So, you can see here Isaiah, directed by the Spirit of God, writing some very sorrowful
things pertaining to the people and pertaining to the state of their sin for which God
brought Israel into judgment, took them away into a foreign land. I believe this is
prophetic historically looking forward to that time when Babylon would come and
devastate the land and that the Temple would be destroyed of which he spoke there in
verse 11. It’s spoken as if it had already taken place, although Isaiah wrote this several
hundred years before it was accomplished. But it’s given here for one reason and this is
the reason: to show any of us that are reading this our own desperate need before the
Lord as sinners. We can read this just purely from an historic perspective and walk out of
here just as dead as what we walked in.
I’m not here to give us a history lesson, although this is rooted in history but prayerfully
for each of us here reading this portion together, to consider our own state before the
Lord and to see that it is no better than even the best that men would consider the best.
You can see here in verse 6, it doesn’t say in all our sins are as filthy rags, does it? Take
the best righteousnesses, plural, and put them all in a heap before the Lord. You hear
people talking about standing before the Lord one day and presenting their good works to
him and hopefully, as they think and say, the good will outweigh the bad. Well, you’re
already in trouble because the Scriptures declare that the best that men could consider
before God is nothing but filthy rags.
But Bob read it for us in Romans 3, in the reading just before I came up here to speak, that
“there is none righteous, no not one.” Until the Lord is pleased to show us that in our lost
depraved mind, we’re going to continue to think that there is something in us that can
commend us to God. And so, that is my prayer that if that is your thought, even now, that
the Lord by his Spirit would cause you to see that there is nothing good in you, nothing
good in me and that even my best righteousnesses are but filthy rags.
Watch, listen, read or download the full message by Ken Wimer here.
I have a video of Martin Lloyd Jones as he is touring England and visiting the sights
where George Whitfield labored. While standing at the site of the Bell Inn where
Whitfield was born, Lloyd Jones describes the moral climate of London in the days of
Whitfield. He said that morality was at an all-time low, spirituality in the churches was
almost nonexistent and that in London every fifth house was a gin-house, that it seemed
the city itself was in a drunken debauchery and spiritual stupor. And Lloyd Jones glares
into the camera and comments, “And where was the church in all of this?”
Today in America, our situation is far more grim than in the days of Whitfield and
Wesley. Our national sins more multiplied. Evil increases at a rapid rate and our society
slides into a sinkhole of perversion and debauchery. Our civic leaders call evil good and
good evil. God has been legislated out of our once great country. The spirit of antichrist
grows in the land and I ask the same question, “Where is the church in all of this? Where
is the church? She is shamefully silent amidst a sinful nation.”
Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone)
The Bible is the only inspired, inerrant authority for Christian Faith, and it contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness.
Sola Fide (Faith Alone)
Justification is by faith alone. The full righteousness of Christ imputed to us by faith (comprised of His active and passive obedience) is the sole ground of our acceptance by God, by which our sins are remitted.
Solus Christus (Christ Alone)
Christ is Prophet, Priest and King; the only mediator through whose work we are redeemed.
Sola Gratia (Grace Alone)
Salvation comes by God's grace or "unmerited favor" alone — not as something merited by the sinner. This means that salvation is an unearned gift from God.
Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God Alone)
All glory is to be due to God alone, since salvation is accomplished solely through His will and action — not only the gift of the all-sufficient atonement of Jesus on the cross but also the gift of faith in that atonement, created in the heart of the believer by the Holy Spirit.
Based on SCRIPTURE alone, we can affirm that justification is by GRACE alone, through FAITH alone, because of CHRIST alone, for the GLORY OF GOD alone.