together tonight. Clay, you come preach for us, brother. Brethren, I'm so thankful to be with you and so Blessed and honored to be with you. I'm scared to death standing here. Your pastor, in 1994, I moved to Nashville, and my grandfather told me when I moved there, he said, you need to go sit under Marvin Stoniker. He's preaching the gospel. And I did.

And I sat there for 13 years, and Brother Marvin faithfully preached Christ to me. the whole time. And I still consider him to be my pastor. And I call him first when I have a question, when I need some counsel, and he's always faithful to give me scripture and give me just what I need.

And we've never had a ripple. We've cried, we've laughed, and the Lord just knit our hearts together. I was thinking a while ago, Gabe, when we were sitting over there I was thinking me and Gabe were kids sitting under Marvin in the 90s. And I thought we'd have never thought we'd be preaching the gospel. Never. God's grace is amazing. Amazing grace. But I love him. I love him. I love Glenda. I love you. And I'm so thankful to be here. Let's turn to Luke chapter 6. Luke chapter 6. Let's read the first five verses of Luke chapter six. My subject is rest and mercy, rest and mercy.

And it came to pass on the second Sabbath after the first that the Lord went through the cornfields and his disciples plucked the ears of corn and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath days? And Jesus answering them said, Have you not read so much as this? What David did when himself was a hungered and they which were with him, how he went into the house of God and did take and eat the showbread. and gave also to them that were with him, which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone. And he said unto them that the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath."

The Lord Jesus Christ, he is the rest that God has provided for his people. Rest from all our works. And God did it by mercy. God was merciful to us to choose us in Christ, to send forth his son, and to reveal Christ in us and bring us to rest in the Lord Jesus. Christ is rest.

Everything in this book is declaring he's the rest of his people. He is our Sabbath rest. Colossians 2 tells us that all the Sabbaths of the old Testament. They were a shadow, but Christ is the body. He's the substance. He's where the shadow was made from him, and it glorified him. He's the rest. And let's see that now. I want to show you the fact of it first, and how it's so that Christ is our rest.

It says there that in Luke 6, 1, it came to pass on the second Sabbath after the first that he went through the cornfields. The Lord Jesus is the second Sabbath after the first. This literally was about this time of year. It was when they offered the first fruits and the harvest had begun. But Christ is the second Sabbath after the first. All those first Sabbaths, beginning with the Sabbath in creation, God rested because the works were finished. All the Sabbaths he gave in the old covenant law, they all pictured Christ. They were first, but Christ fulfilled them. He's the second Sabbath after the first. He's the rest that they all pictured. Let's go to Hebrews 10. And let's see that. Hebrews chapter 10. And let me say this.

The Lord is giving us rest in two ways, primarily. It's rest from the works of the law by being our righteousness, by one man's disobedience, meaning we're made sinners. So by one man's obedience, many shall be made righteous. That one is Christ, righteous before the law. That means the law has nothing to condemn us with. The law says we are righteous, past, present, and future, given the law nothing but perfect obedience. But there's something else that we have to have rest from, and that's sanctification, being holy.

You know, when Brother Henry and Brother Scott were preaching back, you know, years ago, it was pretty cut and dry that you had a whole world of Armenians preaching free will religion, and then you had a remnant preaching the gospel. Nowadays, there's a lot of people that claim to preach sovereign grace. There's a lot more than there has ever been that claim to preach the gospel. I believe they're who our Lord was saying when he said, if it would be possible, they would deceive the very elect.

And the place where they bring the law back in is sanctification. Just like the Pharisees came down to these Gentiles that God had made righteous and holy in Christ and told them, now except you keep the law, you can't be saved. That's what Paul's dealing with in the book of Galatians. They didn't say Christ is not the end of the law for your righteousness to everyone that believed. That's not what they were saying.

But now to be sanctified, to be holy, you have to keep the law. And people today are declaring that sanctification is a co-effort between God and the sinner. They say it's synergistic between the Lord and you. That's not so. The fact of the matter is when we've been truly sanctified and given a new holy heart in regeneration, we stop looking to ourselves. The rest is we find all our righteousness and all our holiness in Christ. The fruit of true holiness is you stop looking at your holiness and you trust Christ to be your righteousness and your holiness. Look here in Hebrews 10, and we see both of these right here in Hebrews 10.

It says in verse five, when he cometh into the world, He said, sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. Our Lord Jesus came down to do for his people what we couldn't do. God was not pleased with those sacrifices and those burnt offerings. They pictured Christ. And he says, in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou hast had no pleasure.

Then said I, lo, I come. In the volume of the book, it is written of me. That's what I'm saying. Everything in the old covenant pictured Christ. And it said, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. Above, when he said sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin, thou wouldest not, neither had his pleasure therein which are offered by the law. Then said he, lo, I come to do thy will, O God.

He taketh away the first that he may establish the second. He's the second Sabbath after the first. He fulfilled everything that law pictured and took it out of the way for his people and made his people righteous and sanctified, righteous and holy, justified and holy, righteous and holy by what he did. Look what it says next.

It says, by the witch will. He said, I come to do thy will. He's quoting from Psalm 40. He said, thy law's in my heart, Lord. I come to do thy will. By the witch will, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time. It's done. It's done.

And he made us righteous by that one offering. Look down at the page at verse 14, for by one offering, He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. And he said, this is what the Holy Spirit reveals to us. He bears witness in our heart in the new birth that this is what the Lord Jesus accomplished. And he says here in verse 17, here's the good news.

God makes you to know, he said, their sins and iniquities will I remember no more because you're righteous before the law. Your sins and iniquities, I'll remember no more. Now, remission of these is, there's no more offering for sin. That means you can rest. You can rest in Christ. There are no more offering. We can stop working. Stop working. And then, also, we're made holy. We can come into the holiest of holies in prayer to God through our Lord Jesus, And holy God will have communion with us, and he will only do that if you're holy.

Look what he says, verse 19. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart When Christ enters, the holiness of the new man, the trueness of the new heart is Christ in you. And he says, in full assurance of faith, trusting he's all my righteousness, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. You see, righteousness is before the law. But in order to be righteous before the law, that has to come from a perfectly holy heart. The motive of the heart has to be God's glory alone, perfect faith in God, perfect fidelity to God in holiness of heart.

And listen, we had to be holy in our mother's womb. And we were conceived in sin in our mother's womb. We were unholy in our mother's womb. Our Lord Jesus was holy in the womb. and his people were holy in him in the womb. Sanctified by divine election in Christ by God the Father, holy in Christ our holiness in the womb.

And everything he did in holiness, in perfect faith and fidelity to God, his people did in perfect holiness, in perfect faith and fidelity to God. And then he laid down his life and put away all the sin of all his people and justified us forever making us the righteousness of God in him. That's what he teaches you when he gives you this holy heart. You look to him only.

You rest. For the first time, you rest. You can't worship God until you have rest, until you stop working. And he said if those offerings had ever put away sin, they'd have stopped offering them. And when he purges your conscience from those dead works and makes you know you're holy and righteous in Christ, You stop working. You rest in Christ. That's how our Lord Jesus is our righteousness and our holy. He is our rest.

He's the fountain open for sin so that you're right and uncleanness so you're holy. If anybody's here tonight in your You're laboring and you're heavy laden and you're trying to obey religion and the traditions of men and all the yoke they put on you. This is their big thing, Sabbath keeping and tithing. They want you there and they want you to give.

Christ is the end of righteousness to the believer and he's holding this. I pray the Lord give you a heart to rest in him. to rest in him, and really and truly start worshiping him. Now, that's how he's our rest, brethren. We don't begin in the spirit, then become perfect by the flesh. Paul said, are you that filled to have him begun in the spirit? Are you made perfect by the flesh? Now, get this. I want you to get this.

When you were conceived in sin in your mother's womb, you were unholy. You didn't get more unholy after that. You were unholy. You came forth unholy and unrighteous because Adam's disobedient. And when you're born again and there's a new man created, born of the incorruptible seed by Christ the husband through his bride, through the incorruptible seed of the gospel, that new man is holy and he's not getting more holy.

He's holy. When we were conceived, we were a human in our mother's womb. We came forth a baby, we grew up in that state of being a human, but we didn't get more of a human. And when you're born anew, you're holy, and you're gonna grow learning more of his grace and more knowledge of Christ, and you're gonna grow up in that state of holiness, but you're not getting more holy.

He's all your holiness and all your righteousness. This is what Paul meant when he said, we give thanks to the Father He said, who hath made us meet, fit right now to be partakers of the inheritance with the saints in light. Right now, everybody here that's born of God, you have the holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.

You have that holiness that the thief on the cross had with both his hands and his feet nailed to that cross. That holiness is Christ, that righteousness is Christ, and we're completing Him. Now, that's my first point. Here's my second point. Christ is our rest because He's our bread, providing everything we need all our days in this life.

We still got a ways to go. However long the Lord's ordained that we're gonna live, we got some life to go. How are we gonna be kept? It wouldn't be rest if it was up to us. It would not be rest if perseverance was all in our hands to do it ourselves. That wouldn't be rest. Rest is knowing Christ is our life. And he's providing everything we need in this life. Now look at our text.

It says, he went through that cornfield in Luke 6, Verse one, and his disciples plucked the ears of corn and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath day? Who led them to that cornfield? Christ did. Why'd he lead them there? They were hungry. The Lord knows what his people need.

And he owned the cornfield. That's his cornfield. And this whole world's his world. And just like he brings all his starving, spiritually dead children under the gospel, and he gives you the bread. And he feeds your hungry soul by making you hear this gospel and feast on Christ the bread.

Just like he did that in the first hour. The Lord keeps leading his people and providing everything we need in this life. Everything. He said, God who spared not his own son, he did not spare his own son. He delivered him up for us all. For everybody God trusted to him, he bore their sin and God would not spare him. God delivered him up for us. Now then that he has justified his people and made his people holy before God, shall he not with him freely give us all things?

You want to rest in this world? Look to Christ and know this is his cornfield, and I'm here, and he's feeding me, and he's leading me, and he's keeping me, and I don't have to worry. I don't have to fret and worry. You can't rest and worry. He said to spare us, he feeds them. Not one of them falls to the ground without him. He said, the lilies in the field, they don't toil and spin. Look how beautiful they are. Your heavenly Father knows you have needed these things. David said, I've been young and now I'm old.

I've never seen the righteous forsaken. I've never seen his seed begging bread. That's what Christ promised. He said, I'm the bread. He that cometh to me shall never hunger and he'll never thirst. You're never gonna be without the gospel if you're His. And you're never gonna be without whatever you need in this life. He didn't say what you want, He said what you need.

He'll give you what you need. Look to Christ. He must have the preeminence. And God's gonna make certain that He has the preeminence in the hearts of His people. And He'll provide whatever else you need. He'll provide whatever else you need. And that's rest, brethren. That's rest. And notice something else here.

The devil is the accuser of the brethren. And these Pharisees, they come accusing. They had added all their extra laws to God's law. And nothing the Lord did with his disciples was against the law that day. But they come accusing. They had added law.

They said that if a man plucked corn on the Sabbath day, he reaped. If you just plucked the ear of corn, he was reaping. If you rubbed it between his hands, which the Lord tells us he did on purpose, because they had a law that said if you rubbed it between your hands, you're milling. And if you blew it to separate the silk that was on it and the chaff so you could eat it, you were winnowing.

And the penalty was you had to die by stoning. That's man. Self-righteous religion is mean religion. You know, the Lord healed a man right after this that had a withered hand. And they were filled with madness because he did it on a Sabbath day. He fed these men. You know, the law, the first table of the law is to God. The second table is to man. And the fulfillment of that is love. And here's Christ. He is God, he's the Lord of the Sabbath, and he's feeding his hungry people, and they're mad about it.

And they would rather keep a day, and a dead letter, and a form that they thought was their righteousness and their holiness before God, and murder a man with their accusations, and show him no mercy. And the Lord said in Matthew, he said, if you knew what this means, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. You wouldn't have condemned the guiltless. Paul said, who is he that's going to lay charge to God's elect?

It's God that justified him. It's Christ that died for him. He's risen and interceding for him. And you know here, who didn't talk? The disciples didn't say a word. That's rest. Christ defended his people. And he'll defend his people. He'll defend you. You can be quiet. What does the psalmist say? Commit it to the Lord. He'll bring it to pass. He'll bring forth your righteousness as the noon day. Just trust him. He'll do it.

And I want to go to Hosea 6. I want you to see where the Lord, where he said that when he said, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. I want you to see where he got that. I want you to see what he says about this thing of accusing. And look, I'm telling you this, number one, If anybody here trying to come to God in your works, you are not going to succeed. The Lord's not going to have you. He has one sacrifice that he is totally, thoroughly, completely satisfied with, and that's his son. And he's not going to receive anything you sacrifice to him. Trust him. Believe on him. Forsake your righteousness and your so-called holiness. Trust him.

And let me show you what it is when a man is blaming, accusing, Charging, that's not rest. You're not resting if you're doing that. These Pharisees weren't resting. They're working. And let me show you what the Lord says it is. Look here now in Hosea 6. Look at verse 4. O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? For your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away. Therefore I've hewed them by the prophets, I've slain them by the words of my mouth, and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth.

For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. God delights to show mercy. He pardons the transgression of his remnant passers-by because he laid them on his son and he poured out wrath on him and made him a curse for it. And he's just to be merciful, and he delights to be merciful. But look at this now. But they, like men, have transgressed the covenant. There have they dealt treacherously against me. And that day when they were accusing Christ and his disciples, they were dealing treacherously against God.

When Christ said, if you knew what this means, I will have mercy, he was saying, I'm God. I'll have mercy. and he's God who will have mercy and not sacrifice. Look, Gilead's a city of them that work iniquity, it wasn't righteousness, it was iniquity, and polluted with blood, unholy, and look at this now, and as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of the priests murder in the way by consent for they commit lewdness. Our Lord is saying when those Pharisees sat and watched them and accused them, It was just like a bunch of robbers lying in wait to murder men and rob them. That's what the Lord says about any work you and me do. If our motive in our heart is to try to find acceptance for God, it's murder. When we condemn his people and try to exalt ourselves by condemning his people, rest is knowing this. The Lord Jesus Christ is going to save his people. Rest is knowing He's gonna protect you. He's gonna provide for you. And the accuser of the brethren can't, the devil can't accuse you before God. There's nothing to accuse you with. His only ammo was sin, and Christ put it all away. He don't have anything with which to accuse His people with. And the Lord is gonna stand between you and anybody that wants to charge you in this world, and protect you, and provide for you, and keep you, and bring you to glory. That's just how it's going to be. Now, with that said, here's Resch, back in our text.

And I'll be very brief right here, but he gave them this example of what David did. And everything David did here is what Christ did for us. Consider the spirit of this. It looks like David broke the law, and he did really break the law. But the spirit of what he did and the heart in what he did is what the Lord looked on. And the Lord said, this was good. What he did was good. Look what he did. Jesus answered them and said, have you not read so much as this? He's saying, you fellas have no idea what this book teaches. That's what he's saying. Look.

What David did when himself was hungered, and they which were with him, how he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the showbread, and gave also to them that were with him, which it is not lawful to eat for the priests alone. David was on the run from Saul the king and his men. And David goes into the priest, and the priest said, well, what are you doing, David?

He said, I'm on the king's business. He could have been charged with treason for that. He really could have. And the priest said, here's the showbread. This is only for the priest. This is holy bread separated for the priest so long. David said, give that to me.

And he took and gave it to his men. David was willing to be guilty to have mercy on his men and give them bread that they needed to eat. That's exactly what Christ did for his people. Christ came down and was made sin for us to declare God just to make him a curse and put away the sin of his people and be just to be merciful to us. And then he came and gave us bread.

And see, when he says he delights in mercy, God delights to show his people mercy, but God delights when his people show mercy. Blessed are the merciful. They'll be blessed with mercy. Be merciful like your father. That's what he teaches us. So it really takes faith in the Lord. It takes resting in Christ to be merciful.

You know, your brother does something that's not right. It's real easy to go and accuse them and put them under the law and try to force them to do whatever you think they ought to do. It's real difficult, unless God in his grace gives you the heart to do it, to trust that Christ is their master, they're righteous in him, they're holy in him, and he's able to make them stand. And so instead of talking about them or talking to them, be merciful to them and go to Christ and pour out your heart to him. And ask him, Lord, help them. Feed them. Give them rest while you rest in him to do it. Wait on him to do it. Stand still and wait. That's hard to do.

When the Lord Peter said, Lord, how many times do I forgive my brother? 70 times? He said 70 times. Without limit. The next word was, Lord, teach us, increase our faith. That was the next word, increase our faith. Takes faith that that brother's really righteous in Christ, really holy in Christ, and the Lord's gonna keep him. And anything other than that, it not only brings the brother under bondage, it brings us under bondage.

It makes us We just get all tangled up. You don't have any rest. Rest is looking to Christ and knowing, that's not my brother. I'm not judging after the appearance anymore. My brother's in there. Hey, my brother's that new man in there. That's his old man I'm looking at. But the Lord is going to renew him, and the Lord's going to keep him. And I'll see my brother.

So what I'm going to do, how did the Lord save you? How did he give you this rest? He fed you the bread. He fed you the corn. So I'm going to speak and remind him what Christ did for him. And the Lord will make him stand. And that's rest. While you're doing that, trying to help a brother, you know who will be blessed most by it? You. The pastors here tell you. We study to preach, and we pray and ask the Lord to give us a message. And you're just so blessed. You just have such rest. By the time you get to the pulpit, Lord has blessed you. You've been feeding on that, and you can't wait to tell the brethren about it and feed them with it.

And when you're praying for your brother, and you're speaking of Christ to him, and you're trying to remind him of what Christ has done, and you're praying to the Lord to help him, and you're resting in the Lord to do it, You are the one being blessed by the Lord.

And remember this too, let me tell you, every trial we face, that's the purpose of it. Remember when the Lord gave the manna in the wilderness? He said he gave it to prove them, whether they'd walk in his law or no. The law were under his grace, faith, and love.

And whenever that great multitude was standing there, and they were hungry, thousands of people were hungry, And the Lord turned to Philip and he said, how are we going to feed all these people? He's the bread. He told him right after that, I am the manna. And he said, how are we going to feed all these people? And it said, this he said to prove him, because he already knew what he'd do. Every trial is the Lord proving to us.

He's not proving how strong you are. He's proving to us we are not strong. Philip Satcher was. 200 penny worth won't feed these people. He's standing by the bread. He's standing by the one who owns the cornfield. And he's looking to himself. Where we going? We got a couple of fish and some loaf. We can't feed this multitude. And the Lord teaches us that over and over. Left to ourselves. We don't have any faith. We can't rest. We don't have a thing.

And he reminds us again. I am the bread. I am the life, I am the righteousness, I am the wholeness, I am the rest, rest in me. That's what every trial is about. We make it too complicated. What's the Lord trying to teach? He ain't trying to teach you nothing. He's telling you again, you're the sinner, Christ is your all. And he's going to bring you to the end of yourself again and renew you to rest in him. It's always the same. And he's preparing us for the very last trial. And what's going to happen at the last trial?

This life of faith is like a huge desk with all these books on it. You think all this stuff is important. You know, you start out, sin's just in the outward, and you've got to do this and that, and this is important. And that does get more narrow and more narrow. Every trial, it gets a little more narrow. Stuff just keeps falling off. Stuff that isn't necessary just keeps falling off. Every trial, the Lord narrows it down a little bit, a little bit.

And you come to that last trial, and you take your last breath, and you open your eyes. And there's one person there, and that's Christ. And he's all you needed the whole time. And that's what he's teaching us in every single trial. One thing's needful. You got one possession that'll never be taken from you. Every other relationship's going to end. You got one possession that'll be yours forever. And if you have him, you have all. Thank you.