Maybe you're tired of that. Thank
the money. All right, the title of the message
this evening from Isaiah chapter 59 is The Arm That Brought Salvation. A man has a great problem. We're
lost in sin. And because of our sin, we're
separated from God. The problem is in us. The problem
of this separation is not in God. It's not God's fault. The
problem is in us. The solution is found in God.
Look here at verse 1. Behold, the Lord's hand is not
shortened that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy that it
cannot hear. See, there's no lack of ability in God to save,
is there? His arm's not shortened. His
ear's not heavy. So if we're lost, the problem's
got to be our fault, doesn't it? It can't be God's fault.
Now this is such a sweet, sweet verse. It was really difficult
for me in the study this morning to go past it. But let's go past
it and we're going to come back to it at the end of the message. I pray that the Lord will make
this so. If you think that verse is sweet
now, wait till we look at the rest of the chapter and come
back to it. Let's look at the problem that's in us and then
we'll come back and we'll see the solution. First, here's my
first point, the problem is found in us. The problem's in the nature
of man. And we have a rather lengthy description here of our
nature, beginning in verse two. But your iniquities have separated
between you and your God, and your sins have hit His face from
you that He will not hear. Now the reason this great gulf
is fixed between us and God, the reason this gulf is so great
that we cannot cross it and go back to God is our sin. And it's our fault. The problem
is us. God's holy. I mean, this gulf
is nothing. God didn't do anything wrong.
There's nothing wrong with God. He's holy, perfect. And since
God is holy, He can't even look on us because we're defiled by
sin. He says here that they will not
hear. Now, God always hears cries for mercy from sinners, but a
holy God will never hear the cry of the natural man. because
his cry is self-righteous. If God won't hear us, it's our
own fault. It's our own sin. It's because
our cry is all wrong. If God won't hear us, it's because
we're not crying for mercy, but we're crying for some sort of
merit, some sort of, you know, God ought to hear me for something
good that I've done. It's a cry of self-righteousness.
And God is the only one who can make us realize this. I will
never truly understand my guilt, what it really is to be guilty
until I understand this. My sin is my fault. It's not
my parents' fault. It's not the fault of my environment.
You know, I wouldn't act so bad if I had a better environment.
It's not even Adam's fault. It's my fault. I have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. And I'm guilty of every sin.
Look here at verse three. For your hands are defiled with
blood and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies, your
tongue hath muttered perverseness. Now, Scripture talks of us being
guilty of blood. You know what it's talking about?
It's talking about being guilty of murder. And we know every
one of us here is guilty of murder. Every son of Adam is. I know
you may not actually pull the trigger, but we've all hated
in our heart, haven't we? Our Lord said that makes us guilty
of murder. I'll tell you another way we're guilty of murder. We're
guilty of murder when we reproduce. We sure are. We give birth to
our children. What have we done? We've passed
on a dead spiritual nature to them. Guilty of murder. But here's
the key. We're guilty of murdering the
son of God. I know everybody that lives today would say, well,
I wasn't there. I wasn't crying crucify him. I didn't drive the
nails into his hands. I didn't do those things. Well,
that's true. If you were there, you would
have. The only reason you weren't there is God kept you from being
there. But I tell you this, every one of us is born with a heart
that hates God and hates Christ. So what does that mean? We're
guilty of putting him to death, of murdering the son of God.
And our lips have spoken lies, we deny it. We deny our guilt
and we won't beg for mercy. We speak lies when we preach
a message that does not tell the truth about God, that does
not tell the truth about man, that doesn't tell the truth about
our own selves. We deny our own guilt, we're just speaking lies.
Look here at verse four. None calleth for justice, nor
any pleadeth for truth. They trust in vanity and speak
lies. They conceive mischief and bring
forth iniquity. And none calleth for justice
or pleadeth for truth. You know, everybody wants to
be saved from hell. I've never met anybody who wants
to go to hell. Have you? Never. Everybody wants to be
saved from going to hell. But by nature, nobody wants to
be saved from sin. By nature we don't. Nobody wants
to go to hell, but nobody by nature wants to be saved in justice
either. What we want is for God just
to ignore our sin because he likes us or because we've done
some other things in an attempt to even the scales. We want God
just to accept our best efforts, but we don't want justice. We
don't want to submit to the righteousness of God. We don't want to submit
to being made righteous through the obedience of Christ, not
through our own obedience. We want to contribute something
on our own. And when we do, we've done just
what Isaiah says here, we're trusting in vanity. We're trusting
in something that's just as substantial as air, just holding the air
in my hand. It's vanity. Trusting in our
own works is trusting in vanity. But yet, by nature, that's what
we want. We don't want to be saved from sin and truth by Christ
making us righteous through his obedience without any contribution
of our own. by Christ putting away our sin
through his sacrifice without any contribution from us. That's what we want by nature.
And we don't want God's way of salvation. It's told to us plainly
in God's word, but by nature, we don't want that way of salvation. So what we do is we hatch our
own plan. Look at verse five. They hatch
cockatrice eggs and weave the spider's web. He that eateth
of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out
into a viper. Now hatch, that's a good word
to describe man's way of salvation. We've hatched our own plan. It
sounds like some sort of crazy plan Lex Luthor would come up
with, doesn't it? Defeat Superman. He's constantly
hatching plans. That's just what we've done.
Man has hatched our own plan. And whoever eats of man's plan,
man's way of salvation is going to die because he ate poison.
And whatever is hatched, whatever comes out of the egg, all it
is, it just gets out into the world like a bunch of venomous
vipers going out all over the place. And those venomous vipers
go out into the world, they compass land and sea to make just one
proselyte. And when we do that, you know
what we've done? We've murdered. We've made a man two-fold a child
of hell than we are. That's these vipers. Then Isaiah,
he compares us to those venomous vipers. Then he compares us to
spiders, spiders weaving a web. Look here at verse six, he talks
about that web. Their webs do not become garments,
neither shall they cover themselves with their works. Their works
are works of iniquity and the act of violence is in their hands.
Do you know why a spider weaves a web? Spider weaves a web to
entangle its prey and then kill it. That's exactly what a false
prophet does. They're out there hatching their
little plans and weaving their little smart ways that they contrive
to trap somebody, to get somebody, you know. But primarily, I'll
tell you what Isaiah is talking about here. He's talking about
our own righteousness, trying to weave our own righteousness.
That web, I don't know how a spider spins a web, but I know it comes
out of them. It comes from inside their body. That's our own righteousness. It's something that comes from
in us. And Isaiah says it's a spider's web. That's the covering that
we're trying to use to cover ourselves before God. Now, we
all have Adam's nature. We're still trying to do it.
We're still trying to weave our own covering of fig leaves. But
it's an attempt in futility, an exercise in futility. Our
righteousness is so full of holes. Isaiah describes it to a spider's
web. How are you going to cover your
nakedness with a spider's web? You can just see right through
it. There's no covering there, is there? And your attempt to
weave your own righteousness, it won't last. Just like a spider's
web, just easily brought. I mean, hours of work is just
gone in a second, isn't it? Somebody goes through with their
broom, with their hand, and wipes it out. And I'll tell you something
else about a spider's web. Compare it to our righteousness.
When you get entangled and wrapped in a spider's web, you feel gross,
don't you? That's our righteousness. Our
own works make us wrapped in this grossness in God's presence. Now that's the problem of our
nature of sin. It's our nature cannot be righteous. It cannot produce righteousness.
Matter of fact, our nature doesn't even want to because it loves
sin. Look at verse seven. Their feet
run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood. Their
thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Wasting and destruction are in
their paths. The way of peace they know not, and there's no
judgment in their goings. They made them crooked paths.
Whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace." You know, it's
not that we can't avoid evil. It's not like, oh, you know,
we fell in with the wrong crowd, and now we can't avoid evil.
It was like purely accidental on our part. No. We run to evil. We can't wait to get there. And I'll tell you why we're running
to get there. Because murder is in our heart.
We can't wait to shed innocent blood. Now I ask you, who else
is that talking about? Remember I told you we're all
guilty of murdering the Lord Jesus Christ? Who else can that
be talking about? He's the only man who ever lived
who had innocent blood. And we're swift to get there
to put Him to death. All we think about is iniquity.
We just can't, by nature, our carnal mind can't think about
anything else but iniquity. We don't know the way of peace.
We don't know the way of peace with God. We, for the life of
us, just look at the world around you, we cannot figure out how
to have peace with other men. And we don't have peace in our
own heart. I know why people can't have peace in their own
heart and they're so disturbed and bothered all the time. It's
because of our sin nature. That's exactly why. It's the
same as any other sickness. It's our sin nature. And our
path. The way we always choose to go
is not the straight path. It's a crooked path. That word
path, I look this up, it means a well-beaten way. Isn't that
the wide way, the wide path that leads to destruction? But that's
the way our nature wants. It looks good to us. Now, even
though this is our nature, man has some sense there's a problem. They have some sense. We don't
know how great the problem is. We have some sense there's a
problem. We have some sense that there's
a gulf fixed between us and God. We don't know how great the gulf
is, but we have some sense of it. But by nature, we don't have
any idea what to do about it. We've got no idea what to do
about our sin and our guilt. We've got no idea what to do
about this separation between us and God. Look here at verse
nine. Therefore, it's judgment far
from us. Neither does justice overtake us. We wait for light,
but behold obscurity. For brightness, but we walk in
darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind. And we grope
as if we had no eyes. We stumble at noonday as in the
night. We're in desolate places as dead
men. Now, we've got some idea that
we don't know the right way, but we can't find the right way
because we're blind. We're just groping around trying
to... It's noon, plenty of light. There's
a light of the word, but we can't see it because we're blind. We're by nature, we're blinders,
groping around in the dark. We can't see the way because
we can't see Christ. Who is the light? Who is the
way? In verse 11, we roar all like bears and mourn sore like
doves. We look for judgment, but there
is none. For salvation, but it's far off from us. We roar like
bears in frustration, just making all this noise, but not saying
anything. We sit around and mourn sore
like doves. But no matter what we do, we
cannot by nature, find the way of salvation. And you know why? Because while we're making all
this noise, roaring like bears and mourning like doves, we're
looking for salvation in ourselves. We're looking for something in
us. And brother, it's not there.
There's nothing there but sin and depravity and darkness. Verse
12, for our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our
sins testify against us. For our transgressions are with
us, and as for our iniquities, we know them." Now Isaiah says,
we know them. We've got some sense of our sin,
but we don't know how to get rid of it. We don't know how
to get... Our sins testify against us. Our sins tell us we're guilty.
Our conscience tells us we're guilty. This awful, burdened
feeling of guilt. But we don't know what to do
about it. We don't know how to get rid of it. We don't know how
to cleanse ourselves from that. And that's why people do all
these crazy things false prophets tell them to do. Because they're
desperate to get rid of this guilt that's just crushing them. But it doesn't work, does it?
It never works. And we just keep going the wrong
way. No matter how many different forks in the road we take, we
always go the wrong way. Because there's a way that seems
right to a man. We say, no, this looks right,
this looks good. Whatever looks right to us, to the natural man,
is always wrong. Verse 13, in transgressing and
lying against the Lord and departing away from our God, speaking oppression
and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood
and judgment is turned away backward and justice standeth afar off.
For truth has fallen in the street and equity cannot enter. Now we may think that we're seeking
God, but we're always going the wrong way. No matter what we
do, we go further and further and further away from equity.
And that word equity is uprightness, righteousness. Everything we
do is unrighteous, takes us further away from righteousness. We try,
we're trying our best to make ourselves righteous. We're trying
our best to do something that'll please God, but everything we
do in this flesh, not only does it not please God, it makes him
angry. Look at verse 15. Yea, truth
faileth, and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey.
And the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.
Now that's us. The problem is us. We've displeased
God by everything that we've done in this flesh. And God saw
all this. He saw it all. And God knows
what man does not know. God knows there's no hope for
salvation in man. So here's my second point. The
solution for our sin, the solution for this separation between us
and God is found in God. Verse 16. And he saw that there
was no man and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore,
his arm brought salvation unto him and his righteousness. It
sustained him. Now, God saw he saw that there
was no hope in man. He saw that there was no hope.
There's no one in Adam's race. who could help man. They're all
lost in sin. They've all got this same nature.
None of them can do anything right. So there's no hope for
man in man. Now it says here he wondered.
God didn't look at this and wonder. He didn't wonder what to do.
He didn't wonder in amazement that man is so awful, so lost
in sin. God knew all that. Of course
He knew that. He's speaking here as a man so you and I can understand. But for us to look at this, we
look at it in wonder and amazement, don't we? Just look at this situation
here, this description we've had of man. Is there any hope
there? We look at it in wonder. That's
me. I mean, we're not, when we read
this, you know, I probably should never have read they, I should
always have read we, I. This isn't a description of me.
This is a description of all of us. There's none to help, is there?
There's no hope to be found in us. What are we going to do? We don't know, do we? But you
know, God in His wisdom knew exactly what to do. That's why
He sent His arm to bring salvation to His people. Now this arm that
He sent, His arm brought salvation. That arm, you know this, is the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's the same arm Isaiah wrote
about in chapter 53, verse one, to whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed? This arm is the Lord Jesus Christ. The scripture talks about the
arm, the arm of the Lord, speaking of the power of the Lord. It's
speaking of the God's power to accomplish his purpose. Well,
that's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one who could accomplish
God's purpose to save his people. Now look at this, the Lord Jesus
Christ, the mighty arm of God, brought salvation to his people. He didn't come to attempt it.
He didn't come to make an attempt to save somebody. No, he brought
salvation to them. Can I say they didn't have a
choice? They didn't have a choice. He brought it to them. He didn't
leave it up to their discretion. He brought it to them. He didn't
come to offer salvation to somebody. No, He came and He brought salvation
to His people. And He did it in righteousness. The righteous nature of Christ
enabled Him to be the Savior of sinners. He could save sinners
because His righteousness is imputed to them. He can make
His people righteous in Him. He brought salvation that is
righteous, honored God's law that satisfied God's holiness
by making sinners righteous. And it's the righteousness of
Christ that enables him to be the intercessor of his people.
The Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, he can speak to God. He can make
intercession for his people with groanings that cannot be uttered
because he's accepted by the Father. And we're accepted in
him. You see, salvation The solution,
it's all found in God's character, isn't it? God chose to save a
people because he's good. God sent his son to save those
people by the sacrifice of himself because God's gracious, because
God's merciful. In unspeakable love, God determined
to save a people, a sinful people who were his enemies, through
the sacrifice, the humiliation, and the death of his own son.
God saved a people in wisdom. Only God is wise enough to save
a people. We're not. We're not good. God's
good. We're not gracious and merciful
and loving. We're hateful. We're not wise.
We're ignorant. All the reasons for salvation
can only be found in God, can't they? And none of those reasons
are ever found in man. The problem is the character
of man. The solution to salvation is
in the character of God. And look at verse 17. Here's
the character of the Savior that God sent. And it's the same character
as the character of God because the Lord Jesus is God. Verse
17. For he put on righteousness as
a breastplate and a helmet of salvation upon his head. He put
on the garments of vengeance for clothing and was clad with
zeal as a cloak. Christ our Savior came. And he
put on for a breastplate righteousness. He put that righteousness, this
is speaking figuratively in a picture, put it over his heart, showing
us he's righteous through and through. Verse 16 told us that
God saw. He saw the problem, he's going
to send the solution. God saw there was none righteous,
no not one. Man didn't see that, God did.
So what did God do? He sent the solution. God sent
righteousness to this earth in the person of his blessed son.
The father sent his son, not just to bring righteousness to
his people, but he sent his son to be the righteousness of his
people. Christ is the believer's righteousness. His obedience to the law is our
obedience to the law. If we believe the righteousness
of God, which is by faith, That righteousness is ours by laying
hold of Christ in faith. He's perfectly righteous, perfectly
obedient, and so are you if you're in Him. And Christ our Savior
wore for a helmet, salvation. He put it on His head where everybody
could see it. Tell you what that's a picture
of. He's crowned with the glory of salvation. Now our Savior
can't be crowned with the glory of salvation if he tried to bring
about a salvation for people but couldn't do it. He wouldn't
be crowned with glory then, would he? He couldn't be crowned with
the glory of salvation if he made an offer of salvation but
people rejected him and then they went to hell. There's no
glory in that, is there? But Christ our Savior is crowned
with the glory of salvation because He did indeed accomplish the
salvation of His elect. He saved everybody God gave Him
to save. He brought salvation to them. Sooner or later, He's going to
reveal that salvation to them and in them because He's going
to bring it to them. And He accomplished this salvation
with zeal. I tell you, I just like, I like
See somebody do something that they just love to do. They've
got a zeal to do it. Christ our Savior accomplished
the salvation of His people in great zeal. He had a fervent
zeal, a fervent love for His Father. He had a zeal, a fervent
desire for His Father's glory. I've got to do what He sent me
to do so my Father will be glorified. Get a hold of this now. He accomplished
the salvation of his people in fervent zeal to see his elect
be saved, to see them washed, to see them regenerated, to see
them brought back into fellowship with God. That's the character
of our Savior. And verse 19 tells us how Christ
saved his people. How did he bring them back to
God? He says in verse 19, so shall they fear the name of the
Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun. When
the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord
shall lift up a standard against him. Now verse 18, it says here,
he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing. And I read all
the writers on that today. And most of them say that it
means this, that Christ came to avenge his people. He came
to, to take care of their enemies, to take out his vengeance upon
them and wipe them out. Well, I don't think so, because
he didn't do that when he came the first time, did he? Now he'll
do that when he returns, but I don't think that's what this
is talking about here. Tell you what, I'm just confident this
is talking about. This is telling us how Christ
saved his people from their sin. He saved his people from their
sin by taking their sin into his own body on the tree. and
by suffering all the vengeance of God against that sin. The
father gave Christ our substitute, all the wrath, all the vengeance
that our deeds deserve. He poured out all of his vengeance
upon his son as the sacrifice for our sin. And Christ put that
sin away by his sacrifice. Made it so it doesn't exist.
Made it. If Christ died for you, what
do you got to feel guilty about? You already took your sin away.
There's nothing to be guilty about. God already poured out
His vengeance for our sin upon Christ, our substitute. So at
Calvary, Christ was clothed. He was covered in, He was immersed
in the vengeance of God against sin. And He hung there suffering
the full wrath of God, the full vengeance of God until there
was no more wrath left. And you know why there's no more
wrath left? because sin was gone. He put it away under his blood. Now, here's the merciful and
wise character of our God. God's elect. They're born into
this world sinners. We have a nature when we're born
into this world that is the enemy of God. The carnal mind hates God. It's enmity against
God. Cannot be subject to law it can't it can't be made to
be subject to the law of God We're enemies of God by nature.
We hate God We've declared war and if there's gonna be peace
God's got to be the one to make it because we can't do it So
the father in order to make peace He took the sin of his enemies
He took those, the sin, all those sins that were sin against Him,
that were violation against Him, that were rebellion against Him.
He took that sin and He made it belong to His Son. He made
His Son to be guilty of that sin. Now God did such a gracious thing
for His enemies, for sinners. Christ died for who? for His
enemies. Look at Romans chapter 5. There's
no other explanation that can be found for that than grace. Grace. Romans chapter 5, verse
8. But God commendeth His love toward
us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we should be saved
from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more
being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only
so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom
we've now received the atonement. Here we've been brought, enemies
have been brought back to God, reconciled to God through the
atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank God, where sin abounded,
God's grace did much more than help. God is merciful. That's his merciful character.
But I tell you, this grace is also in God's wisdom. This is
God's wise way of salvation. In Christ, through the sacrifice
of Christ, the Father can be both just and justify sinners. God can still show mercy to sinners.
and still be holy and still punish sin by making Christ sin for
us and pouring out his wrath, his vengeance upon Christ our
substitute and letting us go free. Now that's wisdom that
only God has. That's a whole lot better way
of salvation than all these crackpot ideas man have hatched, isn't
it? This is a wise way of salvation. Now I want us to see the result
of Christ's work for His people. It's a new nature born in them.
Through the sacrifice of Christ, He both justified and He sanctified
His people. Christ justified His people by
a sacrifice. That means He took their sin
away. He made them not guilty. But here's the way that men like
to have this subtle way of trying to get their works in. They say,
yes, Christ justified us by a sacrifice, but now I've got to keep myself
sanctified. I've got to sanctify myself by living right. My friend,
that'll never work. Now that's not going to please
God. You're trying to cover yourself with a spider's web. Christ justified his people in
his sacrifice, but he also sanctified his people in his sacrifice.
Sanctified means made holy. How did he make his people holy?
by giving them a new nature, by giving them his nature, making
them partakers of the divine nature. Look here at verse 19.
So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the West and his
glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come
in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard
against him. I read that verse twice, didn't
I? I think when I was reading verse eight, I was supposed to
read verse 18, I read verse 19. Well, we read it two or three
times, so we got it. I'll tell you what this is telling us.
In ourselves, we're falling in the street. That's what he says
in verse 14. We're falling in the street. Equity, truth, cannot
enter. Truth has failed. We've departed. We've departed, making ourselves
a prey. But Christ, in Christ, we've
just fallen down. We've fallen in Adam. But in
Christ, The flood of our enemies that comes through cannot sweep
through and knock us over. They can't sweep us away because
we're in Christ. In the face of those enemies,
we used to run with them. Now what do we do? Now we lift
up the banner. The Spirit enables us to lift
up the banner. What on earth is that? It's the
preaching of Christ. We preach Christ, our banner.
We're used to hating. Now we preach him boldly because
God's given us a new nature. And with that new nature comes
a new message. Verse 20. And the Redeemer shall
come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob,
saith the Lord. God gives his people a new nature,
a nature that turns from transgression. We used to run to it. We used
to love it. We used to only ever think of
transgression. Don't be mistaken. God saves
a man or a woman. That old nature is not changed.
That nature of Adam is completely unchanged. We still got that
nature, don't we? But God gives his people a new
nature that's opposite of that old nature in every way. He gives
us a nature that's holy. He gives us a nature that hates
sin and loves holiness. He gives us a nature that runs
from transgression, that thinks only holy thoughts, that loves
God, that knows God. Not only do we know the way of
peace, we love it. We didn't surrender to Christ
because we had to. No, we surrendered to Christ
because we surrender love to Him. That's a new nature. In verse 21, as for me, this
is my covenant with them, saith the Lord. My spirit that is upon
thee and my words which I put in thy mouth shall not depart
out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out
of the mouth of thy seed seed, saith the Lord from henceforth
and forever. Now there was some question,
is this verse speaking of Christ or is it speaking of his people?
Well, I'm convinced it's speaking of both. You can't separate Christ
and his people. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
covenant. He's the messenger of the covenant of grace. God
has an eternal covenant of grace. He has an eternal purpose of
grace for his people. But we never knew about it, did
we? Not until Christ came to earth to fulfill it. He's the
messenger of the covenant of grace. And when the Holy Spirit
gives us life in the new birth, we speak new words. We speak
new words because we've got a new heart. Out of the abundance of
the heart, the mouth speaketh. We've got new words because God
gave us a new heart. Our new words are His words,
the words of Christ. They're words of love. They're
words of life. They're words of grace and mercy.
These are the words that we preach and that we pass on to the next
generation. How it would thrill me to know
that those words of mercy and grace, God will keep them from
departing out of our mouth. He says here, I'll keep them
from departing out of the next generation's mouth and out of
the generation after that. God's going to keep himself a
witness. He's going to keep them somewhere.
He's going to keep himself a witness somewhere, preaching these words
of love and mercy and grace and faith in Christ Jesus. Now, that's the salvation that
God sent to his people. That's the salvation that his
arm brought to his people. Are you interested in it? Does
anybody want to have that? Do you want, do you need to be
saved like this? We read this horrible description
of our nature. Is there any hope for sinners
like you and me? Yes, there is. Yes, there is. Back to verse one. Behold, the
Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither
his ear heavy that it cannot hear. Behold, look at this with
awe and wonder. The Lord's hand is not shortened
that it cannot save. I don't care how low down you
are. The Lord's hand is not shortened
that it can't reach you. Christ saves to the uttermost. We've heard someone use the phrase,
He saves to the gutter most. You know what that means? He
saves the lowest sinners. No matter how low you are, His
mighty arm can reach you. Now listen, you can be too high. You can be too good for God to
save you. But you can't be too low. You cannot be so lost. that the great shepherd of the
sheep can't rescue you. He'll reach you. And behold,
look at this with awe and wonder. The Lord's ear is not heavy that
it cannot hear. Now there's a great gulf between
us and God. How big it is, I don't know.
A gulf made by our sin. It's far enough you and I can't
cross it, but you take comfort. You cannot be so far away from
God that His ear won't hear your cry for mercy. You can't be so weak that you
can't even muster up a whisper that God can't hear you. Cecil Roach told me one time, all you can do is go home. That's
when you're praying. Brethren, it doesn't even have
to be an audible cry. It's the cry of the heart. It
may be weak, it may be flickering, but you get a hold of this. His
ear is not heavy, it can't hear. He always, always hears the cry
of mercy from his people. And you know what? He hears quickly. Look over at chapter 65. He hears
the cry of his children quickly. I love this verse. Verse 24,
Isaiah 65. And it shall come to pass that
before they call, I'll answer. And while they are yet speaking,
I will hear. Then why don't you cry to them?
I thought sitting in my study this afternoon, praying, praying
to God Give me the message, praying God give me wisdom, praying God
enable me to preach this message, praying that God make me a faithful
and a good pastor to you. And I thought, how many people
are right at this second praying? I mean, millions. How many people
live on this planet? I mean, how many people are crying
unto God in prayer at the same time? We couldn't distinguish
one from the other, couldn't we? How could you distinguish
one voice out of a million people crying at the same time? Yet
God does. He hears every cry individually,
as if you were the only one speaking. Cry to Him. Cry to Him. You who
are lost don't know the Lord. Can I give you some encouragement
to cry to the Lord to save your sinful? Do you want some encouragement?
Behold, the Lord's hand not shortened that it cannot save, neither
his ear heavy that it cannot hear. You call. You want some encouragement to
keep praying for the lost? You've got loved ones that don't
know the Lord and it breaks your heart. Do you need some encouragement
to keep praying? Behold, The Lord's hand is not
shortened that it cannot save, neither His ear heavy that it
cannot hear. This is the very first thing
I saw when I looked at this chapter this morning. It's the last thing
I'll give you. Our hands, full of blood, full of murders, taking
life, aren't they? His great hand is a life-giving
hand, full of grace and forgiveness. Our itching ears hear lies and
love them. His ear only hears the cry for
mercy from His people. And He's promised to answer every
time. What a Savior. What a Savior who brought salvation
to His people. I hope the Lord will bless that.
His glory into your heart. Let's bow in prayer. Our Father, how we thank You
for Your Word. How we thank You for such a clear
declaration of salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ. I thank you
for this clear command of your word to call upon the name of
the Lord. Father, how thankful we are for
your mighty arm of salvation that reaches down to the very
depths of sin, the bottom of the barrel and pulls up your
people, saves them, washes them, gives them life in our Lord Jesus
Christ. How we thank you for your great
ear that hears the heart cry of your people. Father, we cry
for mercy. We cry, Father, that you'd apply
your word to our hearts, that we'd find our joy and our comfort
and all the hope of salvation that we have in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Father, reveal yourself to your
people. Enable us to see you, rest in you, come to you, we
pray. For it is in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, our great
Savior, we pray and give thanks.