A Tendency to Lean to Our Own Understanding

A Tendency to Lean to Our Own Understanding

If you will, turn with me in your Bibles this evening to Isaiah 29. And we want to begin the reading in verse 1 this evening. Isaiah 29 beginning in verse number 1. Woe to Ariel, to Ariel the city where David dwelt. Add ye year to year, let them kill sacrifices. Yet I will distress Ariel and there shall be heaviness and sorrow. And it shall be unto me as Ariel. And I will camp against thee roundabout and I will lay siege against thee with a mount. And we'll raise forts against thee. And thou shalt be brought down and shalt speak out of the ground. And thy speech shall be low out of the dust. And thy voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar spirit out of the ground. And thy speech shall whisper out of the dust. Moreover, the multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust. And the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away. Yet shall be at an instant suddenly. Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts with thunder and with earthquake. And great noise with storm and tempest and flame of devouring fire. And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her in her munition. And that distress her shall be as a dream of a night vision. It shall be even as one hungry man dreameth and behold he eateth, but he awaketh. And his soul is empty. Or as one thirsty man dreameth and behold he drinketh. But he awaketh and behold he is faint in his soul hath appetite. So shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against mount Zion. Stay yourselves and wonder, cry ye out and cry. They are drunken, but not with wine. They stagger, but not with strong drink. For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep. And hath closed your eyes, the prophets and your rulers, the seers, hath he covered. And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned saying, "Read this, I pray thee," and he sayeth, "I cannot, for it is sealed." And the book is delivered to him that is not learned saying, "Read this, I pray thee," and he sayeth, "I am not learned." Wherefore the Lord said, for as much as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. Therefore behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among the people. Even a marvelous work and a wonder for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish. And the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. Woe to them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord and their works are in the dark? And they say, "Who seeth us and who knoweth us?" Surely, your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay. For shall the work say of him that made it, "He made me not," or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, "He had no understanding"? We'll conclude the reading there in verse number 16 this evening.

Lord, as we take these moments together, we ask that you would bless the reading of your word to our understanding. May we not only understand the historical context of what's being said here, but may we also make application to our lives. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

So, when Jesus came to this earth, he would repeat those words in verse 13 where he said, for as much as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. The condition of the hearts of the people of Israel was the same as it had been in the day when Isaiah prophesied. And we see that the condition of their hearts in that day is very familiar to us in our own times. We have, as Gentiles, been grafted in, and we stand by grace, and we have the opportunity as Gentiles, the gospel went to the Jew first, but also to the Gentile. And yet, the times of the Gentiles will come to an end. The times of the Gentiles as far as Gentile power, the Lord is going to once again exalt his people in due time, maybe sooner than we think here, sooner than what we might realize. But not exalt and bless his people in their apostasy, but he's going to ultimately, their hearts, at least a remnant in Israel, will turn back to the Lord.

But the problem we see here in this text is that the Jews took confidence in their city, in their temple. They took confidence in, you know, "We're Jerusalem. We're Judah. Nobody's going to mess with us. We're Israel. Nobody's going to harm us. We have the covenants. We have the blessings of the Lord." You know how Israel tended to idolize things. They tended to idolize. We know the Lord said to Moses that he was to put this brazen serpent on a pole. And then they ended up idolizing the serpent on the pole. Or they took the Ark of the Covenant, and they idolized that. And they said, "If we just bring the Ark into the camp, then we'll be saved. Because we have the Ark with us. Or we have the temple. Or we have all these things. Look at the beautiful stones. The temple, isn't it wonderful, isn't it beautiful?"

The tendency of men when they forget God and turn their back on God is to focus on feelings and tangible things, to give them some sort of confidence that all is going to be well. And we have the temple. But what God is concerned about and what Jesus, and he iterated, he made that plain through his prophets. What he was concerned about was the heart, not the appearance. And when Jesus came, he reiterated that very clearly. That's why he repeated the word as Isaiah. He said, "You draw near with your mouth. But your heart is far from me." We see that the Lord would say, "Oh, generation of vipers. How can ye being evil speak good things?" For He says, "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh." Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. It is true.

How does the saying go? You can fool everybody some of the time, but you can't fool… I forget how it goes. But basically, you can't fool everybody all the time or something like that. I should have looked that one up before I tried to say it. But the point is, you can say things and fool people, and you can put on an impression, put on an appearance that will fool people for a time. But ultimately, the heart is going to be seen. The heart is going to come out. You know, termites, the people who moved in next door to us said, "Hey, do y'all have termite protection at your house?" And we said, "No, we don't." And he said, "You might want to get it." Because once they moved in, they found out that they have termites at their house. At least in part of it, there's termites there. And he says, "Yeah, you probably want to check that out." And you know, the building inspector inspected their home before they moved in and didn't say anything about termites. So I'm guessing they're not going to recommend that building inspector. But the point is that those termites can be working for quite some time before it becomes obvious that they're there.

The emphasis of the Lord, even when he was talking to the woman at the well, he said that he was seeking for those that would worship him in spirit and in truth, true worshippers. He was… the problem with Israel was they took confidence in the place of worship rather than in the true worship. In spirit, we must worship him in spirit and in truth. The form? Yes, we must have. We can't just worship the Lord any old way we want to, but we must worship him also in the proper manner as he prescribes, but from the heart. There must be, we've been seeing on Sunday nights. We must not only talk about the sins of the flesh in actions that we take, but we must also, as the Lord did, address the sins of the spirit in our lives. Because the Lord addresses those things. In fact, you know, he told them that, you know, the Pharisees, that they tithed, they did all the outward externals like they were supposed to, but they left off the weightier matters of mercy and judgment and all those things. They left off those important matters of the spirit that they were just contending themselves with the appearance, with the form, but not the spirit of true worship.

But what is in the heart will issue forth, won't it? That's why we're to keep it with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. So Jesus, it was said in Matthew chapter one, if you'll turn over there with me, hold your finger in the text and we'll come back in a moment, but Matthew chapter one verse 20. It was said there in verse number 20. We see here, but while he thought, Joseph thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name Jesus. Yahweh saves for he shall save his people from their sins." Jesus will save his people from their sins. Now, all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, behold, but this is Isaiah, right? A virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. The only way we can be saved is God coming and dwelling among us. God with us.

Well, Jesus came. Jesus did not come to encourage or commend a religion that was merely in form. He came to save both Jew and Gentile from their sins. First of all, to the Jew, right? And then to the Greek. He came to save his people from their sins. He didn't come to save them from Rome. He didn't come to save them from financial poverty. He didn't come to save them from any number of things. He came to save them from their sins. God dwelling among us in flesh, saving us from our sins.

In the Old Testament, we saw that the tabernacle, Hebrews talks about. The tabernacle was a figure. It was a figure for the time then present. At that time, in that dispensation, the tabernacle was there as a figure, like a parable, like something pointing to something else. Right? It was foreshadowing that which was to come for the time present in which in that tabernacle Hebrews 9:8 says, were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect or whole or complete. It could not complete him as pertaining to the conscience. It was impossible that those sacrifices could do the cleansing work needed. No, even then it was faith in God. And in His provisions, not in the sacrifices, but the problem was over time, they put their confidence in the externalism of the religion. And not in the Savior, in the God and Savior behind the externalism. These were just figures. They were just pictures. They were just pointers saying, "Yahweh saves," right? He's the one who can save us. It's not these things. We did not put our confidence in these things, but these things are merely those forms and ordinances that he's established for us to observe as we look to Him. As even the priest would lay his hand on the head of that sacrificial animal. And as the worshiper came with an animal to make this sacrifice, there had to be faith in that heart, "God be merciful with me. It's not the animal that's saving me; it's God that is being merciful to me." For His, and ultimately we would find out, is for the ultimate lamb that would come, the lamb of God.

Hebrews 9:14 says how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from—listen to this—dead works. Dead works to serve the living God. All of this without God in it, without faith, all of these things we might do. We talked about how you can try to build a house, but you don't have a foundation. All your building is just, well, it's just dead works, isn't it? And this is what they went about. The Jews were going about to establish their own righteousness, without Christ. Without faith in Him who alone can save. And so it was just dead works. Just like all of us trying to do anything good to gain favor with God. No, it's dead works. But Jesus came to save us from our dead works. He came to save us from our guilty conscience. He came to save us from our sins. He came and His coming to this earth is a statement about our condition, isn't it? The fact that He came and it was said He's come to save His people from their sins. Well, that's an indictment of our sins. We've sinned against Him. We are in need of a Savior, and that's why He came. The temple couldn't save anyone. There's no form of religion that could save anyone. There's only one Savior. There's no other Savior beside Him. God, and God came in flesh in Jesus Christ.

Look in Matthew 9. I'm coming back to our text. I've been trying to build this picture here in Matthew 9 and verse 11. Matthew 9 and verse 11 we read. When Jesus was eating at Matthew's house, Levi, the publican, right, had turned from collecting taxes to following the Savior. When the Pharisees saw Jesus eating at Matthew's house gathered with other people like Him, they said unto His disciples, "Why eateth your master with publicans and sinners?" But when Jesus heard that, He said unto them, "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth for I will have mercy and not sacrifice for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Jesus didn't just hobnob with sinners just because He liked, because He was living some kind of a carousing life of drunkenness and all of it. No, that's not what He was doing. He came to call. I guarantee you that supper there, He was calling with His words sinners to repentance. He was speaking about eternal life with them. He was speaking to them about the fact that He had come to save people from their sins. He was not just there to party with sinners. That's not, that's the picture that many would have you to think. Well, Jesus just partied with drunks, Jesus partied with sinners and did all, no, that's not what He did come to party with them. He came to save them. He came to tell them of the hope that they could have in Him. And in like manner, we are to make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. We are to show ourselves friendly toward people with the hope of sharing the gospel with them, sharing the good news of what the Lord has done for us and can do for them. Not to partake in sin with them, but to show the grace of God and what it's done for us.

Well, the problem with the Jews was, in a manner of speaking, they felt themselves too good. They were continuing themselves and they felt like they didn't need this. But Jesus is saying, "Well, these people realize that they are sinners. You don't even realize you're a sinner, but you're just as much a sinner as they are. You just don't realize it. You don't want to admit it. You won't confess this, your sins."

Go back in our texts now in Isaiah 29. Verse 1, the woe that is pronounced here is to Ariel. This is another name for Jerusalem. Ariel, well, it's the construction of that word, or Ariel. The first part, Ari means lion and El means God, so lion of God. Jerusalem, woe to Ariel. God's lion. He says here, the city where David dwelt. Add ye year to year, let them kill sacrifices. You keep on sacrificing. We see this in all the prophets. They didn't stop sacrificing sacrifices. They kept up the form of worship. You keep on with your form of worship, but it's not going to stop God's judgment from coming upon you. You can keep on doing what you're doing, but you can keep on saying, "We love God, we worship God," but your heart is far from God. He says, and yet he says, "I will distress Ariel. And there shall be heaviness and sorrow, and it shall be unto me as Ariel. And I will camp against thee roundabout, and will lay siege against thee with a mount. And I will raise forts against thee." I think it's interesting how the language of the prophet here is God Himself is going to come up against in judgment, Jerusalem. He is, yes, it's going to be via nations and kings, but it will be actually the Lord Himself that is going to fight against Israel. He is going to do this.

It's interesting that these people, even though the prophets were telling them this, were still more concerned with appearance than heart. They were still concerned more about saving their nation in their place, and they were about humbling themselves before the God who alone could save them. They were more concerned about that. It's interesting with all the things that we see, you think we would have humbled ourselves in our own nation, but we seem to turn our back more and more. I'm not saying everyone has, and perhaps it is because of God's people in this country that judgment has been stayed as long as it has. And the prayers of God's people.

But when Jesus came, didn't he say, "Woe unto the Pharisees, because your fathers killed the prophets"? They killed the prophets. The prophets I raised up, that the God raised up, they killed them, they killed them, they killed them, and you act like, "We wouldn't have done that if we were in their day," but they were rejecting Jesus' words. Remember the parable how the Lord said, He raised up all these servants to go, and they killed all the servants. And finally He said, "I'll send my son," and they said, "Come, let's take him, he's the heir." Well, the Jews viewed Jerusalem. "This is our place. This is our temple. This is our place."

You know, I am more and more, I hear some of this language people talking today about the U.S. I hear, I was reading something that someone said the other day that Islam will never take over America because we are a Christian nation and Christ is king. And that's folly. It's abhorrent in my thinking that I don't want Islam to take over our country, but any, China could do it, Islam could do it. Any number of forces could come in, but ultimately if that happens, we've got to believe that it's God that's doing it. And you know, this thought was so far from the mind of the people because of the false prophets that were saying, "All is well, peace, peace," when there is no peace, that the people were thinking, "We have God around us. We have the temple. We have all this, we keep sacrificing these sacrifices. Nobody can ever touch us." And that's why we get rid of these traitors, these prophets that come in here and tell us that trouble will come if we don't repent. "We don't want to listen to you, kill them, get rid of them. We don't want to listen to that."

I would submit to you, as many, maybe good things that are happening in our country as far as we see that we see some bad things that could have happened, had someone else gotten in the White House. But at the same time, there's other things when we look at the thinking and the mindset. I'm hearing a lot of people that profess to be Christians. It's almost like we're untouchable. No, we're not untouchable. We're not untouchable as a nation. If we put our confidence in a man or anything for that matter other than the Lord, we tend to make idols out of a lot of things, don't we? We tend to idolize. Just like Israel did. That's just a human tendency. But no, the only one that can save us is the Lord, the Lord Himself.

I was reading a little while back, A.W. Tozer, I was talking about the churches of his day. He said that if the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95% of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95% of what they did would stop and everyone would know the difference. What he was saying is, we're even in the Gentile world in the church. We have perfected the art of keeping things going in our own human… What is the word? That's how Israel had gotten. Things were just clicking right along and even when God sent His prophets in and said, "Hey, look, you don't have me in your worship and you're confiding in these things that you've really turned into idols." They said, "Get out of here. We don't want to listen to you. Get out of here. We don't want to hear that. We don't want to hear that negative messaging. We don't want to hear that messaging that makes us feel bad. We just want positive. Nobody's going to come in here and mess with us."

Well, what did the Lord say? Verse three, "I will camp around against thee roundabout. I will lay siege against thee with a mount. I will raise forts against thee." The Lord says, well, James said that God resists the proud. He wages war against the proud, but He draws nigh to the humble, right? He draws nigh to the humble. Look in verse five. What does it say there? Moreover, the multitude of thy strangers. The strangers that are going to come up against, they shall be like small dust and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that pass away. Yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly. You don't think it's going to happen, but it's going to happen. And it'll be in an instant. You know, there's a lot of things even in my short life of 38 years that you know, you never thought would happen and then it just happened, right? All of a sudden, you know, who thought that what happened with COVID and not only just the sickness aspect of it, but the cultural shift that happened through that would happen. I mean, people that lived, I'm sure that lived through World War I and II saw major changes that happened in a very short amount of time. And yet the Lord says it will be at an instant. It will be suddenly.

God's messengers, I think God has raised up generations of faithful messengers that have warned this nation, have warned us as a country. And the churches of this land to turn to God with all of our hearts. Looking in verse 10, we're jumping down a little bit and verse 10, it says, for the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep. And hath closed your eyes, the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath He covered. One of the ways God judges a nation is just by removing more and more the voices of truth that are speaking out. The voices of truth, there are a lot of voices speaking today, but there is a lack. There is an obvious lack of solid, Bible preaching and clear expounding of scripture going on today in this land. That doesn't mean I'm not saying by that we're the only ones. I'm just saying that there isn't, and I'm not just basing that on my own opinion, that's talking to a lot of people over a period of time. We see the decline from what it was, from what it was. And it's simply because it's not popular. It's not popular, it's not well accepted, it's not widely desired. That clear Bible teaching and preaching and application of God's Word would be made. And God hath poured out, and He did on Israel a spirit of deep sleep. Thank God that some are awake, but many are sleeping. Many are not alert to where we are, to where this nation is, to where we are in times in the world that we are living in.

Looking at verse 6, go back with me. It says there in verse 6, "Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, with great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire. And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all the nations against her and her munition, and that distress her shall be as a dream of a night vision. And it shall be as when a hungry man dreameth and behold, he eateth, but he awakens, and his soul is empty. Or as one thirsty man dreameth and behold, he drinketh, but he awakens and behold, he is faint. And his soul hath appetite. So shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion." What is that picture? Well, He's already said, we jumped ahead and we saw in verse 10, where a spirit of deep sleep will be upon the nation Israel. And they're dreaming, and they're thinking, "I'm hungry, and I'm eating. I'm thirsty, and I'm drinking," but when they wake up, they're thirsty. When they wake up, there's no food to eat. And reality hits. You've ever been dreaming of something very pleasant and you wake up with a dream, and it's so pleasant, and it's got reality, right? It's just a dream. I was hoping that this would be the case because I was dreaming it, but it actually isn't reality. It actually isn't reality.

You know, people can be in denial about a number of things. They can be in denial about, "Well, I know the doctor says I have cancer, but I deny the reality of that." Well, you can deny it all you want, but the truth is you have cancer, and something's going to have to be done about it. You have to pray about it, ask God to heal you, and perhaps there may be some things you can do about addressing that. But to deny the reality of it is folly. To deny the reality of that. So what the Lord is saying here is that there's going to be a sleep, and I think the false prophets, as we look in the Old Testament, the false prophets, who are always flattering people and keeping them asleep. They were flattering people and encouraged them. "Keep on sleeping. It's not going to be a problem. It's not going to be bad. You know, don't let these prophets over here ruffle your feathers with any warnings. Just peace. Be at peace. Think positively. And all will be well." No?

There is… I hear it being said, "We have charted peace in the Middle East. We've done all these things. There's going to be safety. There's going to be all this stuff that, you know, is going to be better." And, you know, certain policies, you can't help to say, "Well, it's got to be better in that area. They're better in this area than what it could have been. Yes. Okay? But let's not look. I don't care who's in charge. Let's not… There's no political solution to the problems. The only Savior is the Lord. The only one that can change and save people is the Lord. It's not a man. No political Savior. No political solution to our deep problems as a nation."

In verse 11, "The vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned saying, 'Read this, I pray thee,' and he sayeth, 'I cannot for it is sealed.'" Yeah? But, you know, we have had the privilege of just clear Bible teaching and preaching for years in this church. I mean, for before I was ever here. We've had clear Bible teaching and preaching and not that there's not much more to learn about God's word. But sometimes you hear how the Bible is being treated and it's just being made kind of into a… say it, say whatever you want it to say kind of book and make… It's all about how it makes me feel and my truth in this moment. We have to understand what is God saying through His word, not what we wanted to say or what we want to make it say in this cherry-pick, because we've heard and leave out the thing. No, we've got to say, what is it God saying to us through His word? Well, if we don't do that, then what do we do? We create another Jesus out of the Bible. We create another gospel. This is not the one that was delivered to us.

Verse 12 says, "The book is delivered to him that is not learned saying, 'Read this, I pray thee,' and he sayeth, 'I am not learned.' Wherefore the Lord said for as much as this people draw near me with their mouth and their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me. And their fear toward me is taught by the precepts of men. Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid." I think it's interesting that even as Ariel means lion of God. We would read, what is it in Hosea, I believe it was there that the Lord said that He would be as a lion to Israel, that He would come upon them and devour. I wrote that scripture down and I don't see where I wrote it down right this moment, but He said, and He said it in a couple different places in the scripture, "I will be as a lion unto you. I will come upon you." And, you know, just because God had saved His people out of Egypt didn't mean that He would not also punish His people. Did not mean that He would not also fulfill His Word in bringing judgments upon them if they turned away their back from Him. And we are not, if God will do that to His chosen people, He will also do that with us. He will also do that with certainly us as a nation.

We notice that their fear, what did it say here, verse number 13, "Their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men." You know, there's this problem in a lot of different groups. You have the Amish, you know, "Well, Bishop, what can we do? What can we do? You tell us what we need to do. You give us your traditions. Look at the Bishop. Can we have this kind of cell phone? Can we have that kind of thing? Can we do this?" Are one of the beautiful things that we believe about is the individual priesthood of the believer, as in Scripture we believe that I have a personal relationship with the Lord. I'm going to answer to Him for what I've done in light of His Word, how I live my life. Yes, I go to the house of God to be instructed in the ways of the Lord and be taught, line upon line, rightly dividing the Word of truth, and I might understand better how to walk with the Lord. But I have, I have to go to God personally through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not through the Bishop. It's not through so and so. It is not through the rabbis and through the teachers of the law that my relationship with God is. It is personally through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not confession to a priest. My understanding of God may use, and He does use Bible teachers and preachers to help us in our understanding. But I have an individual conscience before God and the fear and favor of man had effectively replaced conscience among the people of Israel.

"You don't even know me." When He said, "Have you never read," when Jesus came and said, "Have you never read the Scripture said?" Well, they didn't know what the Scripture said. They didn't really know what the Bible said because they were just, you know, you talk about in Spain, Catholics, many Catholics don't even know what their Bible says. Brother Bergman will take their Catholic Bible and open it up and show them things that are right there in the Catholic Bible. There's a lot of things that can be pointed out in that Catholic Bible that they don't even know are there. "Your fear toward me is taught by the precept of men." You need to know God personally. It's not a religion. It's not, your confidence is in something and not in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus made that clear when He came.

Well, in their fake wisdom, the Jews thought they could hide their counsel, their thoughts and their works, their deeds from the Lord. He saw them. He saw them for who they are just as He sees us for who we are. In verse 16, "Surely you're turning the things upside down. Shall be esteemed as the potter's clay. For shall the work, the potter's work on the wheel, shall it say of Him that made it, 'He made me not'? Or shall the thing framed say of Him that framed it, 'He had no understanding'?" Well, no. That will not be. That cannot be the case.

I just want, as we saw in the morning message, God, we have to have that personal relationship, first of all, with the Lord Jesus Christ. We must be built upon the rock. We cannot rest on anything else. You know, the Jews were resting on the place. If this place was taken away from us, this building. Our Christianity, it's not based on this sanctuary of this building. It's not even based on Christ's fellowship church. Thank God we have a place we can come together and worship the Lord. But if that was taken away from us, if you were the only one left, like in Job, the story of Job, you're all the others who have been killed. And I'm all, I only have escaped to tell you what happens. Do we have a real relationship with the Lord that we would serve Him? Even if everybody else was wiped out, is your relationship because of your spouse or because of your pastor, because of your parent, or whatever the case may be? No, we individually will give an answer to the Lord only. We'll individually stand before God. But we thank God for each other. I thank God for you and how God uses each of you to be a blessing in my life. And God uses each of us in one another's lives, but at the end of the day, Jesus came to save me from my sins. Jesus came to save His people from their sins. He came to save me from my sins. And one day, I'll stand before Him at the judgment seat. One day, I will give an answer for all the things done in the body. And the reason that I did those things, some things will be burned. I pray that some will stand the test of the fire. And I pray that will be true in all of our lives.

But the Lord is a spirit, I believe, in our country, of a deep sleep that is spiritually a form of godliness, but a sleep. A blinding of the eyes to what the scriptures actually say. We were talking with my parents-in-law this afternoon about more and more of these, I guess, more of the mega churches. But they're putting on these huge theatrical programs, spending millions of dollars in some cases to put on these big programs. A Christmas program, people hanging from the ceiling and flying through and all this kind of stuff. That's not what the Lord called us to do, but it's impressive. We want to do, basically compete with the world, to try to get people into the church. So we can tell them about Jesus. That's not what the Word has called us to do. It's not about the impressiveness, it's not to be about, "Look at how impressive this church is." Well, yes, we want to sing well. We thank the Lord that we were able to do the Christmas cantata the other week. But even in that, we don't want it to be people just impressed with, "Oh, that was great singing." We want them to see the Lord. We want them to see Christ, right? We want them to see that He's the one that can save you too.

May God help us to draw near to our Savior and point others to Him. And so that we would leave a lasting impression on others that it is the Lord that has saved me from my sins, and He can save you from your sins too. We don't want to just have a form of godliness. We want to point people to the power that can save them. This is what Israel was not doing. They were not powerfully being used as the lion of God. They were in apostasy. They were in a spirit of drunkenness and sleep that had fallen upon them. We are living in times very much like that, but we need to be of all people who know the Lord. It's high time to awake, right? To be alert, to be awake and say, "Lord, what would you have me to do? How would you use me?" There is a spirit of stupor and a spirit of sleep that is falling upon the land, but may I live as a stranger and a pilgrim in the earth. May I be ready to go with you whenever you call me? I'm ready to stay if that's what you want me to do. But may the Lord Jesus Christ be seen in me? May it not just be a form. I'm content with a form. I'm content because I, Pastor P. God said, I darken the doors of a church and therefore, you know, I'm okay with God. No, it's not because I darken the doors of a church. It's because I have a real and vital relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. It's because of what He's done for me. Can we write down? Can we share with someone in words? Or can we write it out and say, "I want to tell you about what the Lord has done for me?" Is it real with us individually? May that be true in our lives and may as we go into this new year, though we may be living in a land where the Lord is waging a war against the public Christianity of our day oftentimes. May we be found looking to Him, the one who saved us from our sins.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we just thank you tonight for the reality of a personal relationship and a personal walk with you that we can have not because there's anything good in us. Anymore than there was anything good in Zacharias, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men, Anna, Simeon, there's nothing good in them, but they knew the Scriptures. They knew what your words said and they believed it. And they acted in obedient faith because of what they knew. We see that they were different than the religious crowd of their day because they actually believed what your words said. It made a difference in what they did and how certainly how they fought and how they conducted themselves. It was not how they conducted themselves that was their salvation, but it was because of their salvation, because of their personal faith in the Lord that they were different. We see that there was, even in Jesus' day, when He came, a great darkness, spiritual blindness, form of religion, form of godliness, but great darkness, great sleep and slumber that was upon the people. We pray, Lord, that we would not sleep as those that sleep in the night, but we would awake and be sober as the Scripture commands us to be that we would be alert to you. There are so many distractions in this world to lull us to sleep, but help us to trim our wicks, to trim our lamps, and be likened to those that wait for the coming of the Son of Man. Bless us as we go forward in this week. Give us boldness. Give us clarity. Give us humility and honesty in our daily walk and integrity. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.