Hi, everybody. Good to see you
this morning. Remember those who requested
a prayer. Add to your prayer list the Parker
family. Happy birthday to Stan Grove.
How old are you? He's a youngster. No, I'm not.
You're mine. I'm as old as you are. 18,000. 18,000. Ooh, you're
catching up with me. It's good to see everybody out
this morning. We'll have the board's table
after the morning service. We'll be out there in the middle
of the afternoon. So let's begin our worship service
this morning with hymn number 186. The church is one foundation
of Jesus Christ her Lord. The church is one foundation
with Jesus Christ her Lord. She is His new creation by water
and the Word. If he came and sought her, to
be his holy bride, with his own blood he bought her, and for
her life he died. He led from every nation, with
honor on the earth, her charter One Lord, one faith, one Word. A glory name she blesses, Our
Tedge, one holy fruit. And to our home she presses,
With every grace in view. In torment, tribulation, in truth,
love, love performed, She waits the consummation of peace forevermore. Till with the vision glorious,
her loving eyes are blest, and the great church victorious shall
be the church ever blest! Yet she honored that union with
all the three and one, And wished this sweet communion with those
whose rest is won. I'm sure if you're reading a
prayer, we'll see number 477. make no idols, no graven image,
neither rear up a standing image, neither shall you set up any
image of stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the
Lord, your God. You shall keep my Sabbaths and
reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord. You walk in my
statutes and keep my commandments and do them, and I will give
you rain in new season, and the land shall yield her increase. shall reach into the sowing time,
and ye shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your house
safely. And I will give peace in your head, and ye shall lie
down, and none shall make you afraid. And I will rid evil beasts
out of the land, neither shall a soul go through your land.
Ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you
by the sword. And five of you shall chase a
hundred, and a hundred shall chase 10,000 to flight. and your enemies shall fall before
you by the sword. For I have respect unto you. For I will have respect unto
you and make you fruitful and multiply you and establish my
covenant with you. And ye shall eat the old store
and bring forth the old because of the new. And I'll set my tabernacle
among you and my soul shall not afford you. And I will walk among
you and I will be your God and you shall be my people. I am
the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of
Egypt, that you should not be there by me. And I have broken
the bands of your yoke and made you go upright. Let us pray.
Our Father, gracious Lord, O God, we thank you for the salvation
you have brought for your people on the cross of Calvary. And
our blessed Savior died in the womb instead of His chosen. Fully
paid their sin debt, redeemed them by His blood, purchased
them, and We are thankful that we can say
with the Prophet Jeremiah, the Lord is our righteousness. The Lord is our righteousness.
Help us, Lord, this day to worship you. Give us a glimpse of our Savior,
high and uplifted, exalted and enthroned, having earned that
place by his great sacrifice for sin. Pray for those who are sick,
those who are going through trials and tribulations. We ask Lord
you'll be up for them in this park of families just to mention.
Father, we pray that you would be merciful and kind, tenderhearted
toward these who are infirm. We know if they're your children,
the infirmity comes up by appointment. Trials and tests are common to
the child of God. They're only designed for one
purpose, that is to bring us to the feet of Jesus Christ.
So we can in the end say thank you for our tribulation and our
trials. For without them we would turn
from you, being happy in our own sense and foolishness. But
we know that by your hand we are brought to trust and depend
upon you. Who else have we in heaven but
Thee, and whom on earth beside Thee? Help us this day, Father, to
truly worship You in spirit and in truth, we pray in Christ's
name. Amen. Number 477. Here's a spirit empty and dry,
Caring not, my Lord, to crucify! Glory now to us! Be ye died on
Calvary! Mercy there was great and grace
was free! Pardon there was multiplied to
me! Let my burdens, all my liberty,
let it die! mercy was free On them was love divine to me. Then I heard a song of liberty
that Calvary. Now I give to Jesus everything. Now I know the only rest I keep. Now my raptured soul can only
sleep mercy there was great and grace
was free when I heard Oh, the grace that brought Him
down to man! Oh, the mighty love that God
did send at Calvary! Mercy there was great, and grace
was free! Our heart and there was love
divine to me! There my burden's told, I'll
give her to you! Let us pray. Father, we come to your
presence again. Seek your presence in these days
and on this day that we might worship you in the ways that
you've ordained and through the preaching of the gospel. through
your children giving unto you, the support of the gospel in
other places, and the receiving of the Lord's table. These things
magnify the glory of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and
what he's done for his children. We know that we have all spiritual
blessings. We lack nothing. We are complete
in Jesus Christ, and we are thankful for that. But we know that in
and of ourselves, there is no good thing, except the residing
principle of sin, colors everything we do and informs everything
we do. We are thankful that you don't look at us in ourselves,
but you see us in our Savior. Let our giving reflect our appreciation
of what you've done for us. We pray in Christ's name, amen. I invite your attention back
to Leviticus. The language of this entire chapter
is a clear picture of the state of the believer and the unbeliever
before God. What I've just read in verses
1-13 teaches the glorious truth of what Christ has done for us. of obedience to the laws of God
as they apply to two areas. The law against idolatry and
the law about keeping the Lord's silence. These two are set forth
in particular. And the blessings that attend
this obedience. Verses 14 through 39 teach the
horrible curse that attends the disobedience of these particular
two aspects of the law of God. In truth the whole law applies
because to offend the law in one point is to be guilty of
the whole thing according to scripture. And in verses 40 through
46 address the doctrine of repentance, of turning from your idols to
serve the living God in mercy, the mercy of God upon sinners
for whom God has granted repentance. Now it's important to remember
as we read the Old Testament that though the law points to
spiritual truth, the law is not spiritual, it is karma. in the
sense that it is temporal. The law wasn't always here. The
law entered, so it must have been somewhere before it entered. The law entered that sin might
abound. The law was added, as Scripture says, because of transgression. So transgression preceded the
law. The law was what came along to define what transgression
was, or is, and that's what it is. It has its function today.
Where there is no law, there can be no penalty for transgression
because the law defines transgression. So it has to have the transgression
in order to have the law. But it's important to remember
that all this Old Testament law was set forth for the children
of God in a temple sense. The blessings attending to these
laws were temporal blessings promised when they went into
the promised land and in the temple realm, and by that I mean
the written law on stone, visible and ever watchful over the nation
of Israel, addresses behavior, and it's conditional. It does not reach the spirit
or the soul. It never does, it never has.
It addresses your behavior, and in the old custom, it was conditional.
In other words, they'll always give it. And the Lord said, if
you keep it, I'll bless you. If you don't, I'll curse you.
It's that simple. It's that simple. It's a very
black and white situation. The blessings spoken of in the
first 13 verses of this chapter are temporal blessings that have
to do with living on the land and being provided for by God
and conditioned on the obedience of the people. And the people
here spoken of are not to raise up a raven image. And if they
will keep the Sabbath, then all the promises that are spoken
of in this passage of Scripture are theirs, even as the Lord
has commanded. They will live a blessed and
fruitful life, was the promise to them, being rewarded for their
obedience to the law of God. Their obedience consists of doing
what God has commanded. Now, those of us who have been
revealed our sinful nature and what we are before Almighty God
cannot look at any law that God has given and find comfort in
it. Because we all are law breakers. All of us are. The law reveals
that. Paul said, I have not known sin
except for the law. had not known sin. That covenant
was conditional. The reason this fact must be
reiterated is because most of what is called Christianity today
has incorporated this conditional covenant into the concept of
grace. And that's wrong. From every
angle you can come at it. They divided the singular law
into what they call the moral law and the ceremonial law. There's
no division in this word. what they call the moral law,
the Ten Commandments. The remedy for breaking that
law was seen in the ceremony. The slaying of the beast, the
offerings made to God, the sacrifices of lambs, books, and the river
of blood that flowed down through the ages was a picture of salvation. The law was a picture of what
we are. It showed us what we are by nature.
When the Lord says don't raise up idols, He's not saying There's
a possibility that you won't. He said, you're doing it. Don't
do it anymore. Quit doing that. That's what it's saying. Now
for the believer, or the believer to try to apply these commands
in the natural realm, that is to say, to endeavor to gain a
spiritual blessing of God by doing something or behaving in
a certain manner, is not only forbidden by the words of the
Lord, but is impossible to accomplish in this life. You do something
thinking you're going to get blessings. One of the things,
the reason I preach this message more because I see a lot of this
stuff on Facebook and people say, if you do this, God will
bless you. You want to be blessed and receive
$70,000, press Amen. That's just the stupidest message
going on, but people say that. They say that as if the blessings
of God are dependent upon you. Now, under the old covenant,
that was the situation. We're not under the old covenant.
Christ said, Lord, I'm coming to thy way. The book is written
to me to do thy will. He taketh away the first and establishes
the second. The second is the eternal covenant,
the eternal covenant of grace. It's impossible to accomplish
anything in your nature before the law of God. Now, while he
sets forth two laws here, both of them have to do with worship.
In fact, all the laws do. One way or another, they all
have to do with worship. These two laws, they must be
perfectly kept. You're going to do the law, you
must do the whole law and keep it perfectly. I won't ask for
a show of hands how many is doing that. For what the law saith,
you see, it saith to them that are under the law, become guilty before God. You want to go to the law? This
is your sentence. You're guilty. This is your verdict. You're guilty. You want to go
to the law anyway? What that does is make you guilty. It all
works in the realm of sin. It does not work in the realm
of grace. In fact, in the law there is
no mercy, and in the law there is no grace. No grace whatsoever. Also, the law of the 8th Sabbath
had to do with the sacrifices and offerings and the availability
of the high priest, the tabernacle, the temple, the holy, the most
holy place, the ark of the covenant, the feast, the holy days. And
you must ask this question, where are they now? Where's the temple? The physical
temple doesn't exist. But there is a spiritual temple
that does. We just sang about it. The church is one. Foundation
is Jesus Christ, her Lord. The habitation of God in this
world is the temple, the body of Christ, the church of the
living God. Where in scripture does God allow
for mitigating circumstances concerning the law? I remember
Don Foreman telling a story about one time he was preaching down
in Australia. Hot summer day, they had the doors and the windows
open, the church doors open, and he made this statement to
the poor people. If you're gonna worship God under the law, there's
three things absolutely necessary. He said, you know, Don had a
real booming voice, so people out in the streets would hear him. Three
things would be necessary. One, you must have a high priest.
You must have a sacrifice. You must have an altar. Just
so happened that a Jewish fellow was walking by. It just so happens,
yeah, about Kawinky-Dick, who was walking
by, and he heard that. And he realized that the religion
he has now embraced, Judaism, no longer existed. Because there
is no high priest to make the Day of Atonement. They have Yom
Kippur and things like that Day of Atonement, but it don't involve
a high priest. See, the Day of Atonement, the way we looked
at it last time, priest going under that curtain with a censer
and the blood of a lamb and sprinkling that place and does it one day
a year and that doesn't put away sin, it just causes God to put
away the punishment for sin for a year and that is the remembrance
of sin. That doesn't exist, they don't
have a high priest. They all sacrifice lambs. Now when I was
in the butcher business, a whole lot of around Easter time to
cut up for them. I guess that was their sacrificial
lamb. They don't have a sacrifice. They don't have an altar. They
don't have a place for a burnt offer. None of that. So what
is the Jewish religion? And remember, Judaism is not
a race. That race of people wasn't called
Jews until 100 years after Sinai. And what they got on Sinai was
a religion of works. a religion conditioned upon their
obedience in order to get blessing. God doesn't allow for mitigating
circumstances in this thing. God says this is how it's done.
It doesn't say here ye shall make no idols except just a few.
It says you make no idols, none whatsoever, and you keep my Sabbaths. You keep them. Those who believe
that they are still under that covenant read these words with
a veil over their eyes, unable to see or to stand the glory
that is behind the veil. Believers in the gospel, if you're
a believer this morning, rejoice. All the promises of God are yea
and they are amen. Christ said, not one jot or tittle
of this law shall pass away till I fulfill it completely. That
I fulfill it. You look up that word fulfilled
in the New Testament. It's found in John 19 three times. It's translated fulfilled, accomplished,
and finished. Comes from one Greek word. The same words used when Jesus
Christ was crucified on Calvary Street when he gave his soul
an offering for sin. He said he had perfected, same
word, forever, them that are sanctified. He said I'm going
to fulfill the law. The veil was rent, it says, and
the law is fulfilled in the belief because Christ died in the stead
of his people. He died in the room instead of
his people. fulfilled in them. What it says in Romans 8 chapter
1. Romans 8 chapter 8 verse 1. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Jesus Christ who walk not after the flesh
but after the spirit. What does that mean? Walk not
after the flesh but after the spirit. spiritual people who
walk around with a glaze upon our eyes and a smile upon our
face. That's explained in verse 25 of the previous chapter. He
said, I thank God through Jesus Christ, so then, with my mind,
I serve the law of God. That's the spirit. With my flesh,
I serve the law of sin and death. That's the flesh. That's what
it is to walk in the spirit. Every child of God walks in is to serve God, to do it right. I remember Donnie Mills said
one time, I love to do one thing. There's one thing in all of my
days that I live upon this earth, entirely and completely for the
glory of God, that you never will, and you will not. Because
of the principle of sin that lives in us according to Romans
chapter seven. We read these words not with fear, but with
thanksgiving. Verse two says, for the law of
the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the
law of sin and death. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians
3, the letter killeth the spirit maketh the like of what the law
could not do in that it was weak through the flesh. We could not
keep the law, that's what that means. God sending his own son of the law might go fulfilled
in all of us who walk not out of the flesh but out of the spirit.
That's what it says. We read these words not with
fear and dread but with peace and assurance. We read these
words in Leviticus 26. And we say this because we know
we are in Christ. We have obeyed the law. We have
obeyed the law because we have obeyed the gospel which is to
believe and rest wholly and entirely on the merits of the Lord Jesus
Christ. unrighteousness. We are law keepers. We kept the law. How? My Savior. He did it for me. And God abused
me in Him. To believe the gospel is to obey
the law and honor the law. That's what Romans 3 in verse
19 through 21 talks about the substitution of the work of the
Lord Jesus Christ, being all of us a propitiation for our
sin. For God is just to justify us. We establish the law, it
says. We establish the law. Christ
is the end of the law, according to scripture. That is the fulfillment
and its purpose. We need to consider these words
in verses 1 through 13 in Leviticus 26. We need to view them clothed
in our right mind, if you will, and see it with new eyes. Seeing
these words having been fulfilled for all of us, these commands
are seen as done, these blessings are seen as received. The receiving
of the blessings of God are still conditioned upon keeping the
law, but not by our Savior. They are conditioned
upon Christ having kept the law for us, that is, dying in our
room instead. For the chief word of the law is the soul of the
sinner that shall die. He was never a sinner, never
sinned, never knew sin. He was the spotless Lamb of God. This veil has lifted the rent
and rent, and we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
In these first two verses, we see that in faith, because of
the work of Christ, we have kept these commandments. These are
the commandments. You shall make no idols or raven
images, neither rear up a standing image, Neither shall you set
up any image of stone in your land, or bow down unto it. That's
what they realize this is about worship. For I am the Lord your
God, and ye shall keep my Sabbath and reverence my sanctuary, for
I am the Lord. These are the two. These words in front of these
two verses. In Christ, ye shall make no idols. In Christ,
ye shall keep my Sabbath. The preface of these within Christ
in view of them is accomplished by Christ for us 2,000 years
ago in Calvary 3. In Christ, ye have made no idols. In Christ, ye kept my Sabbath.
This is what it is to believe with the heart. Man believes
unto righteousness, and since out of the abundance of the heart
of the mouth speakest confession is made unto salvation. Not to
be saved, but you have been saved. Don't you worry about the blood
of Jesus Christ. In verse one, the language God
uses to describe idolatry is very informative. The word idol, or grieving images,
means a useless, powerless, false god or deity. what that means
this is a man-made image that can do nothing but holy relies
on its maker to be ambulant or to attribute to it imaginary
divine powers holy relies upon man to do that remember what
David said when the pagans looked at him and showed him their fancy
golden beautiful god? David here's our God where's
your God? he said our God's in the heaven He's done so whatsoever
He pleases. But you've got eyes, but you
can't see. You've got a tongue, but you
can't speak. You've got feet, but you can't walk. You've got hands, but you
can't handle. And you're just like Him. You're just like Him. The power, the ability to do
anything is really the power of the man who created the destitute
deity. That's where the power comes from. That's why men stand
in the pulpit and say, He can't do nothing unless I let Him.
That's a false god. That's a lie straight out of
hell. Evacuous power is conveniently
attributed to the stump because men in their violence of sin,
even in the violence of sin, must at least pretend to worship
something outside themselves and call it God. It's often said
that such a God, this is the language being used, I hear it all the time. God wants
you to be happy. I'm telling you that God wants
me to be happy. I'm going to be happy as a hog
in mud. Now you can deal with that. See what God wants, God
gets. What God wants me to do, He does.
He's always done exactly as He pleased in heaven and earth and
all the deep places, even under the sea. He's God. They say things like God's hands
are tied. That's a false comment. God's a gentleman. He'll not
override your will. You better hope he overrides
your will. You better hope he jiggles your will real good. Paul's God. That's what the idol
is. The second thing referred to is a standing image. This
refers to a memorial of one's self, or two of one's self, complete
with an altar of one's self. The standing image is man's homage
to his own works. What is the first thing Paul
said in Romans chapter 1 when he started talking about the
progress of reprobation? He said, they refuse to acknowledge
God as He is and make unto themselves an image like unto themselves. Like unto themselves. The third
form of idolatry is an image of stone. It has to do with the
word to build. To build. Romans 10, when Paul
spoke of those who refused to submit to the righteousness of
God, but instead went about to establish their own righteousness.
The root word of that word, establish, is to build. To build. So idolatry is basically this.
Idolatry is worshiping a useless God, made in your image by your
works and your righteousness, which you have built. That's
your idolatry. The believer is left off his
former idolatry. I used to believe in a God who
couldn't do anything unless I met him. Until I met the true and
living God, then I found out that's a whole different ballgame.
Do you know what I think about all those years I spent in religion?
The dung, the manure of no value whatsoever, unless it's like
old Bill Carver used to say. Spent all those years in useless
religion learning what not to believe. Verse 2, the believer is to keep
the Sabbaths of God by resting wholly in Jesus Christ and His
finished work. He denies Himself, His work,
His words, and His worth. He proclaims gladly and boldly
that He does not now nor has ever since God gave Him faith
lifted a finger to gain a blessing from God. I don't do anything
to get blessed. If I got down on my knees and
prayed prayer the rest of my life, that would not gain me
a blessing. Scripture says, and this is what Paul said to the
Ephesian church in Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 3, Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed
us, that is the church, with all, A-double-L, all spiritual
blessings, according as He's chosen us in Christ before the
foundation of the world. that we should be holy without
blame before him, and love having predestinated us to the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ unto himself, to the praise of the
glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the blood. All to the glory of his grace. All spiritual blessings. What
like you? What do you like? Nothing. You have them all. All of them. That's what this
is talking about. All spiritual blessings. Verse
4, the first blessing is rain and season. Now look at verse
3. Verse 3 says, you walk by statutes
and keep my commandments. Do you do that? In Christ you
do. His righteousness is imputed
to us. We can read the words if, as, since we walk. What follows
then is manifold blessings of God. In verse four, then I will
give you rain and new season, and the land shall yield her
increase, and the trees and the fields shall yield her fruit.
This was a promise, the temple promised to them that they'd
have good crops if they obeyed God. But that's not the promise
to us. Our promise is rain and new season.
What is rain in the scripture? Deuteronomy 32. My doctrines
show that still is the dew as the tip of rain. As the tender
rain comes down and makes the flower to bud, so shall my word
be that goes forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto
me void, but shall accomplish that word, whereunto I sent it,
and what I purposed. Joel, the prophet, speaks of
the latter and the former rain. He says in verse four back here,
he says, I give you rain in due season. In Joel, chapter two,
verse 23. says be glad then ye children
of zion that's the church and rejoice in the lord your god
capital letter rd that's jehovah god for he hath given you the
former rain moderately and he will cause to come down for you
the rain the former rain and the latter rain in the first
month that phrase the former rain moderately the word rain
there is a phrase in the original, teacher of righteousness. And the word moderately is according
to righteousness. It's also a phrase. This is the
reign we get. We get the doctrine of God, the
teaching of God. God teaches all his children
and all whom he teaches comes to the Lord Jesus Christ. This
is the blessing of doctrine. I know men don't want to talk
about doctrine. If you don't want to talk about doctrine,
you don't want to talk about Christ. Because he's the doctrine of
God. He's the teaching of God. Verse 5 is the blessing of consummate
and continual care and supply by our great and glorious God.
It says, And your threshing shall reach into the vintage, and the
vintage shall reach into the soil. Ye shall eat your bread
to the full, and dwell in your land safely. All your needs will
be met. What shall I want? What shall
I want for? If He is mine, shepherd. Matthew
chapter 6. Look over there how the Lord
tells His church. Talks about the world seeking
after certain things and the world does seek after certain
things. Tells us not to do that. Matthew chapter 6. verse 31 he says therefore take
no thought saying what shall we eat what shall we drink or
wherewithal shall we be clothed for all these things do the gentiles
seek and another passage I think it's in lewis it says the gnolls
seek for your heavenly father knoweth that you have need of
all these things he knows you need these things but seek ye
first the kingdom of God that is his sovereign rule and his
righteousness that is Jesus Christ And all these things shall be
added to you. Take therefore no thought for
tomorrow. For tomorrow shall take thought for the things of
itself. Tomorrow take care of yourself. Don't worry about it.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Philippians chapter
4 says, My God shall supply all your needs. by his riches and
grace. I forget what martyrdom was,
as they were piling the rocks on the heat of the fire to make
the fire hotter. And after he said more rocks,
he said something like, I've served the Lord. Now I'm 40 years. He never once failed me. He met every need I had. People here in this congregation,
myself included, can tell you the things that happened that
absolutely make no sense whatsoever that the Lord provided in his
own ways. These had to be in the Lord. You ever heard of due
power giving or repaying? Have you? I hadn't either. After me and Deb were first married,
we was kind of scraping by, you might say. Well, you could say
that, we was scraping by. Come the end of the month, we
had a $69 bill we had to pay. We had like four bucks in the
bank. I can't stand to be late on paying bills, just to try
to create something, that's the way I was raised. I don't know
what we're going to do. This bill is due. We don't have
the money. The next day, I went out to the mail. Downtrodden. Figured I was going to get some
more bills. I opened it up. It's a rebate check from Dupont
for $69. Exactly what I owed. Put a few
pennies left over. I ain't never earned that since.
I've been paying Duke Pirates for another 50 years or so, and
I ain't never got another one. But I got that one, and it met
a need. Back in our text in verse 6,
it's the blessing of peace and safety. Peace and safety. I'll give peace in the land.
You shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. Lie down,
and none shall make you afraid. That speaks of that rest that's
spoken of in the Sabbath of the Lord. And I will rid you of evil
beasts out of the land, neither shall your sword go through your
land. I'll give you peace. You shall lay down and not be
afraid. That's what it says in Zechariah
3.13. You shall lay down and not be
afraid. They shall feed and then they'll lay down. Don't sound
much like a busy life, does it, for a child of God? You know
why? Because everything's already
been done for us. What we do is just tell what
God's done. Tell out what God's done. You say, well, aren't you
supposed to do stuff? Well, you'll do stuff. You'll
do the works that God has ordained you to do. Even though you might
not know you've done them, you'll do them. Whatever He's equipped
you to do, you've got to work for that. And you are His workmanship
created in Christ Jesus. There are two good works which
God has foreordained that you should walk in. You go walk in them.
No doubt about that. Rest. Lie down from your labors
and your toils in the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
No fear shall assail you. The evil beast, Satan, his imps,
the ministers of righteousness so called will do you no harm
and no weapon formed against you will prosper. Our Lord said
that. No weapon formed against you shall prosper. And your righteousness
is of me. Isaiah 54, 17. Now in our text
in verse 17, you shall chase your enemies and they shall fall
before you by the sword. Five, you shall chase a hundred,
and a hundred you shall chase ten thousand to flight, and your
enemies shall fall before you by the sword. Children of God have the blessing
of heavenly authority. They don't have authority themselves. That's why our Lord said, go
into heaven, go on out and preach the gospel because all authority
is given unto me in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore and preach
the gospel. You're backed up by the very
word of God. You have authority. And the authority
is the truth. The truth is just scary business
to just everybody except those who know it. Just watch as God
raises up a little group of believers in a place and soon every false
church in the area will begin to warn people about it. Don't go there. They preach predestination
stuff. Don't go there. They preach election.
What do they know about it? Have they ever been there? No.
They just heard. And they're scared. They're scared
that somebody's going to take them over. Five, chase 100. 100
chase 10,000. The fool flees. They'll slander the believer
with lies. We don't have to put on him against
the law, law for law. I love the law. I go put flyers
on his grave every time I preach the gospel. They believe babies go to hell.
That's what they say about us. Don't believe in praying. They
say that about us who believe the truth. They'll take anybody
they see. Yeah, they will. They cause people to flee with
no man pursuing. What are these mega monstrosities
afraid of? The truth. One of them has 12,000
members. He actually, when a person opened
up his Bible on the front, he went and took that Bible out
of his hand and said, you don't need that. You don't need that. He's worth
about $65 million, that preacher is. He's doing well. People don't need that book. I will have respect unto you
and make you fruitful, multiply you and establish my covenant
in you. We know scripture says God has
no respect for a person, but he says he respects his people.
He respects his people. It means if God regards you,
God turns toward you. God turns to you. Isaiah chapter
43. verse four says, since thou was
precious in my sight, thou has been honorable. How could that ever be said of
me? Thou has been honorable, and
I have loved thee. And you'll notice that's the
past tense. In fact, if you find the love of God mentioned in
scripture for his people, it's almost always in the past tense,
because he's always loved them, and they'll always love them,
and they'll never put anybody in hell that they love. Therefore, I'll give men for
thee. I'll give nations for you. I'll give people for thy life.
I'll let you live and kill somebody to try to kill you. Fear not,
I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the
east and gather thee from the west. I will say to the north,
give up. To the south, keep not back.
Bring my sons from afar, my daughters from the ends of the earth. Even
everyone that is called by my name, for I have created him
for my glory. I have formed him, yea, I have
made him. Over in Jeremiah 32. Beginning
with verse 38. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. And
I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me. And that word fear doesn't mean
slavish, it means reverence and adoration and worship forever. For the good of them, it's to
be for their good and for the children after them. And I'll
make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn
away from them and do them good. God's gonna always do his people
good. But I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall
not depart from me. Believers never quit. Yea, I
will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them
in this land of sugar with my whole heart and my whole soul.
Most assuredly, you are planted as trees of righteousness in
this world. Why? Because God has made an
everlasting, eternal covenant of grace concerning you, And
you are His. And you'll foul up, and you'll
fall, and you'll falter, and you'll trip, and you'll stumble,
but you'll never be put down. You'll never be cast aside. I
love what the psalmist said in Psalm 87. David and thus Christ. His seed, in verse 29, will I
make to endure forever in his throne as the days of heaven.
If his children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments,
if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments, then
I will visit, what? Their transgressions. It doesn't
say I'll visit them. How can he visit our transgressions,
not visit us? If our transgressions are borne
by somebody else. Oh, I sin. For my Savior was
punished for my sin. I will visit their transgressions
with a rod and their iniquity in stripes. Nevertheless, My
loving kindness will not utterly take from them, nor suffer my
faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break,
nor alter the thing that's gone out of my lips. This is an everlasting
covenant of God. Back in our text, verse 10, the
blessing of all our needs being met. He shall eat old store and
bring forth the old because of the new. You know what that is,
don't you? It's a rotated style. You ever worked in a grocery
store? You rotate the stock. Take the new and put it in the
back, bring the old up front. That's what this is. You'll have
it. You'll always be able to rotate the stock. The stock will
always be there. Exceeding blessings, whatever
you need. The intimation here is that you'll always have what
you need. Always. In verse 11 and 12 it
says, and I will set my tabernacle among you. Excuse me. I will
set my tabernacle among you. What is this tabernacle? First
of all, it's Jesus Christ. The word was made flesh, a tabernacle
dwelt among us. He beheld his glory as the only
begotten Father. But his tabernacle, where the
Lord resides, is his church, his holy temple, his holy temple,
the habitation of the Lord. My soul shall not hate you, and
I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be my
people. I'll walk among you. What a glorious thought. Chapter 7, verse 14, he said,
and the child brought forth shall be called Emmanuel, which is
interpreted God with us. Our Lord said, I will never leave
you, nor forsake you. He said, when you go through
the waters, I'll be with you. When you go through the fires,
I'll be with you. He said, where two or three are
gathered in my name, I will be in the midst of them. The Lord
will never leave you. nor forsake you, even unto the
end of the world." Finally, there's a reason for all of this. The
reason why our Lord says we have these blessings, the reason why
our Lord said we have kept these commandments, we have kept the
Sabbath, we have done away with our idol, verse 14 or verse 13,
I am the Lord your God. out of that dark Egyptian night, that ye should not be their bondman. You're the free man. Mercy there was grace, and grace
was free. There my heart found liberty. I have broken the bands of your
yoke. The yoke of bondage to the wall and to sin has been
broken. And I've made you stand up straight.
I've made you walk upright now. Walk upright. If you're in Christ
today, you haven't needed nothing. You're
complete with Him, just as you are. Before God, you have everything
that God has required for a human being to have, for a human being
to be. All of it. And you are qualifying by that
grace, not by your behavior, not by your doing, not by your
trying. You qualify by that grace and
that mercy and that blood of the covenant to partake of the
table of the Lord. Amen. Our Lord instituted this table
for Passover. He had it last Passover. He had
it with his disciples before he went to the cross. And he
instituted this table to set forth the fact that the disciples
were going to die in their room instead. And he was standing
there, I was sitting there right with him. And he was telling
me something was gonna take place in a couple of days. He said, this cup is the new
covenant, the new covenant in my blood, my dear old covenant,
the new covenant in my blood, the blood of the everlasting
covenant. He said, drink this cup. When you do that, you show forth
my death. He's alive. He's standing right there with
him. He's sitting there right in front of him. He said, when you take this cup
and take this place, you show forth my death until I come again. Because you see, it was his death,
his blood that purchased my soul, his blood, his death that put
away my sin, his blood, his death that satisfied God's law and
justice. So we take this table today,
if you're a believer, to sing this table with joy. Because
you're commemorating the fact that you sit here as brothers
and sisters in Christ. Because 2,000 years ago, Jesus
Christ died, and you're going to say, is that death? That wondrous death of Jesus
Christ. Blessed, blessed death. The Proverbs say, better is the
dead death. And they were. Especially in His case it was. It was wondrous that He was born
and He lived a perfect life and that life didn't save us, it
did me. It did me. So let's go take the Lord's table
and ask the Lord to bless His perfect Father. We receive this
table, let us do so with joy and confidence in our heart.
Knowing full well, we're not worthy to take it, but our Savior
is worthy. You can take this table in Thanksgiving
and praise for it's a reminder of two things. Your absolute
perfect righteousness and my absolute ruin and sin. It took
the death of the Son of God and put it away. Thank you, Father,
for such kindness, mercy, and grace for sinners. In Christ's
name, amen. Well, the night our room was
betrayed, he took bread and he'd break it. He gave it to his disciples
and said, take ye. This is my body broken for you.
So as often as you do it, do it in remembrance of me. The same night, he took the cup. He said, this cup is the blood
of the everlasting covenant. The cup pictures and typifies
what I'm going to do a few days on Calvary Street. When you eat this bread and drink
this cup, you show forth my death. And you'll do it until I come
again. You show forth my death. Do this
remembrance. Oh, the mighty gulf that God
did span. Oh, the grace that brought it
down to earth. Oh, the mighty gulf. I shouldn't
try to sing a calm song. I can't remember. The amazing grace How sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost. But now I'm found, was blind,
but now I see Who made love, love, me do they teach? Yidam, Gurya, Hedi Our Lord said, By this shall the
world know you, that you have loved one for another. Thank you. Oh my gosh. I have not been here
before. I have a great time here. It's great to see you here. Thank you so much.