Take your Bibles and turn with
me to Isaiah 45. I'm going to begin reading in
verse 15. Verily thou art a God that hidest
thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior. They shall be ashamed
and also confounded, all of them, They shall go to confusion together
that are makers of idols. But Israel shall be saved in
the Lord with an everlasting salvation. You shall not be ashamed
or confounded, world without end. For thus saith the Lord
that created the heavens, God himself that formed the earth
and made it. He that established it, He created
it not in vain. He formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord, 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 ye me in vain. I, the Lord, speak righteousness.
I declare things that are right. Assemble yourselves. Draw near
together ye that are escaped of the nations. They have no
knowledge that set up wood of their graven image. They pray
unto a God that cannot say. Tell ye, and bring them near.
Yea, let them take counsel together. Who hath declared this from ancient
times? Who hath told it from that time?
Have not I the Lord? And there is no God else beside
me, a just God. and a Savior. There is none beside
me. Look unto me, and be ye saved,
all ye ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else. 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 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, I'm reminded constantly
when I minister to men and women that I live and preach to a generation
just like every other generation before me, that are ignorant. They're ignorant. They don't know God. They don't
know God. In Romans 3, I was reading that
early this morning, the apostle describes the awful state of
man there in Romans 3, and he says many things, many things,
none righteous. Actually, it's a quotation from
the psalm. where he said that God looked down from the heavens
to see if there was any righteous, to see if there was any good,
to see if there was any that sought after the Lord and there
was none. And so he goes through here in Romans chapter 3 And
he speaks and tells these awful things and describes this awful
state of man, the poison of ash under his lips, and he's just
full of cursing and bitterness and all these things. But this
statement just jumped out at me in Romans chapter 3. He said,
There is no fear of God before their eyes. To know God is to
fear Him. That's how He's identified in
the Old Testament. They feared God. Job was a man
who feared God. Abraham was a man who feared
God. There is no fear of God. There's
no awe. There's no wonder. There's no
majesty. There's no fear. There in verse
20 there in your reading there in Isaiah chapter 45 and leading
up to the text in Isaiah, He says this in verse 20. He says three things in this
verse about man, about mankind, about man in every age, about
man in all places, about man until the end of time. He describes
mankind in general. And he tells us three things
about men. Natural men. First of all, he
says they have no knowledge. No knowledge. Now, I want you
to look at that carefully and remember the beginning of the
reading this morning that I gave to you. This knowledge is not
a general knowledge about God. Creation will give men and testify
to men a general knowledge of God. It testifies of His eternal
Godhood. In Romans chapter 1, Paul declares
a difference between this knowledge, this saving knowledge, this knowledge
that comes to men through the gospel, this knowledge of God's
glory, and just a general knowledge of God. And here's what he says
over in Romans chapter 3. He said in verse 16, He said,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first
and also to the Greek. Everything that God requires
to reveal himself and to call us out of darkness, we're talking
about a saving knowledge now. to call us out of darkness, give
us an understanding, preserve us in this world, and keep us
from falling until that day of final resurrection is given to
us in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't go out
on the lake and acquire this knowledge. You can't go out here
to the mountain and look up to the wonder and awe of the mountain
and get this knowledge. You can get a general knowledge.
But you can't get the saving knowledge. The saving knowledge
of God comes through the gospel. It comes through the gospel.
Listen to verse 17. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. This is Romans chapter 1 I'm
reading from. Therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written, a just
shall live by faith. Now, he begins to set a difference. He begins to show us a difference
between this general knowledge and this saving knowledge, between
this natural understanding and this spiritual understanding.
Both are of God, he says. He tells us plainly here. They
are both of God. They both testify of God. Both
leave us without an excuse before God. No man has an excuse before
God Because He's given all men light. If men would walk in that
natural light and bow to God in that natural light and submit
to Him in that natural light, He'd give them more light. But
they won't take that light. They won't take that light. And
that's what leaves them without excuse. He reveals His wrath from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in
unrighteousness. That applies to both of these
revelations, both in creation, conscience, all these things.
It applies in all directions. He reveals His displeasure How
does he do that? Well, he does so in disasters.
He does so in calamities and plagues and floods. He reveals
within his creation his very power and Godhead, maintaining
and controlling all things. It's an impossibility to stand
out here at night and look at this universe and look at the
stars and the heaven and the moon and know that the sun's
going to come up at 624 and so on without thinking that there
has to be some higher power to order this creation. There's
no way this creation could just be flung out into space and have
all of this order. There's no way. What keeps these
things from colliding? What keeps things from just You
know, that's the big worry of mankind today is that a big comet
or something, somehow something's going to get out of order. The
reason they fear that is because they look at everything as chance
and circumstance. They don't see the order in it.
God says, I declare my eternal power and Godhead in creation. All you have to do is look. Just
look. It's everywhere. And you're without
excuse. He reveals his displeasure among
men because they hold that truth in unrighteousness. Verse 19,
that which may be known of God is manifest in them. God gave
them a conscience. He showed it unto them. They
are without excuse. Now, God is Spirit. And God cannot
be perceived with the natural senses like the eye. I'm trying to, he said no man
has seen God at any time. There's a very clear scripture.
But in Romans chapter 1 verse 20 it says, listen to this, the
invisible things of him, you can't see them with these eyes,
but these invisible things of God from the creation of the
world are clearly seen. Being understood by the things
that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they
are without excuse. Silent, powerful, invisible forces
by which all things have an order. And by Him, it says, all things
consist. Everything has a beginning. Everything
has a history. Everything has a maintenance.
Everything has a preservation about it. If we just look at
those things, just look at them without any spiritual knowledge
whatsoever, you have to say there's a God and He's in control. He's in control. But man ignores
that light and he turns to his own imagination. He has no knowledge of the redemptive
glory of God. He does not view God through
that propitiatory sacrifice. And the only way by which a fallen
man can come to any knowledge, any saving interest of God, is
by way of gospel truth. He's without knowledge, that's
what he's saying. He said, you've escaped. You have a knowledge. I've given you a knowledge. I've
given you patterns and types and offerings and sacrifices
and priesthood and all this stuff. I've given you these things.
I've set before you. Here's how Paul says it. God
has set before us Christ as a propitiation. Ain't that what he said over
there in Romans 3? Who set him out that way? God did. When did
he do it? He did it in the garden. A propitiatory sacrifice right
in the garden. Now he said, I'm going to give
you a promise seed. But when you're thinking about
that promise seed, you keep in mind what happened on this altar.
You see what I'm saying? That's a propitiatory understanding
of who God is. Saving knowledge. A hope. He comes over here to Cain and
Abel. What does he do? He verifies it. He verifies it. You come down through time and
he gets clearer and clearer in the details, in the tabernacle,
all the way up to the coming of Christ. God has set him forth. And in case you don't believe
that's in the Old Testament, he says, a propitiation through
faith in his blood for the remission of sins that are past. He ain't
talking about your past sins, but he's talking about the sins
of those past saints all the way back to Adam. And they all
saw that in the light of that promised Redeemer. That's a perpetuatory
understanding of who God is. That's the only way you can know
Him through the Gospel. That's how He revealed Himself
in the beginning. That's how He revealed Himself to Abraham,
Noah, all these men all down through time. He reveals Himself. Man has no knowledge of the redemptive
glory of God because he doesn't look with these eyes. And the
only way by which fallen man can come to any knowledge, any
saving interest in God is by way of gospel truth. And then
secondly, he says this, back up there, I think it's verse
20 of Isaiah 45. He said, they set up the wood
of their graven image. Man proves his lack of understanding
and his lack of knowledge by the images he projects. I was
teaching them back in Genesis things about Abraham. When Abraham
first came to Canaan where God called him to go, he built an
altar and he offered up a sacrifice. He offered up a sacrifice. And
I was telling them that men build altars to suit their gods. And
if their God looks on man and looks on his reactions and looks
on his tears and his works and his repentance, and God looks
at all those things and is affected by those things, then he builds
his altar in the shape of a mourner's bench. Or some of them build
it in a handshake, in a man. Some of them built it in the
old libraries and books and church creeds and catechisms. There's
all kinds of altars, but men built altars to suit the God
in whom they believed. Abraham built his altar to the
living God, and he burned a sacrifice on it, because that was his God. That's the God he knew. He had
a saving knowledge of God. But men set up the wood of their
graven image. He proves his lack of understanding
by the images he projects. Images that he carves out of
wood and chisels out of stone and sets up and bows down before.
The Lord says all through these chapters in these 40s here in
Isaiah, He talks about these images of stone that can't speak
and can't do and have no hands. They're just a bust of a man
and he sits there and you bow before him and sacrifice your
children to him and all this kind of stuff. All worldly religion
is based on the imagination mixed with truth. That's all it is. You can't get a man to sit down
in the Bible I sat for four hours and talked to two of our men
the other day, a new fellow and one of the fellows that's been
coming for a while. And we sat down and talked for four hours,
and it was all I could do to get them to come back to the
Word of God. I always want to tell you what
they think, or what this fellow said, or tell them what seems. It seems to me, you don't want to go there. You
don't want to go there. But that's what worldly religion
is all about. And Paul said in Romans 1.21,
he said, When they knew God, they glorified him not as God,
neither were thankful, but become vain in their imaginations. That's
what happens to a man. This is what causes him to build
mourner benches. This is what causes him to bring
the offerings of cane, the fruits and vegetables and all this type
of stuff and offer it up to God. This is what causes man to bring
his works and his own righteousness and all these things. He becomes
vain in his imagination of who God is. If he knew who God was,
he wouldn't bother to bring it. He said, the stars ain't pure.
That's what Job kept telling his friends. You're talking about
a righteousness. He said, the stars are not clean
in God's sight. How much more evil and wicked
is man who drinks iniquity like water? Vain imaginations. And their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they become fools. And they changed
the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like unto
man. That's where it starts. Now watch
this downhill slope, and then the birds, and then four-footed
beasts, and then creeping things. You see that? Downhill. Boy,
I tell you, when you leave God, when you leave that revelation
that God gives you of Him, and you start out And you try to
mix what God has said with your own evil imagination. It's a
downhill slide. Downhill. And here's where it
ends up. You're going to worship a bug.
You're going to worship a snake. I go down to Yucatan and look
at them big pyramids and that big snake going down there. And
these people were brilliant people. They professed themselves to
be wise, just like Paul said. They had that snake set so when
harvest time and planting time come, the sun would hit that
snake just right and it would make it look like it was moving.
And when the snake started moving, it was time to plant. When the
snake started moving again, it was time to harvest. Everything
they did. And they worshipped the stars
and all these constellations and all these things. Their whole
religion was built on those things. Worshipped a snake called Kukulkan,
the feathered serpent. That's where it winds up, man
and his wisdom. Men and women left to themselves
have no knowledge, no spiritual saving knowledge of God, nothing
to turn them from themselves. That's what has to happen. As
long as you've got confidence in yourself, God's not going
to tell you anything. When He destroys your confidence
in yourself, shuts you up to Christ, then you're going to
sit there and listen. And when folks come to church, I absolutely
forbid our people from button-holding them back in the corner with
their little pet doctrines and stuff and running them off. I
want them to come sit down and hear. As long as they're not
causing problems and running up and down the aisles and doing
all this kind of stuff, I want them to come back. Keep coming
back. I want them to hear. I want them to hear. They have
to hear. You have to hear. But if God
leaves you to yourself, you're not going to hear anything. And
when He does, when He does open that ear and you hear, first
thing you do is just shut up. Just shut up. You know how ignorant
you are. It's right there before you.
You realize that ignorance and you just shut up. You go through
Romans chapter 3 where I was reading from you a while ago
and He said, and we know, those who have spiritual ears and eyes,
they know. But everything the law says, it says to them that
are under the law that every mouth may be stopped. That's
what's going to happen when you hear. God fired 40 or 50 questions
at him so fast he didn't even have time to think. God said,
who is this down here popping off without wisdom and knowledge?
Who is this? Let me ask you something. And
you gird yourself up like a man and answer me. And he started
firing questions at him, and Job put his hand over his mouth,
and he said, once have I spoken yet, I'm not going to say another
thing. I'm going to shut up. Then you
start hearing. Then you start hearing. And grace
becomes grace. Wisdom in Christ. You start to
see His mercy. Start to understand. Everything
takes an all about it then. Everything. Why, the gospel was
foolishness until God shut your mouth. He shut your mouth, opened
your eyes to see that glory. Now you just want to sit in here.
Speak to me. Speak to me. There's nothing in man. He has
to be turned from himself. He's got no knowledge to do that.
He has to be turned from this present evil world. He has to
have something to reveal his wickedness. He has nothing to
reveal the saving knowledge of God in Christ unless God pleases
to send him a preacher. How should you hear? I didn't
say that. The Holy Ghost asked this question. Well, what are you going to do
about Paul? Didn't God come down in a big burst of light and take
him off the horse and put his face in the mud? I'm going to
tell you something. I'm serious as a heart attack.
If you really think that's so, if you really think that's how
God saves sinners, that's what you need to do. Go get you a
big white horse and get on it and just ride around town and
wait on God to blind you with the light and throw you in the
mud. That scripture is not even dealing with conversion. He's
dealing with an apostle, an enemy of God, and he shut his mouth.
And he didn't bypass preaching. He sent a man to take him in
his blindness and lead him down to a man who preached the gospel
to him. Men won't be shut up to the Word
of God. They just won't do it. But I'll tell you this, if he
ever opened your ear, you'll realize you're shut up to a preacher.
God has to send you a preacher. How shall you hear without a
preacher? And how's he going to preach
unless I send him? What's he going to do, go to
seminary and learn some things and get him a Bible and a suit
and go out and start marching up and down the land? He's going
to preach to them dead, dry bones and tell them to live? You think
he can get that power in a seminary? No way. How are you going to
preach unless God sends you? But off he does, if he does. And then thirdly, here in Isaiah
45, 20, he says this, that all these nations of whom true Israel
has escaped, He said, they pray unto a God that cannot save. The only way, and I want you
to hear me, the only way that a man can know the living God
is through salvation. Through salvation. To be saved
is to know God. You don't get saved and then
come to know God. Salvation is knowing God. That's
what eternal life is. That's the only way to know God. There's no other way to know
Him. After this long conversation
with these two fellows the other day, I finally wound up and I
said this to them at the end. They said, well, how much does
a man have to know to be saved? I said, it's not how much you
know, it's who you know. Salvation is in knowing Christ.
The only way you can know God is through Christ. No man has
seen God at any time. But the Son, which is in the
bosom, He hath declared Him. That's the only way you can know
God is through Christ. It's not how much you know, but
who you know. And salvation, eternal life,
is knowing God. Look over here in John chapter
17. Listen to this. This is so important. I tell
you people to skip over this. They slide right over this like
it means nothing, and it's the very fundamental foundation of
what we believe right here. In John 17.1, he spent chapter
14, chapter 15, and chapter 16 telling them about the necessity
of his death, his love for them, concern for them. the necessity
of him to go away, that when he went away, he wasn't going
to leave them comfortless. He was going to send them the
Comforter. I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. He just
went all through those chapters. I'm the vine. You're the branches.
These things have to be done. Now, John 17.1, these words spake
Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the
hour has come. Glorify thy Son. Why? that thy son also may glorify
thee." What in the world does that mean? In this final hour
of accomplishment, in this final act of obedience and love, in
this giving of himself, in willing submission to God for chosen
sinners, he prays to the Father, asks that he be glorified in
these accomplishments to this end. that in his death and in
his burial and in his resurrection, fallen sinners might see the
glory of God. Glorify thou me that I might
glorify thee. You see what he is saying there?
Verse 2, As thou hast given him power, authority over all flesh,
that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given
him. And this is eternal life, that
they might know Thee, the only true God, through, or and, Jesus
Christ, whom Thou hast sent. That's how you're going to know
who God is. That's the only way you're going to know who God
is. The God of this world is a God
who cannot save. He wants to save, but men won't
let Him. He desires to save, but sin is
too powerful. He plans to save, but nobody
will follow the plan. He promises to save and died
to make it possible, but after all of that, some will finally
fall away. Is that not what they preach?
That is what I hear. Only the living God can save
to the uttermost. He is the only one. Now listen
to what He is telling them over here in Isaiah. You look unto
Me, Because God alone can save. You've escaped these nations.
They pray unto a God who cannot save. You look unto Me, all ye
ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else. Look
unto Me and be ye saved. Ain't that what He said? Only the living God can save.
And to be saved demands an intervention of God. To be saved demands a
violation of your will. Old Barnard used to say, God
saves men against their will with their full consent. That's
exactly what God does. Exactly what He does. To be saved
demands that the strong man who keeps his goods at peace be overthrown
and one stronger than him come up and take control of the house.
To save your soul you must be made willing. We're not willing. He said, I know you. You will
not come unto me that you might be saved. Ain't that what he
said? You're not willing. Willing to seek God with all
your heart, soul, mind, and strength? You're not willing. You have
to be made willing, don't you? And you'll be made willing in
the day of his power. Willing to bow to the meditator
king. Bow to his authority. All power,
he said, is given unto me in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore
and preach the gospel. To save your soul, God must give
you knowledge. Listen to what John said. This
is in 1 John 5. Listen to this. He said, And
we know that the Son of God is come, and given us an understanding,
that we may know Him that is true, and that we are in Him
that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true
God and eternal life. That's it. That's it. But we don't look for that. Huh? We don't look for that. We look
to our own righteousness. We look for a reformation of
character. We look for an experience. We
look for a good feeling. I want to look inside and try
to find some evidence. The evidence ain't in here. The
evidence is up there. Look unto me. Ain't that what
that verse says in Isaiah 45? Look unto me. Oh, you've escaped
the nations. Quit looking to the nations.
Look unto Me. Look unto Me. To save our soul,
God must create a desire, a hunger, a thirst after the true and living
God. The Holy Spirit says this about
this world. And I'm talking about men who
have some hope in a God. Listen to what they say. He says,
they have a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.
We're talking about praying to a God who cannot save. He denies
his authority and power to save. He denies his ability to save. He denies his right to save,
whom he will. And he denies a purpose to save. And I must be brought to the
end of myself and see that man at his best state, just altogether
vanity. I've got to start looking to
Him and away from myself. The God of this world is a God
who cannot save, and a God that cannot save is no God. Now here in Isaiah 45, God tells
us five things about Himself. that he reveals in the person
and work of Christ. He's talking about the Lordship
of Christ. He's talking about that propitiatory
sacrifice. And he declares five things.
First of all, that he is manifested in the salvation of chosen sinners
to have an absolute, unalterable, and sure purpose by which everything
else in the universe finds its place. Look back here at verses 17 and
18. I tried to emphasize these when I read them to you a while
ago. He said, But Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an
everlasting salvation. You shall not be ashamed or confounded,
world without end. Now listen to this. For thus
saith the Lord that created the heavens, God himself that formed
the earth and made it, he hath established it, he created it
not in vain. He formed it to be inhabited. Now, he said, it's going to be
that way because I am the Lord and there is none else. You see
what he said? Creation itself, Paul said in
Romans chapter 8, was made subject to vanity We saw a sign down
at the motel this morning that said, Be Kind to Mother Earth,
about hot water or something. I don't know what it was all
about. Paul said this about creation. He said, It was made subject
to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected
the same in hope. That's Romans 8, verse 20. He
goes on to say that creation waits to be delivered the same
as the children of God wait to be delivered. And then he says,
creation shares in our groaning. We groan for that new body. We
groan for the end of our salvation. So does creation because it was
formed to that end. You see what I'm talking about?
This God who saves controls all things. And all of these things
feed off of this one purpose where God shows his glory in
his work of salvation. All creation does this. All creation,
all providence, everything. Listen to this. Creation and
providence are not separate in this thing of salvation, but
all part of the purpose of God to bring it to pass. He tells
us in Ephesians 1, Paul does, Ephesians 1, verse 11, We have
obtained from the living God an inheritance being predestinated
according to him who worketh all things after the counsel
of his own will." He set the end out there. And he said, this
is what's going to happen. If you set the end, you can't
declare the end from the beginning unless you have complete control
over everything in between. Here's the end. I predestinated
it. This is how it's going to be.
How do I know it's going to be? Because I work all things after
the counsel of my own will. Arrange is providence. Arrange
creation. The God of salvation manifests
Himself as one who has and executes an unchangeable and fixed purpose
by which His glory will be seen. He said in Isaiah 46, in the
very next chapter, He said, You remember these former things
of old. You remember these things. He said, because I'm God and
beside me there is none else, I declare the end from the beginning
and from ancient times the things that are not yet done saying
my counsel will stand and I'll do all my pleasure. I'm God. I'm God. The will of God to save a people
for His glory and God has engaged Himself to bring it to pass.
And in so doing, he reveals the glory of his name. Listen to
what Paul said. He said, God hath saved us and
called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to his own purpose and grace which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began. Secondly, he who is truly
God declares his lordship and manifests his deity in the salvation
of sinners. As I said to you a few moments
ago, you can't fix the end and expect the end to not control
what's in the middle. Only sovereignty to reach the
fixed end. There can't be any accidents.
There can't be any unforeseen circumstances. Can't be any surprises. And I cannot, I sat there this
morning and thought about this, I cannot imagine a sovereignty
greater than one that worketh all things after the counsel
of His own will. Can you? Not a sparrow can fall
to the ground, not a variation in hairs on your head that's
not controlled by God. Not one hair can fall out. And
I had more falling out than I used to. Nothing left to chance. No evolution. Just one fixed
immutable purpose all working together by the Lordship of Christ
for our good and His glory. We won't question things like
election. Paul said, Who art thou, O man, that replies against
God? He's the potter. He's the potter. You're on the wheel. You're just
the mud on the wheel. And he's spinning the wheel.
And he can make whatever kind of vessel he pleases. He's God. He said, Cannot I do with my
own what I will? I'm God. Now watch this. Isaiah 45, 23. He said, I have sworn by myself. We're talking about His Lordship.
The Word has gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not
return unto me. Every knee is going to bow. You
can write it down. Write it down. Every tongue is going to swear.
What that means is swear alone. Willingly own up. to His authority
and His Lordship. Third, He tells us time and time
again in these chapters that He is God alone. God alone. This God who saves is God alone. God alone. It's not me and Jesus.
It's God alone. God alone. Before all things. Ain't that what He said? He is
before all things. He created all things. He sustains
all things. In Him we live and move and have
our being. Paul got up, he walked around
that place over there at Mars Hill and he looked at all those
images and all those, I suppose they were just Kind of like out
in our cemeteries, big chunks of granite and things that had
inscriptions and things on there. He said, the only one I thought
even remotely resembled God was this one. It says, To the Unknown
God. Now, he said, I'm going to tell you about it. Let me
tell you about it. And he told those philosophers
there on Mars Hill that the true and living God, he said, giveth
to all life and breath and all things made of one blood, all
nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth.
Determine the times before appointed and set the bounds of their habitation.
And he commands you to repent. This God. This God. The God of glory that delivers
us from the power of darkness. translated us into the kingdom
of His dear Son, gave us redemption through His blood and forgiveness
of sins. Did so, Paul said, because He's
the very image of the invisible God. He is the firstborn of all
creation. By Him were all things created
that are in heaven, that are on earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.
All things were created by Him and for Him, and He is before
all things, and by Him all things consist. Now he said he's the
head of the church. Huh? He's the head of the church because
he's the head, period, of all things. God, listen to this,
Paul said, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. They said, yeah, but we need
works, we need this, we need evidence, we need reformation. In Him, Paul said, dwelleth all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you're complete in Him. Complete. He said this to the Corinthians.
Listen to this. Of God, he said, are you in Christ
Jesus? Who? Of God. is made unto us
wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. He's God alone,
all by Himself. And I'll tell you this, we'll
believe in God as He's revealed in Christ or we'll die in our
sins. He said, except you believe that I am, you'll die in your
sins. Well, how is He revealed? He's
revealed in the person and work of His dear Son. He said, No
man cometh unto the Father but by Me. And my generation has a God in
everything and in everybody. They attribute a godliness to
everything, every form, everything from a bone-in-the-nose witch
doctor to the Pope in Rome. They attribute some deity, some
godliness, something to them, a religious superstition, all
of these things. But the Bible said, No man knoweth
the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will
reveal him. And this salvation, if we ever
partake of it, reveals God alone. You won't find another God like
Him in this world. Listen to this. I went back and
looked at this. There's about 20 references to this in the
Old Testament. You might want to get out of Strong's Concordance
one day and go through and look at them. I thought this was so...
Hezekiah bowed his head and began to pray. And he prayed to the
God, listen to this, that dwells between the cherubim. Where was the cherubim? On either
side of the mercy seat. Where was the propitiation? The
word means mercy seat. God dwells between the cherubim. David prayed concerning going
down and getting that ark and bringing it back up. And he prayed
to God who dwelled between the cherubim. And when they prayed, Oh Hezekiah
prayed, and he said, O Lord God of Israel, which dwelleth between
the cherubim, Thou art God, even thou alone. Alone. He's God alone. That's what he's
telling us there in Isaiah 45. And then fourthly, Isaiah tells
us that this God we must look to to be saved is a just God. And there's two things here really.
First of all, it's telling us that God punishes sin. He's not
going to let it slide. Our preacher when I was growing
up in the Nazarene church used to take an eraser and they had
a little blackboard up there and he'd make some marks on it
and he said, this is salvation. He took that eraser and erased
it out. But he's still holding the chalk. Still holding the
chalk. And if you sin, he puts another
mark on the board. And then if you come up and confess
your sin, he'll take the eraser and erase them out again. That's
not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible requires
payment for sin. That's what he's saying. He's
a just God. He's a just God. Listen to this verse over in
Proverbs 17, verse 15. I don't care who you are. I don't
care who you are. I don't care what you believe.
Here's what he says. He that justifies the wicked,
and he that condemneth the just, He won't. Religion does both. Even they both are an abomination
to the Lord. The only way God will deal with
sin is to punish it. The only way you can satisfy
God's justice is by payment for that sin. The just God must punish sin.
And then the second thing is this, He cannot save a man apart
from a just satisfaction for the sin, that justice must be
satisfied. And Isaiah goes on to tell us,
just a little bit later on, he said when he saw the travail
of his hoe, he was satisfied. He was satisfied. And he set
forth like that throughout the Old Testament. Alright, here's
the last point. The true and living God is the God of revelation. It's the purpose of God in Christ
to make himself known to sinners. And I think we've missed this.
I really do. We're so busy arguing with men
over the sovereignty of God and election and all these doctrines
that we ought to know ahead of time they're going to rebel against
because they have no knowledge. He told us that at the beginning. We've got something greater than
that. This God who saves, He does everything according to
His purpose, and the purpose of God in Christ is to make Himself
known. That's where we've missed it.
This sovereignty, the clearest place where God reveals His sovereignty
is in this. Here's these men down in these
nations bowing to these idols, and all their relatives, and
their fathers, and their sisters, and their brothers, and their
grandmothers, and their grandfathers, and people they've trusted in
since the time they were born, and they're all telling them,
this is God, this is God. And God calls them out. You can't argue a man into this.
You just stand and declare this gospel and without argument and
without a man's works in any way, without any coaxing, God
takes that heart away and puts in a heart of flesh and seals
you, calls you right out of that darkness. That's sovereign death.
And it's God's sovereign purpose to show His grace to chosen sinners. He's going to do it. He's going
to do it. Listen to this, John 6, verse
40. This is the will of Him that
sent me. Talking about the will of God. I know God's sovereign. I know
God can save. I know that God can justify.
But how do I know God's willing? How do I know He's willing? Have
you ever wrestled with that? Boy, I have. Why would God be
willing to do anything for me? This is the will of Him that
sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth
on Him, may have everlasting life." He said, I didn't come
to condemn the world. The world was condemned already.
You need evidence? Here it is. They won't come to
the light. They prefer darkness to light. I come to save. It's the will of God for me to
save. I come talking to John the Baptist
about him, and here is what he said back in John 3, verse 31. He said, He that cometh from
above is above all. He that is of the earth is earthly,
and speaketh of the earth. He that cometh from heaven is
above all, and what he hath seen and heard that he testify. No
man receiveth his testimony. He that hath received his testimony
hath set to his seal that God is true. For he whom God hath
sent speaketh the words of God. For God giveth not the Spirit
by measure unto him. The Father loveth the Son, and
giveth all things into his hand. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son
shall not see life. But the wrath of God abideth
on him. You see what he's saying here
in Isaiah chapter 45. Look unto me and be ye saved. Talking about that understanding
of the heart that looks at Christ, looks at that propitiatory sacrifice,
and sees the glory of the living God in this sacrifice. Sees the
willingness of God to save sinners. Sees the love of God, eternal
love of God, who would give His Son while we were yet enemies.
Perceives those things. And it looks to Him and rests
in Him. hopes in him and bows down before
him, sees his sovereignty not as a whip, but as his love that guides and
protects and preserves, and will not let you go. Will not let
you go.