Good morning everybody. If you
would turn over to Micah chapter 2. Micah's a little book, it's one
of the minor prophets, but if you're trying to find it, if
you find Malachi, that last book of the Old Testament, just go
back six books. That's where you find it. Micah chapter 2, and I want to
begin by looking at verse 12. So when you get there, look at
verse 12. The prophet speaks and he says,
I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee. I will surely gather
the remnant of Israel. I will put them together as the
sheep of Basra, as the flock in the midst of their fold. they
shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men." Now,
this is a promise that the Lord had made to the children of Israel.
And here's what had happened. At the time of this writing,
they were not yet in captivity, but just a few years after this,
they would be. They would be completely and utterly conquered
by the Babylonians, all carried away. And the reason for that
was their idolatry. They had committed the same sin
that their fathers had committed, and then before them, and then
before them, they'd become idol worshipers. And the Lord said,
I've finally had enough. You're being carried away. You're being
conquered. And what I think is interesting is, is that this
promise is made long before the captivity ever took place. Long
before they were ever conquered, the Lord had promised them this,
you're going to be assembled. I'm going to bring you all back. And that's exactly what happened.
The Babylonians come along, they take them, but the Lord moves
the heart of those Babylonish kings to be benevolent to the
Jews. And then Cyrus says, go back,
go back and build the temple. And a little while later, the
order of Xerxes, he said, you go back and build Jerusalem. And just
like the Lord promised, he always keeps his promises. They are
assembled. They are brought back together
once again. Now that's an interesting biblical
history lesson, but that is not the point. point of it is this,
if you are a believer this promise is made to you. If you are spiritual
Israel. If you are one of God's elect
He makes this promise to His people. And He made this promise
long before the sinful captivity ever came along. This is the
eternal promise of God to His people. I'm going to gather you
together. I'm going to bring you back. I'm going to assemble
each and every one of you. before we go any further, so
that it is a comfort to every believer in this room, because
that is what the Gospel should always be, it should always be
comforting. If it is not comforting to a sinner it is not the Gospel.
Who are these people? Is this promise made to me? Let me give you one verse, one
verse. Philippians 3.3 says this, it says, We are the circumcision. We are the true Jews. children
of Israel they were a type of God's elect. But Paul says, we
are the circumcision. We are the true Jews, God's elect,
God's people. Who are they? What are they like?
For we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and
rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. There are a bunch of folks that
have been given a new man, a new spirit, the very Spirit of God
dwelling in them. And this is what it does, it
worships God. for who He is, and more than anything else,
that thing of worship has to do with reverence, has to do
with fear, more than anything else, it has to do with this,
trust and faith. That new man in Christ Jesus
trusts the Lord Jesus Christ lock, stock, and barrel for everything
in our salvation, everything. You cannot take that statement
too far. He is my sin payment, He is my righteousness, He is
my sanctification, His faithfulness is my faithfulness. His belief
in His Father is my belief in the Father. He is our salvation. That new man in Christ Jesus
believes that, believes on Him. We worship God in the Spirit
and we rejoice in Christ Jesus. If Christ Jesus is salvation,
if salvation is completely and utterly found in Him and not
in man in any way, shape, or form, you know what that means?
It means He gets absolute and all glory in this thing of salvation. Do you rejoice in that? And we have absolutely no confidence
in this flesh. Nothing. I can do nothing. I can bring nothing to the table.
All my righteousnesses are as filthy rags. He has to do every
bit of it. Folks, if that's you, you're
the circumcision. This promise of assembly I'm
coming back for you. I'm bringing all my people together.
It's to you. You have this promise. And before
the captivity ever took place, you had this promise in Christ
Jesus. Now the promise is what? It's
the promise of assembly, of a gathering together. Now look through the
Scriptures, especially the New Testament to see where it talked
about this thing of the gathering of the saints, the gathering
together of the Lord's people. Here's what I found, let me read
this to you. This speaks of Christ's return on that last day, that
triumphant day. It says this, Mark 13, 27. It
says, And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather
together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part
of the earth to the uttermost part of Heaven. That trumpet
is going to sound. That silver cord is going to
break. Jesus Christ is going to come, not this time in His
humiliation, but in His absolute and utter glory. And every knee
is going to bow, and every tongue is going to confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the praise of God the Father. And He is
going to come along with the saints that are still here. He
is going to get them. He is going to assemble them.
The saints that have passed He's going to assemble them. He's
going to bring us all before His Father and say, the family
is all here. Every one of them. everyone you
sent me for, everyone of your elect that you gave to me, I've
brought them all here. And they all are what they were
not before, holy, blameless, and unapprovable in your sight.
The family is here. Let eternity begin. Let the rejoicing
begin. We're all assembled. We're all
here. Here's what I would stress to you on that. That's not just,
well, let's look at what the Scripture says. That's a real
day. That could be today. That is a day of no pain. That
is a day of no suffering. That is a day of no sin. That
we are all conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. That's a real
day, and it is coming. That's promised. And I thought
about this, this concept of assembly. I think a lot about Jacob in
Genesis 42. I think most of you know that
story. He thought he lost Joseph. He doesn't know that Joseph is
now the most powerful man in Egypt. His sons come back from
trying to get corn. And Joseph has taken Simeon under
kind of a guise and says, if you don't bring Benjamin back,
then you're not getting any more corn from me. So they go back
and they tell Jacob all these things. Said, well, Joseph is
gone. I think he's dead. Simeon might
as well be gone. He's under the hand of this man
I don't know. And now you want to take Benjamin. And this is
what Jacob said. He said, all these things are
against me. That's how he felt. That's what
he perceived at the time. And a little while later he goes
down to a land called Egypt. And he sees that Joseph has been
alive the entire time. And the Lord has used him powerfully
to feed everybody in Egypt. And Simeon is absolutely fine.
And Benjamin does not have a scratch on him. And he said, all these
things are against me. It wasn't until the family was
assembled together. And he saw that all these things
that he thought were working against him all this time, none
of them were. They were all working for him,
and he had absolutely no idea. On that day, folks, it all makes
sense. And we don't see that in this life most of the time.
We get trial and tribulation. We kindle fires at our own feet.
What was the point? And we know that all things work
together for them to love God, to them who are on the cold according
to His purpose. We know that. We don't see it on the backside
though how it actually is all working out. Not most of the
time. On that day we will. It will all make sense. Everything
was always working for us and never against us. Now here's
the second time I found where it talks about the gathering
of the saints. In the days of the Lord Jesus Christ the high
priest was a man named Caiaphas. He was not a believer, he was
a God-hater. because he was high priest he could prophesy. And
this is what he said concerning Christ. This is John 11, 51,
And this spake he not of himself, but being high priest that year,
he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation, and not
for that nation only, but that he also, he should gather together
in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. Now, Caiaphas
had no idea what he was saying, absolutely no idea, but he was
right. Upon the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, all the saints,
everybody he came to save, we were all gathered together in
one. And when I read that, I had this
question. In what respect? In what respect is that true?
When you go to the grocery store, you lay your items up on the
belt, right? They scan all your items. They say this is the amount
you have to pay. You put the card in. You pay
with cash. You do whatever you do. They say the sale is complete. The transaction has been made.
How sheepish are you about taking your groceries at that point?
You say, well, thank you. I guess I'll take them now. Can
I bag these up? No. I paid the cost. I paid the money. The transaction is complete.
These are my things. They're going in my bags, and
they're coming with me, and no one now has any rights to them.
mine. That's my milk. Those are my
eggs. I paid for them, therefore they are mine. And nobody can
take them out of my hand." In respect of purchase we were all
assembled. A great purchase took place on
that cross. The sin debt was paid by Christ
for His people in absolute full. And now no one has any claim.
Satan you have no claim. He brings his claims against
the elect. God laughs at him. My son has shed his precious
blood. Law, you have no claim. You are satisfied. Hell, you
have no claim. Death, you have no claim. In
respect of purchase, on that day, on that cross, when he said,
it is finished, we're all assembled, all brought together, never to
be plucked out of his hand because he paid the cost. He takes us
with him, not sheepishly, because he paid the debt. Now, finally,
this. Look back at your text and look
at verse 12 again, two words I want you to pay attention to. Verse 12 again it says, I will
surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee. I will surely gather
the remnant of Israel, I will put them together, make note
of that word, as the sheep of Basra. You know what that word
together literally means? Check it for yourself if you
like. The literal meaning is union. I will put them in union."
You know what Basra means? It means a place of absolute
safety and security. Now we were all assembled at
the cross. We will all be assembled on the
last day. But this is the eternal assembly
of the saints in perfect union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now
remember I said before the promise was made to the children of Israel
long before the captivity came? Long before we ever fell on Adam,
long before any one of us ever committed one sin, we had this
promise of reconciliation and assembly in Christ Jesus. Why to us? Why do we have that
promise? Why must this be for us? Because
of where we have always been in the Lord Jesus Christ, in
perfect union with Him. We have always been, think of
this, think of these words, why they are grouped together. In
union, in that place of absolute safety and security. Believer,
how much did you do to put yourself in union with Christ? Nothing. It's simply a place
you've always been. You know what that means? That
means there's absolutely nothing you can do to break that union.
You have always been and always will be in that safe, perfect
union with the Lord Jesus Christ. And truly, union with Christ
is the gospel. It's everything to us. I was looking at this
the other day. I watched a woman purchase something. She was pregnant. And she went up, and she actually
paid for her things, and she went on. And I asked this question,
can it be said truly, be telling the truth when I say that, that
that baby inside her paid for those items right there? Yes,
she's in her mother. Everything that mother does,
that child did. The same thing can be said for
every member of the elect. Is it true that I have kept the
law? In and of myself? Never. In Christ? Absolutely, because that union
is so real that when he kept the law, we really did keep the
law. There is no covering things up. This isn't a ledger where
we're blotting things out and writing something new. No. Every
member of the elect, we've done righteousness in Christ. Have
we already been punished? Everybody's got to die. The soul
that sinneth must die. Have I already been punished?
I was in Christ, Him bearing my sins, bearing me in His body
on that cross. I've been punished. God is just.
He can't punish sin twice. We have always been in this perfect
place of safety and security in union with the Lord Jesus
Christ. What an assembly. Now, what I
love about this more than anything else is what I would call, I
guess, the furniture of this verse. Look at the first two
words of verse 12. It starts with, I will. The promise and the fulfillment
of the promise, will this be a cooperative effort between
the person who makes the promise and those the promise is made
to? Absolutely not in any way. The one who made the promise,
God himself, will be the same one who will fulfill the promise.
I will. I will do this. I will do everything
that is necessary to ensure that my promise that I have made to
you is going to come to pass. And because he's sovereign, because
he is omnipotent, because he is God himself, it cannot not
come to pass. That's the next thing. Read verse
12 again. He says, I will surely assemble,
O Jacob, all thee. Notice, he says, surely. I will surely assemble. This is a promise you can trust.
Todd preached this out of Titus the other night. God who cannot
lie. He cannot make a promise and
not follow through with it. He cannot lie. It's something
God cannot do. And you think about this if you're
a believer. This is a promise the Lord has made to you and
He cannot lie. He cannot go back on this. You must be assembled
because the Lord said it. And we think of His attributes
all the time. I love His absolute sovereignty. How could you live
a day in this world without absolute fear if you didn't know the Lord
was in absolute control at all times? I love His omnipotence,
that He has a monopoly on power. All power belongs to Him. All
of His wonderful attributes. I love His long-suffering mercy
and grace because I need it. But here's one we skip a lot.
We don't think about a whole lot. He's immutable. He cannot
change. He has to keep this promise.
You want to know why? Because here's what at stake,
his Godhead. If he made a promise and he didn't fulfill that promise,
he would cease to be God. And since God can't cease to
be God, that means he can't lie and he can't go back on his promise.
This is a promise you can hang your hat on, sinner. I will surely
assemble you. And finally this, and I wanted
to name this point. And I guess this is the best
way I can say it. This is a magnification graciousness of His grace." That's
about the best way I can say it. Look who the promise is made
to, verse 12 again, "'I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all
of thee.'" Is the promise made to all men? No. He names exactly who the promise
is made to. It's made to Jacob, the house
of Jacob. Now, We're going to look at the
preceding verses starting with verse 1 all the way through.
There are two audiences here. In the first six verses the Lord
is going to speak to all men by nature, but particularly to
lost men, eternally lost men. In the verses after that, 7 throughout
on, He's going to address the house of Jacob, the elect, His
people, and we'll see what He has to say to them. But keep
in mind this is made to Jacob. Now look at what it says in verse
1. Woe to them that devise iniquity
and work evil upon their beds. When the morning is light, they
practice it because it is in the power of their hand. What
is man? He's evil. What does he do? He practices evil. Why does he
do that? Because that's what's in the
power of his hand. It's the only ability he has is to do evil.
That's it. But notice this also. This is
total depravity in one verse. It says, he devises evil. You
know what that means? He does what he wants to do. Our sin, it's not an issue of
ignorance. It's not that men don't know right from wrong.
The law is written on every man's heart. Every man has a conscience.
No, that's not the issue. The issue is evil. That's what
we want to do. and we do what we want to do. Don't dare blame the sovereignty
of God for my sin. I do what I want to do. This is what man
does. He devises evil. But it gets worse. Look at verse
2. And they covet fields, and take them by violence, and houses,
and take them away. So they oppress a man and his
house, even a man and his heritage. Gets worse. We're covetous. Of
the things of this world? Absolutely. Is that the major
issue? No, that's not the major issue. We covet the glory of
God. Remember what I said before how the children of Israel got
themselves in this captivity? What they'd done? Idolatry. Why does a man make an idol?
If I can make my God and I can assign him his attributes and
tell him to do what I want him to do in that relationship, who
really is the God? Man is. Whose will matters? Man's
will matters. Man worships an idol because
he makes himself the God. Why does he do that? Because
he wants the glory that is reserved for God. That's it. I hate you. I hate the fact that you're going
to get all the glory, therefore I make an idol that I can control
so I get all the glory. Go on. It gets even worse. Verse
3, therefore thus saith the Lord, behold, against this family do
I devise an evil. which ye shall not remove your
necks, neither shall you go haughtily, for this time is evil." The Lord
says, because you devised an evil against Me, I devise an
evil against you. And here's what you can't do,
you can't deliver your necks from it, you can't save yourself. Verse 4, In that day shall one
take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation,
and say, We be utterly spoiled. He hath changed the portion of
my people. How hath He removed it from me? Turning away, He
hath divided our fields." Everybody finds this out eventually. Everybody,
every man, that you've been utterly spoiled, that you have nothing,
that you have no good works, that you have no spiritual ability,
that there's nothing you can do to make your peace with God.
Everybody finds this out eventually, that I am utterly spoiled. For
the lost man, he finds it out too late. He finds it out later
on when he's already in hell. I had nothing. I thought I had
all this. I thought I had good works. I thought I had good intentions.
I thought I had something that could please God. Turns out I
had absolutely nothing. What a blessing it is if right
now you know you have nothing. You have been utterly spoiled
that you have nothing you can bring before God. That's man
the Lord saved. We don't find out too late. We find out in
this light when we see who the Lord Jesus Christ is standing
in His holiness and His righteousness. I'm spoiled. I've got absolutely
nothing. He's the only one who can satisfy
God. Look at verse 5. Therefore thou shalt have none
that shall cast accord by lot in the congregation of the Lord. This is going back to the times
of Joshua when they were dividing the promised land. Joshua had
the ability to give out the inheritance to the children of Israel, and
he would stand with a high priest, and each one of the tribes would
send their representative, their family leader, and their representative
would go for them and get their inheritance. And he'd bring it
back. He says, all right, this is our piece of the land. Smiths,
you got that 60 acres. Johnsons, you're over here. Their
representative would go and get their inheritance for them. And
what he says here is, you don't have a representative. You don't
have anybody to go and get your inheritance for you. And then
verse six, prophesy ye not. This is what these people say.
Say they to them that prophesy, they shall not prophesy to them
that they shall not take shame. Does the natural man have any
reception of the gospel whatsoever? Does the lost man want to hear
that he's dead in trespasses and sins? that he send away all
rights with God, that he stands in the hands of one who can do
with him as he sees fit. And he is shut up to sovereign
mercy and sovereign grace. And if he is saved, it'll be
all to the tune of the glory of one man, Jesus Christ." Does
he want to hear that? No. Prophesy ye not. Don't tell me that, that speaks
to my shame. The Lord says, fine. If you don't want to hear it,
hear it you will not. That's every man by nature, particularly
the lost man, the eternally lost man. But now he speaks to Jacob.
Look here, look at verse 7, "'O thou that art named the house
of Jacob, is the spirit of the Lord straightened? Are these
his doings? Do not my words do good to him
that walketh uprightly?' What's he asking there? "'O house of
Jacob, Even though the natural man, all men by nature are like
this, evil, coveting my glory, hating me, despising my gospel,
despising my son, even though men are like this, is this outside
my control? Does this thwart my purpose in
any way? Can I not take a man who is evil? who is coveting my glory, who
hates me, who is against me in every way, shape, and form, and
make him what he was not, clean and holy. Can I not send my word
to him and cause him to actually believe and love what he is hearing
and trust that one with whom that word speaks, the Lord Jesus
Christ? Can I not do that? Do I not have that power? And
Jacob answers, absolutely you do. And he says, you're right.
You're absolutely right, because that's exactly what I had to
do for you, because you were no different. Look at verse seven. I'm sorry, verse eight. Even
of late, what that means is as early as yesterday. Direct translation. Even of late, my people was risen
up as an enemy. You pull off the robe with the
garment from them that pass by securely as men of verse. Jacob,
you were just like everybody else. You had made me your enemy.
You had made yourself the enemy of God. Don't think you're special
in any way in and of yourself, Jacob. And it gets worse. Look
at verse 10. No, I'm sorry, verse 9. The women
of my people have you cast out from their pleasant houses. From
their children have you taken away my glory forever. Now, think
of how despicable this is. He's saying this to the house
of Jacob. He says, you did this. Widows, women who have no one
to provide for them, who have almost absolutely nothing. You
wanted what they had, and because you could dominate them, you
went in there and you displaced them and you took it. And orphans,
people who had no father and no mother, no one to look after
them, people who had almost nothing. You wanted what they had, so
you went and you displaced orphans. You did this, Jacob. You're just
as wicked. You're just as sinful. You did
this. And I think this is interesting.
What it says in verse 8, it says, even of late, my people. He said,
you did this just yesterday, Jacob. Don't think you were this
way, and then I saved you, and all of a sudden, oh, you're better
now. You don't sin no more. You're not like that. Oh, no,
you still have that old man, Jacob. You still have that old
nature. It doesn't get any better. You
did this as early as yesterday. You have a new man in you. Mike
brought it out this morning, a new creation. a new creature,
something that was not there before. You have a holy man dwelling
in you, but you still have that old nature, Jacob. It's just
as bad, and it doesn't get any better. Paul said this, O wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? No different, Jacob. And finally
this, verse 10, he says, Arise ye and depart, for this is not
your rest. Because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with
a sore destruction. What is not our rest? Any hope
in ourselves whatsoever." He said, Jacob, don't look to anything
in yourself. Don't look to yourself in any
way. Don't think you're special in any way. No, Jacob, look to one
place. Look to Christ. And finally this.
Verse 11, "'If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do
lie, saying, "'I will prophesy unto thee of wine and strong
drink, "'he shall even be the prophet of this people.'" You
know what he's saying there? He said, don't think for a second
you get any credit for receiving the Gospel or believing on the
Lord Jesus Christ, not at all. Because if I would have left
you to yourself, and I'll let you pick your own prophet, and
let you hear what you wanted to hear, you've gone to some
guy that prophesied of wine, women, and song, Good days, popularity,
happiness. He never would have told you
the truth. If I left you to yourself, that's the message you would
have picked. But because I came to you where
you were at, because I loved you, because I chose you, I sent
this word to you, I made it effectual to you, and now you love who
you used to hate. And you believe on that one that
you used to not believe on. Now, what's the point here? Why
would he present these two things and contrast them like that?
Well, it's very simple. It's what Paul says in Ephesians
2, 3. It says, "...among whom also we all had our conversation
in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others." Anybody know what the next two words
are? But God. You're no different, Jacob. You're
no different in any way. But he actually does point out
two differences in this contrasting of these two men right here.
Two. You know what they were? He said these two things to the
lost man he did not say to the house of Jacob. To the lost man
he said this, you don't have a representative. You don't have
anybody to go and get your inheritance for you. And he said this to
them. He said, because you devised an evil against me, I devise
an evil against you. He didn't say either one of those
things to the house of Jacob. You wanna know why? Because we
have a representative. We have one who went and got
our inheritance for us. And while it's true, we did devise
an evil against our God. He devises no evil against us. Why? Because he already poured
out all that evil upon our representative, Christ himself. You wanna meet
him? Verse 13. The breaker, that is not a mechanical
tool, that's a person. The breaker has come up before
them. They have broken up and have passed through the gate
and are gone out by it. And their king shall pass before
them and the Lord on the head of them." We have the breaker
that is our representative. The breaker has come up before
them. Remember, I've said it a couple of times during this
message, I'm going to say it again. When was the promise made to the children
of Israel? Long before the captivity ever
took place. He came up before us as our lamb
slain from the foundation of the world, as our substitute,
as our representative. I love this name. I absolutely
love this. The Breaker. And here's what I think of when
I think of this. You imagine a prison, right?
The most solid prison that's ever been built. No doors, right?
Concrete walls five feet thick, a mile high, smooth as glass.
Bunch of prisoners inside there, right? Everybody's dying of starvation. Everybody's diseased. Fighting
is within. Fear is without. Everybody's
trying to get out. They're throwing stuff at the
walls. They're trying to climb up the walls. Everybody's just sliding
back down. Absolutely no hope whatsoever. And then the breaker
steps up. This hero. stands up and says,
everybody on me now. And the breaker busts through
that concrete wall. And he goes straight through.
And when he goes through, everybody with him, they all went through
the wall as well. That's the picture and that's the type here.
What's the wall? Ephesians chapter 2, go over there. Ephesians 2, look at verse 14.
This is the New Testament commentary on the verse we just looked at.
Ephesians 2, 14 says, for he is our peace. He didn't just
make peace, he is our peace, the breaker. Who hath made both
one and hath broken down the middle wall or partition between
us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity even the law of commandments
contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one
new man, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both
unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby,
and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and
them that were nigh, for through him we both have access by one
spirit unto the Father. What was the wall? The enmity. the holy and just wrath of God
upon us for our sins, for the breaking of God's holy law. That's exactly what it was. He
abolished that in His flesh because He bore the sin in His flesh.
because he bore the wrath of God in his flesh. And through
that death, when Satan thought he was beat, thought he had finally
won, he's dead, he's gone. That was the great victory. That
was the breaker breaking through that wall and everybody in him
coming out the other side onto safety. All the captives being
free. He abolished it in his flesh.
And I thought the wording of this was so interesting. This
is an interesting point. Read it again in verse 15. It
says, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law
of commandments contained in ordinances." Y'all see a temple around here
anywhere? You see a priest? You see a Holy of Holies or an
Ark of the Covenant or an altar for sacrifice or a brazen labor
for washing? You see any of those things?
You see us offering a morning sacrifice and an evening sacrifice?
The blood of bulls and goats being spilt daily, do you see
any of that? No. You want to know why? Because
they were all just types and pictures of shadows of the breaker,
this Christ that would come. And that Old Testament economy
of worship is gone. It's out of the way. We do not
do those things anymore. Why? Because He really did come. And he really did bear the sins
of his people in his body on the tree, and he did really put
those sins away. And now those bulls and goats
and that blood that never could put away sins in the first place,
it's all going away. All the types and shadows are
gone because he actually came. What I'm trying to stress to
you is the reality of what actually has previously happened. Your
sin's gone. You have a righteousness in Christ
that stands the test of time. Right now there is one that is
broken into heaven as your high priest and makes intercession
for you right now, believer, and you can't mess that up. And
you can go on with this concept for days. He is the breaker. He is the one that broke into
this world, God being made flesh. He broke the curse of Adam. Adam
plunged us all into sin and death, and he broke the curse. He broke
the chains of sin and death. He broke into heaven as our great
high priest. If you're a believer, he broke
your heart. That's why there's a portion
of you that hates yourself. That's why you take sides with God against
yourself, because he broke your heart. But I'll give you two
things, two things that he will never break, never break. Number
one, his word. He makes a promise, he keeps
it every single time, and you have this promise, believer,
of assembly. Two, this is the second thing he won't break.
I'll read this to you. Matthew 1220, a bruised reed
shall he not break, and a smoking flax shall he not quench till
he send forth judgment unto victory. Have you ever seen a reed, like
next to a river or something like that? It doesn't have many
uses in and of itself. Even a reed that's full, that's
actually whole. A bruised reed, one that's broken,
what value does it have whatsoever? Nothing. There's nothing you
can do with it. A bruised reed, a broken reed, one that has absolutely
no value, a sinner, he promises this. He will not break you.
He will make you whole. That smoking flax, the one that's
just the tiniest little ember, and you feel like it's just about
to go out at any given point. You ever feel like that? My faith
is so small. My love is so small. My sin is
so great. Just a smoking flax, it feels
like it could go out at any moment. I'm just barely hanging on. He
says, I won't quench you. This is how faithful he is to
a sinner, folks. You can hang all your cares upon
Him. You can rest in Him completely because He promised, a bruised
reed He shall not break, and a smoking flax He shall not quench. If you are a sinner today, trust
the Lord Jesus Christ and do it right now. He promised. I will leave you there.