Well we come back to Isaiah,
to chapter 30 this time. Isaiah chapter 30. I've called
this message Wandering, Waiting and Walking. Wandering, Waiting
and Walking. You know I often tell you the
purpose of scripture is not primarily, not first of all, to tell humanity
how to live. The purpose of scripture is to
reveal God as strictly just, holy, strictly just. To reveal
God as the just justifier. The one who justifies those who
are sinners, but he doesn't just sweep it under the carpet. He
justly justifies. He's elect that multitude that
he chose and put in the Lord Jesus Christ from before the
beginning of time. And also, the scripture says,
tells us, how he brings each one of those people, each one,
to believing knowledge of their eternal inheritance. That's what
he does. He's accomplished salvation.
And he brings his elect, each one, to a believing knowledge
of their eternal inheritance in all that he has accomplished.
How does he do it? In this book, in this book of
Scripture, he uses history. He uses accurate history. He
uses truthful history. He uses poetry. He uses poetry
in the Psalms and in the Proverbs and in Song of Solomon. He uses
poetry. He uses prophecy, right from
Moses, right the way through the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah.
all through the minor prophets, as they're called, he uses prophecy
to speak the word of the Lord. And in the New Testament, he
uses explicit revelation. God, who at sundry times and
in divers manners spake to the fathers by the prophets, has
in these last days spoken by his Son, whom he made heir of
all things. And by him, to his apostles,
through the apostles, the word of God came explicitly. This
is the message of this book, is how God, who is strictly just,
and yet the just justifier of his elect, brings each one to
a believing knowledge of their eternal inheritance in all that
he has accomplished. Now in Isaiah chapter 30, with
that as the, this is always the way we approach scripture. We
come to Isaiah 30 and we see God's dealings with his nominal
people, the people of Judah in this case. the unbelieving people
of Judah. In days when they had a good
king, Hezekiah was trying to get true worship restored. We
see God's dealings with his people in their unbelief and their rebellion,
bringing them from a lost condition to a guided walk. Now, of course,
it wasn't all of them, but it was certainly some of them. And
so I've got three points this morning. Wayward wandering, Patient
waiting and guided walking. First of all, wayward wandering. Wayward wandering. We're all,
as human beings, we're all by nature fallen. Because of Adam's
fall in the Garden of Eden, we all have that nature of disbelieving
God, and therefore, as a result, we wander waywardly, aimlessly,
rebelliously we wander from God. And here in this chapter it's
pictured by Judah. We're talking about 700 or more
years before Christ came, the days of Isaiah, and the days
of the Assyrian Empire being in the ascendancy. And I've told
you before, it's real, it's not fiction. Go down to the British
Museum, you'll see it all there from this very, very period.
Enormous numbers of artifacts. Now, Judah You know, the land
of Israel had been split. After David and after Solomon,
there was rebellion and they'd split. And the northern kingdom
of Israel, the northern 10 tribes, they followed in the ways of
Jeroboam. But in the south, in Jerusalem,
where it was the only place you could have true worship, was
the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, known as Judah, collectively
as Judah. And they had more or less remained
faithful. Why? Why did that happen? Why was it there? Because God
had said. God had said that Christ would
come as the lion of the tribe of Judah. God had said that the
scepter will not depart from Judah until Shiloh comes, until
Christ comes. This is where it will be because
it's from that line of people that God will send his Messiah
who will save his people from their sins. That's why he was
called Jesus. He will save his people from their sins. But the
10 northern tribes, do you know what they did? The sins of Jeroboam
was to say, no, we can have our own altar. We can have our own
place of worship. We don't need that down there.
And what was he saying? We don't need Christ. We don't
need Christ as the only salvation. We don't need Christ. We can
do our own thing. We can find our own way to God. That was
it. That was it. And they'd been overrun. The
ten northern tribes of Israel had been overrun by the Assyrians,
by the great, powerful Assyrian Empire. They'd overrun them.
They'd intermingled. They'd intermarried. They became
the Mongol race that in the days of Jesus were known as the Samaritans.
And you know the Jews had nothing to do with the Samaritans because
they were the Mongol race. Judah, seeing what happened to
Israel in the north, they were scared. They were terrified of
the Assyrians. But, but, they would not listen
to God, though he sent them faithful prophets. Look at verse 1. Woe
to the rebellious children. saith the Lord, that take counsel,
but not of me. They ask for advice of anybody
and everybody, but they don't ask advice from me. Do we ask
advice from God? James says, if any of you lack
wisdom, let him ask God. Who gives liberally? God will
give you wisdom. What is it that we follow? Decisions
in life, things that come along, the providential unfolding of
our experience in this life. Where do we look? To the law
and to the testimony. If they speak not according to
this word, we don't look at what does our society today. This
is the kingdom of Antichrist. We don't say, oh well, all of
these people, they look to be getting on all right. No, we
say, what says the Lord? What does God say? He speaks
to us. Woe to the rebellious children,
says the Lord, that take counsel but not of me. They cover with
a covering but not of my spirit. You see, they try to hide it,
that they may add sin to sin. They seek advice from any but
God. Now, right at the very end of
the chapter, in verse 31, three verses from the end, look what
we read. How's this Assyrian threat going
to be dealt with? How's this Assyrian threat going
to be beaten down and smitten? How is it going to be done? Oh
Judah, oh fearful Judah, oh unbelieving Judah, how is this threat from
Assyria going to be beaten down? Answer, what does the word of
God say? For through the voice of the
Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down. Is that all? Is that all? Just through the voice of the
Lord? Hold on, hold on. Didn't God speak in the beginning? In the beginning, what did God
say? Let there be light. And what was there? Light. God
said, let there be this, that, and the other, this creation.
And what was there? Do you think that God, who can
speak and all of this comes into being, cannot speak that the
Assyrian will not be a threat to you? And yet they didn't believe
him. They didn't trust him. They didn't come to him. They
didn't rest on him. They were rebellious children.
They'd heard God say, through the voice of the Lord shall the
Assyrian be beaten down. But they refused to hear and
believe God. They'd had preachers. Look in
verse 9. This is a rebellious people,
lying children, children that will not hear the law of the
Lord. They've had, God had sent to
them seers and prophets. What's that? Preachers of his
truth. They say to the seers, don't
we don't want to know the prophets don't prophesy to us right things
speak to us smooth things prophesy deceits obviously they didn't
literally say that but effectively that's what they meant we don't
want your truth get you out of the way turn aside out of the
path cause the holy one of israel to cease who's the holy one of
israel is it not the lord jesus christ is it not the messiah
of god Don't preach Christ to us, is what they said. Don't
preach Christ. We don't want to. We'll go anywhere
and do anything other than hear the preaching of Christ and him
alone. God had given them his law, his
word. When we read law, we shouldn't
just read Ten Commandments by Moses. We mean the whole counsel
of God. He'd given them His law, His
word, given. Preachers, He'd given them the
promise of Christ, the way of salvation, that they were the
people from whom the Christ would come. But they sought instead,
look, verse 2, that walk to go down into Egypt. Hey, the Assyrians
are coming. There's a threat. We're scared
stiff. What are we going to do? Let's go and get the Egyptians
on our side. They're a pretty big nation, aren't they? Well,
how are we going to persuade them? Oh, we've got lots of treasures
in the temple. Let's take the treasures out
of the temple and take that down to Egypt and get the Egyptians
on our side. They paid a hefty price for it.
For look in verse seven. the Egyptians shall help in vain
and to no purpose, to no purpose. They got nothing of any use in
return for all that they did. God who rules the universe had
promised to keep them safe, but they didn't believe him. Right
from the days of Moses, God who rules the universe had promised
to keep them safe, unless they would disbelieve, unless they
would go after false gods. They wanted an instant, tangible,
something that you can grasp, assistance, whatever it cost
them. Does that remind you of yourself?
It reminds me of me in my flesh. That's my natural tendency to
want instant. Something crops up. I want an
instant answer to it. It doesn't matter what it is.
I want an instant answer to it, whatever the price. We impatiently,
aimlessly wander, desiring instant gratification of whatever desire
that we have. And we disbelieve God, don't
we? We naturally, in the flesh, like
these people, we disbelieve God. God has said he will guide the
steps of his people, whether it be regarding your work, your
career, your family, those that are dear to you. your loved ones,
the prospect of love and marriage and all of these things. God
has said he will guide his people, and yet we disbelieve him. Regarding
your finances, where's the next bread going to come from? Regarding
your health, oh, look at the people in the... I've never known
a day in which so many people are striving and fighting so
hard to keep themselves healthy. There's nothing wrong with keeping
yourself healthy, except when it becomes an obsession whereby
you think that by you doing this, you can add one cubit to your
stature, or by you doing this, you can add one minute to your
life. We strive for material possessions, disbelieving God,
must have it now. We're like children. Now, you
who are children here, you'll know about this, don't you? When
it comes to, down in our garden down there, we have raspberries.
And when it gets to, like, about the end of June, the raspberries
start to come, and the children want to grab them and eat them
there and then. And they're sour. They look reddish, but they're
not ready. They're not ripe. You've got to have patience to
wait for the fruit to ripen. But instead, children want to
snatch it, when all that it'll do is give you stomachache. It'll
just give you indigestion. This is like us, isn't it? A
mad striving for instant gratification in all things, and it will come
to ruin. Look in verse 13. Therefore this
iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in
a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant. Have
you ever seen a very tall wall? We once lived in an old house,
a three-storey house in Liverpool, and the back wall was bowing
outwards. It was a breach ready to fall.
And we all had to move into the front of the house for several
weeks while they knocked the back wall down and propped it
all up and rebuilt the back wall so that it was straight and strong.
This is what it's talking about, a breach ready to fall. You know
when the wall starts to bow and you watch it and you watch, and
then all of a sudden, crash, down it comes. whose breaking
cometh suddenly at an instant, and then it's of no use whatsoever. It comes to ruin, like a broken
cistern, it says in verse 14. The potter's vessel's broken
and there's not any of it left that you can do anything with.
It reminds me of Jeremiah, you know, that this is what God has
against these people. They've abandoned him, the fountain
of living waters, and they've pursued after waters that they
gather for themselves. They make cisterns, they make
troughs. out of which they hope to make
vessels to store water, and they break them. They're broken systems.
I tried the broken systems, Lord, but ah, the water's failed. And
even as I stooped to drink, they mocked me as I wailed, says that
old hymn. Broken systems. All Egypt did
for Judah was plunder the temple treasures and leave them exposed
to Assyria. You see, they refused to believe
that God is sovereign over everything, and oh how prone we are. to do
that very thing, to disbelieve God. We heard Don Faulkner preach
a week ago yesterday in Dudley, and he preached an excellent
message, but his opening verse, and it struck me, I've been aware
of this verse, obviously, for years and years, but I hadn't
looked at it for a long time. It's Proverbs 3, verse five,
and it says this. Oh, what a motto to put up on
your wall. Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy
ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Is that
not a blessed comfort for the people of God? Is it not? O Lord,
teach me to trust you, to trust you, to lean not to my own understanding,
or the advice that this world around gives me, but to lean
to your understanding, to acknowledge you in all my ways, for you shall
direct my paths. You see, God had said, through
the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down. Will
you believe him? Whatever that might be in your
situation. The prodigal son refused to believe
that in his father's house was all he could ever need. He needed
instant gratification with his inheritance now before his father
died. And he went and spent it in riotous
living. and it was all brought to poverty,
and he was brought to absolute ruin, and an end of himself,
it says. He came to an end of himself.
What should he have done? What should these people have
done? What should we, if we claim to be believers, do? What should
we do? Psalm 119, verse 9. Wherewithal shall a young man
cleanse his way? And that means a young person.
It means a person. Wherewithal shall you cleanse
your walk in the right way, walk in the right path, that which
God regards as clean? How should you find how to walk
in God's way? Answer, by taking heed thereto
according to thy word. According to this book. What
does God say to them? This is what you should have
done. Second point, patient waiting, patient waiting. God says in
verse seven, look what God says. He says, you'll go to the Egyptians
in vain and to no purpose. But this is what God has said
to them, these people, these rebellious people, their strength
is to get up and be active. No, he doesn't say that. He says
their strength is to sit still. Their strength is to sit still,
patient, waiting, patient, waiting for what God will say. Exodus
14 verse 13, the Israelites had come out of Egypt. God had brought
them out. Pharaoh had said, go, be gone.
The firstborn had all been killed by the angel of death. Please
go, go and do your sacrificing. Please, we want no more of you.
And then he changed his mind, as of course he would, because
it's all in the sovereignty of God. Whom he will, he hardeneth. Whom he will, he hardeneth. And
they came to the Red Sea. And the Egyptians by this stage
were pursuing them because they changed their minds as they would.
And what does Moses say to them? On the strength of what God has
said to him, Exodus 14 verse 13, he says to the people, fear
ye not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which
he will show to you this day. What does God say? Look at verse
15. Look at verse 15. Thus saith the Lord God, the
Holy One of Israel, in returning... What are we going to do? Oh,
let's go down to the Egyptians and get help from them. No, no.
In returning and rest shall you be saved. Not chasing after these
worldly things. In quietness and in confidence
shall be your strength. You still wouldn't believe, but
that's what you should do. That's what you should do. Don't
be like those people and stubbornly refuse to believe God. You see,
they say, no, no, we're not going to believe that. We're going
to flee upon horses. And God says this, you will flee
and you will be pursued. And those who pursue will be
able to run faster than you and they'll catch you and they'll
overtake you. And 1000 of you, shall run at the rebuke of one.
One Assyrian shall come and wave his finger at you and a thousand
of you shall run away in fear. And at the rebuke of five shall
you flee till you be left as a beacon on the top of a mountain
and an ensign on a hill. This is what God says. They refuse
to believe and they're going to run away and they're going
to be pursued. Instead, Psalm 46 verse 10. What does God say there? Be still
and know that I am God. Oh, the panic of life, the crisis
of life. What are we going to do? Be still
and know that I am God. Child of God, this is what our
God in heaven says to us. How am I going to deal with this
crisis and this thing that's cropped up? Be still and know
that I am God. Like the prodigal, I've mentioned
him, in a world of turmoil and doubt, He remembered when he
was at an end of himself feeding the pigs, covered in dirt and
the smell of the pigs, he remembered the stability that is his father's
house. Ah, back there. Ah, what a stable
environment. Even the servants have got plenty
to eat. And here am I eating the rubbish, the filth that I'm
feeding to these pigs. Look at verse 18. Therefore will
the Lord wait, and therefore will the Lord wait, that he may
be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may
have mercy upon you. For the Lord is a God of judgment,
blessed. Are they, are all they, that
wait for Him? All they that wait for Him. Therefore
wait, wait. The Lord will wait. Therefore
the Lord will wait. It is said, I think it was in
a poem by Longfellow, the wheels of God grind exceeding slowly. The wheels of God. Think, don't
expect things to happen in a hurry. The wheels of God grind exceeding
slowly. Did He not say with Him, A thousand
years is as one day, and a day is a thousand years. Did he not
say that? And he says, and therefore will
the Lord wait. Every time you see therefore,
you need to ask what the therefore is therefore. What is it therefore?
Why is there a therefore there? I'll tell you why. Because look,
that he may be gracious unto you. There's a therefore there. The Lord will wait. Why will
the Lord? Because he's a God of grace.
By grace, the end of all things is determined from before the
beginning of them. You don't need to fret. Fret
not because of evildoers. You don't need to be concerned
and anxious. Just wait patiently. He'll bring it to pass. By His
grace, because He's a God of grace who has determined the
salvation of His people from before the beginning of time,
and there is no question that He will accomplish it. This is
the will of my Father, said Jesus, that of all that He has given
me, I should lose nothing but should raise it up at the last
day. By grace the end is determined from the beginning. He's a God
of mercy. Listen, who, Micah 7, 18, who
is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity? And I've
already said, not unjustly, but justly. Through the death of
his son, through the substitutionary death of his son, he is able
to pardon the iniquity of his people. and passeth by the transgression
of the remnant of his heritage. For he retaineth not his anger,
his just anger against sin, for ever. Why? Because he delights
in mercy. Because by grace he has determined
the salvation of his elect, that multitude that no man can number,
of every tribe and tongue and kindred. He's determined the
salvation of his elect from before the beginning. What do I mean?
I mean election. I mean sovereign choice. The
sovereign choice of God before the beginning of time. And those
whom He chose, He betrothed to His Son. He put in eternal union
with His Son. He put in legal union with His
Son. that whatever his son did, his
people were counted as having done it, for they did indeed
do it by virtue of that union. And in his son who came in a
body that was prepared, in a real human body with real human blood,
he redeemed his people. He paid redemption's price. There's
a price for sin. There's a price for the sins
of his people, a sin debt. And Christ in that body paid
redemption's price for his people. And thereby, as the law screams
out, the soul that sins, it must die. Christ made satisfaction. And the law says it is enough.
It is finished. So God is just in all his works,
in all his ways. in no way clearing the guilty,
and yet justly justifying the people whom he chose in Christ
before the beginning of time. And what does he do then? Does
he leave it there? No, he effectually calls, by the preaching of the
gospel, he effectually calls the people whom he has redeemed
in Christ, bringing every one of them, in their life experience,
to a believing knowledge and trust in the living God. and
having got them there, does he then let them go to their own
devices? No, he eternally preserves them to the very end and takes
them to final glorification so that all the glory belongs to
God who has saved us. You, me, you who have been wandering
waywardly in unbelief and refusal to bow to the truth of gospel
grace. This is what we're all like by
nature. What does the word of God say? It says stop. Sit still,
wait for God. Blessed, blessed are all they
that wait for Him. Wait for God, wait believing
Him. Wait, resting on Him. Wait, trusting
Him. However long it seems to take,
He will reward that patience. He will. What did we just sing
just before in Cooper's hymn, God Moves in a Mysterious Way?
We sang, judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for
His grace. You see, feeble sense tells you
you must run down to the Egyptians. and grasp what the hell they
can give you, and it'll be futile. Judge not the Lord by feeble
sense, but trust him for his grace. Behind a frowning providence,
sometimes his providential dealings seem like dark clouds and frowning
to us. He hides a smiling face behind
that frowning providence. Think of the Syrophoenician woman
who came to Jesus. I think it's Matthew 15, isn't
it? She's a Gentile. She wasn't one of the Jews. She's
a Gentile. She's a Gentile dog as far as
the Jews were concerned. She's somebody who is not fit,
qualified or entitled to any thought that she has any favor
from God. And she comes and she cries out
to him, my daughter is possessed by an evil spirit. And what does
he do? What does he say to her? Do you
remember? He says, absolutely nothing.
He answered her, not a word, silence. And the disciple said,
let us send her away. Let's get rid of it. She's making
such a noise. And she kept on crying, help me for my daughter's
sick with an evil spirit. And so he does speak now. And
he says, problem. I'm only sent to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel. I'm not sent to Gentile dogs. Oh, wow, is that harsh? Isn't
that harsh? Doesn't that seem harsh and cruel?
This poor woman and her daughter is afflicted with an evil spirit
and she comes crying for help from the Lord. And he says, sorry,
I'm only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, not to
you Gentile dogs. And she keeps on crying. She
keeps waiting. She keeps waiting. She won't
give up. She keeps waiting for him to answer. And he says, it's
not right to give the bread of the children to the dogs. You
see, these are the lost sheep of the house of Israel. These
are the lost sheep of that. It's not right to give the children's
bread to the dogs. And you know what she says? Ah
yes Lord, but even the dogs, even the little dogs, lick up
the crumbs that fall from the children's table. Now, he says,
oh woman, great is your faith. You see she waited, and he waited,
but he showed grace. Grace was shown. You might say
that the prodigal son hurried to get back home. No, he hurried
to where he would wait on whatever his father would say to him,
didn't he? I will go now to my father and I will say I've sinned
against heaven and against you. Make me just as one of your servants,
please. He went where he would wait for
what his father would say and in going and in being prepared
to wait, what did he find? His father running, running to
meet him and grasping him round, hugging him and kissing him on
his neck being delighted that his son has come home, you see?
So us, we all naturally are waywardly wandering in conformity to the
world, until by the grace of God, if we're among his people,
we come to an end of self, we see what we are, we desire peace
with God, and what does he tell us to do? Wait, wait, patiently
trust that God will reveal his truth to you, He says, seek and
you shall find, knock and it shall be open, in God's own good
time. How do I wait? Verses 9 to 11. The prophets and the preaching
of Christ attend to Christ-centered preaching. That's how I wait.
What should I do? Attend to Christ-centred preaching.
I can't tell you anything better. This is another thing that I
100% agreed with Don about last Saturday when he was preaching.
He said people say to him, What do you do about counselling your
people? How much time do you spend counselling your people?
Do you know what he said? Absolutely none. None whatsoever. Do you
know why? Why? Because how does he counsel
his people? He preaches to them. He preaches
the truth. This is all I seek to do, is
to preach the truth of the scriptures, the truth of the gospel of grace.
If you hear the gospel of Christ faithfully preached, you will
be counselled. You will have all the counselling
you need. That's it. And cry to Him. Look, it says in verse 19, He
will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry. When
he shall hear it, he will answer thee. Pray to Him. What should
I pray? What should I pray to Him? Pray,
Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. Show me your truth.
Assure me of peace and the blessing of salvation in Christ. I trust
the promise of his word. Do you know what he said to,
via Habakkuk? He said, the vision is yet for
an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie.
You see, appointed time, there's a weight involved. Though it
tarry, though it seem to tarry, though it seem to not happen,
wait for it, because it will surely come. It will not tarry
indefinitely. The bud may have a bitter taste,
and it may seem to go on and on, but sweet will be the flower
in God's good time. And while waiting, God has promised
a word. Verse 21, And thine ears shall
hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it. When ye turn to the right hand,
and when ye turn to the left, this is the way, walk you in
it. He gives spiritual ears to his people. And look, there's
a voice, where is it? behind you. There is a voice
behind you. What are we all doing by nature?
We're heading headlong down that broad way that leads to destruction. And by his grace, he says to
his people, and the voice comes from behind because it's the
other way. He says, this is the way. You
have to turn round. You have to go the other way.
Is this not what repentance is? Repentance is rethinking. It's
thinking that this is the way to live, and God says, no, come
this way. You repent, you turn round. But
how can we know the right way? Thomas asked that question in
John 14 verse 5. Thomas said, when Jesus was talking
about going to the cross for the redemption of his people,
Thomas said, how can we know the way? And Jesus said, what
did he say? Over there, no, Jesus said, I
am the way, the truth, and the life. If you would come to the
Father and know peace with God and eternal life, you must come
by me. This is the way, the narrow way
of faith in Christ, as in Pilgrim's Progress. Pilgrim, in that story,
which I commend so much to you, In that story, Pilgrim becomes
conscious of a burden on his back, and that burden is his
sin that will drag him down to hell in the justice of God. And
he sees that it's the It's the characteristic of everyone around
him in the city of destruction, in Vanity Fair, and so he flees
and he seeks and he finds Evangelist, the preacher, who shows him the
wicked gate, but he doesn't directly do what the preacher says. He
gets into all sorts of wayward diversions, listening to what
this person and that person says, but read the story. To cut a
long story short, he comes to the cross And there at the cross,
by faith, he sees how the sin burden was paid for. And that
sin burden that was weighing him down to hell, the straps
are just, as it were, broken loose, and it falls off his back.
And he knows the liberty and peace with God that is in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And it isn't just a one-off experience,
but it's all the way to the celestial city. The old man is so prone
to erroneous diversions, but the Word? The Word of God, by
God's Spirit, says this way, this way, the narrow way. Look,
this is the way, the uphill way, hill difficulty, the valley of
the shadow of death way, but the sure way to heaven. He says,
When you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left,
what does that mean? I don't know precisely, but I do know
left and right is one extreme as opposed to another. And as
we walk the Christian life, if we're walking it guided by him,
we will tend to err towards one direction or the other, but he
will always, by his word, bring us back. We will tend towards
self-righteousness and he will bring us back. Or alternatively,
to the right, we will tend towards It doesn't matter how you live
antinomianism, only he will bring us back to the truth. We will
tend to mechanical legalism, as so many do, and he will bring
us back. He will bring us back to that
narrow way. And we will tend, perhaps, the opposite side of
that, to laissez-faire indiscipline. Oh, it doesn't matter. We can
do what we want. Let us sin that grace may abound.
We can tend towards religious formalism. And if you just follow
the strict mechanical pattern, then everything will be fine.
Or we can err to the other side. The neglect of duty. For duty... is a good thing, to know our
duty. We have a duty in the kingdom of God to portray the grace of
the kingdom of God. All the way my savior leads me. How does he lead? By providence,
the things that happen. By your conscience. See, the
one who knows no knowledge of God has got a seared conscience,
a conscience that is numbed, a conscience that doesn't feel.
But child of God, he gives you a tender conscience. that feels
and senses. He rebukes you by His word. Perhaps
you don't know it, but by something the preacher says there's a rebuke
to you. By cords of love, loved with
an everlasting love, therefore with cords of love He's drawn
me. Where does that leave us? My desire, my prayer to God for
all that hear this is that they might know the blessing of salvation
with God. My prayer is like Paul's prayer.
In Acts 26, Paul was being examined before being sent to Caesar by
King Agrippa. There was Felix Festus, King
Agrippa. King Agrippa was just a figurehead
king, he was just a symbolical king that the Romans allowed
there, but nevertheless he had certain administrative ruling
duties to do in his regal situation. And Paul was tried before him,
and Paul very persuasively showed him the gospel. And Agrippa said
unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. And Paul
said, I would to God. This is my prayer, that not only
you, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost I
don't want you to almost be a Christian. I want you to be altogether a
Christian, such as I am, apart from these bonds that he was
in at the time. This is it. Oh, that you might hear. and
believe and trust and rest in the blessedness that is our great
God and King. Have you felt the futility of
your wayward wanderings from the truth of God? Have you learned
the blessing of those who wait for God to reveal His grace?
Have you heard the voice behind you pointing the way in Christ
to eternal glory? Have you learned to trust the
one who only has to speak and it is done, oh that you might.