Verse 13, for it applies to what
is spoken of in verse 20 and 21. When thou cryest, let thy companies
deliver thee, but the wind shall carry them all away. Vanity shall
take them. In verse 20, but the wicked are
like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast
up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God,
to the wicked. Let us pray. Great God and Heavenly
Father, you who dwell into a light world to no man can approach,
pure and holy, separate, just, full of mercy and grace, slow to anger and plenteous in
mercy. We do praise you for your goodness and your mercy that
we experience every day. We thank you for that grace shed
abroad upon us that saved us from our sins. We praise you
for giving us faith to believe your word, to bow to your wisdom
and understanding. We thank you, Father. for the
shed blood, the perfect death of Jesus Christ, the Lord, who
satisfied your lost demands and propitiated you toward us, so
much so that we were reconciled unto you by the blood of his
cross. And you've given us peace in our hearts that passeth knowledge
and understanding. We pray for those of our company
who are sick, afflicted, going through trials and tribulations.
We remember especially Henry and Robert and Wayne and Laverne.
Pray also for Sharon as she seems to be sick now. We pray you'd
bring her back to a good measure of health. We thank you for the
recovery of those who have been sick. We ask Lord your blessings
to continue upon them. We ask Lord tonight that you
would be pleased to bring us to a heartfelt appreciation that you considered us and chose
us in Christ before the world began. What we know, left to
ourselves, we would have perished in our own uncleanness and sin.
Father, give us an understanding that without Christ we can do
nothing, but with Him we can do all things. Help us now to
worship you, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Now we looked last week. at the
happy and blessed estate of those who have put their trust in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And in this final look at chapter
57, we'll consider the flip side of that coin that once again
sets forth the truth that integral in the salvation of the elect
is the destruction of the enemies of God. Those things go hand
in hand. You don't have one without the
other. Now the Lord has a final word in this chapter to those
who he has described in their estate of wholesale idolatry
and self-will and works religion. They have trusted in everything
and anything but God and have confidence that the works of
their hands are sufficient to merit a place in heaven. In all
their idolatry and self-will, they still hold out, however,
to a hope. To a hope that God will help
them based on religious activity, though it's entirely and utterly
false for them to think so. These are religious folk we're
talking about. In the first part of verse 13, our
Lord does what He has done so many times in this book. He calls
on the enemy to fish or cut bait. They have trusted in themselves
and their idols and the Lord challenges them to call on their
idols or themselves for help in times of need, to be delivered. Call on the ones you've trusted,
he said. He says in verse 13, when thou
cryest, that means when they cry out to God, to the true and
living God, When thou cryest, let thy companies deliver thee. But the wind shall carry them
all away, vanity shall take them. This is what our Lord says, when
you cry, call on the ones you've been calling on all along. Call
on the ones you've been trusting all along. Some people like to
think God will always hear men's prayers. That's not the case.
For man is trusted in himself, entrusted in a false god, he
need not think that God will hear his prayers even if he's
in a desperate situation. This is what our Lord says to
Israel, his chosen people, over and over again. The Lord addresses
the ignorance and foolishness in trusting what they have made
or the works of their hands that they have done. In verse 11 he
says this, of whom hast thou been afraid or feared, that thou
hast lied and hast not remembered me nor laid it to thy heart? Have not I held my peace even
of old, and thou fearest me not? I will declare thy righteousness,
thy self-righteousness, and I will declare thy works. I will declare
that they are no good, for they shall profit you nothing. When
thou cryest refers to that moment when a person realizes that they
can get no help or comfort from their false gods or the confidence
they have placed themselves in during the time of when there was no
trouble. They will find that their hope is lighter than the
ether and in true troubles All hopes are stripped of men, and
that's the best place for a man to truly be, if he is God's child,
to be stripped. But sooner or later, anybody
in almost every situation is going to call out on God. If
times get hard enough, and troubles get so bad, and finally you realize
that you don't have control of anything, I guarantee this about
you, whether you're an atheist or not, you'll call on God. The old saying says there is
no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole, and that's the truth.
Troubles get bad enough, I don't care who you are, you were made
by God, you were made for God, and you will call on God. But
he may not hear. He may refuse to hear you because
of your idolatry. You brought to a place to despair.
Men cry out to God, not to their idols, or to their evidences
of righteousness, but to the God that can actually do something.
But the Lord will not answer and instead will confront men
with their false hope. He's done that throughout this
book. I heard today that a fellow asked this genius that just died,
John Hawkins. Who's Hawkins? John? What was
his name? Steve Hawkins. He just died. A fellow asked him several years
ago if he believed in God. And I know the man was a genius. This was kind of a genius statement
he made about that. He says, if there is a God, he
must rule absolutely in all things. Because he figured that out,
that there couldn't be a God who you could rule. If there
was a God, you'd rule in all things. Well, there is a God,
and men will call on Him, but that doesn't mean He'll hear
them. He will, however, confront them with their false hope. My
wife, the first time she heard the gospel in her heart was when
a man preached on the holiness of God at Rosemont Baptist Church
many years ago, and all her hopes, because Debbie was a good girl.
She was an obedient child. She was good to her parents. She was good to me. She was a
good wife. She was a good girl, and she was counting on that.
She'll tell you, she was counting on that. But then she found out
who God was. And it required absolute perfection,
and she couldn't produce it. We came home from that church
that night, and she said, Tim, I'm lost. And I told her, Sonny,
honey, I wish I had something I could do about it. But I can't. You're going to have to get along
with God. You're going to have to get along with God. Men will
be confronted about their false hope when they're saved. But
they'll also be confronted with their false hope when they're
condemned by God. Turn over to 1st Isaiah chapter 1. Our Lord
dealing with Israel here. Isaiah chapter 1 and verse 15.
After he's declared what they were, lost in all things, their
ceremonies were a waste of time. They were sick from their head,
top of their head to the sole of their foot. He says, and when
you spread forth your hands, in verse 15. Now what that means
is to call on God, to lift up your hands and call on God. When
you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you.
Yea, when you make many prayers, many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.
You're a bunch of murderous people. Your hands are full of blood. In Isaiah chapter 45, before he sets himself forth
as the only God and Savior, the just God and Savior, he says
this in verse 20. Assemble yourselves together.
Here again he calls these who are trusting in idols. Assemble
yourselves together. Draw near together, ye that have
escaped to the nations. They have no knowledge that set
up the wood of their graven image and pray unto a God that cannot
save." He confronts them about their sin, and that's what's
happening here in this passage of Scripture. He says, when you
cry out, Don't cry out to me, cry out to those you trusted.
Let thy companies deliver thee. I know this, it will be a fearful
thing when men and women realize that their confidences are empty,
and it is a fearful thing. and still more fearful when the
heavens are brass and the Lord will not hear their pleas. The
false hopes of men are as a withered leaf and easily carried away
on the wind." That's how this is presented. They'll be carried
away on the wind. Their works have no substance,
no weight, and amount to nothing. That's why the wind can carry
them away. The employing of the word wind refers to the work
of the Holy Spirit. in condemning men as well as
bringing them to Christ, but in condemning men is what he's
talking about here. The Holy Spirit is said to blow upon the
flesh of men and they disappear. They wither and die. Look at
Isaiah chapter 40. The prophet is said to cry to
his people. The Lord said to the prophet,
the voice said, cry in verse six. And he said, what shall
I cry? And he said, all flesh is grass. This is what you tell men. Now,
religious preaching will tell you you've got to stop drinking,
you've got to stop chewing, you've got to stop doing this and start
doing that, but that's not what the prophet is to cry. You're
to look men square in the eye and say your flesh cannot produce
anything. Your flesh, that is you as you
were born in this world, cannot move one iota closer to Almighty
God. What shall I cry? Well, tell
them there ain't nothing to them. All flesh is grass, and all the
goodness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth,
the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon
it. Surely the people is grass. The people is grass. The grass
withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of God endureth
forever. The word of God endureth forever.
Then Isaiah, talking about his own righteousness in Isaiah chapter
64, uses the same kind of language. He says, we are all, in verse
6, as an unclean thing. That means unacceptable to God.
All our righteousness is all our good works, our filthy, minstrelss
rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the
wind, have taken them away. This is the language of Scripture.
Our Lord uses that, the Holy Spirit working to Remove all
hope from men. The apostle spoke of this as
being carried away with every strange wind of doctrine. And
it says, vanity shall take them. And I thought about that phrase,
vanity shall take them. Show the works of man. That shows
that the works of men for what they are. If vanity, which is
entirely empty, can take away your works, how light and insignificant
are your works? They must not be anything to
them. It's a hard pill to swallow to find that all the efforts
of the flesh have no part whatsoever in the salvation of your soul
or your righteous standing before God. Told this story before,
the old judge used to attend here. who took care of his wife
in her old age, and she was sick in the hospital. And he listened
to me, he liked my style of preaching. He didn't believe anything I
said, but he liked the way I preached. We were at the hospital over
in Bryson City, and he came out, he said, I want to ask you a
question, preacher. You had a real resounding, rich, deep voice. I mean, I loved to hear him read
scripture, because it was just so, had such a real, he says,
preacher, tell me, I need to know something. I said, okay. He said, I've been taking care
of my wife, she's been sick. And I've never left her bedside
and I've taken care of anything. Are you telling me that doesn't
mean anything in my salvation? I said, that's exactly what I'm
telling you. If you think it means something, you're in trouble.
Your salvation is by grace alone. By grace alone. Because of God's
goodness before you. God's goodness towards you. You
have no standing before God in your flesh. You have no righteousness. There is none righteous, no,
not one. You don't do good things. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. They are all gone away. They
are all gone away backwards. Then in verse 20 and 21, the
Lord gives four descriptions of the wicked, of the wicked. Now, I know what most people
think when they read the word wicked. They think about those
people that have done societal evils and went against the taboos
of society and done all things. And you could say that is evil
and wicked. But when our Lord says wicked
and evil, He's not talking about that. He always says it in the
context of false religion. Always. Check it out in Scripture.
Only a few instances where he talks about people doing things
like drinking an excess of wine or something like that, does
he say that's not good or it's sinful. But when he talks about
wickedness, What do we struggle against according to 1 Corinthians
10? We struggle against spiritual wickedness. Spiritual wickedness
in high places. Our own high mindedness, our
own willingness to raise our thoughts and opinions against
the word of God. That's wickedness. And it's always
in a spiritual context. Does not speak of societal evils.
is to be religiously wicked. And religiously wicked people
are those who practice religion. They are religious people seeking
to keep the law and be moral and are trusting in their works
as evidence of salvation. They are what society would call
good people. The good people, the finest people
on earth. And according to the flesh, they
are. They are. As far as morality,
as far as philanthropy, these people, a lot of religious folks,
are better than any of us will ever be morally. And that's just
a fact. But it doesn't count for anything.
That's what they don't understand. And our Lord said, looking at
them, in their righteous deeds and moral works, He said, they're wicked. They're
wicked. You call a righteous, upstanding,
religious man a wicked man, he's gonna think you're accusing him
of all kinds of things. What you're accusing him of is being
morally righteous in himself and believing that is an acceptable
standing before Almighty God. Before God, they're wicked because
they seek salvation by the works of righteousness rather than
trusting Christ. Listen to me very carefully.
Anything in religion, other than trusting Christ alone for salvation
to God is wickedness." Wickedness. So he says this in verse 20,
but the wicked are like the troubled sea. That's who he's talking
about. The Lord said that to the most moral men of his day. You think about it. He said to
the Pharisees, and the Pharisees dotted every I and crossed every
T in the matter of keeping the law and being a moral person. I mean, they went to extremes
to show the morality. One type of Pharisee called the
Bleeding Head Pharisee walked around with his eyes closed.
So he wouldn't look upon women in lust for them, not knowing
that the Lord said, your lust is here, not here. Your lust
is here. There was another called the
mortarboard Pharisee who wore a mortarboard like you wear at
graduation and pulled it down over his eyes so he wouldn't
have to look on evil. These men washed their hands
before every meal because they didn't want to be unclean. These
men tithed of everything they had. When the Lord only said
tithe of the first fruits, but they tithed of everything. They
went over and beyond. The Lord said pray three times
a day, they prayed five times a day. These were religious men. And they were feared in the community
because they walked, the robes they wore said, I'm a religious
man. They had phylacteries, little
boxes of Bible verses that they had memorized. And they made,
the bigger the phylacteries, the more holy they were. The
bottom of their skirts were lined with a blue ribbon, which represented
in the priesthood that they were close to God in heaven. But they
broadened their ribbons so they were even more holy than the
priests. These were the good fellas. These
were the upstanding citizens. And what did our Lord say of
them? You are sons of Satan. To their face. He said, you are
hypocrites and vipers. To their face. He said, you're
a white cephalos full of dead men's bones. He said, you clean
the outside of the cup, but the inside of the cup is filthy.
You are filthy. This is what he said, not to
bad people. To the worst of the lot, he says, come unto me, all
you that labor and have it laid, and I'll give you rest. Take
my yoke upon you and learn of me, and you shall find rest unto
your soul. But to the men who believed that they had a righteous
standing before God, based on their own works, he said, you
are a bunch of sons of Satan. John chapter eight. The first
way the Lord describes these, he said, they're like the troubled
sea. The wicked are like the troubled sea. What does that
mean? They are tossed about by the
wind. They are threatening to break the barriers set up for
them. They are unstable and unpredictable, out of control, and can be destructive
to anything in their path. But they seem to be good people.
They'll destroy you. They're like the troubled sea,
like the demoniac of Gadara, they cannot be tamed. Now this
may seem that they are always wild and crazy, but that's not
what it's talking about. In reality, this addresses the
turmoil of the mind of one who believes that he must attain
to perfection. There's never-ending turmoil
like the troubled sea. Old Ironside said he was living
a life of perfection, seeking to be perfect for God, and he
felt like he had arrived. Like he wasn't sinning anymore.
And he told his brother that he felt like his ride. And his
brother said, you're full of sin. You're a liar. And he said,
right then and there, I flew into a race and hit my brother
square in the nose as hard as I could. And I realized he was
right and I was wrong. Men seek sinless perfection.
I'm telling you what, that's a hard road to travel. The lady told Wayne Robinson
one time over at his cloth shop, she says, I don't sin. Wayne
says, you're a liar and you're ugly, but you're a liar. Man says he has no sin, he's
a liar, he doesn't know the truth. John says in 1 John chapter one,
there's a turmoil in the mind of these people. They're workers,
they can never stop. like a troubled sea. Secondly,
the Lord describes them as not being able to rest. That's what
he says. The wicked are like the troubled
sea when it cannot rest. When it cannot rest. This, of
course, speaks of unbelief, especially as it relates to the finished
work of Jesus Christ, wherein the believer finds complete rest
because the work is finished. This also speaks of the zealous
efforts of men and women The reason that there is no rest
is very logical. If you are counting on your works
and your will or your will or your righteous efforts for acceptance
with God, when will it be enough? When will it be enough? On what
day or what hour will you truly believe that there is nothing
left to do? There'll never be a moment of peace. There'll never
be a moment of rest because there'll always be something to do. That
moment will not come because then you would stop and your
works will cease. And what will you offer God then
if you reach that place? So down to your dying breath,
you're going to be struggling in your mind and your heart.
Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing this? Am I pleasing
God? All these questions will arrive.
That's why I see on the deathbed I've sat and hold people's hands
who've professed Christ all their life but never really had any
interest in Him. All they do is struggle with
what they didn't do and what they should have done. I should
have been a better father, a better husband, a better wife, should
have treated my parents better. I wish I'd have did this and
I wish I'd have done that as if that would have made some
difference because they believed it would have made some difference.
The troubled minds, troubled minds. No rest. No rest. The third way our Lord
describes the wicked is that their waters cast up mire and
dirt. Cast up mire and dirt. It could
not be otherwise. They are not in the spiritual
realm, so all their works are from the earth. They have set
their affection on things below and not on things above. They
do not ever rise to heaven, nor can they ever be accounted as
spiritual. They, therefore, are nothing more than walking around
and stirring up the dust. Stirring up the dust. Dust is
symbolic of the flesh, and dust is symbolic of death, and the
works of righteousness bring forth fruit unto death, according
to Romans chapter seven, verse five. The works of righteousness
that men try to do or bring forth actually fruit unto death. What
is death? It's dust. Just stirring up dust. I was
thinking of that Peanuts character, where he walked. He stirred up
the dust and he stayed dirty all the time. What was his name?
I can't think of his name, but you know what I'm talking about.
That's the one who's working for his salvation. Who believes
that he can establish a righteousness. Pigpen, that was his name, wasn't
it? It's all time just stirring up dust. Bringing forth fruit
unto death, not to life, but unto death. And finally, the
Lord describes the wicked as having no peace. No peace. In Romans chapter 3, the description
that Paul gives of humanity, both Jew and Gentile alike who
are all concluded under sin. He says this in verse 17 of chapter
3, and the way of peace Have they not known? They just don't
know the way of peace. People talk a lot about peace
today. They talk about world peace. They talk about peace in the
Middle East. Listen, there's never going to be peace on this
earth except among those who know Jesus Christ. And they're
at peace with each other. Oh, they know what each other
is because they know what they are. They forbear and forgive
and put up with each other because they know what they are. But
there's a peace that passes understanding that is between those. They love
each other and care for each other. The world can never know
that. The world can never know that.
There's no peace for the wicked. In religion there's no peace.
I was in religion most of my life, all of my life really. I was on the Southern Baptist
Church Sunday school row before I was born. My booties hung on
there, the James baby. They had pink booties, a pink
booty and a blueberry, because they didn't know whether I was
going to be a boy or a girl. But I was already in Sunday school before I was
born. So I've been in religion all my blasted life. All my life. And I can tell you this, I never
had peace. No matter how many times I went
down the aisle squalling because I got called in some guilty thing
or I was guilty about this or guilty about that, Mr. Rededication, that's what you
used to call me because I went down the aisle so much. And I
was sincere. And I remembered every, not just
a few of the times, every time I did it. And I walk out on that
front porch of Antioch Baptist Church and watched the cars pull
away. I only lived about a quarter
mile from church, so I walked to church. Walked there, watched
the cars pull away. I say in my mind, ain't nothing
happened. I'm no different. Still the same as I was. There's
no peace in me. I can remember that time and
time again. No peace for the wicked. No peace
for the religion. No peace. Again, this refers
to the work of Christ. He accomplished reconciliation
by the blood of his cross, and in that he gave peace to his
people. He said, my peace I give you, my peace, not that the world
gives. I give you a different kind of
peace, a peace of heart and a peace of mind that the world can never
understand. the peace that passes knowledge
and understanding even as we look at the confused situation
of the world and we can't understand it and we look at the craziness
and chaos that's going around us and we wonder how and what
in the world's going on yet inside us there is a peace of mind and
a peace of heart because we know that no matter how crazy it gets
out here that the God of heaven is in control of all things and
he'll bring all things together to work for the good of his people
and for his glory. That's a peace that only God
can give. It is peace given by the God
of peace through the Prince of Peace. And this peace is born
of knowledge that God has been propitiated by the blood of Jesus
Christ, peace based on the fact that he remembers their sins
no more. And the wicked know no such peace
because they disallow that Christ finished salvation and opt to
establish their own righteousness. And there's no peace there. There's
no peace. Paul said in Romans chapter 10
as he desired the salvation of his kinsmen according to the
flesh, his own people. He said in verse 1, Brethren,
my heart's desired prayer to God where Israel is that they
might be saved. I want that for them. I want
them to know God. I want all my family
to know God. I want all my friends to know God. I want everybody
to hear me know God. He said, I bear them record.
And again, he's not talking about profligates. He's not talking
about people who are just hanging around in the bars and the strip
joints and the gambling casinos and things like that. He's not
talking about that. He's talking about people who are going about
to be good. He said, for I bear them record
that they have a zeal for God, or a zeal of God, but it's not
according to knowledge. They don't know what to do. He
says, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness. What
is God's righteousness? He's not talking about his essential
righteousness here. He's talking about Christ, our
imputed righteousness. And they're ignorant of that.
They, being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about
to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted, surrendered,
given up themselves to the righteousness of God. They've not fallen on
Jesus Christ. They're not irreligious, they're
not immoral, they're not bad people. They have no knowledge
of Christ. He says, because Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness. to everyone that believes, to
everyone that believes. This is what the Lord says, when
thou cry'st, let thy companies deliver thee, but the wind shall
carry them all away, vanity shall take them. But the wicked are like the troubled
sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt,
There is no peace, saith the Lord God to the wicked. Father, bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name. Amen. All right.