Now if you'll turn back with
me to Isaiah chapter 40. In the first nine verses of Isaiah
chapter 40, we have a prophecy concerning the forerunner which
marked the coming of the promised Redeemer. But we also have in
these verses a declaration not only of the forerunner and His
message. But we have an encouragement
to Zion, which is the church, and for her message. And her
message and His message is the same. It's the same. And we know now that the forerunner
is none other than John the Baptist. He came, according to Malachi's
prophecy, in the character and spirit of Elijah. Our Lord said
in, I think it's in Matthew chapter
11, He spoke of this, spoke of it. And in Matthew 11, 14, I
think is where He confirmed that prophecy. And this man, John,
was one of a kind. There was nobody else like John. John the Baptist was a very special
person. He was the forerunner of Christ. Christ would not appear, according
to the prophecy of the Word of God, until John the Baptist appeared
and fulfilled his ministry. What was his mission? Well, the
religion of the Jews had withered away to nothing more than just
a hollow form. was now completely corrupted
into legalism and ceremonialism and will worship. And before
God will manifest His Son, He's going to first send His messenger
into the world to make straight the way of God. He's going to
send Him into this desert place, into this wilderness. And if
you just envision in your mind these big canyons and just awesome
mountains and all of these things that was in the wilderness which
Israel faced going through their journey. And now he says these
mountains are going to be brought low and those canyons are going
to be brought up and all these obstructions are going to be
taken out of the way. This is a spiritual language. And what he is talking about
here is all these traditions and ceremonies and all this that
they had corrupted of true religion, John the Baptist is going to
get straight. He's going to make straight the
way of Christ. And he's going to declare plainly
their sad state and preach the gospel of God's sovereign grace
in the salvation of sinners. Now, I've chosen this text because
I believe that the Word of God teaches us that the same thing
which John was sent to do, we are sent to do. we are sent to
do. Not in the same sense, not in
the sense of the physical appearing of the Savior upon this earth,
but in His spiritual appearing in the hearts of His elect. He
is not going to appear in the hearts of His elect until the
way is made plain and straight. Christ is not going to appear.
He is not going to appear. And the very heart of salvation
is the revelation of Christ in men. That's what He tells us.
It's Christ in you, the hope of glory. And the same God who
commanded the light, He said, to shine out of darkness at the
dawn of this world, has shined in our hearts by His commandment,
has shined in our hearts. to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And this revelation
of Christ comes to men and women in the power of God's Spirit
through the preaching of the Gospel. And that's what he tells
us. This same thing that John did,
this voice. There's a voice out here crying
in the wilderness. This same thing he tells Zion.
Now get thee up. Get thee up into a high mountain.
And you proclaim this. You proclaim this. Now let me
give you three things this morning that I see in this prophecy that
mark every God-called preacher. And the first thing I see is
found here in Isaiah chapter 40, verse 3, the voice of him
that crieth in the wilderness. We're in a wilderness. Did you
know? A spiritual wilderness. There's no water in it. There's
no food in it. It's a spiritual wilderness,
this world. It's a barren wilderness and
everything in it and about it testifies of the judgment of
God upon it. Arguing and disagreements and
wars and divisions and famine and drought and disasters, what
men call natural catastrophes, volcanoes and earthquakes and
hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, fire, blizzards, on and on and
on. This world is a wilderness. It's
a wilderness. And this is especially true of
men. Nearly 2 million Jews wandered
for 40 years in a wilderness, and not one of them able to provide
for himself. Think about that. Not one of
them was able to provide for himself. Not one of them was
able to clothe himself. If God had preserved their shoes,
their shoes never wore out. You think about that. They lived
in tents. The tents never wore out. You think, 40 years in a wilderness,
sandstorms, just unbearable heat and sun, not one of them was
able to provide for himself, clothe himself, or find his way
to deliverance. Except God had intervened and
saved some, all had perished in the sand, every one of them.
And some did. We're warned about that. Now,
what will God do to save some in my generation? How will He
intervene? How will He minister to His people
today? We're in a wilderness, the same
as they were in a wilderness. We're in a wilderness. God has
delivered us, but we're in a wilderness. Now, how will He do this? How
will He minister to His people today? Are you listening? a voice of one crying in the
wilderness. That's how you're going to do
it. God had a voice in Israel. His name was Moses. Name was
Moses. Men don't like that. They didn't
like it. Those who were delivered by the
grace of God out of Egypt didn't like it. They didn't like it.
They said he takes too much on himself. They got out there and
got looking at him, and everybody was going to him with their problems,
and everybody listening to him to resolve their problems, and
so on. They got upset about it. They said he takes too much on
himself. Isn't it funny how the guy that
says that is always the guy who wants to take his place? Huh? Chordath and Abiram lined up
before God. lined up before God. Moses said,
everybody that is on the Lord's side, come over here. If you believe that I am God's
messenger, if you believe that what I am giving to you is the
message that God has given to me, you line up right over here.
Now if you believe them and you believe in their power and in
their choosing and in their abilities and so on, you line up behind
them. And these men were renowned men. This was the chief among
the people of Israel. He said, you just line up over
there. And so they did. And God split the ground open
and took the whole outfit to hell with their shoes on. That's
right. That's right. God had a voice in that wilderness. A voice of a man that He set
apart, that He ordained. Nothing special about Moses except
for that sanctified, ordained calling of God. That's what made
him special. God has a voice in this world. And His choosing is of the Lord.
His message is of the Lord. His providential appearing is
of the Lord. And His preaching is followed
by the appearance of the Lord. Just the same as Moses' wife
was, and just the same as John the Baptist's was, so it is with
Zion when she cries from the mountaintop. When that voice
cries in the wilderness, it's followed by the appearing of
the Lord. not in a physical appearance, but in his spiritual appearance
within the hearts of believers. God's way of tearing down the
strongholds and casting down the imaginations and bringing
the thoughts of men into obedience of Christ is gospel preaching. God's Spirit attends his ministry
so that his words carry a divine weight. I'll never forget the
first time I heard Henry Mahan preach. And he's been here, and
I've got his picture back here in the back if you don't believe
what I'm telling you. But he didn't come up here on me. He
wasn't a very tall man. But boy, he was in my eyes. His
words carried a divine weight. I can't explain that. That's
something the Holy Spirit has to reveal, and He does to His
people. They understand that. Paul said,
he said, I thank God for you, brethren. Talking to the Thessalonians,
he said, for when you heard me speak, you received it not as
the Word of men, but as it is in truth the Word of God. You
saw a divine weight upon my words, and that's how you received them.
Now, there's no way to know that except by the Spirit of God.
And that's why Paul said, when I preach, he said, I'm going
to leave it up between your conscience and God. And that's where I leave
it. But God's way of tearing down
these strongholds and casting down imaginations and bringing
thoughts into obedience of Christ is gospel preaching. He said, he that heareth you,
heareth me. And God has always had a voice. He starts this chapter out talking
about the voice of those prophets. The voice of the prophet, the
prophet Isaiah, including himself, was to say to his people, their
warfare is accomplished in this coming Redeemer. And then he
goes on and talks about that voice crying in the wilderness,
that's John the Baptist. And then he goes on and talks
about Zion doing the same thing, doing the same thing. And then secondly, what will
God say through his messenger? Look here in Isaiah 40, verse
6. The voice. Who is that? He doesn't tell us. He doesn't
tell us. Some of the writers say, well,
that's John the Baptist. Yes, I agree with you. It is.
Some of them say this is the prophets. I agree with you. Absolutely
it is. And some of them say it's every
man that God has called as His messenger. I agree with you.
That's exactly what it is. The voice. Whose voice? Whoever God sets aside to speak. The voice. What did this voice
say? The voice said, cry. And he said,
what shall I cry? Here's his message. Here's what he used to tell these
people down here in this wilderness. All flesh is grass. For 40 years they wandered around
in that desert. as God proved to them over and
over and over that all flesh is grass. That's all it is. And all the glory of man is like
the flower of the field, and the grass withereth, and the
flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. Any man, I don't care who he
is or whether or not he's a Calvinist, who does not speak plainly and
continuously about sin is not sent of God. If there's one thing that I must
be reminded of every single day of my life, it is my sin. I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. Only a sinner will
seek mercy from God. Only a sinner can appreciate
the grace of God. It's precious to him. It's precious
to him. He has no worth. He has no value
in himself. He's an object of God's sovereign
grace. He's a trophy of God's mercy
and God's grace. And he has to be reminded of
it every day. And I'll tell you this, when
you preach sin to men and women, it's contrary to their nature.
I remember I was watching here just the other day. I was watching
that movie again. I like old John Wayne. And he was in this old western.
And I think the title of it was Rooster Cogburn. And this old
lady that was with him, she was giving him a hard time. And she
said, what are you upset about? He said, ma'am, he said, no man
likes to be called high-smelling and low-down. But that's what I have to preach
to you. That's what I have to tell you.
You're high-smelling and low-down. That's right. That's right. You remember at that tomb, can
you picture yourself at the tomb of Lazarus? And he's in there
and that stone pulled back. And the Lord waited all these
days. He waited four days before he came to the mouth of that
tomb. And he came by and he talked to his two sisters and he straightened
them out on the fact that he was the resurrection. He was
the life. This thing is in him. It wasn't
in Lazarus. It was in him. And he came up
to that tomb and he said, take away the stone. And his sister
Martha cried out. She said, don't. Don't move the
stone. By now he stinketh." Well, there's not going to be
a calling out of the tomb until God makes you smell your corruption.
You see what I'm saying? We're high smelling and low down. That's just the fact of it. That's
what we are. We're sinners and we have to
be reminded of it every day. Every man, woman, boy and girl
ever born of Adam, is that way. God said through his prophet
Isaiah, he said, you are a smoke in my nose. And if you'll give
that a little bit of study and go look up them words, he's talking
about burning, smelly garbage is what he's talking about. Those
things that were unclean that they took outside and burnt in
the fire. That's what he's talking about. He said, you're a smoke
in my nose. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. And the preaching of the gospel
and especially the doctrine of man's total depravity is offensive. It just goes against the grain.
It's contrary to his understanding and contrary to worldly religion. Paul tells us in Galatians 5.17
that this flesh, that's what we are. That's what he calls
the natural man. He's flesh. That's what he is. And he said, this flesh, this
fallen, cursed, corrupt flesh lusteth against the Spirit. Its desires is contrary to the
Spirit. And the Spirit against the flesh.
And these are contrary, the one to the other. I can't bring you
a message. I'm talking to fallen flesh. I can't give a message to fallen
flesh that's not offensive. It's contrary. It's contrary. And that ought to turn a light
on in there somewhere if this is contrary. If I'm contrary
to the word of God and to the preaching of his gospel and to
the truth, I have a problem. The little light ought to come
on. The reason why natural man receive
it not the things of the spirit is because they all appear foolishness
to him. All go against his flesh. Shut
up to the listening to of a man. How foolish. How foolish. I read a pamphlet not too long
ago that said how proud, how proud must a man believe who
believes such a thing. Shut up to listening to a man.
Shut up to the revelation of God. You're saying I can't read
this book and understand it? That's exactly what I'm saying. Even I hath not seen nor ear
heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which
God hath prepared for them that love him. Those scribes and Pharisees
who studied this book every day of their life could not enter
in to what I've just said. He could not enter in, couldn't.
And when our Lord bowed His head, He said, I thank Thee, O Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from
wise and prudent and revealed it unto babe. Even so, Father,
for so it seemed good in Thy sight. And then He turned to
His disciples and He said, Blessed are your eyes, for they see,
and your ears, for they hear. Huh? Shut up to a revelation
of God. commanded to take my place as
a vile sinner, denouncing all my good works and deeds as filthy
rags, looking upon the whole human race as accursed of God,
looking upon all these things, denouncing all worldly works,
religion as being under the influence of Satan and operating in the
spirit of antichrist. Now, why, that's foolishness.
It is to those who are passing. It is. And I don't care how old you
are and how long you've been going to church or how much you
give or sacrifice of your time or how high a station you have,
you're a sinner. You're a sinner. And if you say
you have no sin, John said you deceived yourself, and the truth's
not in you. I had a fellow who told me one
time, I was just a young man, and Henry was sending those of
us who attended the little preacher school, he was sending us out
to fill in pulpits here and there, and I was out in Illinois. I
don't even remember the name of the church anymore. I do remember
one thing. The man whose house I was eating
in named his son John Gill. And we was eating and he said,
A preacher, he said, I've got a bone to pick with you over
your message. And I said, well, what was that? And he said, well,
in your message, he said, you called me a sinner. He said,
you called me a sinner. He said, nowhere, he said, we
did an extensive study of the Word of God. Nowhere in there
does it ever refer to a saved man as a sinner. They're all
saints. And I said, I couldn't think
of anything. And Henry's son-in-law was with
me, and he couldn't think of anything. We had a man there.
He had just heard the message of grace. And he said, well,
what about this one? This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners of whom I am chief. Paul said he was a sinner. He was a sinner. Proud, natural man don't want
to take his place as a sinner. You can't offend a true believer
calling him a sinner. All you're doing is giving evidence
of his calling when you give it to him. That's what qualifies
him for the grace of God is his sinfulness. Our Lord said, they that be whole
need not a physician. The sick, that's who needs a
physician. And he told those Pharisees who
thought they were holy and godly, he said, now you go learn what
this means. I'll have sacrifice. I won't have sacrifice. He said,
I'll have mercy and not sacrifice. Now you go learn what that means. And Paul said this to his young
understudy, that scripture that I just quoted to you, of whom
I am chief. And when the forerunner comes,
our Lord said, he'll lay the axe. He's going to lay the axe
to the root. He's going to cut down Adam's
family tree. He's going to cut it down. And
when he does, he's going to cut yours down. He's going to cut
yours down. There's no way you can lay the
axe to the root without cutting somebody's grandpa and grandma
and second cousin and whatever else is in there. He's going
to cut your family tree down. He's not going to leave a stump.
He's going to lay the axe to the root. and chop it down. My generation
has no need of a substitute because they see themselves adequate
for the job. They have no need of a sovereign
savior because they see themselves able to order their own affairs.
And my generation has no need of an eternal mediator. They've
already made their peace with God. And they have no need of
gospel preachers because they've already fixed things up. with
their decisions and their free will. We don't need a preacher. We got a Bible. So did the Pharisees. That's right. So did the Pharisees. I'll tell you what John preached.
John preached the Lamb. He preached the Lamb. He looked
for the Lamb. He pointed to and gave witness
to the Lamb. Where in all of today's religion
is the Lamb? A Jewish lady got offended by
a message Henry preached one time. And he was talking to her
about this and that. And he was talking to her about
Christ. And she kept saying, we don't acknowledge Jesus as
being the Christ and so on. And he said, all right, let's
just set the whole thing aside. Let's just put all of this aside. Where's the Lamb? Do you all
still bring a Lamb? Where's the Lamb? Now, either He's the Lamb, or
you're still under God's commandment to bring one, one or the other. Where's the Lamb? Where's the
Lamb? Where's the substitute? In all of the preaching today,
where's the substitute? Where is the death required of
God for sin? Well, I'll tell you this. Where
there is no sinner, there is no need of a lamb. So here's
the first thing you have to tell them. They're backwards in their
religion. They're gone away backwards. And here's the first thing you
have to tell them. All flesh is grass. All flesh is grass. All right, preacher, we get it.
No, you don't get it. You don't get it. If you got
it, you'd shut up. When a man learns he's a sinner,
he's got nothing else to say. Isn't that what that says there
in Romans chapter 3? He goes through. He said, I before
proved to you that they're all under sin. Religion's under sin.
The world's under sin. It's all under sin. Nothing's
going to do them any good. They're none that seeketh after
God. They've all gone astray. They're all together become unprofitable. Now what thing soever the law
saith, it saith to them who are under the law that whatever mouth
might be stopped. When you learn you're a sinner,
you shut up. You've got nothing else to say.
I've got nothing to stand on. I've got nowhere to go. I've
got no plea to make. I just sit there guilty before
God, hoping for mercy. All flesh. Christ. Christ. That's all it is. Sounds simple, don't it? Huh?
You'd be surprised how hard that is to learn. All praise is God. You can take your place as a
vile sinner and justify God or you'll die in your sins. Listen to me. Old John came along
preaching Christ bringing with him a new ordinance called baptism. He told him what this baptism
was. This was being buried with him, the sinner dying with him,
and being raised together with him in the likeness of his resurrection. In this baptism, these believers
openly confessed their need of Christ, being buried with Him
and risen with Him to walk in newness of life. But the Pharisees
and the scribes laughed Him to scorn. They wouldn't be baptized. They wouldn't be baptized. And
they rejected His message and they refused to take their place
as sinners. But listen to what this says
here in Luke. Luke chapter 7, verse 29. And all the people
that heard Him, And the publicans, the spies of the Pharisees, the
publicans, justified God being baptized with the baptism of
John. They justified God in John's
message and in the ordinance he brought with him and in the
authority that God vested in him. David poured out his heart
before the Lord, confessing his sins, and he said he did it that
God might be justified when he speaketh and clear when he judges. And there'll never be any sweet
wisdom whispered to the soul until we take our place with
the damned and justify God in the doing of it. And then the
second part of the preacher's message in this wilderness is
to behold, he said, get thee up on high mountain, O Zion,
and tell them, tell these people, get up here where they can hear
you, and tell them, behold your God. Behold your God. And this beholding God is said
to a people he has convinced of sin. I've got nothing to say
to a man who won't take his place as a sinner. I've got nothing
for him. I'd like to give it to him, but
I can't. He can't see it. He can't hear it. When the Holy Spirit of God convinces
a sinner of his sin and puts in him his The will to take his
rightful place and shut his ignorant mouth, God is about to manifest
himself to him in the person of his son. I'm happy. I'm happy when a man gets lost. You remember that, don't you? Oh, he said, there's no God for
me. God wouldn't have mercy on me.
Oh, I tell you, when you take your
place as a vile, wretched sinner, God is about to manifest Himself. Yes, He is. The saving revelation
of God is in His Son. I read that to you earlier. You
know bits and pieces about God in other ways, in disasters they
reveal the wrath of God against all unrighteousness of men. Conscience
tells us that God will punish sin, and creation plainly speaks
of His eternal power and Godhead. But only in Christ can we truly
see our God in the full glory of His character, in the glory
of His mercy and grace. Angels desire to look into this,
but they don't have the nature for it. The fallen angels are
chained with chains of darkness. They'll never see it. The elect
angels have never fallen. They don't know what it is. But
they look in wonder and amazement as God takes this vile, wretched
sinner and makes him a son of God. That man has a unique perspective
of God. He sees God from the bottom looking
up. Looking up. Every time you hear
about Christ being preached, he has to be raised up. Like
that old serpent back in the wilderness, he tells us in John
3 that he raised him up, even so must Christ be raised up.
And the sinner sees him from the bottom looking up. just and justifier, holy and
yet merciful to dying sinners, righteous yet forgiving iniquity,
transgression, and sin. You can't know God savingly apart
from embracing His Son as He set forth of the Father. He said,
He that hath the Son hath life. He has life. Eternal life, everlasting
life. And he that hath not the Son
of God, whatever else he hath, he hath not life. And then back
in verse 10, I guess it is there, 1 John 5,
he said, He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness
of God in himself. He has it in himself revealed
to him, revealed in him, and revealed for him. And he that
believeth not God hath made him a liar. Mercy and truth, the psalm they
sang, are met together. Huh? They're met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed one another. Christ came into this world.
God came into the flesh. God and His church married into
the flesh, one in Christ, who lived a perfect life on their
behalf and died in their room instead. And by His spotless
righteousness and His full sanctification of the law, and by His suffering
and death, He's presented us holy, unblameable, and unreprovable
in God's sight. And then listen to what God says
to His messenger, Isaiah 40, verse 10. He said, Behold, the
Lord God. Now wait a minute. I thought
the Lord was God. He is. Well, what in the world is He
talking about? He's talking about God our Savior. Actually, in
the original, it reads like this, Behold, Jehovah God. Jehovah God, God our Savior,
behold Him, the God-man. He's going to come and with strong
hand and His arm shall rule for Him. It's going to rule for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him
and His work before Him. He'll feed His flock like a shepherd. He'll gather His lambs with His
arms and carry them in His bosom and shall gently lead them that
are with you. And who is he? Who is this? He
that measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, sitteth upon
the circle of the earth, and all the inhabitants thereof are
like grasshoppers. God, our Savior, behold, your
God. The man who truly sees Christ
will worship him as God. He's God. Listen to the words
of this old hymn. This is what I'm trying to preach
to you this morning, what this hymn writer said. Depth of mercy,
can it be? Mercy still reserved for me? Can my God his wrath forbear? And me the chief of sinners spare? Huh? Well, I tell you, a lot
of folks sing that song who don't preach it. They don't preach
it, but that's what it is. The prodigal and his brother
both knew something of their father's title, power, and wealth. But when the prodigal came home
broken and bankrupt and repenting, he come to know his father in
a way like none other. He come to know him in mercy
and grace. And upon that son, he put the
ring, didn't he? For that son, he had a banquet. He had a celebration for that
son. This my son who was lost, now
he's found. Now he's found. God help us to
get an understanding of the message of grace.