Well, as I said, we're coming
back to Isaiah, and it's chapter 32. The last sermon I preached
on chapter 32 was from verse two, the man shall be as a hiding
place from the wind, and that was several weeks ago now. But
I want to come back and pick up this study of this book nearly
halfway through it. We're at the first Sunday of
2019, of course, and looking round at the world in which we
are, it's the world of the kingdom of Antichrist. That's what it
is. It's all around us. Because the
philosophy of the world in which we live is no God. There is no God. The fool, says
Psalm 14, has said in his heart, there is no God or no God for
me. That's the philosophy of the
world that we live in. The world we live in is like
the days of the judges, the way those days of the judges in Israel,
before the time of King David and that era from Joshua down
to King David, those days, those hundreds of years of the judges,
it says again and again, that the people did that which was
right in their own eyes, as if there was no objective standard. There was no standard of the
Word of God, of the principles of the truth of God by which
they would live. These are the people that were
brought out of bondage in Egypt, who were shown such great miracles
by God in bringing them out and establishing them in their own
land. And how sinful is sin, that in
a very short time, two or three generations, They had completely
lost the view of what they were about as the symbolical people
of God on earth. They did that which was right
in their own eyes. And that's the society in which
we live today, because our society, like theirs, is populated by
men and women of flesh. And men and women of flesh are
sinful, for we all descend from Adam. We all descend from that
Garden of Eden fall, from perfect fellowship with God. And this
permeates everything that we see and everything we do. The
media in our society promotes the gurus of godlessness. Who
are the people who are held up as the ones we ought to listen
to? The gurus of godlessness. Whether it be in the arts, or
in comedy, or in music, or wherever it might be, our society holds
up. Science, our society, holds up
the gurus of godlessness, portrayed in the media as the ones to be
bowed down to and worshipped. Our education is infiltrated
with it. Our culture even interrelationships
between people, all bent towards godlessness. Why? Because they
all are based on a denial, an ignoring of what God has ordained
in his word. If God has said it's white, then
our society calls it black, and vice versa. Increasingly, this
world reflects the chapter we just read, Revelation chapter
13. The two beasts, from the dragon, the beast coming
up out of the sea and the one out of the earth. And basically
it's describing the kingdom of Antichrist, this world in which
we live. And yet we know in this, this
world is a beautiful place. You cannot, speaking of the media,
you cannot watch the wildlife programs. The quality of the
photography is just stunning. It's just absolutely beautiful.
You see the handiwork of God everywhere. But in the society
of this world, and the society of people, in their politics,
their economics, their morals, in every other respect, it's
an evil place to live. And yet, God has called for his
church to remain here. For how long? Well, it's described
in different ways in Revelation. 1260 days, 42 months, three and
a half years, a time times and half a time. Three
and a half is interesting because it's half of seven. Seven is
the number of God's perfection. Seven is the number of that which
is necessary to bring about the triumph of the kingdom of God,
because in Revelation it's seven seals, seven trumpets, seven
vials. All of this is to bring in the
perfect completion of the kingdom of God. And in the middle of
this creation, Christ came, when the fullness of the time was
come. halfway through, as it were. I'm not talking, strictly
speaking, mathematically, but we're in this three and a half,
this half of it, this second half of it, these latter days
is where we are. And in that, we're in wilderness
separation from the world. If you're in the Church of God,
if you have the mind of Christ, if you know the truth of God,
although you live in the world, you work in the world, you eat,
breathe, you go about your business in this world, you're in it,
but you're not of it if you're in God's kingdom. The kingdom
of God is apparently weak. It's apparently vulnerable. it's
fit to disappear. In this country of ours, more
so than, say, in the United States of America, that which is the
church of God, the people of God, looks so weak, it's virtually
disappeared in truth. We do indeed, as Paul wrote to
Timothy, we live in perilous times in these last days. Perilous
times. They are perilous times, for
this world is a perilous place. But to the eye of faith, to the
eye which sees the truth of God. The reality is not so much this
evil world all around, but did you read verse one of chapter
14 of Revelation? And then I looked. He's in the
same place. He hasn't moved. Again and again
in Revelation, we hear of him moving from a heavenly perspective
to an earthly perspective. He's got the same perspective
on the beasts that he saw in Revelation 13. And then he looks
from the same perspective. And what does he see? A destroyed
church? No. He sees 144,000 standing
on Mount Zion with the Lamb, the Lamb of God, the Christ of
God, because that's the reality, that's the truth. In this fallen
world, God keeps his people. Now, in Isaiah chapter 32, as
in so many other scriptures, God's Spirit gives the church,
the true church, I mean, you know, people talk about the church,
but there's a false church, there's Christendom, There's Christendom
which proves, again referring to Revelation 17 and 18, proves
to be Babylon, the great whore, that which is false, that which
has committed spiritual adultery with the things of God. But the
true church, the true church, God gives to it great comfort.
This is the purpose of the Word of God. The purpose of the Word
of God is not primarily to tell this world how to live, not at
all. The purpose of this book, of the Word of God, is to teach
His saints how he saves them from their sins in the doing
and dying and rising again of the Lord Jesus Christ. He gives
us great encouragement, but also in this chapter, a warning for
our days, a warning against complacency. He's speaking to true believers,
people like you and me, who maybe are fearful of these last days. It's a fearful time in which
to live. We're in what Revelation 20 verse 3 calls Satan's little
season. I'm convinced of it. Things have
changed so much in the last 50 or 60 years that I see all the
signs. Jesus told his disciples Look
at the signs that you see around. You see the fig tree start to
burst into bud. You know that summer's coming.
You see the leaves start to curl. You know that winter's coming.
You see these signs. We see signs in this world around
us that we're in that little season, the little season when
Satan is loosed to deceive the nations again. Since Christ died,
Satan was bound. He was restricted. He was limited
in what he could do. He was limited. Mankind much
more believed in the truth of a God who had made all things.
These last 50 years, that more and more has gone. We're in Satan's
little season. And we get anxious as grandparents. As parents, looking at the generation
coming along, we get anxious for loved ones. But do you know,
our Lord Jesus Christ says to his people, he says, fear not,
little flock. Yes, you're a little flock in
the face of this great big evil world. You're a little flock,
but fear not. Why not? Because of the sort
of things he tells us in Isaiah 32, the blessings of gospel truth
and a caution against complacency. Let's look first at the blessings
of Gospel truth. Now, Isaiah 32 has immediate
historical application to Isaiah's day. In Isaiah's day, at this
time, Hezekiah was the king. The nation was under severe threat
from Assyria, the kingdom of Assyria. It was coming to destroy
Jerusalem or to totally subsume Jerusalem into its culture, as
it had done with the ten tribes of the north in Samaria. It had
completely subsumed them into a Syrian culture. But Hezekiah
was raised up. There had been one evil king
after another. There had been those kings that
had not done right in the sight of the Lord. But Hezekiah was
not amongst them. He was one who did that which
was right. He sought for the reestablishment
of the true worship of God, the true temple worship of God, the
book of the law, all of these things Hezekiah did. So... Behold,
a king shall reign in righteousness. Yes, that's Hezekiah. He is the
king who would reign. And princes, he would have his
household restored. And peace and safety was what
was promised, despite religious neglect. There was religious
neglect. Why did God preserve this nation of Judah? Because
Judah is the line from which Messiah was promised to come.
They had to be preserved. They would be preserved. Whereas
the northern kingdoms were not. Judah, centered on Jerusalem,
centered on the temple, that was where the Messiah would come
into the world. And Hezekiah did rule righteously,
relatively speaking, compared with others, Hezekiah ruled righteously. And Assyria, as it says here,
Assyria was thwarted. They didn't need to fear. Assyria
was thwarted. Judah did dwell in peace, relatively
speaking. It was historically fulfilled,
but it's got much greater application for us who believe today. It
speaks great comfort and encouragement to us. First of all, in these
days when this world around is so dark, this kingdom of Antichrist
is so dark, we have this promise that the people of God will be
enlightened by the Spirit of God. Saints enlightened. This is the first blessing I
see. I'm not taking it in the order
that the chapter unfolds, but I see, first of all, saints enlightened. When the world all around lies
in spiritual darkness, with no knowledge of the true God, blinded
by Satan, As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, the God of this
world, 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 verse 4, the God of this world
has blinded the minds of those who believe not. The God of the
world has done it. That's Satan. He's blinded them.
Blinded by Satan so that they are ignorant of the true God. They have no knowledge of the
true God. They cannot see that which is obvious to the eye of
faith, that God has created all things, that God upholds all
things. You know, our culture is entirely
driven. I don't know if any of you listen
to it, but I listen to Radio 4 quite a lot through the week.
And the book of the week, just a 15-minute excerpt, has been
Stephen Hawking, Professor Stephen Hawking, who died last year,
but he was the man with the motor neuron disease, a brilliant scientist
from Cambridge, writing what he calls brief answers to big
questions. And listening to it, There are
some tremendous insights from the realm of science, and other
observations as well, but honestly, just clouding everything. If
you're a believer and you hear what he wrote, you just see there
is a man that is stumbling around with a thick cloak of darkness
over him, because he does not know the true God. He doesn't
know God, who has made all things. And whilst he can do the most
intensely clever deductions regarding cosmology, he swallows hook,
line and sinker that which is absolutely impossible, that life
put itself together. Any honest scientist, any honest
evolutionist, they won't state it publicly because it would
destroy their career, but they know in their heart of hearts
that what they say they believe is completely and utterly impossible. It is so fantastically improbable
as to be practically impossible. They're ignorant of the true
God who created all things, the God who upholds all things. They're
ignorant of true righteousness. What is righteousness? What is
right and wrong? Where is there any objective
standard? If things just happened, the
concept of there being a thing like righteousness and truth
and error, it's just pointless. It's what wins for me is the
only thing that matters. The truth of sin, what it is
to be a sinner before a holy God. The truth of the justice
of God, that God is a just God and can in no wise clear the
guilty. You see, they're blind to all of these things, but the
true church, the people of the living God, we have the mind
of Christ. We have the spirit of God promised
to us to do that which you cannot do for yourself. It doesn't matter
what your intellect is like. You cannot do that. which God
alone can give, and that's by His Spirit. Look at verse 15.
Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high. The Spirit from
on high. The Spirit from on high came
on the day of Pentecost, as was promised, and He comes on each
believing child of God. That's not to say that before
He came at Pentecost, true believers did not have the Spirit of God.
Of course they did. David had the Spirit of God.
Of course he did. Of course he did. But the spirit is poured
out. The point is that this is something that God alone can
give, and God does pour out his spirit. He enlightens. He enlightens
men and women who in their basic nature are children of wrath,
even as others. He enlightens us with the truth
of God. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
and chapter 2. Try and get these passages in
your mind, 1 Corinthians chapter 2. You know it, we've seen it
so many times before, but starting at verse 9 of 1 Corinthians chapter
2. As it is written, eye has not
seen nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man
the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God
has revealed them unto us, who? the people of God, believers.
God has revealed them. It's something God has done,
to reveal them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth
all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth
the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?
Only you know what's really going on in your thoughts, don't you?
Other people don't know what's really going on in your thoughts.
Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God.
Now, we have received not the spirit of the world, the spirit
of the world is the lies of Satan, the lies of the kingdom of Antichrist,
but we have received the spirit which is of God. God has given
it, that we might know the things that are freely given to us by
God, which things also we speak. not in the words which man's
wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches. You see,
the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, teaches His
people the things of God, not things that are deduced by human
wisdom, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural
man, us as we are in our natural state, We don't receive the things
of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to us. Neither
can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. You
see, you have to have spiritual discernment. But he that is spiritual
judges all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who
hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But
we have the mind of Christ. yet he himself is judged of no
man. He's understood. Those who are the people of God,
understanding the things of God, are understood by no man. Turn
over a couple of pages again to Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians
chapter 1 and verse 17. Ephesians 1, 17. That the God
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto
you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of
him. You see, it's a gift from God, this revelation from God. The eyes of your understanding
being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his
calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance
in the same. This is all by divine revelation
from on high. It is God who reveals these things
to His people. What a blessed thing as we enter
this year to know that there is a people in this world, the
people of the living God, who have the mind of Christ because
God has chosen in His sovereign grace to reveal it to them. Where
the world lies in darkness, God has chosen to reveal it to His
people, to His saints. Look at verses 3 and 4 of chapter
32 of Isaiah. The eyes of them that see shall
not be dim. You see, they were dim. The people
that walked in darkness, in Isaiah chapter 9, the people that walked
in darkness, they didn't see, but now they do see. And the
eyes of them that see shall not be dim. And the ears of them
that hear, yes, they just used to hear sounds, but they didn't
They didn't rightly interpret those sounds in their hearts,
but now they do, they hearken. Why? Because of this divine revelation
of the truth of God. The heart also of the rash shall
understand not... Rash? The sinner who doesn't
understand the things of God. But the one who is a sinner by
nature shall understand the knowledge of God, the things of God. How
do we know them? In the Lord Jesus Christ, because
in Him dwell all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The
tongue of the stammerers, those who cannot speak the truth of
God, shall be ready to speak plainly. When Jesus sent his
disciples out into the world, he said, don't take a script
with you. That's not an encouragement to
preachers not to prepare their sermons. Don't think that for
one moment. But he said this, I will give you the message that
you shall speak when you go. I will go with you. The tongue
of the stammerers, you stammering Galilean Disciples, you shall
be given the ability to speak clearly the things of the living
God, so that in this world of darkness regarding the truth
of God, the church of God is divinely given faith to see and
to hear, the heart to be receptive to that wisdom from God which
is in Christ and Him alone. Secondly, I see here ministry
gifts. For these evil days, for this
kingdom of Antichrist in which we live, God gives his people
ministry gifts. Look at verse 1. A king shall
reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. The princes
is speaking of preachers, of under-shepherds, to the good
shepherd. Those who are true to God, unlike the false teachers. Look at verses 5 to 7. The vile
person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to
be bountiful. For the vile person will speak
villainy, and his heart will work iniquity to practice hypocrisy
and to utter error against the Lord. to make empty the soul
of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.
The instruments also of the churl are evil. He deviseth wicked
devices to destroy the poor with lying words when the needy speaketh
right." It's speaking of false preachers that are all around
in the so-called churches today. They're not like the liberal.
The liberal not in the sense that we use it today of liberal
lacks regarding correct doctrine. No, not like What it means is
a free spirit that has the truth of God. The liberal is the free
spirit that has the truth of God. Verse 8, The liberal diviseth
liberal things, and by liberal things he shall stand. This is
true preachers of God, the true princes in the church of God,
the ministry gifts that God has given to his church. for these
very days, princes, under-shepherds, who are true to God, unlike the
false teachers, who speak, as it says there, with lying words,
verse 7, lying words, not God's truth, claiming to be liberal,
claiming to be free spirits from God, but actually vile, hypocrites,
with an empty message, an empty message that doesn't save. The
message of the so-called church that we see all around us, The
message of that church doesn't save. It's impotent to save anyone
from their sins. It doesn't accomplish. The true
gospel of God's grace and of particular redemption in Christ
accomplishes His purposes. This is why we proclaim. When
I say that we seek to preach salvation accomplished, That's
an important word. I mean it's finished, it's complete,
it's accomplished. Christ has accomplished everything
he came to do in saving his people from their sins. The message
that's peddled as Christianity all around this world is a message
of mere possibility. And if it's mere possibility
that depends on the will of man, then it's bound to fail. But
the message of salvation, true salvation, is accomplished. It's accomplished salvation.
True preachers are liberal, free spirits, taught by God, emboldened
to speak with the authority of God, based on God's word alone,
by the Spirit's anointing alone. What's our textbook? This book.
This book is our textbook. In verse 20, blessed are ye that
sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the
ox and the ass. These preachers sow good seed,
just like the sower went forth to sow in the parable. They sow
good seed, where? In all places, beside all waters,
in all situations, from diverse callings. There are those who
think that there is only one recipe for being called as a
preacher. No, the only thing that matters is, is it the truth
of God, and are the people of God hearing the truth of God
from that man? That's the thing. Wherever people
will gather to listen, there God sends his preachers, and
they preach. And they preach to people of
all types. In ancient Israel, it was in the law that you mustn't
put together an ox and an ass to do the ploughing. You mustn't,
it must be a pair of oxen. Symbolical, if you like, of the
fact that God only sent his word to the Jewish nation, to Israel.
But this is an allusion, I believe, to the fact that the preaching
of the gospel goes to all different types. The ox and the ass will
walk together. And you know that, as true believers,
when we meet brethren from whichever culture, whichever society it
is, yes, there are difference culturally, there are differences
in language, But I remember having a very, very good conversation
with a West African French speaker. And I can speak a little bit
of French, very, very little these days. And then I could
barely keep up with him when he was speaking in his full West
African dialect of French. But I knew this, we were exactly
on the same page. We were exactly on the same wavelength.
We knew exactly what we believed and we were brethren in the Lord. It was a working together. No, it isn't the quantity of
preachers that God sends that's important, it's the quality.
The quality in terms of the truth of the message they preach. And
look, again, I'm amazed. This is why I think we're in
Satan's little season. Because just as the true church,
as it used to be right up, I suppose, till the 1990s or thereabouts, More and more it has been stamped
out. You can hardly go anywhere. I can think of churches we've
been to in the past where you could rely on hearing the true
gospel preached. And now you would go to those
same places and you cannot because they've abandoned it. They've
replaced it with modern ideas of what they should be doing.
Praise God, there's still such as freegraceradio.com that via
the internet reaches the ones and twos. We now have this technology
that we're using this morning. I trust that there are people
out there now listening to us. I mean, we couldn't have dreamt
of this 15 years ago, could we? We just couldn't have dreamt
of it. And here it is. God is using this for the purpose
of keeping his people. In these days of wilderness separation
from this fallen world which we enter in 2019, And the message
of these preachers is salvation accomplished. Look at verses
one and two. Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes
shall rule in judgment, and a man shall be as an hiding place from
the wind, and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in
a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
I'm not going to repeat the sermon of several weeks ago, but clearly
Christ is the king of the kingdom of God. He is the king of which
this prophecy speaks. He is the king who will reign
in righteousness. Not fallen human righteousness,
but the righteousness of God. The righteousness and inherent
holiness and purity of God. The inherent righteousness and
purity of the kingdom of God. That is certain to triumph. Let's bear that in mind as we
enter these days when there seem to be so many forces a raid against
the true people of God in our society, that the kingdom of
God is certain to triumph. Righteousness will triumph over
evil. However evil things look, fear
not, little flock, righteousness will triumph. In Christ, the
man, is salvation established and accomplished. There's propitiation. turning away of anger, just anger
of God. Why? Because he is the hiding
place. How? By what he's done. By his
death and his shed blood, he's paid the price of sin for his
people. And therefore, he, hiding in
him, hiding in him in that cleft of the rock, God said, you cannot
see my face, but look, stand here. There's a rock here. Stand
in the cleft of the rock. He said to Moses, stand in the
cleft of the rock, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And there, there's a hiding place,
rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. Let the
water and the blood from thy riven side which float be of
sin the double cure. It is, it is of sin the double
cure. There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus because of this man, behold the
man, this man, Christ Jesus, who is the God man. who came
and established salvation. He satisfied, offended justice
for his people. He accomplished salvation and
freedom from condemnation and forgiveness of sins. And in this
world, this Revelation 13 world, which is ripe for God's just
wrath, in Christ alone is safety. What must I do to be saved from
the wrath that is come? Flee from the wrath that is to
come. Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Hide in Him. There are
rivers of water, refreshment for the soul. There is shelter
from judgment. Not a mere possibility if you
do something, but an accomplished, finished fact. For those God
gave to Christ before the beginning of time. Christ came to do His
Father's will. He said in John chapter 6, verse
39, He said to the Jews around Him questioning Him, He said,
is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he
hath given me, I should lose nothing. All what? All the people,
the church that he gave to Christ before the beginning of time
in sovereign grace, in electing grace, that I should lose nothing,
but should raise it up again at the last day. If you're amongst
that number, you will be raised up in that last day. And then
he promises us peace and safety, verses 15 to 18. and I must speed
up, until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the
wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted
for a forest. Then judgment shall dwell in
the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field,
and the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect
of righteousness quietness and assurance forever. and my people
shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in
quiet resting places, when it shall hail coming down on the
forest, and the city shall be in a low place. That's a picture
of peace and safety. Despite the antagonism of the
kingdom of Antichrist, despite the flood, if you read Revelation
12, or if you can remember it, When Satan's defeated, a flood
comes into his mouth that tries to wash the woman back into conformity
with the world, out of her wilderness separation into conformity with
the world, that flood. Despite all of Satan's efforts
persecuting the church, The true church is promised peace and
eternal safety. Peace with God. What a blessed
thing that is. Romans 8, 31 and 32, if God be
for us, who can be against us? Yes, Satan's against us, but
is he going to succeed? No. He that spared not his own
son, but delivered him up for us all, all of his people, How
shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Christ prayed
to the Father that his people left in this world might be kept
from the evil. John 17, keep them from the evil.
I pray not that you take them out of the world, but that you
keep them from the evil while they're in the world. He left
his promise that he would never leave us nor forsake us as long
as we are here. Remember how Revelation 14.1
pictures the church on earth. in tranquil separation from the
world, that horrible-looking world of Revelation 13, which
is what we see all around us today, but there is the Church
of God. The 144,000, the people of God
at any one time symbolically on this earth, where are they?
They're with Christ on Mount Zion. That's where we stand.
As we worship him, as we know his truth, that's where we are
in this world, in the church of the living God, the true people
of God. We're on a solid foundation of accomplished salvation in
Christ. We're enlightened with God's
truth. We're fed and kept by God's ministry gifts. And what
a wonderful, what a marvellous, again and again the scripture
says it is marvellous in our eyes, what a marvellous peace
is accomplished by all that Christ has done, despite the gathering
storm clouds, despite what we know must happen before the end.
It's a wonderful place to be, it really is. So then before
we leave it, there's a warning against complacency. What should
be our attitude to this world? It should be that we're in it,
but not of it. Turn with me to 1 John, and chapter
two. First John and chapter two, verse 15. John writes, love not
the world, writing it to you and me. This is God's word to
you and me. Love not the world, neither the things that are in
the world. If any man love the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh, The lust of the eyes and the pride of
life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world
passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of
God abideth forever. Love not the world. It's simple,
isn't it? It really is simple. Be watchful not to slip into
complacent conformity to the world. Beware. Look at verses
nine to 14 of Isaiah 32. Rise up, ye women that are at
ease, Hear my voice, ye careless daughters, Give ear unto my speech. Many days and years shall be
troubled, Ye careless women, for the vintage shall fail, The
gathering shall not come. Tremble, ye women that are at
ease, Be troubled, ye careless ones, Strip you and make you
bare, And gird sackcloth upon your loins. They shall lament
for the teats, For the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vines,
Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briars, yea,
upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city, because the
palaces shall be forsaken, the multitude of the city shall be
left, the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of
wild asses. We're told to be aware, to be
alert. Women? Picture's the church. That's again and again in scripture. The woman is the picture of the
church. In Revelation, the woman is the picture of the church.
Churches. Where you read women, read churches. You who claim
to be the churches of God, you that are at ease, you that are
complacent, you that are careless about the things of the Spirit
of God, listen to what God is saying. You're coming upon times
of great hardship and trouble and barrenness. Your complacency
is leading to spiritual fruitlessness. Your complacency is leading to
a famine of the Word of God. The palaces shall be forsaken.
Palaces? The church buildings? Is that
not what we see? In this land of ours, the church
buildings shall be forsaken. Nobody wants to hear the Word
of God anymore, so it seems. It's a picture of fruitlessness,
of eternal loss. False teachers, verses 5 to 7,
we saw them before. False teachers have been tolerated.
And look at the complacency and the loss that it leads to, eternal
loss. It very much reminds me of Revelation
2 and 3, the letters to the churches from the risen Christ, who shows
himself as walking in this time amongst his people, his churches,
and there he commends. Let me just list the things he
commends there. He commends complete dedication
to the cause of his kingdom. This is what Christ commends.
He commends good works arising from heart faith. He commends
patience, staying true to him in the face of trials. He commends
diligence regarding correct doctrine. He commends intolerance of error. and he also warns against apostasy,
just gradually slipping into the same unbelief of the world
around. He warns against compromise with
falsehood and the world around. He warns against antinomianism,
that is, saying that you're the people of God, and because of
what Christ has accomplished, you feel that you can live as
if you're not the people of God, you can live like the world.
He warns against it in the most severe terms. He warns against
hypocrisy and formalism and being lukewarm. Oh, let us not be lukewarm
as we enter this new year. Let us be committed. As Joshua
said to the peoples, he said, I know what's going to happen.
He said, you're going to say that you will serve God and then
you're going to drift away. He said, choose you this day,
whom you will serve. This isn't an Arminian call for
people to come and walk the altar call down to the front. This
is commitment of believers in your hearts. Choose you this
day, whom you will serve, whether it be the true God or the gods
of falsehood that are all around us. Have any of us who believe
slipped into any degree of complacency? Do we have ears to hear the warnings? I want to finish as I did last
week, which is Revelation 3 and verse 20, where Jesus says this
to the Laodiceans. He says, you see, he speaks in
the most severe terms to the Laodiceans about their complete
compromise and their lukewarmness and their thinking that they're
full of themselves. and he counsels them to come and buy of him that
which only can be bought spiritually, that which is spiritual. And
he says to them, because there might be some left who are still
true believers, he says, behold, I stand at the door and knock.
If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into
him and I will sup with him and he with me. Will we be as those
who complacently slip back under the influence of false teachers
into conformity with the kingdom of Antichrist? You know, you
don't have to look far to see what has happened. Many once
faithful churches have done so in the last 40 years. They're
filled with compromise. They're filled with the world.
Their message is the message of error and falsehood. Either
that or their churches are empty and converted into other things.
Will we be like that? Because that's the result of
it. Or will we be those who hear the knock of Christ at the door
and open to him?