This is chapter 32 in Isaiah. I want to read this chapter and
then we will make a few comments as the Lord enables us. It says,
Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall
rule in judgment. And the man shall be as a hiding
place from the wind, as a covert, or a covering, from the tempest,
as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock
in a weary land. And the eyes of them that see
shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken.
The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the
tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly. The
vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl
said to be bountiful. For the vile person will speak
villainy, and his heart will work iniquity to practice hypocrisy
and to utter error against the Lord, to make empty the soul
of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.
The instruments also of the charl are evil. He deviseth wicked
devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy
speaketh right. But the liberal deviseth liberal
things, and by liberal things shall he stand. Rise up, ye women
that are at ease, hear my voice, ye careless daughters, give ear
unto my speech. Many days and years shall ye
be troubled, ye careless women, for the vintage shall fail, the
gathering shall not come. Trouble ye women that are at
ease, be troubled ye careless ones, strip you and make you
bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins. They shall lament
for the teats, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.
Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briars, yea,
upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city. Because the
palaces shall be forsaken, the multitude of the cities shall
be left, the forts and towers shall be for dens forever. the
joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks, until the Spirit be
poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful
field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. Then
judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the
fruitful field. And the work of righteousness
shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and
assurance forever. And my people shall dwell in
a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet
resting places, when it shall hail coming down on the forest,
and the city shall be low in a low place. Blessed are ye that
sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the
ox and the ass. Now we'll stop there. Of course,
the same thought is carried on over into the next chapter, but
in the book of Isaiah, We see Isaiah time and again speaking
about the fact that there was a king that was coming. Now there
are still many in our day who are looking for a king to come.
They're waiting. They're telling us that the kingdom
is not yet, that it's way off yonder in the future and one
day the Lord will come back and then He's going to be a king.
He's a Savior now, but then He'll be a king. But the fact of the
matter is that the whole purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ coming
into the world was to establish and manifest the kingdom that
is His. In other words, he came for the
purpose of setting up his kingdom, of manifesting it. Now, the kingdom
of God can never be seen by the natural man. It won't ever be
seen by the natural man. The natural man will perish. The Scripture says that flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. It can't look
upon it. It can't grasp it. It has no
currency with which to buy anything in it. Now if you went into a
foreign country and you had some money that was no good or you
had some money, let's say for instance if you came here from one of the African countries,
I don't know, say Nigeria. And you had a pocket full of
Nigerian money and you came into the Jiffy store, the S&S store
down here at the corner, and you put some merchandise on the
counter and you reached in your pocket and you pulled out some
of this Nigerian money Do you think that you'd be able to buy
what it is that you put on the counter? No, of course not, because
that's not the currency of this kingdom. And the currency of
the kingdom of God is not that which is able to be comprehended
or understood, grasped or possessed by the natural man, because it's
not of the flesh. But it is of the Spirit. This
is what the Lord came teaching us, what He told Nicodemus. Nicodemus
came to the Lord by night, and Nicodemus was a religious man. Nicodemus was a ruler of the
Jews. He was a well-thought-of man. And he came to the Lord Jesus
with words of great praise. He said, Lord, we know that You
are a teacher. sent from God. Now, you would have thought that
the Lord would have waited until Nicodemus asked a question or
something, but He didn't. He said, Nicodemus, except ye
be born again, ye cannot see the kingdom of God. And that took Nicodemus aback
because Nicodemus figured, well, I'm just as good as the next
guy. I mean, here's the Bible. I can figure it out. I'll think
of it in a way that makes sense to me. Now I'm telling you that
the preaching of the gospel as it is in the Scripture does not
make sense to men. You cannot appeal to men on the
natural level with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ because
it will not be of any value whatsoever to them. There is only one kind
of people to whom the gospel makes sense, and even to them
it does not make sense to start with, but it does give them hope
and expectation, and they are hungering and thirsting after
it. And that is a people who have been quickened and made
alive by the Spirit of the living God. And in them is the preaching
and teaching of the things of the kingdom of God most precious. It is the thing that they desire,
the thing that they want. Now, Isaiah says this, Behold,
a king shall reign in righteousness, Now you see, this is a righteous
kingdom that the Lord Jesus came to establish. Now if you ask
men out here, you went and took a poll of men in the world and
you said, now what is righteousness? They would tell you, well, it
is keeping the Ten Commandments. It is being a good citizen. taking
a bath every Saturday whether you need it or not, it's doing
something. I mean, they've got some kind
of an idea about what righteousness is. I mean, it's something that
they can identify. It's something that they can
put some stock in. It's something that they approve
of. See, all men have a certain righteousness
that they approve of. Even the most wicked man on earth
has a righteousness which he approves of. Now, he may steal
everything that you've got, but he is sure that it's not right
for you to steal something from him. He's got a mind of what
is righteous. It's fine for him to beat you
up, but it's not all right for you to beat him up. See, all
men have some standard of righteousness. And all men think that their
standard of righteousness is the right one. I mean morality. Who can argue with morality,
with people that are upright and moral, that live outwardly
insofar as what men would call abiding by the Ten Commandments
in an outward fashion? They do that. Who could stand
against that? Who could say anything was wrong
with that? Not anybody. And a lot of people,
they view that sort of moral standing as being righteous. But the Lord shall reign in righteousness. Now what is the righteousness
of the kingdom of God? It is only one thing. It is not
morality. It is not keeping the Ten Commandments.
It's not taking a bath on Saturday. It's not any of those things
that men look at as being the standards of righteousness, but
it is absolute holiness which is found nowhere else but in
the Lord Jesus Christ who was, as a man, tempted in all points
like as we are, yet without sin. A man who kept the law of God
in his jot and tittle. Not simply in the outward fashion,
but with the inner man, with a desire in his heart to do that
which was right before God in all things. And he was without guile. He
was without deceit. He was pure in all things. And this is the righteousness
of the kingdom. This is the money of the kingdom. You can't buy or sell anything
in the kingdom of the living God apart from this money, the righteousness of Christ,
because He alone is righteous. And the Scripture says He shall
reign in righteousness. Now, if somebody reigns, That
means that they have put down dominion and power. Now, sadly in our country, the presidency has become, and
this isn't about politics, but I just want to make an illustration.
Our president was never meant to be a ruler. He was never meant
to reign. But we have, in a measure, forgotten
that as a society, and we have allowed presidents, senators,
and all these other guys that are in places of power to rule
and reign, when in reality that's not the picture that the founding
fathers of our nation had. Now that's just an illustration.
That's all that is. But the Lord Jesus Christ does
reign. He is the absolute authority.
Whatever He says goes and it cannot be changed. The decree
has gone out of His mouth and it cannot go back. even more
so than as Brother Al had taught us here a while back concerning
the law of the Medes and the Persians that could not be changed. Even Nebuchadnezzar the king,
once he had said something, he could not go back on it because
it was done and it was said and that was it. Well, when the Lord
Jesus Christ, when the Scripture says that He reigns in righteousness,
that is it. It is absolute. There is no other. reign of anyone, no other power,
no other place that a man can find a bargaining chip. Now,
men hold out hope that they can bargain with God. You see, every
man expects... I'm talking about a man by nature.
Now, unless a man is shown by the grace of God what he is by
nature, And the nature of the kingdom of God, every man without
exception expects that he is going to bargain with God. He
thinks that something he has is going to be acceptable to
God. Something. Whether it is his
sincerity or whether it is his religion or whether it's his
supposed morality and his idea of what righteousness is, and
he's always lived by this standard. See, men, sometimes you'll talk
to men, and I get them all the time in the store talking to
me about, you know, their standard, and they've always lived according
to this standard and all that stuff, and that's just a lie
because every one of us has disobeyed our own standard. I mean, you've
got standards and you've broke it, you'll break it before the
day is out. You'll say, I'm never going to do that. And you'll
do it. You'll do it. But that's the
way that men, that's the way they go. But this is a King that
reigns in righteousness and there is no standard that is of any
value but His. And then it says, "...and princes
shall rule in judgment." Now who are the princes of the kingdom?
There are certainly not those that applied for the job. See,
you don't get to be a prince in the kingdom by joining up. They don't advertise for the
job. The only way that a man can get
to be a prince is to be born into the kingdom. That's how
he gets to be the prince, by being the son of the king. Now
what did he have to do with that? Nothing in the world. You see, it's according to the
good pleasure of the king. But it says here, "...and princes
shall rule in judgment." That is, they shall see the righteousness
of this kingdom and that's the standard by which they shall
reign in their own right. Now, we are beggars as we come
before God, but yet the Lord said that we are heirs and joint
heirs with Jesus Christ. He has made us kings and priests
in the house of our God, and we do reign in that fashion. We are ruling in that fashion. We are in that place. Now, you
see, we recognize what the righteousness of the kingdom is. It is not
us, but it is Him, but by the grace of God. You see, we reign,
we rule in judgment. Now, the Scripture says that the spiritual
man judgeth all things. Paul said, walk circumspectly. He said, the day of the Lord
shall come as a thief in the night, but ye are not of the
night. That day should overtake you
as a thief. Why? Because you rule in judgment. You see, those who are princes
born into the kingdom believe the things that the king has
said. They take stock in them. They walk circumspectly. They
look around. They are not just going down
the road, whatever it is to be will be. See, that is not the
mindset of the children of God. The children of God firmly believe
that whatever this king says will be, will be. They firmly
believe that, but they do not look at it as some kind of a
glib excuse just to go through life and have no concern, because
that is not. the righteousness of the kingdom.
The Lord said, Be ye holy, even as I, the Lord your God, am holy.
Be mindful of those things that I said. And the princes shall
indeed rule in judgment. And the man shall be as a hiding
place from the wind and a covert from the tempest. Who is the man? That is speaking
of there. We know who it is. It cannot
be but one man. There is only one man who is
a hiding place from the wind. Now when it is a still day, you
do not need a hiding place from the wind. If you are somewhere where the
wind is not blowing, what difference does it make? But you see, the
Lord Jesus Christ, He is a hiding place from the wind, because
the winds do blow. Why? Because this world is set
at odds with the kingdom of God. And there is always, do you hear
what I said? There is always a conflict. between the righteousness of
Christ and the way of men. And we face it every day. It could be. I mean, it ultimately would be.
But as we look at this, a man shall be as a hiding place from
the wind. of the warrings and conflicts
of this world. Paul said, if a man will live
godly in Christ Jesus, he will suffer persecution. Now, men
often look at that as an external matter. Well, if he lives godly
in Christ Jesus, then people are going to take him down to
the corner and string him up and beat him, you know, or something
of that nature. And that certainly, I believe
ultimately that would be the case, but that's not always what
the persecution of the saints is, because you see, God's people
are persecuted by their own selves. You see, that inner man, that
work that God has wrought when He caused us to be born again
of the Spirit of God, is at odds with our flesh. And there is
a persecution. The elder does indeed persecute
the younger. You see, that one that was born
first, which is our flesh, is persecuted by the one who came
later. Is that not true? And there he
is. And in that there is a hiding
place from the wind and a cover from the tempest And the tempest
is indeed a wind, is it not? But it is indeed that sweeping
wind which is the judgment of God. Because in Jesus Christ
we have both a covering from the wind and a covert from the
tempest. Remember when the Lord passed
by Moses, He said, in a cliff of the rock, and I'll pass by
thee, and thou shalt see my backside, for no man can see my face and
live." Now why is it that a man can't see the face of God and
live? Because no man can know the purpose of God. No man can know where the Lord
is going. All we can do is see the things
that God has done. See, I can't predict what God
is going to do. But I can see what God has done. And I can see what Jesus Christ
did on Calvary's cross. Isaiah predicted what the Lord
Jesus Christ would do, but he didn't know it. He wrote it, but he said, I wish
I could look into it. I wish I could understand it.
I wish I could see it. But these all confessed. that
they look for a city which has foundations and is built on the
Maker's God. You see, dear brethren, we express that we have seen
the city. We have dwelt in the city because
this is the kingdom of righteousness which the Lord Jesus Christ has
come to reign in as rivers of water in a dry place. He is that one who is as a drink
of water dry and thirsty land, as he says, as the shadow of
a great rock in a weary land. Now only the thirsty can appreciate
a drink of water. If you just have all the water
you can take and you're about to bust, then somebody can offer
you a glass of water and you don't want it. But if you've
been out working and your mouth's parched and dry and somebody
hands you a glass of water, you grab that thing and drink it
down because it is that river of water in a dry place
and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Again, if you
don't need the shade on a cold day. The other day when it was
20 degrees and the wind was blowing, you weren't looking for a shady
place, were you? Well, I need me a shady place.
Know why? Because you were looking for
a sunny place. But what he's talking about here
is when a man's in a weary place and he's out in the middle of
the desert and there's no trees around and he finds a great rock. And it's the shadow of a great
rock. in a weary land. Jesus Christ is that great rock
in a weary land. And the eyes of them that see
shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken.
Now this is the manifestation of the kingdom of God. The Lord
Jesus Christ came and He said, I thank thee, O Father, that
thou hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent and
revealed them unto babes. The kingdom of God is both a
hiding and a revealing. It's hid to those whom the Lord
will hide it from, and it's revealed to those whom the Lord will give
eyes to see it. And that's what he says here.
The eyes of them that see shall not be dim. The eyes of them
that see. But there are people that have
eyes that don't see. Blessed are you if you have eyes
to see. Blessed are you if you have ears
to hear. Just because you've got ears doesn't mean you've
got ears to hear. But the Lord give men ears to
hear, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken." Because
you see, when a man hears the things of God, when he hears
the preaching of this kingdom, it's a thing that delights him. He hears it. There were many
men on the day of Pentecost that were present. The sound of Peter's voice went
out. to all of them, but they did
not all hear. Scripture says some heard every
man in his own tongue. They heard. You see the miracle
on the day of Pentecost. Now the Pentecostals They make
a big deal about the speaking in the tongues, but the real
miracle that took place on the day of Pentecost was that every
man heard in his own tongue. You see, that is much more important
that a man hear the Word of God than it is to go out babbling
something that he does not know what it is. Peter knew what he
said. Peter preached the Word of God,
and the Lord took that in various dialects, and He called men to
hear it. What an amazing thing. The ears of them that hear shall
hearken, and some did hear. And what did they do? They said,
Men and brethren, what shall we do? What can we do? We are in a mess. You see, they
said, if what you're saying is true, we're in a mess. Now you
see, that's the place that men by the operation of the Spirit
of God are brought to see themselves in a mess from which they cannot
extricate themselves. As long as a man figures he can
get out of something, he's not really worried about it, is he?
I mean, if you're going somewhere and you've got a pocket full
of money, unlimited funds, you wouldn't have any problem taking
off in an old raggedy car. Because hey, if the thing breaks
down, I'll just buy another one on the way. Not a problem. And
so when a man has righteousness of his own, he's not interested,
he's not worried about it. But those who know themselves
to be barren, they hear. You see, just like that old jailer.
And he said, sir, what must I do to be saved? Now what happened
to the jailer? Can you explain it? Can you tell
me what brought him from the place of one minute ready to
kill himself in despair to being brought down to the feet of the
disciples crying out, sirs, what must I do to be saved? You see,
the Lord showed him in the twinkling of an eye. Without any way that
a man could explain it, the Lord showed him. How could it be that
a man sits in a chariot and he is going back to Ethiopia and
he was in Jerusalem? Maybe he was there on the day
of Pentecost. I believe he probably was. He heard that message, but he
didn't. It wasn't anything to him at the time particularly,
but something got in his mind and he began to read. And as
he went along the way, he said, you know, I wish somebody could
explain this to me. And the Lord sent somebody. Now
how did that happen? because of the great grace and
mercy of God. The Lord called him to hear.
And them that hear shall hearken. And when the gospel was preached
to him, he didn't say, well, I'll think about it. No. He said, hey, if what you're
saying is true, here's some water. I want to be baptized because
I want to follow Christ. He is the Lord. The ear of them
that hear shall hearken, and the heart also of the rash shall
understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall
be ready to speak plainly." Now, this is a description here of
those who are brought to an understanding of the gospel, the heart of the
rash. Now, what is a rash man? A rash man is a man who is quick-tempered. He's a man that probably makes
bad decisions. He's a lot like me in a lot of
ways. He's rash. He's not reasonable. And it says here that the heart
also of the rash shall understand knowledge. All of a sudden, a
man who makes no rational choices ever in his life, he's a stupid,
imbecile in all that he does, but yet God, who is rich in mercy,
causes him all of a sudden to understand more than his teachers.
He understands the things of the kingdom of God. How does
that happen? How does it happen? I mean, the
Scripture says he is rash, but all of a sudden he knows knowledge.
How does that happen? You know, isn't it funny how
men think about ideas and they say, oh, well, I had this great
idea and I did this, and buddy, I tell you, I'm so smart that
I did this. Well, how did he get the idea?
God gave it to him. And so it is with the things
of the kingdom of God, except the Lord build a house, a laboring
vein that buildeth. But when the Lord builds a house,
even the rash shall speak of knowledge. and understand it. And the tongue of a stammerer
shall be ready to speak plainly." A stammerer, we all know what
a stammerer is. A stammerer is somebody that
stutters. And there is probably nothing that is more trying than
speaking with somebody who has a real problem with stuttering.
And of course, you know, my heart goes out to someone who is afflicted
with that. problem. But it's a thing that's compounded
because on the one hand, you're trying to hear what the person
is saying. On the other hand, you're feeling
their pain or you're having some empathy towards them and you
don't want to embarrass them. You want to listen to what they've
got to say. But it's just a real tough thing,
isn't it? to carry on conversation. And
you want to finish their sentence. You know what they're trying
to say, but they can't get it out and you want to say it for
them. But he says here that the tongue of the stammerer shall
speak plainly. Now it's impossible that a man
should speak of the things of the kingdom of God except the
Lord sets his tongue free and gives him the ability to do so. Because he's going to be of a
stammering tongue. He's going to be of stuttering
lips, except the Lord who is rich in mercy should give him
the way to speak it. That is why he said to his disciples,
do not worry about what you are going to say when you are brought
before the councils. He says the Lord will give you
the thing to say. Moses said, Lord, I cannot speak. The Lord said, I have already
taken care of that. And so it is. It's not speaking about that
the Lord is going to heal the stuttering lips of every stutterer. But you see, all of us are stutterers
insofar as the things of the kingdom of God. You can't know
and understand or speak of the things of the kingdom of God
apart from the grace of God to show you that thing. And then
he says something here that's very interesting. The vile person
shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful. For the vile person will speak
villainy, and his heart will work iniquity to practice hypocrisy,
to utter error against the Lord, to make empty the soul of the
hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.
The instruments also of the churl are evil. He diviseth wicked
devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy
speaketh right. But the liberal diviseth liberal
things, and by liberal things shall he stand." Now, if you
use the word liberal in our present society, that means generally
one thing. That is the hated group over
here that is standing against the conservatives. And isn't
it amazing that the liberals are proud to be called liberal
and the conservative is proud to be called conservative. But
the liberal thinks that a conservative is the worst thing it could possibly
be and the conservative thinks that the liberal is the worst
thing it could possibly be. Now this doesn't have anything
to do with that sort of liberality. This doesn't have anything to
do, but there is an illustration here. There is an illustration,
and it would do us well to be mindful of what it is that he
speaks about here. He says, the vile person shall
no more be called liberal. Now, the word liberal here simply
means bountiful, of the bounty. Now I heard a person saying here,
this is again having to do with politics, but it really is just
a humorous sidelight. It has nothing to do with what
we are talking about here, but he said that the liberals want
to open up the pockets of other people. And that's the way that
their mindset is. They want to be bountiful. They
want everybody to have everything, but they want everybody else
to pay for it. I mean, they want to take your
money away and give it to somebody else. But, now hear me out on
this. The liberal man is a bountiful
man. He is a man who gives out of
the liberality. which has been bestowed unto
him. And that's a good thing. See, it's a good thing to be
a liberal in the kingdom of God, because that's who the Lord called
His people to be liberals. He said, when I was in prison, you visited
me. When I was sick, you helped me. See, that's liberality, is giving. If God's people ought to be known
for anything, we ought to be known for our liberality. But now, in the present time,
and look at what this says, the vile person shall no more be
called liberal, nor the charl said to be bountiful. Now, the
charl is a person who is miserly. He is a person who really wants
to promote his own end. And in the kingdom of God, it
gives us an eye to see what is liberal and what is charlish,
that which is bountiful and that which is not so. The vile person, it says here,
will speak villainy and his heart will work iniquity to practice
hypocrisy and to utter error against the Lord to make empty
the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty
to fail. Now, we need to guard and be
careful that we do not go forth into the world with blinders
on. in so much that the kingdom of
God is not about liberal and conservative politics. It doesn't
have anything whatsoever to do with either one. It doesn't have
anything to do with either one. Now, you listen to some of these
conservative talk show hosts, and they'll tell you that, buddy,
the only way to the kingdom of God is to be a conservative.
I mean, if you're on that side over there, you know, because
the way of righteousness is conservatism. You remember back when old Falwell,
he had started what they called the moral majority. That was
a big deal. Now, again, we are not opposing
morality, but morality is not that of which the kingdom of
God is made. It's not made of conservatism.
It's not made of liberality. It is liberal in the scriptural
sense of what liberal is. But you see, one of the things
that happens is that because of our political leanings, sometimes
we don't walk circumspectly when we listen to what people say. And we can get sucked into a
vortex. which is a very dangerous place
to be. Because once you get in a vortex, it's hard to get out
of it. You start getting sucked down into it. And so we need
to be mindful that while we might have a certain political view
and it might appeal to us, it has nothing whatsoever to do
with righteousness. Now there are certain of these
talk show guys that while they might not come out and say it,
they do lead you to believe that if you adopted their point of
view, you would be a righteous person. Because you know, after all, capitalism, for instance, is
godliness. Capitalism next to godliness,
isn't it? I mean, isn't capitalism next
to godliness? Isn't that a wonderful thing?
Now, brethren, don't misunderstand what I'm telling you because
this ain't about capitalism. It ain't about communism. It
ain't about any isms. This is about the kingdom of
God. But I'm wanting to use this as an illustration. Now, capitalism
is the only system that will work among men because of one
problem. It's called sin. You see, capitalism is not godliness
because capitalism is basically built on the concept of greed. If men weren't greedy, capitalism
wouldn't work to start with because if a man wasn't seeking to have
something, then it wouldn't work at all. But you see, communism on the
other hand, as you look at the early church, what did they practice?
When they helped sort one another's needs. Now was that a bad thing?
Not at all. But was it a thing that will
work in this world? No. Why? Because of the sin of
men. Now think about this. Now it
says here that the vile person will speak villainy and his heart
will work iniquity to practice hypocrisy and utter error against
the Lord. Because men will teach other
men that a certain system is godliness, and so this causes
men to look at that rather than the righteousness of Christ. It also causes men, to deny the
basic sin nature of men. Now you see, those who would
promote communism, they would actually be promoting something
that is not bad in itself. Nothing wrong with the concept
of looking out for one another and helping one another and sharing
things. There's nothing right with gaining
unto myself for the purpose of gain either. But you see, what
happens is the problem with the communist is not the problem
of liberality. That's a noble thing, is it not?
That men would give what they had to help others. I mean, didn't
the Lord teach us to do that? Of course He did. But you see,
the problem with communism is that those who are the proponents
of it, they deny the sin nature of men because they believe,
oh, well, we can all live in harmony together and what's mine
is yours and yours is mine and all that. It doesn't work that
way, does it? Why? Because of sin. Because
that's the nature of men. So you see, the kingdom of God
is a kingdom of contrast. It's a kingdom that shows men
what they are. And capitalism, if you don't
think capitalism will teach you what you are, you just go to
work tomorrow. You see, every time that you
get in a business deal, even with somebody that you love,
what are you primarily thinking about? Huh? I mean, if you're going
to sell me something. Well, unfortunately. Now we can
say, oh, well, we gave him a good deal. Well, did we? Well, I mean,
a good deal would have been just to give it to him, wouldn't it?
Huh? Why didn't we do that? Because
it was ours. Now, doesn't a man have the right
to do with his own as he will? Of course he does. That's a principle
of truth. But you see, that's not about
what the kingdom of God is about. So lest men get to thinking that
capitalism is the epitome of godliness, it's not. It's actually
a demonstration of the sin of men. And we need to know that. So the next time that you hear
Sean Hannity or some of these guys talking about all this wonderful
stuff, think about that. Now I'm not saying go to the
other side because they're the ones that's denying the depravity
of men. You see, but so can the conservatives
by saying, buddy, here's what God would have you to do. Just
make as much money as you possibly can. That's it, buddy. I mean,
get out here and do it. Become successful. Now, isn't
that what the Pharisees thought? Didn't they think that rich men,
that was an indication that God was blessing them and that they
were doing the right thing? Because did not they say, Whoa,
when the Lord said, I tell you, it's easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into
the kingdom of heaven. Why is that? Because they trust
in uncertain riches. And dear brethren, when the Spirit
of God teaches a man what he is by nature, he can see that.
He'll see himself for what he is, and he'll know that, hey,
righteousness ain't in that kind of stuff. It's not in having
the money or not having the money or being a capitalist or a communist
or whatever. It's not in those things. But
it's in one place. And we're right back where we
started. That one who is a king who shall reign in righteousness,
he is the king. And He is the righteousness of
His people. All these other things are dumb. Paul said, I've had
every kind of thing you could have. He said, I know how to
abound. He says, I know how to do without.
He says, I know how to be a righteous man. I know how to be an unrighteous
man. But he said, I count it all dumb
that I might win Christ. is the righteousness of His kingdom.
He's the only money that's of any value in His kingdom. It
ain't about all these things that people place all their stock
and trust in and say, oh, well, this is the right way. I mean,
if you were really following the Lord, you'd be like this. Oh, Christ and Christ alone is
our righteousness.