This evening we want to take
a look at a portion of Isaiah 64. Isaiah 64, when I preached
from this text ten years ago or thereabouts, I entitled the
message, My Sin and His Grace. My Sin and His Grace. And I went
back and listened to that message that I preached ten years ago.
And it was a blessing to me. But I'm entitling the message
for us this evening, even though it deals with our sin and His
grace, I'm entitling the message this evening for Isaiah's prayer
or believer's prayer and a believer's confession. A believer's prayer
and a believer's confession. And we do confess our sin, but
we also confess His grace, don't we? We're saved by the grace
of God. This is a message of all the
Bible, for the Bible describes unto us what we are by nature.
Sinners, through and through, we're all as an unclean thing. You remember Isaiah chapter 6,
when Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, remember what
he said? Woe is me, I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. I
dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. Our only hope for our sin, our
iniquity, our transgression is His grace. That's the message
of the whole Bible. Our sin and His grace. God is
gracious to us for Christ's sake. Certainly this is the message
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our sin and His salvation. He is God, our Savior. We know from reading the scriptures
and It's always good to be reminded of these things. The Lord Jesus
Christ came on a mission of mercy, seeking out his people, doing
the Father's will. He came to save sinners, didn't
he? He came to save sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ died for
the ungodly. It says that in Romans chapter
5. He came to seek and to save sinners. This is the faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
save sinners. He didn't come to call the righteous.
He came to call sinners to repentance. I like what He said to Zacchaeus,
remember? The Lord said to Zacchaeus that
He's come to seek and to save. The lost. Zacchaeus was one of
those lost sheep that the Lord met and went home with him, saved
him by his grace. Now, in this chapter, we see
two things, as I pointed out earlier. We see the believer's
prayer, or Isaiah's prayer, verses 1 through 5. I want to make these
words our own prayer. Make this your prayer tonight.
And then secondly, in verse 6 through 9, we see Isaiah's confession,
or a believer's confession. I want you to make this your
confession before God. Don't confess your sins to me.
I'm just as sinful as you are. Confess your sin unto the Lord.
Confess your sin unto the Lord. And again, I want us to make
this our own confession before God. our sin and His grace, our
sin and His salvation. We are what we are by His grace,
right? His grace. Isaiah's prayer for
the Lord's presence. Notice Verse one, we'll look
at verse one down through one, verse five in just a minute,
but notice Isaiah's asking for the Lord to come down and meet
with him, thy presence. Notice it says that three times
in these first three verses. Oh, that thou wouldest rend the
heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might
flow down at thy presence, at thy presence, when as the melting
Fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy
name known to the adversaries, that the nation may tremble at
thy presence, when thou didst terrible, tremendous things,
which we looked not for, unexpected. For thou camest down, and the
mountains slowed down at thy presence, the presence of the
Lord. the presence of the Lord. How necessary is the presence
of the Lord? How necessary is our Lord to
His people? Remember what the Lord said in
John 15? He described Himself as the true
vine. He said, I'm the true vine, you're
the branches. Then He went on to say, without Me, you can do
nothing. I'd say His presence is pretty
important, isn't it? Without Me, He said, you can
do nothing. We don't need more wealth. We
don't need better health. We don't need a good financial
planner. We don't need any more preachers. We've got plenty of preachers.
Preachers everywhere. Everybody I meet seems to be
a preacher. My pastor used to say the woods are full of preachers.
Everybody's brother's a preacher. We don't need more churches. When I started going to Kingsport
back in 2006, I ran into a local preacher up in that area. And
I told him that I was going to come up there to preach the gospel,
and he said, we don't need any more churches up here in Kingsport. I said, well, I know you don't
need any more churches, but you do need the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. We don't need more religion.
We got plenty of that, don't we? Everybody's religious. You
ever met a man that wasn't religious? I've talked to a lot of people
over the years. Very, very few people don't have
some kind of refuge, some kind of religion, don't they? We don't
need all those things, but I tell you what we do need, we need
His presence. We need Him. We're going to sing in a minute
our closing hymn, I Need Thee Every Hour. I need Thee. Oh,
I need Thee. I need Thee. Moses prayed, you
remember that prayer in Exodus 33? When he asked the Lord to
show me your glory, the Lord said, I'll be merciful to whom
I will. I'll show compassion on whom
I will. And then Moses said, he prayed,
if thy presence go not with me, carry me not up hence. Oh, we need His presence, don't
we? Aren't you thankful that the Lord said, where two or three
are gathered together in my name, I'm there. We have His presence. If we don't have his presence,
if we don't have his presence, and we have everything else,
in reality, we have nothing. For he's everything. Even if
we don't have anything, I mean we are, what's the old expression
they used to use? Dirt poor. If we don't have anything,
I mean nothing, But yet we have His presence, we have Him, we
have everything. We have everything. If we have
His presence, that is, His person, if we have Him, if we have His
person, if we have the Lord Jesus Christ, everything that God requires
of us is completely, fully, eternally provided for us. You see, if
we have Christ, we have everything. We have everything. My God shall
supply all your need according to His riches in glory through
the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and we are complete in Him. If we have
His presence, we have everything. Look right across the page at
Isaiah 63, verse 9. In all their affliction He was
afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them. In his love
and in his pity, he redeemed them, he bared them, and carried
them all the days of old. Who is the angel of his presence?
Who is the messenger of God's presence? The Lord Jesus Christ. We're going to see that in our
study in Revelation 10, verse 1, about the mighty angel that
had a rainbow in his face, shining as the sun. The Lord Jesus Christ
is a messenger of God's presence. In Psalm 16, we read, that will
show me the path of life, even, that will show me the path of
life, in thy presence is fullness of joy. In the presence of the
Lord is fullness of joy. At thy right hand are pleasures
forevermore. Of his fullness have we all received
grace for grace. You remember what David prayed
in Psalm 51? Cast me not away from my presence. Don't take
the presence from me. Take not thy Holy Spirit from
me. Oh, that the Lord would be pleased to take up residence
in our heart. And that's what he does. Salvation
is an invasion. It's an invasion of the Lord
in our heart. It's enthronement of the Lord
Jesus Christ, exalted in our hearts. Oh, that the Lord be
pleased to take up residence in our heart. For Christ in you,
that's the hope of glory. His presence. His presence is
with us. You remember when the risen Lord
spoke to his disciples upon his ascension to glory? And he said,
all powers given to me in heaven and earth, go ye therefore and
preach the gospel everywhere. And he said, remember this, I
am with you always. That's his presence. We don't
go anywhere as believers without the Lord being with us. You say,
well, I don't feel His presence. He didn't ask you to feel His
presence. He said, believe my word. I'm with you always. I'm
with you always. Now, let's look at this prayer
for a moment. Look at verse 1. Isaiah 64, verse 1. Oh, that
thou wouldest rend. That's my desire, that you would
rend the heavens that you would come down, that the mountains
might flow down at his presence. The mountains might flow down
at his presence. What are these mountains? Well,
I'll tell you what they can be symbolic of. Mountains of sin,
mountains of pride, mountains of self-righteousness and lust. that the Lord would come down
and truly melt away these things at His presence. He's not in
them of a broken heart, save as such as be of a contrite spirit. Look at verse 3. Verse 3, when
thou didst terrible things which we didn't expect, you came down,
the mountains flowed down at thy presence. Wouldn't that be
a blessing? Look at verse 2, to make thy
name known. When the melting fire burneth,
the fire causeth the waters to boil. Remember on the day of
Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended like a mighty fire to make thy
name known. Oh, that God the Holy Spirit
would come down and reveal the Lord Jesus Christ, the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ. God given him, he's highly exalted
him, and given him a name above every name, that his name, every
knee should bow, every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord. His name shall be called what?
Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father,
the Prince of Peace, to make thy name known. You see, by nature,
we don't know who God is. God's not who we think He is.
He's who He is, as He's revealed in the Word of God. To make known
thy name, the very name of God's salvation, is the Lord Jesus
Christ. I like Peter's confession, Peter
and John, Neither is there salvation in any other, nor the name under
heaven, given among men whereby we must be saved. He's the only
just God and Savior. We've read that. Where is that?
That's in Isaiah 45, isn't it? He's the only just God and Savior. That's why it says, look unto
me, and be saved all the ends of the earth. Beside me there
is no other God, that we might tremble that the nations, the
last part of verse 2, here's our prayer, that the nation may
tremble at thy presence. You know, by nature, remember
what it says over there in Romans 3, there's no fear of God before
their eyes. Naturally, men have no fear of
God because they don't know who God is. Oh, that God would come
down and make himself known, the power and the fire of God's
Holy Spirit, that nations, Gentiles, sinners, might tremble at his
presence. Would that be something? That
God would come down and convict us so that we would tremble at
his presence, his holy presence? Psalm 111 says, Holy and reverent
is thy name, O that we might tremble at thy name, that we
might worship the true and living God. And then he says, verse
4, that we might wait upon the Lord. For since the beginning
of the world, men have not heard, men have not heard, men have not perceived by ear.
We have not heard because we're dead in sin. God has to quicken
us and make us alive. Men have not heard. Men have
not perceived. Men have not understood. This
is what's quoted over in 1 Corinthians 2, 9. Neither hath an eye. We're blind. We're deaf. We can't
hear. We're blind. We can't see. O
God, beside thee there is no other. what he hath prepared
for them. We don't see what God left to
ourselves, because we have ears to hear, we don't have eyes to
see, because we're dead in sin. We don't know what God has prepared
for those that wait for him, for those that love him. He's
prepared for us. Oh, he's prepared for us. I'm
thinking of Was it John 14, I go away to
prepare a place for you? If I go away, I'll come again
and receive you unto myself. He prepared for us all of salvation. He's our wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption that we might glory in Him. Waiting upon the Lord. You remember
the story of Simeon? The Lord told that old man in
the temple, you wouldn't die. You're not going to die, Simeon,
until you've seen the Lord's Christ. Remember, he's waiting
for the consolation of Israel. And when he saw the babe, the
Lord Jesus Christ, he said, I'm ready to die. Let me die now. That's when a man's ready to
die. When he's seen the Lord, I'm ready to die. I've seen the
Lord. Our waiting upon the Lord is born out of love for Him.
for them that love Him. We only love Him because He's
first loved us. O God, beside Thee there is none
other. We don't see, we don't hear,
not left to ourselves, what God's prepared for us that wait for
Him. Aren't His blessings worth waiting
for? Remember the psalmist, Psalm 27, wait upon the Lord. And again
I say, wait upon the Lord. We wait out of love. Back, you
remember, my dad's generation, World War II generation, how
many of those millions and millions of men went overseas and they
left their sweetheart at the airport. You remember what the
sweetheart told her dear husband or boyfriend? She'd say, I'm
waiting for you to come back. I'm waiting for you. Why'd she
do that? Love, love, out of love. We wait. All his blessings are worth waiting
for because he's worth waiting for. We'll wait. We'll wait for
the Lord. Look at verse 5. Thou meetest
him that rejoices. We rejoice in the Lord Jesus
Christ always, don't we? And we work righteousness. We
rejoice and we work righteousness. Now, what's he talking about
here? Now, whenever we talk about righteousness, we have to talk
about Christ. Because it's going to say in the next verse, all
of our righteousnesses are nothing but rags, filthy rags. Our righteousness is Christ.
He meets with his people that rejoice in his righteousness. Those that remember thee in thy
ways. We remember the Lord. This do
in remembrance of me. Behold, thou art wrath, angry
with the wicked every day, but we've sinned. God can't be pleased
with sin. He's too holy to look upon sin
with favor. But Isaiah, his prayer is, Lord,
we've sinned. Even though we have sinned, God's
long-suffering, in those is continuance. In those is a concealment, is
the word, and we shall be saved. If God is longsuffering to us
and puts away our sin by the sacrifice of himself, we shall
be saved. What did that messenger from
heaven tell Joseph and Mary? Call his name Jesus. He shall
save his people from their sin. If he puts away our sin, if he's
longsuffering and merciful to us, We shall be saved. We shall be saved. That's our
prayer, isn't it? Can you make that your prayer?
I won't make that my prayer. Now, here's the second thing
we want to look at. Our confession. And when we do
pray, we confess our sin, don't we? If we confess our sin, He's
faithful and just to forgive our sin and to cleanse us from
all our sin. Here's our confession. We are
sinners. Look at verse 5 again. We have
sinned. We've all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. And Adam all sinned and Adam
all died. Adam's sin is imputed to us. Adam's guilt is reckoned to us. And Adam all died and Adam all
sinned. We have sinned. Yeah, I've never read one time
in the Scripture. That's true that we've sinned
in Adam, and we're guilty in Adam. We're fallen and we're
depraved in Adam. But I've never read one prayer in Scripture. You read Ezra's prayer, and Nehemiah's
prayer, Ezra 9, and Nehemiah 9, and Daniel 9. I've never read
one time in the Scripture when we read about David's prayer,
I never read one time in the Scripture where anybody, a believer,
prays, Lord, forgive me for Adam's sin. We have sinned. Lord have mercy upon me, the
sinner. We have sinned, but yet we shall be saved. Now
here's our confession. We're all, we are all as an unclean
thing. And notice the word thing there
is added. We're all unclean. Unclean. Unclean. And that goes back to
those who were lepers under the law. When a man was full of leprosy,
when he went out in the public, he had to yell. Remember what
he had to yell? Unclean. Don't come near to me. It's like when all that COVID
went around and somebody knew they had COVID. I'm unclean.
Don't come near me. Stay away. Six feet. I'm unclean."
They were able to cover their mouths and yell, unclean. Well
that's what we did, didn't we? We put a covering on and said,
we're unclean. We're all unclean. We're all
an unclean leper. That's why we need salvation.
What does a leper need? Remember the leper came to the
Lord in Matthew 8. He came to him and worshipped
him. He was full of leprosy. He said, Lord, if you will, you
can make me clean. And the Lord said, I will be
thou clean. You see, the point is, salvation is for sinners.
Salvation is for those who are unclean, defiled, wretched, sinners. We're all, that includes everybody,
all as an unclean thing. There is none righteous, no,
not one. And all of our, look what it
says, and, he keeps saying and, we're all as an unclean thing,
and all our righteousness is filthy rags. You mean everything I do is sinful? Absolutely. Everything you do
is contaminated with sin. You see, sin is what we are. That's what we are. We are S-I-N. We've sinned. And because we
are sinned, we have sinned against God. And the best we have, what
Men think they have that would recommend them to God. Now what
do you think would people have this idea in their heart? Well,
I'm just going to be a moral good person and somehow that's
going to recommend me to God. Remember what the Lord said to
those Pharisees, you or they would justify yourself before
men. They had a righteousness before
men, but God said that which is highly esteemed among men
is an abomination in the sight of God. All our morality, all
of our goodness is nothing but filthy rag. Remember when Saul
of Tarsus thought that he had honored the law and kept the
law, but when he was taught of God that what he was and what
he did was nothing but sin, he said, I count all that stuff
lost and dung and ruined that I may win Christ and be found
in him who is my righteousness. Now no matter how high you pile
filthy rags or how high you pile manure, it's still a pile of
manure. It will never be anything but
a pile of manure. The only righteousness that we
have is Christ. So everything else is dung. You know what that word means,
right? Manure. Manure. We shoveled that
out every morning, every evening when we milked cows. And we had
a big pile of dung. And no matter how high you piled
it, it was still manure. We're all as an unclean leper. We're all a righteous and filthy
rag. And there's more. And he keeps
piling on. And we do fade like a leaf. Now how much strength does a
human being have? Well, as much strength as a withered,
dried up dead leaf on a maple tree along about the middle of
October when the north wind blows. What happens to that leaf when
the north wind blows? Can a leaf resist that north
wind that comes? Look what it says, we all do
fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. We're totally dependent on the
Lord Jesus Christ for all of salvation. All our best deeds
piled together are nothing but sin. Nothing but sin. We confess our total depravity,
our total inability, like a dead, dried up leaf hanging on a tree. Helpless. Helpless. So our iniquities have blown
us away. Now get a hold of this. We have no ability to stop sinning
against God. You say, well, I'm just going
to stop sinning. Okay. We're going to have to
take you out and bury you. When you die, you'll stop sinning. You see, there's none righteous,
no, not one. As one of my preacher brethren
says, you cannot not sin. You cannot not sin. If we say
we have no sin, no sin nature, if we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth not in us. If we say we have
not sinned, we make God a liar. You see, sin is what we are. Sin is what we are. We cannot
do anything but sin. That's our confession. Is that
your confession? Our only hope is Christ. Now
here, he goes on, and, verse 7, he keeps piling on, and, you
mean there's more? And there's none, none that call
upon thy name. There's none that stirreth up
himself to take hold of thee. There is none that will seek
the Lord. left to himself for thou has
hid thy face from us and has consumed us because of our iniquity. There is none. We confess we're
shut up to God's sovereign mercy alone. This verse along with
many other teaches us that no sinner will truly seek the Lord
apart from the irresistible, invincible grace of God. Contrary
to what most men are saying today, man's will is not free. Isn't that what that says right
there? There's none that calls upon thy name, there's none that
stirs up himself to take hold of thee. We are so impotent and
totally depraved, we cannot even fix a toothache. If man's will
was free, next time you get a toothache or a bad aching joint, just will
it away. Say, I will the thing away, it's
not going to hurt no more. What they call that positive
mental attitude, you fix everything. No, no, no, no, no. There's none
that stirs up himself to take hold of God. Contrary to what
men are saying, man's will is not free. They say, well, man
is a free, moral, That's what they say. Wrong on all three
counts. Man's not free. He's in bondage
to his rotten nature. Man's will is not free because
it's hindered by his depravity. Man's will, he's not a free moral
agent. He's not moral. Is he? Man is not moral. He's immoral. And he's certainly not an agent.
You're an agent of God? You're invested with power to
act on behalf of God? Man's not an agent. If anything,
he's a servant to the Lord. By nature, we're servants to
sin. Man is in bondage to his sinful nature. None will call
upon the Lord. You remember our Lord said, no
man can come to me except my Father which sent me, draw him.
No man. No man. You see, the problem
is I want to. Man by nature has no want to.
All he desires is self. Self worth. Self righteousness. You see, my friend, your sin,
your sin won't keep you from Christ. Your self righteousness
will. As long as you think you can
get it done on your own, you won't call upon the Lord. None
stirs up himself to take hold of the Lord. The Lord must first
call us, the Lord must take hold of us, or we'll never lay hold
of Him. We only love Him because He first
loved us. Look at verse 8. And here's this
word that we love. It's a word of grace. But God, who is rich in mercy,
for his great love, wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sin. But thou, O Lord, thou art our
Father, is our confession. You're our God. You're our Father.
We are the clay. You're the powder. You're the
creator. We're all the work of thy hands.
Now all of you have done that in school or you've watched somebody
at a craft show, that potter who was skilled, had that spinning
pottery wheel, and he'll take that big lump of old moldy wet
clay and spin that thing and he'll start to pull along and
he's got a beautiful vase. That clay, you can throw that
clay and put that clay on that table. You can spin it all day
long. It's not going to make itself into a beautiful vase.
We are His workmanship created in the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's our confession. Thou art
our Father. We are your clay. You're our
potter. We're the work of your hand.
God, who has begun a good work in you, He will finish it. He
will get it done. He will get it done. Thou art
our Father. We confess we are sons of God
by His electing grace. Behold, what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called sons
of God. We are all the work of Thy hand.
The last thing, look at verse 9, but be not wroth, very sore,
O Lord, neither remember Iniquity forever. Remember what the good
news of the gospel is? He said their sin and their iniquity
will I remember no more because of the blood atonement of Christ.
Behold, see we, beseech thee, we are thy people. That's our
confession. You're our Father. You're our
Potter. You're the sovereign Lord. We're
in your hands. God's not in our hands. We're
in His hands. We are all thy people and we
are thy people. People of His choice. His people
by His choice. Our Lord said, you didn't choose
me, I've chosen you. We are thy people. Remember He said, remember from
Psalm 95, Psalm 95 where He said, we are the people of His pasture
and the sheep of His hand. We are thy people. Have mercy
upon us. the sinner. Now, make that your
prayer. Make that your confession. Salvation
is all of God's grace.