Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] All right, let's get our bible and turn to the book of Isaiah, chapter 57.
[00:00:08] Isaiah, chapter 57.
[00:00:26] Isaiah 57.
[00:00:31] I want to read several verses here. Then we're going to go to Matthew. Isaiah, chapter 40. And Matthew, chapter three. Just kind of to kind of give some context to what we want to look at this morning.
[00:00:50] Isaiah 57. Let's read starting in verse number.
[00:00:55] Verse number three.
[00:00:59] Isaiah 57. Three. The Bible says, but draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress.
[00:01:04] The seed of the adulterer and the whore.
[00:01:08] Against whom do ye sport yourselves? Against whom make ye a wide mouth and draw out. Draw out the tongue.
[00:01:16] Are ye not children of transgression. A seed of falsehood.
[00:01:21] Inflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree?
[00:01:26] Slaying the children in the valleys, under the cliffs of the rocks.
[00:01:31] Among the smooth stones of the stream, is thy portion. They. They are thy lot even to them. Hast thou poured a drink offering? Thou hast offered a meat offering. Should I receive comfort in these.
[00:01:43] Upon a lofty and high mountainous. Hast thou set thy bed even thither? Wentest thou up to offer sacrifice?
[00:01:52] Behind the doors also? And the posts? Hast thou set up thy remembrance?
[00:01:58] For thou hast discovered thyself to another than me and art gone up.
[00:02:03] Thou hast enlarged thy bed and made thee a covenant with them. Thou lovest their bed where thou sawest it. And thou wentest to the king with ointment. And didst increase thy perfumes. And didst send thy messengers far off. And didst debase thyself even unto hell.
[00:02:22] Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way.
[00:02:26] Yet saidst thou not? There is no hope. Thou hast found the life of thine hand. Therefore thou wast not grieved.
[00:02:34] And of whom hast thou been afraid of? Afraid or feared?
[00:02:39] That thou hast lied and has not remembered me nor laid it to thy heart? Have not I held my peace even of old? And thou fearest me not? I will declare thy righteousness and thy works. For they shall not profit thee. Just take a pause here a second.
[00:02:57] These verses that we read verse from verse number five, or verse three, rather down to verse number twelve, I would say, are pretty negative verses. Right. This is quite an indictment of adultery, idolatry, child sacrifice.
[00:03:15] And all kinds of horrid things. That, of course, the people of Israel did. And God is speaking through Isaiah to them.
[00:03:23] And even though these are the people who offered these things are God's people, that is, by birth, that is, they were part of God's covenant. People Israel, yet they are not God's people. Right, that's clear enough.
[00:03:38] And then I want to get down to verse 13. So that's the context of all of that. But that's not who I want to talk to this morning. I wanted you to see the context of the chapter, because in verse 13 it changes.
[00:03:52] In verse 13, the Lord still speaking to those wicked ones, he says this, when thou criest thy companions, let thy companions deliver thee, but the wind shall carry them all away, vanity shall take them. Now notice the pivot.
[00:04:11] But he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain, and shall say, so you can't give verse 14 until you understand the last part of verse 13. And shall say, speaking to those who put their trust in the Lord, and shall say, cast ye up. Cast ye up. Prepare the way, take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people. For thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place.
[00:04:46] With him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
[00:04:59] Let's pray.
[00:05:01] Our Father in heaven thank you for the opportunity to meet together with your people. Lord, all these people are seeking you here this morning as a church, as a body.
[00:05:12] Lord, there are some that want to be here but can't because of health issues or different issues that are going on in their lives. Please give them grace and give them comfort where they're at as well as we. Look at your word, Lord, please let your word do its work that you sent it out to do. You said that your word, when it goes forth, it does not return unto you void, but it accomplishes that for which it was sent.
[00:05:43] And, Lord, we trust your word. We pray, Father, for our church here. The people of God that are. That had put their trust in the Lord, that they would. That we would all prepare our hearts to seek you.
[00:05:58] Lord, we need you. Lord, we don't even know what we need. But, Lord, we just acknowledge and we know that we need you. We need you to work in us. Please don't leave us alone. Lord, work in our hearts through scripture. Here. This morning I pray that you would give me understanding and wisdom and put the very words and thoughts, words in my mouth and thoughts in my heart that your people need. And, Lord, give them a heart. Give us all a heart to receive them with meekness.
[00:06:24] And bless your people and help them in Jesus name, amen.
[00:06:31] As I said this morning, I don't want to talk about these people who are serving the devil, right? Serving idols and committing adultery and all these things that are listed in verse, the first part of the chapter. I want to look at verse number 13. And I want to talk to you. I want to talk to you. Those who put their trust in the Lord in verse 13, because that's the context of verse 13 through verse number 15.
[00:07:04] And the Lord has a message for those people. Of course, the message for those at the top of the chapter is judgment, right? That's what he says. He says. And when the judgment comes, he says, call your companions. Let thy companions deliver thee. But to those that put their trust in the Lord, he has a different message. He has a different message. And notice what it says here. And it's similar to something you've heard before.
[00:07:32] It's similar to something we've been studying in Matthew. But notice in verse 13, it says, but he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain. Now again, those that have put their trust in the Lord already have an inheritance. That's what we saw in Sunday school. Right, just by chant. I didn't plan that. But that's just what we've seen. We already have an inheritance. We already, if you will, possess the land, of course, this is speaking to Israel specifically, but to us by extension, there are promises that were given directly to us. There are many things that we inherit as the people of God, and we have those things already. We're sealed. It's a done deal. In the sight of the Lord, it is done. It's just a matter of, from our perspective now, to the Lord, it's already done. We are already seated with him and glorified. But in time, right in time, which is where we live. It's just a matter of time before those things come to pass.
[00:08:28] But while we are waiting, while we are living for the Lord, this is the message that the Lord has for us. He says in verse number 14, and shall say to he that put a trust in the Lord, here's what he's going to say. Cast ye up. Cast ye up. Prepare the way.
[00:08:47] Take the stumbling. Take up the stumbling block. Out of the way of my people. Now, you see that? Prepare the way. Now hold your place here and go to a few chapters back to chapter 40 of Isaiah. You've seen this before. We've studied it.
[00:09:03] I want you to be able to hold your finger in both places, if you can. And I want you to be able to flip back in Isaiah, chapter 40, at the beginning of the chapter, says this, comfort ye. Comfort ye, my people, saith your God.
[00:09:22] Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins.
[00:09:34] Now notice this. This should be familiar to all of us. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness.
[00:09:41] Prepare ye the way of the Lord.
[00:09:46] Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
[00:09:50] What does this prepare ye the way? Who is the voice of, spoken of in verse number three?
[00:09:56] John the Baptist. Right? That's clearly spelled out in Matthew, chapter three. And verse number, verse number six. So John the Baptist is this voice in the wilderness, in the desert, in the place where no man dwells, right? This is John the Baptist. And he says his John the Baptist work was this, to prepare the way of the Lord. The way of the Lord Jesus. Interesting. It says Lord Jehovah here, but of course, it's referring to Jesus, who was coming after John the Baptist. We know that. A good indicator of the deity of Jesus Christ, he is the Lord Jehovah. He says, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. So let me ask you a question, and we studied this when we were in Matthew chapter three recently, and we talked about the idea of preparing the way before the advance party, even like before a president, before a king. Wherever he travels, there's always entourage that goes ahead of him. In the military, we call it the advanced party. Right?
[00:10:55] In other words, they prepare everything so that when the person arrives, all the roads are clear, and they just go straight to where they need to go and do their business.
[00:11:05] But the question I have for you is this, who is.
[00:11:10] Who is doing the moving? Who is. Who is. Who is.
[00:11:15] Who is traveling? In verse number three, it says, prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. God is the one that's traveling. And you fast forward to Matthew chapter three. We know exactly what this is talking about because this is our Lord. Jesus came and in preparation for his coming, right? That's what Matthew, John the Baptist, his ministry was about. They were waiting for Jesus coming. He was coming from where he was ultimately in heaven. But in his ministry, he was coming from where he was to begin his earthly ministry. And John's message was to prepare the way of the Lord, because the Lord is coming.
[00:12:04] How did John do that? His message was a message of repentance. In other words, sin in the hearts and in the lives of the hearers would be a great hindrance to those hearers receiving the lamb of God when he did come. Do you understand? That's what we saw in Matthew, chapter three.
[00:12:32] That sin in the hearts and lives of those who would meet Christ would hinder their faith in Christ, their receiving of Christ, because of that sin. But what we have going back to Isaiah 57, if you would, we have a different person coming.
[00:12:54] Now. Notice the language is very similar. There's preparation of the way. You see in verse 14, and shall say, cast ye up. Cast ye up. Prepare the way. But ask yourself this question in this case, who is traveling on this road? By contrast, prepare the way. Take up the stumbling block out of the way of what does it say, my people?
[00:13:18] That's you and that's me.
[00:13:22] You see, John the Baptist preached the message of repentance to prepare the hearts of those who did not yet know the Lord Jesus, did not yet know his ministry, had never met him, did not recognize him, so that when he came, the sin had been, had been dealt with to the degree that they knew it was wicked. And so when Jesus came and started preaching, they were like, I know this message. I'm on his side. Right?
[00:13:50] So Jesus came and then they received him. You know, we'll study this later. But many of the disciples of Christ were first disciples of John.
[00:14:00] The ones we know of Peter and Andrew and those guys, they were first disciples of John. Their heart, the Bible doesn't say it, but their heart had been prepared by John to receive Christ. So when Jesus came and said, follow me, they dropped everything at that moment and followed Christ. See, I'm going back to Matthew. See, it's kind of pulling me that direction.
[00:14:24] But in this case, this is not the same.
[00:14:28] In Isaiah 57, it is not the Lord who is traveling this way, this way and path that needs to be prepared. It is you and it is me.
[00:14:39] For us, the Lord has already come. We have already received him. We're past that, right? We've already repented of our sins and put our faith in Christ. That's the whole idea of John.
[00:14:50] We've already done that. We've already received him. This, however, is a different coming. It is not the Lord's coming to us, but it is our going to him.
[00:15:07] And next Sunday, next Sunday is a time we've appointed to go to the Lord, which is a special opportunity, a special preacher that is praying, seeking God's face for that purpose, to give us God's message.
[00:15:34] It is a message not for the loss, but for those we here who are God's people.
[00:15:42] And it is our job to go to the Lord.
[00:15:47] He already came to us.
[00:15:49] Now it's time for us to go to him, to seek the Lord corporately, together.
[00:15:57] That's what this meeting is all about.
[00:16:00] Listen, this soul refresh next Sunday. That starts next Sunday. It is not about having a good old time.
[00:16:10] It's not what it's about.
[00:16:14] It's not even, although the fellowship is an important part of it, this particular meeting is not even so much majority about that.
[00:16:25] It's about not just you and not just me as individuals, but it's about all of us as a church, as a body, seeking, going after and seeking the Lord together, coming to hear from him. Not just the preacher, but to hear from him.
[00:16:47] But notice verse 14.
[00:16:50] And, you know, to the believer, maybe we'll see this tonight. But to the believer, we cannot.
[00:16:58] We cannot sit idly. Bye. And expect the Lord to come to us. And many christians live like this.
[00:17:09] How many of you have heard someone say, whenever there's some sort of issue of sin, maybe you've had the very unpleasant experience of having to confront somebody about some sin they're involved in. And the excuse is, well, God just hasn't convicted me about it.
[00:17:29] That's totally not scriptural. The way we feel about sin is not how we determine whether it is a sin to us. It's determined by the word of God.
[00:17:41] But here's the thing. But that reveals an aspect of thinking where we're sitting down expecting God to come to me, right? Jesus already came to us, and he had to come a long way, and his coming was a grand and glorious coming, and he paid for our salvation, and he saved us. But now that we're saved, you know what he says?
[00:18:08] You need to come to me.
[00:18:11] You need to approach me. You need to go to him. We as a church, not only individually, but as a church, you need to go to him. And that's what this meeting is all about. It's about going together, going to the Lord, seeking to meet with our Lord and hear what he has to say.
[00:18:33] I know there's a man who's a preacher. I know that. But let's look beyond that, right? That's not what it's about.
[00:18:40] It's about seeking our Lord.
[00:18:44] And the Lord does tell his people to seek him.
[00:18:48] Notice what it says in verse 14.
[00:18:51] To those that remember 13, he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain and shall save. Verse 14, cast ye up. Cast ye up. Prepare the way. Take up the stumbling block. Out of the way of my people. Again, I'm just reiterating this. I want us to see it. This is the path that we take going to the Lord, not the path the Lord took coming to us. That's done. This is the path we take going to the Lord. But what do we find on this path? We find there are hindrances on this path, just as in the other situation with John the Baptist preparing the way for the Lord's coming. But on our path to the Lord, there are things that need to be cast up, cast out of the way.
[00:19:38] The way needs to be prepared.
[00:19:41] Listen to these verses. I'll look at one in particular, but I just want to read a couple of proverbs. 1519. Listen to this. The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns. How many of you have ever walked through the woods on a path that had become overgrown? Especially down south, man, it's full of briars and stuff. Brother Lauren's shaking his head because he knows what it's like to walk through the woods looking for deer he's got to eat, you know, walking through a path that's hedged with thorns, that is not a comfortable path. You know what? You might just turn back if it's too thick. Will you not notice? It says this, but the way of the righteous is made plain. What's interesting, that's the same word we have here. That's cast up. In other words, the way it's cast up. In other words, it's been cleared. You see? And when a way has been cleared, that means it's easy walking in the direction we're going.
[00:20:43] Jeremiah, 1815. Listen to this. Because my people have forgotten me. They have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths, to walk in paths in a way not cast up. Think about that. In a way not cast up. What is that talking about?
[00:21:02] That's talking about a path that has a lot of rocks and boulders and in our case, fallen trees.
[00:21:13] That makes the path treacherous. That makes it difficult, and ultimately, that makes it a path that we likely will turn back from.
[00:21:24] You're already in Isaiah. Look a couple chapters over to chapter 62, if you would. Verse number ten.
[00:21:38] Isaiah 62. Verse number ten. Notice what it says. Go through.
[00:21:43] Go through the gates.
[00:21:45] Prepare ye the way of the people.
[00:21:50] Cast up. Cast up the highway.
[00:21:54] Now, this doesn't mean tear up the highway. Well, we might think it means that. No, no, no. This is prepare the highway. Notice what it says. Cast up. Cast up the highway out. The stones lift up a standard for the people. So what does it mean to cast up the highway? That means you take those stones that are encumbering the path to the Lord. You take those stones out and you cast them aside.
[00:22:22] You are preparing the path to the Lord.
[00:22:27] You know, I thought about all the, you know, you just, I mean, our mind, I'm sure. I mean, if you're on Facebook or you're on the Instagram or any of these, any social media platform, I look at X a lot because X gives you a lot of, like, real time videos and things like that. That's what I like to look at, all kinds of videos showing these different roads in North Carolina and Black Mountain and Swannanoa and all these places north of Asheville.
[00:22:57] And you see trees falling. And that's what all the neighbors are doing. They're trying to clear the trees. There's landslides. I 40, which is the main road that goes to our daughter, who's, by the way, supposed to come back this week for her break. I 40 that goes to her is washed out. There's landslides. I mean, there's all kinds of places where it's messed up. You see, that's a difficult path to get to, Ariana, is it not? That's a difficult path. You know why? Because it hasn't been cast up. It hasn't been clear. There's trees here and trees there. And that's real familiar to us. We've all had to drive around trees this week, have we not?
[00:23:39] It makes it difficult. In fact, on the storm came on Friday, right? Friday morning after the storm had passed, because it cleared pretty quickly. Right after the storm had passed, Joshua and I went out and tried to go out and see if we could get out of our neighborhood at all. And there was no way to get out of our neighborhood.
[00:23:58] You all know what I'm talking about, because a lot of you are in the same, same situation.
[00:24:03] Now, think of it spiritually.
[00:24:06] Think if the way to our Lord, which is what we're reading here in Isaiah 57, the way to our Lord is strewn about with trees falling, falling and landslides and boulders and rocks. And we have no way forward. There's no way to get to him.
[00:24:27] We're going to have a hard time meeting with the Lord. And he says, come draw nigh unto me. That's what he says. Draw nigh unto me. But we can't you know why? Because we have sin in our life, laying across the path.
[00:24:41] We have weights in our life, laying across the path, blocking our way to him.
[00:24:50] This is the same principle as John the Baptist. Different context, same principle.
[00:24:55] Clearing that out so that the Lord's path is clear, so it is with our path to him.
[00:25:05] Sins that we have, that we're aware of, we are aware of, but we have allowed to remain in our lives. We haven't taken the time to clear it out of the path. Unconfessed sin, secret sin that no one knows about. Sins of the heart, even things that are not necessarily sinful, but weights. The Bible describes them as weights that are dear to us, but also hinder our going, that path to the Lord. Hebrews twelve one.
[00:25:42] Have we searched our hearts to see if we have some hidden sin, some forgotten sin in our life, some. Some root of bitterness, some resentment, some latent faults that we have allowed to be there, and we haven't dealt with it, and we've not taken it seriously.
[00:26:04] This is what we're talking about in the path.
[00:26:07] You don't wait till revival to get right with the Lord. To prepare your heart, means you remove those trees and rocks and boulders and those landslide and all that rubble out of the path so that you can go to the Lord. That's what it means to prepare your heart.
[00:26:25] And that's what we should be doing this week.
[00:26:30] That's what we should be doing this week.
[00:26:36] Let me ask you a question.
[00:26:40] If we are aware of something that's displeasing to God that's in our lives, how long should we allow it to remain?
[00:26:50] Should we just allow it to remain to the meeting?
[00:26:56] Should we allow it to remain until the preacher gets up here and stomps on it? And I hope he does. Mine included. I hope the preacher stomps and twists and preaches on that very thing in my life and in your life. I hope he does. I haven't been talking to him about it, but I hope he does.
[00:27:18] See, we don't need to. If we know it's there, what are we doing? Allowing it to stay? All it's doing is hindering our approach to our Lord.
[00:27:28] Unconfessed secret or even open sin, sins of the heart, sins of the life, weights that aren't necessarily sin, but still, nevertheless hinder us. All of these things are fallen trees in the path to our Lord. Now is the time to get these things right, if you know of it. If I know of it, we need to be dealing with it now, because our heart will not be prepared to receive what the Lord has for us. Our heart will not be prepared to be refreshed, revived and restored if the path to the Lord is encumbered with a bunch of trees and a bunch of debris.
[00:28:14] So our Lord says in verse 14, cast ye up. Cast ye up. Prepare the way, take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people and listen. This is. Listen. This is one of the main causes, because in verse 14. I'm sorry. Verse 15 is when the Lord brings up the subject of revival.
[00:28:35] This is why it doesn't happen, because we, as God's people, do not take seriously things that we know are not right in our lives. And we allow it to. We knowingly allow it to remain, and it kills any approach to the Lord.
[00:28:57] And here's the thing. We come to God. In other words, we make the appearance in body, and I hope we all do, at this soul refreshed meeting. But we make the appearance in body, but our heart is far from him, because the way, which is what's most important in the heart, the approach to God in the heart, is blocked with debris, sinful debris.
[00:29:24] We don't need to wait for revival to expect the Lord to convict us of our sins and set us aright. Now is the time to do that, to prepare ourselves that we might draw nigh to God together.
[00:29:44] Now look at verse number 15.
[00:29:49] For thus saith a high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy.
[00:29:55] I dwell in the high and holy place with him also, that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive. Notice that. To revive the spirit of the humble, to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Why do we need reviving? Remember the context. Context is king, right? Look at verse 13. He that putteth his trust in me. That's who we're talking about in this passage.
[00:30:25] But those that put their trust in the Lord also need reviving from time to time, do we not?
[00:30:31] Absolutely. Because it is our nature over time. How many of you have ever driven somewhere and you have no idea, from point a to point, point b, how you got there?
[00:30:41] Raise your hand. Every hand should go up. If you've had a driver's license longer than a year, you're like, I have no idea how or what happened or who I passed or if I obeyed the law or if I. I don't even know what I did, but I ended up at my destination.
[00:30:59] And this is kind of like we just get in. Pardon the pun, we get in neutral, right? And we just. And here's the thing. We might be reading our Bible and we should. We might be praying and we should. And coming to church faithfully and all those things we should be doing, we should be doing. But even with all that, just like driving, we do it so much that we become complacent. It's a routine.
[00:31:26] God's people, from time to time, need revival. They need to be refreshed. They need to be renewed. Their love for the Lord needs to be. And you know how that usually happens when you're driving by a close call and then all of a sudden you realize, man, I should be paying closer attention? Well, of course, that's not what we're asking for here. But we are saying we do get complacent.
[00:31:50] Our relationship with the Lord becomes a habit that we do without. Heart.
[00:31:58] Psalm 119, verse ten, says this, with my whole heart have I sought thee. That's what we're looking for, right? Oh, let me not wander from thy commandments. That's what we do, right, the song, right. Prone to wander, lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. And that's where we are. And that's why from time to time, we need to set time aside to clear the path and seek God on purpose.
[00:32:29] Because it says in verse 15, to revive the spirit of the humble, to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Listen, you and I, I really appreciate you all.
[00:32:42] I know many of, I don't know everybody's life, but I know many of you walk with the Lord.
[00:32:49] You're in the word. You're witnessing to people.
[00:32:54] You're faithful, you're careful with your life. You try to be a good testimony. You spend time in prayer.
[00:33:01] You come to me with questions, and you talk to each other about questions. And I commend you all for that. That is fantastic. That's the way it's supposed to be. But even those of us that do that, even though we try to walk with God, we still need refreshing, right?
[00:33:18] Every one of us needs just a splash of water in our face, our heart to be put back in it. Not that it wasn't in it, but that's just our tendency. This is where we are, right? This is why we're having this meeting in a week.
[00:33:41] So the Lord revives his people, the humble, the contrite, he revives them. They need reviving. They need to be awakened. They need to be renewed. And he does it. That's what he does. He knows they need it. And don't you love that verse? 15 is nothing full of any kind of.
[00:33:58] No real criticism. The mention of revival, you know. You think? Well, I mean, the very fact that they needed revival shows that there's a problem. No, no, no. Look, the Lord knows that we are but dust. He knows our nature. That doesn't excuse any wrongdoing. But he knows that from time to time, we're going to need some water splashed in our face.
[00:34:18] And so he says, I'm going to revive you. I'm going to revive you.
[00:34:27] But notice he says this in verse 15.
[00:34:31] I dwell in the high and holy place with him also, that is of a contrite and humble spirit. To revive the spirit of the humble. To revive the heart of the contrite ones. You know, who's not going to be revived? Those who aren't humble and aren't contrite. In other words, those who come and act like they're approaching the Lord, but they haven't cleared the way. They haven't humbled themselves, and they haven't had contrition over their sin. Those are not going to be revived. Revival is reserved for those that have already.
[00:35:07] You see why the preparation is so important beforehand, not waiting till the meeting, but prior. Now, this week.
[00:35:21] Psalm 38 34, verse 18 says this, the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
[00:35:34] Isaiah 66 two says this, for all these things hath mine hand made, and all these those things have been, saith the Lord. But to this mandev will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. You see what I'm saying? The Lord's not saying, come to me, and then I'll make you this way. He says, prepare yourself, and then I will come.
[00:36:04] Notice verse 15, he mentions with in the middle of the verse with him also, that is, of a contrite and humble spirit. Those two things go together, contrite and humble. What does that mean? What does it mean to be contrite? What does it mean to be humble? Humble, I think, is a pretty, maybe an easy one, but contrite. Here's what contrite means.
[00:36:28] Crushed or broken in spirit by a sense of sin.
[00:36:34] So contrition deals with our attitude toward our own sin, right? That's what it deals with, our attitude toward our own sin.
[00:36:46] Humble, you know, this means having a low estimate of one's importance, one's worthiness or merits.
[00:36:54] Lowly.
[00:36:56] So contrition deals with our attitude toward our sin. We might say humility deals with our attitude toward our righteousness.
[00:37:09] In both cases, listen now, in both cases, the Lord wants us not at the meeting, but in preparation for the meeting, to get a contrite heart over our sin and deal with those things that are lying in the path.
[00:37:29] And he wants our heart to be contrite as we approach him, having a serious recognition of our sin and what we have allowed to creep in over time and what has slipped that we used to not be involved in or we used to do. But we've slipped. We've slid the sins of the heart. Nobody knows. He wants us to deal with those things and be contrite and broken, have a broken heart about them, to take them seriously, but then also to be humble, means he wants. He wants our lofty mind about our own faithfulness. And this is a listen for people who are faithful to the Lord. This is often a pitfall. Well, look what all I'm doing.
[00:38:20] Look, I'm faithful. I'm doing what I'm doing everything God wants me to do. I'm in the will of God. But he says, humble yourselves. That's what he says. He dwells with those who are humble. Remember, the Lord is the high and lofty one. His name is holy. He is high. None of our righteousness is impressive to the Lord. So we should humble ourselves and say, lord, I'm trying to do your will, but I've had an attitude of arrogance over what I've been doing.
[00:38:51] I need you.
[00:38:53] I need you.
[00:38:57] Contrition and humility.
[00:39:04] Just as the Lord is called high and holy.
[00:39:07] High is a reference to being humble for us, holy, a reference to us being contrite because it deals with our sin.
[00:39:19] So I want to ask you this. I'm finished.
[00:39:25] The purpose of our meeting, starting next Sunday, is to corporately go to the Lord, seek the Lord, approach the Lord, draw nigh to the Lord, not just as individuals, but as a group. Right.
[00:39:44] But I want to ask you, I want to implore you to take time today and this week to search your heart and to prepare your heart for this meeting.
[00:40:03] Don't wait to the meeting to deal with things, things that you know of now, things that we know of now, to prepare your heart, put time special aside to go to the Lord and say, lord, these things. You've been nagging me about these things and you've been telling me I need to get this thing right, and I haven't.
[00:40:24] Lord, is there something I'm missing? Is there some hidden sin, something I've forgotten that back then, I refused to deal with. And now I've just forgotten what it is. And we all know we have those things in our lives.
[00:40:38] To go to the Lord and humble yourself before him and tell him, even listen, even if you don't feel it yet, and say, lord, I need you. You know what? As we go into this meeting, and this is, I'm imploring you to have this attitude and go to the Lord like this. As we go into this meeting, Lord, there are surely things in my life that I do not know that need to be improved, that need to be bettered. There are surely things that could be ways I could be closer to you or things that are not pleasing to you, or there's surely a greater thing I can do for you. You go to God and you say, lord, please, please prepare my heart. Take out whatever hindrance there might be.
[00:41:32] My request and my request of you is to take some time this week and to set time aside on purpose to not just, Lord, bless the meeting. Lord, bless the preacher.
[00:41:48] No, no, no.
[00:41:51] Let the sweat run down your face as you run the chainsaw over those trees that have fallen in the path and you cast them up and cast them out as you seriously, you and I seriously look at ourselves and examine our heart and see what is in the path, what is hindering us, drawing nigh to the Lord.
[00:42:16] I'm asking you as a church, I'm telling myself this as well.
[00:42:21] To prepare your heart.
[00:42:24] To prepare your heart so that when our meeting starts, our hearts are already humble and contrite because those are the ones who the Lord revives.
[00:42:40] Let's pray.
