We are back in the book of Zephaniah. Zephaniah chapter 3. Zephaniah is declaring the word
of the Lord unto Judah. In chapter 1 we see it's going
to be utter destruction unto the world. Yet the Lord has left
a remnant The Lord made a sacrifice and the Lord sanctified. Chapter
one, verse seven. That's what it tells us. Now. He's describing the great day
of the Lord, and I want to look at that chapter one, verse 14. We have some understanding of
what he's speaking of. He says, the great day of the
Lord is near. It is near. And hasteth greatly,
even the voice of the day of the Lord, the mighty man shall
cry there bitterly. And that's how the Lord mentions
the mighty man. It's talking most of the time
about those who have self-righteousness, those who believe that they're
good enough for God. Those are the ones that see themselves
as mighty. But what did Christ say? He said, he that exalteth
himself shall be abased. On this day, this great day,
those that exalt themselves shall be abased, but he that humbleth
himself shall be exalted. Then he says in verse 15, that
day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day
of wastedness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess,
a day of clouds and thick darkness. A day of trumpet and alarm against
the fence cities and against the high towers. What is he saying? There's not going to be any hiding
place. Your walls aren't going to save you from this. There's
no siren that's going to warn you and give you enough time
when you blow the trumpet, that's going to help you in your fence
cities or your high towers. Verse 17, I will bring distress
upon men that they shall walk like blind men because they have
sinned against the Lord and their blood shall be poured out as
dust. and their flesh as the dung. Neither shall their silver
nor gold shall be able to deliver them in that day of the Lord's
wrath." He's saying, it doesn't matter how much you have. It
doesn't matter what you don't have. There's nothing going to
be able to save you from my wrath in this day. But the whole land
shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy. For he shall
make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land. He's going to do this all for
his jealousy. I preached a message recently on jealous is his name. And what we heard in that message
was, is the word jealous as it describes the Lord. It literally
says jealous is his name in Exodus. And we see that what he means
by that is the definition that says he is, uh, intensely, he's
intensely protective of that, which is his, that which he's
purchased. And because of this. Because
of this, he's going to pour out his wrath. Now, most churches
do not preach this God of sovereignty, this God that has the choice
to bring forth this wrath upon all. Men say that's not fair.
They preach a baby Jesus, meek and mild, but Jesus is God and
only the Lord's honest sheep know that. And I'm not going
to preach on honest sheep again, but that's what we are. That's
what he's made us, his honest sheep. God's people know that
Christ is God. Therefore, Hebrews 10 tells us,
it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
God. That's what we've been made to
know. We see that this judgment is entirely based upon the covenant
of works that was given to Israel in Deuteronomy. Turn with me
there, if you will, please. Deuteronomy chapter 28. When the Lord gave this covenant,
the covenant of grace. Think about this. The covenant
of grace was given in eternity. It's an everlasting covenant.
It never had a beginning and it never had an end, but the
covenant of works was given in time. Covenant of works is not
an everlasting covenant. And in time, he gave unto the
children of Israel a covenant by his law and said, if you will
do this, you shall live. If you do that, you shall die. We see it's a beautiful picture
now, knowing that we can't do and live no matter what we do.
We know that. We see that that's what was given to them. They
thought they could do and they could live, but they couldn't
do it. That's why the scripture tells us the law came by Moses.
But grace and truth came by the Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament
shows us that we need a substitute because of this destruction.
Now, here is the covenant that was given in Deuteronomy 28,
verse 58. If thou wilt not observe to do
all the words of the law that are written in this book, that
thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, the Lord thy
God, then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful. and the plagues of thy seed,
even great plagues." Now we think wonderful is something good,
but as it's written right here, it means full of wonder. We're
not going to be able to understand it. It's going to, there's no
comprehending it. It's full of wonder. You're going
to wonder at what the Lord is doing. These people that he's
speaking to, if you don't observe all the words of the law, plagues
are going to be wonderful and the plagues of thy seed, even
great plagues and of long continuance and sore sickness and long continuance
of long continuance. And he goes on to say, I'm going
to give you the plagues of Egypt. That's what he's talking about.
All the plagues of Egypt are going to come upon these people
because they did not honor the Lord. They sinned against the
Lord. This is what the definition of whenever the Lord gives forth
wrath. This is the requirement. One
sin. One sin deserves eternal damnation. Not 50, not a thousand. One sin. This is God's standard. Men believe God's standard is
if I do a little bit of good, it'll make up for the bad that
I do. A good deed outweighs a bad deed. The Lord says no. One sin. That's all it takes for eternal
damnation to be justified, to be merited. And how much more
are we than one sin? Every thought and intent of the
heart is on evil continually, just like in the days of Noah.
That's how we are by nature. And this is what is being described
in Zephaniah. Now turn with me back to Zephaniah
chapter one. Zephaniah chapter one, verse
14. The great day of the Lord is near. It is near and hasteth
greatly. Even the voice of the day of
the Lord, the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. Now I want
you to get the definition here of this great day. That day is
a day of wrath, a day of trouble, a day of distress. a day of darkness
and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of
the trumpet and alarm against the fence cities and against
the high towers. This is the day. This is the same day that
is going to come to everyone that's found outside of Christ.
But did you know that this day that he's speaking of is the
day that the Lord made for the cross of Calvary? This is what
Christ had to endure. These plagues of Egypt is what
Christ had to endure on the cross of Calvary. Thank God for the
glorious substitution that Christ took for his elect. Now in chapter
2, a command goes forth. Turn to chapter 2 or just look
at the next page. Verse 1, gather yourselves together. Yea, gather together, O nation,
not desired. Before the decree, bring forth
Before the day passes the chaff, before the fierce anger of the
Lord come upon you, before the day of the Lord's anger come
upon you, seek ye the Lord. All ye meek of the earth which
have wrought his judgment, seek righteousness, seek meekness. It may be ye shall be hid in
the day of the Lord's anger. Scripture tells us, seek ye the
Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. This is the same message that's
being given to the nation Israel here. This is the same message
that's being given to Judas. Seek the Lord. If you desire
righteousness, seek Christ. That's what he's saying. There's
going to be no other righteousness, no other salvation in this destruction,
no other place of refuge whenever the wrath comes. This is what
the message is from Zephaniah. Seek the Lord. Why do men not seek the Lord, because men are
content doing what they want to do. See, the Lord's going
to have to change my want to. He's going to have to change
my want to completely and take this old want to and throw it
away and give me a new want to. Now, I still wrestle with the
old one, but the new one, the elder shall serve the younger. There's the good news of the
gospel. This new man cannot not look to Christ. He always has
to look to Christ. And this old man can't look to
Christ ever. Thanks be to God. He keeps his
people and causes us to seek him, causes us to see this terrible
day that is coming. Lord, I need a substitute. I
need a surety. I need a savior. And there's
only one, the Lord Jesus Christ. See, most men believe that this
call to come, this, his words, this gather yourself together
is an invitation or it's a request. No, it's not. It's not a request. Now, Is there a general invitation
that goes forth? Certainly, certainly. But we've
been made to know that no man will come to the father, but
by Christ making them come to them, to him, making them. God's people are made to seek
after his righteousness. Otherwise, none would come. Everybody
sees that they have some form of righteousness, even the lowest
person on the earth that we may think of that has no interest
in God whatsoever, has some sort of self-righteousness, some sort
of self-righteousness. And the only way that we come
to Him is that whenever He makes us to, He makes us know that
He must be our hiding place, that there is no other hiding
place. There is no other refuge. There is no other There is no
other arc. He's the one arc that was built
by the father for the salvation of his people. He's the one that
endured the wrath of God. We must be found in him, not
having our own righteousness, which is of the law, but having
his righteousness. Now in chapter three, we have
good news. And that's where I want to look at for the remainder
of our time. I'm sure that we're going to.
I know we're gonna go to other places, but this is where we're
gonna keep coming back to. So in case I forget and I have
a habit of doing this, hold your finger there in Zephaniah three. So let's read this together. Zephaniah chapter three and verse
13. We read this last hour. I wanna
read it again. The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity
nor speak lies, neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in
their mouth. For they shall feed and lie down
and none shall make them afraid. I love this next part. Because
of what he just said, he says, sing. Sing, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O Israel. Be glad and
rejoice with all the heart. O daughter of Jerusalem, the
Lord hath taken away thy judgment. Now, wait a minute. He just said
in chapter one and in chapter two that it's going to be utter
destruction. He's gonna wipe off life from
the face of the earth. Yes, that's absolutely true.
But what about you and I? Where's our hope? Whenever this
day of judgment happened, it also happened on the cross of
Calvary and all for whom the son died for were in Christ at
that time so that now we can sing and say, the Lord hath taken
away our judgments. He hath cast out thine enemy.
I find it funny or interesting that In religion, we thought
the enemy was the devil, and yes, he's our enemy, but the
enemy's the man or woman you're looking at in the mirror every
single morning. Is that not true? He said, I've cast out the enemy.
The strong man has come in and cast out the weaker man. I've cast out the enemy, the
kings of Israel. The king of Israel, there's his name, even
the Lord. He's in the midst of thee. Thou shalt not see evil
anymore. Why? It's been taken away. It's
gone. There's no more judgment. In
that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, fear thou not. That's
what I've titled the message. Fear thou not. And to Zion, let not thine hand
be slack. The Lord thy God in the midst
of thee is mighty. He will save. He will rejoice
over thee with joy. He will rest in his love. He
will joy over thee with singing. He will gather them that are
sorrowful for the solemn assembly who are of thee to whom the reproach
of it was a burden. Behold, at that time, I will
undo all that afflicted thee, and I will save her that halted,
that halteth, and gather her that was driven out. I will get
them praise and fame in every land where they have been put
to shame. At that time will I bring you
again, even in the time that I gather you, for I will make
you a name and a praise among all people of the earth. When
I turn back your captivity before your eyes, you're gonna see what
I've done, he's saying, saith the Lord. How the only way, the
only way that we have nothing to fear is to be looking unto
Jesus Christ as all our hope in salvation. The only way that
we have nothing to fear is not because of what we have done,
but because of what he has done. He says, I've taken thy judgment. He didn't say, I will, if you
do. Now he does say, I will take
that judgment, but Christ said it's finished. So understand
whenever that happened, we can read this in past tense because
this was written prior to the Lord Jesus Christ coming chronologically.
And it was already finished in eternity at this point, of course.
We can see now that I have taken thy judgments away. I've already
taken them away. I've cast out thine enemies.
You shall not see evil anymore. Therefore, here's the reason. I like what Todd said we preach
to us. He said, what's the therefore,
therefore? Why did the Lord put a therefore,
therefore? And it's because we're able to
say now, fear thou not. Hear the Lord's words, fear thou
not. Men, I spent my life, I'm young,
I know, but in the 90s, I kind of remember this very predominantly,
these no fear shirts. Anybody remember that? Everybody
walking around had bumper stickers everywhere, no fear. And it was
rebellion is what it was. It was no fear of this, no fear
of that. But it also meant no fear of God, having no godliness,
no fear of nothing. I don't fear anything. That's
not what he's talking about here. When he says fear thou not, he's
saying fear not judgment. because I've taken it away. Fear
not the punishment for your sin because your sin has been taken
away. Fear not hell because I endured hell upon the cross of Calvary
for my people. Fear not the wrath of God because
Christ Jesus absorbed that wrath on the cross of Calvary. That's
what he's saying. Fear thou not. Don't be afraid. If you're looking
to yourself, be very afraid. Be very afraid if you look at
yourself and think that there's anything good in you that the
Lord will accept. No. No, but if you're looking to
Christ Jesus, Lamb of God, you have nothing to be afraid of.
Nothing to be afraid of when it comes to the Father. He says,
I know my thoughts of you. They're all good. They're all
pleasant. They're all good unto my people. Men have the mentality saying,
I'm, I'm, I'm not, have you ever heard somebody say this? I'm
not afraid of anything. I'm not afraid of anything. Well, they're
fooling their self first of all. They're very overconfident in
their self. We should be afraid. we should
be afraid of things. Fear will keep you alive. If
you, the Lord shows us that whenever danger happens, if you're, if
a bear is charging towards you, you're going to feel fear. I
guarantee it. And at that moment, at that time, that fear will
keep you alive. And I don't know what to tell
you to do if a bear is running towards you, but I can tell you, that'd be
the law, wouldn't it? In that example, the law is running toward you.
Flee to Christ. That's what we do. Flee to Christ. Don't try
to face the bear. Be afraid that that law is going
to come after you. If you're looking to yourself,
it will, but flee to Christ. On the other hand, some are too
self-confident or they're just foolish in believing they're
not afraid of anything, but some have phobias. Some has phobias
and I have family members that have phobias there and some afraid
of everything. My grandmother who's been, she
passed away a couple of years ago. She was afraid of her own
shadow. She was afraid of everything. It did her no good to be afraid
of everything the way that she was. It didn't add a day to her
life and it didn't take away a day from her life. Her time
was appointed. So what am I trying to say here
that most phobias that people have or whenever man is truly
afraid of everything or afraid of something in particular, it'll
lead to a religious experience. If I'm afraid of loss or I'm
afraid of something that hasn't been given to me by godly fear,
then I'll have a religious experience and I'll feel that I am now able
to conquer that fear. And this is the kind of fear
that men promote in religion, as if you have to have a phobia
of God and you hide from him, so to speak, with your good works.
It just doesn't work that way. It just doesn't work that way.
There's no, we can't hide from God in what we do. We must hide
in Christ based on what he did. Now, neither being too confident
in ourself or having a phobia of everything will give rest
to the believer, will not give rest to God's elect. This is
not what he's saying here when he says, fear thou not. Because
man is the origin of it. Do we see that this fear that
I'm describing to us is all physical fear. I'm not afraid of anything.
Well, that's not true, first of all. But second of all, being
afraid of everything isn't going to change anything either, because
man is the origin of it. When the Lord says, fear thou
not, He's speaking of godly fear, godly fear. He's saying, look
to Christ. The fear of God does just that.
It looks to Christ. Now, fear of man is the origin
of a lot of our anxieties. When you're driving down the
road and you feel in danger because somebody's cutting you off in
traffic or they slammed on their brakes, that feeling that you
get, that's fear of man. That's fear of death that's happening.
That's what that is. When you see your life is in
a dangerous situation, I mentioned a bear earlier, whatever else,
or you're going to have conflict with another individual, that's
fear of man. All these things cannot lead
you to the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what men are preaching
today. They're preaching, be afraid, be afraid and do and
live. No, that's what this covenant
was in Deuteronomy we just read, do and live. This is not what
God is saying when he says, fear thou not. He's saying flee to
Christ and live. You can't do it. You can't do
the work. Christ did. Christ did the work. Ecclesiastes chapter 12 tells
us, let us hear the whole conclusion of the matter. Fear God. and
keep his commandments. Do you know that if you fear
God, you will know that you cannot keep his commandments. If you
truly fear God, if you see him as high and lifted up, if you
see him as sovereign, you see him as the sovereign creator
of this universe. If we see him that way, then
we know we can't keep his commandments. Not one of them, not a single
one of them. That's why in Proverbs 9, he
says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. If you're
afraid of the Lord, you'll be, the Lord will give you, if the
Lord has given you fear of God, the fear of the Lord, it demands
that you flee to Christ because there is nothing we can do in
keeping one commandment of the Lord. There's a big difference,
a big difference in fearing God and being given the fear of God.
Some men, we have a, pull out a monetary bill or a coin, what
does it say on it? In God we trust. In God we, so
they have a fear, some form of fear of God, but that doesn't
mean they've been given a godly fear. They're just fearing God
rather than being given the fear of God. This is a gift I'm speaking
to us about. Being afraid of God, it goes
hand in hand with repentance. When the Lord gives repentance,
are we not terrified of his awesomeness? And even his, he's full of all
his awfulness, where we stand in awe of it. We, oh, I must
run to a substitute. I must flee to Christ. This is
what this fear of God does. There's a distinct difference
in fearing God and being given the fear of God. Just the same
as there's a difference in loving God and being given the love
of Christ. It's the difference of life and
death. Everybody will tell you they love God. Nobody will tell
you that. Well, I guess some people may
tell you they hate God, but most of the people in religion say
they love the Lord. I remember hearing that many times. I love
the Lord. We would sing songs that said that, but they've not
been given the love of Christ. How do you know? Because Christ
is not all their righteousness in their confession. That's how
we know. Is Christ all of your confession
before the Lord? If so, you've been given the
fear of God. You've been given the love of Christ. That's how
we know. What do we confess? What is our
hope? Is it anything that we're doing? If that's the case, then
we're dealing with Deuteronomy. We're not dealing with the Lord
Jesus Christ. We're dealing with the law. The Lord says, no, this
is the day of wrath. This is the dark day. This is
the day of judgment that you will have to face and stand by
yourself if you have any righteousness whatsoever. Those who are not in Christ have
much to fear. But His elect, His people, we're
already there with Him. He says, fear thou not. We're
already seated in Christ in the heavenlies, had been glorified
according to Romans. He says, fear thou not. I've
already finished everything. I've already provided everything
for you. That's our hope, isn't it? Everything.
There's not one thing to be done. Fear thou not. The fear of God
that he bestows immediately causes us to be overwhelmed, terrified
with fear. He dangles our feet over hell
is what he does. And as soon as he does, he reveals
the Lord Jesus Christ. And we run right to him, don't
we? We must, we must. If a man or a woman sees themselves
held deserving sinners, and the Lord shows them Christ. How foolish
is it to think even a simple example would be if we're drowning,
literally drowning, our hands and feet are tied and we're going
to die and someone threw us a lifeline or helped us that we would be
like, no, I'm good. I can take care of this myself.
No, you're, we're lame. We're dead. We're dying. You
understand what I'm saying? When we see Christ, when we have
this fear given to us and we see Christ, we flee to him. Through
the eyes of faith that he's given us, we flee right to him. By his repentance, he changes
our mind and shows us that we're in danger of his wrath. And when
he reveals Christ, when he reveals Christ, that is salvation. The
revelation of Jesus Christ is salvation. It's not what we do.
It's when he chooses to reveal Christ. That's when he births
his people by, well, he lets us know about it. Let's put it
that way. He calls us by that. That's what he does. By his spirit,
he then says, fear thou not. The desolation, the desolation
that I'm talking about here in Ephaniah has been poured out
upon the Lord Jesus Christ for his people. The day, he says the day is the
day of wrath, the day of, was Christ not in the day of wrath
whenever he was on the cross of Calvary? Was he not the one
that was troubled? He said, it's a day of trouble and distress.
Christ was troubled. Wasn't he? He was in distress.
The day of wasteness and desolation was he, that word desolation
means empty, completely empty. Christ was emptied. Christ was
poured out like water, the scripture says, and all of his bones were
out of joint. His heart was poured out like
wax. He was in desolation. He was in despair. He was in
distress. And yet he opened not his mouth. He laid down his life
freely for his people. It was a day of darkness and
gloominess of clouds and of thick darkness. He said it was a darkness
that you could feel. Do you remember whenever they
sanctified the temple of the Lord at the word of the Lord
and the Lord came down and when he condescended, what happened
in the temple? Do you remember? It filled with cloud. It filled
with a dark cloud so that no man could see in. And that's
when the voice of the Lord came forth. No man can look upon him
and live. On the day of the cross of Calvary, when the Lord poured
out his wrath upon his darling son, the universe was blacked
out. A darkness that could be felt
just like in the land of Egypt as it's described. And all the
plagues that were given to Egypt were poured out upon the Son
of God for His people. This is what's being said here.
Sing, daughter of Zion. Why? Because the Lord's put your
sin away. This wrath is not going to come
to you. Fear thou not. I've put your sin away. This
is what He's telling us. You shall not die. You shall
not die. It is finished. By His own blood,
He's washed us, made us whiter than snow. By His own will, He
begat us. It is finished by His own blood.
He's redeemed us. Because Christ finished work,
I want to read verses 16 and 17 in the present tense rather
than the past tense. It shall be said, it is being
said right now to Jerusalem, fear thou not and to Zion, let
not thy hands be slack. The Lord thy God in the midst
of thee is mighty. He hath saved his people from
their sin. He rejoices over them with joy. He rests in his love for them
because of what it accomplished. He joys over them with singing. Now, I don't know that I've ever
read about the Lord singing before, have you? but it says he rejoices
over his people with singing. I don't know how to explain how
joyous that is. That's glorious. He sings over
his people. He sings over his people. Men
write many love songs to their beloved. Women write many love
songs to their beloved. What is the song that the Lord
sings to his bride? It is finished. I have redeemed you. I have bought
you. You are mine. I've loved you
with an everlasting love." Boy, there's a song in that, isn't
there? That's the Lord's song. I've sing over you with joy.
That's his song to his bride. All of this were as accomplished
on the cross of Calvary, when the Lamb of God bore the sin
of his people. Therefore, fear thou not. If this is your hope,
you have nothing to fear. Not debt, not life, Not angels,
not principalities or powers, not things present, nor things
to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature. Paul
said, I'm persuaded none of those are able to separate us from
the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. Nothing to be afraid
of. Only by looking to Christ can
we hear these words, fear thou not. Now, if you're looking to
yourself, if I'm looking to myself, if there's one thing that I see
in myself, that's good. I believe the Lord's going to
accept we should cower in fear. That word cower means that we're
so terrified that our body crouches and shrinks in on itself to hide
from the source of the fear, literally the fetal position.
That's what they're saying, and cower in fear. Now, when the
Lord reveals himself, is that not exactly what we do, is go
into the fetal position? And what the Lord said, you must
be babes if you're going to have part with me. That's what the
Lord's fear does, is it causes us to cower And then he shows
us Christ and he says, fear thou not, my child, my beloved, mine
elect, I will uphold you by my right hand. I am the high tower
that you can run into and the righteous therein is saved. This
is the gospel. This is our only hope is that
the Lord tells us, fear not, fear thou not. We've been made
to know we can't hide from him. We can try, but we know that
we can't. must flee to Christ, must be
found in him, because in him there is a hiding place, the
only, only hiding place. Natural fear causes two responses,
and I believe I've mentioned this already, but it's fight
or flight. Fight or flight. Now, most men don't know that
they do this, but whenever Whenever men try to offer themselves
up unto God, when women try to offer themselves up unto God,
having their own righteousness, they're literally competing with
Christ. You know what another word for
competing is? Fighting. When men or women offer
themselves up to God, having a righteousness, they are literally
fighting against Christ, saying, I don't, I need this man to reign
over me. I have something I can offer
myself. I will ascend. I will be as the
most high. I'm as good as God is. I have
a righteousness in and of myself. That is the fight mentality when
men hear this fear. The other one is flight, to run
away, to hide. And what did they say on that
great day will happen? They're going to cry out that
the rocks and the mountains fall upon them. They're going to go
into the caves of the earth and think that they have a hiding
place. The Lord said, no. No, there's nowhere to hide from
this wrath in and of yourself. There's nothing you can do to
escape it or to fight against it. It's coming. Look to Christ. or die is what the Lord's saying.
Gather unto Him. Flee unto Him. Come unto me all
you that labor. You're laboring against me is
what he's saying. You're laboring against God,
thinking that we're going to be able to present it as our
righteousness. It's not possible. It's the opposite. It's iniquity.
Every bit of it. Flee to Christ. Come unto me
all you that labored and are heavy laden. I will give you
rest. What rest there is in hearing
the words, fear thou not. that He says to His people. Now,
when God reveals Himself, there is always the same response,
whether it's in salvation or whether it's in damnation. Either
way, if the Lord reveals Himself, there's always the same confession
that is drawn. You remember, the Lord already
told us, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess
Jesus Christ is Lord, that He's God. Jesus Christ is Lord. Example that came to mind, as
I mentioned already, is whenever Isaiah saw the Lord high and
lifted up in the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah said, I saw
the Lord seated, I saw him high, and I saw him lifted up. Now,
you know this already. I've probably used this analogy
recently, but Isaiah was complaining about Israel. He was the prophet
coming to Israel to tell them the good news of the gospel,
and yet they wouldn't hear him. And he was angry. He said, they
have perverse lips. Unclean lips. But when he saw God, what happened
to Isaiah? The angel took a coal off of
the altar and put it on his lips. That's a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ who had to purge us from our sin with the fire
he had to endure, washing us in his blood. And now we're on
a sheet because of that, aren't we? We heard that the first hour.
Now what is our confession? Well, he's touched our lips.
He's touched our lips with perfection and holiness. And now we confess
that Christ is all. And that's what the confession
that was drawn from Isaiah. I'm a man of unclean lips. And
I dwell among a people of unclean lips. Woe is me, I'm undone.
I thought they were undone, I'm undone. That's the confession
that's drawn every time. An example of this, whenever
it wasn't for salvation, you remember Balaam, the prophet
that went And the only reason he was a prophet of the Lord
is the Lord made him that, but don't make any mistake about
it. Balaam died and he sinned and went to hell. He never confessed
that the Lord was all. He could only confess what the
Lord made him confess. He never had a heart transplant. We know about that because the
scripture says they went after the heir of Balaam. And later
on, Balaam goes back with the king and tells him how that he
can make the children of Israel intermingle with each other.
And that's where the Samaritans came from. So the word of the
Lord comes into Balaam through the mouth of a donkey. You know
the account that was given there. We have Balaam's going to give
cursings at the king's word unto the children of Israel. And on
the way, the donkey, the scripture says, the ass spoke unto him.
And because Balaam was angry, he was smacking the donkey because
the angel of the Lord was blocking the path with the sword of wrath
drawn. If he took another step, he would
die. Well, Balaam couldn't see it. And so he began to beat the
donkey. The donkey said, why are you beating me? I'm saving your
life. I'm paraphrasing, of course. But what did Balaam do as soon
as he saw the angel of the Lord? And we know whenever the angel
of the Lord is sent in the scripture, that's the Lord Jesus Christ,
the angel of the Lord, the captain of the army of the host of heaven.
That's the Lord Jesus Christ. Make no mistake about it. When
he saw Christ, what did he do? Did he stand up against him or
offer up any righteousness before him? No, the scripture is very
clear. He bowed his head and he fell flat on his face in the
dirt. That's exactly what everyone is going to do whenever they
see the Lord Jesus Christ on his throne on the day of judgment.
Our only hope is that whenever that wrath fell, that it fell
upon him in our stead so that he doesn't say condemned, he
says justified. He doesn't say death, he says
life. He doesn't say hell, he says, enter thou in my good and
faithful servant. Me? A good and faithful servant? How can that be? Because when
he sees me and when he sees you, he sees the blood and he sees
us as perfectly righteous in his eyes. Fear thou not. Fear thou not. If you're looking
to the blood as all of your righteousness, Not one ounce, not one minute,
a microscopic organism. What's the smallest thing we
have? An atom, a molecule. Not one atom of self-righteousness. But if you're looking to the
blood alone, fear thou not. Fear thou not. See, only by looking
to Christ can we hear these words and have hope. Maybe can Ezra,
he He thought he was something else, didn't he? He was, uh,
think about all that he saw. And I preached a message on this
recently, so I'm sure it'll be fresh on our mind, but he had,
uh, he done all the, everything that he did and he still couldn't
see God. He made the image of 60 foot
statue of himself. You know, it had to have his
face on it, his image. And he said, you're going to bow down and
worship them. Look at my greatness. And they didn't, so he threw
him in the fiery furnace and he saw Christ in the fiery furnace,
didn't he? The fourth man is the son of God. The scripture
says, well, that didn't give him repentance, did it? It goes to show us that
repentance is truly a gift of God. This fear of the Lord must
be bestowed. He didn't fear God at that time.
We know that because later on he said, look at this great kingdom
I have made. He was saying, who's the man?
I'm the man. I've done all this with my hands. I'm miraculous
and marvelous in my own eyes. And the Lord said, the kingdom's
rent from you. And for seven years, he had to
eat as an ox, the scripture says, eat grass. Lord humbled him,
didn't he? And his hair grew as the eagle's
feathers and claws, the scripture tells us. And what happened whenever
the Lord let his reason return unto him? The Lord said, okay,
you can come back to yourself now. I'm gonna let you have your
senses back. Now, what do you have to say?
And what was his confession? Listen to it in Daniel chapter
four. I bless the most high and I praise and honor him that liveth
forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion. In his
kingdom from generation to generation, all the inhabitants of the earth
are reputed as nothing. He doeth according to his will
with the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth
and none can stay his hand or say, what doest thou? Not only can we not stop him,
we can't even question him. We won't do any good. And we
won't if we see the Lord, we won't. See, Nebuchadnezzar was
given godly fear. And godly fear always cries out
the same response, have mercy on me, the sinner. It doesn't
point to around the room to somebody else. It doesn't point to anyone
ever else. It points right here. causes
us to smote upon our breath, saying, I need a heart transplant.
I need a new heart. I need this stony heart to be
taken out. Have mercy on me, the sinner. I'm not worried about
that person. I'm not worried about that person. I have no
justification in thy sight, O Lord. I have no self-righteousness.
I need the righteousness of Christ. Have mercy upon me, the sinner.
And if the Lord's given you that cry, And Christ is all your righteousness. And if the blood of Christ is
your only plea before the father, fear thou not. That's what he's telling us here
in our text. Have you ever noticed that all
throughout scripture, when God is revealed, he is always revealed
as seated, always revealed as seated. When Isaiah saw him,
he saw the Lord seated high and lifted up. When the Lord's revealed,
he's always Saul seated on his throne. Always. The God of religion
is not seated. See, being seated means the work
is finished. Everything needed has been done. Everything required
has been accomplished. Everything required has been
provided. God of religion is not a seated
God. It's a God that's pacing, it's
a God that's standing, waiting on man to do something, hoping
that men let him have his way. This is not the God that I'm
preaching to us this morning. The God I'm talking about is
seated, expecting until his enemies be made his footstool. What does
that mean? When the fullness of time comes, his enemies are
going to be made his footstool because they already are. It
just has to happen in time. Men have no understanding of
the fear of God because it's not in them. It has to be revealed.
This is a gift. If you fear God, it's because
a gift. If you see yourself as needy, that's because he's made
you thus. It's his gift. Question I have
for us this morning is, how do you, how do I see God? If we see him as seated, We know
that there is no righteousness whatsoever that we can bring
before Him, that it takes the blood of Christ alone if we see
Him seated. But if we see Him, if we see righteousness in and
of ourselves, then we're seeing Him as standing. Do we see that?
We're seeing Him as pacing, waiting on us to bring something to Him
to finish the work. It's the simplest analogy I can
give us. We see Him as seated, don't we?
We've been made to see Him as seated. And you know the best
thing about that is, is his voice comes to us when we see him seated
and says, fear thou not, it is finished. A God that's standing
and pacing and waiting on people to do something can't say fear
thou not, because if you don't do enough, you have something
to fear. If I don't do enough with a God that's standing and
pacing, how much is enough? If I don't do enough, hell's
my eternal home, but no, not this gospel. This gospel says
it is finished. Fear thou not. God's honest sheep,
see, they've been made to look. See, seeing, even seeing is not
a work. It's the gift of God, isn't it? Through the eyes of
faith. When the Lord says, receive your sight, where's the glory
in us in that? There is none. Our eyes open,
that's not a work. He opened them. He does the opening.
He does the looking. He did, it's all his sight, all
his faith, all by his grace and all by his choice, isn't it?
I love our God being that way, all by his choice. No, I don't
have a choice. Salvation's a choice, but it's not mine, it's his.
Lord, please choose us. Please call us and continue to
call us. Make us yours. Cause us to hear,
fear thou not. I heard somewhere it's forced
to turn, but we're out of time. I'll paraphrase and tell you
this. In Ezekiel, we get to read these
words. Because of the Lord's work, he
says, I will, you shall. I will, you shall. And that's
several times in Ezekiel chapter 16. But this particular time,
it says, when I think on you, he says, I'll remember. I'll
remember my work and I will be pacified towards you. I'll be
pacified towards you. I will be content with what I
have done. Therefore, he says in the same
book and chapter of Ezekiel, he says, fear thou not. I'll remember my work. It's not
your work. It's what I've done. He says,
that's the reason you have nothing to fear. If you're looking to
yourself, if I'm looking to myself, I have plenty to fear. But if
we're looking to Christ alone, There's nothing to fear. Fear
thou not. Now let's read in closing. Verse 16. In that day it shall
be said to Jerusalem, fear thou not and to Zion, let not thy
hands be slack. The Lord thy God in the midst
of thee is mighty. Oh, he saved us. And he rejoices
over us with joy. He rests in his love. And he
joys over us with singing. He's gathered us together and
we've become sorrowful. And he's gathered us for the
solemn assembly who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was
a burden. Burden. I love the fact that
he says, I will rest in my love. I hadn't seen this before. If
I had have, I would have had us turned there whenever we were
speaking on the Lord's love. Even in John 3, 16, when we looked
at that, the Lord's love, what did it accomplish? Well, if he's
resting in it, that means there's a work that he wrought according
to his love. I mean, that's simple, isn't
it? And what does this love accomplish?
Salvation. Does love accomplish salvation?
There's our hope. Not that we love God, but he
loved us. And has sent Christ to be the propitiation, the one
that pacified the wrath of God, that appeased, that brought back
union, perfect union to the Father. That's what he's talking about.
Because of this hope, the scripture says, hope maketh not ashamed
because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost, which was given unto us. He now sheds the same love wherewith
he loved us in our hearts, not only towards him, towards each
other. I hate to tell you all this,
but there's nothing in me that you should love save Jesus Christ. None of us are good. Nothing
about us is good, but if Christ is in us, Oh, we love each other,
don't we? I love you because you love Christ.
We have the love of God that is shed abroad in our hearts,
one towards another. That's what knits us together. We hear the
same wonderful words coming from him. Fear thou not. But I'm a
worm, Lord. I'm no man. Fear thou not. I became a worm for you and put
away your sin. Lord, hell's gonna be my eternal
home if you don't save me. Call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sin. I already have, fear thou not.
But Lord, everything I do is wrong. Everything I did was right,
and I've imputed it unto you by substitution. I became you
on the cross of Calvary and have given you my righteousness in
return as your reward. My reward for what? I can't do
anything right. Your reward for what I did. Your
reward for what I did. That's what the Lord's telling
us. we get the benefits of Christ's work. It's impossible to fathom, isn't
it? How unfair is that towards God? I mean, if I can say it that
way, you get what I'm saying. We would never do anything like
that. To do a work and take someone's place freely that hates us, despises
us, everything contrary to us, we would never do something like
that. But yet the Lord did. When did He do it? When we were
sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. When we were without
hope, Christ died for the ungodly. Now he says, fear not, fear thou
not. And when we hear this, when we
hear this, think about this verse, the peace of God, which passeth
all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus. What does he mean that it passes
all understanding? I don't understand what I believe. I don't understand how everything
works. I don't understand my circumstances. I don't understand
what's happening in this world. But the peace of God that says,
fear thou not, rests in Christ alone. And we no longer look
to circumstances. We no longer look to self. See,
that peace surpasses all of that, doesn't it? Peace of God passes
by all of that and looks right to Christ. That's what he's telling
us. I don't need to figure it out anymore. We now rest in hearing,
fear thou not. Godly fear causes his people
to flee, to fly away to Christ. That's not our wings we're flying
with. He said, I'll hide you under the shadow of my wing.
Fear thou not. Fear thou not. We fly to Christ on the way,
his wings of faith that he's bestowed. And we hear the most
glorious words the sinner can ever hear. It is finished. I've put away your sin. Therefore,
because of everything we've already said, Therefore fear thou not,
rest in Christ. It's our only hope, isn't it?
It's our only hope.