Lamentations chapter 1. I direct your attention to one
verse that I want to read to you, and that is chapter 1 and
verse 12. These first five words would
be the title to the message Lamentations 1 and verse 12. Is it nothing to you? Is it nothing to you, all ye
that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any
sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me. wherewith the Lord hath afflicted
me in the day of his fierce anger. Let's ask God to give us a little
understanding of this. Lord, we bless you for who you
are. We recognize something of Your
greatness. And I say something of Your greatness
because no mere mortal could ever fully or even begin to understand
very much of the greatness and the glory of our God. Your ways are higher than our
ways. Your thoughts are higher than
our thoughts. But as your spirit gives us grace,
oh God, we bless you. We honor you for all that you
are. And it is our desire as we assemble
this evening to worship our Lord in spirit and in truth. Like David, we ask that You would
wash us so that we would be clean. Wash us in the fountain filled
with blood. That blood that came forth from
Emmanuel's veins. We thank You that we have a Savior. That One who is the very darling
of Your bosom. Your only begotten Son. The One who is our Savior is
God over all, blessed forever. And He is one with His people. We bless You, Father, that You
gave Him a mission of mercy. A mission to which He was ever
faithful. A mission which on his part was
one that he entered into with great joy and delight. The joy of saving your people
from our sins. And we've come tonight to worship,
to bless you for the salvation that is ours through Christ our
Redeemer. We have nothing to render to
You tonight, Father, nothing to give You by way of merit. We're just full of sinfulness. And we know that salvation is
all of our God. And we thank You that it's that
way, because that gives us a good hope through grace. And as we
open this portion of Scripture, We ask that You'd give us understanding,
give us discernment of what the prophet of God is speaking about
and who he's speaking about. Bless us with an understanding
of Your Gospel, with a knowledge of God in Christ Jesus. May it be so, Lord, for Your
glory and for our good. For Jesus' sake, Amen. The book of Lamentations, of
course, was written by Jeremiah. It naturally follows the prophecy
that bears his name. The subject of it is his grief. This is a man who was known to
be the weeping prophet. And he wept over the awful condition,
the spiritual condition of Israel. He saw their idolatry. He witnessed their departure
from the truth. He knew firsthand that they weren't
interested in gospel preaching. They weren't interested in hearing
the servant of the Lord set forth the very truth of God. They had
no desire for a mediator, Christ the Lord. They had no hope. of Emmanuel coming into this
world. These things meant nothing to
them. Oh, they gave lip service, but
it was just lip service. That's all it was. He saw them
get involved in things that were anti-God. It just broke his heart. This was a nation he loved. And
I think, as I was reading over, especially chapter 1, I couldn't
help but think of the Apostle Paul, whose heart was stirred
to great concern for his brethren according to the flesh. He said, brethren, my heart's
desire What is your heart's desire, Paul? It's for Israel. He says that they might be saved. We fully believe in sovereign
grace. We believe that God has a people
chosen before this world began. A people marked out to be his
own. The sheep of his pasture the
sheep that He entrusted to Christ, the Great, the Chief, and the
Good Shepherd of the sheep. We believe that every one of
God's elect will someday partake of the blessings that God predestinated
for them. There's no question about that.
We believe that all of God's elect were redeemed by the bloody
sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, and therefore justified by His
blood. And it is absolutely heresy to
think that one of the Lord's sheep would ever perish. That
just cannot be. We believe God has a chosen people. We preach the Gospel. But seeing as how we don't know
who the chosen people of God are, we don't know who the elect
are, we preach to everybody. And God forgive us if we don't
have a burden for those who don't know our God. We should have
concern. Jeremiah, the prophet of God,
He certainly believed in God's sovereign grace. The Lord said
to him, of old, of old, I've loved you. I've loved you with
an everlasting love. Therefore, in loving kindness,
I've drawn you and I've called you. He knew God hadn't chosen
people. The Apostle Paul read, all you've
got to do is read his writings inspired by the Spirit of God,
and you'll know that he fully believed in the election of grace. He said even now there's a remnant
according to the election of grace, Romans chapter 11, but
that did not in any way hinder him or prevent him, or curb his
enthusiasm, perhaps I should say, for preaching the gospel
to anybody who would listen to him. We have a wonderful Savior. This is a wonderful gospel. It's
a gospel for sinners. And it is our responsibility
to go into all the world and preach the gospel. That's what
the Savior said. I can't save. I can't redeem. I can't reveal the truth. That's God's work. I dare not
say that I could do any of those things because I can't. But I
do have the responsibility to tell the truth. To be honest
with men and women and boys and girls. to be honest with you
about the things of our Lord. Jeremiah, he knew the rejection
of the people of the Lord. He knew that they hated his message. While he was the object of their
derision. This is a man, this is a prophet
of God who is, I told you last week, I hold him in the very
highest esteem. because he was willing to go
against the popular tide of false religion. And he stood firm. And he didn't get mad at the
people of Israel because they wouldn't believe him. He was
heartbroken. He was so burdened. One of the songs that we sing,
Brethren, We've Met Here to Worship. Let me see. Brethren, we've met to worship
and adore the Lord our God. That is page 15. I was thinking about this this
afternoon. Brethren, see poor sinners around
you. They're slumbering on the brink
of woe. Death is coming, and hell is
moving. Can you bear to let them go?
He says, see our fathers, see our mothers, and our children
sinking down. Brethren, what should we do? Pray. Pray. Ask God. Ask God to do something
for folks. and have a burden for them. And
this is the burden of Jeremiah. And he is called the weeping
prophet for good reason. He wept over the people who despised
his preaching. People who tried to kill him.
People who sought to put him out of business. And he kept
on preaching to them. And he kept on praying. He warned
them. Judgment is coming. He said the
Babylonians are going to come. They're going to ransack the
city. It's all because of your ungodliness. It's all because
of your wickedness. He didn't say that the judgment
was undeserved. Oh, it was well deserved. There's
no question about that. But he's broken. He's broken
in his spirit because of their attitude toward the God that
he loved. Toward the God of grace. The
God of glory. Learn this. Learn that the Lord
always warns before He pours out judgment. That's the way
He is. In the days of Noah, God said,
I will destroy. But he also said, my spirit shall
not always strive with man, for that he is also flesh, yet his
days shall be 120 years. God gave him space to repent. Jehovah was sent of God to Nineveh. Arise, go to Nineveh, God said,
that great city, and cry out against it. What's their problem? Their wickedness, God said, has
come up before me. And when he finally went, he
took a couple of detours along the way, but he finally did get
there. And he began to preach the gospel. The scripture says that when
he got to Nineveh, he cried against it. He cried against it. He said, yet 40 days, not today,
but in 40 days, none of us shall be overthrown. God warns, and
then He judges. Let me show you a verse of Scripture
over here in Revelation chapter 2. You want to look at this? Revelation chapter 2. These are
the Lord's words to the church at Thyatira. And I'm not going to get into
this very much, but look at chapter 2 of Revelation in just one verse
here. Verse 21. Well, look at verse
20 and 21. Notwithstanding, I have a few
things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel,
which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants,
to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her, watch, I gave
her space. I gave her space to repent. of
her fornication, and she repented not. This woman who was like Jezebel,
likened unto Jezebel of the Old Testament, Ahab's wife, she taught
the people of the church at Thyatira to get along with false preachers.
We all want to go to heaven, so let's all kind of join together. That's what she taught. labor
with others, and let's don't be so narrow-minded. She even
seduced some of the men of the congregation to join in the heathen
festivals that involved idolatry, including fornication. She did
all of this pretending that she was an ambassador of the Lord,
and many of the people believed her. And the Scripture says,
our Lord Jesus says, I gave her space to repent. That's what
He said. I gave her space to repent. Just
as He did, He gave Jezebel in the days of Elijah space to repent. The prophet of God warned, dogs
are going to lick your blood. Didn't faze her. Didn't trouble
her. God does give men and women space
to repent. What is repentance? Well, it's
to change one's mind and purpose with regret. I learned this. Let me teach
you three things about repentance, just real quick. Number one, God does give time
to repent. If I'm speaking to someone in
this congregation, or someone who's watching by way of the
internet, and you have not repented, there's not a change of mind
and heart regarding God? regarding your awful condition,
regarding Christ Jesus, if you have not repented, God is giving
you space to repent. He gives you time. Hey, you're
not dead yet. You are still living. And you're
still in your right mind, if an unregenerate person could
be said to be in their right mind. You have time to repent. Second, God gives you the means
of repentance through the preaching of the gospel. Why don't you turn from sin?
Why don't you turn from your idolatry? Why don't you turn
from your dead religious works? They count nothing before God. They're just glorified sins.
All your religious works, they're just glorified sins all they
are. Why don't you turn to Christ
Jesus? God gives you time to repent. God gives you the means to repent. But there's something else that
is absolutely necessary to true repentance. And only God can
give you this. He's got to give you grace to
repent. He gives you time and He gives
you the means. But if He doesn't give the grace
of repentance, there will be no repentance. There will be
no turning your back on your idols. and your false religion. He must give the grace of repentance. Without the grace of repentance,
none will ever repent. And the Lord said, except you
repent, you shall all likewise perish. Luke 13, 3 and 5. Thank God we have a Savior who's
been exalted to give repentance. This is the good news. Him hath
God exalted with His right hand. The Savior who is the successful
Redeemer. He's been exalted to God's right
hand to be a Prince and a Savior for to give repentance to Israel
and forgiveness of sins. Little wonder that the psalmist
said in Psalm 85 and verse 4, Oh God, turn us. Oh God of our
salvation, and we shall be saved. He has to turn us. Are you responsible to repent? Yes. Yes. Our Lord said, except you repent,
you shall all likewise perish. Do you have the ability to repent? You lost it in Adam. We're spiritually
dead. God must turn us. And I set forth
this last week. Look back at Jeremiah 31. I read this to you last week,
but it bears reading again. Jeremiah chapter 31. Look at
verse 18 and 19. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning
himself, thus thou hast chastised me and I was chastised. as a
bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. It says, turn thou me and I shall
be turned. Who's got to turn you? God's
got to turn you. He's got to give the grace of
repentance. We must never think that repentance
and faith are two things that we can do anytime we want to
do. No! We don't have the ability to
do it. We don't have the desire to do
it. You see, if you have the desire
to turn away from your idols, and if you have the desire to
turn to Christ Jesus, if you have the desire, you'll do those
things. Where does the desire come from?
A new heart that only God can give. So remember this, God gives,
He does give space for repentance. He gives time for repentance.
He gives the means of repentance because He sends forth the preaching
of the gospel. But He must also give the grace
of repentance or there will be none. Look at the book of Lamentations
again. Look at chapter 5 in the next
to the last verse of the book. Lamentations chapter 5 in verse
21. Jeremiah says, Turn thou us unto
thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned. Renew our days as of
old, but Thou hast utterly rejected us, and Thou art very wroth against
us. Jeremiah faithfully exposed Israel's
sins. Indeed, he called them unto repentance. He warned them of coming judgment. And yet, he never ceased to set
forth the goodness and the mercy of God. For even as He denounced
the wickedness of Israel, even as He prophesied of the nation's
destruction, He still declared the unchanging faithfulness of
God to His chosen people. In fact, He even says, He declares
that the very judgment of God upon the whole nation was for
the specific reason of drawing out His true people. Let me show
you that. Look at chapter 51 of Jeremiah. Look at chapter 51 of Jeremiah. Chapter 51 and look at verse
5 or verse 4. Thus the slain shall fall in
the land of the Chaldeans, and they that are thrust through
in her streets. For Israel hath not been forsaken."
Who's he talking about? Now, he's not talking about the
whole nation. He's talking about true Israel. He's talking about
the true people of God. For Israel hath not been forsaken. God hadn't forgot His people.
God hasn't deserted his elect, nor Judah his God of the Lord
of hosts, though their land was filled with sin against the Holy
One of Israel. Yes, sin was pervasive throughout
all of the nation of Israel, but there was within Israel a
people that God hadn't forgot about. He's gonna send them all
into Babylonian captivity, those that didn't die. beforehand,
but he hadn't forgot his people, and he never will. Look back
at chapter 50, verses 33 and 34. Still in Jeremiah, thus saith
the Lord of hosts, the children of Israel and the children of
Judah were oppressed together, and all that took them captive
held them fast. They refused to let them go.
It looks bad. But now wait a minute, their
Redeemer is strong. The Lord of hosts is His name.
He shall thoroughly plead their cause, that He may give rest
to the land to the true people of God. And He would disquiet
the inhabitants of Babylon. And so Jeremiah preached. He preached against the idolatry
of the people. He preached of coming judgment.
But he preached, God's going to save His people. And I know
there are some people who seem to be very much opposed to preaching
the gospel to everybody. But that is what we're called
to do. I have no idea who the sheep are. Maybe all of you are
sheep in here tonight. I hope so. Maybe all of you who
are watching are the sheep of the Lord. I hope so. But whether
you're one of the sheep or one of the goats is not for me to
say because I cannot read anybody's heart. And I've heard some arrogant
preachers say, I can pretty much tell who's saved and who's lost.
Well, I'll tell you, put the emphasis on arrogant. Because
you can't read anybody's heart. That person who is maybe shy
and they have trouble expressing themselves, and you say, well
I don't think they really understand the gospel. You're not a heart
reader. You say, but I'm a fruit inspector.
Bless your heart, you need to be fired from that job. A fruit
inspector. You better spend some time worrying
about your own fruit instead of the lack of fruit that you
perceive that somebody doesn't bring forth. And only one person
in here tonight that I know is saved by the grace of God. And
that's me. You say, well, that sounds pretty
proud of you to say that. Well, I just believe what God
says. I see the glories of Christ Jesus. I have no hope in anything I've
ever said, done, or thought. I present nothing to God as a
reason why He should save me, receive me, forgive my sins,
or make me righteous. My only hope is in Christ Jesus,
His bloody death, and His righteousness. He's my only hope. God knows
my heart. And I hope you feel the same
way, but I don't know that you do. I don't know that you do. I hope
you do. Well, Jeremiah, he's a broken-hearted
preacher. And, I'll be honest with you, I wish we had more broken-hearted
preachers. starting with this one. Here's a sorrowful prophet. He mourns the dismal condition
of Judah and Jerusalem. Oh, the outward wickedness that
bothers him. But he sees the idolatry. This is what grieves me. The
false religion of our day. And how gullible the natural
man is to swallow it all. It's like a fisherman who says
the fish swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. And that troubles me. So don't you believe God's going
to save His elect? I know He will. I know He will. But doesn't it trouble you that
people are all fouled up on their religion? It troubles me. Jeremiah is the weeping prophet
and I suggest to you that you pray for your preacher. That
I'd be more of a weeping preacher. a preacher who's broken hearted.
I'll tell you something. If your grasp of sovereign grace
leads you to sit down and do nothing, You don't pray for the
lost, you don't give so that the preaching of the gospel can
go forth to the lost. If you just don't have any concern,
if you're like those and I've heard them, they've said it to
me, well if they're going to be saved, they're going to be
saved and don't need me. If you're of that kind of attitude,
we really don't need you around here. That's a wrong, that's
a bad attitude. That's a bad attitude. That passage in Romans where
Paul said, I could wish myself accursed for my kinsmen, my brethren,
according to the flesh. That's a man whose heart is wrapped
up and concerned about the people to whom he preached. Jeremiah begins his book of Lamentations
this way, verse 1, How doth the city set solitary that was full
of people? Lamentations 1 verse 1. Where are they gone? A bunch
of them are dead, the rest of them taken into captivity. It's almost like Jeremiah is
sitting on another hill. And he's looking over at the
city of Jerusalem. He said it was full of people.
And that's become as a winner. She that was great among the
nations, and a princess among the provinces, now she's just
a tributary. Now she's taken into captivity.
She's paying tribute to the Babylonians now. Oh, how she has fallen. Why has she fallen? Because she forgot God. And Jeremiah says in verse 2,
she weepeth sore in the night, her tears are on her cheeks.
Among all of her lovers she has none to comfort her. Oh, she
had lots of friends. But they all, the last part of
the verse, dealt treacherously with her. And they showed their
true colors. They were really enemies. They
weren't friends at all. Judah's gone into captivity because
of affliction. The people of Judah afflicted
the few, the remnant of the Lord, and they afflicted God's preacher.
What are you going to do with this preacher? Throw him in a
miry pit. Kill him. What are you going
to do with this preacher? Mock him. Make fun of him. Let's
stone him. That's why they've gone into
captivity. They despise the word of God. And I'll throw this in, no extra
charge for this. You want to know why our country's
in such bad shape right now? Because they despise God. They
despise God. And we've had preachers standing
behind the pulpits and they're not setting forth the God of
the Bible. Their God is a puny figment of
man's imagination who loves everybody and hates nobody. Wants to do
good for everybody. You preach that kind of God and
that's going to open the door to all kind of horrible things
to happen. And that's exactly what's happening
today. I'm telling the truth. I lay the blame upon the men
who stand behind the pulpits. Judah's gone into captivity.
That's where we're going, I'm afraid. Because of affliction. The few
who do preach and believe the Gospel, They're mocked, they're
belittled. And because of great servitude,
she dwelleth among the heathen and she finds no rest. There's
no rest out there in false religion. There's no rest for the conscience.
There's no rest for the heart. Rest is only found in the crucified,
buried, risen Savior. That's where rest is to be found.
Come unto Me and I'll give you rest, Christ said. But they sought
rest elsewhere and they couldn't find it. Never will find it.
You're not going to find it in materialism. You're not going
to find it in all the pleasures of the world. You're not going
to find rest that way. You're only going to find rest
in Him who is our rest, Christ Jesus. That One who rested from
His work, from His labor upon the cross of Calvary. Look at
verse 4, the ways of Zion do mourn. You know what that means?
The roads, the roads to Zion. They mourn. Why? Nobody's coming to the feast
days. What about the Day of Atonement? Nobody's coming. What about the
observance of the Passover? Nobody's coming. And he says
the roads mourn. All her gates are desolate. Her
priests sigh. Her virgins are afflicted. She's
in bitterness. And he goes on and on like this. And then he gets down, I'm just
going to skip down to verse 11. He says this, all her people
sigh. They seek bread. They've given
their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul. See, O Lord,
see. Lord, do you see? And consider. And then he says, he changes.
Now he says, because I'm vile. This is an honest preacher. He
says, I'm vile. How many preachers do you know
who stand in front of people and say, I'm vile? And so are
all of you. I preached at a funeral one time
and I told them, I said, I'm a sinner and all of you are sinners.
And a woman came up to me and said, I never thought I'd hear
a preacher say he was a sinner. Well, we all are. And Jeremiah
says, for I'm vile. If we'd acknowledge our problem,
maybe we'd find some relief. I'm vile. Is that you? Can you say, I'm vile? Lord,
I'm vile. I washed me in the blood of the
Lamb. And Jeremiah the weeping prophet,
he says in verse 20, is it nothing to you all that pass by? Behold
and see, is there any sorrow like my sorrow? You see me weeping? I'm brokenhearted. My sorrow, which is done unto
me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me. Who's done all this? The Lord's done all this. He's afflicted me in the day
of His fierce anger. Jeremiah, he says to all who
read this, is it nothing to you all, you who pass by me and you
see me broken hearted, you see me weeping? And I'll tell you, Jeremiah is
typical of our Lord Jesus. Look with me in the book of Matthew,
Matthew chapter 23. Matthew chapter 23. It almost reads as if it were
Jeremiah saying these words, but it's Jeremiah's Savior. It's
Jeremiah's Lord. I'm going back up to verse 34.
Verse 33, the Lord said of all these Jews, ye serpents, ye generation
of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore,
behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes, and
some of them ye shall kill and crucify. and some of them shall
you scourge in your synagogues, and you'll persecute them from
city to city, that upon you may come all the righteous blood
shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel unto
the blood of Zacharias the son of Barakias, whom ye slew between
the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, all these
things shall come upon this generation." Now listen to it. It's just like
Jeremiah. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou
that killest the prophets. They killed Jeremiah. They stoned
him to death when he was in Egypt. They sought Isaiah in two. Oh,
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest
them which are sent unto thee. How often will I have gathered
thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wings, but ye would not." What's the problem? I'll tell you the problem. And
men are praising this all through religion. They're praising this.
The problem is man's will. And yet that's the very thing
that men praise. Men beg on the wheel. And Christ
said, you would not. He said in John 5, search the
Scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life and these
are they which testify of me and ye will not come to me that
ye might have life. Don't tell me they will come.
They won't come. The Savior said they won't come.
And He said, no man can come unto Me except the Father which
has sent Me, draw him, effectually pull him, seize upon him, and
bring him by effectual grace. I'll raise him up at the last
day. These words here in Matthew 23
express the will of Christ as a man and as a preacher. Not
His immutable will is God. It refers to our Lord's emotions
as a man for His fellow men. And I want to make this clear
too. Everlasting life is by God's will, is by God's gift, and by
God's work. But everlasting death is the
result of man's will man's work, man's merit. What I'm saying is, if you're
saved, God saved you. If you perish, that's your fault. That's your fault. So, well,
you just told me I don't have the ability. Yeah, but you have
responsibility. Responsibility to come to Christ
Jesus. Men are lost through their own
fault. The heavens declare the glory
of God, the firmament His handiwork. That's what the scripture says.
Well, back to our text real quick. In Lamentations 1, the Lord said,
Is it nothing to you? Quoting Jeremiah. But I want
you to now look past Jeremiah to the Savior. To the Savior. He says, Is it nothing to you,
you that pass by? Is it nothing to you? Behold
the sufferings of Christ Jesus. Is it nothing to you? You know,
you can read in Matthew. In fact, I'll tell you, let's
just turn over there, Matthew 27. Let me find a reference real
quick. Matthew chapter 27. Matthew chapter 27. Just look
at verse 39. Is it nothing to you, all ye
that pass by? That's the text. Remember it
says, Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow,
which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in
the day of his fierce anger. Now look at Matthew 27, 39. And
they that passed by, his sufferings were nothing to
them. They passed by and they reviled him. They wagged their
heads at Him. They mocked Him. He wasn't anything
to them. I tell you, the sufferings of
our Lord Jesus has no equal. And I'm not talking about just
his bodily sufferings, though that was horrible. I'm talking
about his soul sufferings. God poured out His wrath in the
soul of the Son of God. And people walked by and his
sufferings, his agonies, even his physical agonies meant nothing
to most people. It was just a spectacle of entertainment
to them. Which leads me to ask you this. What do his sorrows and his sufferings
mean to you? Is it nothing to you? All you
that pass by? Let me ask you this. You've heard truthful preaching
from this pulpit ever since there's a pulpit here. How many times
has Henry or Bill or me led you to Calvary? Well, you can't even
count the number of times. Because every time we preach,
we lead you to Calvary. What do the sorrows of Christ
mean to you? And I'm going to tell you something.
If you're honest, there have been times when you were led
to the cross of Calvary right here under the sound of the preaching
of the gospel, and it didn't affect you much. That's a sad
truth, isn't it? It didn't affect you much. God help us and God forgive us
that we can go to the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ Jesus as
it were walking by, passing by, And then as soon as the last
amen is spoken, we're caught up in something else and go right
on out the doors just like we forget everything we've heard.
Isn't that amazing? That's the way we are. No wonder
Jeremiah said, I am vile. That's pretty vile. To hear about
the Savior's sufferings, of His sacrifice, of the Father pouring
out all of His wrath upon His Son, and we pass by with little
interest. You'd think every time we heard
the gospel of Christ Jesus, it'd make us do two things. Weep and
rejoice. Right? Weep and rejoice. What do His sorrows mean to you?
It meant nothing to the Jewish leaders. It meant nothing to
the Sanhedrin. meant nothing to the unbelieving
thief, meant nothing to Herod and nothing to Pilate. His death meant nothing to most
of the people in Jerusalem. What does it mean to you? Is it nothing to you? Well, it
may be nothing to you, but I'll tell you, there are some people
to whom it means everything. It means everything to God the
Father. I promise you. He ordained it
from old eternity. That's His Son. That's the heir of all things.
That's one equal with the Father in every way. But God appointed
Him to be the substitute for His chosen people. He must die. He must suffer. God's going to
pour His wrath into His very soul. It's everything to God. And God satisfied what He did.
It's everything to the church of the Lord. And it's everything to me. It's everything to me. And God
forgive me for those times when I've been led to the cross of
my Lord Jesus Christ. and my heart wasn't touched like
it should have been. That's my fault. That's my fault. And I can't tell you how many
times I've said to the Lord after I have preached, oh God, forgive
me. I wish I took this much more
seriously than I do. I'm pretty serious about it.
You're pretty serious about it, aren't you? But we understand,
we realize, we're frail people. Like Jeremiah, I'm vile. I'm
vile. Well, I don't know what the death
of Christ means to you, but I can tell you this, there will come a day when it
will mean something to you. when you die. And when you stand before a holy
God, you'll wish, oh God, I wish I'd have paid attention. And
the death of Christ will mean something to you when you're
tormented in hell forever. I say, oh sinner, Don't be foolish
any longer. Look to the Savior. Look to the Savior. Is it nothing to you who pass
by? Isn't there any compassion within
you for Christ as He suffered? Is your heart not moved as you
think of Him who loves sinners to such an extent He would give
His own life a ransom for sinners like us. Tell you what, God would
be pretty hard-hearted not to rejoice in the substitutionary
sacrifice of Christ and not to be driven to weep that he had
to bear such awful things to save us. All the sins of his people were
made to meet upon the Lord Jesus. And then God afflicted him. Who
did this to him? God did. You want to know how
just and holy God is? And I know we have trouble even
defining the holiness of God, but if you want to know how holy
He is, stop by the cross again and see Him pouring out His infinite
wrath into the very soul, the soul of His Son. I know men did
all they could to His body. As Luther said, the soul of his
sufferings was his soul suffering. How can you not be moved to both
weeping of tears because he was dying for your sins and tears
of joy? He died for my sins. He redeemed
me. I know we don't usually close
with a hymn anymore, but I'm going to ask Marty to come to
the organ. Let's sing at 129. You feel like
climbing the stairs again? Alas, and did my Savior bleed,
and did my Sovereign die, would He devote that sacred head for
such a worm as I? 129. 129. Let's stand, we'll sing this,
and when you sing the last verse, then you're dismissed. 129. Alas, and did my Saviour bleed,
and did my Sovereign die? Would He devote that sacred head
for such a worm as I? At the cross, at the cross where
I first saw the light And the burden of my heart rolled away
It was there by grace I received my sight And now I'm happy all
the day Was it for crimes that I had done, He rose upon the
tree? Amazing did He, grace unknown,
That loved me on degree!