Good morning. This is encouraging. It's like
a full house for us here. And it is encouraging to know
that there are some folks that are listening. God evidently is pleased for
us to hear some things twice. If you would, turn with me to
Isaiah 51. But I'm gonna be saying the same
exact thing as Joe said. Isaiah 51, and I'm gonna read
the whole chapter. Hearken to me, ye that follow
after righteousness. Ye that seek the Lord, look unto
the rock whence ye were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence
ye are digged. Look unto Abraham your father,
and unto Sarah that bare you, for I called him alone, and blessed
him, and increased him. For the Lord shall comfort Zion,
he will comfort all her waste places, and he will make her
wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the
Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving
and the voice of melody, Hearken unto me, my people, and give
ear unto me, O my nation. For a law shall proceed from
me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people. My righteousness is near, my
salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people.
The isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arms shall they trust.
Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath.
For the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth
shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall
die in like manner. But my salvation shall be forever,
and my righteousness shall not be abolished. Hearken unto me,
ye that know righteousness. The people in whose heart is
my law, fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid
of their revelings. For the moth shall eat them up
like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool. But
my righteousness shall be forever, and my salvation from generation
to generation. Awake, awake, put on strength,
O arm of the Lord. Awake, as in the ancient days,
in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut
Rahab and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried
the sea, the waters of the great deep, that hath made the depths
of the sea a way for the ransom to pass over? Therefore, the
redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion,
and everlasting joy shall be upon their head. They shall obtain
gladness and joy, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.
I, even I, am he that comforteth you. Who art thou that thou shouldest
be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which
shall be made as grass? and forget us the Lord thy maker
that has stretched forth the heavens and laid the foundations
of the earth and has feared continually every day because of the fury
of the oppressor as if he were ready to destroy. And where is
fury of the oppressor? The captive exile hasteneth that
he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor
that his bread should fail. But I am the Lord thy God that
divided the sea, whose waves roared. The Lord of hosts is
his name. And I have put my words in thy
mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that
I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth,
and say unto Zion, thou art my people. Awake, awake, stand up,
O Jerusalem, which has drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup
of his fury. Thou hast drunken the dregs of
the cup of trembling, and wrung them out. There is none to guide
her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth, neither is
there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that
she hath brought up. These two things are coming to
thee. Who shall be sorry for thee? Desolation and destruction
and the famine and the sword. By whom shall I comfort thee? Thy sons have fainted. They lie
at the head of all the streets as a wild bull in a net. They
are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuke of thy God. Therefore
hear now this, thou afflicted and drunken, but not with wine.
Thus saith thy Lord, the Lord. Thus saith thy Lord, the Lord. And thy God that pleadeth the
cause of his people, behold, I have taken out of thine hand
the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury.
Thou shalt no more drink it again. But I will put it into the hand
of them that afflict thee, which have said to thy soul, bow down,
that we may go over. And thou hast laid thy body as
the ground and as the street to them that went over. What a great comfort to God's
people this passage is. The God of all comfort is here
telling us where our comfort comes from. First of all, we
were cut from a rock. To be cut from a rock, to be
hewn from a rock, a rock that is unmovable. If I am one of
these that God, the Lord Almighty, speaks about here in this passage,
I am cut from something unmovable. This is God's rock. He says here
that he will comfort us. That just comforts me knowing
that he, God Almighty, has been pleased to give us comfort. He
is an almighty God, a consuming fire. Yet there are some for
whom he has been pleased to comfort us. You can read that in verse
3 and verse 12. It says in verse 4, his judgment
shall rest for a light of the people. Thank God for that. We are also told in this passage
not to fear men or what they can or will do in verses 7 and
verses 12 and 13. We are not to fear men. God has
men just where he wants them. No man will do anything to me
that God Almighty has not already determined for them to do. They
will go no further, but they will do as he has purposed for
them to do. If that means that I die from
it, it will be over and they will do me no hurt anymore. It
says elsewhere in scripture that I should fear God who can destroy
both body and soul in hell. Standing here preaching, I have
nothing to fear but this, woe is to me if I preach not the
gospel. God help me to do that. What
I want to concentrate on today is the first verse. I do not
have anything new. Joe's already given the deep
doctrine, so I don't have any deep doctrine for you, or anything
that is necessarily deep. It has been preached here before.
I just want to go through it once again and remind us of this
truth. We are told first to look at the rock from whence ye are
hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence we were digged. So I wanna look at the rock whence
we were hewn and the pence, the pit whence we are digged. First, the rock whence we were
hewn. The rock in this passage is a boulder. This is a large
rock, a place of refuge. Does this bring anything to mind?
If you're like me, you know who this is referring to. But I want
to be clear to everybody hearing me, anybody out there that's
hearing me, this rock is not my wife. This rock is not my
kids. This rock is not my mother, and
it was not my dad. This rock is not my sister. This
rock is not my brother. This rock is neither of my pastor
Walter or Joe. This rock is not this assembly
or the church building. Although I care about all of
these things, that's not what holds me up. And I want to tell
you about this rock, the rock being spoken of in this passage.
And if you would, turn with me to Exodus chapter 33. Exodus
chapter 33, if you want to follow along. Verses 13 through 23. Now therefore I pray thee, if
I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may
know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight, and consider that
this nation is thy people. And he said, my presence shall
go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him,
if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. For wherein
shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in
thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest
with us? So shall we be separated, I and
thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the
earth. And the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also
that thou hast spoken, for thou hast found grace in my sight,
and I know thee by name. And he said, I beseech thee,
show me thy glory. And he said, I will make all
my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name
of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will
be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
And he said, thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man
see me and live. And the Lord said, behold, there
is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock. And it shall
come to pass while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a
cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass
by. And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts,
but my face shall not be seen. The rock spoken of here is where
we are hid, a cleft of the rock, where we can see the glory of
God. This is the rock that I'm speaking
of. If you have any other rock, you
are mistaken. It's not really a rock. If your
rock is not this rock, it will not cover you from the all-consuming
glory of God the Father. Only in the cleft of this rock,
this boulder, will you be able to behold the glory of God. This rock is God's rock and nothing
you come up with as being your rock. God has to place you in
this cleft of the rock. We read about this rock in other
places. In Exodus 17, six we read, behold,
I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb and thou
shalt smite the rock and there shall come water out of it that
the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight
of the elders. There came a time when this rock
would be smitten with judgment of God in my place. Because of
this smiting, there comes forth the water of life. All those
who are around this rock are given drink by this rock. This
water comes from this rock. So the rock is what I want to
fix my eyes on. The rock is what gives the water.
So if you do not know the rock, there will be no lasting water
for you. You may be blessed of God because
you are around others who know this rock, because the rock is
around his people. But if you are not adoring the
rock, there will come a day when the water dries up for you. In
Numbers 20, verses seven through 12, I wanna read that. Numbers
20, seven through 12. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying, Take the rod and gather thou the assembly together, thou
and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their
eyes, and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring
forth to them water out of the rock. So thou shalt give the
congregation and their beasts drink. And Moses took the rod
from before the Lord as he commanded him, and Moses and Aaron gathered
the congregation together before the rock, And he said unto them,
Here now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock?
And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the
rock twice, and the water came out abundantly. And the congregation
drank, and their beast also. And the Lord spake unto Moses
and Aaron, because ye believe me not to sanctify me in the
eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring
this congregation into the land which I have given them. The
thing that I want to note here, at this time, this same rock
was smitten once by God's law already. That's what the indication
is. Moses stands for the law and
he already had smoked the rock once and he was told here to
just speak to the rock. We read it in Exodus 17. This
rock was made a curse for us on behalf of his people and was
smoked one time and one time only for all time. He died once
under the judgment of God's law on his people's behalf, and he
will not be smitten a second time. This one time was enough
to get the job done. If you were attempting to keep
God's law for righteousness before him, you were saying to God what
was done to his rock was not good enough, and you were trying
to strike the rock again. Because this rock was already
struck once. All we now have to do is speak
to the rock that we might be filled. Who is this rock? We've been talking about rocks
and boulders. What is this rock that I'm telling each and every
one that hears my voice, they should be crying out to for living
water? If you wanna turn with me, turn
with me to 1 Corinthians 10. All familiar things that everyone's
heard but here before 1st Corinthians 10 Verses 1 through 4 1st Corinthians
10 Moreover brethren, I would not
that you should be ignorant of how that all our fathers were
under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all
baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat
the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual
drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed
them, and that rock was Christ. We all know who this rock is
the scripture has told us all who this rock is the rock that
scripture is speaking about is Jesus Christ the Lord and it
behooves me to speak of that rock which is Christ This rock
that was to be smoked once is he that came in the form of servant
The one who was God manifest in the flesh this rock walked
this earth and fulfilled the law every jot and tittle and
He was a just man, but He died being made sin for me. I cannot
speak for you, but I know this. The scripture says He was made
sin for me, that I, even I, would be made the righteousness of
God in Him. He went to that cross bearing
the guilt of my sin because He was made sin. The Father, having
turned His back on Him, I will never know that because He Himself
experienced that for me. We all want to experience salvation. That's a part of salvation I
don't want to experience. But that is a part of salvation
and Christ did that for us. Those of us who are God's people
will never experience the forsaking of God. Why is that? because the rock of our salvation
experienced it for us. The law condemns us to death,
but if this rock that is Jesus Christ was made a curse for you,
then you are dead to the law. That law struck Jesus Christ
so that I would not have to be struck. Scripture is filled with
words telling us who this rock of salvation is. What does Scripture
say? We just read that Paul told us
the rock was Christ, and that's really good enough, but we have
other scriptures telling us this. Let's read them. 2 Samuel 22,
32, it says, for who is God? Save the Lord. And who is a rock? Save our God. Psalms 18, 2 says,
the Lord is my rock. and my fortress, and my deliverer,
my God, my strength, in whom I will trust, my buckler, and
the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. Here is the rock
from whence I was hewn, and here is what that rock did for me.
In Psalms 40 in verse two it says, he brought me up also out
of an horrible pit. out of the miry clay, and set
my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. So this rock from
whence I was hewn, digged me from a horrible pit, and set
my feet on this unmovable rock. So what was this pit that I should
remember?" And just a note here, it says,
look to the pit from whence you were digged, not try to go back
into it. This pit is a pit of corruption,
a pit of no water and no bread, a pit of death. The pit that
we were digged from is a pit that we made ourselves. It is
a horrible pit. God created Adam upright. Adam
disobeyed God and plunged all of us into this pit of total
darkness. If we remain in that pit, we
will forever perish. This is a pit of man's ways. And what are some of those ways?
One is a pit of free will religion. A religion that esteems man rather
than God. It is a pit of law keeping where
those who are in the pit, they believe they can build a ladder
to God or something by working their way up to God. Keeping
the law to dig themselves out of the pit. that pit of filthy
rags in God's sight. This pit is a pit of all unrighteousness,
fornication, idolatry, adultery, effeminate, abusers of themselves
with mankind, thievery, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners,
and anything else like this. This is us by nature because
Paul tells us, which were some of you. He does say were. So if God has digged you out
of this pit, then you are no longer that, but we must remember
that pit from which we were digged. We are so deceived by our own
trap that even those who have been digged from the pit must
be reminded To not be wise in our own conceits, and that is
to think your self-worth about yourself, that you have some
kind of self-worth, because you have none. We are told not to
be high-minded, that is arrogant. We are to be reminded about these
things because we were digged from a pit, and we did not dig
ourselves out of this pit. What God sees in man is this. In Genesis 6, 5 we read, And
God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually. This was man back then, and it
is man now by nature. You might think of yourself as
being a pretty good person, but in God's sight, You are in a
horrible pit of which you must be digged out. This pit is our
own sinful heart. It is who we are by nature. This
pit, the pit that we are digged from, is a pit with a snare that
we created ourselves and we will be caught in our own trap. Psalm
7 and verse 15 says, he made a pit and digged it and has fallen
into the ditch which he made. Psalms 915 says, the heathen
are sunk down in the pit that they made. In the net which they
hid is their own foot taken. And again in Psalms 916 it says,
the Lord is known by the judgment which he executed. The wicked
is snared in the work of his own hands. We cannot get ourselves out of
this pit. We have to be digged out of this
pit. There's no way to get out of the pit unless someone else
does the digging. We, by nature, are in this pit. It is not that we will fall into
this pit if this pit was created in our federal head, Adam, and
he plunged us into this horrible pit. But God be thanked, there
are some who were hewn from a rock first. And those are told to
look to this pit from whence they were digged. You were not
digged from this pit based on how good you were or are. You
were digged from the pit simply because the rock was pleased
to dig you from this pit if you were digged from the pit at all. We have already read it. He brought
me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and
set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. He did
this, as we've already heard, being made sin for us, for those
who are hewn from the rock. Isaiah 38, 17 says, For peace I had great bitterness,
but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of
corruption. For thou hast cast all my sins
behind thy back. Man in his pit will never figure
out God. Man in his pit will never seek
God. Scripture says that man's thoughts
are not God's thoughts, and man's ways are not God's ways. His
thoughts and ways are far higher than ours. His thoughts and ways
are bound up in the rock, Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen. Oh God,
the rock of my salvation, please keep my mind set on this rock. The rock of my salvation. The
rock where the refreshing water flows freely. The rock wherein
I am hid. The rock of my righteousness. May it please God that he will
cause me to look unto this rock from whence I was hewn and to
the pit from whence I was dug. Help me to remember that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And that I was born a corrupt
as I could possibly be born, as I could possibly be. And unless
He places my feet on this solid ground, the rock of my salvation,
I will remain in the pit. I pray God keeps on reminding
me that I have nothing that I was not given. In other words, everything
that I have comes from God, no matter what it is. Help me to
remember that. And I just want to leave you
with this last verse, Psalm 61 and verse 2. From the end of
the earth will I cry unto thee. When my heart is overwhelmed,
lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Amen. Dear Lord God, keep us looking
unto Christ, our only hope of salvation, dear Lord. But never
let us forget, dear Lord, the pit from whence we were digged. Dear Lord God, we know you have
all powerful, all power, and can do what you want, dear Lord. May it be that you will open
a poor sinner's eyes, heart, mind, to see the rock of their
salvation. All these things we ask in Christ's
name, amen.