It's just outstanding, thank
you. If you would, open your Bibles
with me again to Numbers chapter 11. I titled our message this morning,
Is the Lord's Hand Waxed Short? I took my title from verse 23,
when the Lord said unto Moses, is the Lord's hand waxed short? That phrase waxed short. It means
it's grown weaker. This is the question that the
Lord is asking Moses. Has the Lord grown weaker than
he used to be so that I'm not able to do what I say I'll do
now? He used to believe that I would
do what I said I can do. Have I grown weaker so now you
doubt that I can do what I say I'm going to do? Well, of course
not. Of course God hasn't grown weaker.
Our God, His name is the Almighty. He has all might, He has all
power. He will do what He wills to do,
because nobody has the power to stop Him, even delay Him. If the Lord has promised to do
something, you can rest assured of this, He's got the power to
do it. I want to give you six ways this morning that our God
has not grown weaker. You know, there's been a lot
of years, a lot of water under the bridge, between Moses' day
and our day, hadn't there? A lot of water. Well, the Lord's
not grown weaker in all that time. And the first way he has
not grown weaker is this. The Lord has not grown weaker
so that he cannot provide for his own. Now you just think up
to the point that Moses was talking with the Lord here, how the Lord
had miraculously provided for Israel during this time. When
Israel left Egypt, You know, they were in bondage. The Egyptians
did not want to let them go because they weren't gonna let their
free labor go. The Lord made it so that the Egyptians wanted
to see Israel go. They wanted to see them go so
badly. They gave them all their jewels,
all their gold, all their silver, so that they'd leave faster.
So there's, you know, no reason at all that they would need to
stay. You got plenty of resources now
to leave. They wanted to leave so badly. Israel spoiled Egypt
and they never even fought a battle with them. Israel left Egypt,
they went across the Red Sea, Pharaoh's armies chasing them.
You know, they're trapped at the Red Sea, they're defenseless,
they don't have an army, they have no weapons. And the Lord
took the biggest, mightiest army that existed in the world at
that time and killed every last one of them in the Red Sea. And
their weapons floated up onto the shore and suddenly Israel's
got the weapons. that they would need to be able
to defend themselves. Then they go out into the wilderness and
they got nothing to eat. And what'd the Lord do? He made
Brad fall from heaven. Brad would appear on the dew
at night and all the children of Israel had to do is got in
the morning and pick it up and eat it. They had plenty to eat,
all they could want to eat. And when Israel needed water
to drink, they thought they were dying of thirst and they come
to an oasis and they finally think, oh, we got plenty of water
here for us. And the water was bitter. It
was not drinkable. And the Lord showed Moses a tree
that was growing there beside the water. He told Moses, you
cut that tree down and throw it in the water and the water
will be made sweet. That's just exactly what happened.
They had plenty of water for all the people to drink. Another
time, there was no water, and Lord told Moses, there's a big
rock here. I'm gonna stand on that rock. It's a flinty, hard
rock. You take your rod, you smite
that rock, and out of that rock, it's physically impossible for
a rock to make water in, but Moses smoked that rock, and out
of that rock flowed water for three million people and all
their animals. Now, the people want meat to
eat. Now, I know that's ungrateful.
I mean, I recognize that that's ungrateful, but I can also understand
it. I mean, I can hardly go one meal
without meat. I mean, you gotta have meat, you know. My dear
friend Jeff Vandal says, if you're gonna have a good meal, meat
must be involved. So I can understand, I want meat,
can't you? But it's this attitude of ungratefulness that just,
after all the Lord had done for him, that's what brought the
Lord's anger. Verse 18, look what the Lord said. Say thou
unto the people, sanctify yourselves against tomorrow, and you shall
eat flesh. For you've wept in the ears of the Lord, saying,
who shall give us flesh to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt,
therefore the Lord will give you flesh, and you shall eat.
You shall not eat one day, or two days, or five days, neither
10 days nor 20 days, but even a whole month, until it come
out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you, because
you've despised the Lord which is among you. and went before
him saying, why came we forth out of Egypt? Now what the Lord
is saying here is, I'm gonna feed the people. I'm gonna feed
them so much meat, they're gonna be sick of it. In an unbelief,
look what Moses is asking, verse 22. Shall the flocks and the
herds be slain for them to suffice them? Or shall all the fish of
the sea be gathered together unto them to suffice them? Now,
the Lord said, I'm gonna feed the people so much that they're
just gonna be sick of meat. And Moses says, where's this
meat gonna come from? Well, if we kill all the flocks
that we have brought out with us, the sheep and the goats and
so forth, if we kill them all, that's not gonna be enough meat
to feed everybody. Well, it's gonna take all the
fish of the sea to be brought together to feed this many people.
That Moses sounds just like the disciples later on Well, our
Lord said, tell the people to sit down. The Lord had compassion
on them. They were sheep not having a shepherd. They were
hungry. Lord said, we'll feed them. Just tell everybody to
sit down and we'll feed them. And the disciples said, now how
are we going to do that? The only food we got is this boy's
lunch. There's a lad here. He has five barley loaves and
two small fishes, probably about the size of a sardine. Now what's
that among so many? The disciples doubted that the
Lord could feed all those people. And Moses did too. Even Moses,
this great man of God, he doubted that the Lord could do what he
said he was gonna do. Defeat all the people. And the
Lord tells Moses, now Moses, I provided for you all this time.
I provided. When you were a baby in Egypt
and they were killing all the boy babies, I provided for you.
I kept you safe. I caused you to grow up in Pharaoh's
home. And you left Egypt in afraid
You walked clear across this wilderness alone. Now how did
you get across that desert all by yourself? I provided for you. I brought you back. I brought
you back to tell you to Pharaoh, let my people go. And he did. And I brought you out. You've
seen all the miracles and all the wonders that I've done to
provide for you all this time, Moses. Now you think doing all
those miracles has made me grow weak and tired so I can't do
another one? Moses, do you think after I provided for you by myself
all this time, Now I need you to help me. You have to give
me all your hoarded up resources, you know, so that I can do what
I promised to do. Moses, do you think I've grown
so weak I need your help now? No, of course not. And let that comfort the hearts
of God's people today. 4,000 years have passed since
the Lord asked Moses, has my hand grown weak? the Lord's hand
still hasn't grown weak. He still has the power to provide
for his people. He'll provide, you just trust
him to do it. He has the power to do it. All right, number two,
the Lord's not grown so weak that he cannot save his people
from their sin. Look back at Exodus chapter six. Exodus the sixth chapter. When
the Lord talked about bringing Israel out of Egypt, He didn't
say, I delivered you from slavery. I delivered you from bondage.
He said, I redeemed you. I redeemed you from the house
of the bond. Exodus six, verse six. Wherefore say unto the children
of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under
the burden of the Egyptians, and I will rid you of their bondage,
and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm and with great judgments,
and I will take you to me for a And I will be to you a God,
and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, which bringeth
you out from under the burden of the Egyptians. I will do this. The Lord says, I will redeem
you with a mighty stretched out arm. And boy, that's what he
did, didn't he? And that's a picture of the way
God saves his people. He delivers them with a mighty
stretched out arm. And all these years later, The
Lord's hand still has not grown weak. The Lord made this promise
to Moses and his hand didn't grow weak despite the Pharaoh's
great army. The Lord's hand didn't grow weak
so that he couldn't defeat Pharaoh's army. The Lord delivered his
people from Egypt easily, didn't he? Easily. And he did it by
himself. And the Lord moves in grace and
mercy. to save his people from their
sin. He does the same thing. He saves them with a mighty stretched
out arm and he does it alone. He does it alone. He does it
by his right arm alone. Who is the right arm of God?
It's the Lord Jesus Christ, God's son. He came and accomplished
the salvation of his people all by himself. He made his people
righteous by his obedience to the law. We don't add our works
to his. Lord, how are you gonna make
us righteous? Do I gotta keep a few laws? That's the same thing
as Moses saying, Lord, if you can give all these people meat,
do we gotta kill all our flocks? You know, we gotta help you by
killing all our flocks, and then you give us some, and together,
you know, between me and Jesus, we got, no, sir, no. He doesn't need anything that
we got, and he won't accept anything we've got. Obedience, righteousness
comes by the obedience Christ alone. The price paid to put
away the sin of God's people. We don't have to reach in our
pocket, come up with some change. We don't have to look down the
seat cushions, you know, to see if we can find a little bit of
loose change. The price paid to redeem God's people from their
sin is paid by the blood of Christ alone. His blood is powerful
enough to save all of his people from all of their sin. This has
been accomplished by Christ alone. without any help from us. Now
that gives confidence and assurance of salvation to God's people.
I don't have any merit of my own that would make God want
to save me. I can't do something that would
make God have to do something for me. I've got no merit. There's nothing that I can do
to make myself easier to save. I'm an embarrassment of sin,
an embarrassment of inability of God required anything from
me. In order to be saved, I would
be deemed. I've got nothing to give. I've
got nothing to contribute. But here's our conference. God's
hand is not shortened that he can't save even me. Oh, he can
save. I'm not so far gone. The God's
hand of mercy and grace. Has grown short. so that he can't
quite reach me. God's hand is not grown short. It's not grown weak. He can still
reach to the bottom of the barrel and save a sinner like me. Pluck
me from the depths and bring me to himself. God's hand is
not grown short. You still can't outrun the long
arm of God's grace. It's long enough to reach his
people no matter where they are. Now you come to Christ. You come
and you rest in Him. Quit trying to come up with something
to make yourself more savable. Quit trying to come up with something
that makes your sin dad a little bit less and think, well, God
will save me now because I've done this and I know it's not
perfect, but I made this effort. He thinks, you know, that makes
me better than somebody else. Come to Christ and rest from
all that. He's accomplished the salvation of his people all by
himself. Now you come to Christ. and you
trust him, he's got the power to save you. Even you, he's got
the power. He saved others. Why not you? Has he grown so weak from saving
all these other sinners he can't save you? No, sir. No, he's got the power to save
you. Now you come to him. All right, number three. The
Lord has not grown so weak that he cannot give life and faith
to his people. In verse 23, the Lord said unto
Moses, is the Lord's hand whacked short? Thou shalt see now whether
my words shall come to pass unto thee or not. The Lord said, Moses,
I'm able to do what I promised to do. Whatever I say I'm gonna
do, I've got the power to do it, and I'm gonna make you see
it and believe it. Now the Lord has given us the
responsibility to preach Christ to our generation. I know he's
not given the responsibility to preach to all of us here,
but he's given us the responsibility as a church body to preach the
gospel to our generation, to our town, to the people that
God has given to us. And the gospel that we preach
is the most amazing story of love and grace and pity and power
that's ever been told. Our gospel The gospel of God's
free and sovereign grace is so great in its simplicity. That the human mind cannot comprehend
it. Our gospel is so great in its
simplicity. In its singleness. That the human
heart cannot believe it because it's just too simple. Man cannot
believe. There's nothing I can do. to
be saved. Man cannot believe there's nothing
I can do to at least contribute to this thing of my salvation.
Salvation is so simple. Our gospel is so complex, we
can never fully understand it in this life. Yet it's so simple. Its sole subject is Christ. It's
all Christ. Salvation is all Christ. It's Christ alone. Salvation
has been accomplished by Christ alone. And that salvation is
had simply by believing, by trusting, by resting in Christ alone. And that's so simple, a human
being cannot understand it. You cannot, you cannot. With the capacity with which
we're born, you cannot. You know, this is a very educated
group of people. I was thinking, just this graduation
season, we've got five high school graduates and three college graduates.
And I'm so thankful. Boy, educate your children. Get
yourself an education. By all means, it'll help you
in this life. But no matter how much education we got, no matter
how brilliant of a brain God gives us, we cannot understand
and believe the gospel. We cannot do it. the capacity
to do it. Huh? Then how could we ever expect
somebody to believe on Christ the Savior when we preach him?
I mean, if we go into this knowing men and women cannot believe
the gospel that we're preaching, why are we bothering to preach
it? Because the Lord's hand is not
whacked short, that's why. If this thing was dependent on
me, I'd still be working at the warehouse. We keep preaching
the gospel because the Lord's hand is not waxed short. He's
not grown weak. The Lord is able. We're not able
to do it, but the Lord's able to give us faith in Christ so
we believe him, so we trust him. We're dead and we cannot give
ourselves spiritual life. If someone with spiritual life
has the mind of Christ, they have a mind that understands
the gospel, they have a heart, they have a heart that believes
it, They have eyes that see? See, this is Christ. I see now. I understand this is all in Christ.
You have ears that hear? You hear Christ in the message.
You hear Christ in His word. We can't give ourselves life
like that. That's spiritual life. How's the dead ever going to
live? The Lord's hand's not whacked
short, that's how. He gives them life, He has the power to give
His people life. All we're called on to do is
preach Christ and Christ alone. Christ and Him crucified. And
Lord takes that message, God the Holy Spirit takes that message
and uses it to give life to His people. Then all we're to do
is to preach Christ and nothing else. Just preach Christ. I promise
you this. God's sheep will hear and believe.
They'll hear it and come to Christ because God's hand is not waxed
short. It hasn't waxed weak. The Lord
still has the power to take a self-righteous rebel and make that rebel hate
his works of righteousness, hate them, hate. And God has the power
to take that self-righteous religionist and make him trust Christ alone.
How will Saul of Tarsus Growing up at the feet of Gamaliel, I
bet you he was Gamaliel's star student, don't you? This man
was brilliant. Gamaliel would tell him something
once, and he'd remember it forever. He'd read some of those Old Testament
laws, and he'd remember them forever. And oh, he trusted him.
He said, I didn't break those laws. Outwardly, he said, I didn't
do it. I reckon he's right. Outwardly,
I know he did. Inwardly, because later on, he said, oh, when I
saw the law was spiritual, then I died. But before I knew what
the law said, you see, I thought I was alive, because I didn't
break those things outwardly. And he trusted in those things.
He took pride in those things. And he was willing to kill people
that believed something different. Now, how is that man ever going
to hate his works of the law and count them but done that
he might win Christ and be found in heaven? It's impossible. The Lord's hand's not whacked
short, that's how. The Lord had the power to reach
you. and make him hate his works of
righteousness that he used to love. That's what happens in
picture here in our text. Israel said they want to meet.
They said, oh, we were better off as slaves in Egypt. We were
provided for better by our bondage. We were provided for better then.
God's providing for us by his grace now. I was better off being
a slave. The Lord said, all right, I'll
let you have your way. I'm going to make you sick of
it. In verse 20 he says, but even a whole month until it come
out at your nostrils and it be lonesome unto you. I'm gonna
make you so sick of this. You're gonna be so sick of this
meat. You're gonna be thrown up so violently it's gonna be
coming out your nose. And that's what happened. Look
at verse 31. And they went forth a wind from the Lord and the
Lord brought quails from the sea and let them fall by the
camp as it were a day's journey on this side And as it were,
a day's journey on the other side, all round about the camp.
As it were, two cubits high upon the face of the earth. And the
people stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the
next day, and they gathered to quails. He that gathered the
least gathered 10 homers, and they spread them all abroad for
themselves round about the camp. And while the flesh was yet between
their teeth, air was chewed. The wrath of the Lord was kindled
against the people, and the Lord smote the people, with a very
great plague. They were all throwing up so
much it was coming out their nose, just like the Lord said.
And he called the name of that place, Kibroth Hetavia, because
there they buried the people that lusted. The Lord took what
they wanted and gave it to them so that they made them sick of
it. Well, that's what God does when He saves His people. He
makes them see. He lets them have their way and
lets them see the vileness, not just of their sin, the vileness
of their righteousness, the vileness of the best things that they've
ever done, and he makes them hate it. But now in order for
a sinner to hate what we used to trust in, the flesh can't
trust anything else but our works. The flesh can't believe anything
but our works. If I'm gonna hate what I used
to love, if I'm gonna count the very best things I've ever done
as manure, God's gotta give me a new nature. Because the flesh
is never gonna hate that. If I'm gonna hate my works of
righteousness, God's gotta give me a new nature. So if we're
gonna have faith in Christ, God's gotta create a new nature in
us. Now that sounds impossible, doesn't
it? How can God create a new nature in us? How's that possible? Well, it's not impossible. You
know why? God's hand is not waxed short. God created the whole world,
all of creation, he did in six days, six calendar days, 24 hour
days, and he did it just by speaking. And he did it by himself. God
created the world, there's nobody there to help him. Now you believe
that, don't you? You believe God created the heavens
and the earth. Well, has the Lord's hand... That was about
6,000 years ago. Has the Lord's hand whacked short
in 6,000 years that He still can't speak and give life? Of
course not. God's still doing the same thing
today. God, the Holy Spirit, uses the
seed of Word, the seed of the Word of God being preached to
give life to His people. You might be hearing the preacher
preach the same... You know, somebody asked me, It was at
Danville, Tuesday, and they asked me, are you gonna preach the
same message you preached Sunday night, you know, in Lexington? And I thought about being a real
smart aleck and saying, yeah, I'm gonna preach the same message
from a different text, but no, I didn't say that. You might
hear the preacher preaching the exact same message from a different
text. Message you've heard over and
over and over again. You think, oh, heard that before,
I've heard that before, I've heard that before, I'm so tired
of this, when can we go get something to eat? God Almighty says, let
there be light. And you see. Almighty God used the same power
that he used to say, let there be light. And there was light.
God saw that it was good. He uses that very same power
to create light in the hearts of his people. He does it by
the preaching of the gospel. God did that all by himself. God's given you light. You know
that God did it by himself. He did. He has the power to do
it. And he's the only one that has the power to do it. And I'm
telling you, when God gives us life, suddenly we're going to
hate those old works of righteousness. And the flesh is still going
to try to get you to trust in them. But the new man is going
to fight against it. That's that warfare between the
old man and the new man. The warfare is this, the new
man is still trying to get you to trust him in the flesh, and
the new man says, I won't trust anybody but Christ, because God
gave me life. And the new man's gonna prevail,
not because we're so strong, but because God's hand is not
waxed weak. All right, here's the fourth thing. The Lord has
not grown so weak that he still cannot send his preachers to
his people. Now this is a fact, fact of life. No sinner is going to be saved
without hearing a preacher. Now that doesn't mean that God
needs preachers. God doesn't need preachers to
do, you know, they got to go do something before God's will
can happen. God doesn't need preachers just like he doesn't
need anything or anyone. You know, he told the, He said
in one place, if I was hungry, I wouldn't ask you. I don't need
you to feed me. The cattle on a thousand hills
are mine. God can do whatever it is he's pleased to do. But
here's the reason why I say a sinner's not gonna be saved by hearing
a preacher. Because it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching
to save them to believe. God uses preaching, the preaching
of his son, the preaching of the gospel, to save his people
and give them faith in Christ. I alluded to this a minute ago.
We preach the gospel. We preach Christ. We preach He
is our righteousness. He is our sanctification. He
is our salvation. We preach Him. He's our prophet,
our priest, our king. He's all that we need. We preach
Christ and we don't invite sinners to do something. We command sinners. You trust Christ. That's God's
commandment to you. It's not optional. He's not inviting
you to believe Christ. God's commandment is you believe
on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And thou shalt be saved.
We command men and women, quit your works. Quit trying to do
works to make God happy. Quit it! And trust Christ alone. We take the word of God and we
preach, this is preaching. We preach God's message to God's
people. That's a serious burden. preaching
the message of God Almighty to the people that He loves. We
take God's Word and we say, look here, here's Christ. Look here,
here's Christ. Look here, here's Christ. We
just keep preaching Christ from all these different passages,
all Christ. Here He is. God's preachers speak for God
to God's people. That's why the Apostle Paul said
we're ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you
by us, we pray you in Christ's stead. If the Lord Jesus Christ
was standing here right, if he was the one preaching, this is
what he'd say to you, I'm saying it to you in his stead, be ye
reconciled to God. Surrender. Just quit and surrender
to Christ. That's a load in there. Now what man is sufficient for
these things? What man is sufficient? To stand before God's people
and speak to God is to hear God's message for you this morning.
What man is sufficient? Not a single one. Not a single
one. But God calls me and He equips
them for the ministry so that God's elect will be saved. and
so they'll be fed the word of God. Look back at the numbers,
again, 11, chapter 16. The Lord said unto Moses, gather
unto me 70 men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest
to be the elders of the people, and officers over them, and bring
them under the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may
stand there with thee. I will come down and talk with
thee there, and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee,
and will put it upon them. and they shall bear the burden
of the people with thee that thou bear it not thyself alone.
Now look over verse 24, here's when this happens. Moses went
out and he told the people the words of the Lord and gathered
the 70 men of the elders of the people and set them round about
the tabernacle. And the Lord came down in a cloud
and spake unto him and took of the spirit that was upon him
and gave it unto the 70 elders. And it came to pass that when
the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, they preached,
and they did not cease. But there remained two of the
men in the camp. The name of the one was Eldad, and the name
of the other Medad. And the Spirit rested upon them,
and they were of them that were written. But they went not out
unto the tabernacle, and they prophesied in the camp. And there
ran a young man and told Moses, and said, Eldad and Medad do
prophesy in the camp. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the
servant of Moses, one of his young men, answered and said,
My Lord Moses forbid them. And Moses said unto him, Envious
thou for my sake? Would God that all the Lord's
people were prophets, and the Lord would put his spirit upon
them. And Moses got him into the camp, he and the elders of
Israel. Now the Lord called these men, these 70 elders, and he
gifted them to, in the spirit of prophecy, he gifted them to
help Moses govern all these people, And this is a picture of God's
preachers. God calls his preachers out of
the congregation of God's people. They're just like everybody else.
God just sets his hand upon them, separates them out to be God's
preachers. And here's the thing about God's preachers. God's
preachers are still just me. They're still not God's gift
to him to preach, but they're still just me. With all the weaknesses
every other believer has. And since that's true, they won't
always do everything right. I didn't have the time to look
into or to speak very much on this Eldad and Medad, but I know
this, what they were doing was wrong. They should have gone
out there to the tabernacle and those kinds of things. What they
did was wrong. God's preachers just aren't going
to do everything right. But they will continue to preach Christ
to them. And that's the message that God is going to use to bless
His people in spite of the preacher's sin, in spite of his weaknesses. I tell you, what we need is preachers. Somebody to preach Christ. That's
what the church in the world needs. And older folks might
worry. We might worry about the next
generation. I was talking with a friend of mine recently And
he said, where are the pastors? Where's the young pastors? Where's
the young preachers? God's raising up to be pastors.
Who's going to preach to the next generation? Well, I don't
know, but you take comfort in this. The Lord's hand is not
waxed weak. He will continue to call out
his preachers. He'll continue to equip them
to preach the gospel. because I know this, the Lord
will not leave himself without a witness. He's gonna call out
his men and he'll equip them because his hand is not whacked
short. Fifthly, the Lord has not grown
wheat so that he cannot make his people righteous. Look at
Isaiah chapter 46. The Lord has not grown wheat
so that he cannot make his people righteous. Verse 12 of Exodus 46. Hearken unto me, ye stout-hearted
that are far from righteousness. I bring near my righteousness,
it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry. I will place salvation in Zion
for Israel my glory. Now this ought to, Grab our attention. When the Lord says, hearken unto
me, you stout-hearted that are far from righteousness. That's
us, isn't it? That's us by nature. We're stout-hearted. So we refuse to submit ourselves
to the righteousness of Christ. And we're far off. We are far
off from God's way of righteousness. I mean, we're so far off, we're
going the completely opposite direction. Our only hope to ever
be made righteous is that God will bring His righteousness.
We're going the wrong way. He must bring his righteousness
near, or we'll perish. Our only hope is that the Lord's
hand is not whacked short. That he's grown so weak, he can't
make his people righteous anymore. And the Lord's hand's not whacked
short. He still reaches his people. He still brings his righteousness
near. He brings it so near to them,
he has the power to put it in them. That's how near this righteousness
is. He puts it in them by giving
them a new righteous nature. So don't grow so pessimistic
that you think that you or someone else that you know and love is
a lost cause. As long as these bodies live,
we're not a lost cause. For this reason, the Lord's hand
is not whacked short. He still has the power to save
his people from their sin. And this is his promise. He's
going to do it. His salvation will not tarry.
He's going to bring it near and put it in his people because
his hand is not whacked short. He'll do it. And then here's
the last thing. Look at Isaiah chapter 59. The
Lord has not grown so weak that he can't forgive the sin of his
people. Verse one, Isaiah 59. Behold,
the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither
his ear heavy that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have
separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his
face from you that he will not hear. Now our iniquities, if
you'll just assume our iniquities are this big, thick, black book,
it's our iniquities that have separated between us and God. We're going to come back to God.
Something's got to be done with this heavy load of iniquity.
Somebody's got to come and take that iniquity away. So there's
nothing between us and God anymore. It's our iniquities that have
made it so that we can't come back to our God. And our sin
against God is so heinous. It's so scandalous. It's so offensive. All of our sin, it's not just
breaking the rules. It's open rebellion against God
who's done nothing but good to us. We can't put away our sin. We can't take that heavy burden
away. It's too heavy for us. If we try to take away our sin,
all we do is commit more sin. Two questions. Can God put away
our sin? Can he? And will he? Can he and will he? Well, I know
this. This is what God says, he's able.
The Lord is able, his hand is not whacked short. He has the
power to put away sin. And his hand of love is not whacked
short for his people either. The Lord loves his people. And
he forgives their sin for Christ's sake. He forgives the sin of
his people because Christ has the power to take the sin of
his people away. So the Father forgives their
sin. Christ our substitute has already suffered for it. He has
both the power and the willingness to put away the sin of his people.
So in conclusion, I want to ask you, take these questions home
with you and ponder them in your heart. Is there hope for you
this morning? Is there? If you believe Christ,
is there hope for your loved ones that don't know the Lord?
Is there hope? Yes, there is. Because the Lord's
hand is not whacked short. Here's a comforting word from
our God. He says his ear is not heavy. His ear, the ear of God
Almighty is open to the cries of sinners who are crying, begging
him for mercy. Can God have mercy on you? You
have loved ones that you care about and you pray for. You pray
that God would save them. Can God be merciful to them?
Will they hear you when you cry and ask him for mercy? Well,
God says his hand's not whacked short. His ear's not heavy. He's not tired of hearing sinners
call on him and beg him for mercy. He's not tired of it. Our God
has saved others. Yeah, we need to remember this.
God's in the saving business. He's in the saving, He's not
in the damning business. Oh, He will damn those who refuse
to believe on Him, but they did that all on their own. God's
in the saving business. He's in the business of saving
sinners. God saved others. Is His hand whacked short that
He can't save you? No, no. His ear's not heavy. You can
call on Him and beg Him for mercy. Here's a word of comfort to you
who trust Christ. Was the Lord strong enough to
save you all by himself when he first called you, when he
first revealed himself to you in the preaching of the gospel?
Was he strong enough to do that all by himself? Or did he need
the personality and the powers of persuasion of a preacher or
something? Did you have to get smart enough to figure this thing
out? Or was God powerful enough, strong enough to save you all
by himself and revealed Himself to you by Himself. He was, wasn't
He? That's all the Lord's doing. Well, from that time till now,
we've grown weaker, haven't we? If it's been any time at all
since the Lord revealed Himself to you, you've seen your body
grow weaker. You've seen your mind grow weaker.
Has the Lord's hand grown weaker since then that He might lose
me? No. The Lord's hand is not waxed.
Waxed short, you rest your soul comfortably on him. He has the power. His hand's
not waxed short. He has the power to save you,
and by his power, you'll be kept saved. You can rest assured of
it. All right, I hope the Lord will
bless that. His glory and our good. Let's
bow together. Our Father, how we thank you
for this precious revelation of who you are, that your hand
is not whacked short. And Father, I beg of you this
morning that you'd use that mighty right hand of your power, that
you'd reach down among us here this morning and lay hold upon
your people. Lay hold on one that as of yet
has not believed on you. Father, lay hold on them. Lay
hold on them by the right hand of your power. Give them life
and faith. Reveal yourself to them. Father,
I pray you'd reach your right hand of power down amongst your
people, that you'd lay hold upon us, that you'd comfort our hearts,
that you'd cause us again to look to Christ and comfort our
hearts in resting in him. Father, it's for your glory,
for the glory of your son, that we ask this great blessing, that
he might be glorified. It's in his name, for his sake
we pray, amen. All right, Sean, come lead us
in the closing hymn,