work, I used to speak to big audiences. It's not that. It's
the fact that this is such a burden. And the other factor is that
there are several men in this congregation who have been my
teachers down the years and I really appreciate that and so if you
bear with me I'd like to turn your attention to Isaiah chapter
45 at the end of chapter 45 and I want to look at some words
particularly, well in both verses but particularly verse 25 all
the seed of Israel in the Lord shall all the seed of Israel
be justified and shall glory the seed of Israel justified
you know all scripture is profitable it's it's good for doctrine for
reproof for correction all scripture but I'm sure each of us has got
scriptures that are particularly precious that that that you know
you think back and I remember distinctly now this is many many
years ago this is many years ago way back probably the 1970s
when we were in a legalistic church but nevertheless we we
knew something I don't know what it was but anyway we were under
attack by Jehovah's Witnesses who were coming and trying to
prove to us you know they'd they'd kind of accosted us on the doorstep
and they were coming back again and again to prove to us that
Christ to disprove the deity of Christ and I remember being
really really concerned about this and I remember reading these
chapters in the middle of Isaiah. I love the prophecy of Isaiah,
but particularly chapters 40 to 45, because that felt to me
like the first time that God spoke to me and showed me his
truth directly from his word and I didn't have to read what
another man had written down in order to understand it, it
just stood out of the page so clearly the error that these
people were bringing to us and the truth that the scriptures
spoke of and I love these chapters we read these and there you can
see Christ shining out of the pages of this book And in the
Old Testament, you just read it, you know Christ is shining
out there. A lot of religious folk read it, and there's just
darkness. They just read it, and there's
darkness. But the Holy Spirit switches on the light, and there's
a shining light, and we see Christ in all of the Scriptures. Christ
in all of the Scriptures. So, you look at verse 18 of chapter
45, For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God himself
that formed the earth and made it. It's not saying a word about
Christ, is it? You haven't seen the letters
C-H-R-I-S-T yet, have you? He had established it, he created
it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord
and there is none else. Look at verse 21. Tell ye, and
bring them near, yea, let them take counsel together. Who hath
declared this from ancient time? Who hath told it from that time?
Have not I the Lord, and there is no God else beside me, a just
God and a Saviour? There is none else beside me.
And verse 22, Look unto me, and be ye saved. God speaking. Look
unto me, and be ye saved. All the ends of the earth, for
I am God, and there is none else. How do we read that? We read
it with the light of the New Testament. In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He
made all things. Without Him was not anything
made that was made. He made all things. He's this
God who's the Creator in verse 18. He's the one who made all
things. God was manifest in the flesh,
Paul writes to Timothy. God was manifest in the flesh. Isaiah chapter 40 says, say unto
the cities of Judah, there's a time coming when you're going
to look, behold your God. He's going to walk this, this
man, this man who had no comeliness that we should desire him, he's
going to walk this earth. Our God is coming. So when we
read these scriptures, It's Christ that we're speaking of. It's
Christ that we're reading of. When we read, in the Lord shall
all the seed of Israel, in Christ, in our Lord Jesus Christ, all
the seed of Israel shall be justified and shall glory. He's the one
who made all things. Paul writes in Colossians, by
Him. By whom? By Christ were all things created. By Him and for Him. All things. He is the one who upholds all
things by the word of the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse
23, I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth
in righteousness and shall not return, that unto me, this is
God speaking, unto me every knee shall bow and every tongue shall
swear. And what does Paul write to the
Philippians? He writes to the Philippians, wherefore God also
hath highly exalted him. Our Lord Jesus Christ. He's highly
exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that
at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven,
and of things in the earth, and things under the earth, and that
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory
of God the Father. This is who we're talking about.
Our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified and shall glory. And as Paul writes to
the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 30 and 31,
He is made of God unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption and let... Who's going to glory? What are
you going to glory in? If you're going to glory, glory in the Lord. Let him glory
in our Lord Jesus Christ. So when we read this, in the
Lord, it's Christ that we're reading about. It's our Jehovah
Jesus that we're reading about there. So what I want to do is
look at these two verses and bring to you three points. God's
purpose of grace. If God has a purpose, you know
what he does. He accomplishes his purpose.
He never has a purpose in which he's thwarted in any way whatsoever. And then the consequence, the
outcome of our God having this purpose And then finally there
is in these two verses a warning, the peril, the peril of being
incensed against him and outside of these promises. God's declared
purpose then, first of all, You know, in the book of Job, it's
such a well-known verse, it occurs more than once, but it occurs
in chapter 9 and verse 2. This question, that anybody who
has any sense of their eternal soul and its condition and the
justice and holiness of the God who has made all things and to
whom we must give an account, how should a man be just with
God? Such an important question. And
the world around us, this godless world, goes around totally oblivious
to that. But when the Holy Spirit starts
to work and bring conviction, this is the question. How should
a man be just with God? Verse 25. In the Lord. shall
all the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory. It's in the
Lord that this shall be done. And who is it that will be glorified? It's the seed of Israel. It's
all the seed of Israel and it's only the seed of Israel. In Hebrews
chapter 2 and verse 16 we read about God giving aid to Abraham
and not to angels. He doesn't give aid to angels.
He gives aid to the seed of Abraham. He doesn't actually give aid,
it says there, to the seed of Adam in general. It's to the
seed of Abraham that he gives aid. It's the people of his choice. This is who they are. This seed
of Israel is the people of his choice. It's those who are his choice. They're not born of blood. nor
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And who is this Israel? It's not national Israel. It
wasn't national Israel then. It's not national Israel now.
It's not Israel, because we know he is not a Jew who is one outwardly,
and we know also from Romans. It's not all Israel, which are
of Israel. It's not professing Israel. It
wasn't professing Israel then, when this was written. not professing
Israel then, and not what might call itself or think of itself
as professing Israel today, the professing church, those who
think they're the people of God, who think that they're doing
his work. No, it's the people of his choice, only those chosen
of God, what Romans called the remnant according to the election
of grace. Who are they? Who's this remnant
according to the election of grace? It's that multitude. which no man can number from
every race without distinction the multitude that the father
in eternity gave to the son a fixed number because of the love of
the father for these people he gave them to his son in eternity
that the son covenanted to come and did come in time to redeem
them that there must The price of sin is blood. The life is
in the blood and the blood must be shed. And He came to shed
human blood. It must be real human blood.
Therefore, a body must be prepared. And He must come in time and
redeem this people that the Father gave to Him from before the beginning
of time. They must be made just in Him
before the beginning of time. And then in the experience of
each one of them, the Holy Spirit must come and take that which
is dead in trespasses and sins and make it alive and quicken
it. and put a new man within. That new man that we've just
been hearing about. The multitude that no man can numb. It's these
alone and these particularly. These particularly are justified
in the Lord. Do you remember the Day of Atonement
and the scapegoat? The two goats. The Day of Atonement
and the... Think of the scapegoat for a moment. And Aaron the priest
and the high priest following him. There's the congregation
of Israel. Just those people. There's other
people in the world. There's people all around the
world at this time. But Israel is outside the tabernacle. And
the priest confesses the sins of Israel on the scapegoat's
head and sends it away. Whose sins are taken away? Israel's
sins. So that when God looks for iniquity
in Jacob, he finds none. Because there's none there. Because
it's been taken away. Particularly, they're justified
in the Lord, in our Lord Jesus Christ. Not in themselves, not
in anything that they do, not in anything that they are, but
in the Lord. And how are they justified? You're
going to hear some things now that you've already heard this
evening from Todd, but doesn't it say in the mouth of two or
three witnesses? So I imagine you can tolerate hearing one
or two of them again. In the Lord, by union with Him, This
is how. This is how they're justified,
by union with Him. Note it says, in the Lord. It doesn't say, by the Lord.
Justified in the Lord. They're justified by union with
Him, in the Lord. Justified from all eternity,
is what the scripture teaches us. From all eternity, they're
justified in the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Lamb, who was slain, says
Revelation 13 verse 8. Slain from the foundation of
the world. I don't understand that, but
this book says it, and I believe it, that somehow, outside of
this, we can only, because we're creatures of time, we can only
understand that now is so many seconds past from what it was
when I started that sentence, and we live in this time. Eternity
is outside of time, and in eternity, God justified his people in the
Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world. Those, says Romans
8, 29 and 30, those whom he foreknew, not looked in his crystal ball
and saw that they would do the right thing and accept him, no,
no, he loved them. in a gracious way. He picked
them out. Why? Because he chose to. Because
of his sovereign choice, he foreknew them. And those he foreknew,
he predestinated. He set their course. He set their
path. He caused all things to work
together for their good as he goes on doing. He predestinated
them. And he called them, and you know
in those verses, I don't think that's talking about the call
of the gospel in preaching in time. I think that's talking
about the call, putting them, giving them, you know, I know
marriage in our society, it is in Britain, it's becoming the
sort of thing where nobody wants to lose their identity and the
wife wants to keep her maiden name and keep that and she wants
to be her own person and not take the name of her husband.
She doesn't want to be called by his name anymore. That's not
the way it's meant to be. In the Lord Jesus Christ, in
eternity, we're called in Him. Called by His name. We're united
with Him. It's a union with Him. In eternity,
in the Lamb. Those He called, He justified. From all eternity. In the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. And in eternity, He
glorified the people of God. The seed of Israel are justified
in the Lord. From all eternity. he puts his
people into this marriage union with the son and the son takes
legal responsibility again the laws are changing but you know
the old I don't know how it is here but in the old marriage
laws in the United Kingdom in the old marriage laws the husband
had Total responsibility, legally and financially, for his wife.
If his wife ran up debts, they were the husband's debts. He
was responsible for them. If the wife did things that broke
the law, the husband was responsible. And so it is in the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's a marriage union. He takes
responsibility for his bride, completely. We're put into him
and justified in him in this marriage union. A legal responsibility,
so that Paul writes to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 3, 21 and 23, For
all things are yours, all things are yours, and ye are Christ's,
and Christ is God's. He made their sins the seed of
Israel. He made their sins to be His
sins. God made Him, whom you don't
see, to be sin. He made their sins to be His
sins. And so when David writes in Psalm
69 and verse 5, my sins are not hid, yeah, David's speaking from
his own experience, but this is Christ speaking. Christ? How
could Christ say, my sins? Because they were his people's
sins that were put upon him. And this is speaking of his anguish
when he's bearing his people's sins to redeem them from the
curse of the law. My sins are not hid. The judgment
of God is coming upon them. He made their sins to be His
sins, so that His righteousness, the righteousness of God, were
made the righteousness of God in Him, that that might be their
sins, that that might be their righteousness. And verse 21,
He saves them, a just God and a Saviour. Look to me and be
saved, a just God and a Saviour. In union with Him, He saves by
what He does as their substitute and as their surety in that union
with them. He must continue to be just.
God must continue to be just. God cannot, as so many falsely
think, just say, oh, it doesn't matter. Okay, I'm just going
to say I forgive you. That's it. It doesn't matter.
We'll forget about it. You know, like we do. We apologize. Oh,
it doesn't matter. It's okay. But actually, No retribution
has been made, no payment has been made, no actual atonement
has been made. It's just, OK, we'll forgive
you. God can't do that. He cannot overlook sin. He cannot
just sweep it under the carpet. But in his substitute, he's satisfied
every demand of his law, every demand of divine justice. He
remains fully just, totally just. But at the same time, he saves
his people. He's a just God and a saviour. He justifies the ungodly. Then
secondly, so by union with him, by belief in the Lord. By belief
in the Lord, we're united with him and we are justified in him. By belief in the Lord, justification
is appropriated. You know about it by belief in
the Lord. You experience it by belief in
him. It's an active experience. We
read in Acts 13, 39, and by him all that believe are justified
from all things from which you could not be justified by the
law of Moses. The seed of Israel's belief of
the truth, belief of the gospel, is the tangible evidence that
makes your calling and election sure. You know what Paul writes
to the Thessalonians in 2 Thessalonians 2 and verse 13? We are bound
to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of
the Lord. That's a high status, isn't it? These people are brethren, beloved
of the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you
to salvation. How do you know this, Paul? But
what is it that makes you know that these people in Thessalonica,
out of all the others around, have been chosen unto salvation? Through sanctification of the
Spirit and belief of the truth. They believe the truth. They
believe the gospel. And that belief of the truth,
that belief of the gospel, is the way they experience the justification
that the seed of Israel has in the Lord. And then thirdly, it's
by communion with Him. It's not a passive thing. It's a living faith that he imparts
to his people. And the experience of justification
is not a passive thing. It's a heartfelt experience.
It's something you know and experience in your heart. The forgiveness
of knowing that my sins are dealt with. I am counted the righteousness
of God in him. I am the righteousness of God
in him. He's made me that in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we have joy. It's not something
passive and just like a legal document. It's joy in Him. We
have joy in Christ Jesus. We have a tangible focus on eternity. We have a hope of eternal life.
You know, I don't know about you, but I look at the lives
that people live in this world, the lives of just pursuing material
gain, and all of these things, and disaster comes along, and
ill health comes along, and financial problems come along, and you
just wonder, how on earth do they ever have the will to continue?
You know, you hear of suicides, you just wonder why don't a lot
more of them go out and do it? There's no hope without Christ
and without hope in this world. But no, this is living faith.
This is an eternal hope. And where does it come from?
Our Lord Jesus Christ said, John chapter 7, verses 38 and 39,
He talks about believing on Him and the rivers of living waters
in His belly. It's the Holy Spirit. He says
that. The next verse, He says, This He spake of the Spirit.
He gives His Spirit. He gives His Spirit. And His
Spirit, gives us that communion with him, takes of the things
of Christ, witnesses with our spirit that we are the children
of God, shows us the things of Christ, applies his blood. You
know, we know the state that we truly are in, in that old
man before the law of God, and he comes and he applies that
blood to the conscience, and it's something that we experience
by communion with him. So that we get to this point,
we look in Romans 8, verses 33 and 34, and we read, who shall
lay, you know, my sins, all my sins, oh, who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? They're taken away. They're gone.
As far as the East is from the West. Who shall lay anything?
Who shall condemn? Christ has died. Christ has died. You cannot be condemned. He's
died. He's paid for them. There's no debt outstanding.
What blessedness there is in that. What glorious blessedness
there is. And his purpose also is that
they shall glory in the Lord. The seed of Israel shall be justified
and shall glory in the Lord. Let him that glories, glory in
the Lord. Not himself, Not in what I am,
not in what I've become, not in how much better I am now than
I was so long ago. In Him, glory in Him. Not the
tiniest bit of self, because the Spirit's work is to come
and expose self for what it really is. The true people of God, you
know, you know what you really are. You know something of what
you really are. Sinful, corrupt, deceitful. never improving in this flesh,
never improving in the flesh. You're like the prodigal, you
all have an experience like the prodigal son where it says he
came to an end of himself. He came to an end of looking
for any hope in himself, what he was, what he might do. And
it's a prerequisite to glorying in Christ. Because as Paul writes
to the Philippians, we are the circumcision, we are the true
seed of Israel, who worship God in the Spirit, who rejoice. That's
got feeling in it, hasn't it? That isn't just a passive thing.
It's got feeling. Rejoice in Christ Jesus and have
no confidence in the flesh. This is God's declared purpose.
that His people, the seed of Israel, all of them, shall be
justified in Christ and shall glory in Him alone. Let him that
glorieth, glory in the Lord. So this is God's purpose. Now,
if God has a purpose, he's going to bring that to pass. He's going
to work that purpose out. What's the consequence of God's
declared purpose? Look at verse 24. Surely shall
one say in the Lord have I righteousness and strength. Even to him shall
men come, and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed.
God's declared purpose is that they shall be justified in the
Lord, and the consequence of that is he appoints men to come. He doesn't justify a people to
leave them in their space-time state as they are to themselves.
He doesn't just justify them and say, well that's okay and
when the end comes I'm going to take them. He justifies them
that they might come to him. That they might come. Them and
them only. All of them, but only them, will
come to him. And who are they? His chosen,
redeemed, regenerated people. It's not in accordance with their
own will. but his will. It's not anything that they decide
to do, but the Spirit's work of grace in the hearts of these
people, the seed of Israel that brings them. He teaches, the
Holy Spirit teaches. There's a hymn that we have in
England, I don't know if you know it, it says, I sought the
Lord me thinking I was doing it, but afterward I knew he moved
my soul to seeking me. He teaches, he draws, he leads
under the sound of preaching. Why under the sound of preaching?
Because it's by the foolishness of preaching that it pleased
God to save those who believe. That's his way. Why is it foolish? I know it's foolishness to the
Greek, I know it's foolishness to the natural man, But you think
about it, it's foolishness that a weak, weak vessel, an earthen
vessel, just an old clay pot should contain such treasure,
such heavenly treasure. It's by the foolishness of preaching
that it pleased God to save those who believe. For whosoever shall
call in saving faith on the name of the Lord shall be saved. But
how shall you call unless you believe? Something tangible to
believe. How shall you believe unless
you hear with the hearing of the ear? How shall you hear unless
one comes and preaches to you? And how shall you preach the
truth unless you're sent of God to go and preach that truth?
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And He works,
the Spirit works. There's an old hymn that says,
Praise the grace whose fears alarmed me. made me see what
my state was. Praise the grace whose fears
alarm. The Spirit works. He shows me my state. He shows
me that before God, this is what the world in general, this is
what society in general has no apparent knowledge of. They just
seem blind and totally insensitive to it. that were appointed to
die once, and then the judgment. And what's that going to be like?
It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
God. I remember years ago when my wife used to go to a women's
meeting, and the women used to take it in turns in giving talks,
I'm sure she wouldn't really want that to be known these days,
but they all used to say at this meeting, trying to give a gospel
message, and they'd say, God loves you and has a wonderful
plan for your life. And I remember my wife standing
up and telling them, this is what God's word says, God is
angry with the wicked every day. God is angry with the wicked,
pointed to man to die once, then the judgment. Our God is a consuming
fire, and the Holy Spirit brings us to see that we're like a drowning
man in a stormy sea, And there's no hope. You know the type of
stormy sea I'm talking about. You fall off the boat and you
get more than a little distance from that, you're dead. You are
lost. You are beyond reach, like a
drowning man. But in that same moment, the
Holy Spirit shows us our Lord Jesus Christ, and shows us the
Saviour, and brings us empty-handed to Him. without our own righteousness,
hungry and thirsty for the righteousness of God. I must have that righteousness.
I've got a hunger for it. Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. In constantly hungering and thirsting,
he constantly fills his people with that. Hungering and thirsting. Labouring and heavy laden. He
brings them labouring and heavy laden. What does the gospel call
say? He says, whosoever. Oh, and the
Armenian jumps on the bandwagon and says, whosoever. Whosoever
is burdened, heavy laden, weighed down with sin. You look at men
and women outside here, all around us, everywhere. They're not.
They don't think they're sinners. They think they're pretty good.
But no, the Holy Spirit brings to this state of knowing that
there's no other way. There is no other hope. And to
that point where, where else can I go? You know the account
of Esther, Esther 4 verse 16, she gets to the point where she
must go into the king, which is not according to the law.
And she says, there's no other way. If I perish, I perish. I must go in there. Compelled
to come. To whom shall we go? Where else
shall we go? Jesus said to his disciples, will you also leave
me? To whom shall we go? You have
the words of eternal life. There's nowhere else that we
can go. Compelled to come. Unable to resist the will of
God, the call of God's Spirit. Not able to resist. Because,
as Jesus said in John 6, 44, no man can come to me except
the Father draw him. And we hear his comforting voice
in coming, knowing what we are, we hear his comforting voice,
because he says, Isaiah 43 verse 1, Fear not, you know, it's a
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Fear
not, for I have redeemed thee. Fear not, seeing by the eye of
faith, which is the gift of the Spirit of God, the atoning blood,
the way that blood has dealt with my sins. His perfect obedience. He's perfectly fulfilling every
type and shadow in the Old Testament. He's coming and clearing the
debts of His people. He's coming and making His people
the righteousness of God in Him. And He shows the believing child
of God, who's coming with this burden of sin, He shows them
the adoption papers, as it were. You see the adoption papers,
and they're legally signed, and they're lodged, and it cannot
be changed. You're in the seed of Israel.
He's made you in the seed of Israel. He put you there before
time began. He's made you willing where you
weren't willing. In the day of His power, Psalm
110 verse 3, He's made you willing in the day of His power. And
so there might be some that are thinking, but that's fine, but
what if I'm not elect? What if I'm not amongst them?
John 6.37, him that cometh to me, not him that knows he's on
the list of those who are elect, him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. Come unto me all you that labour
and are heavy laden and I will give you rest, I will. Revelation
22.17, whosoever let him take of the water of life freely. And there's another hymn, I know
I'm mentioning lots of hymns, but there's another hymn that
we love to sing. Bill Clark used to love it. Park
how the gospel trumpet sounds. Christ and free grace therein
abounds. And then it goes on to say, and
if free grace, why not for me? At the end of every verse. And
if free grace, why not for me? And coming, they say, verse 24,
in the Lord have I righteousness and strength. In the Lord, righteousness
from Him, His righteousness. Follow holiness, we read in Hebrews,
follow holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. And
these religious legalists lay a burden of the Law of Moses
on the shoulders of those who are supposed to be believers,
to tell them that that is saying that unless you achieve a certain
standard of sanctification in your life by your efforts, you
will not see the Lord, because that's what it's... Follow holiness.
Where do you get that holiness? It's in Christ. Christ alone.
You're the righteousness of God in Him. How do you get the righteousness?
You're made the righteousness of God in Him. And there's strength
from him, which is not my own strength. His strength, as Paul
said, is made perfect in my weakness, in my physical, in my human weakness. His strength is made perfect.
And it's strength which bears fruit. It's the fruit. We're not talking about a whole
load of things that we consciously do so that we can count the fruit
and we can work out whether we're going to get a bigger reward
than the person next to us when it comes to the judgment seat
of Christ. No, not at all. But it is fruit
which shows itself in a changed attitude, in submissiveness of
spirit, which wasn't there before, in humility, in selflessness,
in gratitude to Christ for salvation, thankfulness. This is one of
the things Paul says to the Romans, one of the indictments of man.
They weren't thankful. They weren't thankful. Thankfulness
to Christ, gratitude, knowing always what we are by nature
in the old man, knowing always that What did Paul say? Not meet to be called an apostle.
That's what he started out saying. Not meet to be called an apostle.
And then he goes on a bit longer. You think he's going to be getting
better, don't you? You'd think he'd have acquired a bit more
status? No, he's least of all the saints.
And then he goes on further, and the last thing that we read
in 2 Timothy, of his assessment of himself, is the chief of sinners.
Faithful saying, Christ came into the world to save sinners,
of whom I am chief, knowing I have righteousness and strength. In
him, in the Lord, I have righteousness and strength. I know it doctrinally,
because God has given us his spirit, who has given us his
word, a written word, and there it is. Search the scriptures.
Search the scriptures to see what they say. The noble Bereans,
they were more noble than the others because they searched
the scriptures to see whether the things that Christ said were
true. I know I've got righteousness and strength because this book
tells me, but also experientially. You experience it by faith. by
the Spirit's presence, in the heart, looking to Him. Several
years ago, we tried to get our mortgage paid off. We had been
paying a mortgage down on our house for a long time, and it
was our intention to pay the mortgage off. And the day came,
I think it's about five years ago, when we made the final payment.
And the statement came through from the bank, and it said, what
do you still owe? Zero. And, you know, what do
you think we did? Do you think we just sort of
said, um, there it is, I'll square up the accounts, it says zero
now. We said, whoa, we've done it, great, it's cleared, I feel
it, I know it, I feel that that debt is paid off. That's it,
with my sin, in redemption. He's done it. I don't just sit
there passively and say, oh, tick the box, there it is, that's
done. I rejoice it, rejoice in Christ Jesus. Someone put in
a bulletin, I thank you for the bulletins that I received, thank
you. They said, and I so much believe this, the gospel is not
an offer. It's not an offer to all men
who are dead in trespasses and sins to exercise their duty to
believe the gospel. Because if you take that approach,
your practice and everything that you do is fundamentally
erroneous. No. What is it? It's a promise. It's a declaration of promise
to God's elect concerning salvation that's accomplished. And in that,
all the seed of Israel shall glory. But I can't finish without
mentioning these words. And all that are incensed against
him shall be ashamed. Incensed against him. There's
a parallel in the New Testament. You know when John the Baptist
sent his disciples to Christ. Are you the one or do we look
for another? I don't think it was John that
was doubting, not in the slightest. John came to point and he pointed
his disciples who were doubting, who were wondering. His disciples
are doubting. Who is this guy? He's not adopting the same lifestyle
as you did. What's going on? You go and see
him, said John. He sent them to Christ. Go and
see him. You know what Christ did. They
saw everything that was prophesied of Christ being fulfilled. The
deaf were hearing, the blind were seeing, the lame were leaping
and praising God. All these things were happening
that were prophesied. And he said, and blessed is he
who is not offended in me. And that's a parallel of this,
and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed. What is
it to be offended in him? What is it to be incensed against
him? It's rejecting his rule. It's
rejecting his sovereignty. It's rejecting his particular
redemption. Oh, I'm a Christian, but I don't
believe in particular redemption. That's being incensed against
him. That's being offended in him
because he came to save his people from their sins, particular redemption. He came to redeem his sheep and
not the goats. He came to accomplish that purpose. They get offended because He
rejects their presumed worth. You know, they believe that they've
got a certain amount of worth that must count for something.
And you know, they're going to stand there on that day, we read,
and they're going to say, Lord, haven't we done all these things
in your name? Haven't we done all these things? Surely, surely
we're creditable, we're worthy of something. Haven't we done
all these things in your name? And he says, depart from me.
I never knew you. It's God makes the difference. And people are incensed at that
and offended at him. Some he calls, others he leaves. Jacob he loves, Esau he hates. Oh, it's not fair, I'm incensed
against that. But here's the thing that's illogical
to human reason. No man can come unless the Father
draw him. But those who neglect the Gospel,
those who are incensed against him, do so willfully and entirely
of their own sinful choice. Where are you? Those people out
there today, anybody that might listen to this, aligned with
the seed of Israel that is justified in the Lord, in our Lord Jesus
Christ, or with those who are incensed against him? If you
feel you might be with the latter and you're concerned and you're
alarmed, what do you do? Plead his mercy, plead his enlightenment,
plead his grace, Psalm 2 verse 12, kiss the son, kiss the son
lest he be angry with you and you perish in the way. There
is yet hope. Today is the day of salvation.
There is yet hope. There's hope that that burning
brand in the fire, prepared for judgment, will be plucked from
the fire. Blessed are they that put their
trust in him. Amen.