The Compassion of the Lord

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Isaiah 55

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Turn to Isaiah 55 If you have your Bibles this evening, and I'm gonna preach this whole chapter
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My goal this evening is to show you That one
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Christ is in the Old Testament the whole Bible Witnesses to Christ the whole
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Bible is about Christ. The whole Bible is for Christ And I want to show you
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The compassion of the Lord to his chosen people And I want to show you the confidence we have because Christ has secured our salvation the
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And the confidence we have to go forward and to do what God has commanded us to do so I Want to read this text for us.
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I'm a reading from the ESV come Everyone who thirst
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Come to the waters and he who has no money come by and eat
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Come by wine and milk without money and without price Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
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listen diligently to me and eat what is good and Delight yourselves in rich food
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Incline your ear and come to me Here that your soul may live and I will make with you an everlasting covenant my steadfast sure love for David Behold I made him a witness to the people's a leader and a commander for the people's
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Behold you shall call a nation that you did not know and a nation that did not know you shall run to you
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Because of the Lord your God and of the Holy One of Israel for he has glorified you
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Seek the Lord while he may be found Call upon him while he is near let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts
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Let him return to the Lord that he may he may have compassion on him and to our
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God for he will abundantly pardon For my thoughts are not your thoughts
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Neither are your ways my ways declares the Lord For as the heavens are higher than the earth
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So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts
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For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there But water the earth making it bring forth and sprout giving seed to the sower and bread to the either
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Show shall my word Be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty
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But it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which
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I sent it For you shall go out in joy And be led forth in peace
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The mountains in the hills before you shall break forth into singing and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands
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Instead of the thorn Shall come up the cypress instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle and It shall make a name for the
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Lord an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. This is the word of the
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Lord so as we look in verse 1
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I Want to dissect this passage pretty much verse by verse. So as I'm going through this it's going to be easy to follow along but First I want to say this the strength of every preacher and the strength of the church is
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Not confidence in oneself But is a great confidence in our
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God. That's how the church goes forward That's how we can be bold and preach. The gospel is our confidence in our great
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God So in verse 1 it says come everyone who thirsts
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Says come everyone Come every single person not just the
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Jews By heritage or by family Everyone to the exile to the pilgrim and the sojourner this is the free and genuine offer of pardon to the
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Gentiles and That's good. That's good that he offers it to everyone. You know, why because we're
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Gentiles If he didn't offer pardon to the Gentiles we'd be dead in our sins, so that's good news for us
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Says come to the waters and He who has no money come by and eat come by wine and milk without money and without price
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Says buy milk and wine. This is a reference to sweet things
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Things that are good and appetizing that are not just tasteless substance
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But our King offers us sweet good things. So I want you to turn to Exodus 3 and I want you to look in verse 8 so God is talking to Moses at the burning bush and he tells him to go to the people that are in Egypt He's gonna set them free
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He's gonna tell Moses what to do and he tells him where they're gonna go What's the end of all this when they get out of Egypt?
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What's going on? says in verse 8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the
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Egyptians and to bring them up Out of the land to a good and broad land a land flowing with milk and honey so We see yes, there's gonna be milk there and honey, but this is a reference to good things
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When have you ever thought about milk and honey and thought? It's horrible.
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No, they're sweet things The if we see in the Psalms the word of the
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Lord is sweeter than honey You didn't even sweeter than the honeycomb honey is something that is good and sweet This is what it's making a reference to it's desirable.
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It's good And if we Look in this first verse still
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It says this is also pointing to the fact that God's pardoning with his arms and mercy are great and sufficient and willing to save all peoples all
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Peoples the sufficiency of God's pardoning is sufficient for every single person
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Anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved That is the beauty that we see in this invitation
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Everyone everyone who thirsts come to the waters But it says come everyone who thirsts
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Doesn't say everyone who Is just living their life going about their way
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You have to thirst Matthew 5 verse 6
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This is what it says Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
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For they shall be satisfied. They shall be satisfied in this first verse
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It says come to the waters We need to be satisfied.
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But the problem is We can't be satisfied. But anything else but Christ Christ is the only one that can give us satisfaction
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These people will be satisfied you must thirst if you see that your merit will save you if You are trusting and your good works to satisfy you
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Those who are satisfied with the world and its treasures They're perishing and they will die in their sins unless they come to an end of their selves and are broken
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Those who are spiritually bankrupt and empty only those are invited to come
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Only those are invited to drink of the fountain. Those are invited to come to the waters to the living waters
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Those Will be satisfied those will find good food Those whose soul is troubled will be filled up with the satisfying pardon and the things of heaven so if You see that call come
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Do you thirst for righteousness? Do you thirst for good things?
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Do you thirst for godly things? Do you thirst for heaven if you don't he invites you?
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to repent He invites you to come to an end of yourself and find the things of God Pleasing now we understand that that can only happen by the
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Holy Spirit We do not think that we can make ourselves love God We cannot think that we can make ourselves find
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God appetizing because we can't that can only be done by the Holy Spirit But we have a real and true
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Responsibility you must come to Christ you are obligated before God you are obligated by the scriptures every single person to come to God and So we have this gracious and merciful invitation to come to him
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What a gracious God we have that he would invite us that he doesn't just let us go off to hell, but he invites us
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So we see in this verse come come come three times in this first verse so we have a
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God who invites his people who does not turn them away, but beckons them to come and receive and What do we bring to receive these good gifts?
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How can we come to God? What do we give him? nothing We cannot bring money
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We come to God without price So we are beckon to come to God.
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He does all the work right not meet God halfway. I've heard some say
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Do what you can and God will do the rest that is not true You can do nothing you can bring nothing to God that will satisfy him
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You can bring nothing to God that will merit your pardon. We need to hear that tonight
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We cannot bring God anything if you are trusting in your
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Baptism if you are trusting in your church attendance if you are trusting and the fact that you are a good
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Quote unquote person it is not enough It's not enough that you have
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Christian parents. It's not enough that your dad's a preacher It's not enough that you grew up in church
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It is not enough you must come to Christ and you must be pardoned from your sins through Jesus So he does all the labor
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It costs us nothing to be saved Nothing in order for us to receive what money cannot buy namely salvation because God alone is the one who saves
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What can you do to save yourselves? nothing So It's setting a table for us it says come
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Get wine and milk and all these things. It's it's kind of have an illustration at a table.
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So What can bring us to the proverbial table as it were?
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Well, I already talked about it's not our good works, right? Those works only condemn us further
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These all fall short of the holy requirement of God This is what he requires to come to the table perfection
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Perfection perfect obedience What is your hope if you have not obeyed the law perfectly?
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You have no hope we need perfection.
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We can't be perfect So we need someone's out someone else's perfect obedience in our place
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Jesus Jesus Christ We need his righteous work. We need his perfect obedience and not just his death and propitiation
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We need his death. We need his substitutionary atonement in our place But if we do not have his righteous work applied to us, we cannot be justified
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We cannot come to the table Jesus dying for us is not enough
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He has to live a perfect life for us. It is good news Because Jesus is the only perfect person and as we heard this morning
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He obeyed the law and every word thought indeed every motivation of his heart was in perfect Accordance to God's will in perfect obedience and so we can come to the table
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We have this invitation and we can come to the table because of Jesus, but it has to be through him
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So let's go on in verses 2 through 4 Why do you spend your money on that which is not bread?
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And your labor for that which does not satisfy Listen diligent to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food
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Incline your ear and come to me here that your soul may live and I will make with you an everlasting covenant
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My steadfast sure love for David behold. I made him a witness to the people's a leader and commander to the people's
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He says three times three different words. They all mean the same thing Listen incline your ear and hear this is what
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Isaiah tells us. This is coming from God Listen incline your ear and hear the only way that a man's wisdom
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Comes to an end and the ways of God is illuminated in our mind and our heart is the words of Christ That is the only way
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If you say to yourselves I I Know I should do these things and you've never heard the gospel.
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You've never repented of your sin. How can you come? How can you come you can't only those who take
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Christ at his word who have heard his words Are invited to the table and actually can come to the table
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His words by listening to his words and John 1 Says in the beginning was the
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Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God all things were made
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Through him and for him and by him So Christ is the
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Word listen to the to Christ How is the light to penetrate the darkness of our heart?
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Christ the words of Christ So church, do you see our need for the
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Word of God? It makes the things of Christ shine our minds are illuminated our hearts become enlivened
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To the things of God. Do you not think you need it still? We think sometimes we hear the gospel we come to Christ we are
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Baptized we are added to the church and we hear the word preached on Sundays and We think
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I'm good I'm in the club. I'm on the
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Lamb's Book of Life I'm secure We need the
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Word of God daily the Christian especially We are so easily
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Prone to forget the things of God What happened in Exodus 32
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Well in Exodus 32 the people are fed and drinking and as soon as they can text take the next bite
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They forget about the promises of God Moses goes up on Mount Sinai gets the
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Ten Commandments and he sees the people worshiping a false God After he's done all this for them after he's fed them after he's led them after he's
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Given them drink all these things this is a Warning to us to not ever forsake the
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Word of God Why do you think we meditate on God's Word on Sunday mornings and memorize those texts?
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Why do you think we need the Word of God in our minds? Why do we not? put the
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Word of God on our frontlets the scripture says Because we are so prone when things are good when we are taking care of when we get that promotion at work when
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Everything's fine and the van comes back and it's actually cost less money than you thought. Oh I'm good and you forget about the
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Lord We need the Word of the Lord continually to remind us of our great need for Jesus Christ We are foolish to abandon the words of Christ So let's go on to verse 5
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Behold you shall call a nation that you did not know and a nation that did not know you shall run to you because of the
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Lord your God and of the Holy One of Israel for he has glorified you
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See we see the grace of God yet again Adorning the
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Bride of Christ the people of God in glory Beautiful glory and the point here is not the glory of the church
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So like this passage if we looked at this and they say the church is going forward Wow, we are doing such a great job
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You have missed the point of this text The point of this text is not the glory of the church in and of herselves but the
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God of the universe adorning her with glory in Psalm 45 we see this we read that this morning in prayer meeting and We see that the king's daughter goes in to the chambers with her
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Virgin bridesmaids and the dress that the bride is what like that's all picture and illustration of the church beautiful adorned with glory holy and spotless verse 6
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Seek the Lord while he may be found Call upon him while he is near Says to seek
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What is that? How do we seek the Lord? We say so many times come to Christ.
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We say so many times have him by faith Well, how do you seek him?
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well, I would say that this text and So many other texts in the scripture when it says listen here all these things
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Listening well, this is a call you're speaking to God. You're praying to God you call out to the name of the
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Lord by prayer and Who are you? Who have you?
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Who are you that the Lord of the universe would ask you to seek him?
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to call upon it this is not exclusive to people that are born again and as I already spoke about briefly.
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This is a gratuitous command a Call that comes from a genuine invitation from a loving
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God this is what's best for your life your soul your community your country if more people sought the
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Lord if more people were Christians our country would be better off our Communities would be better off and my now at this our churches would be better off.
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You know why we Are in the place that we are is because so many do not seek the
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Lord So many have forsaken Christ So many do not want him
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So this is a command. That's a good command This is what we were designed to do to call upon the
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Lord and to trust him to glorify him for six verse seven
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So Seek the Lord why he may be found call upon him while he is near Verse seven let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts
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Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our God for for he will abundantly pardon so in this passage in verse seven
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This is a beautiful Promise of pardon forgiveness of redemption and reconciliation
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This promise is not just for the remnant of Israel Not just for the captives, but also for us this passage is for the church the true
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Israel Romans 9 says not all who are Israel are of Israel why because this call to seek the
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Lord and to come and Receive pardon and forgiveness has never been for a bloodline.
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It has never been for a heritage It has always been for the people of faith even in the
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Old Testament These are for the people of faith. So They understood the salvation of the
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Lord Dimly so we see in this promise of pardon. They understood it, but only partially
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But we see it fully and clearly in the gospel preached to us in Jesus Christ and the
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Apostles in the New Testament We see this gospel more clearly to us in this
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Old Testament We are very very privileged to have this Bible We are very privileged to have this
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Bible in our own language in a way that we can understand these people in Isaiah 55 day
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They didn't understand fully the whole picture They understand stood a little bit dimly, but we understand it fully in Christ We understand the clear whole picture of what
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God's plan was from the beginning from Genesis 3. It says seek the
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Lord While he may be found while he's near So let me speak briefly to those who are in this room
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That are not Christians who are playing church He calls you to Receive his grace he calls you to forsake your way and To forsake your wicked ways and your unrighteous deeds and your own wisdom
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He calls you to forsake those things and he calls you to come to him He is near but he will not always be near There is coming a day when he will come back and that's gonna be it
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There's gonna be no more time for repentance There's gonna be no more time for pardoning because he's given you this time.
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He's near now He is able to be found. You can have all of Christ that you want, but there's coming a day
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Well here he will not be near and I pray that you will receive him before then so You are beckoned to come to God.
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You are commanded to come to God graciously invited to come to God But how how do we come to him according to this verse verse 7?
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Well, it's only by repentance It's only by Matthew what
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Matthew 7 says the narrow gate or John 10 says the door
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We only come to the table by repentance by Christ alone by faith alone
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That's the only way that we come let the wicked man forsake his way. This is a turning from your own ways
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This is turning to Christ You cannot stay where you're at and become a
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Christian and keep doing what you're doing The call of the Christian is to repent the call of the person who is invited to the table is to repent forsake your wicked way, so it
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Even Isaiah 55 he tells these people the only way you can come is by repentance
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The only way that the New Testament people can come is by repentance
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So we see the law We see the law that we cannot obey. He says to come.
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Well, we think well I can just muster up enough good stuff and I can come But we can't obey we see our guilt and then in this passage we see the gospel the
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God who obeys the law for us in our place and he will have
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Compassion on that person who comes to him in repentance. He will have compassion on him.
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He will receive him But he only receives the one who is humble and meek and destitute not full of himself
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Not arrogant not prideful Not puffed up.
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He only receives the one that is humble and meek and is destitute So he will pardon
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But how can he pardon the people? We talked about by Christ, but how what has to happen for him to pardon the people?
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Even though they can't keep the law even though he bites in the table, but we're imperfect
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Well, let's look at Isaiah 53 Just two chapters away I'm gonna read this small portion of scripture verse 3
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He was despised and rejected by a man a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and as one with whom men hide their faces
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He was despised and we esteemed him not Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows yet.
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We esteemed him stricken smitten by God and afflicted But he was pierced for our transgressions
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He was crushed for our iniquities upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds
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We are healed all we like sheep have gone astray We have turned everyone to his own way and the
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Lord has laid on him. That's Christ the iniquity of us all So, how does a man how does
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God justify the man who comes to him in? wretchedness and unrighteousness by Christ Perfect life his death and his resurrection verse 8 for my
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Thoughts are not your thoughts Neither are your ways my ways declares the Lord for as the heavens are higher than the earth
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So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts Then your thoughts for as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there
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But water the earth Making it bring forth and sprout giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater
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So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth it shall or not turn it return to me empty
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But it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which
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I sent it so We see in this passage the sovereignty of God over all of creation we see the analogy of the rain and the snow they both come down and This the point here is not that they just come down randomly or they come down by itself or just the law of nature
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Let's it come down. But each drop of rain and snowflake comes down because God sent it
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Every drop is pointed precisely where to land by God and they have a purpose to water the earth then the then to bring forth seed to the sower and Bread to the eater they have a purpose
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They are not by happenstance or by luck they
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Providentially land according to the very decree of God guided and put out by the very finger of God So what do we have a sense now of how
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God is sovereign over all the earth? Surely we do he is sovereign over all of creation The very winds obey him and the lightning strikes where he puts it in the same way
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Every word of God will accomplish that which it is purposed every single word either for the salvation the
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Encouragement the edification the instruction of the church or the hardening of the hearts of those sons of disobedience
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This is the point. God will get glory either way
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Don't think that unless sinners come to faith. God won't get the glory He also gets the glory and pouring out his justice on sinners in hell
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But this is the this warning don't neglect this gracious invitation do not neglect it and Sorry, my iPads acting up.
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Okay, here we go. All right this last verse in verse 12 we see
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For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace the mountains in the hills before you shall break forth and sing and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands and Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress
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Instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle and it shall make a name for the Lord an everlasting sign
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That shall not be cut off so Part of this conference that we get went to is be optimistic.
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I'm a little my all millennial But how can you be optimistic how can you be positive on a path that is rocky on a path of tribulation a path of suffering and trials
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Because as We look at in verse 12. All this is happening be led forth in peace and joy.
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This verse isn't about you individually This verse is not about the individual
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Christian This is about the people of God the bride of Christ the lamb without blemish
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The Lord promises essentially the church has victory
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Such a we have such a sure conquering outcome why because of this promise
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It's not going to be that the church is going to go through roses or have a perfect way through this life
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But it says here. We're gonna have peace and joy for the church. So to the individual
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Christian the Dear brother or sister in here you will face opposition
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You will be struck by the arrows of Satan You will be persecuted that's not a surprise so many times we like freak out if suppress if Opposition and suffering comes our way, but the scripture promises not if we will suffer, but when we will suffer suffering is part of the life of a
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Christian and Here's something else you may be martyred there are plenty of martyrs in our day in in the past that never
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Saw the church Go forth in the end Right because we're not there yet, right
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Christ hasn't come back. The church is not adorned in her full glory in heaven People died and they never saw
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Christ come back They never saw this promise that God said we're gonna conquer in the end and we're gonna be we're gonna have salvation in the end but The church will never be killed
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The church will never be conquered the Church of God the people of God the remnant will go forward in triumph in Peace and joy.
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This is what he promises for his people that we will be saved in the end that we will conquer that we will
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Triumph over darkness, we will reign with God and we will be with him as he puts his feet on his enemies
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So two reasons how we know this One because of this promise that's enough right like that's enough.
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We have this promise and that's enough and Look at church history right in the midst of persecution and Christians killed has the church been diminished or has it flourished?
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The this is this quote that I don't know where it Came from but the blood of the martyr is the seed of the church the seed of the church
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It is not the critical blow to the church When martyrs are killed when people are killed for the cause of Christ the church flourishes the church expands the kingdom goes forward
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So the people of God Aren't Looking for heaven on earth because in verse 12 and 13 we prompt we are promised that we will conquer we're not looking for heaven on earth or To make heaven on earth because we have a heaven that we are entering into We have a hope the exiled people who are pilgrims traveling to the promised land when the master comes the church is gathered up from every tribe and nation every tear will be wiped away and We will finally be with our
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Lord we will finally see our long -awaited treasure Christ and All the thorns and all the bloodshed and all the thistles and all the suffering we will all come together and we will say it's worth it and He is worthy and he is worth it all
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Because to live is Christ and to die is gain so in closing
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I hope I Showed you this big picture, but the passage is not however to show
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Chiefly, this is not the chief purpose of this text that the church will succeed although it will
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Or to show ultimately a requirement of what the church or even the non -believers must do that is not the point of this text
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It is a point but chiefly Ultimately, this is what the text means
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So like imagine a camera, right? You're zoomed in and you can see the people of God and their duty and the delight of all those who seek
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God That's what you see in a zoomed in view, but then you zoom out and this is what you see This is the ultimate.
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This is the big picture Christ is the Almighty we see that Christ is doing all of this.
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This is because of Christ. This is for Christ This whole passage is to magnify
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Christ and his compassion Christ is doing this Christ is giving the invitation Christ is giving the church confidence to go forward
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Try Christ is securing the church's salvation. Christ is doing all this do not think for one minute
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That you can look at this patch like wow. Look how good I am. Look how that man the church
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Wow, we're good God needs us. Let me just tell you this God does not need us
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God does not need Providence Baptist Church. He will accomplish his purpose. However, we see the gracious Decree of God and that in order for his will to be done and His kingdom to expand he uses the people of God and local churches just like this one and so trust in What I said in the beginning that our confidence is not in How good we are our
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Confidence is not in ourselves. Our Confidence is in our great