I invite your attention back
to Isaiah chapter 43. Our Lord here is speaking to
His people Israel. And we know that all the Scripture
refers to Christ and His people. That true Israel is the Israel
of God. They are those who are saved
by His grace. They are those who are said to
be the children of Abraham who have faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. who are members and participants in the new covenant that God
settled with His Son before the world began. So when we see the
Lord speak in the Old Testament, which is all that Paul and our
Lord and Peter and James and John had to preach from. When
they preached the Gospel in those early days, they did not have
the New Testament like us. They looked at this book, the
Old Testament, and they preached Christ from every page and every
line. That's all they had. The New
Testament didn't start being written until some 70 years after
our Lord had went on into glory to sit at the right hand of the
Father every living to make intercession for us. So when Jacob and Israel
were mentioned in the New Testament, Paul referred to them as the
people of God, the children of God, the elect of God, those
chosen of God, those saved and redeemed by Christ on Galilee
Street. And when you see both names together as you do in this
first verse, O Jacob, whom I have created, that's representative
of God's chosen and the kind of people they are. Jacobs. What are God's people
by nature? They are Jacobs. They are supplanters. They are trickers. They are cheats. They are thieves. That's what
Jacob means. That's who I created, God said.
That's who fell in the Garden of Eden, you Jacobs. But you'll
notice this throughout the Scripture. He says over and over again that
he's the God of Jacob before he says, I'm the God of Israel.
Because Israel is representative of the new creation. in Jesus
Christ. O Jacob, I created you. O Israel,
I formed you. I formed you in Jesus Christ,
that new man in Jesus Christ. So our Lord, when He says He's
the God of Jacob and the God of Israel, He's talking about
the man that we were born in our nature and the new man that
we are created in the Lord Jesus Christ. So our Lord here is not
speaking in random, He is speaking to His people who are redeemed
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says in verse 1, don't
be afraid, I have redeemed you. What does that mean? That means
He paid the price necessary, and that price redeemed us by
His blood out of every kindred, nation, tongue, and people that
sits upon the face of the earth, and has made us kings and priests
unto our God. Now when you redeem something,
that means you buy it back. The Old Testament words along
with the New Testament words, there are three words that have
to do with redemption. Two of them have to do with the
marketplace. You've heard of the Greek word the agora. That's
the marketplace. When you have the psychological
malfunction of agoraphobia, you're afraid to go out into the marketplace. You're afraid to go outside your
house. One of the words that is used
to represent redemption in the scripture is agorazo. Agorazo. And that simply means
to go to the marketplace to buy. That's what that means, agorazo.
Then you have another word used for redemption in this Hebrew
called ek agorazo. Ek in the original language means
to take out of, to take out of. We are chosen in Christ. The
word is ek lektos, chosen out of. Ek agorazo means to go to
the marketplace to buy and to remove, to take for your possession,
your purchased possession. Then you have the word luatro,
which means to go to the marketplace to buy, to retrieve for yourself,
having bought it, never to return it to the marketplace again.
It's yours forever. That's the language that our
Lord uses here in this passage of Scripture. Oh, fear not, I
have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine. They are your purchased possession.
When you see the word peculiar people, you see that a lot in
the New Testament when it talks about the church of God and the
priesthood of God. They're peculiar people. That doesn't mean they're
weird. Though I am pretty sure that every one of God's children
are. They're eccentric. They're about a half a bubble
shy level, every one I've ever met anyway. I ain't found a normal
one in the bunch. But that peculiar means purchased.
That word peculiar in the original means purchased. We are God's
purchased people, which He purchased us with His own blood according
to Acts chapter 20 and verse 28. We are His purchased possession. We are God's. You are bought
with the price of your not yourself. He's not speaking to the world
in general. He's speaking to Jacob, you sinner. And Israel,
you sinner saved by grace. I've redeemed you. You're mine.
You're mine. That's the language used. The
promise, of course, is this. Because you're mine, everything's
going to be alright. Doesn't mean you're not going
to have troubles and trials. You're not going to be in pain
and sorrow. You will be for the rest of your life. That's the
life of the child of God. But He says this, not if, but
when thou passest through the waters. I'll be with you. You're not there alone. And when
you go through the rivers, they're not going to overflow you. And
when you walk through the fire, you're not going to be burned.
Neither shall the flame kindle upon you. These are not little
things that are metaphorical language to consider the trials
that we face. Deluge. Fiery pain and trials. And the reason you're not going
to fall, the reason you're not going to be overcome, is because
the Lord is with you and the one who is with you is the Lord
God. Verse 3 says, For I am the Lord,
notice capital letters all the way across, that's Jehovah. You
see capital letters, capital L, capital O, capital R, that
means Jehovah. Jehovah Savior. Jehovah Sidkeno,
Jehovah my righteousness. Jehovah Shama. Jehovah my comfort,
Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah... all the others, ten of them,
that all the names of Jehovah represent some characteristic
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The name Jesus is a derivative
of the name Jehovah. Why do you call him Jesus? Why
do you call him Jehovah? because He shall save His people
from their sins. That's why we name Him Jesus,
because He's going to save His people from their sins. I am
the Lord thy God, I'm the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Sheba for thee. And then we come to our text.
Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable,
and I have loved thee. Therefore will I give men for
thee, and people for thy life. Now the world views believers
and the elect of God with hatred and contempt according to the
clear declaration of the Word of God. They do this while embracing
religion as a respectable and a commendable thing. The world
loves its own, Scripture says. But it disdains the church of
God and looks upon the beloved of the Lord as things worthy
of only contempt and despising. It's always been that way and
it will not change. Our Lord said to His disciples
when telling them in John 15, preparing them for when He went
to the cross, when they would begin a life of believing, and
not just seeing, because he wasn't going to be there for them to
see. He said this in John chapter
15 and verse 18. He says, If the world hates you, you know that
it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, The
world would love His own, but ye are not. But because ye are
not of the world, because I have chosen you out of the world,
therefore the world hateth you. We can count on that. The world
holds the true church in contempt. In contempt. It always has and
always will. The fact is that the redeemed
of the Lord look upon themselves much as the world looks on them.
The redeemed of the Lord look upon themselves much as the world
looks upon them. Contemptible. Contemptible. Sinful. Unworthy of the least
of God's favor. That's how we look upon ourselves.
Truth be told, the world, though full of hate, cannot say or believe
any bad thing about us that we do not already know is worse
than they could ever imagine. So the next time somebody lays
into you, Because you're ever kind of hypocrite, just tell
them, you don't know half the story. You don't know half the
story. We know what we are. We know
what we are. Others may think they know us,
but we know ourselves. Paul said this, we know that
in us that is in our flesh dwelleth no good thing. There's nothing
good about us. We know that about ourselves.
We know that we are by birth and by nature and by practice
sinners who deserve damnation, eternal damnation and separation
from God. When Paul said, I am the chief
of sinners, he was not trying to sound humble. He was speaking
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I know everyone
who's saved grace feels like he's the chief of sinners. The
Holy Spirit designated Paul as the chief of sinners. And he
wasn't speaking, trying to sound humble. Oh, I'm just the chief
of sinners. I'm just the chief of sinners.
When Job said, Behold, I am vile, And I hate myself. He was not
standing up at some braggamony meeting when he said that. David
was not feigning religiosity when he said, my sin is ever
before me. Against thee, thee only, have
I sinned. The world despises the church
and God's people are sick of themselves. The believer knows
that he has nothing in him. or about him that could recommend
him to God. Nothing. If you believe there's
something about you that recommends you to God, you're in worse trouble
than the whore on 42nd Street or the drunk lion in the gutter
in his own vomit. Because the believer knows nothing
from head to toe, inside out, thought, word or deed, nothing
about him could ever recommend Him to God. Nothing. But before us in this passage
is a wonder, an amazing description. The Lord God, the thrice holy
God of whom we just sang, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,
the thrice holy God Himself. That God whose eyes are too pure
to behold evil, before whom the sun, moon, and stars are not
pure in his sight, sees his people in Jesus Christ as the most precious,
honorable, beloved things on the topside of his green earth. That's what he said. Since thou
was precious in my sight, I have love Thee. Thou hast been honorable
and I have loved Thee. Therefore will I give men for
Thee and people for Thy life." Amazing statement. This statement
is God's view of His entire church. And likewise, it is His view
of every single individual believer. This is what God says about you. Since thou was precious in my
sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee. Think
about that. Think about yourself. And then
think about how God sees His people. Now let me say this before
I go any further. However God sees something, is
the way it is. However God sees it, is the way
it is. Now we may see things from different
perspectives, and if you deal with people for any length of
time, you're going to find that perspective pretty much governs
our thinking. I've sat in a room with people
who were getting divorces and they were talking to me and I
would hear one story from the husband and another from the
wife. And they would be talking about the exact same incidents.
But from his perspective, the description was totally different
from what she said. And yet both of them were telling
the truth as far as they understood it. This is how they saw it.
And you know if there are two opposing positions, the truth
ain't in either one of them probably. Old Scott Richard said there's
two sides to a board. There's one side to the truth.
However God sees a thing. So if it says, in His sight,
however God sees a thing, that's precisely, exactly how it is. You may say, well I don't see
it that way. So what? What you see does not really
matter. It's what God sees, because however God sees it, that's how
it is. This is the view of His entire
church. His entire body of believers.
Whether we're talking about the church universal, which is the
whole body of the Lord Jesus Christ, or the local church,
which is the outward, visible manifestation of that great,
mystical, spiritual body of Christ, when God describes His church,
He says, since thou was precious in my sight, thou has been honorable,
and I have loved thee. That's the description that God
gives. So is that the way it is? You
say, well, preacher, I don't want to... That's the way it
is, folks. This is God's view, and therefore the correct and
righteous view of His church. Now, there is a church universal.
It is made up of all of God's elect, those who were redeemed
by Christ, those to whom He has given faith to believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. And this body of believers is
the family of God, it's called the kingdom of God, the body
of Christ and the bride of Christ in Scripture, it's called the
church. And this is the church that Christ loved and saved by
His death. And that church encompasses all
the redeemed from Adam to the last sheep brought into the fold.
They are those purchased by His blood. They are those for whom
He gave Himself. Husbands, love your wives as
Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. That's talking
about the entire makeup of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are called a General Assembly
and Church of the Firstborns, whose names are written in heaven,
in Hebrews chapter 12, verses 23-24. There is also a local
church. The Bible is full of them. All
the epistles were written to local churches. A church at Rome,
a church at Ephesus, Galatia, Colossians, Philippians, Thessalonians. All those were written to local
churches in local places. Now that local church is an outward,
visible representation of the universal church. Now we do not
and cannot diminish the importance of the local church. I'm a church
man. Now a lot of Baptist friends
of mine say I'm not, but I don't care what they say. I don't do
things like other Baptists do because I believe they're wrong
and there's no basis for what they do in the scriptures, so
don't do them that way. I don't mind if they do it, just as long
as they don't tell me I have to do a certain We've only had one
or two business meetings at Sequoia Baptist Church in the 29 years
I've been pastor here. How do you get things done? If
the roof licks, you patch it up. What's the vote on, silly? A
vote is designed to divide, isn't it? Think about it. What's it
designed to do? What is a vote designed to do? Find out who's against something
and who's for something. Families don't vote. Families have a head
who is Jesus Christ, the God of all. And this is His Word. And you
can take care of it. Families take care of the business.
One of my children needs something. We don't get a family together
and say, well, let's vote on it. We give it to them. Somebody
in the community is sick. Need some money. Well, they don't
belong to the church. We need to vote on that. No,
we don't. We need to stand up here and say, this person's sick.
You think we ought to give them some money? Okay, then we'll
do it. The local church, however, is where God's people meet. The
local church is God's people. where two or three are gathered
in my name, I'll be in the midst of them, saith the Lord. The
local church is the temple of God. Ye are the temple of God. The temple that Christ built.
And He's the foundation stone and the cornerstone and the headstone
of that body. It is the gospel. It has the
gospel. And it is the singular place
where there is a warrant to preach the gospel. That's the church
of the living God. It is the kingdom of God in microcosm and a picture of
the kingdom of God in its greatness and its majesty, this local assembly. It consists of a great multitude,
the kingdom of God, of such magnitude that according to Scripture,
no man can number them greater than the sands of the sea. greater
than the stars of the heaven, and yet before God a very small
remnant, according to the election of Christ. Now let me be very
clear here. Everything that calls itself
a church is not necessarily one. Nor is there any indication that
any local church that exists in the world is part of the body
of Christ. Babylon, the great whore, is made up of many local
false churches, according to Scripture. However, all of God's
true people in heaven and on earth are one church. They're one church. These words
of our text are what God says concerning her. And I'm glad
He does. Since thou wast precious in my
sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee. First
I want you to notice this because it will be mentioned over and
over again in this package. This is all in the past tense. Since thou wast precious in my
sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee. God's church is precious in His
sight. Precious. Now there is nothing in or about
the church by nature that is any different from the world.
One fellow said, I think it was John Paul Sartre, said this, Hell is people. Think about that. Hell is people. A dear friend of mine said there
wouldn't be nothing wrong with passing a church except for all
them dadgum people. He had to deal with it. You see,
everybody here this morning, apart from the grace of God,
and if God leaves His sovereign hand of restraint upon anyone,
nobody would make it out alive this morning except the strongest
person here. There's a must violence and hatred in our systems and
in our hearts that we would kill anybody who would disagree with
us on any level. Say, oh, I'm not like that. What
about that guy that pulled out in front of you this morning
and almost made you slam on your brakes? Oh, I just love that
fellow. I want the best for him. If you'd
had a gun, you'd have shot him if it had been legal. And the
providence of God and His sovereign restraint had to stop you. Don't
mistake God's sovereign restraint of your sinfulness as personal
righteousness. It ain't. You don't have any
personal righteousness. None. And neither do I. Neither do I. There is nothing
about the church by nature that's any different from the world.
By nature, you could take however many is here, 30, 40 people here
this morning, take 40 people off the street. You could go
to the bars, the bordellos, to the whorehouses, to the crack
houses, and bring all those people in and set them right down here.
And by nature, there would be no difference in them and you. If you don't get that, you don't
understand grace to begin with. You don't understand how God
saves sinners. Yet, that being the case, our
Lord looks at His church and says, Thou was precious in
my sight. The church of God is precious
in His sight because He loved us with an everlasting love and
chose us to be the heirs of eternal salvation. And those whom He
has foreloved, He did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of His Son. You see, we live in time and
we observe history, but the fact is that history, all things in
history, are subservient. to His purpose of grace toward
His church. The world don't know it. And
the world doesn't appreciate it. But everything God does in history,
and has done in history, and shall do in the future which
is passed to God, which is history to God, Whatever it is, it is
for His church. All things. And we know this,
Paul said, we know all things work together for good to them
that love God, to them who are of the called according to His
purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of His Son. Moreover, whom He did predestinate,
Him He also called. Whom He called, Him He also justified.
Whom He justified, Him He also glorified. What shall we say
to these things then? If God be for us, who can be
against us? Who can be? You see, history,
whatever happens in history, and I love history. You can ask
David, sometimes I'll turn on the military channel and watch
every battle about World War II that I've seen a hundred times.
I'm fascinated with history. I'm fascinated with Nazi Germany.
I'm fascinated with the Islam culture, which was the basis
of knowledge and science before it became a religion. It went
amazing. They were looking at the orbits
of the stars long before the apple fell on Newton's head.
long before he invented calculus, to look at the orbits of the
stars and then discover that they weren't circular but elliptical. The Ottoman Empire was already
written that down in books. Machinery, steam engines, hot
and cold running water, bathtubs, flushing toilets, all these things
we take for granted. The Ottoman Empire had in practice Electricity, the harnessing of
static electricity, the Ottoman Empire had 7th, 8th, 9th century. Had batteries. I thought everybody
made them. No, everybody didn't. Shalom,
Halakamakam did it. He's the one that did it. Religion destroyed that great
culture. I love the history, but you know what? All of that,
the American Revolution, the Civil War, the war of the roses,
the medieval times, the dark ages, the power of Roman Catholicism
over the world at a particular time in Europe. Everything. The fly that flies outside and
lights on a dog's back. The fleck of dust that comes
across the sunbeam. Its course is set, it will land.
You know why it lands there? Because that's good for the church. and for the glory of God. That's what human history is.
It rains on the just and the unjust, but it rains on the just. Or it rains for the just. That's
who the rains come for. So if you've got a garden and
you're a believer, you grow your garden and the fellow that lives
next to you that hates God, don't care anything about God, and
it rains on his garden, his garden grows too. Just tell him, I think
you ought to thank me because I live beside you. Don't really do that. They'd
be proud, wouldn't they? But he ought to. How come he gets
rain? Because you do. How come this
world survives to this day? Because there are yet some of
God's elect whom He has not called out yet and brought to salvation.
When that last sheep is brought into the fold, this thing is
over, folks. It's over. Everything He does
and has done and shall do is for His church. Spurgeon said,
the bounds of the nations hath he set according to the number
of his chosen. The arrangements of providence
have all been disposed with an eye to them. All things work
together for their good and for the achievement of their ultimate
perfection. God is pleased to reckon them
as his crown jewels, his peculiar treasure, because he sees them
Seize in them the purchase of his son's agonies. They have
been bought with a price far above gold and silver." God looks
at you and says, she's precious. Because in her alone, his glory
of salvation is revealed. Salvation is not something that
man came up with and man invented, though he invented ways to lie
to people about it. He invented systems by which
men think they're saved and they're not. All kinds of things. Salvation is of the Lord. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in Christ, according as He has
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated
us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto Himself,
according to the good pleasure of His own will, wherein He has
made us accepted in the Beloved, to the praise of the glory of
His grace. If you read Ephesians 1, verses
3-14, you'll see salvation laid out. That's the work of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit, not of the will of man, which
is a know-nothing and a do-nothing. We see His glory and creation
in Providence. I love where I live. I love the
mountains. I love Cherokee. I love to look
out as I'm driving around and see the glory that surrounds
me. I'm amazed and overwhelmed by it. There is a reason why
this area of the United States is the most visited area in the
United States. Far past Yosemite or Yellowstone
or any of the great national parks. Great Smokies National
Park, 16 to 20 million people a year come to this place. That's
a lot of people. Why? Look around you. I see His glory in creation.
But there's not one message in all that glory about salvation. In fact, it leaves men without
excuse. I see His glory in providence. But He displays all His glory,
the glory of all His attributes, singularly in the redemption
and salvation of His church by Jesus Christ. She's precious
in His sight. He sees her as honorable. Now
she would never say this about herself, but notice the sequence
of our words, our Lord's words. Since thou was precious in my
sight, thou has been honorable. Why and in what way is she honorable?
She's honorable by osmosis. She's honorable by marital association
with the Lord Jesus Christ. She is his bride, the Lamb's
wife, and her renown for her beauty shall go out in the earth
because of His comeliness which He has put upon her according
to Ezekiel chapter 16 and verse 14. She is honorable because
she is a holy nation. She is honorable because she
is sanctified. Does she do it herself? Of course
not. Nowhere in Scripture does it
say you sanctify yourself. Scripture says Christ is our
sanctification. Are you holy? Well, I don't think
so. Well, are you a child of God?
Uh-huh. Then you're holy. I don't act holy, it doesn't
say that I don't act it. Show me the word that says act like anything
in scripture. Those are what mothers and fathers tell their
children when they go out, y'all better act like a Christian.
You better be one, or you're going to perish. The problem
in this world today, we've got a lot of people acting like Christians.
Not a being one. Being one. Scripture says God
has made him to be for us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. She's honorable because the work
God has entrusted to her. What about this? This little
motley crew of nobodies and nothings has the power of God unto salvation
entrusted to them. All authority is given unto me
in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore into the world
and preach the gospel. Baptizing them in the name of
the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost, that's yours. Paul said
he cannot be worthy that he entrusted me with the gospel. The gospel,
the church has the gospel. God has entrusted, that's an
honorable thing. She's honorable. She's called the pillar and ground
of truth and never diminished the value of the church. God
holds her in high esteem. The world is blessed because
she is in it. Indeed, continues to exist because she's in it.
And in this world, there's only one mouthpiece for God. It's the church. The church speaks
for God. What am I talking about when
I talk about the church? I'm talking about those whom God has saved, redeemed,
regenerated, brought to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ through
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in this book. Not those
who trust another Jesus by another spirit and accepted another gospel. But the gospel that Paul said,
if a man don't preach that, let him be anathema maranatha, accursed
when the Lord comes. The next words that flow in grace
from the mouth of God are, I have loved thee. I have loved thee. Now the measure of that love
is boundless. And it does not fit the scheme of this anemic
unrequited love that men accuse God of in this day. Look at verse
3. Here's a measure of that love.
For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior.
I gave Egypt for thy ransom, and Ethiopia and Sheba for thee. What? I love you. So I wiped
out Egypt. And I wiped out Ethiopia. and
I'll write out Sheba for thee." Well, love don't act like that,
does it? It loves just a weak little puny thing, just best
intentions and best affections, not according to Scripture. I
love thee, therefore, he says, I will give men for thee. Anybody
that gets in your way, I'm going to put them out of business.
The gates of hell shall not prevail against my church. And I'll give people for thy
life, for thy life. That's love. You thought it was all romance
and roses, didn't you? But all of you experienced this
to some degree, you mothers. What army would stand a chance
against you if they tried to touch one of your children? Your love would make you swipe
out a whole nation. You know that. What would you
do for Tay, Peggy? Egypt wouldn't stand a chance.
If Peggy had the power and someone come against one of, come against
Theos. Why, she loves that boy. It's
over for them, I'm telling you. Our Lord said, I love you! Therefore,
I kill Egypt! Kill Ethiopia! Love acts that
way. True love does. He said, I have
loved thee. This flies in the face of what
men deem as love, but God declares that He slew multitudes because
He loved His church. And notice this, loved is in
the past tense. And that's important to understand. In fact, every time you read
about love in Scripture, except when we are to love one another,
but every time you read about the love of God in Scripture,
save maybe one or two times, It's always in the past tense.
Why? Because if God loves you now, it's because He's always
loved you. And if He's always loved you,
trust me on this, He's going to save you. Because that's how
love acts. And you don't think it don't.
You don't know nothing about love. Any one of you mothers or fathers
stand on the side of a river and see your child floating down
the river screaming for help? Say, well, I love you. Now, if
your love is the love of this puny, namby-pamby, nobody God
of this day and generation, you'd stand on the riverside and say,
well, if you'll just take the first step, I'll take the next. Because I love you, you see,
and I don't want to infringe upon your will to drown. So I'll just stand on the side
and say, I'll make an aisle for you to walk down. Come on, walk
down here. The child is drowning. What are you going to do? What
will love demand? You getting in that water. You
swimming to that child and you saving that child's life. Love
will have nothing less. And a God who says He loves all
mankind but won't save all mankind, that ain't love. If He has the
power to do so and if God don't have the power to do so, He ain't
God. I have love, With an everlasting
love, therefore with course of love, have I drawn thee to me. That's love. I have loved thee. You see, we can know that the
cause of God, His church, and His truth, they're not in danger.
They're okay. That I have loved thee, you see.
This is not only talking about the church in general. This is
also how God views every believer individually. Everybody sitting
here this morning who's a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. If
you're a believer, listen to what God says about you. And
you imagine God saying this about you. Since thou wast precious
in my sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee. Just three
things. First thing is this. I know this is hard. I know we
don't even like to talk about things like this because we feel
so unworthy to even say such words as this. They are too high
and too holy, too big for our poor puny brains to comprehend.
But here's what God says to you, Crow. You're precious. You're precious in my sight.
Think about that. Precious. And we may not feel
so, and even may feel ashamed at such kind words directed toward
us, knowing what we are. But he says we are precious.
And God cannot lie. Not a man that he should lie.
God cannot lie. Do you know what that means? You're precious. That's what
that means. You are precious. Go ahead, roll it over in your
mind. I know it's big, I know it's
overwhelming, I know it's beyond our human comprehension to really
grasp what this is. But that's what it says, Ethel.
God says, there's my precious Ethel. She's precious to me. Sharon, you precious thing. That's what God is saying. In
God's sight, you You are precious. Precious! Or as we southern boys
say, Precious! Precious! You see, His thoughts are not
mistaken. His judgment is not cloudy. He knows exactly what
we are, what we have been, and what we shall be. And He declares
that we are precious in His sight. Notice this. This also is in
the past tense. Since thou wast And the word
sits there means because thou wast precious in my sight. You've always been precious in
His sight. Well, I was a sinner. Yeah, but before you ever came
into this world, before this world ever was, the Lord Jesus
Christ was made surety for His people. He signed their debt
and God never looked to them for the payment of their sin
debt because it belonged to, rightfully, their surety. He wasn't a cosigner in this
business. He was a guarantor. And when He put His name on your
sin debt before the world began, if you're one of His elect, let
me tell you this, God never looked to you to pay it. Because in
reality, once He signed His name to it, it was your debt no longer. It's His. If you owe money and
I go to the bank and say, I'll be a surety for 80, he owes a
thousand dollars, I'll sign his note. Surety. They look to me
for that debt, and they can never go to Him. Do you know that?
They can come to me, if I don't pay the debt, I default. But
they can never go to Him and say, well look, your surety didn't
pay, you're going to have to pay. The law says, no sir. Once the surety is signed, the
debt belongs to the surety. Since thou wast precious, You're precious. You've always
been precious. You are precious in His sight because of what
He has done, not because of what you are or what you have done.
We are precious in His sight because of the price He paid
for our redemption. He bought us with His own blood,
His own death. We are His workmanship, of His
poema, His poem. with His workmanship created
in Christ Jesus and two good works which God has ordained
that we should walk in them according to Ephesians chapter 2 verse
10. Because of His work for you, the work that makes you precious
to Him, that work of election wherein He chose you from the
foundation of the world, that work of substitution where Jesus
Christ came into this world and died in your room instead, died
to death that you owe God, but that He had signed for. You are
His because of redemption Christ has bought us with a price. You
are His by regeneration and precious to Him because you are born into
His family. You are precious because He has
revealed Himself to you. You are precious because you
are sanctified, you are holy. You are precious because you
are justified. Before Him you have no sin and never have had
sin. Your sins are gone, forgotten
according to Him. You're precious and therefore
He preserves you in this world. You're precious because He's
adopted you so much so that you look at God and say, Behold,
what manner of love is this that we should be called the children
of God? That we are precious in His sight
means this, that He is satisfied with us. He's satisfied. These are His words. Since thou
was precious in my sight. And not only that. To the Holy
God, you are honorable. Since thou was precious in my
sight, thou hast been honorable. Again, in the past tense. Honor.
Honor. In this Machiavellian world,
it is of little or no value whatsoever. Those who wear the title of honorable
in this day do not measure up. Our nation's politicians and
judges for the most part are thieves and adulterers and perverts,
and yet their names are preceded by the title honorable. The name
reverend is attached to every foul bird that fills the pulpit
and belongs to no man. Holy and reverend is God's name.
Don't you call me reverend. I'll correct you if you do. It's
not my name. nor my title that belongs to
Christ. He's to be revered. Honor is
lost in the malaise of corruption in this age. But in this old,
dark planet, this world full of woe and sorrow, in God's sight,
there are some people whom He says are honorable. That's true honor. Every believer
in God's sight is honorable. Because electing, sanctifying
grace has made Him precious. How are you honorable? How are
you honorable? Listen to me. If you're a child
of God, you're born to it. In the new birth, you're born
to it. You're a child of the King. How do you become a child
of the King? Well, the child of the King and the Queen have
got to get together and give birth. That's how you're a child. You're part
of the royal family. part of the royal family, a royal
house. You're called a joint heir with
Christ, an heir of God, a joint heir with Jesus Christ, the Son
of God. You've been called to honorable
service. You are a witness of His grace and His glory. You
have the honorable privilege, access to the throne room of
the King of Kings. God says, Thou hast been honorable. Grace has made you so again. Thou hast been honorable. You've
always been honorable in His sight. And to the Sovereign God,
You are beloved. I have loved Thee. To be honest with you, I cannot
fathom that. This is one of those places where
I am so in awe of this concept and this truth. that all I can
do is shake my head and bow my face to the ground and say, thank
you for saying that, Lord, because I sure can't find any reason
why to believe it. And yet I do. I believe it. God said, Henry, I've loved you. I've loved you. Always loved
you. I believe the consideration of
this works better in the realm of meditation than declaration. God says, I have loved thee.
Here are some words to consider as you meditate upon these words.
I have loved thee. Here's a word, eternally. Another, particularly. Another,
effectually. another preeminently, another
unchangeably, another immeasurably, another freely. When you think
about God saying, I love you, think about those words, because
that's how He loved you. That's how He loved you, eternally,
particularly, effectually, preeminently, unchangeably, immeasurably, and
freely. Think on these things and seek
to apply these words to each other, to your brothers and sisters
in Christ. You say, if they are your brothers
and sisters, they are precious. They are honorable and loved
in God's sight. How they stack up in your sight. Since thou wast precious, Thou
hast been honorable, and I have loved Thee, and I have given
men for Thy life. Father, bless us to our understanding.
We pray in Christ's name for His glory. Amen.