We've been looking, we looked
one time, last time we gathered together, we looked in Deuteronomy
chapter 32 and we began to look at this song that the Lord had
inspired Moses to write and to give to the children of Israel.
And as we read this song tonight and look at it, just an overview
of it, we realize why he told moses this was a song to witness
against the children of israel against that nation not all of
them but it was certainly to be a witness against the nation
as a whole and maybe not so much against this generation this
present generation probably one of the most faithful and believe
in generations that you can find and all the generations of the
jews this was a generation here uh... of those young people Many
of them were young when they came out of Egypt. Many of them
were born, probably most of them were born in the wilderness.
But they believed the Lord. They really believed the Lord
and they went in and fought His battles. They had some failures.
They never completely wiped out the Canaanites from the land
and all the seven nations. But boy, they fought some battles
and they took the land. But this is a song to witness
against the nation of Israel as a whole, even up until our
day, this song still witnesses against that people. And I want
us to just go through it as an overview, and I think we can
get through it if we just go quickly, and then I want to make
some comments on it. So let's begin here in verse
1. He calls heaven to witness, the
earth, hear the words of my mouth, he said, And then you're in verse
2, we're told about the nature of God's Word, how helpful it
is and how needful it is and necessary, but not only that,
how adapted it is to our needy hearts. Look what he says. Here's
the way he describes his Word. My doctrine, my teaching shall
drop as the rain. My speech shall distill as the
dew. and as the small rain upon the
tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass." And you remember
the last time we said that the Word of God should not terrify
us. It is helpful, it is needful,
and it comes just as we need it, just as the grass receives
the rain from heaven. And in verse 3 and verse 4 we
have here the character of the Lord. It gives us just a little
bit of His character. He says, God is our rock. He
says there in verse 3, Because I will publish the name of the
Lord, ascribe you greatness to our God. He is the rock. Boy, when you think about a rock,
the reason He identifies Himself as a rock, because when we think
of a rock, we think of something that's steady, don't we? It's
unmovable. And that's the way the eternal
God is. The eternal God is a rock. He just doesn't move. And you
stand on Him and you won't move. You build your house upon Him
and you will never be swept away by the tides and the rain and
the winds of this life. But He not only says that, but
He says also that His ways, His work is perfect, is complete,
is full. His work of creation was perfect. He looked at it and said, Good.
His providence as He rules over all things is perfect. His salvation
is perfect. His sacrifice is perfect. and
all His ways are judgment. I tell you, everything He does
is determined by the highest wisdom and the strictest of judgment
and all ways according to truth and without iniquity. And it
is so because He says, Just and right is He. Everything He does, all He is,
is perfect. He is just and He is right. Now
in verse 5, here is God's estimation of the children of Israel. They
have corrupted themselves. Their spot is not the spot of
His children. They are a perverse and crooked
generation. And they were that excuse. They
had no excuse for being like this. Corrupted themselves. God didn't corrupt them. They
couldn't even blame the devil for corrupting them. They had
their forefathers to teach them. Moses had taught them. God had
given them His Law, His Word, His glory was with them in that
cloud and the fire that went with them that night. But He
said they have corrupted themselves and they are a perverse and crooked
generation. And here in verse 6, their foolishness
and their ignorance only aggravated what the Lord had done for them.
Look what He said in verse 6, Do you thus requite the Lord,
O foolish people and unwise? Is He not your Father? For He
adopted this nation, called them His children, did He not? He
hath bought thee, He hath made thee as a nation, and established
thee as a people. And yet what had they done? Corrupted
themselves. And then in verse 7, He calls
upon them to ask their forefathers and their elders to witness of
the goodness of God to them. Remember the days of old. Consider
the years of many generations. Ask your Father, and He will
show thee, thy elders, and they will Hell, he calls Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob and probably goes all the way back to Seth.
Maybe some of the writings they had caused their forefathers
to witness against them. And here in verse 8, notice the
amazing goodness of God towards the children of Israel. And this
is absolutely astounding when you consider this. When the Lord
began to separate the children of Adam and give them different
sections of land in this world. He set aside this good land,
this fruitful land to give to the children of Israel all the
way back when He began to separate the sons of Adam. Look where
He says in verse 8, When the Most High divided to the nations
their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the
bounds of the people according to the number of the children
of Israel. He was thinking about them when
He separated the sons of Adam and gave them different lands
in the earth. And why did He do that? He tells
them in verse 9, For the Lord's portion is His people. Jacob
is the lot of His inheritance. That's why He did that, because
they were His people. And now he goes on in verse 10
and tells us something about where he found them, where he
found the children of Israel and how he led them and how he
brought them out of the desert and brought them into the land
of Egypt. Notice how he says it here in verse 10. He found him in a desert land
and in the wasteland wilderness. He led him about. He instructed
him. He kept him as the apple of his
eye, as an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttering over her
young, spreading abroad her wings, taking them, burying them on
her wings." We're told about an eagle that no other bird or
animal cares for her young like the eagles do. They guard them
so closely. They don't wait until they learn
how to fly to kick them out of the nest. They literally put
them on their backs and they sail with them and they guard
them and feed them and care for them. The Lord said, I did you
that way. That's the way I treated the
children of Israel. I found you in the wilderness and I watched
over you and I fed you and I taught you how to war and how to live
and I fed you just like a mother eagle did her young. So the Lord
alone did lead him and there was no strange God with him.
He made him ride on the high places of the earth that he might
eat the increase of the fields. He made him to suck honey out
of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock. We may look at this
in later studies and see what we can get out of this. But then
when they got in the land of Canaan, verse 14, butter of cow
and milk of sheep with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed
of Bashan, and goats with the fat of kidneys of wheat. And
thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape." So He tells them
there, He reminds them, I found you in this desert and I carried
you and I supported you. I brought you into the land of
Canaan and you eat the best of fruits. You were nourished. How
did they react to all of that? Did they appreciate that? Did
they love Him for it? Were they filled with gratitude
for it? Well, look what happened when they were there only a few
years. But Jerusalem or Jessaron or Israel waxed fat and they
kicked. They aren't waxing fat. They
aren't grown thick. They aren't covered with fatness.
Then he forsook God which made him and lightly esteemed the
rock of his salvation. They provoked him to jealousy
with strange gods. with abominations provoked by
him to anger, they sacrificed unto devils, not to God, to gods
whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom their
fathers feared not. Of the rock that beget them thou
art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee." Now boy,
that's ingratitude, ain't it? And as you follow the children
of Israel, as they went into the land of Canaan, after that
first generation died and Joshua died and Caleb died, you see
them doing this very thing, turning to idols, lightly esteeming God,
forgetting what He had done for them, going off into worship
devils and idols. The Lord would afflict them and
bring them back into bondage. They would repent and then He
would raise up a judge to deliver them. When the judge died, right
back to idolatry, they'd go again. And you find this all the way
through the Old Testament concerning the children of Israel. Right
up until the time that the Lord Jesus came, and then what happened? When they took Him, He came unto
His own. His own received Him not. They
didn't treat Him with indifference. They hated Him. They rejected
Him. They refused Him and even crucified
Him with wicked hands. And then what happened? The wrath
of God came upon them to the uttermost. And this is the song
that He's given to witness against them. And verse 19, beginning
in verse 19, on through the rest of verse 44, we're going to read
some awful things the Lord did to the children of Israel after
they had provoked Him. And maybe this is not the word
to use, but His patience wore thin. They pushed His long-suffering
to the breaking point and then His judgment came upon them.
And you are still upon them today. Still upon them today. But let's
read it. It would be good for us just
to read beginning here in verse 19 and reading down through verse
44 and then see what we can learn from it. And when the Lord saw
it, He abhorred them. He spurned them because of the
provoking of His sons and His daughters. And he said, I will
hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be.
For they are a very perverse forward generation, children
in whom is no faith. Now remember that. They have
moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked
me to anger with their vanities, their foolishness, their idols,
their emptiness. I will move them to jealousy
with those which are not a people. I will provoke them to anger
with a foolish nation. For a fire is kindled in my anger
and shall burn into the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth
with her increase and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
I will heap mischief upon them. I will spend my hours upon them. They shall be burned with hunger
and devoured with burning heat and with bitter destruction.
I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them with the poison
of serpents of the dust. The sword without and terror
within shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the
suckling also with the man of gray hairs. I said I would scatter
them into corners. I would make the remembrance
of them to cease from among men. Were it not that I feared the
wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves
strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the
Lord hath done all this. For they are a nation void of
counsel, neither is there any understanding in them. Oh, that
they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider
their latter end. How should one chase a thousand,
and two put ten thousand to flight, except their rock had sold them,
and the Lord had shut them up? For their rock is not our rock,
even our enemies themselves being judges. For their vine is of
the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes
are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitters. Their vine is the
poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps. Is not this laid
up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures? To me
belongeth vengeance and recompense. Their foot shall slide in due
time. For the day of their calamity
is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.
For the Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for
his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there
is none shut up or left. For he shall say, Where are their
gods, the rock in whom they trusted, which did eat the fat of their
sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink-offerings? Let
them rise up and help you and be your protection. See now that
I, even I am He and there is no God with me. I kill and I
make alive, I wound and I heal. Neither is there any that can
deliver out of my hand. For I lift up my hand to heaven
and I say, I live forever. If I whip my glittering sword
and my hand take hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to my
enemies and will reward them that hate me. I will make my
arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh,
and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from
the beginning of revenge upon the enemy. Rejoice, O ye nations,
with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants,
and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be
merciful unto his land and to his people. And Moses came and
spake all the words of this song in the ears of the people. and
Joshua the son of Nun. Now, throughout the history of
these people, we see here, it's hinted here and we find it in
other parts of the Scriptures in the Old and New Testament,
that though the nation of Israel were as the sands of the sea,
a remnant only was saved of these people. I've often said, and
I've said it to you, if I lived in the Old Testament, I'd want
to be a Jew. But I'd want to be a believing
Jew. I'd want to be a saved Jew. Because to be a Jew and not be
a believer, you're worse off than being a Gentile. Because
they incur the wrath of God like no other. And you and I have
history now. We look back, can't we? And we
can witness it in our day. The wrath of God is still upon
this people. That's why he raised up Hitler. to bring judgment upon them still.
Boy, when they said, ìHis blood be on us and our children,î they
had no idea what they were saying. But His blood is still there,
and the judgment of God is still upon that people. I heard a man
say just the other day, ìWeíd better be careful how we treat
the Jews, because theyíre the chosen people of God.î I donít
know what that means. I have no idea what they mean
when they say that. God is still preserving them,
no doubt. But up until now, He's reserved
the nation for judgment, and there's only a remnant of that
nation being saved. I want us to turn over. I'll
put you a mark of that if you want to, but I want you to turn
over to Romans. Look over in Romans chapter 9,
how Paul the Apostle explains this. Here's what he says. Romans chapter
9 and look in verse 27. Romans 9, 27. Isaiah also cries
concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel
be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved. For he will finish
the work and cut it short in righteousness, because a short
work will the Lord make upon the earth. And as Isaiah said
before, except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been
a Sodom and been made like unto Gomorrah. If God had not had
a remnant of Jews through the Old Testament, Isaiah said, we
would have all been a Sodom. All the nation of Israel would
have been utterly destroyed if God had not reserved a remnant. And he says the same thing over
here in the 11th chapter, and look in verse 4. In Elijah's
day, there was a remnant. Look what he tells them here
in chapter 11 of Romans. Here's where Elijah said, Lord,
they've killed your prophets and digged down your altar, and
I'm left alone. And verse 4, But what saith the answer of
God unto him? I have reserved to myself 7,000
men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. In Elijah's
day there was a remnant, but only a remnant, 7,000 out of
the whole nation. And in Paul's day, verse 5, even
so then at this present time also there is a remnant according
to the election of grace. I tell you if anybody ought to
be thankful for God's electing grace in Christ, it's the Jewish
people. That is the only thing that saved
them, wasn't it? That God had chosen them in Christ
and called them and preserved them in Him, in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And here in verse 10, in verse
21, the sins of the nation of Israel
were many, and Rachah was one of the worst, and that was ingratitude.
Look what he said in chapter 10, verse 21, But to Israel he
said, all day long I have stretched forth My hands unto a disobedient
and gang-saying people." And that is the very same thing that
song witnessed against the children of Israel. Not only one day or a year or
a decade, but century after century He stretched forth His hand to
them and provided for them and reminded them of His goodness.
And what did they do? Well, we're told what they did
in the New Testament, aren't we? How often would I have taken
you under my wings as a hen does her brood, and you would not.
You would not. And here's the ingratitude. Instead
of coming to the Lord and calling upon Him and seeking Him, they
were always a disobedient and gang-saying people. Two chief sins I want to I want
to tell you about the children of Israel we're guilty of and
I see it in this song in the context around the two chief
sins that they were guilty of. The first one was they would
not obey God's law. They would not obey the commandments
that God gave to Moses. They did two things concerning
these commandments. First of all, we're told they
utterly forsook them. They utterly forsook the covenant
that God made with them. and they worshipped idols. They
worshipped themselves, they worshipped the world, they even worshipped
devils. Listen to Deuteronomy 31, 16. The Lord said to Moses,
You shall sleep with your fathers, and this people shall rise up
and go a-whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land,
where they go to be among them, and they will forsake Me and
break My covenant which I have made with them. They're going
to forsake My covenant that I made with them. And you remember what Hebrews
11 says? They disregarded My covenant and I disregarded them. They continued nodding My covenant
and I disregarded them. And you know, they don't even
have anything that resembles that covenant today, do they?
They've lost it all. They don't have a priesthood.
They don't have a temple. They don't have the sacrifices.
They've lost all the ordinances. They have nothing to even resemble
the covenant that God made with them when He took them out of
the land of Egypt. Brother Larry was telling me one day, he was
watching it on the computer or TV, one Jew, was he the rabbi
or something, was offering a chicken. He was sacrificing a chicken. Can you imagine that? You talk
about God turning His face and forsaking that nation, offering
a chicken. That's what He said, You're going
to forsake Me. You're going to forsake this covenant. But that's
not all they did. They not only forsook it and
worshipped devils and idols, but they replaced the Law of
Moses with their own commandments and their silly tradition. Now,
look over here to your left. in Mark chapter 7. They forsook
it. They forsook that covenant, forsook
the God of the covenant, worshiped devils, flesh, idols. But then in the New Testament
it wasn't so much idolatry, it was they replaced the laws of
Moses and the commandments of God with their tradition and
commandments of men. And the Lord Jesus confronted
them with this. Look in chapter 7. And look in verse 6, And He
answered and said unto them, Well, look in verse 5, The Pharisees
and scribes asked Him, Mark chapter 7 and verse 5, The Pharisees
and scribes asked Him, Why walk not by disciples according to
the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? They had not washed their hands
and they were eating. They came back from the market
and they sat down to eat and did not wash their hands. And
the Lord Jesus said unto them, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you
hypocrites, as it is written, This people honour me with their
lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain they
do worship me, teaching for doctrines, teaching as doctrine the commandments
of men. For laying aside the commandment
of God, you hold the tradition of men as the washing of pots
and cups and many other such like things you do. And he said
unto them, Full well you reject the commandment of God, that
you may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, Honor your father
and your mother, and whosoever curseth his father or mother,
let him die the death. But you say, If a man say to
his father or mother, it's Corban, that is a gift. He's not obligated
to honor your father and mother. If you do anything, it's just
a gift. By whatsoever thou mayest be profited by me, he shall be
free. And you suffer him no more to
do aught for his father or his mother, making the word of God
of none effect through your traditions which you have delivered. And
many such things do you do. So he said, you're going to leave
my covenant, you're going to go off and worship devils and
idols, and then you're going to change it. You're going to
change God's commandments and replace them with your silly
traditions and your commandments of men. So that's the first thing
they were guilty of. That was bad enough. That was
bad enough. But the second thing they were
guilty of, they wouldn't believe the gospel. They wouldn't obey
the Law and they would not believe the Gospel. And you know they
had the Gospel preached to them. Moses preached the Gospel to
them, didn't he? He preached it to them in promise, in prophecy. He predicted the coming of the
Messiah. He preached it to them in pictures. He preached the
Gospel to them. And when the Lord Jesus came,
He said this, If you had believed Moses, you would have believed
Me. For he wrote of me. But if you won't believe him,
you won't believe me either." And they didn't, did they? They
didn't believe Moses, and they didn't believe the Lord Jesus
Christ concerning His gospel. And when people turn from the
Word of God, they cannot be saved. When people turn from the Word
of God, they cannot be saved. If a man turns from the Law,
and counts it nothing and adds his own traditions and lives
and does what's right in his own eyes, how is he going to
know himself to be a sinner? It's the law that convinces a
man of sin. And if a man puts the gospel
away from him and won't read the gospel and believe the gospel,
then he's never going to find out the remedy that God has provided.
It's impossible that men can be saved without the Word of
God. And that's what they did. They
turned from the Word and worshiped idols. They wouldn't believe
the Gospel. They wouldn't embrace Christ
as He was revealed in the Gospel. And you know what happened to
them? They died lost. The wrath of God came fully upon
them. And this song still exists today. If they'd read it and they had
some understanding, all they would say is, Boy, that's us.
That's me. That's what we've done. Look
where we've drifted to. Now we've lost the covenant,
and now we've lost the gospel. We have nothing. I guess some
people think there's something in between out there. Well, it's
not the law, but it's not the gospel, but there's the Word
of God. That's what we have, isn't it?
And that's what they left, the Word of God. The song that I read to you there,
he said, they are a perverse, a forward generation. children
in whom is no faith. No regard for the law and no
faith in God concerning His Son. And boy, where does that leave
people? Where does that leave people? Look where it's left
them. They've got nothing today, haven't they? Absolutely nothing
do they have. And if God doesn't turn back
to that people, I'm telling you, they're all going to perish.
Look back again in Romans 10, one more time. Romans 10 and
look in verse 13. I want to read this because there's
a quote here from the song in Deuteronomy 32. He's talking
about a preacher. Verse 13, Whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they
call on him on whom they have not believed? And how shall they
believe in him of whom they have not heard? How shall they hear
without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
he be sent? As it is written, How beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring
glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed
the gospel. For Isaiah said, Lord, who hath
believed our report? Now here's just a little side
note. Did you notice there in verse 16, obeying the gospel
and believing the gospel is one and the same thing? There ain't
no such thing as saying, well, he's believed the gospel, but
now he needs to obey the gospel. Believing the gospel is obeying
the gospel. Obeying the gospel is believing the gospel. And
Isaiah said, they have not all obeyed it. The Jews have not
all obeyed it. So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the Word of God. But I say, have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound went
unto all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. But I say, did not Israel know? Then he quotes that song, part
of that song. First Moses said, I will provoke
you to jealousy by them that are no people. and by a foolish
nation I will anger you." And you read the book of Acts and
this is what happened in the book of Acts. When the Jews despised
the gospel, Paul and the other apostles turned to the Gentiles.
And what did the Jews do? They got mad, didn't they? They
got mad. You're preaching God to these
Gentiles. You're telling them that God
has reconciled them to Himself, that now they're children of
God by faith in Christ. And boy, they got so mad, didn't
they? They are in Acts chapter 13, you can read it, so mad they
blasphemed and cursed Paul and whipped him places that he went. You know why they did that? This
prophecy right here. I'm going to make you jealous.
You didn't love me, you hated me, you wouldn't believe my gospel,
you wouldn't obey my law, I'm going to turn to the Gentiles
just to make you mad and to make you jealous. And that's exactly
what he did. Verse 20, As Isaiah is very bold
and said, I was found of them that sought me not, I was made
manifest unto them that asked not after me. Boy, I tell you,
we poor Gentiles, we don't have a thing to glory into it, not
in ourselves. How did he identify us? A foolish
nation, a foolish nation, a nation that never did seek God. We were
led away into dumb idols Himself. And He turned to us, didn't He?
He sought us. He found us. And He saved us. Now what are some of the lessons
we can learn from this? And this may have been awfully
scattered. I hope I didn't get too scattered. But what can we
learn from this song if we just think about it? Well, here's
one thing we can learn from it. It doesn't matter what God commands
us to do. It doesn't matter what He commands
us to believe in His Word, and His Word commands us to do a
lot of things and believe a lot of things. We learn from this
song, it doesn't matter how God exalts Himself and describes
Himself. I will proclaim the name of the
Lord, ascribe ye greatness to our God. He's a rock, His Word
is perfect. His ways are judgment. He's a
God of truth without iniquity, just and right. You see, I lift
up my hands to heaven and say, I live forever. But you know,
all that won't matter to you and all that won't matter to
me in the long run. It won't matter how many temporal
blessings that God bestows upon us. It won't matter how often
He warns us. If God, now listen, if God does
not and will not give us a heart to hear and a heart to believe
and a heart to know Him and understand Him and love Him, we won't be
any better in the long run than the Jewish nation. And all I'd have to do is appeal
to what's going on today in the Gentile world. We have Bibles
everywhere, don't we? And there's still some good preaching
going on everywhere. But what's happening in our society?
Look how it's going down in immorality. Look how it hates the Gospel.
That's what's happening. All of these warnings, all of
these privileges that the children of Israel had, the Word of God
that they had, the sacrifices that they had, did not save them. And the Word of God by itself
cannot save you and it cannot save me. Here it is. We read it and we preach it all
the time. But if the Spirit of God does
not take the Word and do a work in our hearts We'll never be
saved. We'll never be saved. It takes
the Word, it takes the Gospel, and it takes the Spirit of God
beginning a work of regeneration, a new birth, faith in our hearts. That's what it takes, isn't it?
I read the Bible for quite some time and I thank God that He
put it in my heart to read it. But I tell you this, there's
absolutely a necessity for the Spirit of God to work a work
in our hearts. And we see that all the time,
don't we? Let me show you that over in Hebrews. I quoted a little
bit a while ago, but let me show you this. Then I want to read
Wesley's Psalms. Look in Hebrews chapter 8. I want to ask you to imagine
something. Just sort of illustrate here what I'm talking about.
Imagine yourself in the Old Testament. Maybe imagine yourself when the
Lord gave His law on Mount Sinai. Imagine yourself being a Jew
and you were unregenerate. You were still in your nature.
And He gave you these laws to keep. and said, ìThis is your
life, Shannon. This is your life. You obey these
laws. You cleave to me and youíll live.î
What would you have done? What would you have done? Weíd
have done the very same thing the nation of Israel done. Would
we not have? Why? Because in our natural state,
it doesnít matter what God tells us to do. He may scare us half
out of our senses with fire coming down from heaven and shaking
the mountains. But if He leaves us in our nature,
what will we do? Just what they did. Just what
they did. I used to go to sleep just about
every night through my teenage years and praying, God, don't
send me to hell. Don't send me to hell. If you'll
keep me another day, I'll try to do better. Just don't send
me to hell tonight. You know what I needed? I needed a work
of grace in my heart. And take it one step farther.
What if we could go back in the New Testament times? And we were
unconverted. We were unregenerated. We didn't
have a work of grace in our hearts. And we saw the Son of God preaching
the Gospel, coming to me, all ye that labor and heavy laden.
And we saw Him raising Lazarus from the dead and healing the
crippled. We saw these miracles. How would
we have responded? What would we have done? Just
what those Jews in the New Testament have done. Don't hear him. He's not an imposter. That's
how critical it is, is it not, that we have a work of grace
in our hearts. That old covenant, the covenant
of works, Nothing matter with the law that God gave to Moses.
My soul, what would be a matter with that law that says, Love
me with all your heart. Have no other things before me.
That's wonderful, isn't it? It's good and it's holy. And what's a matter with that
law? Love your neighbor as yourself. My soul, those are wonderful
commandments. We love them, don't we? And what's
a matter with the Gospel? Oh, it's salvation. Salvation. Life eternal. But until God begins
a work in our hearts, neither the law nor the gospel will do
us any good. It won't do us any good. And
here's what he's going to tell them in Hebrews chapter 8 and look in verse 7. If that first covenant had been
faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
There's another covenant. For finding fault with them,
he said, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make
a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house
of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their
fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them
out of the land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant,
and I regarded them not, saith the Lord." And that is where
Israel is today as a nation. For this is the covenant that
I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith
the Lord. And brothers and sisters, here's what's needful. Here's
what's necessary. I will put my laws into their
mind. I will write them in their hearts. I will be to them a God and they
shall be to me a people. And they shall not teach every
man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the
Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their
unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities will I remember
no more. In that he saith a new covenant,
he hath made the first old, now that which decayeth and waxeth
old is ready to vanish away." and you go over to the Old Testament,
this is what he kept prophesying, predicting. I will sprinkle clean
water upon you, and you're going to be clean. From all your filthiness
and all your idols will I wash you, and I'll put a new heart
in you, and I'll give you a new spirit, and I'll put My Spirit
in you, and I'll cause you to walk in My statue. That's what
we need, isn't it? That is the absolute necessity
to be saved, is for God to give us a new heart and a new spirit
and work grace in us. Then we'll know Him. Then we'll
love Him. Then we'll follow Him. And that's
why I wanted to read Wesley's songs. You and I probably, well,
we couldn't sit under Mr. Wesley's preaching. But Mr. Wesley sometime got in a desperate
state of mind, both Wesleys, and you see it in their songs.
And here Mr. Wesley was in a state of mind
where he was feeling his utter inability to do anything. He
could not keep the law, and in and of himself he realized he
could not make him a new heart. He couldn't even believe the
gospel. And that's the state of mind he was writing these
songs in. And look here what he said in the first psalm, ìLord,
I despair myself to heal. I see my sin, but cannot feel. I cannot till Thy Spirit blow
and bid the obedient waters flow. Tis Thine a heart of flesh to
give, Thy gifts I only can receive. Here then to Thee I all resign
to draw Redeem and seal is Thine. With simple faith on Thee I call
my lot, my life, my Lord, my all. I wait the moving of the
pool. I wait the Word that speaks me
whole." You feel the need there, can't you? You feel His need
of the Lord and His utter inability. And then I love this last song.
He really used his words in this last song that I don't think
I've ever used. It's strong. It's strong. Wesley, as Armenian as he was
in that day, he wouldn't preach in a lot of sovereign grace churches
today. Because sometimes Spurgeon said when he preached from his
heart and not his head, he preached very strong grace. And look here
how he wrote this song. Oh my God, what must I do? Thou alone the way can show. Thou can save me in this hour. I have neither will nor power."
Now think of that. God, if over all Thou art, greater
than my sinful heart, all Thy power on me be shown, take away
the heart of stone. Take away my darling sin. Make
me willing to be cleaned. Isn't that powerful? Make me
willing to receive all Thy goodness waits to give. Force me, Lord,
with all to part. Tear these idols from my heart. Now Thy love, Almighty, show. Make me, even me, a creature
new. Jesus, mighty to renew, work
in me to will and do. Turn my nature's rapid tide,
stem the hornet of my pride. Stop the whirlwind of my will,
speak and bid the sun stand still. How thy love, now thy love, almighty
show, make even me a creature new. Arm of God, thy strength
put on, bow to heavens and come down. all unbelief or throw,
lay the aspiring mountain low, conquer thy worst foe in me,
get thyself the victory, save the vilest of thy race, force
me, force me to be saved by grace." Now that may be a little bit
strong, and some of that I probably would never use, but he was feeling
just what I've been telling you about, the necessity of a work
of grace within us, doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And he felt it so strongly he
used these words, force me, force me. I hope that was a blessing and
a help to you. Next time we'll try the Lord's
will and maybe to get in some particulars of this song.