Isaiah 64. Isaiah 64 this evening. And I'm taking the title, or I'm entitling the message and the subject this evening from Isaiah 64, My Sin and His Grace. My Sin and His Grace. We see that clearly, don't we? We are all as an unclean thing. All of our righteousnesses are filthy rags. Can't you identify with that? We're all as an unclean thing. My sin and then his grace, his grace. But now, verse eight, O Lord, thou art our father. We are the clay and thou our potter. We are all the work of thy hand. He's made us trophies of his grace, objects of his love.

This is a message of this chapter, my sin and the Lord's grace. But it's also the message of the whole Bible, is it not? The whole Bible is given to expose our sin and to show us God's grace. The message of the whole Bible is my sin and his grace. This is certainly the message of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, is it not? My sin, oh my sin, the bliss of my sin. and His grace, His grace, or His salvation. Salvation is of the Lord, is it not? In Adam, what happened? In Adam all died. In Christ shall all be made alive. There's my sin and His grace.

One more scripture, Romans 519, we see our sin and his grace. For one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. So by the obedience of another shall many be made righteous. That is the Lord Jesus Christ. We see what happened in Adam, sin, what happened in Christ, salvation. My sin and his grace, my sin and his grace. You probably don't remember, but there was an article in the bulletin a week or so ago, and there was a quote by the old preacher from England, John Newton.

And he said, the older I get, the more I'm convinced I'm a miserable sinner. But I'm also convinced of this, Christ is the all-sufficient Savior. I'm a miserable sinner. And Christ is the all-sufficient Savior. That's growing in grace. That's growing in grace, knowing more of what we are and knowing more of the Lord Jesus Christ that he came to save. He came to save sinners. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.

The Lord Jesus Christ came to save folks just like you, just like me, sinners. And Paul writes that he's the chief one. He's the chief offender. Our Lord said, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners unto repentance. He came to seek and to save those who were lost sheep. His lost sheep.

And then we read from Luke 22, Sunday. He said, this is the blood of the New Testament that was shed for you. Shed for you. Now, I thought of this verse, Romans 5, verse 6, for when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. That's you, that's me.

That's the description of all men everywhere. You know, it's hard to find a sinner, you know that? The old songwriter said, a sinner is a sacred thing, the Holy Ghost had made him so. We have to be convicted by God, the Holy Spirit, to know that we are truly sinful before God, that we all, that we all are as an unclean, unclean thing. Man, his best state is altogether vanity, vanity.

Now in this chapter, I want us to look at two things. In verse one through five, we see the prayer of the believer. This is Isaiah's prayer, but I want you to make it your own. Make it your own prayer. And then we see, secondly, verse six down through verse nine, we see Isaiah's confession. Let's make this our confession, our confession of sin and of his grace, of his grace.

Isaiah prays for the Lord's presence three times in the first three verses. He says, Lord, Thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down that the mountains might flow down at thy presence. Verse 2, Isaiah 64, verse 2. As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil to make thy name known to the adversaries that the nations may tremble at thy presence.

Lord, we need thy presence. When thou didst terrible things which we look not for, thou camest down in the mountains flow down at His presence. You remember when the law was given there in the book of Exodus when the Lord came down on Mount Sinai? How the mountain burned and quaked and the people trembled before God. Now how necessary is the Lord's presence? He mentions that three times in these first three verses. How necessary is the Lord's presence? Well, remember our Lord said in John 15, he said, without me, you can do nothing.

We don't need more wealth, health. We don't need more preachers. We got too many of those. Not true preachers, but false preachers. We don't need any more churches or more religion. One of the things when I travel across the country, when I go through these little towns, I always notice how many churches. I look at the churches. Usually if you go through these small little towns out in the Midwest, there's usually churches everywhere, churches everywhere. But we don't need more churches. We need more gospel churches.

I went to Kingsport nearly 20 years ago, and that work down there started as a mission work from this ministry. When they contacted me to come up there and preach for them, and I did that every Sunday evening for six years before Gabe Doniker was called to be the pastor there. A local preacher in that area found out that I was going to travel there and preach on Sunday night. And one of the things he said to me, he said, we don't need any more churches in Kingsport.

I said, well, you're right. Churches everywhere. But we do need a gospel church. We do need a gospel church. So we don't need more churches. We don't need more religion. We've got religion everywhere. The Muslims, the Hindus, the Jews, the Christians so-called, we've got religion everywhere, don't we?

Man by nature, have you noticed this? Man by nature is religious. Those American Indians, when they went west and the pioneers went west, or the frontier men went west, they found those tribes had some sort of religion, worshiping the God of the sun or whatever it might be, but they had religion, didn't they? You can find man by nature, man by nature is religious. He is a religious creature. Even though he's fallen and lost, he's still religious. But what we do need is his presence. We don't need more churches, more preachers, more religion. What we do need is his presence. What we do need is his gospel.

Moses prayed that in Exodus 33, you remember? If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. If you don't go with me, Lord, I'm not going. I'm not going if you don't go with me. Now, if I don't have Christ in his presence, if I don't have Christ in his presence and I have everything else, in reality, I have nothing. He that hath the Son hath all things. He who does not have the Son does not have life, does not have salvation. But even if I don't have anything materially, I mean nothing. Poor as a church mouse, as the old fellow said.

But yet having Him and His presence, we have everything. We have everything. If we have His presence, we have His person. If we have his person, we're one with him, everything God requires of us is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. If we have his presence, we have his person. If we have his person, we have his salvation. If we have him, we have righteousness, peace, reconciliation in the Lord Jesus Christ. Matter of fact, the apostle put it this way, in the Lord Jesus Christ, to all the fullness of Godhead bodily, and we're complete in him. We're completing him.

Look right across the page, you remember this from last week, Isaiah 63 verse 9. Isaiah 63 verse 9, and all their affliction, he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. That's Christ. And in his love and his pity, he redeemed them and bared them and carried them all the days of old. The angel of God's presence. The messenger of God's presence. Listen to this scripture.

In Psalm 16, David said, wilt thou show me the path of life, and in thy presence is the fullness of joy. At thy right hand are pleasures forevermore. Of his fullness have we all received grace for grace. David prayed this in Psalm 51, remember? Cast me not away from thy presence. Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.

Oh, that the Lord would be pleased to take up His residence in our heart to reside in us for Christ in you is a hope of glory. And that's what happens when God saves a sinner. He invades his mind, his heart, his will, his emotion. He takes up his abode and dwells in the heart of the sinner. God the Holy Spirit, believers are indwelt with God the Holy Spirit that bears a constant witness and testimony that in salvation Christ is all. He takes the things of Christ and shows them unto us. Now, let's make this our prayer.

Verse one, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence. You see that? That the mountains, oh, that thou wouldest rend the heavens and come down. Boy, he did, didn't he? God incarnate. He did reign the heavens and he did come down. That thou wouldest come down, God incarnate, that the mountains, notice plural, mountains might flow down at thy presence. Now, what are these mountains? How about the mountains of sin? How about the mountains of pride? How about the mountains of self-righteousness and lust might truly melt away at His presence. Wouldn't that be something?

He'd neither them of a broken heart save us such as be of a contrite spirit. The second thing He prays for is not only that He would rend the heavens and come down and dwell among us, To make thy name known, look at verse two, as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causes the waters to boil, to make thy name known to the adversaries. And by nature, the carnal mind is enmity against God. To make thy name known, the very name of God's salvation is the Lord Jesus Christ.

He has to make himself known unto us. No man stirs up himself to seek the Lord. No man can come to me, our Lord said, except the Father which sent me draw him. He must make himself known unto us. He's hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babe. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. We read that a moment ago. They're foolish to him, neither can he know them, but they must be revealed unto us by the Spirit of God.

To make his name known, God has given him a name which is above every name. Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that he's Lord to the glory of God the Father. Neither is there salvation in any other name than Jesus Christ. Remember Isaiah 9, verse 6, unto us. A child born, but the Son is given and the government on His shoulders and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father. He's the Prince of Peace.

Oh, that He would make His name known to us. He's hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes, revealed them unto His people. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. He has to make himself known unto us by nature. We don't know God.

Thirdly, he prays this, that we might tremble and stand in awe at thy presence and worship thee when thou did terrible, tremendous things which we looked not for. We weren't expecting these things, but thou camest down. and the mountains slow down at thy presence.

Oh, that we might tremble and stand in awe at his presence and worship him. The Father seeketh such a worship him in spirit and truth. The only place a sinner will truly worship is at the throne of a sovereign, almighty, holy God. Holy and reverent is thy name. And then fourthly, he says in verse four that we might wait upon the Lord, wait with expectation, wait with faith, looking to Him. For since the beginning of the world, men have not heard, nor perceived by ear, or deaf, or deaf and dumb, blind, can't see or can't hear, nor perceived by ear, neither hath the eye seen, blinded by sin.

O God, beside Thee, what He hath prepared for them that wait for Him. He's prepared salvation. Salvation has been prepared for God's people. He's prepared it for us. And He calls us to wait upon the Lord and again I say wait. You remember David said that in Psalm 27. Wait I say upon the Lord and again I say. Wait upon the Lord, isn't His salvation worth waiting for? That we might wait with expectation, wait with faith, looking to Him, waiting upon His mercy to show mercy to us, His love is great. Worth waiting for, isn't it? Simeon, remember, in Luke chapter 2, was waiting for the consolation of Israel, waiting for the appearing of the Messiah.

And when he picked up that baby in the temple there, The Lord Jesus Christ, God incarnate. He looked that baby in the face and said, Lord, I'm ready to die. My eyes have seen thy salvation. He was waiting upon the Lord and the Lord sent him the Messiah. Wait upon those that love him, prepared for those that love him. We only love him because he first loved us. Waiting upon the Lord. What a blessed thing it is to wait upon the Lord.

Now let me give you a homely illustration. I thought about this. We have a little dog. This is a dog story. We have a little dog at the house. His name's Benny. It's mama's baby. It's his mama's baby. Last night, mama had to go to a meeting and She left the house about 5.30. She came home about 8 o'clock. But when she goes out that door to the garage, that little dog goes right out there in that room and sits right there, looks at that door, and waits for mama to come home. I'm in the other room.

I've got treats. Benny, you want the treat? Benny, I'm in here. Hello. He's waiting on one thing. Hey, wait for mama to come home. I know that's a homely illustration. But when mama comes home, Benny's a happy camper. Those who wait upon the Lord shall not want for any good thing.

And we wait upon him, don't we? We wait with expectation. We wait with anticipation, looking for that blessed appearing of our God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, he's worth waiting on, isn't he? We also pray, not only we pray for the Lord's presence and his mercy upon us, but we also pray that the Lord will keep us by his power.

Look at verse five. Thou meetest him that rejoices and worketh righteousness. Those that remember thee in thy ways, behold, thou art wrath, for we have sinned. In those is continuance, and we shall be saved. Now, believers not only pray for the Lord's presence, but we pray for the Lord's power to keep us. There is a continuance.

There is a continuance of His mercy, a continuance of His grace, And because of His continuance of mercy to us, though we have sinned, and there is a continuance in our sin, but there is a continuance in His mercy. Where sin abounded, grace does much more abound, remember? We're kept by the power of God. His blood cleanses us from all sin.

In those is continuance. It also means concealment out of mind. We shall be saved because He put away our sin. Believers don't deny that they're sinners. We've been that way a long time. But we deny that the only hope of our sin being put away is in His continuing blood that avails for us. There is continuance. of His mercy, His grace, and we shall be saved. Not maybe, not perhaps, or could be.

We shall be saved. Call His name Jesus. He shall save His people from their sins. Their sins. We've all sinned to come short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. But we do not pray to be forgiven upon our doing, but rather His doing. Rather upon the blood atonement of Christ. His blood forever puts away our sin. Salvation is for folks just like us, sinners. The Lord will continue His mercy unto His covenant people. There is a continuance of His covenant mercies to His people.

You remember back, turn a couple pages back, Isaiah 54. Isaiah 54, David said on his deathbed, God had made with me an everlasting covenant, ordering all things, and sure, these are covenant mercies. Isaiah 54, verse 10, you remember this verse? Isaiah 54, 10, for the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed. My kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord. to have mercy upon thee.

Hmm. I was thinking of another verse here, if I can find it. Fear thou not, Isaiah 41 10, don't turn, let me just read it to you. Fear thou not, I am with thee, Be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee, yea, I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness."

There is that everlasting covenant of mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ. And because of that, we shall be saved. Now that's our prayer. Now here's our confession. Verse 6. We've sinned, but there is a continuance of mercy, and because of that we shall be saved. But, verse 6, we are all as an unclean thing. We are all unclean. That word thing has been added. We are all unclean. That means we are all sinners. And all of our righteousness is plural. All of our so-called goodness is vanity, filthy rags.

The best moral day, moral, moral day? The best moral day you've ever had? The best day you've ever had? In God's sight, might look pretty good. I mean, the Pharisees, they impressed the people in their day. Didn't impress the Lord, did it? He said, you justify yourself before men. God knows your heart. That which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God. We are all, this is our confession, we are all unclean. And the best we have is filthy rags. We all do faith as a leaf.

A leaf in the fall, you look at a tree, the leaves get green, yellow, red, and then they get brown, and then they hang there and they wait for the wind. And then what does that wind do? The leaf is absolutely helpless hanging on that tree. It can't say, I'm going to hang on, I'm going to hang on. Oh, no. The wind of God's power is going to blow that leaf away. And all we all do faith is leave. And that's just flesh. This flesh is fading like a leaf. And our iniquities, like the wind, taking us away. It's like that wind blows that leaf off that tree in the fall. And our iniquities, like the wind, have blown us away. Blown us away.

Those taught of God know these things to be true. As Newton said, and I'll repeat it, I'm a miserable sinner. that Christ is the almighty, all-sufficient Savior. And consider this, this is Isaiah's confession. But remember we read in Isaiah chapter 6, where he saw when the year that King Uzziah died, remember, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and those seraphims around the throne said, holy, notice they said holy, holy, holy. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Holy, holy, holy. And when Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, remember what he said?

Woe is me. I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. Mine eyes have seen the Lord. Well, all that's an unclean thing. Isaiah includes himself in that, doesn't he? Just like Paul said, O wretched man that I am. chief of sinners, less than the least of all the saints.

We're always an unclean thing. That is why we need salvation. Like the leper, everything we touch, do and say is contaminated and defiled with sin. We need his cleansing power, don't we, to put away our sin. So that's our confession. were always an unclean thing.

And all of our deeds, all of our so-called self-righteousnesses piled up together, nothing but a pile of sin, filthy, rotten rags, a pile of dung. Would you think about this? Paul said, I count all things lost, ruined, dung, that I may win Christ and be found in him. Would you hang on to filthy rags before the presence of the Holy God and say, look what I've done? Look at these filthy rags.

Would that recommend me to God? Absolutely not. That's just insane to think that. His best aid is altogether vanity. That's why we need His mercy. That's why we need the Lord Jesus Christ. We confess. That we are unclean, we confess our best deeds, our filthy rags. We confess our total depravity and our total inability.

Look at verse 7. There is none that calleth upon thy name. No man can come to me except the Father which sent me draw him. There is none that calleth upon thy name that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee. Thou hast hid thy face from us and has consumed us because of our because of our iniquities. No man stirs up himself to seek the Lord.

This idea of man's free will, that God made salvation a possibility, if you just avail yourself to it and make acceptance, they say, accept Jesus as your personal Savior, that statement's not in the Bible. We are accepted in the Beloved, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of our total depravity and inability, like a dried up leaf hanging on a tree, help us against the wind, even so our iniquities have blown us away, we have no ability to stop sinning against God.

None! You say, well I'm just going to stop sinning. You just sin! Because you lied. You see how ridiculous that is? If we say we have no sin, no sin nature, we deceive ourselves and the truth's not in us. So, we're always an unclean thing. This is our confession. Against thee and thee only have I sinned. David said, done this evil and thy side. We confess that we're shut up to the sovereign mercy of God alone. Verse eight. Thou has consumed us because of our iniquities. You've hid your face from us. But now, O Lord, verse 8, Thou art our Father. We are the clay. Thou art our Father. You're our potter.

We are all the work of Thy hand. Paul said, I am what I am by the grace of God. I am what I am by the grace of God. But God, but God, we truly confess that salvation is of the Lord. Thou art our Father. We confess we are sons of God by His electing grace.

Look across the page, Isaiah 63, verse 16. Doubtless thou art our Father, Isaiah 63, 16. Though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not, thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer. Thy name is everlasting. We confess that our salvation is totally of the Lord. Thou art our Father. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called sons of God. We confess all we have, all we know, all whatever will be is by the doing and dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the Lord's doing and it's marvelous in our eyes. He is our potter, we are the clay, we are the work of his hand. We are dirty, lifeless, empty, hopeless clay. But we're his. We're his clay. We're on his wheel. We're in his hand.

And he is the master potter who fashions us and makes us vessels of mercy in his sight. As it says in Romans 9, 21, hath not the potter power over the clay to make a vessel unto honor or to dishonor? His sovereign will to do so. We are the potter. We're in the hands of the almighty God. He can do with us what he desires to make us objects of his grace or objects of his justice.

But here's our confession too. We confess He's our Father. We confess we're the clay. We confess that we can't do anything for ourselves. We confess we're an unclean thing. But this is our confession too. The last part of verse 9. We are all thy people. We're yours. We're thy people. We are all thy people, all thy people.

And notice the reference on that last line in verse nine is Psalm 79, 13. So let's turn there. Psalm 79, verse 13. Psalm 79, verse 13. Psalm 79, 13, So we thy people and the sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks forever. We will show forth thy praise to all generations.

So we thy people, the sheep of thy pasture. And this psalm, don't turn to this one, Psalm 95 verse 6 and 7, O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. He's the Lord our Maker. We are His people. The people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.

As David said, according to your tender mercy, blot out my sin. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according to the multitude of thy tender mercy, blot out my sin. As old Mephibosheth said before King David, bowed himself and said, What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon me, such a dead dog as I am? David said, You're going to sit at my table as one of the king's sons, because of that covenant that he made with Jonathan. Remember the woman in Matthew 15? We studied this when we went through the book of Matthew. The woman that had the daughter that was grievously vexed with the devil. And the disciples were grieved because she sought mercy from the Lord.

And they said to the Lord, send her away, she's troubling us. And the Lord said, it's not meat to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs. And the woman said, Truth, Lord, yet dogs eat the crumbs which fall from the master's table. That's what they do, don't they? You know what the Lord said? O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto you as thou wilt. I'm going to take my place at the table of grace as a dog, his dog, waiting for a crumb from the master's table. We are thy people by his grace, by his choice, by his