Let's open our Bibles again to
Isaiah chapter 66. Lord willing, this will be our
last message through this study of Isaiah. I hope you have enjoyed
it as much as I have. Our text this evening begins
with the cloudy pillar. You remember the cloudy pillar
that led Israel through the wilderness. As they were leaving Egypt, that
cloudy pillar stood between Israel and the Egyptians. On this side,
there was light. Israel, that cloudy pillar gave
Israel light and peace. On this side of the cloudy pillar,
that pillar gave the Egyptians darkness, tempest and storm.
That's what we see in our text this evening, beginning in verse
14. The title of the message this evening is, Who are the
sanctified? There's two sides to that. Some
are, some aren't. That's the two sides of this
cloudy pillar. In verse 14. And when you see
this, your heart shall rejoice and your bones shall flourish
like an herb and the hand of the Lord should be known toward
his servants and his indignation toward his enemies. For behold,
the Lord will come with fire and with his chariots like a
whirlwind to render his anger with fury and his rebuke with
flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword
will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord
shall be many. Now verse 14 is the side at the
beginning of verse 14 is the side of this pillar that's full
of light and joy. It's full of light and joy for
God's people. Their heart rejoices because
their heart rejoices in Christ. Their bones flourish because
they have health from within because Christ dwells in their
heart. They flourish like an herb in the Lord's well-tinted
garden because it's His hand that tends to and takes care
of them. They're blessed. They are a blessed
people because the Lord has put His hand of mercy and grace upon
them. That is the side of the cloudy
pillar that gives light, spiritual light to spiritual Israel. And
that is sweet light, isn't it? You've seen the glory of Christ.
You've seen Him and His light of His glory. That's sweet light.
But now there's another side to that pillar. The other side
of that cloudy pillar is full of darkness. It's full of God's
wrath to the unbeliever. This side of the cloudy pillar
is full of the fire of God's anger. His anger against sin
that's coming to destroy the unbeliever. To them it looks
like just an army. of flames coming to destroy them. Now verse 16 says that the Lord
will plead with all flesh. Now this bears pointing out,
this doesn't mean that the Lord is begging all men to accept
him. He's not begging people to come from, you know, this
side of the darkness to this side of the light. The Lord's
not begging anyone. He's not a beggar. That word
plead, I looked it up. It means to litigate and to execute
judgment and to execute judgment and punishment. The Lord is going
to litigate with all men. This is a, this is going to be
a legal, just matter. The Lord will bring just charges
against the unbeliever and his execute is that when he executes
justice, it will be a just punishment for their sin. This is a litigation. It's a legal matter. And scripture
says many will be slain of the Lord. Many will be eternally
destroyed by the fire of God's wrath and justice. You might
wonder, like I did when I read that, what brings such wrath
and fury from God who is so loving and warm and merciful and gracious
to his people? What is it that brings such fire
of God's wrath upon people? But if you look in verse 17,
you see the answer is self-righteousness. We said this so many times, our
problem is our self-righteousness. Yes, our sins must be taken care
of. It's our sins that have separated
us from our God. But God saves sinners. Christ
Jesus came into this world to save sinners of whom I am chief. The ones He will not save are
the self-righteous. That's the problem here in verse
17. They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the
garden, behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh and
the abomination of the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith
the Lord. These people the Lord destroys
in His fury. They're religious people. They're
doing all kinds of religious things. They go to all kinds
of religious ceremonies. But that's all their meetings
are. It's just a ceremony. There's no worship going on.
Well, there is worship. There's will worship. There's
worship of self, but there's no worship of the Lord going
on there. The key to it is how it says here, they sanctify themselves
and they purify themselves. Their worship is will worship.
What they're interested in, what they're meaning about, what they're
hearing about is what self can do, not what God does by his
mercy and grace for sinners in Christ. They try to sanctify
themselves, but the Lord says they're not sanctified. Well,
here's my question this evening. This is what I want to know.
Who are the sanctified? And really what I want to know,
we'll get to this by the end of the message. This is what
I really want to know. If you get right down to it,
this is what I want to know. Am I sanctified? Are you sanctified? Is there a way we can tell? Well,
we have to start out here. with who's not sanctified. We
start out that way because the Lord and His word starts out
that way. If you read John Gill very much,
that's the way Gill always began. He starts telling you what it's
not, everything that it's not. And you just go down through
this, you see the word but, then he's going to tell you what it is.
Well, here we're going to start out seeing with what it's not. Who's not sanctified? Those people
who are not sanctified are people who try to sanctify themselves
through their own doing. The word sanctify, it means to
set apart for holy use. And it means to actually make
holy. Not just call something holy,
but actually make it holy. Make it without sin. Now, do
you really think that we can set our own selves apart for
God's holy use? No, only God can do that. Can we make ourselves to be holy? Can we give ourselves a nature
that's holy and cannot sin? Well, you know better than that.
Of course we can't. Only God can do that in a new birth. So
sinners can't have anything to do with this matter of us being
sanctified. Because all we can do is sin.
Everything we do is sin. And that just makes our situation
worse. It's just like if you try to
clean with a dirty rag. You try to mop up the counters,
wipe up the counters, wipe up the table after dinner. If you
want to prove my point, I'll tell you what you do. Get your
rag and just douse it in old used motor oil and then try to
wipe your table with it. What's going to happen? You just
made a bigger mess than what you had to start with, didn't
you? That's what you and I do when we try to sanctify ourselves
by our works. And what does the Lord call our
works? filthy rags. It's just like trying to clean
up a mess with a dirty rag. All we do is make the situation
worse. And this matter of sanctification,
of making people holy, making sinners holy, is a total work
of the Lord from beginning to end. This is a work of the Lord.
I point that out because there's a very common error that's taught
by false prophets. You can't read this book and
come away thinking salvation is by anything but grace. I mean, you're just, something's
very wrong with you. If you can read this book and
you can say salvation is by some means other than grace. So since
that's undeniable, this is a common error that people teach. They
say, yes, God saves you by his grace. Absolutely. But now you
got to keep yourself safe. God makes you holy, but now you've
got to keep yourself holy. You've got to keep the law. You've
got to live a moral life in order to keep yourself holy. And my
friends, don't you forget I said this, that's a lie. It's a lie. And it's a good thing it's a
lie because we can't do anything to make ourselves holy. And this
is just as true. We can't do anything to keep
ourselves holy. This is the work of the Lord for his people. Now,
I'll tell you how serious this matter is. If we try to sanctify
our own selves by what we do, you know what we're saying to
God? I don't need your son. Yeah, you sent Christ into this
world to save sinners, but now I can do this on my own. I don't
need your son. I don't need the gift of your
son. Now, it's no wonder that self-righteousness draws the
anger of God the Father. We can understand how that self-righteous
person, when they say, I don't need your son, how that draws
God's wrath, His fiery wrath against them. Now, don't be mistaken. These people that are not sanctified,
they're religious. They're doing all kinds of religious
looking stuff. They try to purify themselves
in the gardens. And the flesh thinks, well, you
know, that sounds more like stuff. They're going out here in the
garden, they've got a well-sculpted, well-tinted garden, and they're
going out there to have this religious ceremony in this beautiful
area. Well, here's the problem with
that. God said he's not worshipped in the gardens. God says he's
worshipped in one place. At this time, he was worshipped
in the tabernacle, which was a picture of Christ. God is worshipped
in Christ. He's not worshipped in buildings
made by men's hands. He's worshipped in Christ. That
tabernacle was a picture of Christ who's the only one who can sanctify
sinners. And that's how God's worshipped
today, in Christ. But man-made religion, they make
it look good. It looks good to the eye of the
flesh. To us, it looks so pious. It
looks like this very impressive ceremony with their robes and
their costumes and their getups and their lights and their candles
and their incense and the smoke and all the stuff, you know.
That looks impressive to the flesh, but God looks at that. And you know what God sees? God
sees vile, open rebellion. God says, when I look at their
religious ceremony, yeah, yeah, they're pious. But God says to
me, It's just like they're breaking my law by eating pork. Their
religion is as sinful as an open breaking of God's law. God looks
at man's religious activity and he says it's like they're eating
mice. Now that's against the law, number
one, because a mouse is an unclean animal, but that's just plain
gross. I mean, that's all you can say.
Eating a mouse? That's gross. That's the way
God sees man's religion. It's just gross, abomination
to him. People doing something that God
says is an abomination, obviously can't be sanctified by that sinful
act, can they? Well, then who is not sanctified?
It's every man, woman, boy and girl. who's trying to make God
happy with them by what they do for God. Those are the people
who are not sanctified. Alright, who is sanctified? He
begins talking about them in verse 18. First of all, people
who are sanctified have been born again. In verse 18, he says,
for I know their works and their thoughts. Now this is something
that The man has has touted so long. Sometimes I'm a little
bit worried we buy into start thinking what they're saying.
Sanctification or holiness, that's what sanctification is. Holiness
is not an outward thing. Sanctification, true holiness
is a matter of the heart. The Lord says, I know their works
and I know their thoughts. I know their heart. And that's
where God's looking. That's where the issue is, it's
in the heart. So here's our problem. The heart
that we're born with, that heart is not holy and it cannot be
made holy. Jeremiah said the heart, the
human heart is deceitful above all things. It's desperately
wicked. Who can know it? That heart cannot
be made holy. The only way you and I can be
made holy is if God gives us a new heart and a new birth.
Look at Ezekiel chapter 36. The new heart that God gives
is holy. Peter called it being made partakers
of the divine nature. Now that's a holy nature, a holy
heart being made partaker of the divine nature. And in Ezekiel,
we have it described here, Ezekiel 36 verse 26. And a new heart also will I give
you, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away
your stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a
heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within
you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep
my judgments and do them. And you shall dwell in the land
that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and
I will be your God. I will also save you from all
your uncleanness, And I will call for the corn and will increase
it and will lay no famine upon you. That I will save you from
all your uncleanness. I will give you my spirit. And because you've given a new
heart, that is what directs the work. That's why you walk in
my statutes and keep my judgments, because holiness is an inward
matter. It's a matter of being given
a new holy heart that God gives in the new birth. Second, people
who are sanctified are people who are in Christ. He says at
the beginning of verse 18, for I know your works. If you just read that statement,
think about it for a second. It might scare you to death.
I know your works. I personally have never committed
not one good work. All my works are evil. All my
works are wicked. So how is this good news? How
does this mean I'm sanctifying? Well, if we're in Christ, Christ's
work is our work. If we are in Christ every time
the Lord Jesus obeyed God's law perfectly, we did too. Every
time He did, every thou shalt of the law, We did too. That's our work. Every time He
didn't do every thou shalt not of the law. We didn't either.
If we're in Christ, His work is our work. His obedience is
our obedience. And that's the only way a sinner
can be made holy. Look at Hebrews chapter 10. The
only way a sinner can be made holy is by being in Christ. Hebrews 10, verse 11. And every priest standeth daily,
ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can
never take away sins. But this man, this high priest,
after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on
the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting to his enemies be made
his footstool for by one offering. He hath perfected forever them
that are sanctified. That's how we're made holy. It's
in the sacrifice, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
I know that's exactly who our text is talking about, because
in verse 19, he says, I will set a sign among them. That word
sign means a flag or a beacon. That's talking about Jehovah
Ness, the Lord, our banner. He's going to set up, the Lord
is going to set a banner up among his people. and he's going to
lift him up for all his people to see. Now, if Christ is your
holiness, if he's your sanctification, you see him lifted up in the
gospel, you see him lifted up in his word, and you see the
glory that he's the one who made you holy. He says there at the
end of verse 18, and they shall come and see my glory. If you've seen Christ lifted
up and you see his glory, you're sanctified. You can't necessarily
explain that to the unbeliever, but you don't have to. You just
see the glory of Christ. You see Him as your holiness. Now, what is it to see the glory
of God? When I say you see Christ lifted
up and you see His glory, what does that mean? Does it mean
you see a bright, multicolored light? I mean, what does that
mean? Look at Exodus chapter 33. If you see Christ lifted
up in the gospel, You see God's glory in his grace to sinners. That's what you see. That grace
that comes to sinners because of and through the Lord Jesus
Christ. Exodus 33 verse 18. And he, this is Moses, he said,
I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And he said, God answered him,
I'll make all my goodness pass before thee. And I will proclaim
the name of the Lord before thee. And will be gracious to whom
I will be gracious. And will show mercy on whom I
will show mercy. When Moses asked God, show me
your glory. You know what God showed him?
His sovereign mercy. His sovereign grace to whom he
would be gracious. God's gracious to sinners. When Moses asked the Lord, show
me your glory. God said, I'm going to proclaim
my name to you. I'm going to tell you what my
name is. Now what does that mean? Well, the name of the Lord describes
the character of God. And that character, if you look
over at verse five of chapter 34, here's the name of the Lord
that describes his character. Exodus 34, verse five. And the
Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed
the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before
him and proclaimed, the Lord, Jehovah, the Lord God, merciful
and gracious. long-suffering and abundant in
goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity
and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the
guilty. That's the name of the Lord.
And every sanctified person sees the glory of Christ in that name. We see the glory of God having
mercy on me for Christ's sake, even in this where he says, and
will by no means clear the guilty. You understand what that means.
If God has showed you what that means, you see the glory of Christ. God will by no means clear the
guilty. But how can he clear me? How
can he sanctify me? Because of Calvary, the father
made my stand, be the sins of Christ my substitute. And the
father would by no means clear the guilty, even when that guilty
one was his son. When sin was found on his son,
the father, in unmitigated wrath and fiery fury that we read about
in our text, punished his son and put him to death. He by no
means cleared the guilty. so that He could make me righteous
in His Son. And that's how He forgave my
transgression and my sin and my iniquity. If Christ is your
holiness, if He sanctified you, you see the glory of God and
how gracious He was in saving you through the sacrifice of
His Son. Third, people who are sanctified
are people who are sinners by birth, nature by choice and by
practice. That sounds like a contradiction,
doesn't it? Holy people are sinners by birth, sinners by choice,
sinners by practice. How can that be? Verse 19, our
text. And I will set a sign among them,
and I will send those that escape of them into the nations, to
Tarshish, Pool, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan,
to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, Neither have
seen my glory, and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles."
Now, all these places that are named here in this verse are
Gentile places, Gentile cities and areas from all over the world.
And I just always get a blessing reading verses like that. Number one, you and I are Gentiles,
so that's good news to us, isn't it? But I'll tell you what's
greater about it. This tells me God's grace is
so great that God's grace saves the worst of sinners. That's
who the Gentiles were to the Israelites who Isaiah wrote to. They thought the Gentiles were
the worst possible sinners there ever was. And they were right. God's grace saves even them.
And the greatest illustration of that grace far-reaching grace
that I can think of is that God in His grace saved a Gentile
dog like me. God's grace saves the worst of
sinners. And I get a blessing from this
too. God's grace is so great. It reaches the furthest reaches
of this planet and it reaches those sinners who are the furthest
away from God. God saves sinners from All these
far-flung areas are all around the world. The proof of it is
the first one, Tarshish. There's some sinners there, weren't
there? God sent a prophet and saved them. God's grace reaches the furthest
away sinners from God. God has a people from every kindred
and tongue and people and nation on this earth. Don't ever think
of God's grace. as a small thing. God's grace is so great it saves
the cheapest. It reaches to save those ones
who are the furthest away from God. That's who God's grace is
for. God's grace saves every sinner
who needs it. I don't care where you find them. If you find a sinner who can't
do anything for themselves, who must have God's grace or else
they'll perish, God will save that sinner. He saves every sinner
who needs His grace. The people who God saves, when
they're born in this world, they can't hear Christ speak in the
gospel. Not by nature. You can't figure out God through
the natural understanding. The people who God saves, they
can't see by nature the glory of Christ in the gospel. Not
by nature they can't. You can't see God with these
physical eyes, our physical understanding. So you know what God does for
them? They can't see, they can't hear. God makes them hear because
he gives them an ear that hears by faith and they hear Christ
in the gospel. God makes his people see and
you know what they see? They see the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ. In the face of Christ, our substitute. These folks that God saves, they're
sinners. I mean, they're real sinners. They're dead in sin. They got
no knowledge of God. They got no interest of God.
They're the ones that are furthest away from God. So if they're
going to be made holy, who's going to do it? This has to be
an act of God, and he makes them holy by his son. They can't do
it. The only way they can be made
holy is what Christ does for them. And they see that. And they love it. I love to have
Christ as all my righteousness, as all my holiness, as all my
sanctification, as my only hope before God. I love that. I love
having Christ as my only hope of salvation. All right, fourthly,
people who are sanctified have been brought to Christ. Verse
20, and they shall bring all your brethren for an offering
unto the Lord out of all nations. upon horses, and in chariots,
and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my
holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as the children of
Israel bring an offering and a clean vessel into the house
of the Lord. Now this verse is just another illustration how
we can't make ourselves holy. These people who come to the
Lord, they're helpless people. They can't do anything for themselves.
They can't bring themselves to the Lord. Somebody else has to
bring them. Somebody else has to carry them
and bring them to Christ, because they can't do it on their own.
That's what God the Holy Spirit does for His people through the
preaching of Christ. He brings them to Christ. Now
we know there's just one way of salvation, don't we? There's
one Savior, there's one way of salvation. There's only one way
to God, and that's through the Lord Jesus Christ. There's just
one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Christ is the one who must carry
all of the burden of our sin and put it away or we'll be lost. There's just one Savior, one
way of salvation. But the circumstances that bring
us to Christ can be very different. Some people come swiftly. They
come swiftly on horses or chariots. maybe the very first time they
ever hear the gospel, they say. That's it, I see. Some come swiftly. Others, and this is the way it
usually happens, they're brought slowly. They're brought slowly
on litters. I used to love to watch westerns,
and you know, one of the poor old cowboys gets shot in the
leg, you know, he's laying on that, they got him on this litter
being, you know, two sticks with some other sticks between, you
know, he's laying on the stitter, and the horse is dragging him.
I think, man, that has to hurt. Just bumping along, you know.
Well, you got to, you don't want to hurt the person. He's already
injured. You got to go slow. If you're being brought on a
litter, you're being brought slowly. You're just wounded and
sick and sore with sin. You're being brought slowly.
But you're being brought. And you'll arrive. You'll arrive
there, Christ. Because God brings all of His
people to His Son. And He does it in His time and
in His way. But He brings them all to the
same Savior. They all have salvation the same way. It's through the
person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know He brings
them without any fanfare. One of the animals mentioned
here is a mule. I thought, you know, I'd a whole lot rather
come be brought on a horse or a chariot, wouldn't you? Than
a mule? Well, I tell you what, if you're going to come to Christ,
you're going to come humbly. You're going to come on this
mule. You're going to come as a nobody
who can't do anything on a mule. That's pretty humbling, but maybe
we're brought on a mule because that's what we are. We're all
stubborn as a mule, and that's why we're being brought. But
one way or another, God's going to bring his people to his son. And this, look at Romans chapter
15, this verse, is talking about Christ making even Gentile sinners
holy through faith in Christ, through the preaching of the
gospel. Paul quotes this verse in Romans 15, verse 15. He says,
nevertheless, brethren, I've written the more boldly unto
you in some sort as putting you in mind because of the grace
that is given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus
Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God that the offering
up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy
Ghost. That offering up of the Gentiles
is a quote from our text in Isaiah chapter 66. It's the offering
up of the Gentiles. It's bringing those Gentiles
to Christ through the preaching of the gospel, through God-given
faith in Christ that Paul preached. And Paul says, I glory in that. They're sanctified. They're sanctified
through faith in Christ, and I glory in that because I know
who did it. He says in verse 17, I have thereof,
wherefore I may glory through Jesus Christ in those things
which pertain to God. Paul said, I glory in Christ
because he's the one who made you holy in Christ. All right,
fifth, the people who God sanctifies are made priests, verse 21. I
will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the Lord. The Lord promises to make his
people priests. People who were born Gentile
sinners, God said, I'm going to make them priests. Now he
cannot be talking there about Aaron's priesthood, can he? He
can't be. That priesthood, Aaron's priesthood,
that came always through natural bloodline. You could only be
the priest by being related to Aaron. The only way you could
be made the high priest is if your daddy was the high priest.
It came through natural bloodlines. Well, no Gentile is ever going
to be the high priest. He can't be a priest. He can
only be a priest if he's Aaron's son. But God makes his people
priests. And he does it by grace. Not
through human bloodlines, but by grace. The Lord says, I'm
going to make all of my people All right, you're a priest, this
is obvious. If you're already a priest, did
God make you one? You don't need a man to be your
priest here on earth. Any man who sets himself up as
a priest between you and God is a wicked man. Wicked man. Because he's put something between
the sinner and the savior. Of all things, Himself, a sinful
man between the sinner and the Savior. That's so wicked. You
don't need a priest. God has made His people priests.
Alright, what does the priest do then? Well, the priest offers
sacrifice to God for sin, doesn't he? Only the priest could come
into the presence of God. Not just any of the people could
do it. Only the priest could do it. And even then the priest
could only do it. He could only come into God's
presence when God appointed the time through the blood of the
sacrifice. But now, Christ our great high
priest has died. He's offered himself as a sacrifice
for sin and he died to make every believer a priest. So now, we
come boldly into the presence of God. That priest in the Old
Testament, he came very timidly. He came with those bells around,
you know, and so people would hear, is he still moving around?
Do we have to drag him out, you know, by his feet? But the believer
comes boldly into the presence of God Almighty because of the
blood of the sacrifice. We come boldly and with confidence
before the Father because this is what we know. The blood of
Jesus Christ, God's Son, has cleansed us from all of our sins.
that we come with confidence as priests before the Father. Six people who are sanctified
have an eternal salvation, an eternal holiness that can't be
lost. Verse 22, for as the new heavens
and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me,
saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. Now salvation in Christ is eternal. It can never be lost because
it's fully accomplished. Christ cried, it is finished.
He meant business. It's finished. So holiness, eternal
life in Christ is eternal. The seed that God planted in
you in the new birth, it will remain. It can't be lost. Now
that puts an end to you and me having to keep ourselves sanctified
by living a moral life. We're sanctified eternally in
Christ. Seventh, people who are sanctified,
they worship. It's not will worship, it's not
self-righteousness, they worship God. Verse 23. And it shall come
to pass that from one new moon to another, from one Sabbath
to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the
Lord. If Christ has made you holy,
if he's revealed himself to you, he dwells in your heart, Of course
you worship. You've got a new nature that
loves to worship, that needs to worship. The worship of the
Lord is only right. God deserves to be worshipped.
Worship is what comes first in all things. God deserves to be
worshipped. But you know what's more? Worshipping
the Lord is good for us. It's good for that new heart
that God's given us. That new nature loves to bow
humbly at the feet of our Savior and worship Him. He's worthy. He's worthy and it's good for
that new heart. We love to worship Him. Then
last, people who are sanctified will never be destroyed in judgment.
Verse 24, and they should go forth and look upon the carcasses
of the men that have transgressed against me. For their worms shall
not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall
be an abhorring unto all flesh." The people who Christ has sanctified
will never be destroyed. When God's fire, His fiery wrath
against sin comes in judgment, they will never be destroyed
because Christ, their substitute, was already destroyed for them.
That's why they won't be destroyed. Christ has already bore their
punishment, so God will never punish them. They'll see the
destruction of the wicked. They'll see the destruction of
the unbeliever, but it won't come nigh them because Christ
has already suffered for them. In this verse when he talks about
the worm shall not die and the fire not be quenched. Now that's
talking about hell. What a horrible, horrible place
hell must be. The worm shall not die and the
fire shall not be quenched. Three times in Mark chapter nine,
Our Lord describes hell as the place where the worm dies not
and the fire will not be quenched. That's just an awful place to
even try to imagine. And I'm not trying to scare you
with hell. What I want to do is delight
you with Christ. The only way somebody like you
and me can be delivered from hell is by Christ suffering hell
as our That shows us the importance of faith in Christ and love for
Christ. The only way we can be delivered
from this fiery wrath of God's judgment is in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Suffering is our substitute.
So in conclusion, I have two things to say. Now we've seen
who's sanctified, haven't we? Here's my question. This is the
question I told you at the beginning. Here's what I really want to
know in all this. Can I be sanctified? You know? Well, the answer is
yes. Yes. You can be made sanctified. You can be made holy if you can't
make yourself holy by anything you do. And you need Christ to
be your holiness. You need Christ to make you holy.
You can be made holy if you come to Christ as a needy sinner who
needs to be cleansed from all of your sin in the blood of Christ
and you need God to give you a new nature and a new birth.
If you need that because you can't do any of that your own
self, you can be sanctified. Now, if you can contribute something,
if you, you know, I got a little bit of this done and I need Christ
to do the rest, then no, you can't be. But if you're helpless
and you're hopeless so that your only hope is Christ, you can
be sanctified. Here's my second question. Have I been sanctified? I don't
want to go home tonight until I know the answer to that question.
Have I been sanctified? Now really, every person in this
room already knows the answer to that question. If God's turned the light on,
you know it. If He's made you holy, you know it. You've been
sanctified. If Christ has revealed Himself
to you, if He's been revealed to you and in you, you've been
sanctified. You are sanctified if you see
Christ as all of your holiness and you see His glory in that.
Now you know if you're sanctified or not. And if God sanctified
you, then worship and give thanks. That's a gift of God. He didn't
have to do that, but He did by His grace. And if you haven't
been sanctified, my advice to you, God's commandment
to you, is come to Christ. Come to Christ. What are you waiting on? I ask
you. I want you to answer that question
in your mind. What are you waiting on? There isn't any other way
of salvation. There's not any other hope of
salvation other than Christ. Come to Him. Come to Him right
now. Where you sit, you'll say you've
seen this. Let's bow in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for your amazing gift of grace. That through the obedience, through
the obedience unto death, the sacrifice of your darling Son,
you've chosen to make your people holy, sanctified, justified,
washed from all sin in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
we thank you. How we thank you that your mercy
and your grace is for the worst of sinners, for the most rebellious,
for those who are the furthest away from you, who cannot do
anything for themselves. Father, we are that person. We
are that one. Every one of us here is that
person who can't do anything for themselves. Father, reveal
to us our deadness. Reveal to us our desperate need
of the Lord Jesus Christ and cause us to run to Him, we pray.
It's in His precious name and for His glory, we pray and give
thanks.