All right, Isaiah chapter 28. I hope you will give this your undivided attention,
that you will listen very carefully for at least 30 minutes. I spent a long time on this,
a long time just looking at this passage, reading it,
considering it, reading others on it, a long time before a pen
ever touched paper. So I hope you'll just give it
at least 30 minutes of your undivided attention and consideration. Now this is
a parable of sorts, a parable being a story of using earthly
things to illustrate heavenly truth, spiritual truth. That's what parable is. Our Lord
spoke in parable. This is a story of a farmer. God is speaking through Isaiah,
and he talks about a farmer. Husbandman is what he's called
in Scripture. how a farmer plows and plants
and so forth. And this is a picture of salvation,
a picture of God's work of salvation from start to finish, from plowing
to the final end. All right, let's look at it,
just dive right in. Looking at Isaiah 28 beginning
with verse 23. He says, Give ye ear, and hear
my voice, hearken, and hear my speech. In other words, listen
up now. Listen very carefully. Everyone
in here has ears, don't they? Yes, I say there are two ears
on each head. Having ears to hear. He that
hath ears to hear, let him hear. Do you know that life, eternal life, depends on it? Is this a serious thing that
I'm doing here? It's life or death. We've got
to hear it. So Isaiah says, give ear now,
listen up, be careful, listen up now. The pastor used to say, watch
it now, listen up, be careful. Faith cometh by hearing. Faith cometh by hearing. Now,
he's going to give this parable of a plowman, of a farmer, of
a husband. Verse 24. He says, doth the plowman
plow all day to sow? that they open and break the
clods of his ground. Does not the plowman plow all
day long before he sows that seed? Breaking up the clods,
preparing the ground before he sows that seed? Now, Paul called
the preacher of the gospel a plowman. 2 Corinthians, he said, I think
it's chapter 8, he said, we plow in hope. We plow, we plant, we
water. The preacher of the gospel plows. And this thing of preaching is
like plowing. That's what Isaiah calls it,
that's what our Lord calls it. It's plowing. Long before you
ever get any fruit. Long before the crop is harvested. Long before that. It all starts,
in the very beginning, it starts with this plowing. Plowing up
the ground. And plowing, he said, is an all-day
thing. Doesn't the plowman plow all
day long? It's long. It's arduous. It's difficult. Slow work. You see, this was done, this
is talking about plowing long before there were John Deere
tractors. Back then, all plowing. When he talked about plowing,
everybody knew he was talking about walking behind a horse
or a mule or an ox with your hand on the plow. That's what
our Lord said. He put his hand to the plow and
looking back, He's not fit. Well, it was long. I don't know however many of
you plowed with it. Did you ever plow with a horse,
Brother Henry? Hard work, isn't it? What if
you had several acres to plow? How long would it take you? At
least all day long. Long and hard, behind an ox or
a horse, in slow steps. Have you ever watched? I bought
my old work horse from an old man. He was seventy-five years
old when I bought Molly off of him. And he had this old horse
that he had been plowing with for twenty-five years. That's the reason he had a horse
that was twenty-five years old. And he had been plowing with
it since he was about three years old. And boy, that poor old horse
was standing over to the side with his head hanging. And he
bought this young spunky horse named Molly plow behind. And anyway, he told me the reason
he sold her was because she walked too fast. He was getting too
old. He was used to that old, slow
horse, you know. But here's the point. The plow
is slow and it's one step at a time. If you've ever done it,
you know what I'm talking about. Hard work. One step at a time. Then you run into a stump. If
it's brand new ground that you're plowing, fallow ground, the Scriptures
call it, fallow ground that has never been planted before, you're
going to run into stumps. You're going to run into rocks,
and then you've got to stop. Right? You've got to get that
stump out of you. You've got to grub stumps. You've
got to get the big rocks out and so forth. All right? It's
long, hard work. So this is what, you see, what
Isaiah is saying here. Does not the plowman plow all
day long, all day long, and break up the clods of his ground? After
you plow it, then you disk it, and then you harrow it. You're
not even done after you plow it, are you, Brother Henry? A
lot has to be done to get a field ready for planting. You can't
just throw seed in there with big clods of dirt. It's got to
be smoothed out. It's a long hard work, long work. What is this? What's he talking
about? He's not just giving us a lesson on plowing. No, he's talking about the work
of salvation. When God, the first thing God
does to this fallow ground, that's what the scriptures call our
hearts. Fallow ground. The first thing
God does to this hard ground of our heart is plow it up. Now, it's God that's doing it. Really, a preacher's kind of
like the ox. God's just using him. God's the one that's doing the
work. It's God's work. Except the Lord
build the house. Except God plow the field. It'll
not be plowed. Except God break the heart. It
won't be broken. works on these hard hearts. You
see, our hearts are hard by nature. They are hardened by many things. They are hardened by sin. Hardened
by sin. Hard. Our thoughts, our opinions,
our ways of seeing are hardened. And you know, the longer a piece
of ground goes without being plowed and
planted harder it gets. You call it sometimes hardpan,
don't you, Brother Henry? Hardpan. If anybody's ever tried
to plow hardpan, you know what I'm talking about, don't you?
There's ground out around my barn where the horses have been
trodden on, just trodden on. Boy, Mac, you try to, you can
take a pick, try to break it as hard as a rock. This is a
picture of man's heart. If the saying is true, if the
old saying, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, if that's
so, and dogs only live 10 or 12 years, what about an old man? What about a 50, 60, 70-year-old
man who sat in his ways like concrete He's formed his opinion,
his thoughts. He knows what he believes, and
you're not going to convince him otherwise. Hard man! He's
hard. And when the Scriptures talk
about how can you do good what you're accustomed to doing evil. It talks about the longer we
live in sin, the harder we become by it. A horse, a colt, you start with
them at a real early age. A dog, you start training them
when they're just puppies. If you don't, it's harder and
harder to train. They get wilder and wilder. And
this work of breaking the heart is impossible with man. With
man, it's impossible. You can't get through. You can't get through. Our Lord one
time said, oh, this woe is unto this generation. We've weeped,
we've wept, and you haven't mourned. We can get emotional and not
move. We can get angry and you're not
scared. We can get happy and you're not
joyful. It's just hard. We preach, use
all every method and every, all the emotion, every fiber
of our being in preaching and nobody's moved. That's because
with man it's impossible. And there are some in here who
have heard message after message after message, crying, laughing,
shouting, happiness. Sadness, I've seen trials, I've
seen afflictions, I've seen death, I've seen disease, I've seen
miracles and wonders. Unmoved. With man, it's impossible. But now with God, God has to
plow the heart. That's why we pray. That's why
we pray, Nancy, before every service. That's why we pray.
Not because we're supposed to. Unless God opens the heart, this
is just a sermon. And that's what it's been for
so long for many, for some. And God's Word, now what is the
plow here that God uses? What is it which God uses to
plow up? Well, it's not the preacher.
It's not his ability. It's not his emotion or intellect. This is God's Word. This is it.
This is the only thing that God uses to plow up the heart, to
break the heart. The only thing that God uses
to open the ear, prick the heart, to think on God, and so forth.
Well, God has to break these hearts. God has to break these
hearts. The first thing that God does
to a human being that he has purposed to save is break their
heart. Over what? Sin. Their own sin. Worthless sin. And only God can do that. Well,
now look at verse 25, all right? He says, before that, who decides
to plow? Whose work is it? Who decides
to do this? The plowman. God does. God decides that he's
going to plow, and God decides what field. Right? That's very plain. It's the farmer. He decides. He owns it all. He owns many, many, many acres,
and he decides to plow one field. Salvation is of the Lord. He
decides. The Spirit bloweth where it listeth. The plowing starts
where God says it started. Nancy, if it were up to me, I'd
say plow so-and-so right now, today. Would you please? Would
you please, Lord, please? I will. Would you work on this
person, this young person, this girl, this man, this boy, whoever? Would you do that now? God decides. And so we pray, Lord, would you
be pleased? at your decision. But anyway,
he decides. Now verse 24, verse 25, the plowman
decides. And then when he has made plain
the face thereof, or that is, he's leveled the ground. So here's
the picture that Isaiah is showing us here. You come out and you
look at a a piece of ground, a couple of acres, and it's fallow
ground. You've got a field, and there
may be weeds growing chin high. There may be scrub brush and
rocks and stumps, or it may be just this solid hardpan with
stumps and rocks in it. But you look at this fallow ground,
you look out over that field, and you look at it and you say,
That's a worthless field. That's good for nothing. Nothing
growing there but weeds. That's of no good to anybody.
It's a barren, fruitless field, is what that is. It's going to
take some hard work. All right? I'm going to start
plowing. And you get to plow out, and
there's much time, much clearing and plowing before it's of any
use to the farmer. before that field will produce
any fruit whatsoever. It's a long job. And after a long day's work plowing,
disking, and harrowing—that's to break up all the clods, every
one of the clods has to be broken up—until finally he stepped back,
the day's over, and he looked at the field, and
what does it look like? After a plowed field, it's flat. What's there? What's in the field? Nothing. It's plain. It's been brought
down, everything's been cut down, burned, rubbish burned, stumps
removed, impediment, and what you've got is flat dirt. Now it's ready to plant. Do you see the picture? God has
to bring us to nothing. Everyone whom God deals with,
he brings to nothing. He brings down. And, you know,
depending on the field, depending on how old it is and where it's
been and what's growing there, They bring us all to nothing.
Some people have to be brought pretty low, like myself, have
to be brought, I mean literally, down into the gutter to where
it's just nothing but a plain old sinner. For it's plain, very plain to
everyone, to him included, especially him, that he is not You see that? It's made plain. The face thereof. Now it's ready
to plant. I love this. I love the thought
here. Turn with me to Psalm 83. Psalm 83. I've got a blessing
thinking about this. Psalm 83. It says that the face
is made plain. You know there are two faces
that we must see in salvation. Two faces. They're going to have
to be made plain to her. Face made plain. The first one is our own. Our own. Look at Psalm 83, verse
16. This is so good. Fill their faces
with shame that they may seek Thy name, O Lord." David says, fill their faces
with shame. Have you ever been ashamed of
yourself? Have you ever looked in the mirror at a time when you were ashamed
of yourself? What did you see? In looking
at your own face, what did you see? You see a shameful face, don't
you? Have you ever done that? Looked in the mirror at a time
when you were feeling so guilty and so ashamed of yourself, and
have you ever even talked to yourself in the mirror? Have
you? I'm not the only one. And you think you rock. You're
ashamed of yourself. There are times, see, there's
been times you go by and look at yourself in the mirror and,
hey, pretty good looking guy or girl or gal or whatever. You
look pretty good. But there are times when you
feel ashamed of yourself. You look at yourself and you
don't see anything. Oh, you're ugly. You're rotten. You're a liar. You're a hypocrite.
You're no good. You're worthless. Look at you. That's the first face we've got to see. You know, every one
of us is going to feel shame about that. Shame-facedness,
it's called. Face made clean. You ladies, do you have these
big, we have a bathroom that has these big round spot bulbs
in it. If you look at yourself in that
mirror, you're going to find plenty of blemishes. Nothing
but blemishes. You're not going to find... This word, you know the word's
called a mirror? It's called a mirror. James said it, he that
beholdeth itself in a glass. A mirror. Beholding yourself
in a glass. The first thing God uses to make
it plain, that's plain, to reveal ourselves is God's Word. He makes
it very plain to us that we're, was it Job said, Behold, I vow. Religion won't do that. Religion
will tell you how good you are. Religion will tell you how lovely
you are. Religion will tell you how much God needs you. How much
in the image of God you're created. That's what religion will tell
you. But God's Word will say, you're a warner. You're a devil. You're nothing. No good. Not righteous. And you behold
yourself, your face is made plain, and you're ashamed of yourself.
That's the first face we've got to see. And everyone, when God
makes their face plain, Shamefacedness. We read it in Psalm 34, brother
Stan. We'll behold his face and not
be ashamed. His face. He'll show us his face.
Have you ever seen one of these pictures? One of these pictures where you
look at it and you see one thing. And it's so plain, it looks so
plain, you've got this picture of something, and you keep looking
and all of a sudden, there's something else in that picture.
Have you ever seen one of those? They call it an optical illusion,
you know. Well, you keep looking into God's
Word, and for those who see themselves for what they are, shame faces
them, will eventually. See Christ. You see your own
ugliness, you'll see Christ's beauty. See your own sinfulness,
you'll see Christ's righteousness. See your own guilt, you'll see forgiveness that's in Christ.
Two faces. That's what 2 Corinthians 4 says.
God causes light to shine out of darkness and shine in our
hearts. Give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ. In fact, it's God's work. He must do it. Look at verse,
back to the text, Isaiah 28. So he makes the face plain. Now
look at this. This is very good. Verse 25,
you with me? We've been, I've got a timer
right here. Hadn't been long. I asked you
for 30 minutes. My New Year's resolution. All right. He makes it plain. We're going to be brought to
the point where we're ashamed of ourselves. God saves sinners, unrighteous,
no goods, not good people, no goods. And he's going to make
it plain to us. We're no good. That's why we
need mercy. All right. And Nancy, we keep
seeing that face all the rest of our day. Whenever we look
in the mirror, we still see that same old shamed face, don't we? But then we see Christ, too.
All right, now, he says this plowman, after he makes the face
plain, verse 25, he starts sowing seed. It's got to be enough.
It's got to be plain. It's got to be nothing before
the seed can be sown, all right? And we've got to be absolutely,
no good, rotten-centered before the gospel, which is the seed
is sown. Now, he throws in his five seeds. Five seeds that are thrown into
this field. Now, isn't that something? Not
thrown, planted. Isn't that something? I was glad,
when I started looking at this, I was glad there were five. That
fits my message. He says, he casts abroad the
fetches, scatters the cummin, casts in the principal wheat,
the appointed barley, and the rye in their place. Five seeds. Different seeds, but yet it's
all seed. Right? Seeds, but it's all seed. And this is a picture, this is
God's Word, which is the seed. This is what Peter said in 1
Peter 1, verse 23. He said, we're born again, not
of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed. The Word of God, which
liveth and abideth forever. The Word, the seed. You know,
to some, this sounds like a dead, dry sermon. It just sounds like
words. It just sounds like doctrine.
But if God the Holy Spirit plants it, it's a word of life. You look at a grain of corn or
a grain of wheat or a grain of seed, any kind of seed, when
you look at it, it looks dead, doesn't it? It looks dead. You say, there's nothing in there.
There's no life in there. Oh, yeah. If the plowman plants it
and waters it, there's life there. So it is with this Word. And
you know, our Lord gave the parable. Remember the parable of the sower?
What was the good ground? The seed fell on, some fell on
stony ground, and some fell on the wayside, and the fowls came
and picked it away and took it away. Some fell on good ground.
It brought forth fruit. good ground, plowed ground, plowed
ground, ground made plain to receive the seed. And God's word
is His seed, all right? Now, there are many words. Doctrines. Doctrines are teachings,
right? Teaching means doctrine. There
are many doctrines. This whole, look, how many words
are in this book? Thousands upon thousands of words,
but it's the Word. It's all the Word of God, right? Seeds. Words in season. But it all speaks of the Word. The seed, which is Christ Himself,
who must be formed in you. The hope of God. Christ Himself.
It's all seeds. Now, there's five seeds here,
and I've got to hurry up. I'm out of time. Whose idea was this? It's not the first year. It's
not the New Year's yet, is it? Okay. Five seeds. Quick. This thing is malfunctioning. I didn't go that long. No. All right. Five seeds. Five seeds. The first of which is that we
hear, all of the seeds make up the seed. All the words make
up the gospel. All the doctrines make up the
doctrine of Christ that are planted in the heart.
The first thing we hear, man's dead. He's dead. Now what you first heard, Brother
Stan, when you heard the gospel, when the word came, there was
a revelation. Man's dead. He's not what he
thinks he is. He's nothing. He's dead. He's
helpless. Yeah, man's dead. Fitches. Cummings was thrown in. Then
you hear, God elected a people. Man's dead. God has to elect.
He's dead. Man can't choose God. God has
to choose him. Right? That's thrown in, the
doctrine. Planted the principal wheat.
Christ's blood. You hear what it is, the central
doctrine of it all, what it is that saves man. Man's dead. God chose to save. How'd he do
it? Blood. It's the blood that makes the
atonement for the soul. Particular, effectual, eternal,
final redemption. That's the principle wheat. You're not a palm in four points. You're not preaching the gospel
by the end with four seeds. It takes time. And the principle
one is, the blood of Christ maketh atonement for the soul. Therefore, you'll hear that the
Holy Spirit is sent to to break their heart, to give them faith
in Christ. And the last thing you'll hear
what's thrown in is the rye. The last thing you'll hear is,
yes, everybody the Spirit lays hold on, lays hold on Him and
they're saved. And they will persevere forever.
That's what it's all about. It's the seed. It's grace is
what it is. All these seeds make up one seed,
grace. All these seeds talk about Christ,
who is the power of God, the Word of God unto salvation. Seeds. Well, God does the planting. Verse 26, it's God that does
the instructing. God that does the teaching. You
see that? God teaches them all this. They
shall all be taught of God. Every one of them. Now look at
this, very quickly, and I'll close with these verses. It says
in verse 27, now, Fitches are not threshed with a threshing
instrument. Fitches are little, little tiny seeds, like anybody
have a finch feeder? Goldfinch feeder's got the little
thistles in it? That's about the size of Fitches.
Little tiny seeds. That's interesting, I just thought
of this. That's the seed and that's the fruit too. Anyway,
after that seed is, fitches are, you don't put fitches, little
tiny powdery seed under a huge rolling, grinding gristmill. That's what he's saying here.
You don't do that. Now read on. And neither is a cartwheel turned
about on the coming. These are little tiny seeds.
Fitches are beaten with a staff and are coming with a rod. Now
bread corn is bruised. Bread corn? You've got to put
corn, big old grains of corn under a gristmill, don't you,
to grind it to powder. What's this all about? Everyone whom God plows breaks
their heart. He gives them faith in Christ,
and he brings forth fruit unto salvation. And now there's different
degrees of faith, and there's different ages. John talked about
babies, young men, fathers, didn't he? These are trials. These are
the trials of the believer. See, every one that brings forth
fruit, seed, hey, God's going to try it. It's got to be, it's
all going to be made bread. Every bit of it is going to be
cast into the furnace and come out bread for the master's table,
for his use. Every bit of this is going into
one recipe for the master's use, for his
glory. And these are the trials. afflictions
of God's people that He puts in every one of them. They're
all of them He tried. Now, He doesn't take a very young
believer with tender faith and lay some heavy, heavy, heavy
trial on them. Some grist mill trial on them. You see? And just a little threshing. Threshing. What did you use when
your children were, you'd chasten them? When they were, if you're
wise, you started real early. When they were, you know, old
enough to know what you were doing, I'm afraid to say here,
what age? Lady, help me out here. Two, fifteen months, a year? Well, whenever. Whenever your
wisdom tells you that they're old enough to know what you're
saying. Do you get out of baseball bat? Is this six-month-old and
he's crying needlessly, do you get a baseball bat? No. Whatever, you know, stop that. And the older it gets, you resort
to a hickory switch, you know. And the older it gets, if he's
a teenager, if she's, it's going to take a baseball bat. Same thing with God. Same thing. He knows, you see. In his wisdom, he knows what
to use and who to use it on, how to use it and how long. How
long? How long? Listen, you're going to like
this. It says, verse 28, bread corn is bruised, but he'll not
ever be threshing it. It's not going to last forever. He's not going to break it with
a wheel of a car or bruise it with his horse. It's not going
to be trodden underfoot. It's not going to be cast out.
It's not going to be Just constantly thresh. If you don't constantly
thresh, you don't constantly... I remember Brother Terry Worthing
one time saying this. It's so wise. He said, you know
when your children come to the table to eat, you don't spend
the whole time correcting their table manners. They probably need it. Don't
eat. Close your mouth when you chew. Get your elbows off the
table. Take your hat off. But you don't spend the whole
time. There you go again. What do you want? You want them
to eat. They're at the table to feed them. You don't spend
the whole time correcting them. Neither does our Lord. He does
what is good to Him, and He makes it last as long as it pleases
Him. It's never forever. This, too,
shall pass. A heavy trial may seem like forever.
No. It'll pass. Ask someone who... It will pass. This, too, shall pass. Paul said we're troubled on every
side, but not distressed. We're never brought to the point
of absolute distress. No. Troubled, yes, but not distressed. Perplexed, but not in despair. Despair, what displaces despair? He said, we're persecuted, but
we're not forsaken. Cast down, but not destroyed. I'll rise again. And in the end,
it says here, there will be a change. There'll be a change. It'll all
work out for His glory and for His good. And everyone who begins
plowing on, He'll perfect it. He'll finish it. Paul said, Behold,
I show you a mystery. We're all going to be changed. We're all going to be changed. And be at the Master's table
when it's all over. We've got to go through all of
this. He's got to go through all this. Plow ain't long. Arduous. A little sprout comes up. When
is a man saved? That's really a silly question.
We're being saved. All our lives. We're saved when
God said it. When it pleased the Lord. But
we're being saved. We're growing. We're being threshed. and processed, and it's all going
to end. It's going to have an end. It's
going to be put on the table. That's what it's all about. And
verse 29 says, This is all from the Lord of hosts. Isn't that
wonderful? It's coming forth from the Lord
of hosts according to his will and good pleasure, which is wonderful
in counsel and excellent. It's excellent work. Isn't that
wonderful? I love farming. I really do. If I wasn't what
I am, I believe I'd be a farmer. I'd be broke, wouldn't I, Henry?
But still, it's honorable work. It's amazing work. Surely men never grow tired of
going out there and seeing those little plants grow up. Rain come. Surely they thank God for that
and see them growing in the stalks, that corn, and finally sitting
down at the table one day after all that. And it's wonderful
to thank the Lord for it. Look here, the Lord did it all. It's wonderful. The Lord's work
of salvation is wonderful. It is the Lord's work from start
to finish. All right, let's sing a closing
hymn. Brother John, what number? 268. It's all stamped. It's all stamped. 268. I have found the foundation,
ye saints of the Lord. It is laid for your faith in
His excellent So can he say that to you he
has led, to you who for him choose to keep the last place? Fear not, I am with thee, O fiend
of dismay, For I am thy God, I will still keep thee way. I'll strengthen thee more, feed
and clothe thee, The pearls by my gracious hand, the pearls
by my hand. Number five is the last. The
soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose, I will, God, I will. I'll never, oh well, shouldn't ever
do jay. I'll never, no never, no never
forsay.