is found in Isaiah chapter 45, but our actual text for today
is coming out of the book of Malachi chapter 3 and verse 6,
but you need not turn there at present time, but to Isaiah chapter
45. Now there are many passages in
our Bibles that are filled with descriptions of who God is. The reason there is such great
division within the realm of professing Christianity is that
people's understanding of who God is is different. When we come to worship the God
of the Bible, We must tell Him what He has told us about Himself. That's the nature of worship.
There's no other way to worship the God of the Bible except we
proclaim Him, we rejoice in Him as to who He is. It's who He
is that determines everything, determines how He saves sinners.
He cannot do so if any part of His being, any single attribute,
is damaged or destroyed. He cannot show mercy at the expense
of the truth because He is truth. You understand what I'm saying?
God's character is essential for us to understand and know. And that's what this book is
for. God is revealing Himself in our
Lord Jesus Christ. All right, Isaiah chapter 45.
And I wanted to start at verse 5, but I'm going to try to just
begin at verse 1. I think there's 28 verses or
something like that. There are a lot of things I'd
like to stop and talk to you about, but I just cannot spare
the time later. So if you pack your lunch, we'll
do one. Chapter 45, the book of Isaiah,
verse 1. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, to subdue nations before
him. God will subdue nations before
this king. I'll loose the loins of kings. He'll cause other kings to fall
down before him and surrender without a shot. To open before
him the two-leaved gates, and the gates shall not be shut."
Now catch this. I can't introduce this character
without at least saying this. This man is a Gentile. If I remember
correctly, he's the only Gentile in the Old Testament who is a
type of Christ. But get this. This man does not
know God, and yet God purposes to use this man. He conquers
the Babylonians and lets the children of Israel go back to
Jerusalem and Judea and rebuild the temple and sent untold wealth
with them in order to do that. I will go before you and make
the crooked places straight. I'll break in pieces the gates
of brass and cut in sunder the bars of iron. And I'll give you
the treasure of darkness and hidden riches of secret places,
that you may know that I, the Lord which call you by your name,
am the God of Israel." And that's who God is now. He's the God
of whom? Spiritual Israel and nobody else. Thankfully, spiritual Israel
has a great many Gentiles probably more than Jews, which is simply,
purely and only the grace of God. Verse 4, For Jacob my servant's
sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called you, talking
to Cyrus now, by your name. I have surnamed you. I gave you
your name, though you have not known You don't think God can
use people without their permission? This man doesn't even know the
God of the Bible. Now we talk about the Lord Himself. Here He gives us many descriptions
of Himself. Verse 5, I am the Lord and there
is none else. There is one God revealed in
three persons. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
there is no God beside me. I girded you, though you have
not known me, that they may know from the rising of the sun and
from the west that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and
there is none else. I'm telling you, all other gods
are by these very definitions false gods. There ain't but one
true and living God. It's Jehovah, the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. I am the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. Now most folks don't like that
statement, create, and so they pretty well blot that out of
the book. But it's there. That doesn't change anything.
God allows many things to take place in this world that do not
honor Him in the sense that we think of honor. But everything
that He permits, He does so for the accomplishment of His purposes. Psalm 76.10 says, Even the wrath
of man shall pace you, and the remainder of wrath shall you
restrain." I am the Lord. I do all these things. Do that. And the answer comes
back and says, I already have. Who are we compared to God? Drop
down, you heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness. Let the earth open, and let them
bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together.
I the Lord have created it. Woe unto him that strives with
his maker. Let the potsherd, which is a
broken piece of pottery, strive with the other broken pieces
of pottery of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that
fashioned it, why have you made me? What makest thou or of your
work he has no hands? Woe unto him that says to his
father, what begets you? When I was born, what did you
beget? Or to the woman, what have you
brought forth? Thus saith the Lord, the Holy
One of Israel, and His Maker, Ask Me of things to come concerning
My sons and concerning the work of My hands, command you. I have made the earth and created
man upon it. I even My hands have stretched
out the heavens and all that have, all that, all that have,
let me read that again, and all their host have I commanded.
I have raised him up in righteousness, speaking of Cyrus, and I'll direct
all his ways. He shall build my city. He shall
let go my captives, not for price nor reward, says the Lord of
Hosts. Sounds to me like Cyrus did everything
God wanted him to do, and he still didn't know it. Thus saith
the Lord, the labor of Egypt, the merchandise of Ethiopia,
and of the Sibeans, men of stature, shall come over unto you, and
they shall be yours. Speaking still to Cyrus, they
shall come after you in chains. They shall come over, and they
shall fall down unto you. They shall make supplication
unto you, saying, Surely God is in you, and there is none
else. There is no God that is no God else. Verily, truly, you
are a God that hides yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior. They shall be ashamed and also
confounded, all of them. They shall go to confusion together."
Who is he talking about? that are makers of idols. And
plenty of those idols are in Jesus. But it's not the Jesus
of the Holy Scripture. It's Jesus with a little J. A
Jesus that can't work unless we let Him. Can't come into our
heart unless I open the door. If I told you what I really thought
about that, you'd call me cursing because I would call it just
exactly what it is. most hideous, ungodly truth ever
to be propagated upon the souls of men, to preach a God who's
not God unless we let Him be God. 17, but Israel shall be saved in
the Lord with an everlasting salvation. Now listen, that's
the only kind of salvation there is, everlasting. If it don't
last forever, it's not salvation. You shall not be ashamed or confounded. How long? World without end. For thus saith the Lord that
created the heavens, God Himself that formed the earth and made
it. He has established it. He created it, not in vain. He formed it to be inhabited.
I am the Lord, and there is none. This is four times already we've
had that exact expression. I am the Lord, I am God, and
there is none else. I have not spoken in secret in
a dark place of the earth. I said not unto the seed of Jacob,
seek you me in vain. I, the Lord, speak righteousness.
I declare things that are right. Assemble yourselves and come.
draw near together you that are escaped of the nations. They
have no knowledge that set up the wood of their green image
and pray unto a God that can not, most people's God cannot
save. If your God's not big enough
to save everybody he pleases to save, everybody he's purposed
to save, it's just a make-believe God. And so do I, if that be
my case as well. Praying to a God, tell me, and bring them near. Yea, let them take counsel together. Who has declared this from ancient
times? Who has told it from that time?
Have not I the Lord, and there is no God else beside me? That's number five. a just God
and a Savior. God does not save sinners at
the expense of His justice, but He satisfies both in the precious,
redeeming death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 22, here's the
text that Spurgeon was saved after hearing in a primitive
Methodist church in London, England. Look unto me and be you saved. All the ends of the earth, for
I'm God and there is. I have sworn by myself, the word
is gone out of my mouth, in righteousness and shall not return, that unto
me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear, Surely shall
one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength. Even to him shall
men come, and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed.
In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall
glory." Now remember this in verse 21. Who is God? A just God and Savior. Malachi. Chapter 3. Our text is verse 6. Malachi
3. Oh Lord, God of heaven and earth,
so infinitely great and mighty and holy. Lord, our best conceptions
of You are almost no conception at all. Oh, that we could truly
understand who You are, worship You, proclaim Your eternal purpose
of grace in Christ before You this very day. That if there's
gathered in this house this morning, one poor, ungodly, lost sinner,
a soul upon which your work has already begun, that your word
this day might be used in the hands of your Holy Spirit to
rejoice in Christ alone. Lord, we are so prone to judge
ourselves better, infinitely better than we are. Teach us
who we are. Teach us who you are. Teach us
who Christ is. All right, verse 6 of Malachi
chapter 3. If you've never taken time to
read through the book of Malachi, if you think religion is corrupt
in our day, Boy, we're on a close second. I don't know which one
of us will be in the lead. They knew all the tricks. The
priesthood was corrupt. The worshipers were corrupt.
And one long voice. No wonder these guys were hunted
and put to death. Verse 6, chapter 3, For I am the Lord. I change not. God does not change. Therefore, because of that fact
that God is unchanging, you sons of Jacob are not consumed. Now
who are the sons of Jacob and what is this matter of being
not consumed or consumed? We'll try to take up these things.
There are three These three things in this, there's more than that,
but there are three things that we must speak about here for
just a little bit. Who is the God of the Bible?
Secondly, evidently this is of tremendous importance in verse
6. God says to us, to Malachi, to
his generation, to any generation, I do nor for anybody. God does not
change. It doesn't matter what century
it is. It doesn't matter what continent it is. It doesn't matter
what the weather is or what it's not. It doesn't matter if we've
just had a national disaster or a huge celebration. God does
not change. If He does, He cannot be God. The true and living God must
ever be the same. And yet that is so wonderful
to the news of a poor sinner saved by God's grace. This is
the very grounds on which our hope is built. That if God loved
me when Christ went to the cross, He still loves me today. And
He will love me forever. And I can't be bad enough to
get kicked out of that arrangement. And I cannot be good enough to
get included in it. It's all free. Didn't we just
sing a song? It's all free, unmerited, sovereign
grace and mercy. All right, the first thing is
who is the God of the Bible? He is the changeless God. And He is this in both His essence
or you might call His being. It is simply who He is. He doesn't drop one attribute
and adopt another. He's perfect in every sense of
the word. He's perfectness itself. Let's
talk for just a moment about His character or His attributes. Now there's a little blue cover
book about the size of you men's shirt pocket. There's some in
that box. I can see them. There's some on that pew and
there's probably some in the back. That little book by A.W. Pink is on the attributes of
God. If you don't find one, you let
me know and I'll find you one because I know we've got some
more. And that's what he's writing about. That was Mr. Pink's objective
from beginning to end in all of his ministry, that people
find out who God is. To be ignorant of who He is,
then we must ignorantly worship Him, which ain't no worship at
all. So this is vital then and important. First of all, God
is eternal. He has no beginning. Everything
that is, He made. It's His. God is eternal. God is holy. or to use that famous
hymn, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty. He is also infinite
and you can take His infinity and attach it to every other
one of His attributes. He is infinitely holy. This infiniteness
that God is by His very nature is something that we know virtually
nothing about in ourselves. We can change quicker than the
weather in North Carolina. It's just beyond belief. Now
let me see if you remember what we read in Isaiah 45 in verse
21. What was that little phrase we
wanted to hang on to? Who is God? A just God. And what else? And a Savior. All right? We take that God is
just and God is righteous. But thank the Lord He is a Savior. Christ is salvation. And He didn't come to save little
sinners. There ain't no such thing anyway.
He came to save the chief of sinners. Paul was talking in 1 Timothy
1.15 about this faithful saying that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Now I know every
Baptist church I've ever been in for any length of time and
some I just visited. They've got a bunch of chiefs,
well a handful anyway, but it ain't sinners. They think their
place is to run the church. And if you don't run with them,
you just get kicked out the door. I've been invited to do that
a few times, and I'm glad it happened. I wasn't glad at the
time. Because God in this place, the
same thing was tried here that was tried elsewhere, and everywhere
else I got voted out. But by the grace and mercy and
infinite wisdom of God, we've been allowed to be here these
30 years. And that's a miracle, my friend. The gospel I preach
is hated. I'm glad some of you don't hate
it. Now, there were a lot of problems with this church when
I came, and my temptation was to tackle those things one at
a time. And a fellow named Henry Mahan,
he said, you leave those things be. Don't touch a one of them.
I don't care what it is. He said if you are free in that
pulpit to preach the gospel of sovereign grace, he said don't
do anything. He said in time those things
will die on their own and they did, every last one of them.
The choir is empty, no collection in the service, don't need it.
The Sunday school literature that was so rotten is gone. And
the hotshot organization of the church was the Women's Missionary
Union called the WMU. And it's gone. Never had to do
anything. Once we find out how God is to
be worshipped, who God is and who we are and what it takes
to save a sinner and Christ is the only Savior, these things
are worthless. We despise them. They are not
needed. They're in the way. Thirdly, God is not only changeless
in His essence, in His character, but in His purposes, God's eternal
purposes. God cannot have a new purpose.
All of His purposes are in Himself and are forever. They're forever
going backwards and they're forever going forward. They ever will
be like God. They cannot and do not change. I need you to turn to a scripture
in Ephesians chapter one. In this wonderful first chapter
of Ephesians, which describes salvation by God, the Father,
God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit. In that part that describes
salvation by Christ, beginning in verse 7 and going through
verse 12, if you'll look in verse 11, which is right in the middle
of those verses that pertain to our Lord Jesus Christ, Ephesians
1 verse 11, in whom also we have obtained, who's we now? That's Paul. And then after that
it's applicable to all believers. In whom also we have obtained
an inheritance. Now some people don't like this
word, being predestinated. If you knew who God was, you'd
love it because everything he does is wonderful. See, it depends
on who does the predestinating, doesn't it? Being predestinated
What governs God's predestination work? According to the purpose,
purpose of Him, the purpose of God in Christ who works all things
after the counsel of His own will. God is a God of purpose
and it must come to pass. If everybody on this globe tried
to resist what God is about to do, he'd still do it. So he is then without change
when it comes to his purposes. Some people might call it his
plans, but I think the word plans is a little weak myself. But,
you know, that's up to you. Fourthly, God does not change. And this is a blessed, blessed
truth. God does not change what God
promises He is able to perform. He cannot out-promise Himself.
Look at Mark chapter 16. And I'll go ahead and mention the next point
in this matter of an unchanging God, a God who cannot change,
is not only His promises, but His threats. He doesn't change
His threats any more than He does His promises. Mark 16, verse
16. Let me read 15 with it. And He said unto them, the disciples,
Go you into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And here it is. He that believes
and is baptized shall be saved. But he that believes not shall
be damned. That is just as true now as it
was when our Savior spoke these words. It doesn't change. His promises, they cannot fail,
they cannot change, nor can His threats. If we believe not, We
shall be, but I'm too good a person for God to damn. My soul, he
hates you worse than he does one that's never lifted his finger
to do anything. You know why? Because if I put
what I do as somehow giving me at least a little bit of the
credit for obtaining my salvation, that makes an antichrist out
of it. And that's the worst thing you
can possibly do is to meet God with some little puny work that
you've done in His name and saying you did it for Jesus and find
out that God's wrath is much, much hotter. The penalty is much
greater. You remember what our Savior
said in Matthew 11 about Capernaum? Capernaum was where our Savior
used as his home base for the three and a half years of his
public life and ministry. And he would go out from there
and come back and go this way back. So he was constantly in
Capernaum, spoke in that synagogue more than all the others put
together during that three and a half years. And yet he said,
it'll be better for Sodom and Gomorrah than for the people
that inhabited Capernaum when our Savior was present. on so
many numerous occasions. Now you listen here and I'm going
to tell you what the difference is. Their sin was a sexual sin. It was what this world is clamoring
for to this day. I despise it and I hate it. That
ain't nothing compared to not believing. Now let's understand
that. We ain't fighting homosexuality.
We're not fighting abortion, for that matter, nor any other
of our social ills. The only way to cure the problem
is to preach the gospel and let God save sinners. And then you
won't have to tell them what not to do and what not to do. I'm telling you, that's the only
way it can work. It just makes hypocrites out of us and more
Pharisees, and this world's already overrun with Pharisees. And we
all got a good dose of Phariseeism in ourselves to this day, and
we'll have till our dying day. Well, I got two more points,
and I don't know if I'm going to get it made or not, but I
can finish that one, but I'll stop. All right. If you can just, can you think
about it without looking at it? Malachi 3.6. Who are the sons
of Jacob? Therefore, you sons of Jacob
are not consumed." Now, why did he say Jacob? Now, remember the
verses to that song that the first, how many stanzas was in
the first group? Five? No, it must have been four. Yeah. You made me lose my thought. Romans chapter 9. Now, y'all
know that I blame you for stuff that I know good and well is
my fault. So don't... I'm only kidding with you. Let's find us a Bible definition
of what it means to be a son of Jacob. Now, Jacob, compared
to Esau, was a lot worse fellow. You wouldn't like Jacob. If he
turns your back, he'd steal from you. He would do all sorts of
stuff to you. And Esau was well liked. He just
liked life and living. He hated God, but he was easier
to be around than Jacob was. So here in Romans chapter 9,
we have this matter explained. These boys, Jacob and Esau, were
twins born to Isaac and Rebekah. Esau was born first, and Jacob
second. That gives Esau the birthright
to the inheritance of his father. But Jacob wanted that birthright,
and more than that, Rebekah wanted it. And so she conspired with
him, and he pretended to be Esau, and this, that, and the other.
And anyway, Isaac conveyed the blessing of the firstborn on
Jacob. All right, here we go. Verse 10, Romans chapter 9. And
not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one even
by our father Isaac, for the children being not yet born,
neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of
God, there's that word again, the purpose of God, according
to election, Uh-oh, election's got something to do with this.
Might stand. Not of works. Here's election. Not of works, but of him that
calls. That's the end of parenthesis,
verse 12. It was said unto Rebekah, the
elder shall serve the young. As it is written three times
in our Bibles, if I remember correctly. Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated. They say the God of the Bible
cannot... Well, you chew on that a while.
Who tells me that I can contradict the Word of God and go on about
my business and nothing ever change? If you ever find out
who you are, you'll be tickled to death that God is the God
of electing grace. Because if we're left to choose
just purely and simply on our own, we'd rather go to hell first,
and we will. I'm telling you, the God of the
Bible, and He's the only one. Let me do one more point here.
Who are the sons of Jacob? All right, let's go to John chapter
1. The first answer that we had
to who are the sons of Jacob, they're described in our Bibles
as the sons of God's election. Secondly, they are the sons of
God's revelation. Don't have time to look at the
scripture for that, but it tells us plainly that the only way
that we can know the gospel is for it to be revealed When different
people were saying who Christ was, the Lord Jesus asked his
disciples, and they told him some things that some others
had said about him that identified him. Well, he said, who do you
say that I am? And Peter, like generally he
did, he stepped in front of the other guys, and he says, you
know, he's the son of God, the savior of the world, and several
other things in that description in Matthew 16, maybe about 14. Anyway, our Lord said, flesh
and blood did not reveal that unto you, but my Father which
is in heaven. One of the reasons that we all
by nature hate the gospel is because we're told as plain as
words can say it in this book that we can't figure out what's
going on. We don't have enough sense. And we don't like to be
told that we can't search this book. Like the book of Job answers
for us, can a man by searching find out God? No! He couldn't when Job was here,
and he still can't. You can have a dozen PhDs, and
it'll take you further away instead of toward him. I can guarantee
you that. Thirdly, the sons of Jacob of divine the new birth,
being born again. Alright, verse 11, chapter 1
of the Gospel of John, verse 11, 12. And I know you've heard
these verses, I don't know how many. Speaking of our Lord, He
came unto His own. To His own world, He's the maker
of it. To His own people, the Jews. Even to His own family. For that matter, He came to His
own synagogue when He went to Nazareth. He came unto His own. and His own refused Him. But, in stark contrast to what
that statement says, as many as received Him, to them gave
He power or authority to become the sons of God, even to them
that believe on His name. Now please, don't do like I did. I can't tell you how many years
I stopped right dead on my tracks. I had peeked at it a time or
two and I didn't like what it said, so I stopped right there. Those people that believe on
His name are people who were born again. Here it is, which
were born not of blood, Being born again has nothing to do
with who you are or who your mom and daddy is or who you married
or anything like that, which were born not of blood nor of
the will of the flesh. So salvation is not by a man's
own will. It is, in fact, contrary to our
will that we are saved. How was it Brother Richardson
used to put it? God saves me against my will with my full
consent. Now figure that one out. They
were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of
the will. Other people cannot want me to
be saved and that is the impetus for my salvation. We used to
have prayer chains. We'd come They called this an
altar back in those days, and we'd just be all over the place
boo-hooing and all this stuff. All that is, is trying to gang
up on God to get Him to do what He's evidently not going to do.
We're telling God to, instead of falling on our faces and tell
Him the truth about ourselves, and tell Him the truth about
who He is and beg for mercy. Born not of blood, nor of the
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." The
preacher can't do it. The priest can't do it. Nobody
can do it. It's a work of God.