We're back to Isaiah 65. Now, Lord willing, Dan Culver
will preach here Sunday. I'll be going to Don Fortner's.
I forgot all about that. I forgot to put it in the bulletin. But Dan will be here preaching.
I'm going to go down to Danville. I haven't been there probably
15 years. It's been a while. So I told God I'd come down.
He called me 2 or 3 weeks ago. And I talked to Todd today. He's
going to come here on November the 7th. That's on a Wednesday
night. And I'm going to have Don here
on a Wednesday night in December. And I'm going to try to have
Bruce Crabtree here on a Wednesday night in January. Kind of helps
me too. But I want to try to have some
of these men in. And I found out that Bruce doesn't
have midweek services, so we'll give him one. All right. A Bible definition of grace. Anytime I think of grace, when
I think about the grace of God to me, I often, probably almost always,
think of this scripture. I am sought of them that ask
not for me. I am found of them that sought
me not. I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not
called by my name. You know, Paul quoted this scripture
over here in Romans chapter 10. Over here in Romans chapter 10,
Paul says in verse 20, he said, But Isaiah is very bold, very
brave, And saith, I was found of them that sought me not. I was made manifest unto them
that asked not after me. But to Israel, he saith, all
day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and
gainsaying people. So Paul applied this picture. He said, this is what he's talking
about. He's talking right here in the book of Romans. And it
says there to Isaiah, he said, Isaiah is very bold. It takes
a bold man to stand against false religion.
It takes a bold man to stand and look in the face of people
and say, your hopes are worthless. Your ceremonies
have become worthless. Your religion It's worthless.
Have you ever said that to anybody? They don't take it very well.
You tell somebody that proclaims to know God, and you see how
well they take it when you say your God is no God at all now.
That you've missed it. I told this to a man. I said,
you and I don't worship the same Jesus Christ. We do not worship
the same one. And he got upset with me. He
got upset with me over it. To the point where he and I had
to quit talking about the gospel. Couldn't do it anymore. He didn't
want to hear that. Isaiah, he said, is very bold. He said he's
very bold. To stand where the point of rebellion
is takes boldness. And God has to give that. God
has to give that. Isaiah was speaking to a people
who were called by God, given His Word, given the types and
the pictures. Yet Isaiah says to them, God has rejected you. God has
rejected you. And He's going to call the Gentiles,
us. He's going to call us. That's
what Paul preached over in Acts. We looked at that last Sunday,
over in Acts 22. Over here in Acts 22, this is
what got Paul in so much trouble. He says over here in verse 21,
and he said unto me, Depart, for I will send thee from far
hence to the Gentiles. Paul, depart from Jerusalem.
I'm going to send the gospel. I'm going to send salvation to
the Gentiles. They gave him audience to his
word and lifted up their voice and said, away with such a fellow
from the earth. Despised him over it. But they did not recognize,
first of all, that God's grace is free. And they didn't have
a lock on it. God's grace is free. It's free
to all His creation. If he's pleased to bestow it.
If God is pleased to raise up congregations in Africa, that's
all right, isn't it? I would to God he would. If he's
pleased to raise it up in China, I would to God that he would.
But when Isaiah said this and when Paul said this, it made
them mad. It made them upset. They had
become so arrogant. So arrogant that they believed
that they had a lock on this salvation that's of the Lord.
They believed they had a lock on it and everyone else was doomed.
That's how holy they became. Self-righteous they became. Stand
by thyself. Come not near me. Don't come
too close to me. I'm holier than thou. Now the Holy Spirit here. He
speaks through Isaiah and he says, the first thing he says
that caught my attention, notice who's speaking, he says, I am. Notice that, both of them capital,
I am. The person speaking and the person
spoken of here is none other than Almighty God, who is Jesus
Christ. That's who he is. the Lord Jesus
Christ. He says, I AM. When sinners are
saved, they are brought to seek God Himself. They are brought
to seek the great I AM. That's who we seek. We are not
seeking a religion. We're seeking God. We seek Him. There is a real seeking A real
seeking, a real searching, a real going out after God. It's not just a bare acceptance
of facts. That's not salvation at all.
It's not a bare acceptance of facts at all. It's a real seeking
of God in Christ. That's what salvation is. It's
a real going out after Him. He said, I am sought of them
that ask not for me." They didn't ask for me. They didn't say,
who is God? They didn't ask about me, who
I am, what I'm like. No interest. Because they thought
they had God. I am sought, the great I am,
am sought of them that ask not for me. Here is a description
of those whom the Lord says, that ask not for me." You know,
you go out and ask the average person about God saving people,
and they're going to start picking out people that they think ought
to be saved. They're going to start picking out people they
think, well, this person, surely the Lord would save this person.
Grace always comes to the one unexpected. God saves people
you wouldn't expect Him to save. If you knew Abraham before God
saved him, you wouldn't have believed God would save Abraham.
He was in idolatry. He was in idolatry. You see,
that's what the Jews, they've forgotten all about that. When
God saved Abraham, Abraham was not looking for God. Abraham
was not asking after God. Abraham was not seeking God.
God saw him. God called him. That's what the
scripture says. God called Abraham. It doesn't
say Abraham called God. It's the other way. God called
Abraham. God called you. And then you
called upon God. You asked not after Him, but
after He called you, you did. But here's a good description
of us. We asked not after Him. This
does away with all boasting, all bragging, doesn't it? We
were not looking for God when He found us. You've done this. You'd be looking for somebody
and they'd show up and say, Oh, there you are. I was looking for you. We didn't say that. We couldn't
say that. I was looking for you. No, he
sought us. He looked for us. The shepherd
went out looking for what? The lost sheep. The lost sheep
wasn't looking for the shepherd. The lost sheep didn't know he
was lost. He was out there what? Wandering around. Just wandering
around. But the shepherd went out and
found the lost sheep. Isaiah said, we all like sheep
have gone astray. We have gone, every man to his
own way, his own peculiar way of sin. We've all gone astray. We've all gone that way. We were
all out there fulfilling the lust of our flesh and of our
minds. But God, this is what it says in Ephesians 2, but God,
who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved
us, even while we were sinners Christ died for us. Oh, I ask not after Him. Many were in false religion when
He found them. Many had false hopes when He
found them. But one day, one day, something
happened. Something happened. He called and He called His sheep.
He said He called His sheep by name. And then we began to seek Him.
We began to have an interest, a real interest in Christ. We began to have a real interest
in His person, in His salvation. We began to really become interested
in Him. We began to fall in love with
Him. And that's because He loved us. That's
because He sought us. He first sought us in grace,
and then we sought Him for mercy. And here's the blessed result
of seeking Him. I am found of them that sought
me not. We found the Savior, haven't
we? We found Him. But He found us first. He called
us first. I heard Henry say once, grace
before grace. That's what it was. I'm fond
of them that sought me not. One day, you heard the Gospel.
I was not looking. I was not looking for the Gospel. I was not looking for Christ
when I heard Henry preach the Gospel on television 30 years
ago. I was not looking. Here's what I was looking for.
I was looking for dinner. I went over to Mom's. That's
what I was looking for. I was looking for something good
to eat. I had absolutely no idea, not
even a thought, that I was going to hear the gospel. I wasn't looking for it. But
this is a blessed result. I'm found of them that sought
me not. You heard of Jesus Christ? You
heard the truth and you heard it in power. And He revealed
to you Himself out of the Scriptures. And you found Him whom now your
soul loves. You found Him. Like that woman said, I found
Him and I'm not going to let Him go. And this is all of God. God first
does the seeking. He reveals Himself to the center.
And the sinner finds the Savior. And then he learns and he grows
in grace, and he realizes the Savior found him. That's what
you realize, isn't it? When you grow and you mature
and you grow up in Christ, you learn that He chose me. I didn't
choose Him. He chose me first. I did choose
Him, but He chose me first. That's what He said to the apostles.
You didn't choose me. I chose you. Let's get the order right. I
chose you. God is always first in salvation. Always. He's always first in
the order of things. And the message that God sends
to His wandering sheep, first of all, comes from Him. He said,
I said. Notice that? I said. If this was just for
me, you couldn't suspect it. But this is God. And I'm reading
God's Word. It's not something I'm making
up. I'm reading His Word. He said, I said, when we hear
the gospel in power, it's God speaking. Really, it's God speaking. That's who's speaking. I said,
the power of the message depends on the one who's saying it. Really. It depends on the one speaking
it. The power of the message. And God must speak in power to
my heart and your heart. It must come to us in power.
It must come to us. You must hear Him speak who speaks
from heaven. You must hear Him. I say it. And what does He say? When He speaks, what's the message? Behold me, behold me. Why does that song turn your eyes
upon Jesus? Behold me, behold me. Christ is the object of faith. He's the sum and substance of
the gospel. He's all we have to look at.
He's all. We are not told to come to religion.
We have it up to here with religion. We don't need God for religion.
We've got enough of that. We are not told to come to ceremonies.
We are told to look to Christ. How simple a message. How simple. We are told to look to Jesus
Christ. The Jews got so caught up, and
I believe this is what happened, They got so caught up in their
ceremonies. They got so caught up in their
self-righteousness. They got so caught up in all
their goings-on, in their religion and all that, they forgot God. I don't want to get caught up
in coming here and going through services and doing this. You see this going on all over
this country. I mean, they'll have this going on and that going
on, but God's not in it. He's nowhere to be found. In all their doings, in all their
hypocrisies, they forgot God. They forgot the only reason for
even being here, God. Isn't that what He said over
in 64? Oh, that thou wouldest rend the heavens and come down,
that you would make your presence known among us? They quit looking to Him, and
they started looking to them. All these things, that's what
they started looking to. I wrote in red letters here, let us not
make the same mistake. Let us not make the same mistake.
Isaiah 45, 22, Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends
of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else. Now look
to me. Look. Is there anything hard
about look? The hard part, Christ did. He
says to us, just look. Look. Life is to be had in a
look. This is the one thing we could
teach our children. You know, we teach them verse by verse
and go through the Scriptures, but you know the end of it all
is this. Look to Christ. Look to Him. And all be well. God said to Moses, in Numbers
21.8, And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent. A fiery serpent. and set it upon
a pole. And it shall come to pass that
everyone that is bitten..." Have you been bitten? I was born bitten. Sin. Born in sin, shaken in iniquity. "...and everyone that is bitten,
when he looketh..." Not when he glances at it. Not when he
just kind of says, well, I wonder what that is. When he looketh,
he looks. And I know this had to happen
with these people that looked and lived. He said, when he looketh,
when he looketh, shall live. Those who were bitten, the poison
was flowing through their veins. Pain, that painful poison. They
were dying. People had already died. And
they were dying. And Moses, that serpent of brass,
said, God said, look and live. I bet they looked hard at that
serpent, don't you? I bet they strained. And they
didn't take their eye off of it. They looked, and you know
what they expected? To live. Those who look to Christ expecting
salvation, expecting forgiveness, looking for it, because He said
so. Not expecting because I deserve
it or because I ask. But because He said so. He said,
look. Lord, I look. I take you at your
word. I was reading over in one of
the Gospels. I can't remember where it was
at now. It was in Matthew. That soldier, I believe it was
his son or daughter was homesick, dying. And the Lord said, he'll
be healed. He said, go your way. You know
what it says? It says, he believed the word. He believed the word
the Lord spoke, and went his way. And then his service mate
said, he's all right now. He's all right. And he inquired
and said, when did he become all right? And they told him
at what hour he began to heal. And he knew. And remember, it
was the same hour the Lord said, he's healed. He's okay. Your son's okay. Go home. He said, Look! Look. And Isaiah 40, he said,
Behold your God. Look to your God. We look to
God in Christ and find in Him all we need. Is He not all we
need? Is He not all you need? You need
any more? You're in real pitiful shape
if you do. John the Baptist said, Behold,
look to the Lamb of God. Behold the Lamb of God which
taketh away the sin of the world. It says in another place, They
looked unto him and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed. The life of a safe center is
a life continually looking to Christ. We look to Him in the
morning. We look to Him through the day.
We look to Him at night. It is a continual looking to
Christ. Look to Him now and forevermore. This is what I want our children,
our young people to know. We can teach them the Scriptures,
and we ought to. I think as a pastor and teachers
and parents, we are obligated to To teach our children. But we're not educated into the
Kingdom of God, are we? We're born into it. We're born
into it. You're not educated into it,
you're born into it. And all that we teach them, I want them
to know. I want them to know this. He must teach them their need
of Him. He must teach them their need
of Him. Because we don't inherit these things from the family.
We may inherit politics. You know, most people you know,
if their parents have been Republicans, you'll find that Grandpa's one.
It's just right down the line. That's not the way salvation
is. How many times, you go back in the Old Testament, how many
times does it say this? He walked not in the steps of
his father. God left him alone. God is sovereign. God Almighty is sovereign. He'll
save whom He will. And He'll always do right. He'll always do right. And we
rest in that. If sinners are to be saved, we
must always lift up Christ before them. Christ said, if I be lifted
up, I'll draw all men unto me. And this message must be preached
throughout the world, because he said, unto a nation that was
not called by my name. Those Jews never, as far as the
whole body of them, there were some who had some understanding,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, some of those had understanding.
But as far as the nation itself goes, they didn't expect God
to save anybody outside of Israel. And to tell you the truth, He's
not. Because all Israel shall be saved.
All Israel, I promise you this on the word of God, all Israel
shall be saved. Their mistake was they didn't
understand that Israel is a spiritual born people. But all Israel shall be saved.
But he said not all that are of Israel are Israel. Not everyone. He said, there'll
be many that say, Lord, Lord, we preached in your name. We
cast out devils in your name. We've done many mighty works
in your name. We have proclaimed Christianity. We've accepted
all those facts and rules and truths. He said, depart from
me. I never knew you. Oh, he said, preach this to a
nation that was not called by my name. I thank Christ that
he is sought of them that ask not for him. And that he is found
of them that sought him not. Aren't you glad of that? I'm thankful that God sent the
gospel to us Gentiles and to us here in Ashland. I thank God
He did that. Because if He hadn't, I'd still
be lost. Because I would not seek God by myself. I wouldn't
do it. You know, we have examples of
this throughout the Gospels. That woman at the well. Was she
looking for Him? What was she going to the well
for? Did she get up and say, the Lord
is going to be at the well today? No, she went to draw water. That
lame man, that impotent man sitting by the pool of Bethesda. A whole
bunch of crippled people there. There was a whole lot of people
there just like him. That man never had one thought of God
showing up. He wasn't praying that the Lord would come over
and heal him. He was sitting there like he had for many years. And then the Lord of glory walked
up to him and healed him. Saved him. Unexpectedly. Unexpectedly. I thank God. I thank God that He calls us who
sought Him not. I thank God for that. He could have left us alone.
He could have. You notice the rest of that,
or a good portion of this chapter is given to the reprobation of
Israel. of the Israelites. For the most part, they perished. They perished. Not all shall
be saved. Many shall perish because of
their own, now listen, because of their own rebellion. Any man
who goes to hell, who winds up under the wrath of God, it's
his own fault. God says, and I cannot explain
the secret counsel of God, I know that, but God said in verse 2,
I have spread out my hands all the day long. Christ said, O
Israel, if you'd have known the peace, O Jerusalem, if you had
known the peace, it belonged to you this thy day. And he wept
on. I know people who are reprobate,
they are that way because they want to be that way. They do
not want God. It's not like God says, there's
two men calling on God and says, I'm going to take this and I'll
choose this one and this one I'm going to leave alone. Nobody's
calling on God. Nobody wants Him. He's despised. He's despised and rejected of
men. But grace makes the difference. Grace fluctuates the brand from
the fire. Grace saves those who are in
the same boat, drowning in the same boat. Oh, He makes the difference. But look at verse 8. Verse 8. He talks about these reprobates,
how He's going to visit them, with judgment and wrath. And it sounds hopeless for Israel,
doesn't it? He says he's going to turn to the Gentiles. He's
going to save Gentiles. And he's going to destroy Israel,
this people who was called by his name. I mean, it looks like
nothing but absolute gloom and doom. But then it says in verse
8, For thus saith the Lord, as the new wine is found in the
cluster, And one saith, Destroy it not, for a blessing is in
it. I'm going to destroy this people, but not all of them.
Why? Because I have an elect. I have
an elect in Israel, and I have an elect in the Gentile world.
And they all make up the true Israel of God. All of them. A blessing in it is in it. God
is going to populate heaven with a people just like His Son. And
the reason this earth is still standing is because a blessing
is in it. A people is in it. A people blessed
with God is still in this world. And that's why it's still standing.
And for those people, His servants that He speaks of, He speaks
of His servants, those who serve Him. Paul and Timotheus, servants
of Jesus Christ. Every believer is a servant of
Jesus Christ. Every one of them. And He's going
to create for them a new heaven and a new earth. And the former
shall not be remembered. We won't remember this place.
We will not look back with any pity, any sorrow. We will not look back. There
won't be any back to look to. Everything's forward. We'll be
looking back. Right now, we look back a lot.
I do. I look back. I look back and I say, well,
I wish I hadn't done this, I wish I hadn't done that. There'll
be a time I won't look back. There won't be no back to look
to. He's going to create a new heaven and a new earth. And his people are going to be
a joyful people. You know, every now and then
we get a taste of that, don't we? Every now and then we get a taste
of joy. But the joy he's speaking of
here far surpasses anything we've ever tasted here. They're going
to be a joyful people, and these sorrowful things will
never come into mind again. You wouldn't have any joy if
you did, would you? If you could remember these things, these
things and people you've known, there wouldn't be joy. No, he's
going to wipe all that. All that's going to be gone.
And they're going to be prosperous there in verses 20 through 22.
They shall be a prosperous people. They shall build and eat and
rejoice in the work of the Lord. They're going to be joyful people.
And they're going to be a prosperous people. He says, there shall be no more
offense and infidel days, or old man that hath not fulfilled
his days. You ever hear somebody say, well, he died an untimely
death. Now, he's saying here they're
not going to die. They're going to be old. I mean, speaking in
languages we can understand, eternal. The child shall die
at a hundred years old, but the sinner, being a hundred years
old, well, he's still going to be in the same situation. He's
going to be accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit
them, and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. They
shall not build and another inhabit. They shall not plant and another
eat. For as the days of a tree are the days of my people, My
elect shall long enjoy, long enjoy the work of their hands,
and their labor shall not be in vain. And there shall be peace. There shall be peace. The lion
and the lamb shall lay down together. They shall lay down together,
they shall eat together, feed together, rejoice together. You
know, for that to happen, God has to change somebody's nature,
doesn't He? You take a lamb, put it with a lion, now. That lamb is gone. But God's going to take that
lion, He's going to change its nature. And it's going to eat,
He said, it's going to eat straw like an ox. We're all going to
eat the same thing. We're all going to feed on the
same thing. Christ. We're all going to feed on Him. And they shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain." Every day, every hour, somebody
hurt, somebody destroy him, somebody get him destroyed. But he said,
this is not going to happen again. Can you imagine a place like
that? Can you imagine a place where hurt or not even be in
our vocabulary. For there'll be no destruction. Right now there's war going on.
Young people, young men and women are dying. One day it won't happen again.
It won't happen again. He said the wolf and the lamb
will feed together. And the lion shall eat straw
like the bullock, and thus shall be the serpent's meat. They shall
not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord." Well, what a day that's going
to be. What a day. I can't grasp, you
know, we believe because God said so. You know, we just read
it. And we believe this is so. Hard to grasp though, isn't it?
It's hard to wrap your mind around such a day and such a time coming. It's hard to even grasp that
there will be a real new heaven and a new earth, a solid earth.
We'll walk on just like this one, except there will be no
sin. And everybody will be friends. There will be no locks on the
doors. And our laborers, whatever it
is we will do there, I don't know. I know we're not going
to just sit around. We may have had just a little insight He
said, they'll build houses. They're going to be a prosperous
people, he said. And he said, you're not going
to labor if somebody else eats it again. How many times has
that happened to Israel? They would grow their gardens
and God would bring judgment on them. He'd chase them and
somebody would come in and eat their gardens. He said, that
won't happen again. There'll be no pain. There'll
be no suffering. ever again in this new heaven
and new earth. And my people are going to be
a joyful people.