Take your Bibles now and turn
back with me to Isaiah chapter 6. I could not find a title that
really suited me, and I've been all over the place with this
message this week. But I finally settled on this,
I saw the Lord. That's what Isaiah She had turned
his whole ministry around. He said, I saw the Lord. I saw
Him. Now the book of Isaiah is lovingly
referred to by those who understand its writings and have written
commentaries on it as the gospel according to Isaiah. read and
study the book of Isaiah, you'll understand why. I don't think
there's a book in the Old Testament that sets forth the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ any clearer than it set forth in the book
of Isaiah. Front to back, it's probably
the most quoted book in the New Testament. The apostles and even
Christ himself refers to Isaiah more than any other prophet in
the Old Testament. And then I especially find this
true here in Isaiah chapter 6. And as I studied this chapter,
I realized that we live in a very similar age as Isaiah lived in. We are experiencing some of the
same things that he experienced. It was a day of speculation and
controversy and civil unrest and religious prominence. And
I've often told you that natural Israel is a very good picture
of worldly religion today. And in this chapter, the Lord
calls His servant out of religious ignorance, religious ignorance,
and reveals the truth of the gospel to him and sends him to
preach to those who were just like him in the same boat he
was in. under that spell. I don't think
I'm going too far if I call it a spell. That's what Paul called
it. He said, Who hath bewitched you? It's a spell. Religion is a spell. And we're
held in that spell until the Lord releases us. Held in those
grips. Convinced of it. Convinced of
its goodness. Convinced of its necessity in
this world. And we defend it. Isaiah did. If you read Isaiah chapter 5,
he went all through chapter 5, woe and everything big and little.
Everything near and far. Everything he could think of,
he pronounced a woe on it. Then he saw the Lord. And he
saw whose train filled the temple and he said, woe is me. Woe is
me. God's remedy, don't you listen
to me by way of introduction, let me give you some things.
God's remedy for man's ruin is the sacrifice of His Son. That's the only remedy there
is. There is no other remedy. The Lord Jesus Christ. All things,
Paul said, are of God who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus
Christ. There is no other remedy. That's
the remedy. Don't go back to the shelf and hunt something
else. Here's the remedy. There's just one remedy. All
things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ
and given to us the ministry, this ministry of reconciliation. And as ambassadors for Christ,
we stand by the authority of God and declare a full, free
pardon for sin. free, full, come by, without
money and without price. A full, free pardon for sin for
all those who will submit themselves to the authority and hope of
life as is declared in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the basis for
this reconciliation is substitution. If you read through 2 Corinthians
5, you'll see the whole thing. He lays it out there in just
three or four verses. He just lays it out. It's just
plain and simple in everyday language. If words mean anything,
this is what that means. The basis of this reconciliation
is substitution. God hath made Him to be a sin
for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. Sounds like substitution, don't
it? And there's no other basis for
peace and pardon. None other name under heaven
given among men whereby we must be saved. The way of this reconciliation
is grace. Grace. It has to be given. You
can't earn it. It's not up here in a big golden
pot at the end of the rainbow and you can chase over there
and somehow run fast enough, far enough, and true enough to
get it. Has to be given to you. Sovereignly given. Has to be
arranged. Has to be decreed and declared
from eternity. It doesn't happen by chance.
It doesn't happen by circumstance. It happens by divine order. God arranges it. Brings you to
Himself and gives it to you. The way is the way of grace.
It's the free gift of God. John the Baptist gave the clearest
declaration of this that I've been able to find anywhere in
the Word of God. In John 3, verse 27, they came
down to the old valley. He was down there baptizing,
and the people had begun to leave him and go to Christ, which is
the way it should be. And all of a sudden, the multitudes
were over here, and he just had a little crew over here with
him. And the Pharisees said, boy, now we're going to poke
and prod a little bit. And they come over there and
they said, well, you know that guy you baptized? He's baptized
more people than you are. He's got a bigger crowd than
you do. Listen to what John told them. John 3, verse 27, John
answered and said, A man can receive nothing. Huh? What's that include? Everything. A man can receive nothing. except it be given him from above."
You take that just as far as your imagination can run. Just
as far out there as your mind can conceive. A man can receive
nothing except it be given him from above. Paul said in Romans
9, verse 16, It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that
runneth, but of God that shall with mercy. God's remedy for
man's sin is the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ the Lord. And then secondly, in order for
man to benefit from this reconciliation, he must receive it. He must embrace
it. He must embrace it. He must embrace
Him who accomplished it. and rest the weight of His everlasting
soul in His hands. Do you believe that? Hebrews chapter 4. If you want
to turn over there. This is the story. Israel was
a type of the church. What they did naturally, God
accomplishes spiritually in His church. There is a spiritual
Israel and there is a natural Israel. Natural Israel laying
out the foundation of this work of Christ, this redemptive work.
They were called out of Egypt, delivered out of there. God sent
a messenger down and preached to them. He didn't take a sword
with him. He didn't take a gun with him.
He didn't take an army with him. He went down there, just him
and his brother, and he stood up and he told them what God
declared to be done and it was done. God did the work. He accomplished it. And he led
them out of Egypt. And he led them through that
Red Sea. And then he put them over here in the wilderness.
And for 40 years, they went through that wilderness. It's called
the wilderness of sin. That's where we're at right now.
We're in the wilderness. The wilderness. The wilderness
of sin. There's no spiritual food out
here. There's no spiritual drink out
here. It's a wilderness. Just a wilderness. Just a vast,
empty place. All this world is. Nothing in
it. And then he led Israel right
up to the edge of the promised land. Right up where they could
receive their inheritance. And they said, we can't go in
there. John's in there. We can't go in. The fruits are
beautiful. The evidence looks good. But
we can't go in. We can't go in. And it said,
God's sworn oath. And he said, as I live, he said,
you won't go in. Your carcasses are going to fall
in the wilderness. Two of them went in that came
out of Egypt. Two of them. Out of two million,
three million. Two million. The rest of them
were all born out in the wilderness and followed Joshua and Caleb
into the promised land. And that's what he's talking
about here in Hebrews chapter 4. And he says in verse 3, he
said the gospel in verse 2, he said the gospel was preached
unto them same as it was unto us. It was preached unto them in
type and figure. Joshua and Caleb understood what
it meant. They understood what it was about.
And they received it by faith and they said, let's go. It's
like a tale already told. Let's go. Let's go in. And people
said, no, we can't. We can't. And now God said, you
won't. You won't. As I live, saith the
Lord. He said, you're not going to
go in there. But listen to what He says here in verse 3. Hebrews
4, 3. For we which have believed do enter into rest. Ain't that what they said? What
on earth is he talking about? He's saying that before they
could go into Canaan with those giants and those armies and those
walled cities, they had to rest their faith in the hands of God
because they couldn't do it. And what I'm saying to you is
that this faith, this saving faith, is when you're brought
to Him, And by God's gift, you rest the weight of your soul
on Him. And until you do, you're not
anywhere even in sight of being a believer. We which have believed, ain't
that what they say? Do enter into rest. For he that is entered into his
rest, verse 10, he also hath ceased from his own works, as
God did from his. And then thirdly, it's the plain
declaration of Scripture that faith cometh by hearing. Paul
presses this point home to the hearts and consciences of the
Galatian church who were under attack by legalism. And here's
what he tells them in verse 2, Galatians chapter 3. He said,
this only would I learn of you. He said, I'm going to ask you
something and you tell me. I just want to know one thing.
You tell me and I'll make my own judgment. You tell me this.
You answer me this. Received you the Spirit by the
works of the law or by the hearing of faith? How did it come? How
did it come? That is what is going to determine
the outcome. Men will forever try to explain
this away by ifs, ands, and buts of circumstance, geography, and
everything else. But the truth of it is that God
sovereignly determines the who, what, and whens about salvation. They are in His hands to accomplish. And He doeth according as He
pleases in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth. And then fourthly, hearing only comes when God sends
His messenger to you or you to Him. And I'll just be honest
with you, I'm tired of arguing this point. The Holy Ghost Himself
asked this question, how shall you hear without a preacher?
You want to argue, argue with Him. That's how it comes. Well, I don't like it. Tough.
God gets mean. Well, He's mean. Whatever that
means to you, you're going to have to bow to it. Because it's
the Word of God. The Word of God. And men want
to argue and fight and push over it. Well, it just don't suit
my experience. Maybe you don't have a good experience.
I've had bad ones. I've had false ones. You're going to have to deal
with the Word of God. He's going to have to deal with
it. I'll see you here without a preacher. That's what it says
in Romans 10, 14. And I'll tell you this, the one office, now
the Lord was the Messiah. We all know that. But He never
did just come to the Jews and say, I'm the Messiah. They asked Him, if Thou be the
Christ, tell us. Why don't you just tell us I'm
the Messiah? He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't
do it. Why didn't he just come and say,
I'm the high priest? He didn't do it. He told them
plain enough, but he never did just tell them like that. And
I'll tell you why he didn't, because it wasn't theirs to know,
number one. But the one thing he did tell
men clearly was that he was a preacher. He read that scripture and he
said, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. The one
office that the Lord clearly announces and held was that of
a preacher. The one occupation that the representative
man of faith was wholly given to was that of preaching. He
went everywhere preaching the gospel. His one commission to the church,
having raised from the dead, was to go into all the world
and preach. All of his apostles preached
and taught the churches that they established and taught them
to preach. It plainly declares that it pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. And
then this point is as clear as that one. Here's the fifth point.
Preachers have to be sent. They've got to be sent. read a sermon by Spurgeon and
I put a big question mark on it because he was trying to drum
up preachers. Now you can patty cake it any
way you want to, but that's what that message was all about. He's trying to rev them up and
get some folks to volunteer to come be preachers. Preachers
have to be sent. They have to be trained, called.
equipped for this specific reason. God has to separate them. Some
of them He sends to seminary. Some of them He don't. Some of
them He dresses up like He did John the Baptist. Ate locusts
and wild honey and lived out in the middle of nowhere. Some
of them come eating and drinking like the Son of Man. Some of
them are learned like Luke. He was a doctor. Some of them
are not. Believe it or not. But here in Isaiah chapter 6
is a demonstration of how this work is accomplished. And I've
broken this up into five points, so if you're taking notes, the
first one is this. He begins with this man Isaiah
by revealing that the hopes and ideas that he had of man, He
totally destroyed. He just obliterated them. Now everybody has a person. I don't care what religion it
is. Everybody has a person in their family or a friend or a
neighbor or something that epitomizes to them what religion is all
about. Some of you might be a father,
some of you a mother, some of you a sister, some of you an
aunt, some of you just a friend. But everybody who's been in these
places, there's always one person or two that really stick out.
And you say, boy, if there's ever a godly person, that was
them. If there's ever a person I want
to be like, it's that person. And that's what Uzziah was to
Isaiah. Uzziah represented to Isaiah
everything good, everything that Israel, what epitomized his idea
of the Israel of God was demonstrated in Uzziah the king. He took over
at 16 years old. He took that nation out of the
idolatry that it was in and tore down those old things. I mean
he just epitomized what Isaiah felt religion ought to be or
his faith ought to be. He was the hope of Israel. And
Isaiah idolized him. Wrote everything he did in a
book. Bagged on him. Loved him. Hoped to be blessed
of God on his account. And he was a brilliant man. I
went back and read about him back in 2 Chronicles. And read
about him. And he was a brilliant man. And
he took learned men and they made engines and machines of
war. And he built towers. to ward
off enemies, and he put catapults and things like that up in there,
and machines, engines they called them in the Scripture, that shoot
arrows, multiple arrows out. Brilliant man. And he was marvelously
helped, is what the Scripture says in Chronicles 26, 15. He
was marvelously helped until he became strong. But when he was strong, it says
his heart was lifted up to his destruction. He no longer saw
himself as being saved, but being a Savior. He no longer saw a
reason for a priest, but he took the obligations of the priest
upon himself. He no longer saw any need for
the Word of God to be his guide. He let his pride and the pride
of his own experience of life dictate his ways. And he took
that holy censer in his hand and he went into the temple of
God to burn this incense upon the altar. None was supposed
to do that except the high priest. And 40 priests went in there
to stop him. The high priest and 40 more.
They ran in there to stop him. And it angered the king. And
he said, I'm going in. And when he said that, leprosy
popped out on his forehead. And those priests went out the
door and Uzziah was right behind them. The Lord afflicted him. Smote him with leprosy. And he
lived out there and died in a house. It's called a several house in
the Scripture. What that means is a house of
quarantine. And he lived out there in quarantine,
separated from the Israel of God, quarantined from the worship
of Israel and from the benefits of the temple. And then secondly,
this is what God revealed to him, that man in whom he that
epitomized his religion was exposed as cursed of God. He's cursed
of God. Separated. God wouldn't have
anything to do with him. Nothing. Lived out there in a
stable house until he died. And then secondly, and very close
at hand is this. God exposes our religion for
what it is. And he begins to shake it apart
with his presence and fill it with the smoke that prophesies
about its destruction. Now, there are two ways you can
read that scripture there where he shook the doorpost of the
temple and it was filled with smoke. You can say that when
he came in that his presence which is what that incense represented,
and you can talk about that, that's fine with me, but that's
not what's going on in this chapter. What's going on in this chapter
is a destruction of the religion that was in the mind and heart
of his prophet Isaiah. And I say what happened was when
his presence come in, he began to shake things up. That door
that he so often opened for everybody to come through, he shook it!
He shook it! And he filled that place with
the smoke of them old religious rags. All the way through the
book of Isaiah, you keep coming up with these things that's right
out of this chapter right here, a reference back to them. You
know, when he talks there a little bit later on, I think it's in
Isaiah 64, where he talks about that we all do fade as a leaf,
and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away, Well, he
talks about that down here in this last verse of chapter 6
and this teal tree standing out there in the wintertime with
no leaves on it. All of these things he talks about. He talks
about our righteousness as being a smoke in his nose. All of our
religious ceremonies and things that we do, things that are done,
not true acts of faith, but I'm talking about worldly religion
and our ideas of them and those manly, natural concepts of what's
going on. God revealed in the garden the
way of redemption. It was by grace, God coming to
them, not them coming to God. It was by blood, a lamb must
be slain and a sin offering. It was by substitution. It was
by faith. It was the gift of God. All these
things were established, and they were established over and
over and over throughout the Old Testament Scriptures. And
throughout time this has been the way of God, and throughout
time man has rejected and rebelled against it. And before any servant
of God can effectively preach this gospel, God must destroy
any fond hopes he has of that religion he called him out of. Shake up the post of the doors
and fill it full of those smoking rags. Paul said, the weapons
of our warfare. We're in a warfare. We're in
a warfare. Satan's not going to let what
I'm saying up here go unaffected. He's arguing in your mind and
in your heart right now saying, why don't he get off that point
and get on to something else, isn't he? Huh? That's exactly
what he's telling you. The weapons, he said, of our
warfare are spiritual, they're not natural. They rest in the
Word of God, spiritual revelation, a new birth, the hearing of faith.
They're mighty, Paul said, through God. Mighty through God to the
pulling down of strongholds. What kind of strongholds? casting
down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against
the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought
to the obedience of Christ. Christ must come in and take
the preeminence in your religion. Until He does, it's just idolatry. That's all it is. Read Isaiah
chapter 1. Listen to this. Let me just give
you just a little bit of the language of this. He said, to
what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? I
am full of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beef.
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,
incenses and abomination to Me. The new moons and sabbaths, the
calling of assemblies, I cannot. Away with its iniquity, even
your solemn meetings. Even that day of atonement, even
that day when the high priest took that sacrifice and went
under that veil, when it was all just a show, he said, it's
iniquity. It's iniquity. Christ must come in and take
preeminence in your religion. His person, His offices, His
revelation and His way, it has to fill. His train must fill
the temple. And then thirdly, the true prophet
of God sees what's commonly preached and repeated by men to be utter
iniquity. Every idea, every concept, every
imagination he ever had of God and salvation and godliness was
a lie. He said, woe is me. Now wait
a minute, we're talking about a prophet. We're talking about
a man that God set aside. He said, woe is me. He said,
I'm a man of what? Unclean lips. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Unclean lips. I'm undone because I'm a man
of unclean lips, verse 5. And I dwell in the midst of a
people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the
Lord of Hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims
unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken
with the tongs from off the altar." The altar of sacrifice, the altar
of worship. Now watch this, "...and laid
it upon my mouth, and he said, Lo, this has touched thy lips,
and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." Not sin
and iniquity in the general sense as when sinners come to Christ,
although it's by the same means, but this is talking about the
iniquity of his lips. It's talking about the iniquity
of his preaching. That's what he's talking about.
The iniquity of what he was telling the people. The iniquity of his
sincerity. All of these things being called,
he said, I'm undone. You take a cake and you get it
out of the oven and you start over the sink and it falls on
the floor, it's undoing. That's what happened to Isaiah. Man, he said, I'm undoing. I'm
undoing. Everything that I thought constituted
my office is iniquity. Iniquity. His ministry was iniquity. This is a man who will stand
before this people and tell them in chapter 64, he said, we're
all as an unclean thing in all our righteousness. You know why
I hate to say that? Because that's what God revealed
His to be. Filthy rags. Just filthy rags. We are perverse in our thanking,
half-hearted in our worship, teaching for commandments of
the traditions of men, comparing God to man, attempting to conform
His ways to our ways, comparing His purposes to our own, and
limiting His authority to our own ideas of right and wrong.
Well, that's not fair. How many times have you heard
that? It's not fair to you. Well, you know. Who art thou
that replies against God? He said, you thought I was altogether
such a one as thyself. And God must by an act of His
sovereign Spirit bring us out of the natural into the spiritual. It has to be done. There was a temple. There was
a priesthood. There was an inner and outer
sanctuary. There was a labor of washing.
There was a place for water in this thing of salvation. There
was an altar of incense. There was ceremonies, feast days,
Sabbath days. There was tithing and sanitary
laws. There were cities of refuge and
years of jubilee. But when Christ came into the
world, He came to fulfill what these things could only shadow. He came to actually do and accomplish
what these things could only teach. And in the doing of that
will, He took away the first. He took them away. and establish
the second. That's what it says. We've got
to be moved from the natural to the spiritual. The law, Paul said, was our schoolmaster
to bring us to Christ to be justified by faith. And to incorporate
these things again into worship is iniquity. That's what it is. Isaiah was preaching things he
knew nothing about. And to fill the house of God
with priests and altars and holy water is a denial of the sufficiency
of the work of Christ. It denies it. That's why it's
iniquity. To build a statue of Mary and
pray to her or any of the saints to make intercession for you
is idolatry. Paul said, if you so much as
submit yourself to circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing
and you've obligated yourself to keep the whole law. That's
tough, ain't it? Huh? Freewillism is a denial
of the free grace of God. Decisionism is a denial of God's
sovereign election and salvation. Walking down aisles and kneeling
down at altars and coming to the front of the church and shaking
preachers' hands is a denial of the work of God's Holy Spirit.
It denies it. It's wrong. It's idolatrous. Move us out of our religious
idolatry and bring us to Christ. That's what he's doing with Isaiah.
He's bringing him to Christ. Christ came and he said, I saw
the Lord. And when I did, I saw the foolishness
of everything else. I saw that Temple has no value
without Him. The seraphims have no song without
Him. Israel is not a nation without
Him. Creation has no meaning without
Him. I saw the Lord and His train
filled the temple. And when it fills the temple,
it will fill your heart. It will fill your heart. Until the glory of Christ fills
the house and the old man of sin be revealed in his leprosy,
there will be no preaching and there will be no hearing. Men
and women are not saved hearing false prophets. He doesn't call
men out of darkness by those who live in darkness. If the
blind lead the blind, they'll both fall in the ditch. That's
what the Lord said. They must hear the truth. And
to preach the truth, God must burn His gospel into your heart. That's why men can't preach today.
That's why they don't press these things on men's consciences.
Because they've never had it burned into their heart. He laid
that live coal on his tongue. And he said, now, now, your iniquity
is purged. Now you got something to preach.
Now you got something to say. I don't care how smart you are,
how educated you are, how much you deserve and desire to preach,
you cannot go unless God sends you. And if He sends you, He'll
go with you. He'll go with you. I remember one time we jacked
up a man's truck. This is awful. I don't know why
we do stuff. But he had this old one-ton van
and there was nothing wrong with it. He was just one of them guys
that he was always hearing noises and fixing and tearing apart
and doing stuff. And as a prank, we went out and
jacked up his truck and put blocks under it and lowered it down
until it looked like it was just sitting right there on the ground.
But there was no weight on the back wheels. And he got in and
put it in gear and it didn't go nowhere. And he put the brakes
on, he put it in reverse, revved it up, and he didn't go nowhere.
And he got out and looked, and then he discovered the back wheel,
he was just spinning his wheel. That's what we do. Unless God
sends us. This is just all for naught.
But oh, if he's in it. Ah, if he's in it. You can't go unless God sends
you. And then fourthly, this man is
to preach to a people whose heart is fat and satisfied. Look at
this in Isaiah 6, 9. He said, You go and tell this
people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not. See you indeed, but perceive
not. Make the heart of this people
fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they
see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with
their heart, and convert and be healed." Six times, are you
listening? Six times in the New Testament
he quotes this same verse. Six times. Matthew, Mark, Luke,
John, Acts, and Hebrews. I mean Romans. He just keeps
quoting this verse. What does it mean? What in the
world does it mean? It means that religion is not
an asset, it's a judgment. That's what it means. In 2 Thessalonians
2, Paul talks about the mystery of iniquity, where the old man
of sin is hidden and where he must be revealed. And he is God,
sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
And He comes with power and signs and lying wonders and with all
deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish. And the
reason why they're perishing is because they will not receive
the love of the truth. They don't want to hear it. And
for this cause, God will send them strong delusion that they
should believe a lie. That's what He's telling Isaiah.
You're going to preach to this people? and their heart's going
to be fat. You know what that means? That's
like eating a big Thanksgiving dinner. You stuff yourself with
that turkey and bread. You're getting hungry already.
You get all full, and you eat that dessert, and you go in there
and lay down, and them eyes just... That's the way you are. Them
eyes... Your eyes is heavy, and you're not listening anymore
to the conversation. You're just full and fat and
satisfied. I preach to people who spiritually
are that way. They're so satisfied and fat
in their religious ignorance that they won't even hear what
you're telling them. Even though God gave you the
message and sent you to them and sent them to you. And they
just listen and it goes right in here and right out there.
And they just lay back. Lay back. And then the Lord said,
How long? I mean, Isaiah said, How long?
Here's the fifth thing. How long? That prophet asked.
How long? How long must I preach to a people
that will not hear and have no heart to obey? Isaiah 6 and 11. And he answered, Until the cities
be wasted without inhabitants, and the houses without man, and
the land be utterly desolate, And the Lord hath removed men
far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the
land. I must preach to men until their
natural hopes and refuges are gone. No more cities to run to. No
more neighbors to hang on to. No more hopes to cling to. There's
nothing left to cling to. Nothing left to glory in. Nothing
left to hide in. And if he can so much as find
a fig leaf apron to put on, he'll put it on. Adam already proved
that. God must strip us. That's what
he did with our parents in the garden, took them fig leaf aprons
off and put on them his righteousness. God must strip us and clothe
us with the righteousness of Christ or we'll die in our rags
of religion. That's just the truth. And then
let me give you this in closing. He says here in verse 13, but
yet in it shall be a tenth. You know, the old prophet down
in the cave, he said, Lord, they've digged down your altars and they've
destroyed everything that you sent me to do and I'm here alone. I'm the only one left. I'm down
here in this cave and you're feeding me with a raven. And
the Lord said, I've reserved how many six thousand men that
haven't bowed their knee to Baal. Six thousand you don't know nothing
about. And Paul told about that over in Romans chapter 11. I told you that was one of the
verses where he quoted it. But he said, even so at this
present time there is a remnant. He said, a remnant. There's a
tenth. There's a little bit left. Something
you didn't know about. It's out there. And I'm going
to have it and its substances. The Holy Seed is in them. They're represented by me and
I'm going to have them. There's a remnant according to
the election of grace and if by grace then it's no more works.
That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for the remnant.
The old teal tree. He said, you know what a teal
tree is? That's a turpentine tree. And
the old oak tree. And you go out here on a You
might not be able to identify with this down south like this,
but up north you go out and them old oak trees in the middle of
winter, they're just out there in that frozen ground and there's
no sign of life in them anywhere. The fruit's all gone and the
leaves is all gone and the saps all went down and they just lay
out there and look dead. Dead. You get so tired of seeing
it. And the first one of them little buds come on in the spring,
boy, you're so happy to see it. That's what he's saying here.
He says, that's the way my nation is. They look like all the rest
of the trees dead. They ain't got no fruit on them.
They ain't got no life in them. But there's substance in it.
There's a holy seed involved in this thing and it's in them.
It's in them. And I'm going to get it out.
I'm going to get it out. That's why I preach.