I invite you to turn back with
me, if you would, to the book of Isaiah, chapter 1. Isaiah,
chapter 1. I want to read verse 19 and 20,
if you would care to follow with me. Verse 19 and 20 of Isaiah,
chapter 1. If you be willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land But if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be devoured with the sword. For the mouth of the Lord
hath spoken it. I want to speak this morning
on the last part of verse 20. For the mouth of the Lord hath
spoken it. On the infallibility of the scriptures. The infallibility of the word
of God. This was the word of God unto
the ancient people, the Israelites, through the mouth of Isaiah the
prophet. I want to talk to you this morning
about the word of God, and I hope that the Lord will be pleased
to give you hearing ears and receptive hearts and minds for
the things that we have to discuss with you this morning, the things
that we'd like to say to you. Now, the title of the most precious
book in the world is Holy Bible. The title to the most precious
book in all the world is Holy Bible. No other book can truthfully
lay claim to being sacred, pure, perfect, and holy but this one
book, the Word of the Living God. Now every word on every
page in the Bible is there, I believe, by divine appointment. Every word, every word given
by inspiration of God, there by divine appointment. There because God would have
it to be there. Holy men of God, we read in 2
Peter 1.21, spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Now you and I have in our possession
this morning the written word of the living God. The written word of the living
God. Now this is not just a book.
This is the book. Now this is not just a book about
God, it is the book of God. if you please. Now let me tell
you of some of the wonders of this book. I want to just go
through about four things here very quickly. I'm not going to
preach on them. I just want to give them to you. The Bible is, first of all, a
universal book. It's a universal book. It speaks
to men of all ages, all cultures, all ranks of society, all classes,
and all sorts of people. It has crossed national boundaries,
having already been translated into nearly 1,100 languages and
dialect. The Bible is a universal book. Second, the Bible is an ageless
book. Though its message began some
6,000 years ago, it is still as fresh and as rich and instructive
as it ever was. Of nearly every other book, it
can be said that as time passes, it pertains less and less to
each new generation. But God's Word is as pertinent
today as it ever was. The Bible is indeed an ageless
book as well as a universal book. And also the Bible is a miraculous
book. I say this because without human
plan or forethought 40 different men who lived in different parts
of the world over a period of 1500 years, spanning 60 generations
of time, wrote 66 separate books in three languages, Hebrew and
Aramaic and Greek, and most of the writers of scripture never
knew each other, and they all wrote under different circumstances,
and yet all 66 form one perfect and complete book. This is indeed
miraculous to me. It's miraculous. It is a universal
book. It's an ageless book, and it
also is a miraculous book. Now, the Bible, number four,
has one prominent theme. Many people have missed this,
but the Bible has one prominent theme, and that theme is Jesus
Christ, His person and His work of redemption on the behalf of
His covenant people. This is the main theme of the
Bible. You hear us talking about the
oneness of the message of the Bible. And that's what we mean,
that the Bible has one theme, and that theme is Jesus Christ
our Lord. We learn from the scripture that
Christ is both God and man. He's the creator of all things,
for without Him was not anything made that was made. And when
he came into this world, he joined himself to human nature to live
and to die as the substitute of sinners. He lived to die and
lived to die, say, came into this world appointed unto death. in order that those that God
had chosen and give to Him in the covenant of grace that they
might be saved. He would be their substitute,
the one who would die and bear the wrath of God in His body
on the tree for them. Now this same Lord Jesus Christ,
He died and He rose from the dead, ascended and he's now in
heaven and he's the object there of worship and of glory. Now the Bible tells us that this
sovereign Christ is Lord of all and that sinners in order that
they have a right relationship with God that they must be brought
to bow down to the Lord Jesus Christ and must be brought to
believe on him and to trust in him if they're going to be the
saved of the Lord. Now I want you to look at the
text here on what Isaiah said here was really spoken by the
Lord because he says in the last part here of verse 20, For the
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. The mouth of the Lord. And
in verse 2 it says, Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the
Lord hath spoken it. The Lord hath spoken. Now then,
it was audibly, I suppose we might say, the utterance of a
man, because it was the utterance of a prophet. It was the utterance
of Isaiah, the seer, the man who could see the will of God
and the ways of God and could speak of them. And so it was
audibly his utterance, but really it was the word of God, because
God was speaking through him. For the mouth of the Lord, Isaiah
says, have spoken it. Now all scripture being inspired
of the Spirit is spoken by the mouth of God and it ought to
be held in high esteem by us. And I believe that everyone who
claims to know Christ everyone who claims to be in Christ, that
they do highly esteem the Word of God, believing in its inspiration,
and believing in the message of the Bible. However, this sacred
book may be treated nowadays, and we know that in modern religion,
and we know with the skeptics of our day, that the Word of
God is treated ill, and the Word of God is not trusted and believed
in, and the authority of it is shunned. But we know that it
was not treated this way by the Lord Jesus Christ, our Master
and Lord. Now the Lord Jesus, and I think
this is very noteworthy, He reverenced the written word, and the Spirit
of God rested upon Him personally, without measure, and He could
speak out of His own heart, out of His own mind, the revelation
of God, and yet He continually The Lord Jesus Christ continually
referred to the Scriptures and quoted out of the Scriptures,
out of the Prophets, and out of the Law, and out of the Psalms.
I like this. In Luke chapter 4, if you could
turn there in your Bible, let me read to you a few verses which
shows how the Lord Jesus treated the Scriptures. And in verse
16 of Luke 4, it says, And he came to Nazareth, where he had
been brought up, as his custom was. And he went into the synagogue
on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was
delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when
he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed
me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal
the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them
that are bruised, and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord."
And he closed the book. And he gave it again to the minister,
and sat down. And the eyes of all them that
were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto
them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all
bear him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded
out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's
son? The Lord Jesus Christ took the
people back to the word of God. Beloved, I want you to understand
that Jesus Christ held in high esteem this book. this truth which had been revealed
by the Holy Father through the mouth of the prophets and writers
of Scripture. He always treated the Scripture
with intense reverence, and that, I say, is strongly in contrast
with the irreverence of modern skeptics. I'm sure, brethren,
we cannot go wrong in imitating the example of the Lord Jesus
in our reverence for the Word of God, which cannot be broken.
Another thing I'd like to say is that the apostles also treated
the scriptures as supreme authority. We never find an apostle raising
a question about the degree of inspiration in any book in the
Bible or any writing that was sanctioned by God. No disciple
of Christ ever questioned the authority of the books of Moses
or of the prophets. Now the New Testament writers,
they sit reverently down, if you please, before the Old Testament,
and they receive God's Word as such without any question whatever. And you and I, if we love the
Lord, you and I, if we're in Christ, you and I, if we have
the hope of the gospel in our hearts, belong to the same school. We reverence the Bible, and we
reverence the inspired scriptures. Now as for us and for our house,
this priceless book shall remain the standard of our faith and
the ground of our hope as long as we live in this world. This book is our book. It's our
home book, our closet book. It's our church book. This is
our book. Now, I want you to notice there's
some things here that appeal to me, and I believe they're
true, and some things that I want to say to you about this text
of Scripture. For the mouth of the Lord hath
spoken it. Number one, the mouth of the
Lord hath spoken it. This is our wart for teaching
scriptural, biblical truth. This is our wart. The mouth of
the Lord hath spoken it. Now, it would not be worthwhile
for me to speak what I or any other writer of scripture said
if it was nothing more than their thought. Beloved, if I were to
get up here and talk about something that some writer of scripture
had to say, if I knew that it was just his thought, then it
wouldn't be worth your time to listen. My opinion, if I were
to give you my opinion, it wouldn't be worth the snap of your finger.
And certainly your opinion is not worth a snap of my finger.
But when it comes to the Word of God and comes to the truth
of God, the important thing is that we are to expound and enforce
what has been spoken by God. We have no authority to expound
or enforce what is spoken by men. The mouth of the Lord has
spoken it, Isaiah says. But since the mouth of the Lord
has spoken it, then beloved we're to woe unto us if we preach it
not. Woe unto us if we preach not
the gospel if the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Now we come
to you with thus saith the Lord. We have no justifiable motive
for preaching away our lives My friend, if we have not his
message, the true preacher, the man whom God has commissioned,
he delivers his message. He delivers it, first of all,
because he believes that it's from God. He believes that God
gave it to him, and so therefore he delivers it with awe and trembling. because the mouth of the Lord
has spoken it, and he trembles because he has in this earthen
vessel a word from the living God, a message that he must preach
to dying men and women, a message from the throne of God unto men. Now, Martin Luther, who never
feared the face of a man, said that he stood up to preach, well,
when he stood up to preach, he said he often felt his knees
knocked together under a sense of the great responsibility that
was laid upon him. Woe unto us, beloved, if we dare
to speak the word of the Lord with less than a whole heart,
with less than all of our soul and all of our strength. because
the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it, and it would be better for
us to dig ditches, it would be better for us to do anything
else than to preach, unless the Spirit of God would bear us up
and sustain us with this solemn burden which God has placed upon
us, and that is to utter the message that the mouth of the
Lord hath spoken. The heart and soul of a man who
speaks for God will know no rest from the burden, because God
has placed upon him a weighty burden. And, beloved, that warning
and that admonition of the Scriptures is ever in his ears. If the watchman
warn not them, why, then they shall perish, but their blood
which will I require at the watchman's hand. Now, beloved, no work is
so important and honorable as the proclamation of the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And for this very reason, we
have an overwhelming sense of our need of the great grace of
God to preach the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Now, before
whom we give an account, we must give an account before God, not
only for what we say, but how we say it. Has the Lord give
us a word? Have we got a word from Him?
We shall give an account of what we preach. And our warrant for
preaching scriptural truth is because this Bible is God-breathed,
because God gave it to us, and this Word is the Word of the
living God, and that's our warrant for standing up and preaching
the old doctrines of the faith, because they're found upon the
pages of this book, and that's our warrant. Some may say, why
do you preach sovereign grace? Because the only grace spoken
of in the Bible is sovereign grace! Somebody said, why do
you preach election? It's a despised doctrine. We
preach it because it's plainly taught throughout the Bible.
It's not a doctrine that you can discard and throw into the
waste can because it's taught in the Bible. And the doctrine
of the atonement, the doctrine of God saving His people by irresistible
grace and by effectual call, plainly taught on the pages of
the Scripture. And the doctrine of the perseverance
of the saints. My friend, what a glorious, wonderful
doctrine it is. And God has not left us in the
dark. He showed us that He keeps us. He shows us that we are preserved
forever, that the feet of the saints are preserved, and that
they will forever, forever be His. And so these doctrines,
we have scriptural warrant to preach them. And that's why we
preach them. We must preach faithfully the
Word of God. It's not ours. to correct or
add to the revelation, but to proclaim it. Beloved, that's
what our ministry is. It's a ministry of proclamation
of what the mouth of the Lord has spoken. That's what it's
all about. It's not our business to bring
you new and original thoughts of our own, but rather to say,
the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father's which
sent me. This message that you hear From
week to week here is from God. It's God's Word. Now, believing
that the mouth of the Lord has spoken it, it is my duty to tell
you what I have felt and heard in my own soul. It's not mine
to amend or to adopt the gospel. That's not my business. Somebody
said, why don't you adjust your message to the day in which you
live? My friend, I'm persuaded that the only hope for this generation,
I'm persuaded that the only hope for this city, that the only
hope for men and women about me is that they hear that ageless
message, that message of Jesus Christ, His redeeming grace,
His power to deliver, His power to resurrect dead sinners and
to give them hope beyond the grave. That's the only hope that
men have. And this message, my friend,
is the message that we have to preach. Now then, he that hath
my word, the Lord says, let him speak my word faithfully. God
forgive us if we have ever altered his word just a little bit. I
know of preachers that handle loosely the Word of God. What
an indictment the Scripture has against them and what judgment
is awaiting those who would alter God's Word just a little bit. And those who would sort through
and pick through the Word of God and say this we can preach
and that we can't preach. People don't like this so we
won't preach it. People like this so we will preach
it. My friend, what a terrible judgment is awaiting those who
would alter that which has come forth out of the mouth of the
Lord. Now an ambassador, when he represents
a country and represents the power of a country, he has not
the right to go into the presence of others and offer his own opinions
and views. He must stick closely to that
which he is told to speak and to say. Now then, we're to speak
his word, beloved, faithfully, and not only faithfully, but
we're to speak the word of God courageously, and we're to speak
it with full assurance. Now, someone said modesty is
a virtue. Modesty is a virtue, but hesitancy
when we're speaking for the Lord is a great fault and it's a sin. When a man will say, well, I'd
just rather not say. Somebody says, what does the
Bible say? Well, I'd just rather not say because he feels that
he'll be ridiculed or feels that somebody will make fun of him
if he speaks up and speaks the truth of this book. But my friend,
we must speak the Word of God with courage and full assurance
and speak out because it's a great sin to stand back until death
and we've been delivered and God has put his treasure in us
and he's put us in trust with the gospel and his truth and
his word and it's our duty to preach it. We preach not the
gospel by human permission. I'm not standing here and preaching
because you people have given me leave to do so. I stand here
this morning because Jesus Christ has laid hold of me. God has
been pleased to call me. And the message of the Lord,
the Lord has spoken. And He has a word for your souls. We preach Christ crucified. And
we speak boldly as we ought to speak because it's God's own
word and not our own. I wouldn't get up here. You couldn't
get me up here to talk to you out of my own heart. I wouldn't
do it. But if I've got to thus say of the Lord, then I've got
a scriptural warrant to get up here and to tell you what God
says. We cannot use ifs and buts, for
we're dealing with God's shalls and wills. And we've got a responsibility
to be faithful. If He says it's so, it's so. And that's the end of it. Now,
controversy ends when God speaks, and so when we get up, we got
a final word. We got a word, and it's from
the Lord. Now we're urged to be charitable,
and we are charitable with our own things, with our own money. We can be charitable, but we
cannot be, we have no right To give away. We have no right to
be charitable with that which is put into our trust. That which
is not at our disposal. A man has no right to be charitable
with God's truth. If God's showing him the truth,
if God's revealed it to him, he's got no right. To say out
of charity, I won't preach this or I won't preach that. We are
bold to declare with full assurance that which the Lord reveals,
knowing that the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Listen to
the word which the Lord here spoke to Jeremiah. It's in Jeremiah
1, 17 through 19. Listen carefully. Thou therefore
gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that
I command thee. Be not dismayed at their faces,
lest I confound thee before them. For behold, I have made thee
this day a defense setting. an iron pillar and brazen walls
against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the
princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against
the people of the land. And they shall fight against
thee, but they shall not prevail against thee, for I am with thee,
saith the Lord, to deliver thee. So, beloved, those who speak
the Word of God must speak the Word of God faithfully, courageously,
and with full assurance, because this is their warrant. God says,
I am with thee to deliver thee, and those that would rise against
thee shall not prevail against thee. I'm glad this morning to
know that the glorious gospel and the glorious truths of God's
grace will prevail and men and women will not be able to frustrate
God's purpose, His eternal redemptive purpose in His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now the second thing that I want
to talk to you about, I told you the first thing was that
this is our warrant for preaching scriptural things and scriptural
truth. And secondly, the mouth of the Lord is spoken, and this
is the claim of God's word upon your attention. This is the claim
of God's word upon your attention. Every word which God has given
us in this book claims our attention because of the infinite majesty
of Him that spoke it. Every truth. Every word, when
you read this book, think about who it is that's doing the speaking. The mouth of the Lord, the mouth
of Jehovah, the mouth of the living God has spoken it. Now what voice is like His voice? The voice of the Lord, the Bible
says, is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full
of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaketh
the cedars. Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars
of Lebanon. The voice of the Lord shaketh
the wilderness. The Lord shaketh the wilderness
of Kadesh. The book of Hebrews says, See
that ye refuse not him that speaketh from heaven. Let it never be
said of you that you live your life and that God was speaking
in his book to you and you refused to hear. Now it matters very
little whether or not you hear me or not. But beloved, it matters
a great deal whether you listen to God or not. It matters a great
deal. I want you to turn with me to
the book of Proverbs, if you will. The book of Proverbs, chapter
1. And I want you to listen as I
read here some astounding scriptures. Listen to this. Turn you at my
reproof, verse 23. Behold, I will pour out my spirit
unto you. I will make known my words unto
you, because I have called and ye refused. I have stretched
out my hand, and no man regarded. But ye have set it nought, all
my counsel, and would none of my reproof. I also will laugh
at your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh.
When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as
a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you, then
shall they call upon me, but I will not answer. They shall
seek me early, but they shall not find me. For that they hated
knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord, they would
none of my counsel. They despised all my reproof.
Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be
filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple
shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall
be quiet from the fear of evil. Now, beloved, God's claim on
you for hearing, it matters a great deal that you hear what God says
and that you refuse not His counsel. That you listen to what God says
because He made you and your breath. My friend is in his hand. Get the wax out of your ears
and don't be rebellious against the word which the mouth of the
Lord has given. Now there is an infinite majesty
about every line of scripture. but especially that part of Scripture
which sets forth His saving grace in the person of His dear Son,
Jesus Christ. I say there is especially infinite
majesty about the message of the gospel of God's grace. The
cross of Christ has a tremendous message in it, and it has a claim
upon you. Hear what he preaches from the
accursed tree. There is a message that comes
forth from Calvary's mount and from that gory tree there outside
the city of Jerusalem. Hear what he preaches. He says
from that cross God is holy. God's holy. You say, well, I
don't know whether, I don't understand what that means. Listen, Jesus
Christ was hanging on that tree because God's holy. God must
and will, He must and will punish sin. And that's the message of
the cross. God is holy and He must punish
sin. You see, Christ is hanging on
that tree because He's there representing those whom God chose
and those whom God would save. unto eternal life and take home
to heaven to be with Him. And somebody must represent them
and die the death of a sinner. And Jesus is there on that cross
dying our death. And so from that cross the message
comes God's holy and God's going to punish sin. And also from
that cross there's this message that God has given up on flesh. He's given up on flesh. He gave
up on people saving themselves. Men and women are not able to
save themselves not by works of righteousness, which we have
done but according to his mercy He saved us through the washing
of regeneration and the renewal that's brought about by the Holy
Ghost My friend you cannot save yourself You do not have the
ability. God will not listen. Hear that
message. Hear God's word. And that is
that God's give up on flesh just like mine and yours. And the
only way that men and women can be saved is by laying down all
their self-righteousness and their works and believing on
the Lord Jesus Christ. All the doing's been done. He
did all the doing that God respects. And until you believe on Him,
you will not be a child of God. He says, incline your ear and
come unto Me, and hear, and your soul shall live. Now when the Lord speaks, His
speech is God-like. And it is worthy of one who is
dwelling in infinity and eternity. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken
it. And because this has come forth
from his mouth, it is no trifle. God never speaks vanity. Never, never. God is not playing
with you. Will you trifle with God. Will you trifle with His Word? God is in earnest when He speaks
to you. Will you not be in earnest when
you hear Him? Will you not be in earnest? God
is not a vain thing, beloved, for you to hear because it is
your life, your eternal existence, your happiness or misery For
time and eternity hangs on that which the mouth of the Lord hath
spoken. Do not act as if the Lord and
his truth were nothing to you, because heaven and hell, I repeat,
depends upon the mouth, what the mouth of the Lord has spoken. You must hear from God in his
word. When I stand up here to preach
the gospel, I do not ever feel that I can go about my business
calmly and just inviting you to attend to a subject which
is one among many. No. No, my friend, I do not feel
that I may be in any way taking you away from something more
important, some more important business by asking you to attend
that which the mouth of the Lord has spoken. There is no business
on earth as important as hearing the Word of God. No business
on earth. Somebody said I've been awful
busy. You may have been awful busy. I understand that. And
some of us are often providentially hindered. But my friend, we'll
all agree, every one of us, we'll all agree that there is no business
on earth as important as hearing God's Word. It's your soul. It's your own soul. It's your
ever-existing soul which is at stake here. And I'm telling you
that The mouth of the Lord is spoken. It is the claim of God
upon your attention. God has spoken. I'm not asking
a favor of you when I request you to hear the Word of the Lord
because it's a debt that you're bound to pay to the Lord your
Maker and harden not your hearts as the ancient Israelites did
in the time of the provocation. Don't harden your heart against
the Lord but incline your ear and come to me here and your
soul shall live is the Word. Now faith cometh by hearing,
the Bible says, and by hearing of the Word of God. Now then,
you and I, most of us here would say amen, we agree to the inspiration
of the scriptures as a fact. Because the scriptures have God
for their author and truth, or salvation for their end and truth
without any mixture of error for its matter. And all of us
would agree, though heaven and earth should pass away, yet not
one jot or tittle of what God has spoken shall fail. We know
this, and we rest in this. God cannot be mistaken. God cannot
lie. If the mouth of God has spoken
it, this is the judge that ends all strife where wit and reason
fail. If God has spoken it, if God
said it, Then, beloved, we must pay attention to it. Listen to
what Isaiah 55, 10 and 11 says. For as the rain cometh down and
the snow from heaven, Mike referred to that this morning, and returneth
not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth
and bud, that he may give seed to the sower and bread to the
eater, So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth.
It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that
which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto
I sent it." Isn't that tremendous? That's a wonderful, a tremendous
statement of the Lord concerning His Word. Now, if the mouth of
the Lord has spoken it, then it means Listen to this, immutable
fixedness. It means unchanging fixedness. Once spoken by God, not only
is it so now, but it always will be so. The psalmist said, thy
word is forever settled in heaven. That means that God's word is
on, it's established and it's settled in heaven and it always
reads the same. There's no need, my friend, to
entertain the idea that the word of God is going to read a little
different when we get before the Lord. It's not going to read
any different. My friend, listen, if it be a word of cursing or
if it be a word of blessing, it does not matter because it
is fixed according to the fixedness of Him who spoke it. Now, It's
fixed, I say, according to the fixedness of Him who spoke it. And the most fixed thing in all
the universe is God. And that's not going to change.
I want to say, let me say, God has never yet spoken. And this
is very important for you to hear, those of you that are here
outside the Lord Jesus Christ, that God has never yet spoken
a threatening that has fallen to the ground. He never has spoken
a threatened word that has fallen to the ground. He told Pharaoh
what he would do, and he did it. He did it. He told the world
in the days of Noah, Noah built on that ark 120 years, God preaching
all the time through what he was doing, I'm going to judge
this world. I'm going to bring judgment on
this world. I got the will to do it, and
I got the power to do it. And he did it. He did it. Now remember Sodom and Gomorrah?
God woke old Abraham up early one morning, and he looked over
there, and oh, there was that awful, awful smoke coming up. God said he was going to do it,
and he did it. Depend on it, my friend. Remember
the destruction of Jerusalem? God said he was going to destroy
that city. He wept over it, the Lord Jesus
did. But he didn't. Because he said,
the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. And so he did it. Depend
on it then. When Jesus says, thee shall go
away into everlasting punishment. It shall be. So when he says,
if you believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. Believe it, my friend, because
it's the gospel truth. His word is not an exaggeration
to scare you, my friend. It's not. It's not just to scare
you. This is emphatic truth. There
is emphatic truth in what the Lord says. We're dealing with
a God who cannot lie. Cannot lie! Cannot lie! It's not that he won't. It's
not that he may not, it's that he cannot lie. And our concept
of a Bible and truth all depends upon our concept of the God that
we worship. We're worshiping a God that's
absolutely unable to err, unable to lie, unable to be deceived. Now he's always carried out his
threatenings to the letter. So depend on it, my friend, for
the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Now this makes the Word of
God, to me, the reason, and it makes it the rest of our faith,
of my faith. The mouth of the Lord has spoken
it. It's been a long time since I had anything got a hold of
me like this does. I mean, it affected me, it helped
me, it done something for me. The mouth of the Lord has spoken. It don't take much. It don't
take much, but there's a tremendous truth that the mouth of the Lord
has spoken. It's the foundation of our confidence. The mouth of the Lord has spoken
it. Now, you may be here this morning and you say, well, preacher,
you know, I got problems. I got trouble with, you know,
I've heard there's forgiveness. I've heard there's forgiveness
for sin. And I'm a sinner. I'm a lost
sinner. I've got a heavy burden upon my shoulders. Preacher,
I know that I'm a guilty sinner before God, but you know I cannot
believe, I just cannot believe it. I feel so unworthy. I just
cannot believe that God will forgive me. Well, my friend,
but the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. The Lord said if we
confess our sins that He's faithful and just to forgive us of our
sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. My friend, the
mouth of the Lord has spoken it. So believe, if you please,
over the head of your unworthiness in what the mouth of the Lord
has spoken. He said that I'll forgive your
sin. I'll blot out your sin. I'll
cast it behind my back as far as the east is from the west.
I'll forgive it. Believe what God has spoken in
his word. You say, well, I feel so weak,
preacher, and I cannot even think, and I cannot pray. I can't do
anything, preacher. Well, it is written, when we're
without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. So, beloved, believe over the
head of your inability. You say, I just don't have the
ability, preacher, to do anything. Believe over the head of your
inability that in due time Christ died for the ungodly and when
they had no strength and when they were not able to do anything,
when they were fainthearted and weak and were unable to lift
themselves up, Jesus Christ has answered to God in their room
and stand in place. The Lord said, I'll never leave
thee nor forsake thee. But you say, Preacher, Preacher,
I've got a lot of trouble in my life. And do you know, Preacher,
that all the circumstances in my life contradict that statement
of Holy Scripture? It contradicts it. It contradicts
it. My circumstances, Preacher, tell
me that God's abandoned me and that He's left me. well my friend
listen we must believe God against the devils against all the devils
in hell and we must believe God even against our own evil hearts
our evil hearts of unbelief God said I'll never leave thee poor
afflicted child of God I'll never leave thee I'll never leave you
nor forsake you brothers and sisters I want to say that we
have not followed cunningly devised fables. We're not on an inner
tube that's about to burst under us. We're resting on firm ground. We're resting on what the mouth
of the Lord has spoken. We're resting where heaven and
earth are resting. We're resting, if you please,
where even eternal things have their foundation. We rest on
God. And if God fails us, I'll tell
you what one old writer said, if God fails us, we will gloriously
fail with the whole universe. Is that alright? Well, beloved,
listen, that's enough. That's enough. We'll rest right
here. This is the ground for our rest
and for our confidence and for our faith is the mouth of the
Lord has spoken it. I hope this morning after listening
to this and I'm not the easiest fellow to listen to and there's
a some people said one time after listening to me preach said they
went away and they said I hope that nobody that was listening
to him thinks that that's the way to preach. But listen to
me. Listen to me, I hope that when
you go out of here this morning, that you've got just a little
more esteem for the Word of God, for what the mouth of the Lord
has spoken. And when you read this book,
when you meditate upon it, when you hear it preached and expounded,
proclaimed, you'll say, well, it's what the mouth of the Lord
has spoken. So I'll believe it, and I'll
camp right there. and I'll trust to it and believe
it. Is that all right? Amen. Amen. That's good to hear those
amens. Amen. Well, let's have a word
of prayer and then we'll sing a hymn closing. Father, thank
you. Thank you for your word and thank
you for the privilege of being here today and being able to
preach your precious truth. Bless, we pray, this message
that our souls might more highly esteem you and your precious
word of truth, and may it be bound to our hearts in a new
way. Grant us thy help. We are so
needy. We are, in many ways, our Father,
so weak. We need desperately to have your
help. Do Thou help us, lead us, guide
us, say things to us, and comfort us, and lead us, and deliver
us, for Christ's sake. Amen.