And let's look at the first three
verses, Isaiah 27, in the first three verses. In that day, the Lord with His
sore and great and strong sword shall punish Leviathan, the piercing
serpent, even Leviathan, that crooked serpent, And he shall
slay the dragon that is in the sea. In that day, sing ye unto her
a vineyard of red wine. I, the Lord, do keep it. I will water it every moment,
lest any hurt it. And I will keep it night and
day." You know which verse I'm going to be looking at. In verse
3, the word it. He keeps it, lest any hurt it. Now that it specifically refers
back to verse 2, refers to the vineyard. the vineyard, which
in scripture often refers at various times and places to his
church. Songs of Solomon is full of the
vineyard and he's speaking the bride and the bridegroom. We are the bride and he, our
Lord, is the groom. Let us note how he cares for, how he has chosen and keeps His
selected bride or church in verse 3. In that day sing ye unto her,
sing, a vineyard of red wine, choicest wine. I
the Lord do keep it. I will water it every moment,
lest any hurt it. I will keep it night and day."
Now we have a tendency when we read this, this is a promise
for His church, wherever they may be, however large, however
small, where two or three are gathered together. Well, nobody's
going to hurt it. Well, it doesn't mean that the
church is not going to go through trial, and every believer will
go through trial. If you haven't gone through trial
and you've been a believer for a long time, I'd say question
whether you know the gospel. Because every believer is chastened,
tried, afflicted. Doesn't mean that we're not going
to go through that, but eternally, no one can truly hurt. They may
take the body, and it's easy to stand up here and say that
in this country right now. They may kill the body, but they
can't take the soul. But to the martyrs, and to Isaiah,
to the weeping prophet Jeremiah, to the brethren who went before
us, It was real. It was very real. And they had
comfort. But I want us to notice, look
at verse 3 again. I the Lord. He is not speaking
through a prophet. He is speaking Himself. He speaks
directly rather than through a prophet. This, I think, causes
us to evaluate the thing spoken with the largeness that it is
the enormity that God Himself is speaking to His church. He's
not going through someone else. He's not going through as true
and right as He could have as He's done in other places. But
He says, I the Lord do keep it. He's speaking directly. He who
cannot lie or ever stretch the sincerity of his words to usward. Take this phrase, this truth,
this promise to the heavenly bank and withdraw it frequently. I, the Lord, do keep it. And he uses that word twice. I keep it. The latter part of
verse three, I will keep it night and day. He says twice, what
a well-kept vineyard we must be. He makes it his own personal
care and concern. I've got three points we need
to observe. Firstly, he tends to his church. Secondly, he waters his church.
And thirdly, he guards his church. He tends, that is, He looks after. The Word cultivates His church
collectively and His people individually. I, the Lord, do keep it. I keep it. It's like it's a vineyard. You go out into the field and
you prune it back so it's fruitful and you cultivate around it.
You weed it and you mulch it and you do these things to that. He looks after it. Jude chapter
24 pretty well says what He's going to do for us. I often go to this passage because
it blesses me. Now unto Him, Christ through
God and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, unto Him, to them, that
is able to keep you, keep us, the church, the vineyard from
falling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory
with exceeding joy. To the only wise God, our Savior,
be glory and majesty Dominion and power both now and forever. He, I the Lord, do keep. I tend to this vineyard. Those for whom He keeps, are
we not well kept? David said he never saw the righteous
baking bread. And I know some of us here have
had some extreme trials before. There may be some coming, we
don't know. But we've been kept. We've been kept. Kept by His
Almighty Grace. Turn to Isaiah 58. Turn to Isaiah
58, the first part of verse 11. Psalms 58, the first part of
verse 11. and the Lord shall guide thee
continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat
thy bones." He's our guide in times of uncertainty. He has begun the work, and He
shall perform it. That's what the Scripture says.
There's no maybes in God's providence, or in God's declared salvation. There is I wills. In this one
verse, as I said, He uses the word keep two times. I think
it shows the certainty of it, and I think it shows the immensity
of our need. We need to be kept two-fold. He will do it, and we need to
be kept. We sing that song, prone to wander,
Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Take my heart,
take and seal it for Thy courts above." He keeps His church by
the Holy Spirit by which we are sealed. He keeps the church by
the full and free accomplishments of Christ on Calvary's tree.
He keeps the elect by the sovereign power of the Trinity, each one
involved in our keeping and saving. all for us and not against us. He keeps us by His blessed means
of grace. We're gathered together being
a one mind through the preaching of the Word, the reading of the
Word, the study of the Word, through prayer and fellowship
and chastisement. All these means that He uses,
He keeps His people. How could it ever even be possible
for one of His sheep to fall away and not stay on till the
end if this Sovereign keeps us. I, the Lord, do keep it. Secondly, we observe the next
phrase, He will water it every moment. I like that. He could
have just said, I, the Lord, do keep it. I will water it every
moment. The word moment means literally
the whisk of an eye or a very short space of time. Now sometimes
we water things too much. It's impossible for us to be
watered, through the grace of God, too much. Our problem is
we wilt. I will, not maybe, not only in
times of spiritual drought, but every moment. John Gill said
it this way, irrigation and preservation. and watered and defended by Jehovah
Himself." We are watered and defended by Jehovah Himself.
Turn back to Isaiah 58. I'll read the rest of that verse,
which is a blessing as it were. Isaiah 58 again. I'll start reading
the beginning again. And the Lord shall guide thee
continually, satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy
bones. Now look at this last phrase.
And thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of
water, whose waters fail not." God's watering is accurate,
is precise, And it cannot fail. I love the
I-wills. As we heard Matt read the Scriptures,
and we've seen it time and time again, the I-wills of God. Oh, to be watered and cared for
by the grace of God. And His people are, and His church
is. So I ask myself this, and I ask you is, how ought we to
grow? There's the potted plants, especially
potted, you know, people pot tomatoes and stuff. They water
them every day. You know, you almost have to.
And then you see the growth. You see the growth. How we ought
to grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ, because He's tending
to us. He's watering us every moment. How we ought to bear fruit. Prunes
here, prunes there. How we ought to bear fruit. and
how full of good and sincere works should flow out from his
people, like he says in James. So I got faith? Well, I'll show
you my faith by my works. Not unto salvation. We know that's
not... We can't have nothing to offer God or proffer to God.
He's in need of nothing. But we do what we do by the grace
of God within. If God doesn't water us, we shall
surely wilt and dry up and be blown to and fro, be carried
about by every wind of doctrine and false and worldly enticements. That's what will happen. If He
doesn't water us every day, that's what will happen. Sweet and tender
waterings of the grace of God and the person and righteousness
of Jesus Christ, that's what we need. That's what we want.
That's why we're here. How sinful and weak and frail
we truly are, we need, we must have moment by moment watering. I will water it every moment. We have irrigation systems and
timers. That's left up to, if the electricity
goes off, it's not going to happen. God depends on nothing like that.
He who spoke, and the worlds were. Cares, I
keep it. It's my church. I died for it. I sent my son to hang on the
cursed cross. I keep it. I will water it. There's
three I's. I, I, I. The great I am. It says
I will do this every moment. Every moment. Every moment, it
just amazes me. Well, we've got, because he says,
lest any hurt it. Hurt what? Well, Satan, he's
the lion, seeking whom he may devour, he would hurt it. Our
flesh, in the flesh it's impossible, please God. And this world, Now
I know we've got friends in this world, we've got neighbors, we've
got family, but this world does not love our Lord. Does not love
our Lord. Avoid them? No, I'm not saying
that. I'm saying be careful. Be careful. Because Solomon's chapter 2 talks
about the little foxes that spoil the grapes. which is the vineyard,
these little foxes, a lot of writers of Satan, the world,
the flesh, whatever, it's something that's trying to eat and destroy
the grapes. They desire to spoil it, they
raid it, they try to subdue the vineyard, but bless God, He will
not cease to keep it and water His redeemed ones. He will not
cease to. We are in danger daily and on
every side. And I think sometimes we don't
realize that. Oh, I can do this. I can do this. We had a friend moved away from the Gospel on
purpose, moved to where his family was, went to church. And I said, I remember where
I was at in his vehicle, and I said, Do you really think it's
wise? This is, he was older than me,
he was my elder. I said, do you think it's wise to move away
from the gospel? He says, well, Abraham did it.
I thought, well, I said to myself, I'm no Abraham. So you presume on God's grace
to keep you, so you move where you can't feed, you can't fellowship,
you can't gather together. Oh, what we got, we got new technology. Not gathering together. And I
know there's time that this happens, but we ought to be as often as
possible. We ought to try to, to gather
together because we need one another. Bruce made a comment
and we need one another. Need one another. We are in danger
daily and on every side. But we can give thanks for His
protection and charge and care over us. Because this verse says,
I the Lord do keep it, I'll water it every moment lest any hurt
it. And lastly, He guards. He guards. I will keep it night
and day. There's 24 hours in a day as
we say. There's 24 hours in a day and a night. Is there any point, minute, second,
week, thought that doesn't include day or night? Nope. Never. He guards, he patrols
over, he safeguards us. So I ask myself this, why do
I fear? Why be afraid? Night and day,
every moment, kept, says the God over all, blessed forever.
The same Jehovah that never slumbers or sleeps, that never changes,
is the same always and forever, the omnipotent, reigning, ruling
Lord. Who can harm us? Really? Really? Who can harm us? Again, He says,
I will, that is again, used twice, And I say, who hath resisted
His will? Who hath resisted His will? Who hath resisted His purpose?
Who hath resisted His decrees? Who hath resisted His counsels?
No one. We struggle with many things.
We fall periodically. But we rest upon His oath, His
covenant, which shall prove true and right all along. At the end
of our days, when we were to close our eyes in death, He did keep me. He did keep me. It may not have kept me from
this disease or this cancer or whatever. Like I said, Newton
said, we all have a disease that's incurable. It's called old age.
That's going to happen. We may live shorter, longer than
we expect, but we will not live any longer than God's purpose
or decree. It's not going to happen. Not going to happen. You can
eat vitamin C, you can do all this stuff, and you're still
going to succumb to death because it's given unto men, that's appointed
unto men, women, wants to die. But realize, we're being kept,
we're being watered every moment, and we're being kept night and
day. Night and day. We struggle. We will, therefore,
we shall be kept night and day. What power! What condescending
love and mercy! What immutability we find in
this great I Am, and in all these proverbial I Wills. these proverbial
I wills, God wills, and it shall be. So I close with this, something
to think about. Since and because he says to
each chosen seed, each believer in Jesus Christ, each true church
member, he says, I will keep thee, may we reply, I will praise
thee. I will praise thee. Oh Holy Spirit, make it so to
each of us here today to praise His holy name because we know
we are being kept, we are being watered and guarded night and
day. To God be the glory. Bruce, would
you close us?