back in Zechariah. I was talking
to a dear preacher friend of mine this week, and I was telling
him about Cammie, and he was overjoyed. And I said, this has
been such a blessing. Met Floyd Nelner, and I think
him was 14. Marlene might have been 7, 6
or 7. I don't know how old Pam was,
I don't know how old she is now. She's not old as her husband.
But here I am now preaching to her children, Marlene's children,
and God willing I'll be preaching to Cammy's children one of these
days. That's just overwhelming. I can't tell you the joy it produces
in my heart to know that. There's three generations here,
you know, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, kids, and four generations
soon. That's just wonderful to think
about, ain't it? Just absolutely wonderful. Got such a wonderful
life and a wonderful ministry ahead of me. Good 20, 25 more
years. Oh my, if I don't lose my mind
before then, I just have so much to look forward to. But I want
to... I want to bring a message today, a fountain opened, a fountain
opened. It says in verse 1 of chapter
13, in that day there shall be a fountain opened. Now, it's
not opened to a particular people, to the house of David and to
the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And what it's open for? And why
it's open is for sin and for uncleanness. For sin and uncleanness. Now, there are three things that
are very, very evil and to be greatly feared. Everybody ought
to fear these things. First of all, sin is a great
evil. It's a horrible evil. And everybody
ought to fear it, ought to be scared to death of it. Sin is
guilt. The guilt of sin is a horrible
thing. It'll torment you. You'll do wrong and you'll feel
guilty about it. And you'll overcome your guilt
unless God does something for you. And sin in its nature. Sin
in its nature. And most people think that you
become bad when you do bad things. You do bad things because you
was born bad. You was born wrong. A man doesn't
become a thief when he steals. He steals because he is a thief.
Sin in its very nature. That's what our children are
born with. And outside of Christ, men are under sin's guilt, and
they're bound by its nature. No matter what they do, no matter
how much effort they make, they cannot overcome the nature of
sin. They've got to be given a new nature. And secondly, a
thing that's very evil and to be greatly feared is uncleanness,
uncleanness. That's the fruit of sin, the
filth of sin, the things that we do, the works of the flesh.
The scripture says the works of the flesh are these, which
are manifest, adultery, uncleanness, lasciviousness, fornication,
idolatry, murder, blasphemy, lies, all of these things. That's the works of the flesh.
That's the works of the flesh. And another thing that's not
only sin and its guilt and uncleanness, but the hardness of heart. Oh,
fear hardness of heart. Under the robes of religion,
and how often we see this, many have a heart of stone. They go
to services, they hear the preaching, and yet under that robe of religion,
wrapped in it with their Bibles, there's a heart of stone, hard
as a nether millstone. And nothing good can ever come
out of a stony heart, nothing. to come and pray without desire,
to praise God Almighty without any emotion, to preach without
earnestness, to be cold and dead and lifeless in the things of
God, and yet to have a form of religion is a hard heart. Pharaoh's heart, when it was
hardened against God, and he wouldn't let the people of God
go, that was just a prelude to his destruction. And the hard
heart is to be feared. God give us a tender heart that
trembles at his word. The scripture says, this is the
man to whom I look. God said, the heavens is my throne
and the earth is my footstool, but this is the man to whom I
look, the man that trembles at my word. That's the man I look
to. And oh, I thought the other night,
I was laying in bed and thinking, a verse of scripture come across
my mind where the Lord Jesus said, Depart from me, you workers
of iniquity, I never knew you. And my heart gripped with fear
instantly and I said, Oh my, to hear God say that to me, to
me to go through my life in religion as a preacher and be so deceived
in myself that God himself would say to me, Depart from me, I
never knew you. You're not one of my sheep. That
terrified me, Landy. God saved me, saved me from a
stony heart. And many of you accuse yourself
of being stony-hearted, being hard-hearted. But let me say
something, and I know this. The man who grieves because he
does not grieve is probably the man who grieves the most. If
you're afraid that you're not afraid, and have the right fear
of God. Oh, I'd love to be in your shoes.
But, beloved, God said, thank God that he said this, that he
would take away the stony heart. In Ezekiel 36, he said, I'll
take away the stony heart, and I'll put in a heart of flesh.
And, beloved, how is he going to do that? By a fountain opened,
by a fountain opened. Verse 1 of chapter 13, he says,
In that day, in that day, talking about the evil of sin, there
is a fountain open for sin. There is a fountain open for
uncleanness. And it starts out with that day,
in that day. How many times does he talk about
in that day? In that day. What day is he talking
about here? In that day. There should be
a fountain open. to the house of David and to
the habits of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness." Well, this
is an ancient day. This is a day that God predetermined,
predestined, and ordered before the world ever began. This is
the day that God said that Christ was the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. This day that this fountain would
be opened, beloved, was the day that God Almighty entered into
a covenant with His Son, and they struck hands. And the Lord
Jesus Christ said, I'll be their surety, I'll be their Redeemer,
I'll be their Savior, I'll be their substitute, I'll do everything
that you require of them, I'll take their place, and I'll be
that fountain that's open for them for their sin and uncleanness.
And this is an everlasting covenant. It's ordered in all things and
it's sure, just as God Almighty before Adam ever sinned in the
garden. He had a fountain prepared for
his people. Ain't that right? In that day,
that was the day before you and I ever existed, before the sons
of God shouted for joy, before the stars were ever put into
heaven, before the sun ever gave us light. God said, There is
going to be a fountain opened. Going to be a fountain opened.
And then, O beloved, this day and that day, That day, beloved,
there had to be a coming to pass of that day that was predestinated.
And that day is the day of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is this fountain. And I'll show you that in a minute.
But this day and that day is the day of the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ. The angels proclaimed it. The
prophets prophesied of it. He said, ìA virgin shall conceive
and bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Immanuel.î What
does that mean? Godís come to be with us. ìAnd
the night our Lord Jesus Christ was born, the angels began to
sing, ìUnto us is born this day, or unto you is born this day,
and the city of David is born a Savior.î Who is he? Christ
the Lord. ìAnd Abraham saw this day, our
Lord Jesus told the Pharisees and the religious people of his
day, ìAbraham rejoiced to see my day.î And he saw it, and he
was glad. And they said, ìYouíre not yet
fifty years old, and how do you say that Abraham saw your day?
Abraham existed fifteen hundred years ago.î And he said before,
ìAbraham was, I am.î And John the Baptist came and
declared, And he saw a man walking toward him one day when he was
down at Jordan baptizing sinners unto repentance. And he saw a
man walking towards him. And as that man began to walk
toward him, he said, ìBehold,î pointed at him, ìbehold, stop,
look, consider, the Lamb of God who has taken away the sin of
the world.î And, O beloved, from that day, all Johnís disciples
began to follow that man. And in that day, not only was
the day of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but it was
the day, also the day of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look down in verse 6 here of
Zechariah. Once you say unto him, What are
those wounds in thine hands? What are those wounds? What are
they? Then he shall answer, Those with
which I was wounded in the house of," where? My friends. And this
is what God said about him on the day that our Lord was crucified. Awake, O sword, the sword of
justice, the sword that demands the death of every sinner. And
it demanded the death of the Son of God when sin was charged
to his account. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd. I guess the man that's my fellow,
my neck, saith the Lord to go smite the shepherd. Where are
you going to smite him at? Smite him on the cross, smite
him for sin, smite him unto death. And the sheep will be scattered.
And God said, I turn my hand on the little ones, and they'll
go in every direction. But look what else he said. And in that day, verse 1, there
shall be a fountain open. of the house of David. Now, look
back over here in verse 10 of chapter 12. And in that day,
and he says it again, I will pour on the day of the death
of the Son of God, and the cause of his death. He said, I will
pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
the spirit of grace and of supplication. Now, God says, I'll upon the
house of David." Well, who is the house of David? The Lord Jesus Christ, the seed
of David. Is that not right? Is that not
what the Scripture says? That he was made of the seed of David
according to the flesh. Paul says, remember, that I have
preached unto you that Christ is the seed of David according
to my gospel. that he was the eternal King,
that he is the one who had the throne, he is the one that God
set high and made him King of kings and Lord of lords, and
that as the house of David, the seed of David, that he would
be over a household. And, O beloved, that's why the
scripture says that the law was given by Moses, but grace and
truth came by Jesus Christ and of his fullness. of his fullness
have we all received. And he said, I'll pour upon the
inhabitants of Jerusalem. Now, beloved, Jerusalem is the
church. It's Zion, it's the heavenly Jerusalem. Now, you keep this,
you keep Zechariah in your left hand, and look with me over in
Hebrews chapter 12, just a moment. I'll show you what I'm talking
about. We're of the seed of our Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the King of Kings, and we're
His subjects, and of His fullness as the King. We've received of
His fullness. Grace for grace, grace upon grace. But he said, I poured about not
only upon the house of David, but I poured upon the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, God's church, the city of peace. Jerusalem means
the city of peace and the city of righteousness. Before it became
Jerusalem, it was a city of heathenism and paganism, until God sent
Israel in there, and He changed the name of it. Jerusalem, the
city of righteousness, the city of peace. And beloved, here in
Hebrews 12, in verse 22, it says this, But ye are come unto Mount
Zion, and unto the city of the living
God. the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company
of angels, to the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn.
They're written down in heaven! And over in Galatians, you don't
have to look at it, but there he talked about two different
seeds, two different people, two different covenants. Jerusalem
that now is, the Jews that now are Jerusalem that now is, they
answer to Sinai, the law, and it produces bondage. But he says,
Rebecca, she answers to heavenly Jerusalem, to Mount Zion, that
heavenly Jerusalem, and that's who he's talking about, that's
the Church, that's the covenant of grace. And oh, beloved, meanwhile,
why is he going to pour out on them back over here in Zechariah?
He's going to pour out upon the house of David, those descendants
of Christ. Christ is the one on the throne,
he's the one that died. and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
people of Zion, inhabitants of it. And he'll pour out on them
a spirit of grace and of supplication. Beloved, let me tell you this.
Grace does what we cannot possibly do. Grace has to do it all. And that's what God pours out
upon these people, through this fountain that's open. Grace can
only come from the God of all grace. Now, grace doesn't want
you to do anything. Grace demands that you stop doing. That's why Christ comes. He did
it all. He did it all so we wouldn't
have to do anything. Is that not right? What could you do to satisfy
God? What could you do to get God
to save you? What could you do to get on the
good side of God? What can you do to get God to
accept you? What can you do to put away your
sin? What can you do to give yourself life? What can you do
to make yourself mourn over sin? What can you do? Nothing. That's why he said he opened
the fountain and he'd pour out the Spirit of grace. And this grace comes from the
Lord Jesus Christ. He says, God has saved us and
called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to his own purpose and grace which was given us
in Christ Jesus, when? Before the world began. And oh,
beloved, and where is this grace? How does he pour that on us?
Through the gospel, through the hearing of the gospel. That's
why it's so important. That's why it's so necessary
for you to come and hear the gospel. Hear the gospel. That's why, you know, people...
My son-in-law was telling me about one of his friends. He
said, I'd like to go up there and hear that preacher. But he
said, everywhere I've ever went, people put such pressure on you
to make a confession. And they want you to get you
to an altar. They want to get you to the front. If they see
any emotion out of you, they want to get you to do something
right now. Our Lord Jesus didn't even do
that. He just preached to people. Some believe, some believe not.
Salvation is coming to Christ, and you don't come to Christ.
Christ is not down here. Christ is not in my head. Christ
is not in this water. Christ is at the right hand of
God Almighty, and how can you get there? How can you get to
God Almighty? Christ is certainly God's right
hand. There's only one way to get there, from here to there. And how can you learn about Christ?
The Scripture said, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved. All right, well, who's going
to call on the name of the Lord? How shall they call on him of
whom they have not believed? You can't call on somebody of
whom you have not believed. And how shall you believe in
Him of whom you have not heard? How can you believe in Christ
unless you learn something about Him and hear something about
Him? And how can they hear except through preaching? And how can
a man preach except to be a sith? And so then faith cometh by hearing. When you hear, you say, I believe
that. Brad preached it last Sunday
night. By his own will, James 1.18, by his own will begat he
us, with what? The word of truth. Oh, I'm content to preach the
gospel and leave you and everybody else in the hands of God, where
I'm going to be. And if the gospel can't save you, coming to the
front ain't going to do it. If the gospel can't teach you the
Lord Jesus Christ, I sure can't do it. It's the gospel, it's
the power of God that's under salvation. It's the Word of God
that God uses to pierce your heart. It's the Word of God that
God uses to take away the darkness from your mind. It's the Word
of God that God uses and the gospel that He uses to take that
stony heart out. It's the Word of God that He
uses to turn on the light and dispel the darkness. He asked
a question the other night, and I was listening to his tape,
and he said, what would we do without the Word of God? And
I immediately started saying to myself, say it out loud. I
said, we'd be in darkness, we'd be in death, we'd be in depravity,
we'd be in superstition, paganism, heathenism. We would be without
God, without Christ, and without hope, without His Word. That's
what we'd be. And oh, beloved, he said, I'll
pour out on them a spirit of grace and supplication. And I'll
tell you this, he said, and where grace is poured out, where God
pours out grace, guess what happens? People start crying. Supplication,
I'm going to tell you what supplication is in my mind. I don't know what
the dictionary definition of it is. But a suppliant, a supplicant
comes asking for something. And when I think of a supplicant,
I think of an infant sucking in his mother's breast. He's
supplicating. He needs to ask and get in such
a way and desire so much that you fashion yourself to it. And God pours out such a spirit
of supplication on you that you stand just like a bird in a nest
and its mama comes and drops food into it. You're sitting
there. When God pours out grace on you, your heart opens, your
mind opens, your soul opens, and you just stand there waiting.
God, fill me. Fill me. I've got to have you.
I need you. I desire you. I can't help but
have you. It's a prayer. It's a seeking
the Lord. I can't be satisfied till I get
to Him. And once you ever start that,
you never ever stop. Huh? And that's all you can say
most of the time. Lord, I need you. Oh, God, I
want you. Lord, speak to me. Don't leave it to myself. Teach
me, instruct me. Have mercy on me. And what happens
to a man when God pours out His Spirit of grace and supplication
upon him? Look what it says now here in
verse 10 again. He'll pour out upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem
the Spirit of grace and supplication, and watch this, and they shall
look upon me, whom they have pierced. What does that mean? The Spirit of grace and supplications
always brings you to Christ crucified. That's where you look. That's
the first place when grace comes. If supplication comes, it sets
Christ crucified before them. They shall look upon me, whom
they have pierced. Ain't that right? The Spirit
always, always brings men to Christ. You know, the Ethiopian
eunuch, he had been up to Jerusalem, a wealthy man, treasurer of Candace
the Queen in Ethiopia, very wealthy, had an entourage with him. He
went up to Jerusalem, a Jewish proselyte, went up there to worship.
Went up there and went through the ceremonies, the rituals,
offered the sacrifices. Stayed up there for a week, started
back home, and he sat me in his chair, and he was reading from
the book of Isaiah. And he was reading from Isaiah
53. And his reading where it says,
he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers
was done, so he opened not his mouth. And in his humiliation,
his judgment was taken away. Well, while he was doing that,
God Almighty had him a preacher. I'll tell you what that meant.
There was a preacher named Philip. God said, Philip, walk up to
that fellow and start talking to him. Philip went up to him
and said, Sitting there in his chariot, walking along beside
him, he said, What are you doing? He said, I'm reading. What are
you reading? He began telling. He got up in
the chariot with him. They was riding along. He said,
Is this man talking about himself or some other man? And the scripture
says right then and there, he began to take that verse of scripture
and to preach unto him Christ. And that's what you got to see.
And I tell you this, I know without a shadow of a doubt, when the
Spirit of God comes on a man, and grace comes to a man, he
sets before him one thing, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He doesn't set before him a work to do. He don't set before him so many
tears to cry. He don't set before him an obedience
to do. He sets before him Christ, and
he'll look upon him whom he has pierced. See that you are as
responsible for the death of the Son of God as anybody that
ever draw a breath. Oh, I wouldn't, if I'd have been
there, I wouldn't. Yes you, yes you would have. That's the most agonizing thing
that you'll ever go through is when you realize that your sins
put to death the Son of God. Tell you this story, true story. As a man I know, and know him
for years, been in my home many times, he's a deacon of a huge
Baptist, big Baptist church. Best preacher in the country
was his pastor. Oh, he's just a wonderful man,
wonderful man, wonderful man. And one day he was riding along
in his automobile going somewhere and he began to listen to a tape. about the Lamb of God, out of
Isaiah 53. And he said, as he was riding
along, he began to hear that preacher preach about Christ
and Him crucified, the Lamb, sins upon Him. He said, I began
to see Christ crucified. I began to see Christ suffering
for my sin, my sin. And here's a fellow way up in
his fifties now, been a deacon for years. And he got back and he went and
told his pastor, he said, I got converted today. He said, I saw
Christ bearing my sin. I saw the lamb with my sin on
it. And he went and told his pastor,
and he's fifty-something years old, been a deacon, and he threw
all that away in front of hundreds of people. He got up and said,
I've been religious, but I never did see Christ bearing my sin. Never seen him bearing mine.
I saw him bearing everybody else's, but I never saw him bearing mine.
When I saw mine on him, he said, that broke my heart. That broke
my heart. And, O beloved, they shall see,
they shall look upon him, upon me whom they have pierced. They
shall see the awful, awful guilt of crucifying Christ. My sins, my sins, my sins, my
sins nailed into the tree. I was like Simon Peter, I denied
him. I was like those men who wore
false witnesses, I lied on them. I was like that screaming mob,
I cried crucifying, crucifying. And I'll tell you this before
I move on. If you won't take your part in the death of the
Lord Jesus Christ, You'll never have a part in the glory of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And then look what it says, and
they shall mourn. They shall mourn for him. Now, this is God
speaking. He said, they shall mourn for
him. God's speaking about, you mourn for my son. And then he
says, they shall look upon me. What that tells us is that Christ
and the Father are one. that God suffered in his blessed
Son, in the person of his Son, they shall mourn for him, they
shall mourn for me. Oh, beloved, when you begin to
look on him who was pierced, oh, how their heart hurts, how
their heart hurts, how sorry they become for their It's not
like, oh, I'm not going to do that. You know, I feel guilty
that I said this. And I feel guilty that I went
there. And I feel guilty that I've done that thing. And I promise
that I won't do that again. It's not like getting up on Saturday
morning and regretting what you did on Friday night. When it
talks about mourning for sin, it's talking about that nature
I was talking about. Talking about being hurting in
your heart for what you are. The evil that you thought. The imaginations where your mind
has run wild. The things, the concepts you've
had of God. Horatius Bonar says every man,
every unbelieving sinner's got two things about him that's a
dead giveaway. First of all, he's got a good
opinion of himself. And secondly, he's got a bad
opinion of God. And you can't have a good opinion
of yourself without having a bad opinion of God. If you've got
the right opinion of God, you've got a bad opinion of yourself. I told Larry Matthews when he
came in this morning, I said, I was talking about you last
night. He said, you was? I said, yeah, I was telling folks
how sorry, how no good you was, how awful you was. And he just
laughed and said, well, you told them the truth, didn't you? Oh, my. I grieve over sin now more than
I ever have. I don't want nothing to do with
it, because I've seen Him. Oh, the hard heart isn't hard
anymore. God takes away that stony heart.
Let me show you. You keep Zechariah in your right
hand. Now turn over to Ezekiel. Ezekiel,
just a few books back, and look with me at Ezekiel 36. Ezekiel
36. You know, when that woman at
the well, when the Lord revealed himself to her, she said, I know
that when the Messiah comes, tell us all things that ever
we did. And he began to expose her sin, said, oh, go get your
husband, bring him here. She said, I don't have a husband.
Our Lord said to her, you brightly said, you told the truth. You're
not trying to be something you're not. You're not trying to be
pretentious. She said, you've had five husbands. You've had five of them. And
the one you're with right now is not your husband. You're just
living with him. And oh, her eyes no doubt got that big. And
she was in lasciviousness, her uncleanness,
her sin. You know what that woman did?
She come there to get water. She's there by herself. Of course,
she had to come at a different time of the day than the rest
of the women because she was such a fallen woman. She forgot
about her water. She threw her water pot away
and she went to run into town and said, come see a man who told me all things that ever
I did. Boy, when the Spirit of grace
and supplication comes, you see things. He makes things become
sin to you that you have never had an idea was sin before. Oh,
still in that watermelon, lying to your mom and dad, sneaking
behind the bar and smoking. That ain't nothing compared to
what God does to you when he pours out on you spirit of grace
and supplication. Smoking that cigarette, sneaking
around, and lying, and that, that is, oh my, when he begins
to stick you, you, you start, you see that your whole life
is nothing but sin and depravity and enmity against God himself. It's one thing to sin against
one, but to sin against God? And that's why I said, they'll
look upon me whom they have pierced, and they'll begin to mourn. They'll
begin to mourn. Look here in Ezekiel 36, in verse
26. A new heart also will I give
you, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away
the stony heart out of your flesh, and I'll give you a heart of
flesh. And when this happens, look down in verse 31, talking
about mourning now. Then shall you remember your
own evil ways and your doings that were not good. Now watch
this. And shall loathe yourselves in
your own sight for your iniquities, not somebody else's, for your
iniquities and your abominations. That's what you'll begin to mourn
for. And I'll tell you something about this, beloved. When he
talks about taking away a stony heart and putting in a heart
and making it start, that's a supernatural work. That's a miraculous work.
That's a supernatural work. It's a secret work that goes
on in a soul's heart. That's something that, you know,
I don't know what's going on in anybody's heart at any given
time. I really truly don't. And neither do you. You only
know what's going on with you. But I'll tell you this. When
God begins to work, that's a supernatural work. That's a secret work. God
begins to work in a man's heart, in a man's mind, in a man's soul,
and you don't know what's going on with him. But when God begins
to work, he begins to become troubled. He begins to think
about his sin. He begins to think about his
relationship with God. And oh, beloved, and this supernatural
work, this miraculous work, where God begins to make that heart
to feel, and that heart to be pliable, and that heart to be
touched, and that heart to be moved, and that heart begin to
mourn. That's a miraculous thing. And
oh, that's repentance not to be repented of. You know, God
made our eyes for two things. To see. to see with, and to weep
with. And when you look on Him whom
you pierced, and you got to see Him, and the Holy Spirit take
you to Him, then you'll mourn. Tears will flow. And then to
see Him pierced, to see Him pierced, to see Him not like they portray
Him in these movies, not like they portray Him in these idolatrous
pictures that people have on their walls. A little blonde-headed
fellow, just a little blood trickling out of his eye, a little blood
on his... to see him pierced, to see him
in pain, to see him take that spear and reach up and slice
his belly open. and the blood comes gushing out,
the water comes gushing out, to see Him wounded for our transgressions,
to see Him bruised for our iniquities, to see the chastisement of our
peace upon Him, to see that the Lord lay on Him the iniquity
of us all, to see Him smitten and afflicted of God, The Scripture says that God made
Him, made Christ, to be sin. Made Him to be sin. What you
and I are. God made Him to be sin. This sinless, immaculately holy,
eternal Son of God that came here, God made Him to be sin.
How did He make Him to be sin? The Lord laid on Him the iniquity
of us all. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He made his soul an offering for sin. And God took of the
seed of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and He took sin.
Here I am. I'll soon be 55 years old. And
from the moment I was conceived in my mother's womb, I became
a sinner. Because my mother's a sinner.
And my father's a sinner. I couldn't be anything else.
I was born lost. I was born a sinner. And before
that ever took place, God took all the sins I'd ever committed,
and all my iniquities, and He put them on His Son. And I didn't know that until
I heard the Gospel. And somebody started telling
me about that Christ took sinners' sins and laid them on His Son,
And then God bruised him when he found him there. And oh, then my heart began to
mourn. You mean that God laid my sin? Me? What? My transgressions on
the earth? And he was smitten with God and
afflicted with my sin? I saw him pierced there. I saw
him afflicted. I saw him smitten. To see Him
forsaken of God? To see Him forsaken of man? To
see the sun refuse to shine? To see His holy person suffer,
who knew no sin, because our sin was laid on Him? Do you reckon
He bore your sin? Do you reckon He took yours? Do you see Him pierced? Do you mourn for your sin? And now when you see Him bearing
your sin, you begin to mourn Him. You begin to mourn Him. You begin to mourn Him. To see
Him made a curse? Cursed of God? To redeem you
out from under a curse? Why, oh why, would we persecute
God so and pursue Him even to death? Oh my! Why would we pursue Him to death
who did no sin? Why would we be against Him so
who would bear our sin? Why would we not believe Him
who bore sin? Why would we not trust Him who
bore sin? And then not only that, but it
says, they'll look on Him whom they have preached, and they
shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only Son. My children are alive, and they're...
I can call them, and I can talk to them, and occasionally I can
see them, but I could not imagine them leaving this world without
knowing Christ. And I mourn for them while they
yet live. But to mourn for one that you've
lost. That's what he's saying here.
When your soul becomes so bitter, that it's in such bitterness,
and this bitterness here doesn't mean an anger. I mean, it's just,
it's so bitter that it hurts you. And you're in such agony
over that only begotten Son. You mourn for him. And that's
what you do, you begin to mourn, and your soul will not find any
satisfaction until you come and close with the Son of God. And
look what it says, ìAnd that day there shall be a great mourning.î
And look down in verse 12, ìAnd the land shall mourn every family
apart.î every family apart. And it goes on there, it says
the wives and the husbands, they'll all mourn apart. And every man
will mourn apart. It said the wives will mourn
apart, and the house of David will mourn apart, and the family,
and the wife, everybody. What that means is that this
is a personal salvation. Your wife can't mourn for you,
and your husband can't. You'll mourn apart by yourself. You'll mourn for your sins. You're
seeing things for you, and you won't wait on this one, and you
won't wait on that one, and you won't wait for somebody else
to do something. My wife, she don't seem to be
under conviction. Well, that don't have nothing to do with
you. You're under conviction. And you'll get a part, and you'll
begin to mourn. And the wife, she may get a part, and she'll
begin to mourn. There's nothing going on with you. But everybody
gets a part. It's you by yourself, along with
God. And now when it says they'll
seek the Lord alone, that means that they'll get apart and they
won't confer with flesh and blood. They won't go and say, Granny
and Grandpa, why's that preacher said this about God's election,
God's sovereignty, and that I'll have to mourn, that I'll mourn
over my sins and I'll see Christ crucified. And, and, but I, I,
I'm doing the best I can. You won't confer with flesh and
blood. You'll get apart alone with God. You're scared of death,
flesh and blood, if we just pray. The wife can't help the husband.
The husband can't help the wife. It's me, Lord, who pierced you.
It's my guilt, my sin, my shame. Thank you, Lord, for bearing
my sin. Forgive me, Lord. Oh, please
forgive me. Please forgive me. And then it
says, back in verse 1 of chapter 13, in that day, In that day of the morning, in
that day when everybody's apart, in that day when they look on
him whom they pierced, in that day when grace is poured out
and supplication is poured out, in that day, there's a fountain
open. Who's it open for? The house
of David? Christ is the Son over His own
house, whose house we are. What's it open for? For sin and
uncleanness. And, O Beloved, who is this fountain?
The Lord Jesus is our fountain. There is a fountain filled with
blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunge beneath that
flood, lose all their guilty, guilty stains. And in Him there
is fullness. It's not a cistern. It's not
a cistern where you walk up and it's got to be refilled and all
that and you dip out of it. No, this is a fountain. This
is a fountain. It pleased the Father that in
Christ should all fullness dwell. And as a fountain, he's full
of merit and full of righteousness to justify us. Oh, we need a
righteousness acceptable to God. We need the very righteousness
of God himself. Where are we going to get that? in Christ. He's full of merit. I don't have any merit. He's
got enough for a multitude that no man can number. I don't have
a righteousness. All the righteousness of all
the men that's ever been lived on the topside of God's earth,
outside of Christ, ain't worth spitting on the ground for. All of our righteousness is as
a filthy rag. But God made him to be sin who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in him. He offered his sinless, holy
humanity upon the altar of his divinity, his Godhead. The old
hymn writer said, Alas, and did my Savior bleed, and did my Sovereign
die? Would he devote that sacred head
for such a worm as I? And a fountain's useful for three
things. It's useful for three things. We go to a fountain to
quench our thirst. Go to a fountain to quench our
thirst. Well, our Lord Jesus stood and cried that last day
of the feast and said, He that drinketh of this water
shall never thirst again." Huh? And when Israel was going through
the wilderness, there was a rock. Moses smoked that rock, and out
of that rock came water. Israel didn't have any water.
And they was murmuring, we ain't got nothing, we're going to die
of thirst here. God said, smite that rock. And everywhere they
went for 40 years in the wilderness, that rock went with them. And
that rock was Christ. And they quenched their thirst
out of the water that gushed out of that rock. And, O beloved,
we drank from that rock, which is Christ. And then, a fountain
not only is to quench thirst, but it is for washing away filth.
A fountain is to wash away our filth, our nastiness, our dirtiness. And it says here, this fountain
is open for sin and uncleanness. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's
Son, cleanses us from 99.99% of my sin, and I got to take
care of the rest of it. Nope, that's not what it says.
The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from A-L-L, all sin. All of it. What about tomorrow? It said all. What about when
I'm 60? All. What about when I'm 16?
All. What about my unbelief? All.
What about my current heart? All. What about that thing I said?
All. All means all. Oh, my. And not only does it wash away
the filth, this fountain here even washes away the guilt of
the sin that we have. Now, I don't know how to say
this, and I know people won't understand this, but it even
purges our conscience. It cleans our conscience. Now,
to say that I have not sinned and I don't sin, I'd be made
a liar. But I'll tell you something. I understand what Christ did,
and I don't feel the guilt of sin. It's been a long time since
I felt the guilt of sin. Are we going to believe God or
ain't? Ain't that right? If I don't have any sin, what
have I got to be guilty for? Ain't that right? Well, if your sin's gone and
you've been washed, what have you got to be guilty about? That's
why this gospel. It's so glorious. It answers the demands of a conscience
that demands perfection. And it gives that conscience
perfection. It gives it Jesus Christ and
His Word. And then thirdly, the reason
the fountain is, is for watering the earth and making it fruitful.
And oh, how He waters us and makes us fruitful. You know the
Scriptures talk about us being trees of righteousness planted
by the Lord. We're the Lord's vine planted.
And how are we going to flourish? How are we going to be fruitful?
How are we going to be nourished? Just through this fountain. That's how we bring forth fruit.
And then, beloved, He's a cleansing fountain. He's a cleansing fountain. Under the law. I want to be just
another minute or two. If you all can just hang on. Just hang on. I'll get through.
Just hold on. Hold on with all you got. I know
some of you are toughing it out. But He's a cleansing fountain.
Under the law, they had water and blood. And they'd taken a
heifer, and they'd take her outside the gate in the bullock, and
they'd burn her into ashes. And then they'd take that water
out of that laver, and they'd mix those ashes in the dirt where
that ashes was. They'd mix it in that water.
And they'd take the ashes of that heifer, and they'd sprinkle
it on people. And that would sanctify their flesh. How can
you take dirty water with ashes in it and sprinkle on it? And
God said that sanctified him. Well, imagine if that could do
that, if that could sanctify to the flesh. Imagine what the
blood of Christ sprinkled by the Holy Ghost to your conscience
would do and sanctify you and sanctify your conscience. And
oh, beloved, it's a cleansing time. It cleanses you from all
filthiness of the flesh. And oh, Christ loved us and washed
us from our sins in His own blood. His blood makes us pure. His
blood makes us perfect. His blood makes us innocent of
all sin. And not only that, but He makes
us righteous. It's the blood that takes away
sin. It's the blood that God looks upon. And then we have
the water, which is the Word. It cleanses us over and over
and over. And then it's a holy fountain.
This fountain here that God opened is a holy fountain. He makes
all holy whom he cleanses. Holiness, people think that you
start out in religion and you get better as you go and you
get more holy as you go, when a holiness is a state of being.
Either you're holy or you ain't. There's no degrees in holiness.
Is that not right? There's no degrees. Either you're
holy or you're not. Either you're righteous or you
aren't. There's no degrees in it. One's not more righteous
than another. One's not more holy than another.
And that's what he said. This fountain is a holy fountain. He made peace through the blood
of His cross. He has sanctified forever. He's going to present us far
less before His glory at His coming. And that's why we sing
that old hymn, Jesus, keep me near the cross, there a precious
fountain, free to all healing streams flows from Calvary's
mountain. And it's an open fountain. It
said it should be opened. Opened. Opened. Opened all the
time. Open to Jew, open to Gentile,
open to male, open to female, open to high, open to low, open
to rich, open to poor, open to bond, open to free, young to
old, and it's open at all times. In the morning, it'll still be
open. Tonight, it'll still be open.
If I wake up in the middle of the night, it's still open. It's
always open. And it's open freely. You just, it's there, it's open
freely. Open freely. And not only that,
but it's the only fountain. There's not another fountain
that can cleanse you from sin. Not another fountain can make
you holy. Not another fountain can cleanse you from your sin
and uncleanness. This is the only one. There's no other name
under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved than
Jesus Christ. Don't think for a minute, not
one iota of a second, that God will accept you on any terms
other than His Son. Oh, Naaman, that's why our Lord
said, come unto me. Come unto me. Old Naaman, he
is a leper, he decided, he heard that there was a prophet on Israel.
He could go over yonder and get his leprosy cleansed. Well, he
sent his servant out and he said, my master said, go over to Jordan
and dip yourself in Jordan seven times and you'll come back clean.
And he got mad. Oh, he got so angry. He said,
oh, there are not rivers in Syria better than that. miserable river
Jordan. He said, don't we have Havana
and Papua and all these wonderful rivers? Yeah. But that's not where God told
him to go. There's only one place where he could be cleansed of
his leprosy. Only one place. And there's only one place where
you can be cleansed of your sin. Only one place where you can
be cleansed of your filth. Only one place God will hear
you call on Him. One place God will accept you.
One righteousness that God will accept, and that's His Son. His
Son, Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory. That's the only one. Our Father, In the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, your blessed, blessed Son, I pray that you'd take the words
that's been said today as we've sought to sow the Word of God
in the field. I pray that some of it will lodge
on good ground, made good by you, and that it will bring forth
fruit, that the Word fell today, that it won't be choked out by
weeds, and it won't be carried away by the birds of the air,
and won't be trampled underfoot. but that it'll land on good ground,
ground prepared, ground where grace is working, ground where
the Spirit's coming upon. Father, save your people in this
place. Thank you for your graciousness and goodness and mercy to us.
Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to baptize this believing
sinner, this dear young woman, Father, we honor and magnify
your holy grace and your holy name. Oh, Lord, who is like unto
you in power and majesty. And Father, we thank you for
the food that's been prepared. Thank you for the time of fellowship
you're going to give us. Please bring glory and honor
to yourself in Christ's name. Amen.