I received a letter this week,
an email this week from some folks in the south of Australia
who watch us on the internet, and how blessed they are through
the ministry that goes forth from this congregation. And I
appreciate them writing me. There's no way I could ever preach
the Gospel to them down there. That's a long ways away. But I can this way. And those
of you who are watching, I speak to you. We're thankful that we
can minister to you from right here in Ashland, Kentucky. And
may God continue to bless His Word as it goes forth. and to
just encourage those of you of our congregation. Don't ever
forget that God is doing his work. And it is absolutely an
honor, a great privilege to be used in sending forth the gospel
of his grace. And we're thankful we have this
ministry. Let me ask you a question. Short
of the salvation of your soul, which is the greatest blessing
God can give to anyone in this life, what is the next greatest
blessing that God gives to people? And you might answer, well, a
loving family. Well, that's a wonderful blessing. But that's not the answer I'm
looking for, and I don't think that's the right answer to the
next greatest blessing of God saving your soul. In God's grace, he's revealed
the glory of God to you in Christ. He's given you faith in the Son
of God. In addition to that, and even
before that, though, what is the next greatest blessing that
is given to you? Well, you might say, my job,
that's a good blessing. Whatever measure of prosperity
that you have, perhaps. Friends, yes, that's a great
blessing. But this is what I think is the
second greatest blessing that God can give to any person in
this world, is to put you under the sound of the gospel of God's
grace and have you associate with a people who love this gospel. That's the second greatest blessing
I do believe. There is no way we can ever estimate
how many people have never heard the gospel of Christ and His
finished work upon the cross of Calvary. We will never know
how many millions and millions of people have never been exposed
to that which is the pure truth of God, of who God is and His
sovereignty in his justice and in his holiness and in his grace. And yet here we are and weekly,
we sit under the sound of the gospel. We must never take that for granted. This is a great blessing. It's
the second greatest blessing God can give, I do believe that.
to hear this gospel that isn't a proposition, but to hear this
gospel that is a proclamation, that it's finished. The work
is done. Our God has already accomplished
our salvation. In fact, He purposed it in old
eternity. And as far as that goes, Christ
is the Lamb of God that was altered before the world began. And then
He brought it to pass in this world. To sit under a constant
diet of this truth is a great blessing. You know, almost every
time I preach a funeral, Invariably, perhaps before the service or
after the service, there will be someone who will say, perhaps
you have said it to me. A lot of these people never heard
the gospel before, Pastor. They say it to you too, don't
they, Al? And I'm glad they heard the truth today. It leaves them without excuse. But it also is the means by which
God uses to quicken their hearts and reveal the Lord Jesus to
them. We're honored to hear the truth.
And I want y'all to understand, and not because of who the mouthpiece
is here, but just, I want you to understand and rejoice in
this. God has joined us together into
a body of believers. You are privileged to come here
every time that the doors are open. And you can do so with
this assurance, we'll always hear the truth. We're not going to hear the religious
jargon of this world. Some of you live near a religious
establishment. Upon the sign that is out in
front of that building, it says this, you can't expect God to
fix what you don't hand over to him. You'll never hear that
from this pulpit except that quote that I just gave you. We
don't say that kind of stuff, because we don't believe that
kind of stuff. Recently in the newspaper, a preacher, there's
a big article about him, and he said this. He said, heaven is the result of letting
Jesus in your heart. That is a man-centered gospel. Therefore, it's a false gospel. The Lord Jesus isn't looking
for you to let him into your heart. He gives his people a
new heart. A new heart to know him, to believe
him, to rest in Him and to love Him as He's revealed in the Holy
Scriptures. It is just a great, great blessing
to sit under the sound of the gospel week in and week out. I don't know whether this gospel
will be to you a savor of life and a life, or a saver of death
unto death, but it will be one or the other. And you mark this down. Every
time you hear the gospel, you aren't quite the same afterwards. You're either more established
in the faith, grounded in salvation by substitution and satisfaction,
or your heart is further hardened against the truth of God. And
I'll tell you, to whom much is given, much is required. There are people who've never
heard the gospel, have never heard what you hear. Those of
you who are watching, they've never heard what you're hearing. But you get to hear it. We get
to hear it. And those watching on the internet,
not only hearing it from my voice, but hearing it from other voices
or on sermon audio or some other taped means. This is a great privilege, a
great honor that God has given us to sit under the gospel of
His grace because you see, It is by the hearing of the truth
that God saves people. You are in the right place. You
are. I said to Scott and Tommy upon
the passing of Benjamin, I said, you know, Benjamin, He never
had to, as many of us have had to do, he never had to unlearn
a false gospel. I grew up under a false gospel. So did several of you. The Lord
brought us out of that religious darkness and he had to execute
our God. That God that was a figment of
our imagination, who depended upon us, making us to believe that God
really couldn't do anything unless we let him. That's false gospel. That's what I grew up under.
Started off in the Methodist church. Be good. I remember going to the Methodist
church. My grandparents took me. And they stressed, be good,
be charitable, love one another, treat one another like you'd
like to be treated. That all sounds good and just
warm and oozes out all kinds of good feelings. Never did tell
us we were sinners. That was kind of a no-no. You can't talk about sin. It's
like that preacher in Houston. Somebody said, how come you don't
ever mention sin? He's such an offensive word. I don't want to offend anybody. I don't want to hurt anybody's
feelings. I'm not here and no preacher of the gospel is not
deliberately trying to hurt people's feelings, but let me tell you
something. We're going to tell you the truth even if it does
hurt your feelings. And you may go away bad, or you may go away
glad. I don't know. Well, God tell
the truth, and it's such a blessing that God has put us in this community
of believers. It's the second greatest blessing
God has given us. Because you see, through hearing
and believing the truth, we were brought to the Lord. We come to know the living God,
to be saved by his grace. It's on being under the sound
of the gospel. I do not believe, I do not believe
that God uses error to bring his sheep into the sheepfold. He is not that desperate. Ye shall know the truth. That's what the Savior said.
So while they say some good things out here, they do. Terry was
talking about it and I asked him, I said, well, did they read
any scripture at that funeral you attended? Well, I read some
scripture. I'll tell you what, the scripture says, the word
of God says, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. You know, many years ago, back
in the 50s, God raised up a man who faithfully preached the gospel
here. And the word of grace has continually
gone forth from this pulpit. And it continues to this day. Nancy and I came over to deliver the bulletins
yesterday. There was a couple looking at
that house for sale beside where you live. And Nancy said, they
have no idea that if they buy that house, they'll be living
under the shadow of a building where God's truth is preached. And if they do buy it, I'll go
over and invite them to come. In this community, in this immediate
community, people have, they have no idea. We put the Word
of God out there on the sign. Of course, most people going
fast can't read, going down 13th Street. But we put the Word of
God out there. We have it on sermon audio. Several of you give bulletins
away. People see our website. They don't have a clue. but neither
would you were it not for the grace of God. It's just a blessing
to be in here. It's a blessing to be associated
with the people of God because here we learn of God's redemptive
will. That's what when the apostle
Paul was talking about what God did for him and what Ananias
had to say to him, Ananias said, you're a chosen vessel. to know
His will, to know God's will, to know God's redemptive will. His redemptive will is the way
He saves sinners. There's got to be the satisfaction
of all of His attributes working together, not one working against
another. That's not right. I read a sermon
one time that said, you know, the love of God wants to save
you, but the justice of God wants to damn you. No, they work together. There is no opposition within
the attributes of God. All of his characteristics, all
of his attributes work for the salvation of his people. And
all of them are successful. So we preach the truth. We preach
the gospel. of God's grace. He uses preachers,
preachers. Look here in Ephesians chapter
four. In fact, don't ever think little
of the preaching of the gospel because actually preachers of
the gospel are God's gifts to his people as a result of the
redemptive work of our Lord Jesus. They're what we would call ascension
gifts. It doesn't matter who's up here.
A gift from God. Look at verse, well, let me,
I'll just start reading here in verse 11 for sake of time.
Ephesians 4, 11, and he gave some apostles I'm thankful for
the apostles, aren't you? Of course, they build on the
same foundation we build on, Christ and Him crucified. I'm
thankful God used them to write the New Testament. He gave some apostles and some
prophets and some evangelists and some
pastors and teachers. See, preachers are God's gifts
to his church. How shall they hear without a
preacher? How shall they preach unless they be sent? And make
no mistake about it, the preacher, this preacher and every preacher
is just a frail, mortal man, a sinful man who's been saved
by the grace of God. But he's got a message. He's
got the message. The message of grace. The message
of salvation. We've got the message of God.
We've got the message of life. We've got the message of light.
We've got the message of God's redeeming love. We've got the
message of how God can be just and justify the ungodly. We've
got that message. We're God's gift to you. Better
listen to us. Isn't that right, Alan? Better
listen to us. Because we're not on a fool's
mission. We're not just up here occupying
a few minutes of your time three times a week. I'm telling you
about, like Alan preaches at his group, I'm telling you about
things that are weighty. I'm telling you about what God
demands that you must be before you will be accepted by Him. You've got to be righteous. You
forget about doing good now. How good's a man gotta be before
God'll accept him? As good as God. That's good. That's good in a way we can't
even define it. You better learn how you can
be as righteous as the very Son of God. And there's only one
way to be in Him. That's the only way the scales
will balance out. Because you don't have any righteousness
of your own. So God gave some pastors and
teachers. I'm telling you, other than God
revealing to you His grace through Christ Jesus to your heart, to
your soul, gifting you with repentance to turn from all your idols, gifting you with repentance to
turn from all of your works of religion that you think have
earned some brownie points with God. God's got to gift you with repentance
and He's got to gift you with faith to lay hold of the Son
of God. And I'll tell you, when you'll
lay hold of the Son of God, you'll be disinterested. You won't lay
hold to the Son of God until He lays hold on you. When He takes you and He brings
you to Himself, when He says, you're mine and I'm giving you
life, you're going to be born again of the Spirit. And the
result of that life is, you turn from everything else to Christ
Jesus, the Lord. He says, for the perfecting of
the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of
the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith
and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man under
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. I'm telling you, Great blessing
to just sit under the sound of the gospel. It'll help you. You see, this is the only message,
this message of substitution, this message of Christ and Him
crucified, buried, risen again, exalted. It's the only message
that will result in us doing exactly what we're supposed to
do. Number one, glorify God. You interested in glorifying
God? I am. Tell His truth. Tell how He saved
sinners. That's what we do. I'm not bragging
on man. I'm not bragging on your free
will. Your will is bound. It's a will that's enslaved. I'm not bragging on your works. All your righteousnesses are
as filthy rags. I'm bragging on the work of somebody
else. That's the work of Christ. See
his spotless light. Is that the way you've lived
yours? Religion today has such a false view of sin. And the reason for that is because
they have such a false view of the holiness of God. Men don't know who God is. Consequently,
they don't know what they are. And when you preach to them,
as I do, and as all preachers do, when we preach and we say,
there's no goodness in us, there's no soundness in us, they say,
well, now wait, preacher. Don't you think you've been a
little too harsh? We have no idea of how many sins
we commit in a day. Because anything that is not
in perfect conformity to the will of God is S-I-N. Have you done anything today
only for the glory of God? And I'll just answer for all
of us, the answer is no. That means we're a mess of sin. That's a tremendous volume of
sins right there. Are all of your thoughts in subjection
to the will of God? Do you bow before Him and never
complain, never murmur? And even if you're hurting, say,
thank you, Lord. I know it's best for me. We wanna
have that attitude, We're sinful. People have the wrong idea of
sin. Well, I didn't cuss. Or like it used to be, I didn't
go to the show. I don't use tobacco. I don't drink. You're just talking about things
that you put in your mouth. That really isn't your problem.
who's that famous Methodist preacher. He set about going across the
country to try to get everybody to give up drinking whiskey. Hey, get them all to give it
up. I don't care. But when you do, nobody's going
to be better off. Actually, just be more self-righteous. Think they've done something
that makes God happy. Men don't have any idea what
sin is. Your motives. Motive, oftentimes, that's what
determines the value of what you do. And on and on I could
go. God uses preachers. Now, I want
you to go back with me to Isaiah 28. Isaiah 28. So be thankful that
God put you in here. Those of you who are watching,
maybe you don't have an evening service where you go. And there
are several sovereign grace churches that don't have an evening service.
Be thankful that you sit under a true gospel preaching minister
of the gospel. The Jews were very privileged
to sit under the ministry of Isaiah. He was an outstanding prophet
of God, an evangelist. We could call Isaiah the gospel
of the Old Testament. And the Jews were a favored people
because They had men like Isaiah to preach to them. Yet the people wouldn't believe
his message. He proclaimed the coming of Messiah. He said in chapter seven, he'll
be called Emmanuel, God with us. Nobody paid too much attention
to what he had to say. He said, unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. And his
name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the
Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Nobody paid much attention
to him. And I mean, they're hearing the
truth. And those words were actually inspired by the Holy Spirit. They heard Him and read Him in
the 53rd chapter right of God's faithful righteous servant. And
He wrote of this One who would come, He wrote of Him and of
His suffering, of His being bruised, of Him, of God's purpose prospering
through His life and through His suffering and through His
death. They heard of that. They heard of Messiah. Not many
believed him. The Jews were a highly favored
people. It'd been something said under
the ministry of Isaiah, wouldn't it? Or one of the other inspired
prophets. They did. Jeremiah preached the truth.
Ezekiel preached the truth. The Lord said to Jeremiah, they
gonna say, boy, you got a good voice. You're a good preacher.
But he said, they're not gonna believe anything you have to
say. The Jews to whom Isaiah preached
were a favored people, highly favored people. But notice verse
nine, and I'll get into this. and I can't cover it in detail
like I'd like to, but he says this, whom shall he teach knowledge? And whom shall he make to understand
doctrine? Them that are weaned from the
milk and drawn from the breasts. Now, to be sure, the preacher
of the gospel has no ability to cause anybody to believe.
And really, as we preach the truth of God, as impossible as
it would be for a little toddler who's just been weaned from his
mama's milk, As impossible as it would be if I preached to
that toddler and I told him all that I'm telling you, it's impossible
for him to believe, right? It's impossible for him to grasp
what I'm saying. That's the way it is with all
people. And yet we got to preach like
Ezekiel did to dead bones. We're preaching the gospel to
people who have no ability in and of themselves to believe
what we're saying. So our dependence is not upon
the hearer, but upon the Savior, the sovereign Lord, who can make
it effectual. He can give you ears to hear,
Now he can open your heart like he opened the heart of Lydia.
And she attended to the things that were spoken. But that is
exactly what's gotta happen. Say, Jim, I've heard you preach
a bunch of times. I still don't get it. I'm not gonna fuss at you. You'll
never get it. until God gives it to you. Then
you'll get it. You'll get it. So we just keep on preaching.
Like it says in verse number 10, For precept must be upon
precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line,
here a little, there a little, repetition. I had a person tell me one time,
you know, I think if I listen to one of your sermons, I've
essentially heard them all. Well, I should hope so. If somebody wrote in and said
to Ron, well, we want a message by your pastor that sets forth
the gospel. He doesn't have to go in there
and say, well, let's see, which one of these? Did he preach it
then? I think he'd just go this. Okay,
sin in this. That's the way it's gotta be. Repetition. I don't apologize
for repeating the message of the gospel. That's exactly what
we're supposed to do for the glory of God, for the salvation
of sinners, for the edification of the sheep. That's why we preach
this gospel. And here's how we do it. This
is what God uses, verse 11, with stammering lips and another tongue
will he speak to this people. Boy, that's the preacher all
right. Stammering lips and another tongue. So I don't know why God
doesn't use some kind of polished orator who really is gifted in
public speaking. Well, because most likely that
man would get all the glory. God uses just men who have a
clear understanding of the gospel and who can preach it in a way
that people can understand what they're saying. They understand
the words. I know a few theological words
that could be thrown around, And you'd go out of here saying,
well, you know, he is, he does know some theology after all.
Wouldn't do anybody any good. Don't do that. Don't talk over
anybody's head. I read some of these theologians
so-called in the past, and you gotta read them several times
to get what they're saying. Don't be like that. I don't wanna
listen to a preacher like that. I want to listen to somebody
who speaks my language. They come down to my level. Low. Bring it on down, pastor. Come
on down. Come down lower. That's the way
we want to do it. And it may be with a stammering
tongue. That's all right. This is what
God uses. Here's what we say in verse 12. This is the rest, and you know,
this is God speaking through His preacher. That's what this is. To whom
He said. Well, now wait a minute, it's
still the preacher preaching. But God uses the preached Word. He speaks to people. He speaks
to His servant. The servant speaks to you. And
God speaks to you through His servant, to whom He said, this
is the rest wherewith you may cause the weary to rest. And
here is refreshing. You want to have your soul refreshed? It's not going to be refreshed
when you hear of, well, do this, do that, live by the Ten Commandments. Do right or God will whip you?
You don't want to hear that. Tell me about the Savior. Tell
me what He did. Tell me who He is. Tell me why
God's satisfied. Tell me how He honored justice.
Tell me that. That refreshes me. You got to
go out there and face the world tomorrow. You need to have a message that
will do you some good. The only message that will do
you good is the gospel of God's sovereign grace. Nancy and I were talking this
afternoon. She said, thank you for what you had to say about
God being sovereign this morning. She said, it helps me. That help
you? It helps me. And I pretty much
say it every day. Because I need help every day. Oh, but look at this. yet they would
not hear. Stubborn and won't hear. But still, verse 13, the word
of the Lord was unto them, precept upon precept, precept upon precept. The Lord just has Isaiah, just
keep on preaching Isaiah. Don't get discouraged. line upon
line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, that they might go and fall backward and be broken
and snared and taken. Wherefore Isaiah says, Hear the
word of the Lord, You scornful men, you boasters, you braggarts,
you that rule this people which is in Jerusalem, because you've
said, we've made a covenant with death. We're alright. And where
the hell are we in agreement? With the overflowing scourge
shall pass through. It's not going to come to us.
Hey, we're safe. Because we made our decision.
I walked the aisle. I've been baptized. I made that
profession of faith 30 years ago. Let the judgment come, not
going to bother me. We've made lies our refuge and
under falsehood if we hid ourselves. Everybody's got a hiding place
from the judgment of God. There's not a person in here
tonight who doesn't know somewhere inside of you that you're going
to meet God someday. Now, you may not know what's
involved in that. You might not appreciate the
seriousness of it, but every one of us knows, I got to meet
God one day. Well, what's your refuge then? Where are you hiding? Noah preached and built that
ark for 120 years, and I'll bet you there were some people. I
let my imagination go sometimes. I bet there were some people
who told Noah, you know, Noah, you see that high mountain over
there? We're building a subdivision up there, and if this foolishness
about a flood, if it comes to pass, it's not going to touch
us. We built them way up there in
the mountains." He kept on preaching, kept on
preaching. Then the floodwaters came. They
started packing their things when they saw rain for the first
time. Said, I guess that old preacher was right. We may have
a flood. Better get to higher ground.
Let's go, y'all. All right, here we go. Let's
go up there in them new houses we built, that subdivision up
on the top of the mountain. We'll be safe there. We'll be
safe in our baptism. We'll be safe in taking the Lord's
Supper. We'll be safe because God knows
deep in our hearts we're really fine people. It's a refuge of lies. And Noah's down there in not
a boat, but an ark. Wasn't made for navigation, it's
made for safety. Wasn't pretty to look at, but
it was very beneficial to everybody who was on the inside. And this
gospel we preach, it may not be beautiful to you, So that's
what he used to call it, slaughterhouse religion. That's what he used
to call it. It's a bloody message you've
got. Yes, it sure is. And I'm hiding in that Savior. And you can go ahead and try
to soothe your conscience and say, well, when the scourge comes,
it's not going to touch me. Well, when the scourge of God's
judgment is poured out, it's going to get everybody who's
not in Christ Jesus. There are only two sides here
to this. Either in or out. We've made lies our refuge, but
here's what God says. Verse 16, therefore thus said
the Lord. We've heard what y'all say, now
listen to what God says. Behold, I lay in Zion, the true
church, for a foundation, a stone. He's somebody. He's the rock
of ages. He's a tried stone. The devil
tried Him. Couldn't trip Him up. God's law
tried Him. Couldn't find any sin in Him.
All of God's people have tried Him and never found Him to fail
them. He's a precious cornerstone. He holds everything together. He's the sure foundation. You
build on Him, you're safe forever. And he that believeth shall not
make haste, shall not be moved. And we preach that over and over
and over again. And my prayer is that God will
enable you to believe this message. Everybody who's on the sound
of my voice. And every congregation is picked by God. So you're not
hearing this by accident. You're hearing it on purpose.
And may the Lord give you faith to believe on the Lord Jesus
and flee to Him. Flee to the ark. Storm's coming. Thunder, thunder, clouds of God's
judgment have been gathering together for thousands of years. You can go ahead and scorn Him
if you want. Make fun of us as being old fogies
if you want. But I'm telling you, the only
place to hide from God is in God, Christ Jesus. Get your folders out again. Well,
let's go to the last song.