Alright, back to Isaiah 8. Isaiah is quoted more than any
other prophet. Quoted in the New Testament,
more than any other prophet, unless you call David a prophet,
and he is, but of what we call the major prophets, minor prophets.
Isaiah is a book full of Christ, just full of Christ. We've already
seen that, and hope to see more. Isaiah lived about 80 or 100
years. He prophesied 80 or 100 years
before Israel was taken captive into Babylon. So much of what
he said is a prophecy of what was to come about in Israel. Doom. It was an end. What he prophesied of was what
Jeremiah and so many of them, Nahum, Amos and all of them lived
through him. Jeremiah was himself held captive
as a slave in Babylon. Daniel, remember Daniel was a
slave. Isaiah prophesied of what was
to happen. It was the end, he prophesied
of the end of Israel as a nation, really. You remember us reading
that he lived through four kings, and there was only four more
after him. Four more short reigns by four kings. And that was it. No more kings.
No more kings. No nation, Israel. Until now,
I guess. Until the 1940s, you know, one
day. So Isaiah, prophesied of the
woe, he pronounced many woes that were going to happen to
Israel. And so this is very relevant
to these last days. How many days, how many years,
how many months, how many days do we have? Does this idolatrous,
God-forsaken land have? That's what Isaiah, remember
what he saw in his day was an idolatrous God forsaken land. And that's what we see. So this
is also relative, so relevant. Verse six of chapter eight, verse
six, here it is. Here's his indictment against
his day. This people refuses the waters
of Shiloh. They refused the water. Remember, Christ said, I am the
water. Another place, our Lord said, you've refused the fountain
and made cisterns. You prefer cisterns. You don't
want broken cisterns. The waters of this world. Verse
9, he said, associate yourselves. Go ahead. Get together. Join up. Congregate. You just
be broken. You remember chapter one saying
we said at least these solemn assemblies, all this stuff is
going on. He said, I hate it. I hate it. What's highly esteemed
among men is an abomination to God. Always has been. I told you to read chapter seven
because that chapter seven is such a Talk about bringing down the
pride of man. Well, verse 10 here, look at
verse 10. He says, take counsel together.
It'll come to naught. Go ahead. Set up your councils,
your meetings, your gatherings. It's going to come to naught.
I'm going to bring it to naught. The Lord said. Some people like to talk of religion
today is much concerned with one world government. What they
think, what they think that the revelation teaches will be a
one world government. Religion is very concerned about
that. You know, you have to have a number to buy things and all
that sort of thing. One world government and all that. That's
not the problem. It's one world religion is the
problem. And it started way back. It's
in full force in America. So Isaiah, now Isaiah said, The
Lord spoke to me. Now here's where we begin, verse
11. He says, The Lord spoke to me. And what he told Isaiah is
the same thing that he tells his preachers and all his people
now. God doesn't, doesn't change. And the message doesn't change.
And the instructions of his preachers don't change. and the warnings
and the promises don't change. All right, we're going to look
at how God spoke and what God said in these next three verses. We'll have all of the next several
verses. But I just got to verse 13. All
right, verse 11. This is how the Lord spoke to
Isaiah. He said, The Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand. Is that what you think of when
you think of a strong hand? The Lord spoke to me with a strong
hand. The first thing I thought of
was how that man speaks with a forked tongue and underhanded. Man is very underhanded in his
dealings. Underhanded comes from an old
gambling term in Brother Henry. You know, you live back in the
Wild West, didn't you? Seventy years. Well, they deal
things under the table, you know. Underhanded, that's what that
means, you know. Underhanded. A man's very underhanded in his
dealings and all that he says and all that he does. Boy, we're
witnessing that, aren't we? There's just no integrity whatsoever. Nobody's word means anything.
Contract means nothing. Man speaks and does things underhanded,
hidden motive. Man, what he says is a hidden
motive behind it, is a hidden agenda. There's an ulterior motive
behind it. There's deception, there's trickery. Saying one
thing means another. That's man, natural man. But
God, our God speaks. What this means with a strong
hand means open-handed, open-handed, up-front. We use that term, very
up-front. Look, turn back to Proverbs 8.
I quote this all the time, and this is truly a wonderful, wonderful
portion. Proverbs 8, the whole... Oh,
I've always wanted to preach on this, and I meant to. I have
an outline on it, but I've never gotten around to it. Proverbs
8, the whole chapter is Christ, who is wisdom. This is Christ
talking, Proverbs 8. And if you don't have these verses
marked, do it. Put a little check mark here.
He says in verse 7, now this is Christ speaking. Let's read
verses 7 through 9. My mouth shall speak truth. I
mean everything I say. He said heaven and earth will
pass away and all men are liars, but not this man. Not Christ.
He said whatever comes out of my mouth is truth. Read on. Wickedness, lies, wickedness
are an abomination of my lips. It's natural to these lips, but
it's unnatural to his lips. Read on. All the words of my
mouth are in righteousness. There's nothing throw-ward. That means Read hidden, underhanded,
perverse, hidden motive, ulterior motive, nothing. Right up front. Verse 9, I love
this. I love this. They're all plain to him that understands. Very plain, aren't they? God's
Word is very plain to him that understands. And it's right.
They're all right. Everything he says is right for
them to find knowledge. Isn't that a wonderful verse?
Now back to the text. So our God speaks with a strong
hand, an open hand, up front, and with authority. Who is the
hand of God? I know what preachers say, you
have no hand but your hand. No, sir. Christ is the hand of
God. God's a spirit, but the image
of God, the express image, the bodily, the fullness of God in
a body with hands is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the right hand,
the son of the right hand, it's called. Jesus Christ called the
right arm of the Lord. It says his right arm brought
him salvation. That's what the scripture said.
The hand of the Lord, the right arm. He said, my hand's not too
short, can I say. And we're all living proof that
his hand's not too short. Because he had to reach up all
the way. Christ is the hand of God. Christ
is the right hand of God. And our God spoke through Christ. He's called the Word of God.
He is the Lord who spoke Himself. And how did He speak? He didn't speak That's what I
think of when I think of preachers today. I think of limp-wristed
fellas. And I mean to make just as much
fun of them as I can. Our Lord spoke with a strong
hit you. When he spoke, they say, my dad taught us in that
class, don't point your finger. Don't point your finger. He does. Man, I've seen it. Woo! Have
I seen it. Let me add, that's a good illustration.
Have you ever known what it's like for your dad to, huh, what
about it Henry, your dad ever, that's what it means to speak
with a strong hand. Now son, now you know what it
means to speak with a strong hand, that's the way our Lord
spoke, that's the way our God speaks. It's not with a strong hand. Our Lord
spoke strongly, authoritatively, not as the scribes. Brother Todd
and I love that verse. It says the people, when they
heard Christ speak, they said, He speaks as one of having authority.
I'm not the scribes. I can see those. I see those
scribes. I hear them all the time. Limp wristed fellows. Our Lord spoke. Can't you see
him? He's standing, pointing his John did it before him, the
messenger of our Lord. John did. He pointed his fingers
and called them a bunch of snakes. Then our Lord came along. He
stood right in front of us and said, You beware of these scribes
and Pharisees, these hypocrites. Strong hand, open hand, plainly,
with pointed fingers. And that's how he spoke. That's
how our God speaks. Our God's word is bold. His authority is strong. It's plain. It's right up front.
It calls us what we are. It calls sin what it is. And now that's how he spoke.
And now this is what he said, all right? Verse 11, The Lord
spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that
I should not walk in the way of this people. Don't walk. Now, you notice it
says the way. Not the ways, the way of the
people. In other words, it's the way
that all the people were going. It was the broad way. In other words, God told Isaiah,
whatever way everybody is headed, you turn around and go this. That's what he said. Don't walk
in the way. Now, you know what way he's talking
about, don't you? You see it. It's the broad way. It's the way that this world
is headed. The way which seems right unto man. Everybody, almost
without exception, in religion today, agrees and believes the
same way. That's why they're accepting
absolute idolatrous religions, like what was it that happened
recently? Some big movement where, I mean,
Hindus and everybody, Buddhists and everybody got together with
Catholics and Protestants, and they had a big meeting. And they
all got along just fine. That's the way. The way of all
flesh, the way of all religion. You know it well, you know it
well, don't you? He says, don't go that way. Don't
go that way. Look at verse 12. He says, say
you not a confederacy. All them to whom this people
shall say a confederacy, a confederacy. I always think about this when
I think of the confederacy. Confederacy is a well-known word
in the state of Virginia. Confederacy, that's religion
in this state. You better say, I was with someone,
Elder Brother Allen Jellick, we were walking through VMI. I took him up to VMI, to Lexington,
Virginia, and we were walking across the campus and I said,
Al, put your hand over your heart, quick. I said, why? What for? I said, do it quick. He said, there's Stonewall. I said, don't let anybody see
you not bowing to Stonewall. It's Stonewall country. He's
our God, you know. My dad once made this observation,
and it's so true. And men, most men are only famous
because they killed more people than anybody else. It takes a
war to make a man famous. Think about it. Isn't that foolish? Well, anyway, I think about the
old brother Terry Worthington, what he said to me when I, years
ago, when I first moved to Virginia, about the Confederacy. And he's
a He's one of these nuts, I mean Civil War buddies. One of these
sons of the Confederate. Don't take this tape to Darnell. But I said to him, I was down
visiting him in Georgia and preaching down there and I said, you know
Brother Terry, I said, I never was much interested in the Civil
War until I moved to Virginia. He said, I've been kind of interested
in it now. That's where it is. It was. And he said, it takes him about
10 minutes to say hello, you know, in Georgia. I said, where
are you from? Kind of looking down his nose
at me, too. I said, well, Kentucky. He said,
well. He said, they weren't much interested
when it was going on. I'll never forget that. Yeah,
they weren't interested when it was being fought. Neutral. At any rate, a confederacy. I thought about this, a confederacy.
A confederacy, what we think of a confederacy is rebel. That's
what it is. It's those united in rebelling
against something. That's what a confederacy is.
And confederacy of the American South was obviously a lost cause.
They lost. And God terribly obliterated
the very prime of this country. It isn't very obvious. There's
no way to testify. As a matter of fact, and you
can put me on record as saying that, Any cause which men unite
in, social, political, whatever it may be, is wrong. Especially
when they bring God's name in on it and say, God's on our side. This is God's cause. It's wrong. And it's going down. That's all
I'm going to say about that. But there's a much worse confederacy
that's going on and has been going on for years. It's a religious
confederacy. It's a bunch of rebels. God started
saying that in chapter 1. You remember, I brought up rebels. It's a religious confederacy
which North, South, East, and West are in on. And our God says don't join it.
Don't join it. Don't enter into it. And when you quote me on what
I just said, well, go ahead. I don't care. But honestly now,
think about it. Our Lord destroyed the South. God did that. And it's just,
I know all the ramifications and all the arguments and all
that, but there's no way to justify it. It's like Vietnam, you know.
I lost a brother there. It was an unjustifiable war. Well, what he says about this
religious confederacy, don't join up with it. Don't enter
into it. Read verse 12. Neither fear ye their fear. Don't
fear their fear. Look quickly at Isaiah 29. Isaiah 29. Don't fear their fear. What is their fear? Well, it's
not the fear of God. There is no fear of God, right? That's what Paul said, didn't
he? Romans 3, 18. Well, this is where Paul got
that. Verse 13, Isaiah 29, 13. The Lord said, For as much as
this people draw near to me with their lips or their mouth, their
lips do honor me. I hear them say, Lord, Lord,
Lord. I hear that. God hears everything. He says,
I hear this. Put their hearts far from me. They don't believe I'm the Lord.
That's what he said. They don't believe I'm the Lord.
Read on. Because he says their fear toward
me. Verse 13. Their fear toward me,
what they call fear of the Lord, is taught by the precepts of
men. It's what they call fear. And I don't even know now what
that is. Because there's no semblance
of it now. Is there, Sam? What would that
be? What's the fear of the Lord now? What do you reckon that
is? I stopped and thought about it.
What is, what would men call the fear of the Lord? Lightning? Thunder? Huh? Honestly, I think about
it. It's not in character to him
because he just loves everybody without exception. And he wants to save everybody
without exception. It can't be his character. He
doesn't have any right. He doesn't hate anything. What
is the fear of all of that? And this is still so relevant. My, my. Go back to the text.
So he says here, don't fear their fear. What is their fear? Well,
it's political. It's political. Political fear.
Are you really worried about what's going to happen in Florida? Like, my dad one time, he said,
I've lived through, and this was a couple of administrations
ago. I forget how many he told me.
Well, Henry, there you go. Let's pick on Henry. He's now
almost 70. So you, Lincoln, you were the first president you
were under. No. Who was the first president,
really? when you were born. Do you remember? Let me ask you,
do you see what I mean? It's been too long. I bet you've
been 10, 12 presidents. At least four years, some of
them, eight, 15 presidents maybe. It's been much different. Really, not much different. But
men worry. They worry. Well, the economy
might fall. Let it fall. It might do this nation some
good. Political. There's financial worries. Now,
social. Social ills. And as much as I'm
worried about the homosexuality and all that stuff, you know,
infiltrating folks, Ask a lot. It's been around a
long time. Been around a long time. Physical ills, you know, fears
and so forth. Don't fear their fear. He said,
verse 13, and here's where we'll spend the rest of the time. He
says, The Lord of hosts himself. Let
him be your fear. Let him be your dread. Let him be your fear. Sanctify
the Lord. And I wish we had time to look
these verses up. Peter said this. You remember
Peter saying this? 1 Peter 3, 15? He said, sanctify
the Lord in your hearts. Sanctify the Lord. And there's
a couple of messages within this. You remember back when Moses
struck the rock the second time? Numbers 20, you want some good
reading, go read Numbers 20. The Lord told Moses, now Moses
had already struck the rock and water came out of it, which is
Christ. Christ is that rock. And Christ
is smitten one time, brother Roy. He was wounded and bruised
and smitten. He's the cleft rock. He's the
smitten rock from whose side the salvation watered blood came
out of. Salvation. He's not to be smitten
anymore. The Mass, they actually claim
that that sacrifice has been made over. That's serious business. God
killed Moses and Aaron and called them. Moses, God told Moses,
He said, you speak to the rock. They need water. And Moses, God
told Moses, speak to the rock. And Moses got mad at the people,
and I would have to. They were a bunch of rebels.
And he got mad and said, must I, must we, let you rock water
again? First mistake. He didn't give them that rock
of water. God did. First mistake was not acknowledging
God. Second mistake, getting lifted
up in pride above the people. And the third and deadly mistake
was he took that rod and hit that rock again. Smoked that
rock again. And water came out because our
God honored his service. In spite of it, he honored his
servant. But God took Moses aside and
said, now I'm going to kill you. You're not going into the promised
land, nor are you Aaron. You did not sanctify me. That's
what he said. You did not sanctify me before
the people. You don't smite Christ twice.
You don't bring him down twice. He was lowly, meek and lowly.
humbled as a man and wounded and bruised and crucified. He
hung on a tree once, smitten. We did a scene of him stricken
and smitten of God. And he was. Not anymore. He's high and lifted up. And
you speak to the rock now. Don't bring him down. Don't smite
him again. And all that's a picture of what
man is doing to the Lord Jesus Christ now. How they're bringing
him down. before the eyes of this wicked
and perverse generation. And that's a whole other message
I just gave to you. But he says to us and to Isaiah,
you sanctify the Lord. You sanctify the Lord of hosts
Himself, His person. Sanctify. Now what does it mean
to sanctify? It means set apart. And stay with me a few more minutes.
You're going to like this. If you like to hear your God
honored, you're going to like this. He said, you set your God apart. You set me apart from the rest
of these gods. That's what he's saying. He said,
sanctify me before the people. Set me apart, above, high above. We cannot, in this day, especially
this day, we cannot preach God to sovereign. Because man has
got him just, he's a man now. They've got God as a man. We
cannot preach God too high, too holy, too sovereign. People come
in here and they think they're hearing a broken record. Well,
it is. This is the record. Our God is
holy. And the reason people They don't
understand why we keep saying this, do they? They don't understand
why we keep making much of God's holiness, because they don't
know. But this is what sets our God
apart from the God of this world. His character, His holiness,
Himself, you see that? Himself, His person. Holy, holy,
holy. Set above all pretended lords,
gods, and Jesuses. High above. Our God, the God
of the Bible, our rock, is a rock. Our God is God. Our Lord, the true and living
Lord Jesus Christ, is so vastly superior, is so infinitely higher,
and so far above the God of this world that don't even resemble,
like a candle compared to the sun. Is that not right? He says, set me apart. Our God is God. This is my favorite
subject. Our God is God. Not trying to be. Not wanting. He is. He is God. Our God wills. and purposes things,
not wants and attempts. Our God wants nothing. Our God
never, at any time can ever say God wants this. God desires this. You can't, you don't say that.
It's not in the scriptures. Our God wills. He has already
willed. To want something, Ed, is to
have something you don't have and wish it. God doesn't wish
anything. Man doesn't have a will. Man
has a want. Their God may want something.
Our God doesn't. Our God has already willed everything.
Do you see the difference? I ain't splitting hairs here.
I'm satisfying God. Our God purposes. He doesn't
attempt. He purposes things. He's already purposed. He said,
I purposed it, and I'll do it. Our God speaks, and it's done. It's done. not speaks and hope
man's listening. I hesitate to repeat these things
that they're saying today, but I know you've seen these signs
that say things like this. It's supposed to be God speaking. I've been telling you about that
God They call it God's campaign, where they make up something
and then sign God's name to it. This is how bad it's getting.
This is how close it is to our Lord wiping this ball out. They say things like this, and
they say this is God talking. We need to talk. He's asking me for an audience.
Would you like me calling you up here? Can I talk to you? I
know you're busy. God who spoke the world into
existence is waiting on man to listen. Oh, come on. Set me apart, he says. Sacrifice
me. Tell the world that when I speak,
they will listen. That whoever I speak to, they
do listen. And they never forget it. That I speak and it's done. Our
God elects. He's not running for election. Our God elects. He does the choosing.
He's not running for election. Our God is God already, always
has been, always will be, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, President,
Chief Executive Officer. He's not running for the position. Our God, our Lord Jesus Christ,
our Lord Jesus Christ is Sovereign Lord, not some sentimental sissy
named Jesus. I told you you'd like this. He
says, set me apart, sanctify me. Our Lord came to this earth and
he, with a particular purpose and a particular people, a particular
work to do, given to him by the Father in a covenant before the
world began, in an everlasting, eternally all-wise covenant ordered
in all things sure, and given a particular number of people.
Yes, the numbers of stars in the sky and the sands of the
seashore which no man can number, but God's got every one of them.
He knows them all by name, and he wrote their names on the heart,
on his hands and in his heart. And he came to this world to
express purpose of saving them and them only. And he came to
this earth and he established an absolutely perfect and eternal
righteousness for them on their behalf, and imputed it or charged
it to their account, whereby God Almighty accepts them completely
on the basis of what he did. completely, for all eternity,
they're wholly unblameable and unapprovable in God's sight.
I went out to the cemetery this morning and looked at that monument
again. It says, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein
He hath made us accepted in the beloved. That is our motto. This is what sets apart our God
from all the rest. This is what makes the gospel
gospel. We're accepted in the beloved. Christ came down here to make
us not acceptable, to make us acceptable. To do for us what we could not
do and buddy he did. Because, and he didn't just,
he wasn't just some, some a moral murder, but he was a righteous
representative and a substitute. He wasn't just trying to make
converts to his moral way, but he was coming down here to make
us holy. And our Lord actually put away
all of the sins of his people by the sacrifice of himself.
And buddy, they're gone. And there is no judgment for
God's people, ever. And he sat down after he finished
that work, he sat down. That's what he's doing right
now, seated. He sat down with his work finished,
completely satisfied. And now he's absolutely expecting
everything that he did to be brought to fulfillment. He's not a defeated, would-be
Lord and Savior. He is the sovereign, successful,
seated Lord. This is all so different now.
Because our God, let me tell you this. Our God is so high
above the God being preached today. He's as high above them
as the heavens are above the earth. Our gospel is so vastly
different and so vastly superior. It's as high as the heavens are above
the earth. And His Word, let me say this about His Word now,
His Word is absolute. It's not to be It's not to be
debated, it's not to be argued, it's not to be mulled over, it's
not to be changed one jot or one tittle, it's not to be retranslated. His word is perfect, it's complete.
And his name, I'd better say something about this, his name
is far too glorious to be used in a familiar, careless, common
way. David said it best, he said,
make mention that his name is exalted. Because God will not
hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. So he said,
you call me Lord and Master, you say well. So that's what we're going to
call him. We're going to call him Jesus. You call me Lord and Master, you
say well. Now, I want to say it well. Don't
you understand? Call me what I am. You set me apart. You sanctify me. Let me be your
fear and dread. God set apart. God set apart. You know how God set it about
himself. And he said it in the book of
Isaiah many times. He says this many times. I need
to go through and count them. Isaiah, that's the reason I love
Isaiah, my favorite book. Our God says the best about himself
as being set apart, sanctified above all the others that are
called gods. He said, is there a God beside
me? I know of no other. There's no God even anywhere
close to me. I don't know of one. Do you? I hope you enjoyed that. I did.
Stand with me. Our Lord and our God. How we
thank you that you have chosen us, like you said in Isaiah,
chapter 43. This is the people that you've
chosen to reveal yourself to. For your glory. For your glory. How we thank
you. Miss Mark, anything in us, we
know that. But even so, Father, it seemed
good in thy sight, to the praise of the glory of thy grace, wherein
you hath made us accepted in the beloved. That you've been
abundantly good to us and making known unto us your will and your
purpose in all things in Christ. We thank you, Lord, for what
we do know of you and your Son. But we just know in part. But
what we know, we rejoice in. Rejoice in the Lord our God.
May it be more so, Lord, with us that you are our fear. And
in this day when there is no fear, you may be our dread. A great and dreadful God. A terrible,
terrible God. That the world has never even
heard the likes of. May we, by your grace, by your
Spirit, sanctify you. Now more than ever. It's in Christ's
name we are met here tonight. Amen. Thank you.