And with me this morning to Isaiah
chapter 51 again. One of the personal delights
that I normally have accompanying my trips to North Wilkesboro
and Boonville is I get to see a couple of my sisters who still
live in our hometown of Western Salem. And this year with no
exception, Thursday we spent two and a half, three hours with
my two older sisters, Shelby and I did. But I received some
very troubling and painful news from them that reminded me again
in a very personal way of God's distinguishing grace toward me
and upon me in Christ. And from the very minute I heard
the news they had to report this hour, Isaiah 51 and verse 1 has
been on my heart. My subject this morning is don't
ever forget. Don't ever forget. Hearken to me, ye that follow
after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord. Look unto the rock whence ye
are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Don't ever forget. Now, certainly
there is a sense in which we should, as the Apostle Paul admonishes
us, forget those things which are behind. Forget the past that
God has forgiven. Forget your former works of idolatry. Forget your past experiences. Forget your past services. deeds by which you hoped to give
yourself peace and assurance before God, by which you thought
you had any righteousness as the grant acceptance with God,
as the basis of assurance, as the basis of any confidence saving
interest in Christ. Forget all the past. Far too
much. We tend to look to yesterday
to give us peace today. We tend to look upon past experiences
to see if we have any real faith in Christ Jesus. Forget those
things that are behind. It doesn't matter what you knew
or didn't know yesterday. It does not matter what you did
or did not experience yesterday. Please hear me. Forget those
things. If you trust Christ right now,
right where you are, that's all that matters. That's all that
matters. Can you get ahold of that? Trust
him now as if you had never trusted him before. Seek him now as if
you had never sought him before. Look to him now as if you had
never looked to him before. God, give me grace every day,
every moment, every hour, constantly, newly to believe the Son of God. Trust the Savior. And yet, there
are some things we must strive to remember because we tend to
forget them. And the remembrance of them will
do us good always. The Lord told the children of
Israel, remember you were bondmen in Egypt and I brought you out. Remember, children of God, the
price by which God Almighty redeemed you from your sins. And remember, you're not your
own. You're bought with a price. So glorify God in your bodies
and in your spirits, which are God's. The price of your soul's
ransom is the precious blood of God's darling son. You want a motive for devotion
and consecration to Christ? Remember, he hath made him sin
for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. Remember, he died the just for
the unjust that he might bring us to God. Remember, the Lord
laid on him the iniquity of us all. And the Lord exacted from
him the punishment due unto our sins. Taking the cup of trembling
out of our hands, he took it in his own hand and drank the
last bitter dregs of that cup. We must never forget what God
has done for us and is doing for us by his free grace. Behold, what manner of love the
father hath bestowed on us that we should be called the sons
of God, making us his own dear children, giving us the very
nature of his son, The Lord God has given us the righteousness
of Christ. He's pardoned all our sins, forgiven
all our iniquities, taken away all our transgressions. He's
given us perfect sanctification in Christ, perfect acceptance
with God in Christ Jesus. And he keeps us by his grace. He keeps us by his grace. I'm soon going to deal with this
a little more. I know I must. I just read an
advertisement for a religious meeting. I would hardly call
it evangelism from one I used to have some respect for in England.
Had a lot of respect for him. Having an internationally renowned
cricketeer to come and talk about playing cricket in Jesus' name,
some black fella from Guyana. We're going to have an Olympic
oarsman. Actually, oarswoman. She kind
of looks like a man, but an oarswoman. And she's an English gal, I think. We're going to talk about oaring
your boat with Jesus in it. We're going to have a scientist
on Sunday morning to talk about science in the Bible. In fact,
the only time the Bible is even mentioned in the whole advertisement
for an evangelistic campaign. Is this scientist going to talk
about science in the Bible? God, keep me. God, keep me from
such horrid, horrid betrayal of your glory and your people
and your gospel. He keeps us. And the same is
true with regard to His grace keeping us in Christ and in faith
and in the way in which He's put us. We must never forget
what it cost Him to redeem us, what He's done for us and is
doing for us by His grace. And we must never forget what
we are by nature. where we were when he sought
us out and found us from what he has delivered us and is delivering
us by his grace. The fact is the gene pool we
come from is a very small gene pool. It's just one came from
Adam. And we're all just like our father,
Adam. We must never ever forget for
a moment what we are by nature from what the Lord God has delivered
us and is delivering us and what we are where we were when he
called us and sought us out by his grace just listen you see
your calling brethren how that not many wise men after the flesh
Not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God hath chosen
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And God
hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things
which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which
are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not. Lends that just about as low
on the totem pole as you can get. Things which are not, we
qualify there. Just nothings. Just nothings. To bring to naught the things
that are. And here's the reason why. That
no flesh should glory in his presence. Know ye not that the
unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived,
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate,
nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous,
nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit
the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But ye are washed, but ye are
sanctified, But ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
and by the spirit of our God. Here in Isaiah 51 verse one,
the Lord God himself speaks and he calls our attention, calls
for us to remember where we were and what we were by nature. And
now he saved us by his almighty grace. Hearken to me, ye that
follow after righteousness. Ye that seek the Lord, look unto
the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence
ye are digged. First, you'll notice here that
the Lord God issues a very needed call. A call that we desperately
need that we should never need. He says, hearken to me. Listen
to me. Listen to me. You ever take your
son or daughter, you're talking to them and you, they just kind
of, and you grab them by the face and you, listen to me. You
want them looking square at you and pay attention to you. This
is what the Lord does. Quit, quit looking away. Listen
to me. Listen to me. Why is that needed? Because we're so prone to ignore
him. So prone to ignore his word. So prone to ignore him speaking
to us by his word. We read the word of God and close
it and go about our business of the day and forget as soon
as we have read what we just read. Prone to forget every word
he speaks in his providence. God speaks from the heavens. He speaks every day. and every
experience we have and we tend to ignore it. He speaks to us
here and we hear it. And we walk out the door and
forget what we've heard. Because we're so negligent, so
wrapped up in ourselves and so wrapped up in this world and
the things of this world that we tend to ignore the one thing
we must have. And that's God our Savior. He
says, hearken to me. If I speak falsely against you,
forgive me. But I find that it is the common
lot of God's people in this world to experience much of that spiritual
languishing that's described in the Song of Solomon, chapter
five, where the Lord Jesus speaks, knocks at the heart of his beloved
She responds, I put off my coat. How shall I put it on? There are few who live on the
mountaintops. Most of us spend our time in
deep valleys, walking in darkness. Turn back the page to Isaiah
chapter 50, verse 10. This is another of those texts
I've been working on for a while. Who is among you that feareth
the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh
in darkness? We're children of light. We walk
in the light. Yeah, there's a sense in which
we do that. We walk in the light of divine revelation, and we
know the light of divine revelation, but oh, what darkness overwhelms
our souls. The Lord Jesus hides his face
from us. How tedious and tasteless the
hours when Jesus no longer I see. Sweet prospects, sweet birds,
and sweet flowers have all lost their sweetness to me. The midsummer
sun shines but dim. The fields thrive in vain to
look gay. Oh, but when I'm happy in him,
December's as pleasant as May. He says, hearken to me. Who is among you that feareth
the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh
in darkness and hath no light? At such times, even as that,
let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God. Bob, when you can hear him speak,
lean hard on him. And when you can't hear him say
a word, lean hard on him. When he's near, manifestly near,
lean hard on him. And when he hides his face, lean
hard on him. Trust in the Lord. Trust in the
Lord. Trust his name. Stay upon your
God. Would to God we'd never neglect
our God and Savior. But we do. So he says, hearken
to me. Here's the second thing. The Lord God here describes his
elect. He identifies his people. Tells
us who his saints are. Hearken to me, ye that follow
after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord. By these two things,
God distinguishes his people from all other people. They follow
after righteousness and they seek the Lord. Isn't it amazing how religious
people betray themselves? You speak to them about going
to hear the gospel, and they say, well, man, we want to hear
about the rapture. We've already heard about the
gospel. We want to hear about prophetic faith. We learned that
a long time ago. We forgot about that. Seek the Lord. What do you mean,
seek him? I've got him. If you've got him,
you seek him. God's people follow after righteousness
and they seek the Lord and they don't ever quit following and
they don't ever quit seeking. Look at this. Hearken to me,
ye that follow after righteousness. The believer is a person who
pursues righteousness. He doesn't follow after the righteousness
of the law because he knows no righteousness can be had by the
law. He doesn't pursue righteousness in order to do that. He might
do something to make himself righteous before God. Oh, no,
we seek. We pursue the righteousness of
God in Christ. Our business is to shut off every
pretense of righteousness, to wipe ourselves clean of every
cobweb of filthy, unclean, Blasphemous righteousness that men claim
before God and we seek that righteousness Which is the righteousness of
God in Christ Jesus the Lord that holiness Christ Jesus without
which no man shall see the Lord Well, what are you talking about
brother Don? We seek to stand before God only upon the imputed
righteousness of Jesus Christ. That is, we seek earnestly, God
give me grace never to trust in my own righteousness, but
to trust the doing and the dying of the Son of God. And we seek
to make our calling and election sure, standing in this righteousness
alone, knowing the righteousness of God imparted to us. and that
righteousness of God imparted to us in the new creation, in
the new birth, in the creating of that inward man created in
righteousness and in true holiness, Christ in you, the hope of glory,
that new man believes on the Son of God and believing the
Son of God, we know that we have that imputed righteousness of
Christ. Turn to Philippians chapter 3.
Let me try to show you what I'm talking
about. Those who have righteousness
seek and follow hard after righteousness. Those who have none presume they
have everything and seek nothing. They never concern themselves
about seeking the Lord. They never concern themselves
about whether or not they know the Lord. They never bother about
those things. Those things are taken care of.
They just get together and study this thing or that, and they
get together and study Bible history, and get together and
talk about religion, and get together and debate about what
they believe, what they don't believe. Those who know the Lord follow
after righteousness. They pursue righteousness, seeking
the Lord. Look here in Philippians chapter
3, verse 8. The Apostle Paul is right. He says, yea, doubtless
I count all things but loss. What's he talking about? His
former claims to righteousness, his noble birth, his great religious
education, his pharisaic way of living, his upbringing, his
obedience to the law, he's I count them all but done. Yea, I count
all things but loss. For the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus, my Lord, I count everything else utterly meaningless
except knowing Him. For whom I have suffered the
loss of all things and do count them but dung." Just manure,
just manure, just waste. You mean Brother Don, he counted
the whole of his righteous self The whole of his religious upbringing,
the whole of his religious knowledge, the whole of his pharisaic way
of life, he counted all of that just manure? Counting but dog. That's nothing. That's nothing.
If you find out what he's talking about here, that I may win Christ. That I may win Christ. What's
a diamond store bauble compared to diamonds? that I may win Christ,
that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having my own
righteousness. If you've got any, you won't
be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of
the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, that righteousness
that Christ accomplished for me by his faithful obedience
to God, the righteousness, which is of God by faith, that I may
know him. and the power of his resurrection,
and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his
death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection
of the dead. Not as though I had already attained,
neither were already perfect, but I follow after. I keep chasing
this. I keep grabbing for this. I keep seeking this. if that
I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ
Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself
to have apprehended. I haven't arrived yet. But this
one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching
forth to those things which are before, I press toward the mark
for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. The believer follows after a
path of righteousness, follows a career of righteousness. The
direction of the believer's life flows in righteousness. Believers
are described in Romans 6, 18 as the servants of righteousness.
Now, let me tell you what that means, lest you misunderstand. The rule by which every believer
lives, the rule by which every believer governs his life is the Word of God. Not just
Ten Commandments, everything in this book, Merle. If God says
it, that's our rule. That's it. That's it. God's people
do. God's people do. I know we live
in a, we live in a strange, strange society, strange, a strange time,
strange world. People vainly imagine that Christianity
has nothing to do with obedience. Nothing to do with obedience
to God. Go speak to Moses and Zipporah about that. God met
Moses in the end and said, I'm going to kill you if you don't
circumcise this boy now. Well, obedience is not anything.
Oh, obedience is much law and legalism, something else. But
God's people follow after his word. They seek to govern their
lives by the book of God. All God's people do. Young ones
and old ones. I was shocked years ago. This has been a good many years
ago. I told a friend of mine about Faith and Doug being engaged,
planning their wedding, planning their marriage. This fellow wrote
to me, he said, oh, He said, so good to see that. Said in
our country, even the Christian young people live together and
try it out for a while first. And I wrote it back. I said,
they ain't Christian. They ain't Christian. No, not
in your country or in mine. No. Believers rule, are ruled
by the word of God. Second, the example we follow
is the redeemer. When I talk about righteousness
and following after righteousness in the course of a man's life,
our Lord Jesus girded himself with a towel and took a bowl
of water and washed his disciples' feet. That's kind of common,
ordinary stuff, isn't it? That's not the thing that the,
Primitives and other folks have made a part of the Lord's Supper
when they have a real good communion service, they have foot washing.
And when they have foot washing, strange thing, everybody washes
his feet before he goes. Make sure they're clean. That's
not what he's talking about. That's not what he's talking
about. No, he's talking about washing the dirty feet of your
brethren. Take a towel. the most mundane,
meaningless, insignificant, unseen, unobserved service for one another
just because it's needed or wanted or is good. Just refreshing,
just refreshing. The test by which we seek to
determine our actions is the glory of God, love for our Now, Jerry, that's just so or
it's not. Either you seek to live in this
world for God's glory and the benefit of God's people, or your
religion's fake. It's just that simple. It's just
that simple. Be kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath
forgiven us. The believer is a person who
seeks the Lord, presuming nothing. We've not attained. We haven't
yet apprehended that for which we've been apprehended. We don't
have that which we desire, not yet. But we seek the Lord because
we know our need of him. And we know that all fullness
is in him. We seek him for salvation and life and grace and strength
and righteousness and peace. And we seek him earnestly. We
seek him. Seeking communion and fellowship
with him. Lord, don't leave me to myself
today. Speak to me by your word. Speak
to me by your spirit. Guide my steps, guide my thoughts. God's people follow after righteousness
and they seek the Lord. Third, our text speaks of God's
saving operations of grace. How can to me ye that follow
after righteousness Ye that seek the Lord, look unto the rock
which you're hewn, and to the hole of the pit which you're
digged. Bill Raleigh, you and Don Fortner
were hewn from the rock of human depravity by the hammer of God's
omnipotent grace. We didn't just fall off the rock.
We didn't break ourselves off the rock. We didn't gradually
evolve from the rock. We were hewn from it. Hewn from
it. Have you ever seen anybody work
in rock? I'm talking about work in rock. It takes violent action. to work in rock. Violent action,
you take a hammer and a chisel and violently break off the rock. You take the hammer and violently
beat the rock. And so it is, God with the blessed
violence of omnipotent mercy breaks us and digs us from the
hard rock of human depravity. We were dug from the pit of human
corruption. The pit of degradation. The pit of death. Dug by the
hand of God's infinite mercy. The book tells us that Noah lived
in a day like ours. Men and women married and were
given in marriage. They ate and they drank and they
married and they were given in marriage. What does that mean?
It's just like our day. You who are without Christ live
for nothing but your lust. That's all. That's the way all
men live. Just for their lust. Can a woman forget her sucking
child? Why, yeah, I see it all the time.
How come? How come? Because she wants something
more. She wants something more. She
found a Something down here she wanted to get. She found the
fellow over there she wanted. He wouldn't have her children,
so I'll give them up. I'll give them up. Abandon them. Happens
all the time. Happens all the time. I've got
a niece. Just abandon them. Of course,
you want to shack up some fellow. That's all. Just abandon them.
Throw them away. Just waste. Just garbage. A weight. An encumbrance. Oh,
I couldn't do that. Ron Wood, if God let you and
me to ourselves, that long we'd do it. Because we live to our
lust by nature. Eating and drinking, marrying
and giving in marriage. We live just for ourselves. The only thing that keeps you
from behaving like all other people doing the most vile deeds
imaginable is God in his restraining grace keeps you from it. And
he may keep you from behaving like the greatest beast who ever
lived just lest you should seek his grace. God alone makes the
difference between men, nobody else. Noah, however, found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. Oh my God, let me find grace
in your eyes. The Lord God has saved us from
a heart that's deceitful above all things. and desperately wicked. A heart nobody knows. How many times have you said
or heard somebody say, well, if I know my heart, there's not
a chance in the world. No, you don't know your heart.
You don't know your heart. You should have learned that
already by today's experience. Where'd that come from? How did How did I have such thoughts? Your heart and mind by nature
is as black as the heart of Judas. Whatever sin there is, has been
or shall be in all this world is in your heart and mind. The
germ of all evil is in us all. It doesn't matter who your parents
are. Doesn't matter where you were born. Doesn't matter how you were raised.
That which is born of flesh is flesh. Corruption brings forth
nothing but corruption. It can never bring forth purity. The history of our race is a
history of corruption. War and greed Persecution and
ambition. Debauchery. That's what it's
all about. Things haven't changed in the
day in which we live. If you care to see how far we've
advanced in this fine, enlightened age, go home and read your newspaper
one more time. Just read today's paper. Forget
about yesterday. Just read today's. And you'll
find that we've not advanced one iota above the cannibalistic
barbarians of New Guinea, self-serving politicians and preachers, adultery,
fornication, and even rape, rioting, murder, and abortion, homosexuality,
pedophilia. All these are things. All these
are things. Our lawmakers seek to defend
and protect one or another as human rights. I'm not stretching it, am I?
They seek to defend them and protect them as human rights. They seek to make all of these
things ideal. and would imprison you if they
find a way to get by with it if you just oppose it. The very
same people who want to see to it that women can murder their
babies. Abortion is not the word. Murder is the word. Murder. Well, you wouldn't have them
executed for it, would you? No, but God would. That's absolutely
right. That's absolutely right. Read
the book. Read the book. The very same
people who want to protect that, the right of a woman to murder
her baby, will send you to prison if you block up a stream and
it destroys a fish that low. I think it's what the prophet
called, calling good evil and evil good. I think that's what
he described. Take a good look at the state
and condition you were in when God saved you. Look at the hole of the pit in
which you were digged. Many of us particles were snatched from the muck and mire of humanity. Some of you weren't. You were raised different. But
don't think you're different because you were raised different. Don't think you're different
because you never got into the hog pen. The hog, no, not for
a second. Not for a second. When I was
a kid, Faith was a kid, we'd take her to the zoo over in Rainier,
West Virginia. I forgot the name of it now.
I'll think of it in a minute. And just a small zoo. And the fella
had a cougar in there. I can see it right now. Had a
cougar in there. I could walk up down in front
of that cougar, walk up in front of his cage. That cougar would
never move. He'd just lay there like he was just about to die.
Just lay there. I could walk up down in front
of that cage with faith holding my hand. And that cougar would
never move. Would never move. But when that
little old girl about that high, just about that high, if I let
her walk by that cage one time, That cougar was right on the
fence after her. The only thing kept him from getting there was
he was caged up. That's kind of like you good
folks. Oh, I wouldn't act like that.
I wouldn't behave that. Well, I can't imagine anybody
doing that. Open the cage and see. Open the
cage and see. I wouldn't want to be around
you. I don't even want to be around me. Look at the pit in which the
damned are today. Folks over yonder in that prison,
as long as I'm not there, it's because God kept me from going
there. I kept you from doing things, seeing you there. No,
I did them and got by with it. They just didn't. That's all. The pit of the damned
in hell. I ran as fast toward hell as
I could. With my fist shoved in God's
face, I'd have killed him if I got a hold of him. And he just
stopped me, that's all. And that's what's still in me.
It's called flesh. And it's a warfare. So that the
flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.
These two contrary fighting, battling one another all the
time. Never ending battle. Warfare in my soul two armies
set guns against one another And it never ends and won't end
until this flesh is in the grave I've said all that To say these four things You and I who are saved by God's
grace Ought to be truly humble and thankful people who make thee to differ from
another. What hast thou that thou didst
not receive? Now if thou didst receive it,
why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? Number two, we have every reason to walk
on this earth believing our God with encouragement and joy. Is it possible in spite of all the struggles
and inward corruption and weakness and infirmity and sin. Is it
possible that I will, after all, persevere to the end? Not if anything depends on me,
I won't. But bless God, nothing depends on me. kept by the power of His grace. Is it possible that you will
endure to the end? Is it possible, midst all the
apostasy of this day, that you will continue holding your way,
believing on the Son of God, clinging to Christ, a poor sinner
trusting a full Savior. If you trust Him, you will. I'm confident that God who hath
begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus
Christ. And third, you and I, we who
believe, ought to be kind. tender and forgiving of our brethren. I don't mean for a second that
we ought to somehow excuse ungodliness. No, no. I do mean we ought to
be kind and tender and forgiving. Understand that your fallen brother
is just like you. He has no righteousness. except
what God gives him. And he is by nature all sin,
nothing else. We even ought to have something more than just the
milk of human kindness toward our brethren in Adam. Somebody
reprimanded Brother Scott Richardson one time. He called somebody
brother. He said, well, how on earth could you call him your
brother? He said, well, he's either my brother in Christ or
in Adam, one of the two. Well, our fellow human beings
are our fellow human beings, and we ought not strut too proudly
over them. We recognize that we're just
what they are by nature. Number four, number four, oh,
how fatal. How utterly devoted we ought
to be to God our Savior. How faithful, how utterly devoted
we ought to be. You don't mind hearing the same
stories twice, do you? Or a hundred times if they're good? young pastor visiting one of
the older men in his congregation who had made considerable kind
of wealth and had a good bit of property. And they spent most
of the day together and the old man took him around showing him
his huge property and his house. They went down in the lower rooms
of the house and there was a bare dirt floor there. with unstained,
unpainted, raw-cut wood on the walls, just the roughest of furniture,
just barely what you could get by with. The young pastor said,
I don't understand. What is this? He said, oh, pastor,
this is my remembrance room. I don't ever want to forget where
I once was. God bring me often to my remembrance
room and make me to trust my Redeemer and remember. Don't ever forget. Amen.