There are several things that the Lord
has taught me over the years. Things I thought I knew something
about and found out that it wasn't a drop in the ocean. These things are great things. They're not trivial things. One is that there is a great
abyss. A pit, if you will. It's called
by all sorts of names. Hell is the most common word
for it. The pit. place of torment, everlasting
punishment, there is an abyss, there is a hell. We live out our days saying that
we believe there is a hell. If we really believed that, we wouldn't live like we live.
Isn't that what Peter says in the second epistle? God's long-suffering toward you,
not willing that any should perish, but that all should be called
to repentance. And then he goes on to say, if
you believe that, if you really believe that, that God's gonna
destroy this world, the same as he did with the flood, but
this time with the fires of hell forever. If you really believe
that, what manner of people ought we to be? I'm convinced of it. There's a hell, there's an abyss,
whatever you wanna call it, everlasting punishment. Separated from God forever. And I'm persuaded that there
is a remedy. You don't have to go there. There's a way. It's not your
way. It's not the way that seems right
unto a man. But there is a way. Christ said,
I am the way. There's a way. It's not necessary
that we go there. There's a remedy. But how often we ignore it. Don't
even think about it. Taken up with trivial things
of this world. And I'm persuaded of this. Apart from God, you never will. You never will. Salvation's in His hands. To
give it, or withhold it. Hath not the potter power over
the clay? Does he? You bet he does. Now this is a very well-known
chapter, been preached from many times over the years by both
preachers of the past 300 years, which I've read some. and by
those who are yet alive today. And the chapter begins this way. Ho, everyone that thirsteth,
come to the waters. There's water to be had. Are you thirsty? There's water. Not just any water. Water of
life. Merciful water. Life-giving water. Come to the waters, and he that
hath no money. Boy, I don't have anything to
pay for it, do you? All I have, he said, if I was
hungry, I wouldn't tell you. All them cows you're looking
at up there that you say them's my cows, they ain't your cows,
they're my cows. I wouldn't tell you if I was
hungry. I don't have anything to buy
this water with, but he said, he that hath no money, Come ye. Are you broke? Are you busted? Come on. Now what he says here? Come on. Come ye. Come ye to the waters. And he
that hath no money, come ye and buy and eat. Come. He just keeps telling you
to come. Come on. He doesn't tell you
to stay away, he tells you to come. He don't have to tell you
to stay away. You'll do that on your own. But
God, if you wanna hear from God, God says come, come on. And he just keeps saying. Buy and eat, yea, come buy wine
and milk without money and without price. Verse three, look at this. Incline your ear and come unto
me. Here and your soul shall live
and I'll make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure
mercies of David. And so you don't think this passage
is speaking to dispersed Israel. Several writers I read said this
is not talking to the Gentiles, it's talking to dispersed Israel. He tells us down here in verse
five, behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not,
and nations that know not thee. And they're gonna run to you. Your own people are dispersed,
but these are gonna run to you. They're not gonna walk, they're
gonna run. They're gonna run unto thee because of the Lord
thy God. and for the holy one of Israel,
for he hath glorified me." Talking about his son. Now here's the
good news. Here's a grand and glorious declaration
to bankrupt sinners. There's a fountain, a spring, a pool of living waters,
and every thirsty sinner's bidding to come. Come on, he said, drink. And no less than three times
in verse one alone, to poor thirsty sinners, he says
to come. In verse three, he tells us how
to come. Incline your ear and come unto me. How you gonna come to him? He didn't say, my sheep come
unto me. He said, my sheep hear my voice.
Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God. And Peter said, this is the word
which by the gospel is preached unto you. And then in verse five.
Even what men call third world nations, heathen idolaters, the
very dregs of society, unlearned, ignorant, hostile, immoral nations,
shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God, and for the
Holy One of Israel, for he hath glorified his Son. Here's the reason for the coming.
God gonna draw. Now, I can tell you to come all
day long, and I do. Almost every time I get up here,
I tell you, come to God. Come on, come on. Right over
here. But I tell you, when God tells
you to come, you come. Not a doubt in my mind. When
he told Matthew, he said, Matthew! Come on. What'd he do? Well, he said,
I got some affairs. No, he just left the tax table
set the way it was. And he got up and he followed
Christ. Two men out there fishing, three of them, I guess, out there
fishing. Come on. What'd they do? They come on. See, there's a difference when
I talk and when he talks. And this is about him, this is
about God. No man, Christ said, you don't
need to murmur, cause I said I was the bread. No man gonna
come to me except my father draw him. These nations, these heathen
nations, these men that you look down your nose on, these immoral,
bankrupt beggars. I'm telling you, I just went
down to Mexico and that's by no means the dredge. But I'll never forget when I
got off the plane. Everything looked so pretty from
the plane. All that Bougainvillea and all
that stuff growing around. Man, it was gorgeous. I was down
in Yucatan Jungles. Landed there in Meridian. I was
looking at all that stuff. I got off that plane and the
smell of that place hit me. Some of the stuff I had by the
time I got home, I threw it away. I couldn't stand the smell anymore.
It was nasty. Nasty. Now he said, them folks,
they gonna run to me. They gonna run. And here's the reason. The purpose of God, the eternal,
unchangeable, irresistible will of God, the love of God, the
grace of God, and the power of God. And here he tells us far,
Here's why they're gonna come. For the Holy One of Israel, whom
he hath glorified. The Holy One of Israel, that's
the promised Messiah, the coming Redeemer, the Christ, and apart
from whom no man can come to the Father. Isn't that what our
Lord said? I'm the way, the truth, and the
life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Now what I hope to do this morning
is to talk to you a little bit about the will of men and the
decisions he's called on to make, and man in general as being responsible
to God. There are things which false
religion and our enemies accuses us of either denying or just
ignoring altogether. Now the Bible says, it's not
of him that willeth, So does that mean I should disregard
the will altogether? When the Bible says, it's not
of him that runneth, does that mean I should throw away the
whole concept of a man seeking God? When we read in the word of God,
You have not chosen me, but I've chosen you. Does that imply that
man is excused from making decisions about things pertaining to the
salvation of his soul? I'm going to tell you something,
and I hope you'll hear me. No man, no man will ever be saved
apart from being willing. That too hard? He said, I think
it's in Psalm 110. He said, my people, thy people,
shall be willing in the day of thy power. They're gonna be willing.
Does that mean they're just willing to come to Christ? No, that means
they're willing to submit to his servant. They're willing
to submit to his word. They're willing to submit to
his gospel. They're willing. They're not
unwilling. They're not fighting and kicking.
They're willing. You'll never be saved apart from
being willing, and you'll never be saved apart from seeking. He said, you'll find me when
you seek for me with your whole heart. That's where you'll find
me. And you'll never be saved apart
from making a decision. What the Bible's telling us is
that these things are not the source of life. Your will, it's
not of him that willeth. That's not where the grace is.
You don't make the work of Christ acceptable by your will. You
don't make his work acceptable by your decisions. It's not the source of it. It's
not the spring of it. Salvation is of the Lord. But you say, man's depraved. He can't do anything. Well, I hope the Lord's convinced
you of that. He is, man is depraved. With man, our Lord said, it is
impossible. And that was a pretty good feller
that he sent away with his tail tucked 20 legs. He was a successful
businessman, a very moral man, a man who said, just like Paul
did, outwardly, he kept the whole lot. He said, I've done that
from my youth up. Man's depraved. He's incapable
of seeking. There's none that seeketh after
God. Isn't that what his Bible says? How can he make a decision? There's
none that understandeth. Let me see if I can illustrate
something to you. Near to the sheep market in Jerusalem
must have been a pretty good sized place. I've seen some pretty
good sized places where they sell beef and livestock. This
must have been a big place because this was the capital of religion
and livestock was the main source of everybody's meat. And not
only that, but also had to be purchased for sacrifices and
other things. And near to that was a pool,
and that area was called Bethesda. In the Hebrew, it meant house
of mercy, house of grace. house of goodness, because every
so often an angel would come down and trouble the waters in
that pool. And the first to go into those
waters, when the angels troubled the waters, the very first one
to go in was healed. Now you imagine yourself dying
of cancer. It's eating you up inside. You
don't have that doctor come in and look at my wife and say,
you've got 90 days cost. She died in 30. Now, you imagine
being in that shape, sitting down on that pool. You think
you'd be looking for the water to be troubled? Huh? You think
you'd be ready to jump in? You wouldn't be nonchalant about
it, would you? No. No, you'd be ready to go
in the water. There was five porches or decks
that went out into the pool and multitudes of impotent folk,
blind and halt and withered, were out there waiting for the
troubling of the waters. And one in particular who suffered
with paralysis was carried and laid down there at the pool.
He'd had this paralysis for 38 years. Now I've seen men confined to
a bed. My grandfather was with a stroke.
He was paralyzed, half his body from a sunstroke. He couldn't
do anything. He couldn't walk, couldn't do
anything. He was paralyzed. His whole,
seemed to me like his right hand side, his whole right hand side
was just like it wasn't even there. He couldn't do anything
with it. And here was this man, and he was laying there, and
he's paralyzed, and he's had this for 38 years. My grandpa
only had it for 14 years. That's a long time, but still,
in 14 years, his other limbs just looked like pipes. He didn't
have no weight to him. He was pitiful. Pitiful. Now here's this man, and he's
down here, and they carried him down, and Right here's the cure. Here it
is, it's all around him. He's out on this, like a deck.
He's out on that deck, that little walkway. He's laying there. And the cure's all around him.
It's everywhere. And he can see it. He can see
it when it gets troubled. He can see, he saw people go
in and come out cured. He saw the blind come out seeing. He saw the lame come out walking.
Here's the cure. It's right there. He can almost
reach over the side and touch it. Almost. But he can't get to it. He can't get to it. So why was
he there? Because there wasn't any other
hope. This is the only place where
he could hope for a cure. No doubt he'd been coming there
a long time. So he just kept coming back,
he kept coming back. And on a certain day, the Lord
come to this man. Now this is the Lord, this ain't
the angel coming down to trouble the waters. This is the one who
sent the angel to trouble the waters. And the Lord comes. And he walks right up to this
man, And here's what he said. Would you be made whole? What about you? Huh? Would you be made whole? What
if the Lord of glory come to you today and looked you right
in the eyes and said, would you be made whole? You know what he told him? I
got no man. I got nobody to assist me to
get to the waters. I hear the voice, come to the
waters. I hear it, but I got no man.
I got nobody to get me to the water. I got no man to lay me
down, and I'm paralyzed, and I can barely move. And he took
that one hand, that one leg, and I could just picture him
trying to crawl over there. But before he could get over
there, somebody else was at the water. He had no man to assist him,
no man to lower him in, no man to help him get into the water.
And Christ looked into the face of this poor sinner and he said,
get up. Just get up. You don't have to
get in the water. I'm the water. Rise up and take up that old
stinking bed. Take it with you. You won't need
it anymore. Huh? He couldn't. Could he? He couldn't. But he did. He did. He just got up. The man hadn't walked in 38 years.
He just stood up. Sometimes when the Lord did that,
they got up and leapt. They were leaping around. Maybe
he did, I don't know. But he said, well, let me get
that bed. Boy, he reached down there and
got that bed. He was walking. Listen to this. Old Laddress
was laying there in that tomb. By now, his sister said, by now
he's stinking. Don't take the stone back. It's bad enough to know our brother's
in there. I don't want to smell his corrupting flesh. Lord said,
Lazarus, man, he couldn't. But he did. Peter told that man he'd been,
had that withered arm, they'd carry him out there and they'd
set him down there at the, before the temple, before that
gate called Beautiful, they set him there and old Peter looked
at him and he wanted some arms and Peter said, silver and gold
have I none, but such as I have, give unto me. in the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. He couldn't, but
he did. And I find out about every sinner
that the Lord, when he told a man he was clean, he was clean. When
he told a man to rise from the dead, he arose from the dead.
And here in this passage, he's telling us to come. It ain't
me saying it, it's him saying it. Come on. You say, I can't. Oh, yes, you
can. If he tells you, you can. And
if he tells you, you will. The will ain't going to be a
problem anymore. You say, well, I got to make
my decision. There ain't no decision to it,
myself. What are you sitting here for? What do you want? Oh, my soul. Decisions. But you'll make it. You'll make
it if you're here. There's five things I want you
to see here in our text. I know I'm not going to get through
all these, but I'll get through as many as I can. First thing
I want you to see is the ignorance of man who must be commanded
to seek the Lord. My soul, how ignorant we are
that God has to tell us to seek Him. That's a bad shape, isn't
it? The fact that we're not now seeking
Him is in itself one of the greatest evidences of our ungodly condition. The fact that we're not seeking
Him speaks of our ignorance of Him. Who he is, why he came,
what he did, where he's at. Ignorance. What a loving and merciful condescension
of God is displayed in this text as he says to those who are living
out their days in ignorance, seek the Lord. Seek the Lord. To the elect Gentiles at Ephesus,
Paul said that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk
in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that's in them because of the blindness of their heart. And
in Acts 17, Paul speaks of the unknown God. He declared that
to those Greeks at Athens. He said, Him declare I unto you. God, He's Lord of heaven and
earth. He doesn't dwell in temples made
with hands. He's not worshiped with men's
hands as though He needed something. Seeing He giveth all life and
breath and all things. He made of one blood all nations
of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth and hath determined
the times before appointed and set the bounds of their habitation. Now watch this. that they should
seek the Lord. You know what that says? That they should seek the Lord,
if happily they might feel after him. And I tell you, that's my
first memory. Lack of ability is not here given
as an excuse, even to the limited ability that we are born with. It doesn't talk about us seeing
him and hearing him and coming to him. It talks about us feeling
after him. We're not even doing that. That's according to my first
sense of seeking the Lord as a blind man just groping in the
dark. Didn't know where, didn't know
how to seek him. just began to realize my need
of him. And then secondly, our text implies
that all men are sinners in need of his mercy and grace. For the
very next thing he tells us, he said, seek the Lord. And then
he tells us, let the wicked forsake his way. And the unrighteous man is thought. We're to seek the Lord as he
is, and where he is, and how he is, and it's contrary to everything
that we've ever thought or known. It's contrary. We've been told we can seek him
on the mountain, and we can seek him down here, and we can seek
him over there, and we can seek him in our closet, and we can
seek him in our car. No, there are none that seeketh
after God, but if he does make you willing, and he does put
an appetite in your heart, and you do begin to seek him, you're
gonna seek him, what's he say next? Where he may be found. He says in verse eight, now he
tells us just forsake these things, just get rid of them, throw them
out the door, Climb in your ear and listen. I'm gonna tell you
who I am. I'm gonna tell you where these
waters are. I'm gonna tell you how to get
them. He said, you let the wicked man
forsake his thoughts. There's a way that seemeth right
unto a man, but the end thereof is death and destruction. Says
in verse eight, for my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither
are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. I was never so shocked
as when I first read a book by Arthur Pink on God's sovereignty,
that Christ and God don't love all men. Boy, that went against my grain
big time. He don't love all men. I'll never
forget, they told me about it, I wasn't there, but they held
this big county-wide thing down in the big park in Ashland and
set up the tent and Brother Barnard got up, preached first night
and here's two rows of pastors and all their congregations and
children and probably a thousand people in that tent and all around
that tent and Barnard gets up and he says, the two biggest
lies ever been told. God loves you and Christ died
for you. He said you could hear a pin drop. That was a shock to me. It was
a shock to me. God doesn't love all men. Well, how do I know if he loves
me? I don't. I don't. Well, how am I going
to find out? I'm going to seek him. Huh? The only way you're going
to find out? Seek him. Turn loose of your
thoughts. Your thoughts and your ways are
not his ways. He said, you thought I was altogether
such a one as yourself, but I'm gonna reprove you. And there's no end to the images
conjured up in a man's mind that has no relevance to the God of
glory whatsoever. And these things have to be laid
aside, all right? Thirdly, our text implies a time
and a place where he's to be sought. Now here's a man, he's starving
to death on the street. We had one in Magnolia, I used
to see him all the time. He wore his old beat up tennis
shoes and he never laced them up, summer or winter. And he's
all bent over like this and he's walking and usually he's got
a basket or a cart or a sack or something and he's gathering
up stuff and he's on the street and he's got nowhere to get in
out of the cold. All he had to do was go down
to the welfare office. It's just right down on the other
side of town. Just go down there, go in, and do what they tell
you to do. They would have got him an apartment.
They'd have bought him food. No, I'd have stayed out here
on the street. I'd have stayed out here in the
world. I'm comfortable out here. I'm used to this. I just stay
out here. You'd be shocked at how many
won't go. They'll try to find satisfaction
on the street. And it's the same thing with
seeking the Lord. The Lord said where two or three
are gathered together in my name, that's where I'm gonna be. You
wanna seek me? Where is he? Where two or three
are gathered together in his name. Now watch this, seek ye the Lord
while he may be found. We're here today by the providence
of God. You're here where men and women
are gathered together in his name. And he tells us in the
scripture, please God through the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. Preaching of the gospel, he said,
is the power of God unto salvation. And we come together here once
a week. Now let me ask you something.
What's on your mind when you come? What's on your mind? Do you spend any time preparing
your hearts for worship? You come here because you have
to, or do you come here hoping to hear from God? He said, seek ye the Lord while
he may be found. That word may has to do with
the granting of permission. I don't know if they still do
this, you kids can tell me, but when I was in school, I drank
too much water, but I had to sit there for another hour and
a half or two hours. Man, my legs would be crossed,
and pretty soon my hands would go up. I said, may I go to the restroom?
She said, you may. Granted me permission. Can I
get a drink of water? You may. That word may has to
do with the granting of permission. Seek ye the Lord while he may
be found. There's a time when God grants
permission. I'm here, he said. I'm giving
you permission to seek me. Now, come on. Come on. Nah, we'll hear thee again in
a more convenient season. No, you won't. No, you won't. You seek the Lord while he grants
you permission to find him. And he said, call you upon him
when he's near. Now I'm not gonna go into a big
long thing here because I don't have time for it. But you're
never so near to God as you are in a worship service. Let me show you something over
here in Romans chapter 10. He's talking about faith speaking. That's his subject here in Romans
chapter 10. He's talking about what does
faith say. The voice of faith. And that's
the preaching of Christ. But what does it say? Well, he
says here, the word is nigh thee. Verse eight. It's nigh thee. What is? The word is. The preaching
of the gospel is. It's nigh thee. It's even in
your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith which
we preach. You gonna call on him while he's
near. When is he near? During the preaching
of the gospel. You're never so near to God as
you are when that's going on. Verse nine, that if thou shalt
confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart
that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. You ask the Lord while he gives
you permission, and you call upon him while he's near. There's
a time and a place to seek the Lord. There's a time and a place
where he draws near. He said today, if you'll hear
his voice, don't harden your heart. He says that four times
over there in Hebrews chapter four. In Acts 7.51, Stephen presses
this accusation upon the Jews. He said, you stiff-necked and
uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy
Ghost. How did they do that when he
was preaching the gospel to them? They said, just like your fathers
did, you do the same thing. Fourthly, he tells us that the
basis of our seeking him is his word. Look back here in our text
in Isaiah 55 and verses 10 and 11. He said, for as the rain
cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither,
but watereth the earth and maketh it bring forth bud, that it may
give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So shall my word
be. that goeth forth out of my mouth.
It's gonna do what I send it to do. It's gonna bring forth the bud. And it's gonna be bread to the
eater, seed to the sower. That's what I'm doing this morning,
sowing seed. But he'll cause it to bloom.
And when he's done, They'll be bread for the eater. Seeking the Lord must be done
by the word of God, not some emotional feeling or crisis in
your life. And then lastly, I want you to
see the promised end to those who do seek him according to
his word. Look down here in verse 12. You'll go out with joy. I don't care. What comes your
way? If you have Christ, you can rejoice. Oh, my wife left me. Good riddance. I have Christ. I have Christ. I lost my job. Good. You probably need to lose
it. You're gonna go out with joy,
and you're gonna be led forth in peace, and the mountains and
the hills are gonna break forth before you into singing, and
all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of
a thorn, they're gonna come up a fir tree. And instead of a
briar, they're gonna come up the myrtle tree, and it shall
be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall
not be cut off. What in the world does all that
mean? It means that those who seek him for mercy and grace,
by his instruction, his means, and his way, is gonna go out
with joy, and they're gonna be led in peace. As they go out,
they're gonna be attended with a favorable providence of God. He gonna, oh, you say, yeah,
but we still gonna suffer, and we still got trials. Yeah, yeah,
but you know, those trials now, All they gonna do is burn away
the dross. They gonna leave the gold. We know, Paul said, all things
work together for good to them that love God, to them who are
called according to his purpose. They're attended with a favorable
providence. They always had been, they just
didn't know it. Now they know it, and that's
why they go away in joy, and that's why they can be led in
peace. They're not out here raising a ruckus. They're not out here
at banners marching up and down the street trying to change everything
in the world. They just keep pointing people
to Christ. Go up there, go up there, go to him. And that's
where this whole thing began. Everybody thirsty, you see, come
to the water. Come on. I can't. You can if God tells you to come.
And I just read to you where God said come. Come on. What's
holding you back? Come to Him.