If you'll turn with me again
to the fourth chapter of Luke, this was a special Sabbath day. The people awoke and rose early
this Saturday morning. Everybody was going to the synagogue. Long before time for the service
to begin, the streets were filled with people making their way
to the synagogue to be sure that they got a seat. And it began to fill up early,
all the way back to the back, to all the doors. And then people
came late and were standing out in the corridors and out on the
porch You see, word had come back to Nazareth concerning one
whom they knew, one who had been brought up in their midst, one
by the name of Jesus, the son of Joseph, the son of Mary, the
carpenter. And the people were talking. The Levites and priests were
not there yet. Jesus himself was not there yet. And they were talking one with
another. Is he really in town? Yes, I saw him yesterday. Well,
how do you know he'll be here? Well, he's always here on the
Sabbath day. That was his custom. Will he speak? Will they let
him read? Will they let him speak? He's not a Levite. He's not a
priest. Will he be allowed to read? Will
he be allowed to speak? Oh yes, I've heard he's going
to speak. Everybody wants to hear what he has to say. One says, well, I heard that
down in Capernaum, he healed a woman that had been sick 12
years. She'd been to many doctors, and she was no better, and she'd
spent all that she had, and all she did was just touch his clothes,
and immediately she was healed. Well, I heard that a man named
Peter, He called him to be one of his
followers, one of his disciples, and Peter's mother was at the
door of death. And Jesus went down to her house
and made her well. And they tell me that down in
Capernaum that a man had a withered hand, and nobody there had ever
seen him use that hand. It was just withered and dried
up. And Jesus told him to stretch
out his hand and it was made whole. They tell me that happened. And a fellow I know talked to
a fellow that actually saw him heal that man's hand. And then there was the centurion
who came to him whose servant had palsy. The man couldn't walk straight.
He trembled. And the Lord Jesus made him whole. But the thing that had all of
them talking was the report that had come back from Capernaum
that few of them believed. But nevertheless, the rumor was
circulated that he actually raised a little girl from the dead.
Was she really dead? That's what they said. Her daddy's name was Jarius.
He was a prominent man in the town. And Jesus, they say, was
preaching, and Lazarus went to him and told him that his daughter
was sick. And while they were talking a
servant, they say, came and said, don't bother him, your daughter's
dead. And he just told the man to go
home, his daughter would be alive. And the people were talking about
these things, and when Christ finally came in, when Jesus Christ
came in, there was a hush fell over the congregation. And all
of the people there, I don't know how many there were, but
there were hundreds and hundreds of them. And they all began to
look right at him. Nobody said a word. They punched
one. That's him. That's him. He lived next door
to me. I knew his mother and daddy.
I knew his brothers and sisters. I never saw anything special
out of him when he grew up. He was just a little boy running
around the streets. Hush, hush, he's coming in. So
he came on in. And he came up to the platform.
The Levites invited him to come up. And they handed him the roll,
the scripture was in rolls, and they handed him the roll, the
prophet Isaiah. And he unrolled it and found
the chapter 61, or the part where we have chapter 61. And he said, as they looked at
him and listened to him, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach
the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book and gave
it to the man in charge And he sat down, and all of them looked
at him, waiting to hear what he'd say. Now, he knew why they were there.
He knew that they had misunderstood his message. They had totally
misunderstood his ministry. They totally did not believe
in him. They were skeptical. But this is why they were there.
He tells us down here in verse 23. And he said, you'll surely say
unto me, position heal thyself. Whatsoever we have heard done
in Capernaum, we've heard about what they're talking and what
they're saying, what you, they say, have done. Now do it also
here in your own country. Do it right here among your own
people. They had heard of the wisdom
of his words, for fame had gone out concerning him. Look at verse fourteen, there
went out a fame of him through all the region. Look, if you
will, at verse thirty-seven, and the fame of him went out
into every place of the country round about. And they wanted
They wanted some of the benefits of this great power. They wanted
some of the things to be done here in his hometown that he
had done in these other places. For after all, they were his
people. He owed it to them. They had done business with his
father. His father ran a carpenter shop there in town. And these
people had done business with his father, and they'd helped
support his family. If he owed any of these miracles
to Capernaum, he certainly owed them here. And when his mother
Mary was sick, they took food over to the house, and one of
the ladies there said she kept the children while Mary was sick.
And they had provided him with a place to go to school. Well,
if he's going to set up headquarters anywhere, it ought to be right
here in Nazareth, because we're his people. He was raised here. He's a hometown boy. And besides
that, we're most religious people. We're Jews, and he's a Jew, and
we have the proper ceremonies and scriptures and orthodoxy.
We believe as he believes in one God. If he's a prophet of
God, surely he's a prophet to us. If he's sent of God, the God
of Abraham and of Moses and of Isaac, then he's sent of our
God because that's our God. And we are law-abiding, moral
people, keepers of the Sabbath. Here we are on the Sabbath day.
We say our prayers faithfully. We read the Scriptures. We teach
our children. He says, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, what you've
done in these other places, do it here. Do it here. He read from Isaiah 61. Let's turn over there just a
moment. Let's see what our Lord read. Now Luke quotes it, but
Luke doesn't quote the whole passage. I'm sure our Lord read
more than Luke quoted. Luke gave a summary of it. But
he read from Isaiah 61. And in reading from Isaiah 61,
this is the attitude and spirit and situation that he addressed,
much like today. His message misunderstood. His
ministry misunderstood. His mission misunderstood. People
taken up with other things besides the one thing he came to do, the one task he came to accomplish. They heard nothing of what he
preached. They heard nothing of what he
claimed. They heard nothing of what he proclaimed in his message. All they heard was the miracles
and the wonders and the signs that had been accomplished, and
they wanted to see some of them done right here. And Christ turned,
and this is what he read, and this is the way he addressed
himself to those people as they sat there, the mass, the multitude,
the mob, and every eye upon him. Critically so, I'm sure. And
I'll say this to you, if you find out what this scripture
is saying, then you'll find the work of the Messiah, the message
of the Messiah. If you lay hold upon these words,
now they didn't, Our Lord addressed them and presented this message
to them. The result was a riot. They tried
to kill him. They tried to throw him off a
cliff. When they heard what he had to say, the whole place was
filled with rage and anger. They rose up in anger. They thrust
him out of their midst. But if we can get a hold of what
these words are saying, we can lay hold on the redemptive work
of our Lord. We can lay hold upon the message
and the mission and the ministry of the Redeemer. He didn't come to work wonders. He came to work the works of
Him that sent Him, which are the works of redemption. He didn't
come just to heal bodies. He came to heal hearts. He didn't come just to raise
dead people from natural grains. He came to raise spiritually
dead people. And he says in verse 1 of chapter
61, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath
anointed me. The Lord hath anointed me. It's
the Lord God who ordained and anointed and appointed and sent
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the Lord God who gave him
the Spirit without measure. It's the Lord God whose will
he came to accomplish. It's the Lord God's words he
came to speak. It's the Lord God's work that
he came to perform. It's the Lord God's law that
he came to honor. It's the Lord God's justice that
he came to satisfy. The Lord God, he said, his spirit
is upon me. The Lord God, he hath anointed
me. I am ordained and sent of him."
Abraham's son Isaac said to him, where's the lamb? And Abraham
said to the Lord, God will provide himself a lamb. And this is the
lamb he provided. Here's God's lamb. Here is God's
prophet, here is God's priest, here is God's king, here is God's
sin offering, here is God's atonement. This is my beloved Son, the Father
said. You listen to Him. Christ is saying, whatever I
have to say, the Lord God appointed me to say it. Whatever I came
to do, the Lord God sent me to do it. Whoever I am to you, The
Lord God hath ordained me to be so. That's whose work I came
to perform. That's whose will I came to accomplish. That's whose words I came to
speak. The Lord God hath anointed me
with his Spirit without measure. To do what? All right, listen
as he goes on. He hath anointed me to preach. He hath anointed me to preach.
Our Lord was a preacher. He came proclaiming by his words
glad tidings, good news. Our Lord preached the gospel
of God's grace and glory. Our Lord preached by his words.
Our Lord preached by his miracles. Our Lord preached by his silence. Our Lord preached by his looks.
But our Lord was always preaching. He lived the Prince of Preachers. He died and became the theme
of preachers. He arose and ever lives the Lord
of preachers. But our Lord was a preacher.
And when he sent his disciples out after he arose from the tomb,
he said, you go and preach the gospel. So the Lord God has sent
me to preach. He has sent me to preach good
tidings, good news, glad tidings. What is the good news? It's the
good news of forgiveness. It's the good news of pardon.
It's the good news of restoration. It's the good news of justification. It's the good news of eternal
life. It's the good news that God will
be merciful to the ungodly, that God Almighty will save, yea,
even the chief of sinners. He has sent me to preach. He
has sent me to preach good news. And he sent me to preach that
good news to the poor, to the afflicted, to the meek, to those
who are poor in spirit, who have nothing, who know nothing, who
can do nothing. If you're good and deserving,
there's no good news for you. If you're righteous, he came
not to call the righteous. If you're without guilt and without
sin, there's no good news for you. He said, the Lord God anointed
me, the Lord God ordained me, the Lord God gave me His Spirit
without measure to go forth and preach, to proclaim good tidings,
good news to those who are poor. And then he said, the Lord God
hath anointed me not only to preach good tidings to the poor,
but he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted. Turn with
me to Psalm 34. Are you brokenhearted? I'm talking
about brokenhearted because of sin. I'm not talking about being
brokenhearted because of the failure of some ambition or the
breaking up of some friendship, or the loss of some companion. I'm talking about, are you broken
hearted because of sin? Are you broken hearted because
you can't repent as you would? Are you broken hearted because
you don't have the faith that you desire? Are you broken hearted
because you can't keep God's law? Are you broken hearted because
you sinned against the Holy God? Are you broken hearted because
of your evil thoughts and because of your hasty words and because
you fear that in the end you may fall, are you broken hearted? Because if you are, it says in
Psalm 34 verse 18, the Lord is known to them that are of a broken
heart. If you are, the Lord is known
to them that are of a broken heart. And he saveth such as
be of a contrite spirit. Turn to Psalm 51. And this is
repeated three or four times in the psalm, but here are just
two of them. Psalm 51, verse 17. The sacrifices of God are
a broken spirit. A broken spirit, a broken and
a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. He hath sent me. He hath anointed
me. The Lord God, He's the one that
sent me. He's the one who gave me His
Spirit without measure. He's the one who appointed me
to preach, to declare, to proclaim good news, the good news of pardon
and justification and mercy. God will be merciful. to the
poor in spirit and to heal the brokenhearted. And then he said,
and the Lord has sent me to proclaim liberty, freedom to the captives. In September of 1862, Mr. Lincoln issued what they
called the Emancipation Proclamation. It was to become effective on
the first day of January, 1863. The proclamation was this, that all
slaves were hereby, as of January 1, 1863, free men. This Emancipation Proclamation
was not a request. It was a proclamation. It was
not an invitation. It was not a suggestion. It was a proclamation. They were
free. They were hereby declared by
the authority of the President to be free men. Our Lord Jesus
Christ says here, the Lord God anointed me and he sent me to
preach good news of forgiveness, mercy, and life everlasting.
He sent me to heal the brokenhearted and He sent me to proclaim, not
to suggest and not to invite and not to recommend and not
to request, but to proclaim that all the captives of the law whom
He hath given to me in His eternal purpose and all whom I represent
And all whom I came to save are free. They are free. They are free from the curse
of the law. They are free from the dominion of Satan. They are
free from the control and power of sin. They are free. And the
Apostle Paul believed this. It's so difficult to get some
folks to believe this, to lay hold upon it. We are free. Paul said in Romans chapter 8,
who can lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that
justifies. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that dies. Who can separate me from the
love of God? Nothing can. I'm free. Christ
Jesus said, the Lord God sent me, and the Lord God's will shall
be done. And he hath sent me to proclaim.
to hereby declare that the slaves are free, bought by Christ, redeemed
by Christ, ransomed by Christ, freed by Christ, and there's
no power in earth, heaven, or hell that can lay any charge
or claim to these free men. They're God's free men, and they
may live in communist countries, and their bodies may be in chains,
but they're free men. They may live in the middle of
the desert. They may live in the heart of the jungle. They
may be hard-working men in coal mines and steel mills and refineries,
but they're free men. They may be under rules and laws
of men. They may be drafted into armed
forces, but they're free men. They're God's men. And they're
free from the curse of the law, and they're free from the dominion
of Satan, and they're free from the control of sin. Christ hereby
has set them free. It's a proclamation. I came,
He said, to proclaim it. It's done. The great transaction's
done. I am my Lord's and He is mine.
And then He goes on. He says, and He sent me, He sent
me, verse 2, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
Now brethren, over in the book of Leviticus, chapter 25, and
I don't have any doubt in my mind, and I'm not alone in this,
I checked several of the most authentic writers and commentators,
that this acceptable year of the Lord is the year of jubilee
that's talked about and typified in Leviticus 25. In Leviticus
25. Now, every seventh year was a
Sabbath year. I mentioned this in a message
not long ago, that the crops were allowed to rest that seventh
year. Certain things were done every
seventh year. But every seventh, seventh year,
Now let's read about it in Leviticus 25 verse 8. And thou shalt number
seven sabbaths of years unto thee. Seven times seven, that's
49 years. And the space of seven sabbaths
of years shall be unto thee 49 years. Then shalt thou cause
the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the
seventh month and the day of the atonement. in the day of
the atonement. That's when the trumpet's going
to sound throughout all the land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth
year and proclaim liberty through all the land unto all the inhabitants
thereof. It shall be a jubilee unto you,
and you shall return every man unto his possession, and you
shall return every man unto his family. A jubilee shall that
fiftieth year be unto you." What in the world does that mean?
Boy, I tell you this, when that atonement was made
and that trumpet blew on that fiftieth year, this is what it
meant. It meant every man who had been
sold into slavery during those prior 49 years was free. That's right. If he'd served
for 47 years, or 30 years, or 20 years, or 15 years, when the
trumpet blew, he walked out of his master's house a free man. Every slave, every servant, every
man that had been brought into any kind of bondage throughout
the whole land of Israel. When the trumpet blew after the
atonement was made, he walked out with his family a free man. Now, the land of Israel was divided
into plots of land, into lots and plots according to tribes. And each family had a plot of
land. Well, sometimes they got in trouble and they sold their
land. And it got out of the hands of
the family. And some fellow, some greedy fellow, bought up
three or four plots, or four or five plots, or 10 or 11. And
therefore, a man had to go into slavery. A man had to go into
working for somebody else. He didn't have his own farm.
He was a sharecropper. He worked for somebody else.
But when that trumpet blew, Jay, he went back on his land. Here
he is again. The fence around it, that's right, Charlie, it
belonged to him. Every foot of ground. That was his before,
was his again. Every photograph. That's right. Every person. I don't care if
he'd been gone 46 years. When that trumpet blew, that
plot of land that belonged to his daddy and belonged to him,
belonged to him again. I don't care what he sold it
for, what reason, it was his. Tell you something else. When
that trumpet blew on the year of Jubilee, Every debt was counsel. Every day. When the atonement
was made and the trumpet blew, everybody tore up their ledgers
and threw them in the waste can. Didn't owe nothing. I don't care
how much you owe. This is the fact. No matter how
much you owe, you started out with a clean slate. Every debt
was counsel. Nobody owed anything. Year of
jubilee. And then it was year of rest.
And he says over there in Leviticus 25, 17, that the people were
not to oppress one another. You shall not oppress one another.
You shall not cause one another unhappiness. You shall not take
advantage of one another. But you're going to walk that
year in the fear of the Lord. And I am the Lord your God. What
a year, the year of jubilee. Well, when our Lord stood in
front of that bunch of Jews in Nazareth, He said, the Lord God
anointed me. I didn't come down here to heal
blind people, deaf people, lame folks, and astound you and amuse
you and amaze you. I came down here to preach good
news, mercy, grace, forgiveness. I came down here to minister
to some folks with a broken heart. Some folks that needed help.
I came down here to proclaim that the captives are free. I
came down here to preach, proclaim this is the acceptable year when
Christ died on the cross and the atonement was made. My debts
were all paid. I don't owe a thing. All counsel,
every debt I owe. Jesus paid it all, all the debt
I owe. I don't owe anything. I don't
owe the law anything, I don't owe the devil anything, I don't
owe God anything in Christ. And what Adam lost, Adam used
to be the king of this world. God told him, said, Subdue the
air! Reign over it! But he failed,
and he lost his crown. But you know, when our Lord died
on the cross, he restored to me everything Adam lost in the
fall. My inheritance is reserved and
waiting on me. It's waiting on me. It's waiting
in glory. And then every man that went
into slavery, and we did. We were sold into slavery. Our
granddaddy Adam sold us into the slavery of sin, and the pride
of life, and the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes,
and we've been slaves. But our Lord said the slave is
free! We are now the servants of the
Lord. We don't serve any man. We don't bow down to any man.
We give honor to whom honor is due. We give acclaim to whom
acclaim is due in his field, in his area. But our souls are
in subjection only to the King. We worship only Him. That's Jubilee. That's the year of Jubilee. And
then look at the next line. He said, and he sent me to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance. Now
I know that many people read this this way, the day of vengeance,
was the day that God made all the transgressions of all his
people to meet on the head of Christ. And that's perfectly
true. He did. But that's not what he's saying
here. See, the gospel is some people's
good news, and to some folks it's bad news. It's good news
to those who believe it. But I'll tell you this, it's
bad news to those who don't. Because there's none other name
unto heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. We don't know
that name and love that name and receive that name and bow
to that name and call on that name. Then that name will someday
haunt us. That name Jesus Christ will someday
ring in our ears like it's ringing now in the ears of Pilate and
Judas. That sword of the Spirit that
cuts one way cuts the other two. That gospel, which is life to
those that receive it, is death and judgment to those who will
not have it. For Christ said, he that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall
be damned. So the hinge is on the gospel.
It's a day of acceptance. It's a day of jubilee to those
who hear it. But to those who refuse it, it's
a day of God's judgment, and the day of God's vengeance, and
the day of God's wrath. He that believeth on the Son
hath life. He that believeth not the Son
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." And our
Lord said, He read on, and He sent me to comfort all that mourn. Where are the true mourners?
There's true comfort for true mourners. The man who sows the
seed of the Word sows it everywhere, but he knows this, it'll only
take root where the where the plow has broken up the hard ground. He knows that. If the Lord made
you a mourner, if the Lord hath made you a mourner, these words
will comfort you. Everything I've talked about,
when I've talked about the year of jubilee and the freeing of
the slave and the restoration of the inheritance and the cancellation
of debts, your heart just jumped in you. It was comfort. No matter
how low you've sunk, and no matter how depressed you feel, and no
matter how evil you feel, no matter how much sin is upon your
soul, by nature you cry, that's good news! My heart just leaps
within me. It comforts the mourner. Now
if you can save yourself, go to it. But if you need a redeemer,
this will comfort you. If you've got a righteousness
of your own, trust it, the day will declare it. But if you mourn
for sin, you'll be comforted. Blessed are they that mourn.
They shall, shall, shall be comforted. If you mourn under the afflicting
hand of God, you shall be comforted. His grace is sufficient. It is
sufficient. Christ is able, He's able to
save to the uttermost them that come to God by Him. He is able, He's able to comfort
all that mourn. To comfort them in a real comfort,
in a real assurance, in a real confidence, He's able to comfort
all that mourn, no matter how deeply they mourn, He comforts
them. He doesn't use their merit. He
uses to comfort them His grace, the good news of His sacrifice.
the sufficiency of his blood, the capability of his sin offering. That's what he uses to comfort.
He said, this is the comfort God has sent me. He has sent
me to preach, and to bind up, and to heal, and to give sight
to the blind, and to proclaim liberty to the captive, to set
free them that are in the bondage, and bondage and dungeons, and
to preach the year of jubilee. I blow the horn because I made
the atonement. Our great high priest goes into
the presence of God with his own blood and puts it on the
mercy seat, and he comes out himself and proclaims freedom! And then I love this verse here,
and I'll quit. Verse 3, "...to appoint unto
them that mourn in Zion." You know the church is Zion. I think
that's Zion. He's talking about the church
here. to point unto them that mourn in Zion. They mourn over
their sins, mourn over their inability, they mourn over their
failure, they mourn over their insufficiency to give God the
glory due, preach the word like they ought to preach it, pray
like they ought to pray, forgive like they ought to forgive, live
like they ought to live. But he said, I'm going to give
them beauty for ashes. beauty for ashes. What do ashes mean to you? I'll tell you what a grapeful
of ashes tell me, first of all. It tells me three things, but
first of all, it tells me the fire's gone out. That's the first
thing ashes tell me. Looking in the wintertime when
it's cold and snowy outside and you're in the comfort of your
den and sitting there and looking at a Beautiful, warm fire in
the fireplace is comforting. That's pure beauty. But how many
folks sit and look at ashes? Any of you sit and look at ashes?
No. Ashes just say one thing, the
fire is out. And I'll tell you what he's talking
about here. We too, our fire is out. Our fire of hope is dead. Our fire of joy is dead. Our
fire of confidence is burned out. All we got left as a result
of our sins and fall are ashes. But our Lord Jesus comes and
restores the fire and puts back the beauty, puts back the warmth,
puts back the beauty. I'll give them beauty for ashes.
You know what else ashes tells me? Well, I don't use this at
graveside rights and so forth, but some
preachers stand and say, dust to dust and ashes to ashes. So ashes speak of death. It's a joy to hold one whom you
love when they're alive. But you don't want to hold their
ashes, those decayed ashes. I expect if one of your loved
ones died and they cremated them and put them in an urn, you wouldn't
go take the lid off and Lift up the ashes, would you? Death,
cold, clammy death. But he says, I'm going to give
you beauty. I'm going to put the beauty back that death has
taken out. The death of sin, the death of
our souls, the death of every son of Adam. I'm going to put
the beauty back. Beauty like it never had before.
And then ashes tell me one other thing. The fire is out. Death
has visited, and then ashes means sorrow, sorrow. Back in olden times when people
had extreme sorrow, just great sorrow, like Job's, all ten of
his children killed, he put ashes on his head. He'd take off his
good clothes and put on sackcloth and tear the sackcloth and then
sit and put ashes on his head. Ashes, that's sorrow, extreme,
traumatic sorrow. When anybody was sitting there
with ashes on their heads and their shoulders, nobody found
any beauty in that. Well, there's no beauty in sorrow,
but I'll tell you this. Our Lord Jesus Christ took our
ashes of sorrow and gave us beauty. He took our ashes of death and
mourning and gave us joy. He took our spirit of heaviness
and He gave us a garment of praise. Read on the rest of that verse.
He says, I'll give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for
mourning. Even in my mourning over sin,
I can find joy in my Savior. I'll give them the garment of
praise for the spirit of headiness, that they might be called, listen,
trees of righteousness, planted by the Lord." Huh? You like that? Oh, I do. That they might be
trees, sturdy, strong, living trees, planted by the Lord, whose
root is in Christ. planted by the rivers of living
water, whose sap and life is the Holy Spirit, whose fruit
is His fruit in His season, whose leaf never withers. They're trees,
trees of righteousness. You understand what our Lord
is saying to this Sabbath morning congregation? They didn't. They
didn't. You shall say, surely you shall
say, physician, heal yourself. What you did down there in Capernaum,
do it, show off a little bit. The Spirit of the Lord is on
me, he said. I've come on a mission. The Lord God anointed me to preach
good news to the poor in spirit, to bind up the broken of heart,
to proclaim liberty, freedom to the slave, to preach the year
of jubilee, to proclaim the vengeance of
our God, to comfort those that mourn, and to take away your
ashes of death and sorrow and give you beauty, and take away
your mourning and give you joy, and give you a garment of praise
for your spirit of heaviness, that you might be a tree. Every
tree which my Father hath planted shall stand, and every tree which
my Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. What's the last
line? You can't quit till you get to
the last line. That he might be glorified. All of this, that
God might be glorified. Look back at chapter 60 just
a moment. Verse 21, just right up at the
top of the page. Verse 21, chapter 60. Thy people
also shall be all righteous. All of them. Listen to me. You're just as
righteous as I am. God doesn't have any real righteous
people and some not so righteous, John, because we're all in Christ
and we all have the same righteousness. They're all righteous. And with
God there's no halfway righteousness. God can't be satisfied with anything
but perfection. He can't require any more or
be satisfied with any less. They're all righteous. Ava and
I were talking this afternoon, this thing of grace and works.
Salvation is either by grace or works. It can't be both. Now,
works can go to many degrees, but grace has to be completely
free. You might have 5% works, 10%
works, 15%, 20%, 99% works, but still works, no matter what you have. But grace is 100%. So you see,
when God saves a sinner, it doesn't matter whether it's a young sinner
or an old sinner. It doesn't matter whether it's a black sinner
or a white sinner. It doesn't matter whether it's
a terrible, vile, all-out, wretched, urchin of a sinner or a respectable,
moral sinner. It's a sinner God saves. And
He saves him by His grace, totally, completely, freely. Free grace. That sinner contributes nothing
to it. and that center is in Christ
made holy, righteous, perfect. All my people are righteous,
he said, and they shall all inherit the land forever. They're the
branch of my planting. They're the work of my hands that I may be glorified. They're
not the work of your hands. They're the work of my hands.
They're not the fruit and products of your ministry. He says, my
people are all righteous, and they shall inherit the land.
They're the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I
may be glorified, that I may have all the glory, all the praise. Well, that building that filled
up that Sunday morning so slowly emptied mighty fast. mighty fast. They were angry. They didn't
like what they heard. Oh, they didn't object to his
healing people and raising the dead. That was pretty exciting.
But they objected to his His Lordship has objected to His
sovereignty and salvation. They objected to the freeness
of His grace. They objected to His substitutionary
work. That's what natural man neither
understands nor receives, what Christ did. Our Father, thank
You for the Word. It is comfort to those who mourn.