Isaiah 55, we're going to look
at verses 6 through the end of the chapter, and it probably
could be four separate messages because the divisions are in
themselves adequate enough information and material that they probably
could be four separate messages. But what we'll attempt to look
at in verses 6 and 7, we see a gracious call. Verses 8 and
9, a glorious God. Verses 10 and 11, the power of
God's Word. And verses 12 and 13, the end
result of grace through God's Word. Let's look at verses 6
and 7. Seek ye the Lord while he may
be found. Call ye upon him while he is
near. Let the wicked forsake his way, the unrighteous man
his thoughts. and let him return unto the Lord,
and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon." Now, without saying a whole lot right off the bat,
turn with me to 2 Corinthians to see the New Testament version
of this very verse. It's a parallel passage, it's
not a quote. But turn with me to 2 Corinthians
chapter 5. We'll see how Paul worded the same gracious call
here. Paul said, verse 17 of 2 Corinthians
chapter 5, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new
creature. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. And all things are of God, who
hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given
to us the ministry of reconciliation, to wit, that God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses
unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation,
that's, you know, that's what's committed to us, to you and to
I, the preachers of the gospel, believers, the word of reconciliation,
not the work, not a priest, not the pope. And they don't have
any work of reconciliation either. It's the word of reconciliation,
which he explains in verse 20, which is the verse that I think
corresponds to verses six and seven in our passage in Isaiah.
Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did
beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be reconciled
to God. Be reconciled to God. Turn back
to our text. The prophet Isaiah, under inspiration
of God, says, Seek the Lord while he may be found, call you upon
him while he is near. This is such a gracious call.
Seek him, and not religion, Seek Him and not religion. Seek Him because He will not
always be found. Seek the Lord while He may be
found. Now contrary to modern religion
and free will works preaching, God is not sitting here waiting
for you to decide something for Him. There is a day in which
He will be found And the reason why He can be found is because
He gives us grace to seek Him. Seek Him. Seek Him because He
will not always be found. Seek Him by and upon the basis
of Christ's work for you and not what you think you've done
for Christ. Now I think a key word in this,
this first two verses, this first section is the word return. Look at verse 7. Let the wicked,
which is what we all are by birth, let the wicked forsake his way
and the unrighteous, man, that's us, we're unrighteous, our righteousness
are as filthy rags, as far as God's concerned, our righteousness
is our unrighteous, man, his thoughts, and let him return.
You see, this is a call to the elect. How can you return from
somewhere you've never been? And the scriptures is very clear.
It says that he loved us with an everlasting. You know, he
called us and he loved us with everlasting love, and we were
his before the foundation of the world, though we were like
all men by nature, born in sin. But he says, return, and it's
through the preaching of the gospel and through this gracious
call that he makes effectual by his Holy Spirit that the wicked,
who we were among that lot, and the unrighteous, which we're
certainly among that lot, will return to him. And those who
return to him, he says he will have mercy upon them and to our
God, for he will abundantly pardon. People say we're, you know, we
say our God is, they accuse us of our God being insensitive
and unkind and mean. No, he will abundantly pardon.
He will abundantly pardon. He will have mercy upon those
who return, knowing that they will return only on the effectual
call and working of the Holy Spirit. But I don't know who
those are going to be, so I say seek the Lord. I don't have a
problem with that. Seek the Lord while he may be
found. Call upon him while he is near. Today, the scripture
says, if you will hear his voice, harden not your heart. So I'm
not, I have this word of reconciliation. I'm not, I don't have the work
of it. So I don't have to, it is not my responsibility to try
to get people saved. It's my responsibility to preach
the word. It's my responsibility to to
prepare the table. Glenn and I were talking about
this this morning. The food is laid out, but you
can't make anybody eat. You can't make anybody tell. When God does something for a
sinner, They will seek the Lord. They will seek a place where
they can worship Him. They will do whatever it takes,
whether it's forsaking many things in this world. Because we read
also in Corinthians that when a person comes, there are new
creatures. I'm not saying we don't have old habits and we
don't have that old nature still there, but we have a new nature
residing in us that beats and pants after His righteousness.
and desires to be where his people are, desire to be where the gospel
is preached, desire to hear the gospel when it's preached, and
seek the Lord. All that word, you know, I could
go, like I said, these could be micro-messages, each one of
these sections. But, we are found in verse 7, wicked,
unrighteous, But oh, I like how he says he'll have mercy upon
us and he will abundantly, abundantly. That word in a margin, if you
have a marginal reading, says multiply, multiply to pardon. And you know as well as I do,
we continually need forgiveness. We continually need pardon. The sentence of pardon is to
us through Christ, but we continually seek him. We continually come
to him. Well, we had a gracious call. Now we have a glorious
God. Look at verses 8 and 9. Now this,
again, is staying on its own. And this is not being preached
today. And it is just so contrary to what religion is saying or
thinking about the God of this book. God says, for my thoughts,
are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith
the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts. A glorious God. And this is who
we preach. This is who we worship. This
is who we would not have it any other way. I do not want this
world's economy and this world's Nations and powers and kings
to be ruled to be governed by men themselves. God governs men
He always has he always will and he says My thoughts are not
your thoughts. He is as far removed or above
us as the Sun from the earth He is so supreme and we are so
common He is so pure and we are so vile what we call right by
nature and from birth. He calls wrong and We say the
way to God is up, he says the way to God is down through humility.
We say we must have a spirit-filled life, he says we must be empty
before he will fill us. He says his thoughts are not
our thoughts. And I will guarantee you, because we're all in the
same boat, his thoughts on grace, vows raised, religious, His thoughts on grace was not
my thoughts on grace. Whether I believe the teachings
of the Methodist Church or not, whether I adhere to that or not,
my own thoughts of God were not his thoughts, were not his ways.
You know, after I started getting scared and started doing a few
things in high school, before high school, in high school,
and then in college, You know, good thing mom doesn't know all
those things. You start doing some things,
your conscience starts to bother you because God doesn't give
every person a conscience. And you try to appease that conscience
by, mom will find me a bible. I'm going to read it. That's
my safety. Never go to church while I'm
in college. Somebody comes by, hey you want to go to church?
Yeah, it was a pretty wild weekend. Better go to church. You know,
I didn't believe in confessing my sins to a man, but it didn't
matter. It's the same thought. If I go
into this church, in this building, in this sanctuary, I'll be a
little cleansed. I would never say that, but the
mind, by nature, Our thoughts on grace are not his thoughts
on grace. He pardoned freely through the work of his Son,
not by any of my assistance, how I feel, how I don't feel,
what I've done or don't do. His thoughts on salvation are
not my thoughts or your thoughts on salvation by nature. His ways
are not our ways. The way of salvation through
Christ alone, and I guarantee if there's one thing I've taught
on most of these campuses is there's more than one way to
God. Because we had to be tolerant of the Muslims across the river. There was a free speech area
and you couldn't touch anybody in that free speech area. I don't
know if it's still there or not. You couldn't touch anybody. They
could say whatever they wanted to on American soil. They could
say whatever they wanted to. You couldn't touch them. And then
you had the Buddhists go in there. And they were passing out their
literature. And these people were passing
out their literature. And that person was passing out their literature.
I was raised, you know, some common denomination. Well, I
had my thoughts, so I could take a little bit of that. That's
not bad. Well, I'll take this, this, all three or four of them.
Make sure you got all your bases covered. No, it's by Christ and
Christ alone, what he's done, and that's all that God will
be pleased with. God's thoughts and ways of redemption
through blood atonement is not our ways. Why do we have to do
that? Why can't I just say a few things?
Why can't I walk down a few aisles? Why can't I be sprinkled or baptized
or dipped or something or absolved or whatever? Why do I need the
blood? Because God says that's the way
to me. Through blood. Through the blood. God's thoughts of eternal peace
is not our ways. It's not our thoughts. They're
higher. See, man's ways of peace is by
doing something or not doing something. You know, put some ash on your
forehead or not eating certain things or eating certain things
on Friday or not eating certain things. Some people don't even
know why they do it. It's just that that's what they
were told to do. And they say, well, I'm not trusting
in that. And I always say, okay, then don't do it. Don't put that
on your head. Eat whatever you want to on Friday.
And then they don't have peace. Then
they're kind of, they're bothered. Their conscience starts bothering
them. Why? Because some man or tradition or denomination says
to do this, this, or that. not relying solely and wholly
upon the finished work of the Son of God. So they say, well,
you know, I'm not saying it's salty. And then when you tell
them to stop doing it, then they're uncomfortable. There's no peace
there. God's thoughts on holiness, life and hope are not ours. We think holiness is accomplished
by something that we do or that we don't do. Christ said it's
not what you take doesn't defile a person. Matter of fact, if
I remember writing the book of Acts, when the Lord lowered the
vision of Peter, he lowered that blanket down with that food.
He says, I haven't, you know, I haven't, I don't let unclean
things touch my lips, Lord. He says, don't call that what
I, you know, don't call unclean that which I call clean. You
know, if you want to eat squid, if you want to eat, it doesn't
matter. But we have it in our head that
if we wear certain things, we sing certain things, holiness
is based on, you know, attendance or not doing something or not
looking something or being put in a, you know, in a monastery
somewhere. You cannot produce holiness. That's only something that is
God given like everything else we've talked about with grace,
life and hope. You know, we've been in the workforce
for a while and I'm sure you have too. People, their base,
their eternal hope on what they've done. Well, when it comes down
to this balanced out, weighed out between what I've done and
what I've not done, oh my word. I've heard people say many times,
I hope what I've done is enough. What kind of hope is that? God's grace and salvation and
redemption and eternal peace and holiness and life and hope
are at odds with us by nature. Let's see what the book says.
Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Bruce will get a tickle out of this. On the way home from a football
game last night, Two hour drive, wasn't too bad. Listened to some
different stuff and for some reason the driver, he found a
country station. I thought I was going to go out
of my mind. I couldn't sleep. And I knew it was coming because
it all sounded, and the country rock is a little different. I
don't know how many songs we listened to because we listened
to it from Vestas down. Terry, it was just, I just, I
couldn't get out. There's one song that was different.
All the rest of it sounded like the same guy singing. It was
all country. You could probably know the names,
George, Freddie, whoever it was. But I knew it was coming. They
popped in country and religion. They just go hand in hand. And he was talking about being
a dad and loving and being in heaven and dad and I thought, And then he finally asked, the
driver finally asked, is everything okay? Is this loud enough? He
says, it's too loud. Turn it down. I don't want to
hear no more. I can't take it. I caught myself
tapping my foot. I thought, oh man, this could
be bad. But here's the thought. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14, we are
at odds with God's ways, God's thoughts, Means of grace, means
of salvation, hope, life, peace, holiness, anything spiritual. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14. But the natural man, and that
is us by birth, received not the things of the Spirit of God.
Why? For their foolishness unto that person. Neither can they
know them. Double negative. Why? Because
they're spiritually discerned. Two negatives. One, Anything
that God says about himself and his grace and how God can be
just and justify the ungodly through the person and worth
and work of the blessed Emmanuel is foolishness. I want to do
it my way. And the reason why they say it's foolish is because
this book is spiritually discerned. It's nothing. People don't understand
this book. Why don't they understand that?
Why? Because they don't have spiritual eyes to see. And they have a
blackened heart. They don't understand. Now we
can understand certain things mentally, but not life. Spirit
is life. Not just the head, it's life
in the heart. Turn to 2 Timothy chapter 1.
2 Timothy chapter 1. Other than that, a good time
was had by all. 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 8. Be not thou therefore ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me as prisoner. Paul's
writing this to his beloved spiritual son in the Lord, Timothy. But
be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God. God, the power of God, who? saved us and called
us with the holy calling, not according to our works, but according
to his own purpose, his own grace, which was given us in Christ
Jesus before the world began. And in the fullness of time,
he reveals that to us through the gospel. Like I give you examples,
just a couple examples of This section here, his thoughts are
not our thoughts, his ways are not our ways. As the heavens
are higher than the earth, so are his ways higher than our
ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts. I'll give you an
example of this, the Tower of Babel. Men thought back then,
as they do now, that they could build something to reach the
heavens and therefore get to God. And the Lord just totally confused them. And men are confused
up to this day, how to reach God through a substitute. Confused. The rich young ruler,
he came to Christ, he says, what can I do to inherit eternal life? Please give me something. Give
me something to do. Physical, tangible, readable,
legible. I'm just itching to be a good
person. I'm just itching to be a Christian.
I'm just itching to be, give me something that I can do. Turn to 2 Kings chapter 2. 2 Kings
chapter 5. I don't know if I said 2 or 5. 2 Kings chapter 5. He knows the stories. Naaman,
who was a captain of the host of the king of Syria, verse one
of second Kings chapter two, verse five. He was a great man
with his master, honorable, honorable. But the last part of verse one,
he was a leper. So he decided he wanted to do
something to get rid of his leprosy. So after he heard of all the
things that he that might cure him of his leprosy, he thought
in his own mind, this is what I need to do. I'm going to go
down and see this prophet, named Elisha, the man of God. Verse 9, So Naaman came with
his horses and his chariot and stood at the door of the house
of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go, wash in
the Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee,
and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth and went
away and said, Behold, I thought. There's the problem. My thoughts
are not your thoughts. Isn't that what we're looking
at? I thought he would surely come out to me and stand and
call the name of his God and strike his hand over his place
and recover the leper. He wanted to show he wanted. Brother Loves Traveling Salvation
show that Neil Diamond sings about. That's what he wanted.
He wanted a hoopla. That's what these mega churches want. That's
what these contemporary worship services are all about. Show. Let's get this big screen. Let's get the band. Let's get
the guitars. Let's get the drums. Let's get all these things. I
thought he would come out, clap his hands, strike over, call
on his God and make a big scene. And a lot of times when God saves
a sinner, and I'm not going to say all the time because I'm
not going to put God in a box, but God saves a sinner, He saves
them. They're sitting right there in that pew. The Lord uses the
preaching of the gospel and convicts them. And they say, what must
I do to be saved? I want to seek the Lord. They
come and they desire to be baptized, and they follow the people, and
they follow the Lord's people, in fellowship, in communion,
in song, in hymn, in breaking of bread. It's the simplified
stuff. It's not, OK, you've got to do
this, you've got to go through so many classes. I was asked when I married Tara
and Matt, he invited a preacher. How many times did you counsel
him? Did you talk to him? Yeah, about ten minutes out there. Everybody hugged and everything
was fine. Don't ask me to do that. I mean,
I'll be again. The door's always open. I'll
be available. But when it comes down to it,
it's between you and Christ, you and the gospel, and you and
me. So that's verses 8 and 9. Glory is God. His ways are not
our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. Look at verses
10 and 11. We see a power and a promise in God's Word. Verse 10, 11. For as the rain
comes down, and the snow from heaven returns not thither, but
waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, that it
may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater, so shall
my word, he's a comparison between water and snow, and what it does
to the earth, and the soil, and the crops, So shall my word be
that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return to me void,
but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in a thing whereunto I send it. We don't know what
the effects of this church being here in this community, you know,
the effects of the CDs that are being sent out all across the
world, the teleconference line. We don't
know, but I know one thing's for sure. God's Word is going
to do what it's supposed to do. It's going to either save or
it's going to confirm judgment. It's not going to be void. It
will do that which He's promised. The Word, God's Word, His living
Word, Christ, Everything God purposed for Christ to do, He
did. The written word, this book right here, everything that is
intended to do to glorify the Son and glorify the Father and
the Spirit, it's going to do. And the preached word, it will
accomplish that which He says it to do. So what does it do? It's like rain. It's like snow.
It gives life. There's liberty. You know, when
you're under the bondage of free will religion and works religion
and you hear the Gospel and God saves you, it's just like, This
is the most glorious thing. It's not a burden. It's liberty.
We see growth. Water. You put water on a plant
and it grows. When the gospel is preached and
His word is believed and faith is active, growth and grace. Refreshing. Bruce and I talked
about it. He appreciated the things that
were said Wednesday. I appreciated studying it. Had I not studied it, it would
have been a whole lot harder week. But it's refreshing. The Word is refreshing. We wonder
why we're parched so often. Well, has to do with maybe lack
of fellowship and has to do with maybe lack of spending time in
the Word. All these means that God uses to grow His people.
Cleansing. It cleanses. It washes off. You use water to wash things
off. Mud. It cleanses us. Not that we have
to continually be cleansed because Christ did that, but maybe refreshing
is a better word, but it nourishes our soul. But I like the underlying
foundation and rock-solid guarantee in these two verses. He says,
it will accomplish that which I please. That's our hope. I please. It shall accomplish.
That's rock solid, rock solid guarantee. It cannot be moved.
And in closing, we always see a good result of the word preached,
the gospel believed, God being glorified. There's always a good
and notable result. On verse 12 and 13, he says,
for ye who Those who were once called wicked, those who were
once called unrighteous, those who had once had ill thoughts
of God, ones whose ways was the way of death and religious works
but not life, these now being brought freely by His grace,
being pardoned abundantly through the Lord Jesus Christ, ye go
out joy and peace, and singing. It's not a chore, but a real
desire to worship God, and be with His people, and fellowship
around the Gospel, and glorify the King of Heaven and Earth. And so he couldn't say any more. The last part of verse 13, we
know that in Christ we shall not be cut off. It's another guarantee. It's
like he lays promise upon promise. It's amazing because it's like
we're trying to get over the fact that he would save somebody
like us, somebody like me, that he would do something for a poor
sinner born in St. Louis. and move to different
locations and finally end up in Southeast Missouri. It's amazing
enough that he would say that he would save somebody like me.
And then you're just sitting there looking at that and you're
rejoicing in that like a diamond. You're looking at it all different
ways. And then he says, oh, by the way, I'm going to accomplish
what I please. And then you're like, wait a
minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I can't comprehend all this.
No, because your thoughts are not my thoughts. Even a believer,
we don't have a full understanding of this glory that he calls grace
and salvation by free sovereign grace in Christ. So you're looking
at these things and he says, you know what, now you're going
to have joy and peace, but the world's But there's so much going
on in my life and work is hard and I'm getting older and all
these things. Yeah, but don't think about that. Don't look at that. That's part
of life. That's part of living. It's just going to bring you
one step closer. to me and death has no sting anymore. So it's
just you're going to be with me. But in the meantime, start
looking at these promises. Don't, you know, look about that
or what's going on or what's going on in the White House or
do these different things. Don't start complaining. Don't start
murmuring. No, he continually brings us back to him and says,
seek me and I'll abundantly pardon you. And I'm going to refresh
you like the rain and the snow. You know, who who does it? Who doesn't? A couple of summers
ago when it was just dry, when it started raining, everyone,
anybody, the hundreds of people that I see in a week, nobody
complained. Oh, the rain was so great. My
plants needed it. The crops needed it. My car needed
to be cleaned. All these different things. And
then the snow. Since we've been out in the country,
you can't hear something like, hey, it's really quiet. And then
you turn and then it's just snow. It's so beautiful. It's so refreshing. It's a break, isn't it? It's
a break from this world. But then you think, but I'm here.
He's let me, allowed me to see this. Just like His grace. I could have been somewhere else,
but he let me see this situation, at this time, at this moment.
Why? To seek Him. It's all about Him. And because it is, and if you're
in Him, you'll not be cut off. You'll
not be cut off. Nobody likes to be cut off on
the freeway, in the middle of a conversation, right? We don't
like to be, you know, and we won't. We won't. Based on this
book, which is His Word, which shall not return void. I say we have a lot to be thankful
for. May He give us grace to see Him
daily and worship Him every hour. Bruce, would you close this place?