So we're in Isaiah 57 and I really
appreciated the Bible class this morning because it dovetails
completely with our message this morning and the praising of the
Lord for His works and declaring all the God's works and let the redeemed of the Lord
say so. And kind of that's the point of today's message from
Isaiah. I couldn't make up my mind on
the title between the sweetness of grace or the fruit of the
lips, because the fruit of the lips comes from verse 19 of this
chapter here. So let's just read through it
real quickly. It basically describes a condition
that natural man is in where he's always going about trying
to oppose God and God's righteousness and substitute something else
in its place. And that's basically what it's
about. But he calls attention to how we are delivered from
that trap, how we're delivered from that condition that we find
ourselves in naturally. So beginning in verse one of
chapter 57, the righteous perish and no man layeth it to heart.
Merciful men are taken away, and none considereth that the
righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter
into peace, and they shall rest in their beds, each one walking
in his uprightness. But draw near hither ye, sons
of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore,
against whom do you sport yourselves? against whom make you a wide
mouth and draw out the tongue. Are ye not children of transgression,
a seed of falsehood, inflaming yourselves with idols under every
green tree, slaying the children in the valley under the cliffs
of the rocks? Among the smooth stones of the
streams is thy portion. They are thy lot. Even to them hast thou poured
a drink offering. Thou hast offered a meat offering.
Should I receive comfort in these? Upon a lofty and high mountain
hast thou set thy bed, even thither wentest thou up to offer sacrifice. Behind the doors also, in the
post, hast thou set up thy remembrance, for thou hast discovered thyself
to another other than me. and are gone up. Thou hast enlarged
thy bed, made thee a covenant with them. Thou hast loved their
bed wherein thou saw'st it. And thou went'st to the king
with an ointment, and did increase thy perfumes, and did send thy
messengers far off, and did debase thyself even unto hell. Thou
art wearied in the greatness of thy way. Yet saidst thou not,
there is no hope. Thou hast found the life of thine
hand, where therefore thou wast not grieved. And of whom hast
thou been afraid or feared that thou hast lied, and hast not
remembered me, nor laid it to thy heart? Have not I held my
peace even of old, and thou fearest me not? I will declare thy righteousness
and thy works, for they shall not profit thee. When thou cryest,
let the companies deliver thee. But the wind shall carry them
all away, vanity shall take them. But he that putteth his trust
in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain
and shall say, cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take
up the stumbling block out of the way of my people. For thus
saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity whose
name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy
place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit.
to revive the spirit of the humble, to revive the heart of the contrite
ones. For I will not contend forever,
neither will I always be wroth. For the spirit should fail before
me and the souls which I have made. For the iniquity of his
covetousness I was wroth and smote him. I hid me and was wroth
and he went on forwardly in the way of his heart. I've seen his
ways and will heal him. I will lead him also and will
restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. I create the
fruit of the lips. Peace, peace to him that is far
off and to him that is near, saith the Lord, and I will heal
him. But the wicked are like the troubled
sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.
And there's no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. So we're
kind of focusing on verse 19, where the Lord says, I create
fruit of the lips. And we'll look at some examples
and amplifications of that in the New Testament. But back in, I had to kind of laugh
when I got to verse nine in this. It talks about these religious
people that are going up to this man-made high place and doing
all these religious things and building themselves up. And they
just wearied themselves in all their religious endeavors trying
to do things that oppose God. And in verse 9, it says, and
thou wentest to the king with ointment, and did increase thy
perfumes. Well, when I was in the working
world, and we had some unpleasant business that we had to take
care of, we said, well, we need to perfume this pig a little
bit, because it's pretty unpleasant. And then we would draw straws
to see who got the task of presenting that bad news in a way that made
it sound appealing. We would rationalize it, as it
were, and bring out all the good things. And in this case, in
religion, it's, well, I've done this and I've done that. And
we've done all these wonderful religious works and sacrifices
and everything. You know, God says, those are
not going to profit you. Those do not fool me. They're
not going to profit you. And so as we look at this, you know, the Apostle Paul used
two of these in two of his scriptures. He brought this out in Ephesians
chapter 2. beginning in verse 10 says we
we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them wherefore
remember This is what we are to do. We are to remember where
we were and how we got where we are now. Remember that you
being in time past, Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision
by that which is called circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that
at the time you were without Christ, being aliens in the commonwealth
of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having
no hope, without God in the world, But now, in Christ Jesus, ye
who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. Not something we did ourselves,
but we're here. as a result of what Christ did.
We were far off, as it says in verse 19. Peace to him that is near, far
off, and to him that is near. And it goes on there in chapter
2 of Ephesians, it says, is our peace. Christ is our peace. Who
hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition
between us, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that
state where we exist before the Lord has revealed Himself to
us, before we've been born again, before we're regenerated, we
are at enmity. Even the law of commandments
contained in ordinances for to make in himself of twain one
new man, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both
unto God in one body by the cross, having slain that enmity thereby. And he came and preached peace.
to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh." So we
see this, the apostle Paul using this scripture from Isaiah chapter
57, talking about Christ as the fulfillment of that very scripture
there in verse 19. And I wanted to notice in our
theme here, that our theme has always been
free grace. And it's grace that's supplied
by God and it's not grace that, grace is not conditioned on any
merit or works. Grace, it's grace that changes
the heart and in fact creates within us a new heart. a heart
to love God, where before we were in this state of enmity,
hatred against God. We were enemies opposed to Him.
A heart wherein now there is peace, there is Christ between
us and God. He's... He's that yoke, that
balance between the two of us, as it talks about in Job. And
in our scriptures today, taken from Isaiah 57, 19 and amplified
and explained here in Ephesians and in Hebrews, we see the sweetness
of grace displayed versus the efforts of man and works rooted
in self-reliance, that works that has to be perfumed to make
it smell good. And God said, you can't put enough
perfume on works to make it not be a stench in my nostrils. But before we move on, I wanted
to read us a verse from Hebrews 13, chapter 13, verse 15, that
talks about the other part of this verse here in Isaiah chapter
57, verse 19. I create the fruit of the lips. And we find that explained to
us in Hebrews chapter 13, verse 15. It says, by him, that's by
Christ again, Therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise
to God continually. And what is that? That is the
fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. And, you know, Mike
brought that out quite a bit in Psalm 107. Oh, that men would
praise God for his works. Oh, that men would praise God.
And I will declare all thy works, it says in Psalm 73, 28. And those that are, it says he
preached peace to those that were far off, and to those that
are brought nigh. Those that are brought nigh are
brought in by grace. Those that are brought nigh are
given a new heart. Those that are brought nigh are
caused to realize that Christ is why. And those that remain
far off from God, it's said in, I read there in what Mike was
preaching from Psalm 73, 27, those that are far off from God
perish. That's just a simple fact. You remain far off from
God, we perish, and then we find out that it's not by our own
works that we're brought nigh. He says, I create the fruit of
the lips. Let's kind of look at a few things
here. A quick synopsis of chapter 57
reveals the observations of God himself and recorded by Isaiah. And it shows a picture of how
we are naturally as resulting from sin in the fall. And we're
seeking everything that is opposed to God. While on the surface,
We're claiming to worship Him and claiming that all our efforts
are for Him to the point where we're just tired out from serving
Him so much and doing so many religious things. He said, upon
a high lofty mountain has Thou set Thy bed. You go up there
to offer your sacrifices, and you put your signs on your doors,
and you make a big broadcast of how righteous you are. And
then you go to the king with your stinky sacrifices and your
stinky works, and you put all this perfume on them to make
them smell good to him. But he says, you know what? Those
are not going to profit you. Man, he fails in his natural
state to realize the purpose of God and redemption, and instead
says that because there didn't seem to be any immediate physical
consequence to our actions, and religious self-righteousness,
it must be okay. He says, you know, you just didn't
seem to mind. And he says, I let you get away
with a lot of things, it says in chapter 57. And that's brought
out in Romans, the ninth chapter, verse 22. What if God willing
to show his wrath and to make his power known endured With
much longsuffering, the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction,
those ones that bring their perfumed offerings of self-righteousness
and works. He put up with them, and that
he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of
mercy which he had aforeprepared unto glory, even us whom he hath
called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. God
is not pleased with the activities that enlarge man. and minimize
God. He says, I will declare thy righteousness
in thy works, they shall not profit thee. And so the question
is, we have observed always and continue to do is, shall we trust
in our own works, our religious doings, or can we only trust
in grace? And if so, How is grace achieved? And we've noted always that it's
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast, from
Ephesians chapter two, verse eight and nine. In declaring
the truth of God's gospel free grace, we must declare that it
all originates in Him. He's I create. I create the fruitful lips. And
how does that happen? And, you know, the scripture
said he's the author and finisher of our faith, our total reliance
on Christ for salvation. He's the causer of that. And,
you know, we, I was kind of looking into that a little bit this morning
and last week, and that word author is found a couple places
in the book of Hebrews. Let's turn to Hebrews chapter
5, verse 9, talking about Christ here. And it says in Hebrews
5, 9, and being made perfect, He became the author of eternal
salvation unto all them that obey him. Well, that word, the
literal translation of that word is not author, it's the causer. He is the causer of salvation. But they translated an author
and it's not even the same Greek word as we find in Hebrews 12
too, where it says, he's the author and finisher of our faith.
And in that case, author is the English correct word for that,
but in the Greek it means the captain or the prince. He's the
captain, the prince, and this word finisher means the completer. So he's the captain and prince
and completer of our faith. He supplies everything we need. He tells us what is required
and then he supplies, as it's been stated before, he supplies
everything that's needed to meet the requirement. And it says,
who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross
and despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of
the throne of God. And so we come to this fact related
to us by God through Isaiah and verse 19 of chapter 57 that,
I create the fruit of the lips. And then it lists other things
that God is responsible for, that God has provided. It doesn't
say, well, I do this and then the rest is up to you. It says,
I create the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace to him that is far
off and to him that is near. And he says, I will heal him. Three things listed here as originating
with and in God by His sovereign grace. The fruit of the lips,
which we learn from the Scriptures that in Hebrews is, well, that
is praise to God for what He has done, thanksgiving to Him
for that. And that's, boy, I was just highlighting
in my Bible, Mike was reading all these Scriptures from the
Psalms, and boy, David was really engrossed in that. I will praise
God for His great works, for His wonderful works. I will give
thanks unto the Lord. Boy, he just did that all the
time. The Psalms are just full of that. And that's what we should
do as the redeemed of the Lord say so. We shouldn't say, well,
as those people that were bringing their perfumed offerings up to
the Lord and saying, I'm really wearied with all my good works
that I've been doing. All my tithes and I've been fasting. I've been praying out on the
corner of the post office there, so people could see me. I've
been doing this, and I've been doing that." You know, he says,
we should let the redeemed of the Lord say what God has done
for them, not what we've done for ourselves, what we could
not do for ourselves, as has been brought out all the time.
You know, all these things come from God and they can't be achieved
or obtained by works of any kind or any perceived merit. That's
the opposite of the very definition of grace. And again, the question
is, does our hope lie in this self-sufficiency, religious works,
this formulaic babblings which we hear on TV all the time. All
you need to do is repeat this prayer after me. We don't even
care if you believe it or not, as long as you call this toll-free
number and sign up after you're done. Just the things designed to put
God under obligation to us based on what we say or do. And they're
described as things, this needs to be heavily perfumed when it's
taken to God. Because it just stinks. So God's
Word is made abundantly clear through the Gospel of Grace to
those Ephesians. Not by works. which we have done,
not by works, lest we should boast. We are by His workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before
ordained, that we should walk in them. And wherefore remember
that you were in time past Gentiles in the flesh, and at the time
that God manifested His grace to you, You know, it's like what Paul
said, when it pleased God to reveal His Son in me. At that
time, he changed from, he was changed, not that he changed
himself, but he was changed from being a religious babbler that
had to bring all these perfumed works to the king, to one that
said, Lord, what would you have me to do? And it was a difference
there. And that in the ages to come,
He might show the exceeding riches of His grace, His unmerited favor. You know, there'd be a lot of
things that come to light to us as we grow in grace. We say, I had no idea how wonderful,
how much was involved. We think back about all the things
that God did to bring us to Himself. I like this part where He says,
you know what? Cast ye up, cast ye up. That
means it's kind of a reference to the cities of righteousness,
the cities of refuge. I mean, where they say, you know
what, you're supposed to clear all the obstacles out of the
way and the valley shall be filled and the mountains laid low. I
always think of that trip over to Newport where you used to
have to wind down into the bottom of the valleys and go through
these crooked ways and up over the top and they made this nice
straight highway that bypassed all that stuff that was just
like the bypass to the city of refuge. It says, cast you up,
cast you up. Lift up, rise up all of the obstacles
out of the way is what that means. It's like if there's an obstacle
in the way of the Lord's causing his people to come to Christ,
that obstacle is just made to rise up out of the way and the
person streaks through their fleeing to Christ. And so we were far off. He makes us nigh. We are made
nigh by the blood of Christ. He is our peace. And Christ came
and preached this peace unto you which were afar off and to
them that were nigh. And by the sweetness of grace,
we come to know all the things that He has done for us and not
what we have done for ourselves and how He's revealed His Son
to us and done for us what we could never do for ourselves. And so, a quick test of grace
that we could apply about activities in question?
Do they result in praise for God or praise for our actions?
Do they need to be perfumed? Or are they a sweet odor? to
God, rising up to Him. So what does the scripture say?
Well, we've seen that He, that's God, by free grace creates an
existence of peace between God and we, who were formerly at
enmity against Him. We were far off in that far off
place that it's bad and we find that peace, as it says in Ephesians
2.14, is He is our peace. Christ is our peace. He has by
free grace healed us from all our infirmities. And that greatest
infirmity, I think Mike mentioned this in the Bible class this
morning, that greatest infirmity is sin. It's not so much, Oh,
my knees are shot, or my elbows are bad, or my back's shot, or
all these physical things. But the greatest infirmity that
we faced is that of our iniquities, our sin. And He heals us from
that, not we ourselves. We have to go to the doctor of
grace for that. Remember our lesson from Luke,
they that are whole need not a physician. And, you know, we
just, when we're in our self-righteous mode, bringing our perfumed offerings,
we don't think of ourselves as in need of that physician of
grace. And he causes that in us. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest and causes to approach unto thee, it says in the Psalms.
In Isaiah 53, verse 4, it says, Surely he hath borne our griefs.
And that's the same word as infirmities, carried our sorrows. Yeah, we
did esteem him stricken of God and afflicted in our place. And that's what we give thanks,
we give praise to God. That's the fruit of our lips,
is thanksgiving and praise to God for what he has done. He
was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement, that word means
the price, the payment for our peace that He provided was upon
Him. And with His stripes, we are
healed. And that's what it says in Isaiah 57, 19. I will heal
him. I will heal his infirmities.
And so, again, do the activities in question result in praise
for God or praise for our actions? What do the scriptures say? Well,
let's turn back to Hebrews chapter 13, verse 12 again. And we'll read through verse
15. Wherefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people
with his own blood, suffered without the gate, let us go forth
therefore, and that word therefore means because of what Christ
has done in our behalf. Let us go forth therefore unto
him without the camp, bearing his reproach, for here We have
no continuing city. We don't trust in things of today.
We don't trust in things of this world. We don't think of these
things as eternal in nature. We're just pilgrims passing through
and we have to be here for a time. And while we're here, we should
be like what Mike said this morning, let the redeemed of the Lord
say so. Let's praise Him for His works. We have no continuing city here,
but we seek one to come. We should say that by Him, by
Christ. Therefore, verse 15, Let us offer
the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit
of our lips, giving thanks to his name because of what he has
done and not what we ourselves have tried to do that is not
of any profit that is worthless, that is actually it's worse than
worthless because it just makes our debt greater because we're
denying the true sacrifice that was made on behalf of the Lord's
people. It says in 2 Corinthians 1, verse 9, it says, we had the
sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves,
but in God, which raiseth the dead. Again, it's Him that's
the causative action there, the cause of salvation. He's the
one that raises the dead. It's that sweetness of grace
that we come to know, whereby we enter in. I love that verse
in Hebrews, chapter 4, verse 10. We enter into the finished
work. We enter into the rest of Christ. And He that has entered into
His rest has ceased from His own works. I'm just totally resting
in the finished work of Christ. I just depend on that and nothing
else. And the fruit of our lips is
praising and giving thanks for what He's done. And what He has
created in us in Christ. And therefore we offer the continual
thanksgiving, the continual praise. And that's called that fruit
of the lips. He has created that. He has created peace between
us and God in Christ. He has done that. And then He
has healed us. You can always go back to Ezekiel
and read all the things. You know, if you just go through
and read those scriptures, it was kind of an interesting exercise
this morning in the Bible class. If you just focus on this one
thing, and you take your pen or your highlighter, and you
start underlining all the stuff that says, He shall, He did,
He will, all the things that God does, and you'd be surprised
how many times you have to get your ink out, and underline that, because it's
everywhere. I think it's what Drew Dietz
said in his lesson last week was, you know, it's just the
scripture is just full of grace. It's just not in a few places. It is the whole of all scriptures,
all the scriptures. speak to Christ. All the scriptures
speak to grace, what He has done for us and not we ourselves.
And so, I actually finished up a little earlier here than I
had planned to. So, maybe we'll just have a little
P.S. here, as Drew Deet said at the
end of his lesson. I got to here and that was supposed
to be the end, but we have a little more time, so. I had kind of, this is where
I originally came into this study was in chapter 58 of Isaiah. And I was kind of studying in
Luke when I got to this and kind of reviewing some things that
we've been talking about fasting. And it's just more pictures of
man trying to perfume his works. And this chapter, he's talking
about fasting. And he says, you guys fast, and
they're complaining to God in chapter 58. He says, you're crying
loud, you seek me daily, and you say you delight to know my
ways, but you don't really want to know that because it's kind
of opposite to what you're doing. And then you say, why aren't
you listening to us? We fasted in verse 3. Wherefore have we fasted? And
you don't see. Wherefore have we afflicted our
souls? And you don't pay any attention. You take no knowledge. Behold,
in the day of your fast you find pleasure. He says, at the same
time you're fasting, you're exacting tasks on others that are the
opposite of what you're trying to pretend you're doing for me.
And he says, behold, you fast for strife. What that really
means is you're coming to the Lord and you're fasting in your
prayer and you're saying, Lord, would you help me win this argument
with so-and-so? Would you help me in my fight
against this that I consider to be against me? You fast for
strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickedness.
In verse four, you shall not fast as you do this day to make
your voice be heard on high. He said, and then God speaks
in verse five and he says, is it such a fast that I have chosen?
a day for a man to afflict his soul, to bow down his head as
a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt thou
call this a fast, an acceptable day unto the Lord?" When you're
doing all these things, Lord, I fasted because I want you to help me win this
argument or this fight, or I want you to help me in these physical
things that I'm struggling with and that are unimportant, that
are false and facetious. And the Lord says, is not this the
fast that I have chosen? He says, okay, here's what you've
been doing. Here's what it should be, to
loose the bands of wickedness. We should be praying that the
grace of God would be manifest, that He would be about redeeming
His people. to undo the heavy burdens. And
what's a heavier burden than the burden of sin and unrighteousness
that we bear because of our natural estate? To let the oppressed
go free and that you break every yoke. You break every yoke because
He has broken asunder those yokes. He has broken those bands of
sin that tie us down. Is it not to deal thy bread to
the hungry? Well, is that a question of,
should we go out and hand out free bread downtown? Or is that
a question of, should we be handing out the bread of life to people,
the gospel? That what's gonna have the most
long lasting effect? What's gonna do the most good?
That thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house. When
thou seest the naked, that thou coverest him." We should be telling
them that the covering that Christ provides, the covering of righteousness
that he provides and that thou hide not thyself from thine own
flesh. Then shall thy light break forth
as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily,
and the righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory of
the Lord shall be thy reward. So not that doing those things
is wrong or not good, but spiritually speaking, they're not what that's
talking about. And you know, the Lord fed 5,000,
and at the end, how many went with Him? In John 6, 66, from
that time, they walked no more with Him. And then He turned
to the disciples and said, are you going to go too? And those
few disciples said, Who should we go to? You have the words
of life. And so doing these physical things are good, but they're
not the spiritual answer that you were looking for there. And
so, if thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting
forth of the finger, the speaking vanity, all those things that
we do by nature. This wagging of the finger is
kind of like the symbolic of the finger of authority that
says, I'm glad I'm not like you. I'm glad I'm not like other men.
I'm, I'm, and religious, and I fast all the time, and I pray,
and I give tithes of everything. I'm not like that other man.
And you know, his duty should have been saying, here's the
Lord. I'm pointing you out. the Lord. Come see a man that told me all
whatever I did. Come see, come see. Is this not
the Messiah? Have we not found the Christ?
Come and see, as we said in a couple of lessons back. So, if thou draw out your soul to
the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise
in obscurity. If you present the Gospel in
truth, leave the results up to God, then your light is gonna
shine in obscurity, and thy darkness shall be as noonday, and the
Lord shall guide thee continually. and satisfy thy soul, and draw
it, and make it fat, and make thy bones fat. And thou shalt
be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters
fail not." What a wonderful scripture that tells us what happens when
we give praise and honor to Him, to whom praise and honor is due. And what is the result of fakeness
and things that we do from our old nature is not profitable. So we'll stop there and glad we got to be together as
a family today. spread the good word from the
scriptures and be fed from God's word. I pray our pastor would
be having an enjoyable time of fellowship. You know, it's good
for him to hang around with his buds back there and He's a long
ways away. He's 3,000 miles away from most
of those guys all the time. So it's good for him to go back
there and be with them and build each other up, one another. So
we'll stop there. And Mike, would you dismiss us
in prayer? And then we can have a little
time of yakking before Dan pulls the plug. has been open today and brought
to us. And indeed, you are the one that
causes us to realize and to know what you have done for your people.
And indeed, to praise you for those things, and that people
would know of our God and of the things that he has done and
does do for his people. Pray that you would watch over
us so we can be together again with Norman Nancy as they travel
home soon.