If the Lord will ever teach us
that one simple truth that Brady just sung, it's Christ alone. We'll understand the whole gospel.
Christ, Brady, thank you. I just love that song. Love when
you sing it. Alright, turn back in your Bibles
with me to Isaiah 50 if you would. I titled the message this morning,
Who Divorced You? Who divorced you? By nature,
all men are born separated from God, divorced, separated from
God. And that divide between God and
man is so great, we can't even see God from where we are. We're
born spiritually blind so that we can't see. We can't see any
distance. We can't understand. We can't
understand what God's like. We can't understand what we're
like. We can't understand how sinful that we really are. We're
blind. We can't see. We can't understand. Our understanding is darkened.
So we can't understand. How can God save a sinner like
me and still be just and still be holy? How can God save a sinner
like me and be right to do it? That's the question. We're also
born with a heart that's spiritually dead. So we can't love. any spiritual truth. By our nature,
we can't love God, we can't believe on Christ. It's just impossible
for the dead to hear anything. I know many people have spoken
to a loved one after they've died and the casket is worth
saying goodbye. And I'm not against that, but
here's the thing, that dead person's never heard a word. Not one time
ever, it's impossible for the dead to hear. And the same thing
is true spiritually. And if we're left to ourselves,
we'll die and be damned for eternity. In a nutshell, that's the condition
our condition is in. And that makes me wonder two
things. Number one, how did I get in this mess? How is it I became
separated from God? And number two, is there a way
out of this mess? That's what I wonder. Now I'm
gonna give you four things that are made obvious in our text
this morning. They're obvious if the Lord's
given you spiritual eyes to see, but there's a certain amount
of just things that are obvious here anybody should be able to
see. Number one is this. The separation
between God and man is man's fault. Look at verse one, Isaiah
chapter 50. Thus saith the Lord, where is
the bill of your mother's divorcement? Whom have I put away? Or which
of my creditors is it to whom I've sold you? Behold, for your
iniquities have you sold yourselves, and for your transgression is
your mother put away. I'll tell you what the prophet
is saying here, what the Lord is saying here. Under the Mosaic
law, a man could divorce his wife for any reason whatsoever. Now, if he did that, the divorce
would be all the husband's fault and the wife would be blameless.
Now this is not talking about a case in which the wife committed
adultery. In that case, the husband wouldn't
have to divorce her. They'd stone her to death and
that separation would then be her fault for committing adultery,
right? But in this case, the husband divorced the wife just
because he wanted to. For any reason whatsoever, and
it didn't have to be a good reason. Maybe he said, I don't like your
cooking. Oh, I don't like the way you keep a house. Maybe he'd
decide, I just don't like the sound of your voice. Even though
she really didn't do anything wrong, he could just say, hit
the street. And she'd have to do that, just
for whatever reason that came to his mind. But if he did that,
everybody would have to know that the husband bears the responsibility
for this divorce. If he's gonna do that, he has
to give her a bill of divorcement so she can show everybody why
she was divorced. She didn't abandon her husband.
Her husband abandoned her and she had a legal piece of paper
to show everybody, this is why I'm divorced. It's not my fault,
he kicked me out. He separated himself from me.
So the divorce is 100% the responsibility of the husband. That's why she's
alone in the world, he's abandoned her. Now here's what the Lord
is saying to us. Where's the paper that said I
left you? Where's the paper that said I
abandoned you? Where is it? You don't have one,
do you? No, if we're separated from God,
it's our fault. Look over a few pages, Isaiah
chapter 59. Verse one. Behold, the Lord's
hand is not shortened that it cannot say. You're not separated
from God because you're so far out of reach that his hand can't
reach you. Neither is his ear heavy that
it cannot hear. You know, if you're crying to
God, he can hear. You know, if God doesn't hear
you, it's not because his ear can't hear, it's because you're
not crying. That's what he's saying. But your iniquities have separated
between you and your God. and your sins have hid his face
from you, that he will not hear. For your hands are defiled with
blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken
lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. None calleth for
justice, nor any pleadeth for truth. They trust in vanity and
speak lies. They conceive mischief and bring
forth iniquity." Now, why is it that we're separated from
God? It's not God's fault, is it? It's our fault. It's because
of our sins. Our sins. Me being separated
from God, it's my fault. It's my fault. It's not Adam's
fault. It's not because of Adam's sin.
My sin has separated me from God. I'm separated from God because
of my sin and my nature makes it so I can't see God. And we're
so sinful and so rebellious, we've also covered our blind
eyes so that we can't see. We've refused to look to Christ. Every person in this room has
heard this gospel cry, look and live. The same cry that Moses
cried to the children of Israel in the wilderness after they
were bitten with those fiery serpents. And Moses made him
a serpent of brass that looked just like those fiery serpents.
Moses lifted up on a pole and said, look and live. Christ has
been preached, lift it up to you. Lift it up on the cross,
now look and live. Look and live. And we refused
to look. That's my fault, isn't it? It's
my fault. The point of all this is that
this bill of divorcement, the separation between me and God,
It's my fault. And if you're here this morning
separated from God, I'm telling you this, it's not God's fault,
it's your fault. That's what scripture says. Now the second
thing the Lord uses to illustrate a person being separated from
God is a person selling their children off to pay their debts.
Now man can get in so much financial difficulty, so much debt, he's
bankrupt. But now in those days, the creditor
didn't just, you know, write off the debt as a loss, you know,
to bad debt. The creditor would take everything
that the debtor had, everything, including his wife, including
his children, including even himself if he had to in order
to satisfy the debt. And you know, a man could be
so hard-hearted that he sold his wife and his children and
that was enough to pay the debt. He sold his wife and his children
to slavery, he went free. A man could be so hard-hearted,
he'd do that. Now the Lord asks you and me, who have I ever owed
a debt to, huh? When was I ever the debtor? God's
not a debtor. God's in debt to no one, and
if you had a debt, there's never a debt God cannot pay. We aren't
slaves to God's law and God's justice because God sold us under
siege. We're slaves to sin because we've
sold ourselves under sin. I mean, it's our fault. And then
when he says here in verse one, behold, for your iniquities you
sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother
put away. This is your fault. It's the fault of your own sin.
So this verse makes it obvious, if I'm separated from God this
morning, right now, I'm separated from God, it's my fault. It's because of my sin, because
God cannot, he's holy, cannot look on me in my sin. Well, that brings me back to
my question. Is there any way to close this gap between me
and God? Well, not by human efforts, there's
not. You know, man can't see his way back to God because he's
blind. Man can't make a way back to God, he doesn't know how.
Man is powerless to do anything to save himself. Powerless. Now that doesn't mean you can't
do anything. I want you to understand that. Don't think, oh well, you
know, Frank's saying if I'm going to be saved, I'm going to be
saved. Nothing I can do about it. Tell you what you can do. You can
call on God and beg Him for mercy. You can be like Bartimaeus and
cry out to God and refuse to quit crying. Saying, Jesus, thou
son of David, have mercy on me. You can do that. You can bow
before God in prayer and ask Him to give you life. You don't
have faith, I understand that, I understand. But you can ask
God to give it to you. Faith is a gift of God. It'd be a mighty
good idea to ask him to give it to you. You can make sure
you're here to hear the gospel because it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. You can avail
yourselves to the means of grace. You can beg God for mercy. Now
you can't save yourself. That's got to be so, it's in
Christ alone, isn't it? But you can beg God to save you,
you can do that. Well, here's the second thing. This restoration
between God and me can only happen by the power of God. Look at
verse two. Wherefore, when I came, was there
no man? When I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened
at all that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver?
Behold, in my rebuke, I dry up the sea. I make the rivers a
wilderness. Their fish stinketh, because
there's no water, and dieth for thirst. I clothe the heavens
with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering. Now, when God
the Son came to earth in the flesh, he said, why wasn't anybody
looking for me? There was nobody looking. I mean,
maybe there was a handful. Simeon was looking for him, Anna,
Zacharias and Elizabeth, they were looking for him, but just
a handful. And you know why that is? Because
nobody by nature, nobody left to their own steam, will ever
seek God, ever. If you're seeking God this morning,
I'm gonna tell you why, it's because God sought you first,
that's why. Romans 3 verse 11 says this, there's none, none
that understand him. There's none that seeketh after
God. Not one son of Adam by nature will ever seek God. And when
the Lord called, he said, why didn't he my answer? Because
we're such rebels, we won't do it, will we? Christ came unto
his own, and what happened? His own received him not. Almighty
God chose that nation Israel to be his nation, to be that
picture of spiritual Israel, to be the picture of his spiritually
elect people. He chose Jews, he chose Israel,
and he came as a Jew. He didn't come as a Philistine
or an Amorite or some other. He came as a Jew. He came to
the Jews who had all the types and pictures and promises of
God that all pointed to Christ. And they rejected him. They set
their feet in the sand and said, I will not have this man to reign
over me. When somebody cried about him,
what did they cry? Crucify him. Give us, bribe us
and crucify him. The Lord came into his own. His own received him not. And
that, you know, that nature, just in case you want to know,
not just of the Jews, it's you and me too, isn't it? And when
the Lord called, oh, such a gracious call. He said, if any man thirst,
they come unto me and drink. Out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water. Nobody came to drink. You know
why? Nobody's thirsty. Dead people
aren't thirsty, they don't feel anything, do they? They thought
they were righteous enough in their own works of the law, so
they weren't thirsting for the righteousness of Christ. Lord
cried, such a gracious cry to sinners, is anybody weary? Come
unto me, I'll give you rest. And nobody came to him for rest.
Because everybody thought they were doing just fine on their
own. They thought they had the power and the strength to keep
in God's law, Good enough to satisfy God? They weren't tired
yet. The Lord came preaching. He came crying, there's mercy
and peace with God found in me. Now come to me. You have mercy. You have peace with God. And
nobody came to Him by nature. Because nobody by nature is seeking
mercy because they don't think they need it. The only people
that ever came to Christ and followed Him or people that Christ
came to them and said, follow me. That's who came to Him. Men, by nature, just don't think
they need mercy. They think they've done well
enough to satisfy God. I'm just as good as my neighbor.
I've done good enough. Nobody's seeking peace with God,
and you know why? They don't know they've declared
war on God. They don't know there's this
problem. Now, doesn't that sound like an impossible situation
to you? Here's somebody that can't see
and won't see. Here's somebody that can't hear and refuses to
hear. Here's somebody who's dead. They
can't come, but they also won't come to Christ. That sounds like
an impossible situation, doesn't it? Well, it's impossible unless
you're God. God says, my hand is not shortened
that it cannot save. My right hand, the Lord Jesus
Christ, that mighty right hand of God, is powerful enough to
save even the worst of sinners and save them to the uttermost,
save them completely. There's no sinner so bound up
in sin that God's power can't reach down and pluck that brain
from the fire. And the Lord gave us so many
pictures of his power, his power to save in the Old Testament.
When he delivered Israel from bondage in Egypt, Israel had
been down there in Egypt for 400 years. And I'd say for 300
of those years, maybe, a lot of years, Israel became slaves
in Egypt as soon as there arose a pharaoh that didn't know Joseph
in his lifetime. So however long that was, the
bulk of 400 years, they've been slaves. Slaves don't own anything. Slaves aren't trained in weapons. They don't have weapons. They're
not trained to use them. How is an unarmed people with no
money to raise up an army ever gonna escape from the greatest
power on this earth? How is that possible? How can
they ever do that? Only by the power of God. By
the power of God, not only did they leave Egypt, the Egyptians
thrust them out. And Pharaoh had buyer's remorse
and he went out with his army after Israel and tracked them
into Red Sea. Here's Israel on this peninsula, the Red Sea on
this side, Pharaoh's army, the mightiest army on the planet
on this side, and they're trapped with no way out. How are they
going to escape? God and His power parted the
water and made water stand up in walls and made that seabed
to be dry powder. And Israel walked across. And
then Pharaoh and his army tried to do the same thing. They got
in the middle of that sea and God caused the waters to close
back down and killed every last one of them. Not one of them
escaped, not one. And before that happened, God
sent Moses. See, here's a great example. You refuse to hear. You will not hear. God sent Moses
and told Pharaoh, God said, let my people go. And Pharaoh hardened
his heart. Pharaoh hardened his heart, Pharaoh
hardened his heart, Pharaoh hardened his heart, and finally God hardened
his heart. That's why he chased after Israel
down the Red Sea. But Moses came and said, God
said, let my people go. Pharaoh wouldn't do it, and God
sent plagues. Plague after plague after plague.
And he still wouldn't let his people go. God turned the waters
of Egypt to blood. You think all the water in Egypt,
the Nile and all the Streams and all the the the water and
pots and waters everywhere turned to blood the fish all died Because
you know they get their oxygen from from the water somehow and
they can't do that from but they all died and stank up the whole
country Pharaoh still wouldn't let God's people go Then God
says here is he said I sent darkness I Said darkness in Egypt. That's
so dark. You could feel it You just couldn't see your hand in
front of your eyes people sat there for days. They didn't move
anywhere So they couldn't see nothing except down there in
Goshen. There was light in all the Egyptians houses Pharaoh
still wouldn't let God's people go. I mean you just think of
the the power the physical power of that all those plagues that
God sent the lice and the locusts and all the plagues that That's power. I mean, I just
can't think of the power to make water stand up in walls. It just
boggles the mind, doesn't it? And all that is is just a picture. That's just a picture of God's
power to save. The power of God to save His
people from their sin. When Christ died, there was a
river of blood that came out of Him. That blood came out and
it cleansed All of God's elect, a number no man can number. I
mean, we think, well, this is impressive. Three million people
walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. The one sacrifice
of Christ, the blood of one man, cleansed a number no man can
number from all of their sins. What a power. There is a fountain
filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's vein, and all sinners,
okay, who they are, where they're from, sinners plunged beneath
that flood, lose all their guilty stains. And as the Savior suffered,
God turned the sun off again. He did that in Egypt, didn't
He? When Christ suffered for three hours, there was darkness
over all the land. Blackness covered everything.
Now, I don't know all the reasons why God did what He did there,
but I do know one. God turned the sun off because
what was going on at that time, it was so great. It was so powerful. Man can't see it. Man can't understand
it. And we don't need to. Because
what was going on there was not for you and me. As Christ hung
on that cross in his agony, you know what was going on there?
God was doing business with God. I had a friend from the South
one time said it's business. God was doing business with God.
I mean, this is God satisfying the justice of God against the
sin of His elect. God the Son was made sin for
His people. He wasn't made a sinner. He was
made sin. Made sin. So that He could make
His people the righteousness of God in Him. Now that's not
something for you and me to gawk at. That's not something for you
and me to fight about. That's not something for us to divide
about. That's not something for us to gawk at. God turned the
Son off when His Son was made sin. Man can't see what's going
on there because this is not a transaction. This is not an
offering between Christ and you and me. This is an offering of
the Son to the Father. This was the Son, God, making
His soul and offering for sin. And I'm telling you what, after
three hours, God turned the sun back on because the transaction
was done. Christ accomplished what he went to the cross to
do. He has the power to save because who he is, he's the son
of God. He's perfect. He's the only man
who perfectly kept God's law ever. There's power in his blood
because of his holiness, because of his righteousness. He took
the sin of his people and put it away because he suffered as
their substitute. He took the punishment his people
deserved. Now since Christ died, everyone
for whom he died, they must live. They must live. Just like the
justice of God demanding the son die when the son was made
sin. If Christ died for you, that
very same justice of God that demanded Christ's death demands
your life. It demands it. God's gonna give
them life. He's gonna give those people
life. He's gonna give them light so that they love Christ and
believe Him. Now, only God has the power to do that, to make
a dead sinner live, to give a dead sinner faith in Christ, to make
a blind sinner see Christ and believe on Him. Only God has
the power to do that. And I'll tell you what's truly
amazing. If this is not amazing to you, I'm afraid that you've never
seen Christ as he is, or yourself as you are. This is the amazing
thing about what happened at the cross. The Lord Jesus Christ
did that for the likes of me, for the likes of you. He did that. He suffered like
that. for the worst sinners he could
find. I tell you, only God has the power to do that. Here's the third thing. Restoration
between God and men can only happen by what we've been talking
about, by the sacrifice of Christ. In verse four, he says, the Lord
God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should
know how to speak a word in season to him that's weary. He wakeneth
me morning by morning. He wakeneth mine ear to hear
as to learn. Christ came as the messenger
of the covenant. That's the way he's described
in Malachi 3 verse 1, the messenger of the covenant. He came as a
preacher. He came and what he preached,
the message he preached is described in the four gospels in different
ways. It's the gospel of the kingdom.
He came preaching his kingdom. What his kingdom is, who the
king is, and how you become a citizen of that kingdom. He came preaching
the gospel of grace. Oh, grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. He came preaching grace to sinners. Grace just dripped from his lips
like honey from the honeycomb. He came to preach the gospel
of God. Who God is and how God could save sinners and still
be who he is, still be God. Christ came to preach rest to
the weary. He came to preach forgiveness
to the guilty. He came to preach mercy to the
miserable by the grace of God. And the Lord Jesus Christ, the
messenger of the covenant, he preached the message that the
father gave him to preach. The father taught in his ear
and he turned and gave the message to us, the message of the father.
This is the message that the father would have us hear, the
message of Christ. And he has such power that he
teaches the dead, the dead. We were talking about this the
other night. My hat is off to all you teachers. I think being
a teacher in today's world has to be the most difficult occupation
there could possibly be. I just, I don't, I don't understand
how a teacher can keep control of a class. I mean, you know,
when I was in school, you know how a teacher kept control of
the class? They had a paddle about this long, and that pretty
well, you know, ruled the room. Being a teacher today has got
to be the most difficult occupation that there is. If you have a
heart to teach children, I mean, oh, thank you. Thank you. Our
society needs you so much. But it seems to me like it's
impossible to teach somebody they don't want to be taught.
Does that sound impossible to you? The Lord teaches the dead and
makes them hear and believe. I mean, maybe in a rare case,
I think maybe you could make somebody want to learn and don't
want to learn. Maybe. The Lord teaches the dead and gives them
life so that they hear and believe. The Lord takes that rebel that
doesn't want to learn, just refuses to hear, refuses to learn, refuses
to do their homework, refuses to do anything. And the Lord
teaches that rebel. You know what he does? He makes
him a son. Oh, I want God to be our teacher, don't you? The
Pharisees sent some men, I'm assuming they were maybe hardened
soldiers, maybe hardened in self-righteousness, the self-righteous works religion
that the Jews were in. These men were hardened. They
were willing to go do this job. The Pharisees sent these men
to go take Jesus and throw him in jail and be done with him.
And they went to take him and came back empty-handed and the
Pharisees said, what's wrong? They said, never man speak like
this man. I mean, this man's speaking with power and authority
you boys don't have. When he speaks, his people know. When he speaks, his sheep hear. And they follow him. They follow
him. Christ came to preach the message
that the Father sent him to preach. Salvation is by grace. Salvation
is by the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, which came to take away
the sin of the world. And then he went to the cross
to fulfill it. Look at verse five. The Lord hath opened mine
ear and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave
my back to the smiters and my cheek to them that plucked off
the hair. I hid not my face from shame and from spitting. For
the Lord God will help me. Therefore, shall I not be confounded?
Therefore, have I set my face like a flint? I know that I shall
not be ashamed. Now this is speaking of the Old
Testament law of the bond slave. You know that story. A man became
a slave, like we talked about earlier. He had to sell himself
into slavery, pay off his debt. No other way for him to pay it
off. But after a while, as he was a slave, maybe his master
gave him a wife, and they had children, and his master is a
good master. He said, boy, life is better
for me serving my master than I was out there on my own. It
came time for him to go free. He said, I won't do it. I'm not
going to go free. I love my master. I love my wife
and the children that my master has given me. I'm going to keep
being a slave to my master. Well, at that point, he wasn't
a slave because he had a debt anymore, was he? They called
him a bond slave. They took him down to the town
square and with it all, They put his ear up to the post and
they, with an awl, they bored a hole in his ear. When it says
here, the Lord God opened mine ear, that means digged. They
digged out a hole in his ear with an awl. And the Savior said,
I didn't turn away back. I didn't turn away from that.
I gave my ear to be bored with an awl. Had a great big old gold
earring hung in it so that everybody would know this is not an unwilling
slave. This is a willing slave. He loves his master. His master's
a good master. That's Christ our Savior. He
became the willing bond slave to his father. He loved his father. And he wanted to please his father.
He wanted to do his father's will, so he became the willing
bond slave to do the job the father sent him to do. And he
became the willing bond slave because he loves his bride. There's
a people that the father gave him. Gave him to redeem, gave
them to be his. That's his bride. But in order
to have his bride with him forever, now she's got a debt. She's got
a sin debt she can never pay. If he's gonna have her with him
forever, he's got to pay her debt for her. So he became a
man who could be made under the law. God can't be made under
the law, but a man can. He became a man to be under the
law so he could keep the law for his bride. He could do for
her, but she can't do for herself. And he became a man who could
suffer, who could die. God can't suffer. God can't die,
but a man can. So God became a man, so he could
die in the place of his people, as the substitute for his bride.
And he became that bond slave, the willing servant of his father.
And he did what he said he'd do. He pleased his father. He never turned his back on his
father, and he never turned his back on his wife. That's why
we can't say, I've got a piece of paper here that says he abandoned
me. He didn't turn his back on his
wife. Whenever you read about the Savior, he's always described
as the willing Savior. Nobody could take him against
his will, he went willingly. When they came to take him there
in the garden, just to show everybody who's in control here, he said,
who are you looking for? They said, Jesus of Nazareth.
He said, I am, and they all fell flat on their back. And by the
time they gathered themselves together and stood back up, he
hadn't run away, he was still there. No, he's just showing
them, you don't have the power to take me. I give my life. I give my life for my sheep.
That's why he set his face like a flint to go to Jerusalem. He
knew what would happen there. He told his disciples many times,
I know exactly what's gonna happen there and I won't be turned away. When Peter said, well, Lord,
if you know what's gonna happen there, don't go. The Lord was so offended by that,
he looked Peter in the eye and said, get thee behind me Satan.
That thought that I would not go to the cross is satanic. He
said his face like a flea would not be turned away to go to the
cross and suffer and die. And when they nailed him to the
cross and lifted him up and put that thing down and it's all,
don't you feel sorry for poor little Jesus hanging on that
cross. And that's not just me saying that. As he was going
to the cross and those women were weeping, what did the Lord
say? Don't you weep for me. I'm not a victim. I'm a champion. I'm going there to defeat every
enemy of my people and I'm doing it willingly. He gave his back
to those that would rake that cat of nine tails across his
back. He gave his cheeks to those that would pull his beard out
by the handfuls. They spit in His face and He
didn't turn away. He gave His hands and His feet
to be nailed to the cross. I just always think about that.
I would assume when a Roman soldier crucified somebody, they always
had to fight them to get their hands in place and nail them
to that tree, don't you reckon? Don't you think they wondered,
why is this so easy? The Lord laid His hands there
for them to nail them to the tree. Your legs are pretty strong.
You can kick your legs around and try to keep somebody from
nailing your feet to a hunk of wood. I can promise you I would
if somebody's trying to do that to me. Not the Savior. He willingly
gave himself to be pierced. And he did that so the law would
be satisfied. See, in order for justice to
be satisfied, somebody's got to die for sin. And he took the
sin of his people. You know, of all the suffering
of our Savior, one of the worst things had to be to him. for the Holy Son of God to be
made seen. You think how abhorrent that
was to his nature. And he did it willingly, because
a guilty man had to die. He willingly became guilty. Guilty. To satisfy God's law, he willingly
laid down his life, and when the price was paid, he had to
give up the ghost. They couldn't even kill him.
He had to give up the ghost. Now the law is satisfied. Now
the law has no more claim on anyone for whom Christ died.
Now you take comfort in this, and you take assurance in this.
If you trust Christ, I want you to have comfort and assurance
for your heart. Do you think the Savior, who
has all power, the power to turn the sun off, the power to turn
water into blood, the power to make those walls of water stand
up in the Red Sea so the children of Israel could cross on dry
ground. He's got the power to put away the sin of his people.
He's got the power. He told them one day, just so
you know, I got the power to forgive sin. He told a paralyzed
man, take up your bed and walk. I got the power to forgive sin.
The Savior who has all power, if he suffered and died for you,
you reckon he's ever going to let you perish? Is there anything
powerful enough to pluck you from His hand? Not a chance. Now you rest. Rest in Him. Rest in Christ.
You see, this willing servant, this willing sacrifice, He's
the successful Savior. Look at verse 7. He says, now
this is going to the cross, hanging on the cross. This is what the
Savior said. For the Lord God will help me.
Therefore shall I not be confounded. Therefore, this is the reason
I've set my face like a flint. I know that I shall not be ashamed.
He's near that justifieth me. Who will contend with me? Let
us stand together. Who is mine adversary? Let him
come near to me. Behold, the Lord God will help
me. Who is he that shall condemn me? Lo, they shall all wax old
as a garment. The moth shall eat them up. Now
the Savior says, I know this. I know. I'm gonna get the job
done. He endured that shame. He despised
the shame and the suffering because he says, I know that God's gonna
justify me. I know this thing's not gonna
be in vain. I know it's not. The Lord God will help me. Now,
the son of God, he didn't need any help, did he? Because he's
God. But the son of man needed help. He needed help to endure
what he had to endure. And the father strengthened the
Lord Jesus to do everything that needed to be done. And then the Savior, the Holy
Son of God, this is an interesting statement. He said, the Father
who's near to me will justify me. Now, how did the Lord Jesus need
to be justified? He's already just. He did no
sin, He knew no sin. Well, the Father justified the
Son by raising Him from the grave. See, the Father gave us proof
that Christ justified all of His people. by His sacrifice. All the sin that had been laid
on the Son is now gone under His blood. He was delivered for
our offenses. He died for the sin of His people
and He was raised again for our justification. He was raised
again as the proof His sacrifice justified His people. Now get a hold of your seat here. I want us I don't want us to
be silly, but I want us to be excited about the gospel. You get a hold of this. The sacrifice
of Christ is so successful that everyone he died for is justified. Without sin. If Christ died for
you, you have no sin. The same thing that is true about
the head is true of the body. The same thing is true about
Christ is true about you, if you believe him. That means God's
elect, Have no sin. They have never sinned. When
God looks at you, he's never sinned. Because Christ died for
you. His death put your sin away.
That's the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. That's the only
way that we can be brought back to God. Now quickly, let me give
you this in closing. Here's the fourth thing. Here's
a word of instruction and encouragement. Trust Christ alone. The Lord here gives us a word
of comfort for God's people, and he gives us a word of warning
for the rebel that refuses to trust in Christ. First, here's
a word of comfort. Verse 10. Who is among you that
feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that
walketh in darkness and hath no light? Let him trust in the
name of the Lord, and stay upon his guard. Now trust in the Lord. Do you see him? Do you love him?
Keep trusting him. Stay. upon your God. Just trust
Him. He'll save you. He'll keep you. Maybe you don't understand right
now, but He'll save you. He'll keep you. He'll make the
way obvious. Just trust Him. He'll never fail you. I mean,
what adversary do you have to be worried about? If Christ died
for you, who can be against you? Satan. He can't be our adversary,
can he? Because his head was crushed
at Calvary. The law can't be against us. Christ satisfied
us. He obeyed it and satisfied it. My own sin can't damn me
because Christ already died for it. He was already condemned
for it. My old man, he can't make me run away and not trust
Christ. He tries to, but he can't do it because God's given me
a new man that reigns and delivered me from the power of sin. Now,
those adversaries, they're all real. They'll make an effort
to get you, but they can't. They won't be successful. They're
just all going to wax old like a garment, just like a moth eaten
The moth gets in there and silently just eats up that garment, disintegrates
to nothing. That's why our enemies will be.
That you trust Christ. He'll endure forever. He'll endure
forever. And then he closes here with
a word of warning, verse 11. Behold all ye that kindle a fire.
Encompass yourself about with sparks. Walk in the light of
your fire and the sparks that you've kindled. This shall you
have of mine hand. you should lie down in sorrow.
You know, you think you've got some light, you've got some spiritual
light and understanding you've generated on your own, you know.
You've got some ability, you've got some worthiness of your own.
You know what that light is? It's like sparks from your own
fire. It's like a popcorn. You know, it might make a little
sound, a little spark. You know, I used to love those
rolls of you put inside a pop gun, you know, I like to smash
them and the little gunpowder, you know, explode. It's just
a spark. Never lasted, never amounted
to anything, never gave me any light. Sparks from your own religious
works, they're the same way. They're not going to give you
any light. Only Christ can do that. And here's the warning. God will
meet you on the ground that you want to meet him on. He sure
will. If you want to come to God in
Christ, here's good news for you. God will meet you in mercy.
If you want to come to God in Christ, He'll meet you there.
He'll meet you in mercy. And if you want to come to God
on your own, by your own works, by the sparks of your own fire,
God will meet you there too. And you'll die in sorrow. So
let me tell you one more time. Come to Christ. Trust Him. Trust Him. We've seen
the problem, the problem's you. My problem's me, your problem's
you. And we've seen the remedy. Best I can tell you from God's
word, we've seen the remedy. The remedy's Christ. Now come
to Him. Come to Him seeking mercy. He's
the successful Savior. All right. I hope God will bless
that. To your hearts and His glory. Let's bow together. Our Father, We thank You for
Your Word, this precious portion of Your Word that so clearly
shows us we're the problem. And so clearly points out to
us Christ, the Savior of sinners. Father, I beg of You that You
take Your Word and Your Gospels that's been preached this morning
through a faltering, cracked clay pot. And Father, by the
power of your spirit, cause it to go forward in power, to reveal
to each heart here the glory of Christ our Savior, to show
us our need, to show us our emptiness, and to show us his glory and
his fullness. And Father, I beg of you that
you give us faith to trust Christ and rest in him. Father, this
is a great blessing. We don't ask a small thing, we
know that. When we ask you to have mercy
on us, save us to reveal yourself to us but father would you get
glory to your name by showing mercy to us that's our prayer
father it's in christ's name for his sake in his glory we
pray amen all right sean