Let's turn, if you would, to
Jeremiah chapter 8. Jeremiah chapter 8. We'll start with the first two verses
of Jeremiah 8. At that time, saith the Lord,
they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the
bones of his princes, and the bones of his priests, and the
bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem
out of their graves. and they shall spread them before
the sun, and the moon, and the host of heaven, whom they have
loved, whom they have served, after whom they have walked,
and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped. They
shall not be gathered, nor buried, they shall be foredone upon the
face of the earth." So what we see here in this dark passage
in Jeremiah is the Lord is saying, dig up the bones of the kings,
dig up the bones of the princes and the prophets, and throw them
out, spread them before the sun, the moon, the stars, the things
which they've loved, which they've served, which they've walked
after, which they've sought, and which they've worshipped.
And so what this speaks of, kind of one of the Jewish traditions
is that they, if you'll look at any of the history, They would
put their bones in boxes they called ossuaries, I think. And
it was very much so a desecration of the bones to touch them or
to move them because they believed that when they died, the bones
would never be disturbed again until the resurrection and their
bodies would come back to life. And so they considered that a
very sacred thing in Jewish tradition. And so what the Lord is saying
here, I gave you no such tradition. He said, take them and throw
them out. but throw them out for the sun, the moon, the stars,
the things which you worship, the things you sought after,
throw them after the things you've loved. And in verse three, and
death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue
of them that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the
places whether I've driven them, saith the Lord of hosts. Moreover,
thou shalt stand to them, thus saith the Lord. Shall they fall
and not arise? Shall he turn away? and not return. So when he says, shall they fall
and not arise, these bones, are you going to be raised by what
you worshiped? The things that you sought after, the things
that you loved, the things you've given your life for that were
deemed important to you. And that was not me. Now I'm
throwing you out before them. Are they going to cause you to
rise one day? What are they going to do for
you now? You may fall, but you're still going to be held accountable.
Shall he turn away and not return? That word turn away is the same
word in verse five when it says why is this people of Jerusalem
slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? Slidden back and turn away are
the same word. It means turn back. Turn back
to what? It said they hold fast to deceit. In verse five they hold fast
to deceit and they refused to return. Return to what? return
to God, return to the Lord. But they have turned to their
gods, the sun, the moon, the stars, anything but the God of
this book they've turned to. They're turning back to works.
This is this whole, when you read in Exodus about the children
of Israel in the desert, They always wanted to turn back to
Egypt. Oh, if we were in Egypt, we wouldn't be starving and dying
of thirst out here. It was even after all that they
did when they were in Egypt is cry to be delivered from Egypt.
But yet now they're somewhere else and now they desire to go
back. There's a desire to turn back. That's a picture of turning
back to works after having been delivered. This is a turning
away from Christ, from God, from life. Turning away from life
and a turning back to death. turning back to darkness and
turning back to bondage, turning from a free salvation and being
complete in Christ to one that must be bought again, considering
not that you have nothing to pay with and that you're poor
and miserable and wretched and blind. And in verse 6, and this
is our text and what drew me to this, I hearkened, this is
God speaking, and I heard But they spake not aright, and no
man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? That's the title of my message
this morning in my points. There's no man that hath repented
from his wickedness and has said, What have I done? I could not
get past this verse, this What have I done? Now whether this
is the first time you've ever heard this Or the 5,000th time
you've heard this, this is something that we, in this life or in the
next, we can't ignore. We can't forget. We can't hope
that it's not going to be dealt with or hope that it's not remembered. What have I done? After all,
I'm not perfect. I don't want to compare everything
that I've done and have it displayed out and be compared against him
who is perfect. God is perfect. He shows us how
he deals with iniquity in verses one through four here. He said,
I'm going to dig your bones out and I'm going to throw you out
here and you're not going to rise. Shall they fall and not
rise? No, they're not. These these ones who have followed
the sun, the moon, the stars, loved and worshipped everything
that is not the God of the Bible. He said, your graves are going
to be dug up, you're turned unto death. Death is chosen and not
life. You knew. He said, and you turned
back. You've taken hold of deceit.
Now where is your deliverer? Now who will you look to to deliver
you in this day? The Lord said, I have hearkened,
and I have heard, but they spake, and that no man spake aright.
No man. So my first point, no man. There's
no exceptions to this rule. If you are a son or daughter
of Adam, you fall into this category, and that is everyone in this
room. The scripture said, all ascend and come short of the
glory of God. We're fallen, and we're fallen
because it's our nature. There's no man who doesn't fit
this description. We're born in sin, so therefore
we sin. That makes us sinners. That which
God hates. God hates sin, and God will punish
sin. There's no sin that will not
be unpunished. And God hates sin so much, he
won't even look upon it. That's what he said in Exodus
33 20. He said, when he talked to Moses, you cannot see my face
for there shall no man see me and live. The reason he said
that is because he's holy. And if he has to look upon me
and sin, he said, you can't see my face and live. Which tells
me this, that there's no sin greater than another. He didn't
say, Moses, you have more sin or less sin than somebody else.
He's saying, you can't see my face and live. There's no exception
to that. To break one commandment is to
be guilty for breaking them all. What is the penalty for one sin?
The penalty is death. What about the penalty for 555,000
sins? The penalty is death. So which is worse? What difference
does it make? I always wondered that when you
watch, I remember growing up watching when they sentenced
Jeffrey Dahmer to like 14 consecutive life sentences. It's like, what's
the point? You know, you're sentencing him
to one, he's going to die in prison. So what's the point of
14? So whether it's one or whether
it's 14 or whether it's 5,000. So what does this tell me? It tells me that I can never
look down on someone else. I can never glory over some other
son of Adam who is a sinner just like me because the punishment
for me, the punishment for them is death. There is no room for
glory here. There may be before men but not
before God. No man can see God's face and
live. You see, God even says that we
can't even approach to make intercession for ourselves, to even be forgiven. He says that no man that hath
a blemish Of the seat of Aaron, the priest shall come nigh to
the offering of the Lord. And what we don't consider is
that we are blemished. We have spots. There's impurities
in us so that I can't even come before, come near where the sacrifice
is because I'm blemished. I'm like the leper. That's probably
one of the greatest types in the scripture as a picture of
the sinner. What did he do? He had to cover
his face everywhere he went. I'm so vile. I have to cry, I'm
clean, I'm clean. And that meant polluted, polluted. Don't come near me. Don't even
get within the breadth of where I'm at because I'm that bad.
You can't get near me. My breath is diseased. I have
to put a rag over my face. There's nothing that I've ever
said that was not polluted. Everything I do is self-serving.
I said that this morning already. Everything that I do and judgments
I make are how does it benefit me or what is it going to cost
me? And it's all regarding self. Such selfish motives. Everywhere
I look I'm not even allowed to be seen. See the leper was told
you can't stay in here where everybody else is. You've got
to get out of town. You've got to go outside of town because
you're different than everybody else. You're unclean and we don't
want you to pollute other people so you get out of town. He couldn't
even come to the temple to offer sacrifice. He had to go out of
town. He had to be put outside. We can't look and we cannot talk
to God. He won't even look upon us because
we have sin. Everything I touch is unclean. So the leper's clothes, anything
the leper touched, it was unclean. Now, there's nothing wrong with
what his clothes were, nothing wrong with his cup, but it's
unclean because I touched it. And so this is the extent of
where sin is before God. There's nothing wrong with things.
But it's because of what I do and what I am as a sinner that
makes it sinful because of the nature of sin. This is the extent
of sin before God. This is the extent of our state. Therefore, I can't offer anything
that he will accept because I'm unclean. He'll turn back to Jeremiah
7, a page there. You'll see what the Lord says
about this people earlier. He says, I will cast you out
of my sight. As I have cast out all your brethren,
even the whole seed of Ephraim. Therefore, pray not thou for
this people. Neither lift up cry nor prayer
for them. Neither make intercession to
me, for I will not hear thee." He's saying, don't you pray?
Don't talk to me about them. Don't come try to make peace
with them, intercession with me because of them. He said,
I'm not even going to hear you. He said, at this point for me, these
people, I want nothing to do with them. He said, don't even
pray for them. Well, if left here, all hope would be lost.
The Lord says that there was no man that spake a right. In
the days of Noah, he said that every heart was only sinning
evil, can only evil continue. That was the wickedness in every
heart. So it's the same thing here when he says that no man's
fake or right. It's just all wickedness and
all sin. And what did the Lord do in Noah's
day? He said, I'm just going to wipe it all out. We're just
going to start over. But then he says, but Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. When all hope was lost here,
when God said no man's fake or right, God made a way. Verse
Timothy 2.5 says, for there is one God and one mediator between
God and men, the man Christ Jesus. When there was no man who spake
a right, God gave them the man, Christ Jesus. His son, the intercessor,
the express image of his person. I love that description of the
Lord. The express image of the person of God in a body. The
man, Christ Jesus. God in the flesh, Jesus of Nazareth. The only one whom God the Father
will hear. And he was sent What? To save
his people from their sins, the things for which God said, you
can't even see my face and live. How did we receive him when he
came? Well, in Isaiah 53, it says he was despised. He was rejected. We hid our faces
from him. You ever been in public and seen
somebody you didn't want to talk to? You didn't want them to see
you. You hide your face, you tuck your head down and you don't
even want to want to make contact with him. And this is the one
whom we're sentenced to death. We can't even come to God for
intercession. He won't even look upon us for
our sins. And he sent his son, the expressed image of his person,
and yet we despised, we rejected, we hit her face, don't even look
at me. I don't want to be associated
with you. We beat him, we spit on him, and we nailed him to
a tree to die. This is how we dealt with God's son, the one
in whom hope is. This is how we dealt with him.
The Lord said from the cross in Psalm 142, verse four, he
said, no man would know me. My refuge failed me. He said,
no man cared for my soul. What a sad state of affairs that
that's how our Lord was made to feel when he came here to
redeem us. And in being around us, that's
how we made him feel. No man cared for my soul. If
you will turn over to Matthew chapter 21. And this parable is given as an illustration
for the Lord bringing the gospel and his son to sinners, to men
and women like we are, and then how we treated him. Matthew 21.
We'll start reading in verse 33. Here another parable. There was a certain householder
which planted a vineyard and he hedged it round about and
digged a winepress in it. He built a tower and he let it
out to husband the men to work the vineyard. And he went into
a far country and at the time when the fruit drew near, the
fruit is the profits of his labor. He sent his servants to the husbandman
to collect that they might receive the fruits of it. And when we
have this picture here, the servants represent the prophets and the
preachers of the gospel bringing the word to the people preaching
to them. So he's come to reap the fruits
of the preaching of the word and of his people. And it says,
the husbandman took his servants and they beat one. And they killed
another. And then he sent somebody else
and they stoned him. And then he sent other servants,
more than the first. And they did likewise unto them. And they did unto them likewise.
So what we see is this tells you something about the Lord
of the Vineyard, that he is long-suffering. He sent a servant, and then that
one came back beat. He said that they wouldn't give
him anything, they'd just beat him. They sent another one, and
he came back feeding worse. And then he sent another, and
they stoned him, and he waited a while. Well, this one's not
coming back. Maybe I'll send another. They
keep sending another, another, and they keep quit coming back.
And then last, he says, last of all, he sent unto them his
son, saying, they will reverence my son. Perhaps they will reverence
my son. And he's thinking that you didn't
have any respect for my servants because they represented me.
They worked for him and they went to him. But he's saying,
if you won't respect them, then I'll send the one who is my heir,
my son. He is everything that I have. The power is instilled in my
son. Now I'm going to send him. Perhaps
they will reverence him. But when the husbandmen saw the
son, they said to themselves, this is the heir come let us
kill him and let us seize on his inheritance and they caught
him and they cast him out of the vineyard and slew him and
so when I read that this is this is what we did as men to God's
son God's son he sent his son into the world and we killed
him and when the Lord therefore the vineyard cometh what will
he do to those husband and And this is my question here this
morning, what have I done? When the Lord, therefore, of
the vineyard cometh, what will he do to those husbands? They
said unto him, he will miserably destroy those wicked men, and
will let out his vineyard unto other husbands, which are in
there under him, that fruits in due season. What will God
do with me any less than compassion for rejecting his son, as he
did with these husbands of his? Well, he says, I've hearkened
and I've heard there was no man. And my second point is that no
man what? That has repented of his wickedness. Turn back to Jeremiah. We'll
stay there the rest of the time. Repented of his wickedness. Well,
what is repentance? Well, repentance is to change
one's mind. It's that I used to think one
thing and now I don't anymore. I've changed my mind and I think
something else. God said no man repented of what? Of his wickedness. Why not? Because they didn't want to. You know why you like doing things
that you're not supposed to? All the little boys and girls
in here listen up. There's a reason why you like
doing things that you're not supposed to. Because you're born
with that desire. That sometimes doing things that
you're not supposed to that makes you feel good. You get excited
when you do something you're not supposed to. It's because
that we can only sin. That's all we can do in our nature.
That's why we do things that we're not supposed to. Therefore,
you enjoy sin. Scripture says there is pleasure
in sin for a season. But you cannot repent. The Lord
says in the scriptures here that no man has repented of his wickedness. There is no change of mind concerning
who God is, And understanding who God is, there'll be a change
in mind concerning who I am and how God saves the sinner. So
who is God? Well, God is a spirit. God is
the creator. God is all-powerful. He's all-knowing. He's holy. And that word holy
just means of it. So if I'm a sinner and God is
other than what I am, therefore he has no sin. He cannot sin
because all I can do is sin. If he's high, that I'm low. If
he's truth, then I'm lies. If he's the light, then I'm darkness. He is holy in his decrees and
in his word. Consider this. Is there anything
that the Lord has decreed in his word that he hasn't done?
It's not one thing, but it's because nothing ever changes.
If he decreed it'll be done, it always will be done that way.
He's holy in his person. In him is no sin. You know that
He always does what's right, and it's right because He does
it. He's the one who is holy, therefore it's right. He's holy
in His justice. Scripture says He will by no
means clear the guilty. And He's holy in His love. If
God loves you, you realize that there's no way that you cannot
be loved. That will never change. Because He never changes. Our
world preaches a God that overlooks His justice in order to love.
God can't do this because that would make him unjust. And he's
not unjust, he is the just judge. How then can God be just and
love someone who is a sinner? Because we read earlier, or heard
earlier, that he said, you can't even look upon my face because
you're a sinner. Well, the only way that God can
love someone who is a sinner is that they have to have no
sin. How then can God love me, me
knowing that I am a sinner? How then could he love me? And
if you say the only way is to have no sin, how can that be?
Well, the only way possible would be for Christ to die for you.
Christ must die for you. There's no one for whom he died
that is not forgiven. And if he died for you, you must
be forgiven. It's not just that you might
be, you must be forgiven if he died for you. And God will do
so because he's holy and just. You see, if Christ paid for my
sins by living the life I couldn't, which he did without sin, but
yet he died. Well, what's the reason he died?
Well, the only reason for death is sin. Well, if he was incapable
of committing sin, then how did he die? Where did that sin come
from? Well, that sin came from everyone
for whom he died for. You see, the Lord took my sin
that I committed and he charged him with it. He laid it on Christ
and Christ became guilty of that sin. It became his sin. And in
becoming guilty, God punished him. And he died paying for that
sin. But then the scripture says that
he arose. And what that signifies is it's not right for God to
leave him in death. If he has paid for my sin, paid
everything that the law required, it's not right to leave him in
the hold of death. Because he's paid everything,
so the only thing right and just to do is to cause him to be risen. By his payment, life was restored
to all who are united and in him for whom he died. How then
could God charge me with the same sin? He couldn't. That would
be unjust. He couldn't because Christ paid
it. Scripture says it's Christ that died. and he wouldn't, that'd
be double jeopardy. It would be unjust. He'd be punishing
me for the same sins that Christ already died for? That can't
be, because the scripture says that he's holy. That means he
will always be just. Proverbs 17, 15 says, he that
justifies the wicked, you can read that as he who would unjustly
pardon a sinner. meaning not put his sins on Christ,
have him earn his way. That would be unjustly pardoned
because he couldn't ever fully pay his sins. He who justifies
the wicked and he who condemns the just. You see, that would
be wrong for God the Father to put Christ to death if he wasn't
guilty for those sins. He became guilty, so he who pardoned
the wicked and he who forgave the just are both an abomination
unto the Lord. Let me give you an illustration
here. It'll let you kind of understand what this is. Where he took my
sin and gave me his righteousness. You may have heard, some of you
may have heard this before. I have, at one point, a car loan. And I would pay each month on
that car loan. I'd log on, I'd see I owe this
much, pay. Over the course of many months,
I finally paid it off. I don't owe on that car anymore.
Now, in the back of my mind, about six months down the road,
I thought, what if they charged me interest on the last month
and I paid early and then that interest charge was on there
and I still owed money and then all these months have gone by
and attacking some kind of fee on there and the balance keeps
going up. So in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, I still owe
money. What am I going to do? So I go
to log back in, type in, pops up and it says I can't log in. It doesn't work, okay. So I called
them up and they said, I'm sorry sir, you don't have an account
here. It's not just that I was looking to see that zero balance
where I've been paid up to a certain point and I don't owe anything.
It's when Christ died for my sins, They were put away so far
as it's not that just you paid the sins, we know you paid the
sins, but you're not guilty of them now. They're gone. There
is no account anymore because they were taken away with what
Christ did. Because God the Father says,
I will even take away the memory of sin. It's not even just going
to be that you know what you did, I know what you did, and
I'm not going to punish you for Christ's sake, but you and I
both know that you once had this balance. It's that he sees in
me only the blessed righteousness that his son has provided. I'm
not going to have this zero balance or even a, you know, when you
look at your balance, it shows you what you originally borrowed,
this, you know, minus $25,000 or whatever. You don't see any
of that. That's all gone. There's no record that it ever
even happened because it's been paid for. And so this is what
what the child of God, those who are united with Christ, have
in the Lord Jesus Christ. When he paid my sins, they were
gone forever, obliterated and eliminated, because there can
be no memory of sin before God. So this is the only way that
Christ gets all the glory and salvation, where he does it all.
He put it away, even the memory of it. I think that's what I
torture myself with the most. is not what I commit to sin,
it's the memory of past sins. I think that is, clearly that
is what we see that, you know, in one of the Gospels where it
talks about the man in hell, he was tormented over his memory
of sin. Saying, go back to my brothers,
tell them, you know, he had memory and he was tormented over it.
But yet the Lord says, I'm going to remove even the memory of
sin. You're not even going to remember The burden, the things
that are on your heart that you remember you did and you're so
ashamed of. Lord said, I'm going to take all that away too. Not
only your guilt, I'm going to take that away too. So this turning
back that it speaks of here where he says, why is this people turn
back, slidden back by perpetual backsliding, perpetually going
back, just holding on to the seat, going back to the things
that can't save after you've already been delivered and know
whom God is in the Bible. After I've shown myself, this
is a turning back and no repentance of wickedness is a turning back
to death. God will save no man based on his or her personal
obedience. Going back to death is going
back to a salvation based on what you do to get to the point
to be saved. God will save no man for that.
He will save only those who are in his Son, Christ, who has already
done that. Why would I add anything to it?
If I was chosen, it's only because I was in Christ. It's not because
there was anything in me. And I'm only there because of
his grace. It's not anything that made...
If he had to look at you and me and our life and find a reason
for why to save us, I know this, he couldn't find a reason for
anything I've ever done to say he deserves to be in Christ.
No way. That had to occur before I was
ever born or else I would have never been chosen. Well, I'm
searching for evidence. How do I know? How do I know
if I'm one of those who is united to Christ in election? You're
never going to find that out if you're trying to search it
from that direction. Belief is your only evidence.
The evidence that you are one of the elect only comes after
you believe, after you trust. Then you see that you are one
of those who are united in Christ, but in this life we'll never
know. The only thing that you'll ever see is belief and trust
in Christ. That's why it's called faith.
It's things that are not seen. In Christ, he gives me a new
nature which believes, which loves God, which that I don't
have right now, which was not there before. Christ had to birth
it in me. And if he didn't do that for
me, I would never believe. I would never come to him. I
would never trust him. The old man, my flesh, that's
still here. And I'm always going to have
it with me in this life. And I'm afraid I see more of
him than I care to admit. that I thank God that one day
he will be put down and I won't have to look at him every day.
He'll be no more. He'll be given to death where
he belongs. There's no man that hath repented
him of his wickedness. You want a good example of what
repentance is? It's right here in verse 6. He
says, what have I done? You see, you can only say what
have I done when you've had a change of mind. When you feel a true
sorrow, When I'm mourning over your sin, over your unbelief,
over your weakness and inability to do anything right before God.
Why would you want to look at all and see all this negativity
in yourself? Why would you look at all that?
That sure makes it easy to trust in Christ. When I see my sorrow,
when I consider my sin and God causes me to see what little
bit he does of it. It's enough to make me run quickly
to Christ and know that's the only place I have any safety.
That's my only hiding place. What a relief. What a burden
off your back to go to Christ and to know that everything's
done. There's nothing you have to do. There's no ground at a
certain level that you've got to reach. It's all been done.
You're there in Christ, complete in Him. All the sin that I took,
that I committed, He took away. It's gone. There's no trace,
there's no remembrance. It's been consumed in God's wrath
upon his son, and his life is evidence that I will never be
punished for that sin. Because if he lives, the only
way that he lives is because that's been punished for and
death has no more claim on it. The fire is extinguished and
there's nothing more to burn. If you'll turn with me over to
Job chapter 33, I'm not sure we'll find a better example of
repentance in the Scripture. Job chapter 33 verse 27 says, He looketh upon
men and if any say, what have I done? What is repentance? He says, I have sinned and perverted
that which was right and it profited me not. What that means when
he says, I've seen sin, that means that I'm guilty. I'm not
blaming anybody else. There's nobody else I can look
to and say, well, it was circumstantial led me to have to do it. No,
he says, I've sinned. He says, I perverted that which
was right. I've never done anything right.
Everything I've done has been wrong and it's been sinful. If
it was right, I didn't do it. I perverted that which was right
and it profited me not. All I've done is worthless to
Anything that I've built confidence up in, the things that I've done,
any of these false refuges, things that you look to outside of Christ,
he said, they profited me not. And what he means by that is
he's saying, I saw profit in it one day. Now I don't. And
because now I don't, I'm giving it up. I don't want that anymore.
That's not the grounds I'm coming on. It profited me not. I throw
it all away. I've changed my mind. That is
what repentance is. Paul said, But what things were
gained to me, things that were gained to me before, things that
I valued, those I counted as loss for Christ's sake. Everything I built up status
in, he said, I throw it all away. It means nothing to me now. I've
changed my mind. If you go back up to just read
a few verses before that, in verse 22, he says, Yea, his soul
draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers.
It's getting ready to be put down. And if there be a messenger
with him, who's the messenger? Who's the interpreter? The one
among a thousand. To show unto man his uprightness.
Who can show you your uprightness other than the Lord? Your uprightness
is nothing but wickedness is when you find out who the Lord
is. You find out that everything that you trusted in is, and everything
that you look to outside of Christ is meaningless. Show unto him
his uprightness. Then he is gracious unto him
and says, deliver him from going down to the pit. I found a ransom. And that word ransom actually
means atonement. I found an atonement. That which God is pleased with.
That which God won't punish me for because he's pleased with.
That would be the sacrifice of Christ for my sins. That would
be Christ giving me his righteousness. And his flesh shall be fresher
than a child's and he shall return to the days of his youth and
pray to his God and he will be favorable unto him. And he shall
see his face with joy, for he will render unto man his righteousness."
And that word, his righteousness, there is the word for Christ's
righteousness. That's a different, his righteousness,
than showing man his uprightness. This is actually rendering unto
man the righteousness of Christ. The spotless robe of Christ is
my righteousness. Everything that God can look
upon me and see and say, Well done, thou good and faithful
servant. You can see that because Christ gave me that robe. Well,
one day we will all be faced with the fruits of our labor.
Some will be unto death, some will be unto life. And so when
I ask the question, what have I done? Well, it's not just me
standing on my own if I'm standing in Christ. If I'm uniting Christ,
when they can say unto me, what have I done? I can say in the
person of Christ, I've been beloved of the Father. He's never looked
upon me in any way but lovely. I've never sinned. And I've never
sinned and I can't sin. In the person of Christ, what
have I done? I'm clean. I'm no longer blemished. I'm
no longer spotted like I am now. I'm clean. I'm washed. I've been changed. Scripture
says to be made conformable to the image of his Son. That's
an exact copy. So when God the Father looks
at me, And he sees his son, that which he's pleased with. I've
been made conformable to the image of his son. I wear his
robe of righteousness. I cast off my filthy rags. The
things that were righteous to me before that I wanted to present
as good things, I've cast them away. When the Lord was passing
through on his way to the cross and blind Bartimaeus heard about
him, what was the one thing he did as soon as he kept crying
out, you know, Son of David, have mercy upon me. That Son
of David, have mercy upon me. And then the Lord stopped and
they said, be of good cheer. The Lord called it. The first
thing he did was throw that robe off, said that he cast away his
garment. I would have liked to have seen what, you know, vigor
he threw it away. It was just, you know, get that
thing off and get to Christ. And that was the only thing that
he could see. And the only thing that he would
do is to get to Christ, to cast off his filthy rags. What have
I done in the person of Christ? I have a perfect faith. I have
a perfect righteousness. I have no doubts. Is there anywhere
else you'd rather be than in the person of Christ? Is there
anyone constraining you to do something you don't want to do?
It's not natural unto you because that's what people do. They play
church. They try to be something they're
not. This is what I want. This is no longer something I
feel like I have to do because I know it's the right thing.
This is what I want. It's because I've been given
a new nature and I see who my savior is. Now, I'm doing what
I want to and there's nowhere else I'd rather be. This is evidence
of the new man Christ in you. All my confidence, all my hope,
all my salvation is in the person of Jesus Christ the Lord, the
Lord of glory. So may God grant unto us the
grace to believe and the grace to say in our hearts, what have
I done? I'm glad to be here with you
and I hope the message was a blessing to you.