When I was about 22 years old,
a new family had moved in on the hill behind us in Lookout.
And I went to visit them, invite them to come hear the gospel.
And I had just heard a sermon by Ralph Barnard, which he'd
had a similar experience. And the lady said to me, she
said, I'm a Presbyterian. And I asked because she knew
God. And she said, I've always been a Christian. And I remember
what Barnard had said in the sermon. He'd had a similar experience
and I repeated the same words. I said, that's just too long.
That's just too long. The fact is nothing, nothing,
nothing is more dangerous to your soul than the assumption
of grace when you have none. The assumption of life when you're
yet dead in your sins. The assumption of acceptance
with God when you have no faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The
most deadly thing in this world is the practice of religion without
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the primary reason. Why
we do nothing, I mean nothing, to try to entice people to make
a profession of faith who do not have faith. We don't try
to twist arms and manipulate people and get them to join the
church and get them to make a profession of faith. We don't practice the
horrible abomination of infant baptism because those things
Give people a sense of security and peace when they have no peace. A good many of you have over
the years come to me at different times and sought some assurance
from me, some word that would give you peace. And you will
verify I refuse to give such words. If I could, I wouldn't. I refuse to assure you that you
have life. I can't do that. I refuse to
assure you that you have faith in Christ. I can't do that. I
refuse to assure you that your sins are taken away. I can't
do that. The only way such assurance comes
is if God gives you faith in his darling son. I want you to
turn with me to Isaiah chapter one. And I want to show you that
nothing in all the world is so evil, so contemptible, so vile
in the sight of God as self-righteous, legal, works religion. God hates
sin, all sin. The wages of sin is death. but some sins are greater and
more offensive to God than others. If you read the 23rd chapter
of Matthew's gospel, you will find our Lord Jesus describing
the woes that were heaped upon the Pharisees because of their
sin, because of their ungodliness. He specifies the Pharisees, not
just the Pharisees of his day, the Pharisees of any day. Pharisees
are people who assume righteousness and have none. People who assume
acceptance and approval with God and have none. People who
assume that they do good before God in the practice of religion. And with that practice of religion,
seek to assure their hearts of life in Christ Jesus. Murder
is a horrible crime against God and man. Adultery is a vile,
loathsome thing. Homosexuality, sodomy, is a perverse,
obnoxious, moral degeneracy. It's a sad, sad commentary on
our society that the laws of our land, and not ours alone,
but of almost all Western cultures, make the rights of base homosexuality,
and the slaughter of unborn babies, a matter of morality. The philosophy
of the age is that these things are moral and right. We will
protect these things. And they do this thing in the
name of morality, but murder, adultery, and homosexuality are
the most contemptible things in the sight of God, almost. Almost. There's something far,
far worse. The most contemptible thing in
the world, in God's sight, is self-righteous, legal, works
religion. Now I realize that I use those
words, legal, self-righteous, works religion, a good bit, and
you may, some of you, be uncertain about my meaning. Let me be crystal
clear. Legal, self-righteous, works
religion. is any and every form of religion
which teaches, implies, or leads you to believe that man's acceptance
with God depends upon, is determined by, or is conditioned in any
way upon man. Those who teach that salvation
begins with an act of man's free will are guilty of this crime.
Those who teach that justification depends upon man's obedience
are guilty of this horrible crime. Those who teach that sanctification
depends upon a man's growth in holiness are guilty of this horrible
crime. Those who teach that our fellowship
with God depends upon our personal obedience and personal holiness
are guilty of this crime. Those who teach that our preservation
and grace depends upon our personal holiness, our personal goodness,
our personal righteousness, are guilty of this crime. Even those
who teach that reward in heaven depends upon our good works.
Practice legal, self-righteous works religion. And their religion
is utterly contemptible in the sight of God. Well, Brother Don,
if that's the case, than most of the churches I know of. Everywhere
in this community where folks have gathered tonight, in the
name of God, singing amazing grace, know how I love Jesus,
are guilty of this horrible, contemptible crime. You've heard
me well. That's exactly what I want you
to understand. The title of my message tonight
is Contemptible Religion. Our text is Isaiah chapter one,
verses 18 through 20. The Lord God, the holy, righteous,
just, and true God. Here gives us his view of man's
religion. This is God's view of man's religion. Call it by whatever name you
will. All of it is the same. Doesn't matter what you're talking
about, Islam, Judaism, Baptist, Holiness, Pentecostal, Catholic,
it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. All religion,
that make salvation in some way, to some degree, dependent upon
you and your works and your worth is contemptible in the sight
of God. Let's hear what God says concerning
it. Isaiah 1 verse 10. Hear the word of the Lord, ye
rulers of Sodom. Give ear unto the law of our
God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord? I'm full of burnt offerings
of rams and the fat of fed beast. And I delight not in the blood
of bullocks or of lambs or of he goats. when you come to appear
before me, who has required this at your hand to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations. Incense is an abomination unto
me. The new moons and Sabbaths, the
calling of assemblies, I cannot away with. It is iniquity, even
your solemn meeting. your new moons, and your appointed
feast, my soul hateth. They are trouble to me. I'm weary
to bear them. And when you spread forth your
hands, when you pray, when you pray, I will hide mine eyes from
you. Yea, when you make many prayers,
I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Wash you. Make you clean. Put away the evil of your doings
from before mine eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do
well. Seek judgment. Relieve the oppressed. Judge the fatherless. Plead for
the widow. Come now, let us reason together,
saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool. God is here speaking to men.
Fallen, depraved, sinful men like you and me. But exceedingly
devout religious men. People who go to church three
times a week. As we go through these verses,
let me give you an outline to follow. In verse 10, you'll see
God's means. Verses 11 through 15, God's message. In verses 16 and 17, God's method,
and in verse 18, God's mercy. All right, here in verse 10,
I want you to see God's means of communication. Hear the word
of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom. Give ear unto the law of our
God, ye people of Gomorrah. Here God speaks to men, but he
doesn't speak to men directly. He doesn't speak to men directly. He never does. He never does. Not since the
completion of Holy Scripture, He never does. When God speaks
to men, He speaks to men by a man. God does not speak to men except
by a man. He speaks through the mouth of
his prophet Isaiah. It's always that way. Now I stress
this because today men mock, belittle, and deride the preaching
of the gospel. But they do so to the ruin of
their own souls. If ever you hear from God, you
will hear from God through the voice of a man, a man just like
yourself, a sinful man, a man with much evil, a man who has
many things about him that are contemptible. These people heard
Isaiah's voice. Isaiah, a sinful man. Isaiah,
a man you could look to and say, this he ought not to have done,
that he ought not to have done. He shouldn't have said this.
He shouldn't have been there. I don't like what Isaiah does here. I
don't like what Isaiah does there. He spoke for God and God spoke
through him. The words they heard were not
Isaiah's words, but God's word. The message was God's message. because Isaiah spoke with a heart
full of love for the souls to whom he ministered. and love
for the glory of God because he loved them, because he loved
God and sought his glory. This man used great plainness
of speech. He wasn't ambiguous. He wasn't
hard to understand. He spoke so that the people to
whom he spoke might know exactly what he was saying, exactly who
he was speaking to, and exactly what his message was. He wasn't
content merely to tell the truth. He was determined to make folks
hear the truth he told. The prophet of God plainly exposed
the sinfulness of all who heard his voice. He called the rulers
of Judea sodomites. He compared the inhabitants of
the land of Israel to the people of Gomorrah. Remember, Isaiah
was a preacher in the king's court. He was a preacher in the
king's court. But this man, Isaiah, was telling
the most outwardly religious people in the world that God
Almighty looks upon them and their religion and their good
works with the same contempt with which he looks upon the
practice of a band of sodomites. Wow. And you thought I was tough. Isaiah speaks to these folks,
the most religious, devoted people in the world. And it says to
them what you're doing every Sabbath day, what you do every
time you spread your hands in prayer, what you do every time
you bring a Passover offering, what you do every time you bring
your morning and evening sacrifice, what you do every time you appear
in the house of God is the practice of base sodomy. What a word. Will we ever hear what God declares? The best works, the most orthodox,
the most devoted people in the world, apart from the merits
of Christ, are no more worthy of God's approval and God's acceptance
than loathsome, perverse practices of homosexuality. No man by nature
has any personal righteousness. All our righteousnesses, this
man Isaiah tells us as he speaks for God, are filthy rags. A stench in the nostrils of God. All those things that we approve
of and applaud and say, oh, whoopee, this is good. stink like filthy
mistress claws in the nostrils of God Almighty. That's exactly
what he says. No man, saved or unsaved, has
any ability to produce righteousness. You can't do it. I can't do it. Righteousness is something God
produces and God gives. It's not something that is a
product of man. Turn to Exodus chapter 28. I
want you to look at this. Exodus chapter 28. Here, God
gives law to Israel and tells Moses how Aaron's garments were
to be made. He's telling Moses how Aaron
was to dress as he went about the priestly office. Look at
verse 36, Exodus 28. And thou shalt make a plate of
pure gold and grave upon it like the engravings of a signet. Holiness
to the Lord. and thou shalt put it on blue
lace that it may be upon the miter, upon the forefront of
the miter it shall be." He said, you make this gold plaque and
put it right here on Aaron's miter, right in the front that
says, holiness to the Lord. Why is that? Aaron represents
Christ, our high priest. Aaron represents our acceptance
with God. Aaron represents that one whom
God will accept. And it shall be upon Aaron's
forehead that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things,
which the children of Israel shall hallow in their holy gifts. And it shall be always upon his
forehead that they may be accepted before the Lord. Now, what does
that say to us? We come to God. Here we are now,
gathered in this place, seeking to worship God. And this, Mark,
is the best we ever do. This is the best we ever do.
We're never better. We're never in better condition.
We're never better behaved than we come into God's house. Or
we come to God in our closets. We come to bring God our gifts,
our sacrifices of praise, our offerings. We bring our money
and put it in an offering plate. We bring our prayers and offer
them to God. We bring our songs and we sing
His praise. And they're so dirty, so filthy,
so defiled. so full of iniquity. They could never be accepted
of God, but by Christ, our mediator and our high priest. And so our
high priest stands in our stead before God, withholding us to
the Lord. And he takes these things that
we bring and our sales and accepts us because of the holiness of
our mediator and our high priest. Else, we could never be accepted
of God. Our tears need to be wept over.
Our repentance needs to be repented of. Our holiness needs to be
bathed in the blood of Christ. We have nothing to offer God
but sin. Sin is what we are, sin is what
we think, sin is what we feel, sin is what we do all the time. The only way any man can attain
righteousness is by Jesus Christ the Lord. Turn to Romans chapter
nine. Here, the apostle Paul, writing
by divine inspiration, refers to God's word by his prophet
Isaiah here in our text in Isaiah one. Look at Romans chapter nine,
verse 29. As Isaiah said before, except
the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom
and been made like unto Gomorrah. What shall we say then? That
the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have
attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is a
faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness,
hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore,
because they sought it not, they sought not righteousness by faith. but as it were by the works of
the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling
stone, they tripped over Christ. They stumbled at that stumbling
stone as it is written, behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone,
a rock of offense, and whosoever believeth on him shall not be
ashamed. Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for
Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear them record
that they have a zeal of God They're religious as all get
out. They're devoted. They're people who make great
sacrifices. They have a zeal of God, but
they don't have a clue what they're doing, not according to knowledge.
for they being ignorant of God's righteousness. Not ignorant of
God's righteous character. Every man knows that. Ignorant
of the righteousness of God established and brought in by the doing and
dying of his own son. And going about to establish
their own righteousness. Going about to make themselves
righteous. They have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God. What is that? For Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. If
you would escape the wrath of God, hear the word of the Lord
and give ear to the law of our God. God help you to pay attention
to me now. Don't hear the words of men or
give ear to the religious doctrines, customs and traditions of this
world. If you do, If you follow the
popular, accepted, approved religion of the world, you will lose your
immortal soul. If you follow the popular, accepted,
approved religion of the world, you will lose your soul. If you
follow the accepted, applauded religion of the world, you will
lose your soul. Hear the word of the Lord. What
does it say? What is the message of God's
holy word? Salvation is of the Lord. Give ear to the law of
our God. What does God say in all the
law? Salvation is of the Lord. Hear
the law of God revealed in the gospel. What does it say? Salvation
is of the Lord. This is his commandment. We just
sang it. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
The law and the gospel aren't opposed to one another. The law
and the gospel are part together of God's revelation of himself
in Holy Scripture. The law shows us that it is impossible
for a man to save himself. The whole of the law. Every commandment,
every commandment given by God, every sacrifice required by God,
every ritual, every ceremony in the law was intended to show
us the impossibility of a man making himself righteous, shutting
us up to Jesus Christ the Lord. The gospel shows us that God
in Christ can and does save the very chief of sinners. The gospel
and the law declare salvation is of the Lord. The gospel and
the law show us how that God can and is a just God and a savior. I say that to say this, never
despise the preaching of the gospel. You neglect it to the
peril of your own soul. Never despise the preaching of
the gospel by any man. You do so only to the peril of
your own soul. I have a customary way of addressing
people who forsake the worship of God. I'll usually write to them when
they start to offer an excuse. And I will say, I have this to
say to you. Not only are you, by your deed,
shutting yourself out of the grace of God, but you take your
wife or your husband and your sons and your daughters and your
grandchildren and everybody under your influence, and by your willful
neglect of the preaching of the gospel, you take them by the
hand and lead them to hell as surely as if you taught them
to practice any form of evil. Oh, Brother Don, you can't mean
that. Oh, yes, I do. Oh, yes, I do. You despise the
preaching of the gospel only to the peril of your own soul.
This is God's method and God's means of communication to me. If he ever speaks salvation to
your soul, he will do so by the preaching of the gospel. Faith
comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Of his own
will begat he us with the word of truth. That's the way God
saves sinners, no other way. No other way. Most of you have
come here from various religious backgrounds. About everybody
in this part of the world has been saved two or three times.
Got saved when you was a little boy, got saved again when you
got to be a teenager, and got saved again when you're a little
older. And they don't call it that. You make a profession of
faith when you're taught. Before you're old enough to read,
some fool preacher will get you in the water and baptize you
and tell you you're saved and everything's all right now. And then you live
like hell and you got to rededicate your life. I need to rededicate
my life. When I hear that, I just... I
don't know what to say. What are you going to rededicate?
What are you going to rededicate? No, you need God's grace. You
need God's grace. God doesn't save folks, but by
the preaching of the gospel, the preaching of the gospel of
his son. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save
them that believe. We're born again, not of corruptible
seed, not because mama and daddy were good folks, but of incorruptible,
by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. All right,
let's look at verses 11 through 15. Here is God's message, God's
message of contempt. I can't stress this point enough.
I keep hammering away at this thing, hoping that somebody will
hear me and pay attention. God holds the religion of this
world, legal, freewill, self-righteous works religion in utter and absolute
contempt. To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me? Saith the Lord, I am full of
burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts. I delight
not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of he goats. When
you come to appear before me, who has required this at your
hand to tread my courts? Now, wait a minute. We just read a portion of Exodus
28. The whole book of Exodus is all about that. The whole
book of Deuteronomy is all about God requiring you to come and
worship and bring sacrifices and to walk in his courts and
dwell in his house. But God says, who required this
of you? What's he saying? I didn't require
you to come and act religious. I required you to come and worship
me. I didn't require you to come and go through the ceremonies
of religion. I required you to come and worship my son who required
this at your hand. Bring no more, verse 13, vain
oblations, empty, meaningless, worthless oblations. Incense
is an abomination to me. The new moons and Sabbaths, the
calling of assemblies, I cannot away with. It is iniquity, even
the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed
feast, my soul hateth. They are trouble to me. I'm weary
to bear them. And when you spread forth your
hands, I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea, when you make
many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Now, remember to whom Isaiah
speaks as he speaks God's word. These people were Jews, the lineal
descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Mark read about it
just a little bit ago in John chapter eight. These same folks,
these were Jews. They were Orthodox in their creed. They were orthodox in their creed.
There's no question about the orthodoxy of the Jewish religion
of the Old Testament. These folks, to put it in modern
terms, were thoroughgoing five-point Calvinists. They knew that Aaron
was a high priest only for Israel. They knew the sacrifices were
only for Israel. They knew that God's chosen people
were only the people of Israel. They understood that. But their
hearts were thoroughly Arminian, in spite of their creed. I often
tell folks, you want to hear what somebody believes, don't
pay too much attention to what they write on paper. Don't pay too much attention
to that. These folks, this fella, he preaches
sovereign grace. This church believes in the sovereign
grace of God. When he gets done preaching Sunday morning, and
Sunday night, and Wednesday night, or whenever they meet in the
midweek, What does he leave you with? Well, he talks a lot about
practical things. We won't talk about practical
things. I'll tell you what those words are. We want to hear him
talk about good works. Practical days. Practical Christianity. Everybody loves practical Christianity.
Did you know that? Everybody loves to hear preachers
talk about being a good husband, being a good wife, being a good
son, being a good daughter, being a good neighbor. Everybody loves
that. Everybody loves it. If I were to Advertise it and
let folks know I'm going to start a series of messages on Tuesday
night on the family. And I work over the husbands
pretty good and work over the wives pretty good. And you men
and women start behaving better, quit fussing, and you start treating
one another a little better. Boy, I needed that. Man, I needed
that. After a few weeks, after a few weeks, Mark and Regina
would be sitting there saying, boy, that was a good message.
I sure wish Mark and Donna had been here. They needed to hear that. That's not occasionally the case,
that's always the case. That's always the case, because
men love to hear about works. These folks were thoroughly Orthodox
in doctrine, thoroughly Calvinistic, but utterly Arminian in heart.
Their outward form of religion was precisely what God ordained
and God commanded. Precisely so. They came to the
place God had appointed. They came with the sacrifices
God had appointed. They came at the time God had
appointed. But there was one fatal mistake.
They vainly, foolishly imagined that doing so was righteousness. They vainly, foolishly imagined
that offering their prayers to God and spreading their hands
to God was an act of righteousness. They vainly presume that their
sacrifices were sacrifices of righteousness. They didn't say
so in word, but inwardly they entertained the confident hope
that God would accept them because of what they had done. Oh, I pray God will knock that
prop out from under you. They built their confidence upon
the works of their own hands. And for that, God was angry.
For that, God refused to hear their prayers. He refused to
accept their sacrifices. He refused to accept any of their
services. They brought sacrifices to God,
and they burned those sacrifices on God's altar. But they trusted
the sacrifices. They brought to God, rather than
trusting Christ, who was represented in the sacrifices. They trusted
the lambs they brought rather than Christ, the lamb of God,
whom the sacrifices were meant to portray. Look at verse 11.
To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices? Why did you
bring these? Why did you bring these? They
brought their lambs. But those lambs they brought
by God's own word. were designed and intended of
God to portray another lamb, the lamb of God, Jesus Christ,
who takes away the sin of the world. Well, brother Don, they
didn't know that back then. They didn't know that because
they wouldn't hear it. Abraham knew it, didn't he? Did he? Genesis
22, Abraham rejoiced to see my day, he was glad, he said, my
son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.
They understood those things, they just refused to hear God's
word. They came to an altar, the altar that God had Moses
to erect exactly according to God's pattern. But they came
just to that physical altar and despised the fact that that altar
represented Christ, our altar, by whom alone we have access
to God, that physical altar. just gave access to the holy
place and the holy of holies. You had to come by this altar
to get into the holy place, to get into the holy of holies where
God's glory was revealed, where God's mercy seat was, where God
would meet sinners. You had to come by this altar.
But they only saw it as getting into that physical place They
despised the fact that Jesus Christ is the only author by
whom we can approach God, by whom we can find acceptance with
God. They came to the mercy seat. Every year they offered their
sacrifices upon the mercy seat where God said, I'll meet you
on the mercy seat between the cherubs. But that mercy seat,
that mercy seat was Christ our propitiation. Christ, the satisfaction
of divine justice for us. They refused to accept that which
God himself had revealed. So they didn't understand. David
did. When David carried the Ark of
God up out of the house of Obedidim up to Jerusalem, he leapt and
danced before the Ark because that Ark represented God, our
Savior. He understood that. When you
come to me to appear before me, verse 12, who has required this
at your hand to tread in my courts? Because they refused to trust
Christ's blood and righteousness, God refused them. all their gifts
and services to God, he tells us are vain oblations because
they imagine that their gifts and services made them righteous
and trusting their own righteousness. They could not and would not
trust Christ, the Lord, our righteousness. Now hear me, God help you to
hear me. Until you give up your righteousness, Gotta give it up. You got to
give it up. And you won't do it. You won't
do it. The only way you'll ever give
it up is if God strips you naked before Him and forces you to
give it up. You got to give it up or you'll
never trust Christ and His righteousness. I hope I never forget what Brother
Bruce Crabtree told me on one of his last visits with his daddy
before he died. He's trying to minister to his
father, and he said, Dad, you've got to give up your righteousness
and trust Christ alone. He said, you mean, son, give
up every good thing I've done? I can't do that. I can't call that
sin. I can't do that. And he died. with no knowledge of God because
he could not give up his own goodness. You have no goodness
in you. You have no righteousness in
you. You haven't the ability to perform
such. Their new moons and feast days
that they kept on the first day of every month were obnoxious
to God because they never ate Christ's flesh and drank his
blood on those feast days. They never understood, they never
accepted the fact that they must have the doing and die of the
substitute, the Son of God of whom those feast days spoke.
They meticulously kept their solemn feast. that they never
fed upon the bread of life. Their Sabbath days were sacrilege. They kept the Sabbath days. Oh,
they kept the Sabbath days. When our Lord's disciples Walked
through the field of corn and they got a little corn in their
hand. All they did was rub the corn in their hand, got raw corn
off the cob. That ain't much of a meal. That's
just not much of a meal. They just rubbed it in their
hand and ate a little corn. They said, your disciples are breaking
the Sabbath day. These fellows were meticulous
in observing the Sabbath days, but they never found rest in
Christ our Sabbath. And so their Sabbath days in
all their practices were but the practice of sacrilege. Christ
is our Sabbath. Christ is our rest. And unless
you rest in him, you'll find no rest for your soul. Their
solemn assemblies. those times of worship. God calls
them assemblies of iniquity, things which he hated, was weary
of and refused to accept because they were assemblies of empty,
legal, self-righteous religion. Even their prayers were an abomination
to God because they spread their hands to God in prayer, hands
full of blood. How can that be? What's he talking
about? Had they murdered anybody? Had
they aborted their babies? What's he talking about? Hands
full of blood? There's only one possibility.
with all their goodness and religiosity and works, with all their good
practical religion. They said, crucify him, crucify
him. His blood be on us and on our
children. We will not have a substitute. And God said, I won't have you.
Your hands are full of blood. The blood of Christ is upon their
hands. Now hear what God's teaching
us in this passage. Religion without Christ is worse
than useless. It's damning to the souls of
men. In 1 Kings 2, Solomon sent order to have Joab put to death. And Joab got word of what Solomon
had ordered, and he fled to the Tabernacle. And he laid hold
on the horns of the altar. He said, this will keep me safe. Solomon won't touch me here.
Everything will be all right now. I'm in the house of God. But Ananias came back to Solomon
and said, Joab refuses to come out. He said, Solomon gonna have
to kill me, gonna kill me, have to kill me right here. Solomon
said, go kill him right there. Go kill him right there. You
can cling to the horns of your religious altar. You can claim
to your religion, you can claim to your goodness, but you do
that you'll go to hell and God will send you to hell sitting
right on the front pew of Grace Madness Church in Danville, Kentucky.
Your religion without Christ is useless. Our most costly sacrifices,
our most devoted services, our most meticulous observances of
moral religious duty cannot atone for sin or obtain righteousness. Our only hope of acceptance with
God is Jesus Christ, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. Christ is all. All my salvation, all my hope,
all my confidence. I hope never to overlook or forget
marvelous experiences I've had of God's goodness and grace these
66 years. God helped me to mark every day
and remember them well. But I place no confidence in
any of it. None of it. None of it. None
of it. What's your confidence? Jesus
Christ the Lord. Yesterday's faith is meaningless. It's utterly meaningless. The
only thing that matters is, dost thou believe on the Son of God? God, my witness, I trust your son. That's all. That's all. That's enough. That's all God commands and all
God requires. Now, in verses 16 and 17, We
see God's method, God's method of conviction, how God strips
men of their sense of righteousness. Watch what it says. Wash you. Make you clean. Put away the
evil of your doings from before mine eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do well. Seek judgment. Relieve the oppressed. Judge
the fatherless. Plead for the widow. I want to tell you something. God doesn't express himself accidentally
in this book. Cody, this book is full of gins
and snares to trap the reprobate who refuse to believe. Folks
read that and they say, well, God says for me to start doing
good and everything will be all right. Start behaving like I
ought to and everything will be alright. I haven't been behaving
good enough. That's my problem. I need to
start serving the Lord. No, that's not what he's saying.
When God says, be ye holy, He is not saying, be as holy as
you can. He is saying, be as holy as I
am. I'm holy. Be perfectly holy. And that's exactly what it says
here in verses 6, 8, and 17. He's saying, you wash yourselves
and make yourselves clean. You put away the evil of your
doings from before my eyes so I can't see them. You cease to
do evil. You learn to do well, and then
everything will be all right. He intends by these statements
to show us two things. By the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified in his sight. And second, if we would
be saved, We must be saved by the merits of a substitute, Jesus
Christ, the Lord. If you would be accepted of God,
if you would have eternal acceptance with him, there are four things
you just got to do. Everybody wants something to
do, I'll give you something to do. This is what God gives you to do right
here in this text. You must purge all sin from your
own heart and nature. You must give yourself a holy
nature. Watch you and make you clean. You must put on or put all your
past sins out of God's sight. Put away your evil doings from
before mine eyes. And third, you must cease to
do evil. You must cease to don't ever
sin again. Don't ever sin again. And fourth,
you must learn to do well. You must learn to love God with
all your heart and love your neighbor as yourselves. And you
say, well, you're like the children of Israel. You say, Moses, what
did God say? He said, behold, well, we can
handle that. Go ahead and give it a try. I'll
tell you why you're still going to hell. I'll tell you why you're
still without faith in Christ. I'll tell you why you refuse
to believe on the Son of God, because you're still trying to
do the impossible. These things are things God requires
of me. The things for which God holds
you and me responsible, but we have no ability to perform them.
Our only hope of salvation, our only hope of acceptance with
God is that someone may do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Thank God there's such a one.
The Lord Jesus makes guilty vile sinners clean by the regeneration
of his spirit, imparting a righteous nature to them, taking up residence
in them, making them partakers of the divine nature so that
that which is born of God cannot sin. And now here is a new man. Don Fortner is his name. His
name is Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord our righteousness. And he
can't say it. That new man can't say it. God says, put away your sin.
I can't do that. but Christ did by his blood atonement. He said, I, even I am he that
blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake and will not
remember thy sins. Just blotted them out. They're gone! So that I can't
remember them anymore. The Lord Jesus causes sinners
who can do nothing but sin to cease doing evil by the power
of his grace, for he who took away our sins did so, Peter tells
us, that we should no longer live according to the lust of
our flesh, but live unto God who loved us and gave himself
for us. The Lord Jesus calls us sinners
to do well. To do well. By his perfect obedience
to God, This man has perfectly obeyed God. Oh, perfect righteousness
is ours. Now, look at verse 18, very briefly.
I want you to know God's mercy. God's mercy and compassion toward
helpless sinners. Come now, let us reason together,
saith the Lord. He speaks to these folks. He
just said, now you go ahead and do good. You can't do that. You
know you can't do that. You know you can't put away sin.
You know you can't make yourself clean. So come now. Let us reason
together, saith the Lord. What a condescension. God stoops
from heaven and he bends over and speaks to sinners on the
earth. And he says, come to me. Let
me reason with you. Let's reason together. Though
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Come, come,
come to Christ. Come now, come now. Let us reason
together. God reasons with sinners on the
basis of his covenant grace, his son's obedience, his gospel
promises, and our desperate need. We must reason with God on the
same ground. How is that? Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Are you listening? Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. Come now. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and your scarlet red sins shall be as white as
the wool of the spotless lamb of God. As white as the newly
fallen snow. I'm always delighted to see the
snow fall. For I'm always reminded that
God has taken this vile, black, dirty sinner. And he's made my
sins, what a word, whiter than snow. Perfectly white. Lamb's wool
white. As white as the spotless Lamb
of God. Believe on the Son of God and
this salvation is yours. Otherwise, you will die in your
sins and God will never accept you. Amen.