Thank you, Mike. He driven a
lot of nails at me. If you would, open your Bibles
with me to Isaiah chapter 3. I can't tell you how deeply and
earnestly heartfelt desire I have to be able to give you some comfort
this morning. And it's good when the Lord teaches
you. You don't know much. You don't
have much talent. You don't have much skill. So
you are wise enough not to do anything but just stick to God's
Word. That's what will comfort your
hearts. And I want to this morning honor Brother Dale's memory. And the best way to do that is
by preaching the gospel that he loved so well. Dale's wish was at this time
that his family and his friends would hear the gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the gospel that gives sure salvation, that
gives hope and confidence and assurance to his people. And
it was his prayer that the Lord would give us faith to believe
Christ as his priest. And our text this morning is
a text that I've preached from before. And I remember Dale got
such a blessing from it. I thought it would be good that
this is a good time for us to go back and look at it again.
Draw some comfort and assurance from Christ our Savior in this
text. The title of the message is It
shall, I like shalls and wills. This is not a maybe, this is
not a doubt, this is not a could be, this is not so for some people
and not so for others. It shall be well with the righteous. I took that title from verse
10 of Isaiah chapter 3. Say ye to the righteous that
it shall be well with him, for they shall eat the fruit of their
doings. As a preacher, I just love it
when the Lord gives a clear message. There's no guesswork about this
message. The Lord said, this is what you
say to my people. It shall be well with the righteous. I want us to go back and look
at the situation that was in Israel at this time when the
Lord sent this message, it shall be well with the righteous. Understanding
the situation in Israel will be a blessing to you. Let's go
back here. Verse one of Isaiah chapter three. For behold, the
Lord, the Lord of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and
from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread and the
whole stay of water. And the Lord took away all the
food and water supply from Israel. He took away everything that
this flesh depends upon for life. That he did that for a reason.
Lord did that for this reason. so that his people would learn
to depend upon the Lord to provide everything that they need. The
Lord did this. Gene, what an accident was it?
No, the Lord of hosts did this. You know this. Everything that
happens comes to pass for this reason. It's the way God ordained
for it to happen. He ordained this to happen from
before the foundation of the world. And right now, all he's
doing is bringing to pass His will. This has happened to accomplish
the purpose and will of God. God's the first cause of everything.
This didn't happen because the devil did it. This didn't happen
because Mother Nature did it. This didn't happen because some
doctor messed up. No, the Lord our God did this
to accomplish His eternal purpose. And even when I don't understand
it, I can find some rest and some confidence and some peace
in this. Our Heavenly Father did this. Verse 2, the mighty
man, the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent,
and the ancient, the captain of 50, and the honorable man,
and the counselor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.
The Lord took away all the mighty men out of Israel. He took away
their leaders. He took away their counselors.
He took away those judges. The men have been around long
enough to be able to to have some wisdom, to lead Israel.
These are the men that Israel relied upon, and the Lord took
them away. See, that's why I want to go
back and read this. This is what happened. This is what's happened
to this family and to this congregation. The Lord took away one of our
mighty men. One of those men you talked about.
Those men who would lead. The Lord gave some wisdom, but
the Lord took them away for this reason, so that we would learn
to depend upon and to follow the Lord. Not men, not even His
choicest servants, not the best of men, but we're to follow the
Lord. We follow Him. Now, we're thankful
for these mighty men, these wise men, these counselors that the
Lord's given to lead His church. But always remember this. Christ
is the shepherd. Christ is the one. He's the one
who leads His people all the way. Now, he'll use different
men from time to time to do it. But the Lord is the shepherd.
He's the one, as Jacob said, who shepherded me all my life. The Lord hasn't changed. He's
still shepherding his people. And our trust, our confidence,
the one we follow is him. But you know, when the Lord takes
away these leaders, when he takes away these mighty men, this is
what we worry about. We're worried who's going to
take their place. You know, if it's not somebody is wise or
not somebody following Christ, we could have a disaster on our
hands, couldn't we? And you know, that's exactly what happened
in Israel. Look at verse four. And I will give children to be
their princes and babes to rule over them. And the people should
be oppressed, every one by another and every one by his neighbor.
The child should behave himself proudly against the ancient and
the base against the honorable. When a man shall take hold of
his brother of the house of his father saying, thou has clothing,
be thou our ruler and let this ruin be under thy hand. You know,
when we leaders rise up who don't know anything, they're just like
children. They're immature, they're self-serving, they're self-willed.
It's always going to cause big problems. And we worry about
this when the Lord takes away these mighty men, you know. And
the reason for that is people suffer in the absence of leadership. People suffer without it. In
the absence of genuine, real leadership, people will clamor
after anybody to be their leader. Somebody lead. Somebody take
the lead here. That's why this is a truth that
worldwide over, people love a father figure. People love father figures. Because they want to know that
somebody that's got some wisdom, somebody that's got some care
and love about me is leading this thing, you know. That's
what people loved about Dale. They just saw him as a father
figure. That just appeals to people. But in the absence of
a true leader, people will pick almost anyone. That's what verse
6 is saying here. They go to this fellow and say,
well, you look like you could be a leader. You know, we need a
judge. You got a robe, so you be the
judge. They're looking at these outward things to try to decide,
is this person a leader? But if there's no inner character,
if God hadn't given him some wisdom, he doesn't be able to
lead. Isn't that exactly what happened to Israel when they
wanted a king? They said, well, who could be king? You hear that
guy standing out, head and shoulders above the tallest one, head and
shoulders above everybody. He looks like he could be a king.
And they had a disaster, didn't they? Instead of just waiting
on the Lord to lead, instead of waiting on the Lord to reveal
His will. And whoever this was, they asked to be the leader.
Apparently, the Lord gave him some wisdom. Look at verse 7.
And that day he will swear, saying, I will not be a healer. I'm not
going to be a leader, for in my house is neither bread nor
clothing. Make me not a ruler of the people. Now, it's good
this man, you know, said I'm not the leader. You know, if
he had just stepped up and been a leader, it would have been
a disaster. It's a good thing he realized that, but in the
end, here's what's happened. The people are left without a
leader. They're left with these children, these self-willed,
self-just promoting, self, self, self, these little children to
be their leader. And the Lord allowed that to
happen. He allowed this to continue. He's teaching us this lesson.
We follow the Lord. We look to the Lord. And if you
don't wait, if you don't follow the Lord, you don't wait on Him,
the disaster that we're in is going to be our own fault. Look
at verse 8. For Jerusalem is ruined and Judah is fallen because
their tongue and their doings are against the Lord to provoke
the eyes of the Lord. So what this is saying is Jerusalem
is ruined and it's her own fault. And can't we say that spiritually
about our situation? We're ruined. And it's our own
fault. I can't blame Adam. Yes, Adam's
guilt was imputed to me. Absolutely it was. But I can't
blame Adam. It's my fault. It's my sin. My
fault. Now in the midst of this sin,
in the midst of man's sin and God's judgment against man's
sin, God sends his servant with the promise of mercy. In the
middle of this curse against sin, man getting what he deserves.
God sends covenant mercy to his people. And you know what covenant
mercy is? Covenant mercy just means this.
It means God promised mercy to his people. If God promised it, he promised
mercy to his people. You reckon it's coming? Of course
it is. God promised that this, in the
midst of man's ruin, in the midst of this time of sorrow and disaster,
God sends a message of comfort to his people. It's a promise
of his mercy. It shall be well with the righteous. That's a promise. That's a promise. God's preacher is sent with this
message to God's people. No matter how bad it looks right
now. No matter how heavy the heart. No matter how you feel
like you just cannot go on. No matter how bad it looks right
now. It shall be well with the righteous. It shall. But we've got to talk about this.
This message is not for everyone, is it? You can't just go out
and tell people at random when these awful sorrows come upon
us, well, no, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay.
Well, I think we better be careful about that. What does God say
here? It should be well with the righteous.
Now, who are the righteous? I want to know, am I one of the
righteous? Well, the righteous are people who know this. I'm
not righteous in my nature. The people who are righteous
know, I'm not righteous because of anything I've done or anything
I will do. The righteous are those who are righteous in Christ. Christ is their righteousness.
Their righteousness is a person. Jehovah said Kennedy. The Lord
our righteousness. Those people who are righteous
are people who are in Christ. Now we say Christ is the righteousness
of his people. Eric just explained it to us.
What that means is this, that our righteousness is Christ's
obedience, the obedience of the man, Jesus of Nazareth. His perfect obedience to the
law is our obedience. That's how we're righteous. Not
through what we do, but through what he's already done for his
people. Look over Romans chapter three. God's people are made
righteous. by Christ obedience to law for
us as our representative, as the representative of his people.
And he gives that righteousness to his people through faith,
through faith in Christ. Romans three, verse 20. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by
the law is the knowledge of sin. See, this righteousness doesn't
come by what we do, does it? All the law is going to do, all
it's trying to keep the law is going to do is give us a knowledge
of our sin, how we always fail to keep the law. Righteousness
is received by faith, verse 21. But now, the righteousness of
God without the law, without your obedience to the law is
manifested. Be witness by the law and the
prophets. This is told all throughout scripture. even the righteousness
of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon
all them that believe, for there's no difference. Our righteousness
comes by the faithfulness of Christ to keep the law of those
people. And it's received by faith in
Christ. Now, Christ is the righteousness of the believer. And that righteousness
becomes ours in two ways. First, Christ's righteousness
becomes ours. by imputation. Look over page
of Romans 4 verse 20. Christ's righteousness becomes
ours because he imputes it. He charges it. He reckons it
to be the righteousness of his people. Romans 4 verse 20. Speaking here of Abraham, Abraham
staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but
was strong in faith, giving glory to God and being fully persuaded
that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And
therefore it was imputed. It was counted, it was reckoned
to him for righteousness. Now, this was not written for
his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also, to whom
it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our
Lord from the dead. Now, the Lord Jesus obeyed God's
law perfectly. And that's what righteousness
is. He obeyed God's law perfectly. And then he imputes that. He
counts it to be the righteousness, the obedience of his people.
He gives it to them. So it's theirs. It's their righteousness. He gave it to them. Now we say,
is that real? Is that imputation real? Imputation,
the doctrine, the teaching of imputation is not some theory
written down on some paper, you know, only John Gill can understand.
It's real. Adam's guilt was imputed to everyone
that he represented. Is that real? Can you do anything
but sin? Then the imputation of Adam's
guilt is real, isn't it? Now, that's how we were made
sinners. Well, the righteousness of Christ
being imputed to his people is real so that they are righteous. It's not like they're righteous.
It's not that they'll be righteous someday. They're holy right now
because the righteousness of Christ was given to them. So
his righteousness becomes the righteousness of his people by
imputation. But secondly, it becomes ours
by impartation, being put in us by the new birth. When a sinner
is born again, there's a new man born and he's new. Everything
about him is new. He's holy because he's got a
new father and new seed, a holy father, this holy seed. In the
new birth, we receive a holy nature. the nature of our heavenly
father. Just like in our first birth,
we receive the nature of our earthly father. Adam, you receive
the nature of your father. You look like him. You act like
him. You're his son. That's obvious. The same thing's
obvious about God's children, his sons. They look like him. They got his nature. It's put
in them in the new birth. Now, When we're born again, I
know you know this, but you always have to say this. Don't be disappointed
when you see all I still do is sin, because that's all the old
nature has not changed one bit in the new book. There's a new
nature given where a new holy man is put in, is born there
by God. That that nature, he's not of
us, is it? Not of us, not something we did,
but he sure is in us, isn't he? Because God put him there. Now
that's who the righteous are. I want you to listen to God's
promise to the righteous. There's no doubt about this promise. No doubt whatsoever. It shall
be, not it might be, not it will, Sometimes, but sometimes it won't. It won't be this way for some
of God's children, but others of God's children, you know,
maybe he don't love them as much or he's not as concerned about
them. So it won't be this way with them. No. It shall. Without a doubt, always be well
with the righteous. There are no qualifications to
this promise. You don't have to meet certain qualifications.
You don't have to trust enough. You don't have to love enough.
You don't have to be faithful enough. There are no qualifications.
Christ already met every qualification for his people. So it shall be
well with the righteous. There's no details given in this
promise. It's not, well, when will it be well? Or sometimes
will it be more well than others? No. It shall. Always. in every situation, be
well with the righteous. I want to give you just a few
examples, a few points. I've got four of them. It shall
be well with the righteous. God says to his preacher, when
he sins, you say to the righteous, it shall be well with you. Like I said, all we do is sin.
Now, I'm talking to believers here. I'm talking to those who've
been born again. Those who are righteous. Yet
everything we do is still sin, isn't it? Everything. And our
sin bothers us. I was talking to a dear friend
of mine the other day. Someone asked him, do you have
a problem with guilt? And he said, oh, I just go around with a cloud
over my head all the time. Our sin bothers us, doesn't it?
I don't want to sin. I don't. I want to be like my
Savior. But all I do is sin. And God
promises judgment against sin. I do not want to do that. I do what I do not desire. I
do it anyway. But God says, You say to the
righteous, it shall be well with you. Why? Because Christ already suffered
the just for the unjust. So it shall be well. It shall
always be well with the righteous because Christ took their sin
away. Their sin is gone. So it will always, in every situation,
even in the midst of our sin and weak faith and stumbles and
bumbles, it shall be well with the righteous. Number two. This is for today. Ross, I reckon
every point for today. You see how applicable this is
to today. When we go through times of trial,
and heartache and sorrow that we think will break us. God tells
his preacher, this is what you say to my people. It shall be
well with the righteous. This trial is not going to separate
you from God. This trial is not going to take your righteousness
away. It shall be well with the righteous. Now, that's not to
say that the trial won't hurt. It's not to say that trials aren't
coming. No, they're coming. It won't
be tough. It's just going to be tough.
They're going to cause tears and fears. But you say to the
righteous, it shall be well with you. Why don't you look at 2
Kings chapter 4. 2 Kings 4. This is right. You know the story
of the Shunammite woman. This is right after, immediately
after, That son of hers died. He's dead. I want you to look
at this. 2 Kings 4, verse 25. She went and came unto the man
of God to Mount Carmel. And it came to pass, when the
man of God saw her afar off, So he said to Gehazi, his servant,
behold yonder is that Shunammite. Run now, I pray thee, to meet
her and say unto her, is it well with thee? Is it well with thy
husband? Is it well with the child? And
she answered, no, everything's a disaster and I don't know what
I'm going to do. That's not what she answered, is it? She answered,
it is well. How on earth can she say that? I'd like to know when you, when
we're hurting, I'd like to know how can I say, not just given
a religious catchphrase, how can I say this and mean it? It's
well, it's well. Because she believed God, that's
why. She believed God. She believed His covenant mercy,
His promise mercy. She knew, she believed all things. All things. work together for
good to them who love God, to them who are called according
to His purpose. So when we're like Israel, when we're in a
situation like Israel was, and everything in this life is taken
away and we're hurting and we're left without those things we
used to rely upon. It shall be well with the righteous.
Because Christ is your bread of life, because Christ is your
water of life, It should be well with the righteous. Right. It should be well with the righteous
God, your father. It should be well with the righteous
because Christ is your foundation. He's our wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification and redemption. Christ is your life. This stuff is not our life. What
we're doing here, what we're going through here is the valley
of the shadow of death. This is not our life. You just
expect death and decay and darkness and sadness because that's all
sin can bring. This is not our life. Christ is your life. Then it can't be anything but
well, can it? Jackie, you children, you grandchildren,
There are few things that I can guarantee you. I can guarantee
this. In the coming days, the coming
weeks, I can guarantee something. Something that you already know,
but something you're going to learn a whole lot better. God's
grace is sufficient. It's not. It's not. I asked a
little girl one time. We were at a funeral. is the funeral of my dad. And
she saw me. She's just a little thing. She
came up to me and she saw me. She just broke down and sobbed.
And I told her, God's grace, this is okay. God's grace is
sufficient. I said, you've heard preachers
say that before? She said... I said, do you know
what that means? She said... I said, it means
God's grace is enough It's enough. Yes, this hurts. I'm sorry. I
wish it wasn't this way. But God's grace is enough. His covenant promised mercies
will be enough. He didn't promise to give his
children not enough. He promised to give him enough. It's sufficient. God doesn't do anything is insufficient.
You're going to learn he will never No never, no never leave
you nor forsake you. How can I guarantee that to you?
Because God who cannot lie promised. It's enough. If we have him,
it's okay. That'll comfort our hearts. Number
three, when we go through the experience of death, you say
to the righteous, it shall be well. Now we all face death with
a little bit of uncertainty. Every believer would like to
leave this world and go be with the Lord, but there's some uncertainty
about death. But not because there's fear
or doubt in the Savior, it's just we don't have experience
with that yet. We haven't done that yet. Everybody who's done
that is already with the Lord. But in our hour of death, it
shall be well with the righteous. It shall. God who gave grace
to live by will give grace to die by. It shall be well with
the righteous. Now there's no reason for the
believer to fear death. Not at all. We talked about that
Friday morning. There's no reason for the believer to fear death.
Of all of our mixed emotions, fear not one of them. We have
sorrow and joy. We have heartbreak and rejoicing.
But in all those mixed emotions, one of them's not fear. No, we
don't fear. Our Lord said a believer doesn't even die. Our Lord said
the believer sleeps. We look forward to a good night's
sleep, don't we? We don't dread sleep. We welcome
it. We need it. It's good for us. A believer can look at the
death of these bodies in the exact same way. It's good for
us. It's rest and sleep. So we can
go be with the Lord. For the believer, death is all
gain. No loss. The Apostle Paul said,
for me to live is Christ, but to die is gain. Wednesday morning, our brother
Dale suffered no loss. No loss. For the believer, death
is all gain and no loss. Think about what we trade. The
believer trades sin for holiness. We trade corruption for incorruption. We trade the valley of the shadow
of death for glory. We trade faith for sight. We trade sorrow for joy. That's all game. You say to the
righteous, it shall be well with you in the hour of death. And
then number four, we go to the judgment. You say to the righteous,
it shall be well with you. And we don't know a lot about
judgment, how that will work. I know everyone must appear before
God in judgment. It's pointed unto me and wants
to die. And after this, the judgment. And to the unbelief, to those
who are in their own sin, their own righteousness, trying to
work out their own refuge. That sounds like a disaster,
and it sounds like a disaster because it is. But when we're
called to the judgment, this is what you say to the righteous.
It should be well with you. Frank Sweeney, he wrote the music
to that song. This is another song he used
to sing. In the judgment, it should be well with the righteous.
When your name is called, Your representative is going to stand
up and say, I'm here. I'm here. The Lord Jesus Christ
is going to stand up and for you say, I'm here. And the father is going to look
at his beloved, glorious, perfect son who in all things pleased
him and say, Abbey, well done. What did she do? everything he
did. So you say to the righteous in
judgment, it shall be well with you. You have an advocate with
the father. Jesus Christ, the righteous Jesus
Christ, your righteousness. Then it shall be well with you.
The record will be opened. You know, this thing's not going
to be done just trying to skirt justice. The record is going
to be open. And there'll be no sin. found to your charge, because
the blood of Christ, the blood of Jesus Christ, the righteous,
has blotted it out. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, because Christ was already judged
for his people. He already suffered that condemnation,
and there's none left for anyone who's in Christ. Justice has
already been satisfied in the death of Christ, our substitute.
So there's no need to fear judgment. You know who never fears standing
before the judge? An innocent man. Never fears
it. Because he's innocent. Christ has made his people innocent. Not guilty. So there's no need
to fear. There's no need to fear judgment.
It shall be well with the righteous. There's so many other... I limited
myself to four for time's sake. We'd be here till tomorrow. But
in every situation, whatever it is, whatever situation you
think of, mark it down. It should be well with the righteous.
When you're young and when you're old, it should be well with the
righteous. When you feel strong and when
you feel weak, when you're in the valley and when you're on
a mountaintop, it should be well with the righteous. Just like
we looked in Psalm 121 this morning, when you go out when you come
in, it shall be well with the righteous. Whether you're at home or you're
abroad, whether you're at home or whether you're at school or
work or wherever you are, all day, every day, at all times,
from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, it
shall be well with the righteous because of the merit, the blood,
the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, look back in our
text one more time. The message would not be complete
until we look at verse 11. Like I said earlier, this message
does not apply to everyone. No, it only applies to the righteous.
There's a message to the wicked too in verse 11. Woe unto the
wicked. It should be ill with him, for
the reward of his hands should be given him. He's going to receive
exactly what he's earned. So it will be ill with the wicked. Because the wicked stand in their
own works, in their own righteousness, in their own faithfulness. They
stand before God outside of Christ. So it will always be ill with
the wicked. Because they don't have any sacrifice for sin. There is a crimson line, a crimson
river, crimson ocean, whatever you want to call it. There's
a crimson line that separates the righteous and the wicked.
That crimson line is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So
in Christ, washed in his blood, clothed in his righteousness,
we can say to the righteous at all times, even when you don't
think it's really true at this moment, it's true. It should
be well with the righteous. I pray that the Lord would give
us faith To look away. Not just to look away from our
sorrows and our troubles. More importantly, it's easy to
want to look away from those things, isn't it? I'll tell you
what's tough for us to look away from. It's our good deeds. Oh, let's look away from those
things. And look to Christ. He's the righteousness of His
people. If we'll lift up our eyes and look to Him, our hearts
will be lifted up too. If we see Him, Oh, God, give
us a glimpse of him by faith. We'll say with the prophet. It
should be well with the righteous because of who he is, because
of who our savior is. So while this is a sad time,
this is a sad time for us. Can't we find peace and comfort
and assurance and rest in this in this promise of God? It shall
be well with the righteous. Oh, what a promise of God to
his people. I pray that the Lord would apply
that word to our hearts to comfort us, to strengthen us through
this difficult time. Let's bow in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for this sure word, the sure promise of you that you've given
us in your word it shall be well with the righteous. Father, we're
so thankful for that you for these years have given Brother
Dale Simpson to us. We thank you for what he's meant
to his wife and his children and his grandchildren, all of
his family. How we thank you for what he's
meant to this church family. The example of faithfulness that
you gave. Father, we're thankful. And we're
thankful to know, because of your mercy and grace and infinite
goodness to your people, that right now our brothers experience
the fulfillment of this promise. Oh, it's well. It's well when
we rejoice, how we rejoice for this great blessing that you've
given one of your children and you call him home to be with
you. Oh, how we thank you. But Father, you know our hearts.
You know our hearts are broken at loss of relationships and
times that we planned on of fellowship and being together. You know
our hearts are broken. You know all things. Father,
we pray that in this time of sorrow, this hour of sorrow,
that you would comfort the hearts of your people. That by faith
you'd let us behold our Lord Jesus Christ. and seeing Him
to know your promise hasn't failed. It shall be well with the righteous. Father, I pray that you'd be
with us. Comfort this family, your people
who are sick and hurting. Father, we lay these cares out
at your feet with this confidence that you will do all things well. That you'll work these things
out for your glory and for the good of your people because you
promised them. it shall be well with the righteous. Father, we
praise and thank your matchless name for all your good providence,
how you've done all things well. Thank you that you brought us
together this morning to worship, to comfort each other and to
find comfort in your word. As we go back home, Father, apply
your word to our hearts. Let us leave here believing,
rejoicing, having the name of the Lord Jesus Christ upon our
hearts. It's in his precious name, for
the glory of his name that we pray. Give thanks. Amen.