this morning. In Isaiah chapter 28 and verse
16, and let's look at this verse again just for a few minutes.
We looked this morning at the church as one foundation. And
I just want maybe to consider we this afternoon, God laid the
foundation. God laid this foundation. That's
so important. Let's read my text again in Isaiah
chapter 28 and verse 16. Therefore thus saith the Lord
God, Behold, I lay in Zion a foundation, a stone, a tridestone, a precious
cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth shall not make
haste. I lay in Zion. That is an encouraging
thought, isn't it? When you know who is talking
and he says, I laid the foundation. He laid this foundation on which
a poor sinner can rest his eternal salvation. Now, who else could
do that? Who else knows what it is to
save a soul but God? He did that. He has the wisdom
to lay this foundation. He knows what it is to save a
sinner, doesn't He? A heavy sinner. We're heavy,
aren't we? We're heavy. Our souls are heavy.
Heavy with sins and heavy with burdens. We think sometimes just
the burden of life would weigh us down and we could not get
up. We couldn't hold ourselves up.
David said, Why are you cast down, O my soul? He didn't even
know. But aren't you glad that God
has laid a foundation that will hold our weight? And He knows
what that foundation is. It was a foolish thing for poor
Leprous Laman to trust in his own thoughts of how God was going
to cleanse him rather than listening and believing Elijah when he
told him to go wash in the pool or in the river and be clean. That poor man had some foolish
thoughts when he said, I thought he would say this and I thought
he would do that. And he learned, thank God he
learned before it was too late that his thoughts wasn't God's
thoughts and his ways aren't God's ways. And that's the way
it is when it comes to this foundation. We don't know how to lay the
foundation. We must listen to God as He lays
the foundation and tells us what it is. But think of those poor
people on the day of judgment that they won't have time to
change their mind and any opportunity to do anything else. When on
the Day of Judgment they said, I thought. I thought I'd done
wonderful works. I thought it was this way or
I thought God would save me that way. And then they'll find out
too late that their thoughts are not God's thoughts and His
ways are not God's ways. The foundation for the salvation
of a poor soul has already been laid by the only one who knows
what it takes to save a soul from sin and from misery and
eternal damnation. And God laid this foundation
according to His own will and His own purpose. Now isn't that
so encouraging? This is where we find salvation. since God, who knows what it
takes to save a soul, has laid the foundation of the salvation
of a soul. And when we find out that God
has laid it, then what an assurance we have from this. What a blessing
it is. It's a sure foundation and rest
for our souls when we find out that God Himself is the one that
laid this foundation. And because He's laid it, He
can call it a sure foundation. A sure foundation. Who but God
knows what kind of a foundation it takes. That's why you can't
lay it and I can't lay it. We don't have any idea what it
takes, do we? God knew what He required on
His own behalf before a sinful soul could be saved. We're always
thinking at our side at the best. But when God laid the foundation,
He first of all had to consider Himself. What's it going to take
to satisfy God? What's it going to take to satisfy
His holiness? What's it going to take to render
complete satisfaction to His justice? He knows His holy law
and He knows it has to be kept in every jot, in every tittle. And I'll tell you something else. He knew, before he laid this
foundation, he knew that his law had been broken. And he knew
the penalty of that law was death. And here's the blessing and assurance
behind this. God, when it says He laid this
foundation, simply means He knows what it's going to take to save
the soul. What it's going to take towards
Him to satisfy Him. He knows better than any of us,
doesn't He? What it's going to take to save a soul. If you were required this afternoon
to figure out by your own human wisdom what it took to save a
soul, what would you put down on that
paper? What would the sentences in the paragraph look like? And
if you took paper and a pencil around to your neighbor and say,
would you put on this paper what it takes to save a soul? Save
a soul and satisfy God and meet the needs of the sinner. And
have your neighbor to write that down, I wonder what it would
look like. It would be a bunch of scribble,
wouldn't it? Me and a friend of mine got together
one time, and neither one of us was carpenters, but we were
going to build me a garage. And we laid it out. All we had was a measured tape,
a string, and a hammer and some stakes. And we was going to make
it 20 by 40. And so we just got up in the
front where we was going to have the front of the garage and measured
over 20 feet, put a stake here, measured over 20 feet, put a
stake. We measured down the sides, 40 foot, put a stake. Over to
the back, 20 foot, put a stake. And we measured up the other
side and tied onto that stake. And we thought, how easy can
it be? We've just laid out this garage. Now let's go with the
foundation. And we got to looking at that.
And that was the crookedest mess you've ever seen in your life.
It wasn't square at all. If we'd have went ahead and tried
to build a garage on that, you talk about a crooked, we'd have
been the laughter of the neighborhood. It just wasn't square and we
couldn't square it. We didn't have the understanding
of how to square that building up to even get started on the
building. I can't remember now finally
who told us it got us straightened out. But isn't that the way it
is in salvation? We might think we have it all
figured out. And in our own eyes, it may look
good. But in God's estimations, things
are not square. It's just not square. When God
lays the foundation, you and I can rest assured that it is
squared with all of God's eternal attributes and His requirements. God has laid this foundation
in such a way that it meets all His requirements and it satisfies
all our needs. It squares with God. It squares
with God. And you know something, when
God opens our heart to see this, when we begin to see that this
foundation is laid perfectly, here's what we say, it can be
no other way. This is the way it's got to be.
He's laid the foundation in such a way that He's glorified and
we're delivered from our sin and our eternal misery to eternal
happiness. And we say it can't be any other
way. Oh, when I was growing up through my teenage years, I tell
you, I thought, I bet you, I thought of 50 different ways I could
be saved. And every one of them seemed pretty good until they
were tried in my conscience. until they were tried in my conscience.
And then when I began to see it as it was, I thought, man,
that's not square, and that looks like that mess that me and my
friend messed up. It's only when we see that God
has laid this foundation, then we see, yes, I can rest my soul
here. This is the way God wills to
save me. This is His purpose in saving
me. He has laid the foundation for my salvation. And since He
has laid it, He who knows what the requirements is, I can rest
my soul upon it. Isn't that what you say? Hold that text and look with
me over in Galatians, over in the New Testament just for a
second, in Galatians chapter 1. Look in Galatians chapter
1 and here in verse 3 and verse 4. These Galatians had heard the
gospel and Paul tells them here in chapter 1 that they had received
this gospel and he said, You did run well. You ran so well
for a while and then you left this gospel. What happened to
you? Well, he knew what happened to him. These fellows came down
from Jerusalem, these legalists, these separatist people, and
said, listen, listen, there's more than what you fellows are
doing. There's holy days that you have
to keep. And you've not even been circumcised.
You've got to be circumcised. You've got to keep these ceremonial
laws and these holy days and feast days. You can be perfect
in the flesh. You can get so holy in the flesh
and then you can please God. You can just please Him better
and better and better. And Paul wrote to him and said,
You're not pleasing God at all. You've got off of this foundation.
You're digging your own footer. You're trying to build on your
own foundation. And God is not pleased with you
at all. You've left the foundation. And look here what He simply
writes to them in Galatians chapter 1. This is so simple. Look here
in verse 3 and 4. Grace be to you and peace from
God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for
our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world,
look at this, according to the will of God and our Father. Here's God's will to save these
people by Christ dying for their sins. And they'd forgot that. They'd
forgot that. They'd said, My, it's going to
take more than that. And Paul said, No, that's the
foundation. God has laid this foundation
according to His own will and purpose. And here it is. It's
just these two things. You fellows are sinners! And
Jesus Christ is the Savior. You have sinned and Christ has
died for your sins. And you know what they said?
Oh, we've got beyond that. We've grown from beyond that.
And they had a big fall coming, hadn't they? Because their foundation
was going to let them sink. There's a young lady called me.
I talked to her quite often. She's a young lady out in Utah.
And we were talking about, she was talking about, you know,
people talking about how much you had to know to be saved and
all of this. And I said, and she agreed with
me, I said, here's the two things, here's the two things that God
teaches us and we'll never get over these two things. We'll
spend the rest of our life learning deeper These two glorious truths. One is, Jesus Christ came into
this world to save sinners, of whom I am sheep. And that's where
we started our Christian life, isn't it? We started as sinners. And Jesus came to save sinners. That's what we have to know.
That's where we start our Christian life. And everything we learn,
we learn in the light of that, don't we? And if we haven't learned
that, then we will not build upon God's foundation. This is
His will to save us by Jesus Christ dying for our sin. Have you ever got over that?
And everything we learn, we learn in the light of that, don't we?
That's God's foundation. Christ died for our sins. Well,
Christ died for our potential. I heard a man say that one time.
He died for our potential. Our potential? Potential to what? Get better and better and someday
save ourselves. That's basically what that is.
It's just like old ignorance in pilgrim's progress. He said,
you've got to believe on Christ. He said, I believe on Christ.
He said, well, how do you believe on Christ? He said, I believe
that Christ died for my sins and He rose again. And now, by
keeping God's law, I can be saved. Isn't that a strange way to justify
man's sin? Christ didn't die for our abilities.
He didn't die for our potential. He didn't die for some goodness
that we could attain. He died for our sins. That cuts
out all boasting, doesn't it? It humbles us. But when we are
sufficiently humbled and we come to this realization, Christ has
died for my sins, then we find ourselves on this foundation
that God has laid, which is Jesus Christ and Him crucified for
our sins. Christ died for a lot of reasons.
But none of them was for our potential. He didn't die for
our goodness. He died for our badness. He didn't
die for our righteousness. He died for our unrighteousness.
He didn't die because we were godly. He died because we were
ungodly. And we'll never get over that
will. That's the foundation that God has laid. And all we learn,
I think we learn, in the light of that. I'm a sinner and Jesus
Christ died for my sins to save me. And all of this, he says
here in this verse four, was according to God's will. God's will. Well, if we find
out we're saved according to God's will, we're saved indeed,
aren't we? We're saved indeed. This is the
foundation we rest the hope of heaven on. And it will hold our
weight because God has laid it. God's will. God's will for Christ
to die for our sins. God's will to save us this very
way. George Spurgeon talked about
when they used to use elephants He's talking about elephants
sounding the bridges. It was amazing, but he said an
elephant has a sense about him that when they used to cross
those bridges that man had made, he said the elephant would walk
up to that bridge and get out on the edge of it and stomp it.
He said they would stomp it. to sound it. He called it sound
in the bridges. Elephants sounded the bridges.
He said they could tell by the sound of that bridge if it would
hold their weight. Well, there is nothing wrong
with sound in this foundation. Go ahead and sound it and see
if it will hold your weight. I want to make sure, don't you?
I think if God laid it, that tells us right there that it
will hold our weight. Look at the multitudes in heaven today.
How did they get there? How did they get there? One way. The blood of Jesus Christ washed
them from all their sin. There's multitudes that have
left this life unto the next one. And how did they get there?
They were justified by righteousness, not their own. The righteousness
of Jesus Christ. Multitudes stand before the throne,
dressed in beauty, not their own. garments that was woven
by Jesus while He was here in this life. Boy, look at the multitudes that
He saved. I mean bad people, people that
had five husbands and living with one, not theirs, but He
saved them. He saved a thief in his dying
hours. He saved a man full of devils. You can sound this foundation,
can't you? And I'm telling you what, after
you've sounded it, you'll say, yeah, I can cross that. I can
cross from this life old to the next one. God laid this foundation. It'll hold me. This world may
be shaken, even though God laid its foundation. But Jesus Christ
is a foundation not even God can shake. That's how sure it
is. Secondly, where did God lay this
foundation? He tells us in our text. Therefore,
thus saith the Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion, old Zion. This literally was done. Some
say Zion is the church. I know that sometimes in the
Old Testament and the New Testament too, Zion is like that. But I
think he is speaking here literally of Israel, the Jews. Christ was a Jew, wasn't He?
He was a Jew. The Bible says He was the seed
of Abraham and Abraham was a Hebrew. Christ was born of the tribe
of Judah and of the house of David. His mother was a Jew. He was born in Bethlehem in the
land of Judea. He came unto His own. He ministered
to the Jews. I am not sent but to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel. He died in the land of the Jews
just outside the city of Jerusalem. He was buried there in the land
of the Jews. He arose in that land and it
was from that Mount Olives that he ascended back into heaven
and it was at this very location in Jerusalem that he sent back
the Holy Spirit. So God literally laid in Zion
and all Israel the foundation of our eternal happiness. What
I'm saying, brothers and sisters, this is not pie in the sky. This
is not notions that we have. This is real. Our foundation
for our salvation and eternal happiness was laid in a little
country among a nation that still exists unto this very day. If you should go over there,
though things have changed, you could look at that land and say
this, it is in this land that the salvation of God's people
was laid among this people, Jesus Christ incarnate. That's wonderful, isn't it? 2,000 years ago, by His work,
His doing and dying, this foundation was laid. I lay in Zion for a
foundation. And lastly, consider this with
me. We looked at it just a little bit this morning. He that believeth
shall not make haste. He that believeth I remind you
this morning what Paul and Peter said about this verse when they
quoted it and both of them clarified it a little bit because when
they quoted this verse they added this person to it. He that believeth
on him shall not make haste. Both of them said that. Here
the prophet said he that believeth and Paul and Peter both said
he that believeth on Salvation is in a person, isn't
it? It's in a person. We learn doctrine. The Lord doesn't
save us apart from teaching us. But we find out that salvation
is in a person. It's not just what we believe,
it's who we believe. I know whom I have believed. He that believeth on him, this
foundation shall not vacate. What is it to believe in Christ?
Well, it's to come to Him. It's to come to Him. He that
believeth in me shall never hunger. He that cometh to me shall never
thirst. So believing in coming is the
very same thing. To believe means that we rest
on Him as our foundation for our salvation from sin and misery. To believe in Christ means we
put all our confidence in His trustworthiness to save us. I know whom I have believed.
I'm persuaded that He's able to keep that which I've committed
to Him. This was one of my problems when
I was lost. I didn't have any confidence
in Christ that He was able to save me, especially without my
help. until the Holy Spirit convinced
me to put all my trust in Him because He was trustworthy. He wouldn't deceive me. He wouldn't
let me down. That's our problem sometimes,
isn't it? That's why unbelief is so awful, brothers and sisters.
We think sometimes of unbelief. Well, I've got some unbelief.
Oh, that's awful. That's one of the greatest sins
in the world is our unbelief because it says I can't trust
my Savior. It says He's not trustworthy.
He may deceive me. He may let me down. He may not
have the power of grace to save me. Believing Him means we trust
Him. He's worthy of our trust. Spurgeon
was telling about Alexander the Great. He made havoc of so much
of the world, but he was the most powerful man of his day,
the Greek. And he got sick. His friend,
his best friend was his doctor. And he mixed him up a little
glass, a little cup of medicine and set it by his bed. And he
left. And before Alexander drunk that
portion, there was another man come in with a little note. And
he opened up the note and said, Your doctor has been bribed. And he's mixed poison with your
portion, your medicine. And so, Alexander sent for the
doctor. And the doctor came in and he
stood there by the bed and Alexander got his medicine and drunk it.
Drunk all of his medicine. And then handed his friend and
doctor the note. Isn't that amazing? And they asked him, why you did
this? He said, I put my trust, I put my confidence in that friend. Man, that's confidence, isn't
it? That's what it means to believe.
That's what it means to trust unreservedly in spite of all
the doubts and fears that could be conjured up in our carnal
mind. I know that God has laid the foundation, Jesus Christ. He's a sure foundation. All that
He is and all that He's done is sufficient to hold my soul. And I cast myself on Him without
any reservation. I trust Him. And you know we
trust Him to this point. If He don't save us, we're lost
forever. If we're not saved by Jesus Christ,
we're lost forever. We have no other trust, do we?
We don't trust Christ and trust something else. It's all Christ. He that believeth, he that trusts,
he that put all his confidence in this foundation. That's what
it means to believe. It's not an ignorant thing. It's
not a blind thing. We don't go along blindly. Faith
is not blind. Fatalism is blind. Faith is full
of eyes. And faith is always looking to
its Arthur. Jesus Christ who is our God. What is the blessings attached
to those who believe? They shall not make haste. Those that put all their trust
in this foundation, they shall not make haste. When Paul and Peter quoted this
verse, Paul said, They that believe shall not be confounded. And
Peter said, They that believe shall not be ashamed. Which basically
means the same thing. Ashamed. They that believe in
Him shall not be ashamed. You know Adam and Eve, before
they sinned, they weren't ashamed. Ain't that amazing? They were
both naked. But the Bible says they were not ashamed. God came
to them and they fellowshiped with Him. They had such weak
communion. They weren't ashamed until they sinned. And here's
the strange thing about this. They weren't ashamed when they
were naked without sin. But when they sinned and clothed
themselves, they were still ashamed until God clothed them. and they
were ashamed no more. He that believeth in Jesus Christ
has no reason to be ashamed even before God. One of the passages
says, He shall not be put to shame. Sometimes because of unbelief,
that wretched unbelief, we get to thinking, Boy, I'm afraid
to stand before God. I'm afraid when we look at ourselves,
you know, how we appear in our own eyes and we're so shameful
in ourselves. But you know something? When
we stand before God, we don't stand there as we are in ourselves. We stand there having been washed
from our sins. We stand there having the garments
of Jesus Christ on us. We stand robed in His beauty.
And when we realize that and believe that, we're not ashamed.
It's sin that makes us ashamed. Get rid of the sin. How do we
get rid of that sin? Christ gave Himself for our sins
according to the will of God. It goes right back to that, doesn't
it? And when we see it's God's will for Christ to die for our
sins, we just believe Him. He did it. He was punished for
my sin. And the sin is gone. In Him is
no sin. So no shame. He that believeth
in Him shall not be ashamed. I'm ashamed of some of the things
I do, and I've had to go to people to apologize. But I tell you,
when you stand before God dressed in the robe of Jesus Christ,
you won't be ashamed. You'll feel right at home in
His presence. Paul said this, he's talking
about suffering for the gospel's sake. Nevertheless, he said,
I'm not ashamed. I'm not ashamed. I'm not ashamed
of this gospel. I'm not ashamed to confess Christ
before men. I'm not ashamed to stand before
God. I'm not ashamed. Why? Because I know whom I have
believed and I am persuaded. And He is able to keep that which
I have committed to Him against that day. This word, ashamed,
also translated confusion. He that believeth in Him shall
not be confused. And confused means instability,
disorder, uncontrolled commotion. It means to be in a hurry. He
that believeth in Him will not be put to confusion. But our version here in the Old
Testament says, ìHe that believeth in Him shall not make haste.î
ìHe that believeth in Him shall not make haste.î Well, sometimes
itís good to be in haste, ainít it? Haste can be a good thing.
Because the Bible says, ìWe fled to Him for refuge.î The angels
told Sodom, told Lot down in Sodom, ìHaste! Get out of here! Get out of this place or the
Lordís going to destroy it.î Sometimes haste is good. But
here, it's not a good thing at all. This haste. Because it's
opposed to impatience. It's a dangerous thing. He that
believeth in him shall not make haste. I'll tell you what happens
when we make haste. We get in trouble. It's right
the opposite of being patient and waiting on the Lord. Remember
what the children of Israel said? When Moses went up on the mountain
and they said, let us make a calf, because we do not know what is
to become of this Moses, they got impatient and made an idol,
didn't they? Haste. He that believeth in him shall
not make haste. King Saul got impatient waiting
on Samuel and he offered to sacrifice himself and offended the Lord. That evil servant that said in
his heart, My Lord, delayeth his coming, and begins to be
drunken, and smite the servants, his Lord shall come in an hour
that he thinks not, and appoint him his portion where they are
hypocrite. But he that believeth shall not make haste. Boy, to
live in faith, living in the exercise of faith, you know what
it will cause us to do? It will cause us to be calm in
our souls. We'll wait on the Lord. Wait on the Lord and keep
His way. He'll exalt you to inherit the
land. Boy, the world's in a hurry.
Give me this and give it to me now. The Christian can't live
that way. He that believeth in Him shall
not make haste. I waited patiently for the Lord
and He lifted me up and set my feet upon a rock. not make haste. And you know something, when
death comes, we won't make haste there either. Nothing is going
to drive us to despair. Nothing is going to rattle us
because we believe in Him, the Lord Jesus Christ.