94-37 – The Grapes of Wrath – Part III

This sermon is Part III of the series "The Grapes of Wrath" by Dr. Chuck Betters.

There will always be a struggle between good and evil in our lives. The godly kings of Israel allowed compromise in their lives which resulted in a downward spiral through generations. The consequence of their sin is seen in their children and grandchildren. Are you willing to confess, renounce, and turn away from little areas of compromise in your life? The lives of your children and grandchildren may be at stake.

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SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to In His Grip with Dr. Chuck F. Butters, produced by Marking Ministries. Each In His Grip message is designed to help turn your hearts toward Jesus and equip you to walk by faith. Let's join Dr. Butters as he preaches today's message.

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Now, for the past couple of weeks, we have been talking about the grapes of wrath, where in the fifth chapter of Isaiah he pronounces judgment upon the church for specific sins. Now, to quickly review, the first of those sins was practical atheism, concerned more about themselves than they were about who they were as the people of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Secondly, the sin of hedonism or materialism, more concerned with the pursuit of pleasure, with the pursuit of what makes me feel good, what makes me feel satisfied than what it means to serve the God whom they claim to know. The third sin was the sin of rationalism. We find that in verses 18 and 19 of Isaiah chapter 5. We began to talk about this the last time we were together. Rationalism. A picture of a beast harnessed to and dragging a cart with cords of deceit and cords of falsehood. Look at those verses. Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit and wickedness as with cart ropes. To those who say, Let God hurry, let him hasten his work so that we may see it. Let it approach, let the plan of the Holy One of Israel come, so we may know it. Here is the picture of a people holding to false doctrine, holding to a system of belief that says, unless I can see it, unless I can prove it, unless it can be shown to me, unless I can empirically sustain my belief, I will not believe. So God, prove yourself to me. The doctrinal system of these people was so wrapped up in sin that the prophet calls it sin and wickedness, sin and iniquity. Not only what they did outwardly, but how they thought. Their whole thinking process was shrouded by this belief that God is a God who has to prove Himself to me, otherwise I will not believe. A skepticism, which doubts that God is at work at all, which doubts that God is at work in the world, which doubts that God, who is so transcendent, could be concerned about the minute affairs of men, certainly not about individual men. A refusal to see the hand of God at work and thus to deny the supernatural. You see, at the heart of what these people believed was their denial of the supernatural. They said that God cannot be believed. Miracles do not exist. Well, this is nothing new. In the day of Jesus, they were called the Sadducees, the rationalists of their day. In the days of the early church, it was Gnosticism which denied the supernatural. And in our day, it's the Bultmanians, the ones who demythologize the scriptures, the ones who deny inerrancy. It's nothing new. It's been going on all the way back to the day of Isaiah and before. People simply say, unless God can be proven, unless I can sustain him in a test II, I will not believe. The Sadducees of Jesus' day. You know a good way to remember something about the Sadducees? They were sad, you see. And the reason they were sad, you see, is because they simply didn't believe that God could work anything miraculous. There was no heaven or afterlife, there is no resurrection, there were no miracles. All of its myth, all of its fairy tale. You say that's terrible. Well, I must have had 150,000 phone calls from people who wondered whether or not I saw that article that appeared recently in the newspaper written by a Catholic theologian. I have that article here, by the way. You know, just a parenthetical thing. There are so many exciting things that are happening in churches like ours all around the area. Do you think the news journal would ever report on something exciting like that? What gets the coverage? A woman who says the Bible cannot be believed, a bunch of fairy tales. Well, they ought to come down here on Sunday morning and see a thousand people sitting here worshiping the Lord and rejoicing that that God is alive. And you know, there are other churches where this is happening. Do you think that they would give any credence to people who believe that God is a supernatural God? You know what's interesting in this article? She is a University of Essen professor, and uh she has written a book which is a revisionist view of the history of the Bible. Basically, and I'm not going to go through the whole article, basically, the gist of what this woman says, by the way, she was raised under the theology of Rudolf Bultmann. I didn't even have to read the article. I knew as soon as I read who her heroes of the faith were, what she believed. Bultmann believed that the Bible is a book filled with or containing truth. Listen carefully. This book contains truth. How many of you agree with that? This book contains truth. Watch it. Careful. Careful. Don't raise your hand too quickly. You might get embarrassed in just a moment. There is a vast difference between saying that the Bible contains the Word of God and that the Bible is the Word of God. Now, here's what Mr. Boltman did. He took the Bible and said, pull out of the Bible all of the myth. Legend, folklore. For example, the resurrection of Jesus. Fairy tale. The virgin birth. Fairy tale. Jesus walking on water. Fairy tale. The feeding of the five thousand. Fairy tale. Get down to the significance of the truth, the kernel of truth that is contained in the book, and there is where you will find the word of God. Well, that's what this theologian believes. By the way, you know one thing that I found as I read this article? And in this article, she denies all of those things, says they're all legends, they're all fairy tales, what have you. What is really interesting to me? Two things. One, the Catholic Church didn't tolerate it. And I want to commend the Catholic Church for not tolerating it. You know why I say that? Because in Protestantism, it is not only tolerated, it is promoted as truth, and you and I who believe that Boltman was right out of the kingdom of hell are considered a minority. They threw her out. They said, You can't teach this stuff anymore. Thank God for that. But you know what's interesting is she says here, she quotes Luke chapter 2, you know, the taxing of the people in the day of Serenius governor and all that other stuff. She says, that didn't happen. She said, Josephus proves that didn't happen. Now, Josephus was an early church historian. And what she does is she says, now, if you read Josephus very carefully, you will see that the account in the scripture is different than the account in Josephus, and Josephus becomes her authority. Now, two things. Number one, we believe that the Bible is the authority, and Josephus is only as valid as what he teaches and preaches can be validated by the Word of God. That's number one. But number two, and I found this really interesting, she says that she is a Christian. She is a Christian. I listen to what Jesus said before they killed him. I'm quoting now. There I find words like, love your enemies, do not retaliate. In his words, you might see what he is like by seeing what he said. Therefore, she says, following his words, I am a Christian. Well, lady, where did you get his words from? Where did you hear the lectures from? Where did you hear the words of Jesus enunciated? From the very book you say is a myth. How can you then embrace this Christ? So if you're going to take that part of it, then you better take the part where he says, He that has seen me has seen the Father. I and the Father are one. You can't be selective. She says, Well, but guess what I have here? Josephus. The works of Josephus. Well, why don't we find out what Mr. Josephus had to say about Jesus Christ? Here it is, Antiquities of the Jews, chapter 3, paragraph 3. I'm quoting. Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man. If it be lawful to call him a man. For he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again on the third day. As the divine prophets, Bible, had foretold ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him, and the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct even unto this day. She failed to tell us that Josephus believed the Bible specifically concerning the promises of Messiah, and that he claims that Jesus was the Messiah risen from the dead. What do I think of this? I think this woman's an idiot. That's what I think. And I think she's intellectually an idiot. In the sense that she simply does not do justice to good scholarship. If you're going to argue, at least argue fairly. Why am I spending so much time on her? Because she is representative of the pulpits of America, the seminaries of America. This is the message that's being preached. Rationalism. Nothing new. Woe to those, Isaiah says, who draw sin along with cords of deceit, who say to God, prove yourself. No miraculous. No transcendent God involved in the affairs of men. While what is the natural birth child of rationalism? Go on in the passage. Let's look at the fourth woe, the fourth grape of wrath. Chapter 5 and verse 20. Woe to those. You see, if you demythologize the scriptures, if you take the myth out of what God says, quote unquote, if you decide rationalistically what is true in the Bible, the natural birth child, the natural child of that process is going to be found in verse 20. Woe to those who call good evil. Woe to those who call evil good, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. You see, this heresy has taken on a new form. Gnosticism, Sadduceism, rationalism, it has different labels today, different ideas. And the fourth grape of wrath here is relativism. Practical atheism will always lead to hedonism or the pursuit of pleasure. The pursuit of pleasure will always lead to rationalism. A denial of the supernatural. Now listen, this is not a sermon blasting secular psychology. But I want to tell you there are some inherent dangers in human psychology. Human psychologists who are trained in the study of the soul. In fact, that's what psychology means, the study of the soul. That's the meaning of the word psychology. These people, for the most part, hold a contempt for the scriptures. They offer people hope as they get in touch with their inner feelings, their inner self, their psyche of potential, their human potential. Faith in Christ is considered a fine thing. And I've heard psychologists tell people this. It's fine. It's alright if you want to believe in Christ. If it works for you, if it's helpful to you, fine. But it's not the way, the truth, and the life. Most of the widely developed systems of modern psychology were developed by atheists on the assumption that there is no God and that the individual alone has the power to change himself through certain techniques and or certain drugs that make a change for you. Now the church has embraced this by coming up with what I call the trichotomous view of man. Here it is: man is body, soul, and spirit. When the Bible speaks of man as dichotomous, that is, he is body and soul. The soul and the spirit are one and the same thing. But we have created a third part of man that we have to get in touch with in order to feel good about ourselves. A pseudo-intellectualism needs to be accommodated. You see, we are body and spirit or psyche or mind, and our psychological problems and our psychological upsets are distresses that are neither physical nor spiritual. You see, they're psychological. All we need to do, they tell us, is dig down deep inside of your psyche and tap that great human potential that's there. Get a hold of it. But there's no talk of the fall. There's no talk of repentance. Instead, we hear, well, your behavior needs to be modified. Or you need drug therapy. Or a litany of all kinds of new terms to describe every aberrant behavior of society that, due to the complex makeup of the human psyche, is now considered to be normal. You name it, if there's enough people who say they have it, then all of a sudden it's normal. And we will fly some expert in from somewhere across the country to sit on national TV and tell us all why we are phobic about that person whose behavior is aberrant but now has become normal. John MacArthur talks about another form of relativism, calls it mysticism. This I think hits a little closer to home for some people. He defines mysticism this way: he says mysticism is the belief that spiritual reality is perceived apart from the human intellect and the natural senses. It looks for truths internally, weighing feelings, intuition, and other external sensations more heavily than objective, observable, external data. Mysticism ultimately derives its authority from self-actualized, self-authenticated light rising from within me. Its source of truth is spontaneous rather than objective fact. In its most extreme form, it is Hinduism, and in its more modern context, it's New Ageism. You following what he's saying? Get in touch with what's inside. Well, I would say to those of you who are sold on this kind of thinking, go ahead and get in touch with what's inside. Because my Bible tells me that inside of the human spirit is nothing but depravity and wickedness that must be cleansed and forgiven. There is no divine light shining inside of you apart from Christ. There is no inner sense that you need to get in touch with in order to be self-actualized, in order to be fulfilled. That's mysticism. Private revelations we call them, or get this now, personal opinions. You see, when men are eventually allowed to frame their doctrines according to mystical thinking, then there follows a deadly delusion that error becomes truth. If my opinion frames the truth, then what happens when my opinion is contrary to the Bible's opinion? Then what's the truth? Well, what do we have today in the church? We have the modern health and prosperity gospel, a concoction of men's opinions. All you have to do is believe a certain way and God will heal you. All you have to do is lay it down and claim it. Name it and claim it, and God wants you rich and healthy and prosperous. The reason you're not healed is because you don't have enough faith. The reason you're in debt is because you don't have enough faith. The reason you're not driving a Mercedes is because you don't have enough faith. No offense to Mercedes owners here. But the reason you're not prospering is because you have weak faith. You see, you need to dig down inside of your human soul and touch that seed of faith that's there. You ever hear that expression used? Plant a seed of faith. Well, we don't have any seeds of faith to plant. My Bible tells me that any faith I have comes from God. It's his faith. It belongs to him, not to me. Left to myself, I would not believe. Name it and claim it. We have the modern-day signs and wonders movement. All the result of man opinionating the scriptures, deciding for himself, relatively speaking, what is true and what is false. We have churches today that preach that you're only partial Christian unless you have spoken in some sort of a tongue. Unless you have received the quote baptism in the Holy Ghost. And usually there are two lines at these churches: one to receive healing, one to receive the baptism. Sadly, not in all cases, but in many of the cases. That is usually accompanied by some sort of plea from the pastor to now demonstrate that you truly have been filled with the Holy Ghost by whipping out your checkbook. This is heresy. And all designed out of the roots of men's opinions who take the scriptures and make them teach whatever they want them to teach. There's another movement. The modern-day ecumenical push that ignores biblical truth. Yes, there is great division in the body of Christ, but most of that division is rooted in a disregard for good biblical exegesis. I am not willing to hold hands and walk down the street with someone who denies the inerrancy of Scripture. I'm not willing to say that just because he calls himself a Christian, he's my brother. I am not willing to stand up and say that the people who hate my God ought to be loved by me in some sort of ecumenical sense. We're told, whip down the barriers. Denominations are of the devil. Maybe there's some truth in that. But I want to tell you it all fundamentally comes down to whether or not we are going to believe the divine opinions of Scripture or whether we are going to believe the opinions concocted out of the hearts of depraved men. What the Bible means to me is far important than what the Bible means, period. That's how people think. You see, what it means to me is more important than what it means. So truth is determined by what it means to me. If I like it, I believe it. If I don't like it, I spit it out. You see, the starting point, friends, of truth is not what the Bible means to you. The starting point of truth is what the Bible means. Period. That's not a popular message. You see, what happens now is truth is dissected into two half-truths. We take certain scriptures, we cut them in half. We say, well, this half of the scripture is true, and this half we throw away. So we cut the truth into two parts. And you know what happens? Like a worm, each of those half-truths grows a new half. And what we have is full-blown doctrinal heresy that is rooted in half-truth. Half-truth. This is relativism. This is the natural child of Gnosticism. This is the natural child of rationalism. If I am going to deny the supernatural, then I deny that this book was written supernaturally. And if I deny that this book is written supernaturally, then I am free to determine the context of truth. I make my determination based on what's good for me. You ever hear people talk about their faith? People who are not Christians? You ever hear them talk about it? It's amazing to me how many people are going to go to heaven, in their opinion. I mean, the most common form of rationalism is this. I am a what? Good person. Are you? Well, relatively speaking, you may be a good person. Compared to that person sitting next to you right now, you might even be a saint. A good person. The most common form of demonic half-truth is the rationalistic belief that says God is a fair God, therefore, he is going to judge those more harshly who are more evil than me. I am a basically good person. Therefore, I am going to heaven when I die. That ought to break your heart. It ought to break your heart to hear people say that because I want to tell you, they're the hardest people to reach. I'd rather debate Madeline Murray O'Hare than to enter into a discussion with people who are convinced that because of their inherent goodness, they're going to heaven. This might be absolutely shocking to some of you, but you can be the best father, best mother, best husband, best churchman, best employer or employee, best next-door neighbor. Give your right arm to the poor and the needy. Never pass a stranger on the street that you don't cheer up. Give thousands and thousands of dollars to causes that are good causes. You can do all of those things and spend eternity in hell. I know there's some of you sitting here right now who say, you're nuts. You're absolutely crazy. You mean to tell me, and you're probably going to think right now of some dead relative that you have who was a good person but did not embrace Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. And somehow or another, you're going to try to convince yourself and the rest of us that the Bible is wrong and you are right. You see, here's the problem. If you want to be relative, then you've got to be relative fairly. Now, here's how relative fairness occurs. If you want to compare your goodness to something, compare it to the holiness of God. Because that's the standard by which we're going to be judged. Not how good you are compared to your next door neighbor. Not how good you are compared to the Joe Schmoe down the block. Your goodness is going to be judged according to the standard of the holiness of God. Then what do you do? Go through the whole of your life. Commit no sins, not even one, not even one sin from the time you're born until the time you die, except you tell one lie. Book of Romans tells us all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That one sin, relatively speaking, places you side by side with the holiness of God, and God, who is so pure and so holy, is bound at that point to cast you into everlasting fire. Is this strange to some of you? Well, you see, if you believe fools like this, then it's not strange. If you believe fools like me, then it is strange. But you see, the basis of my doctrinal system is not in the context of rationalism, Gnosticism, mysticism, or relativism. The basis of what I believe is what God has revealed to us in the book. This is my authority. And this tells me wrap up all your righteousness, lay it before a holy God, and it becomes as what? Filthy rags. Not just rags. I got rags at home. But there are filthy rags that make the rags look clean. All of my righteousness, if that's how I want to be judged and stand before God, then that God who is so holy and so pure becomes the standard by which I am judged. Relativism. And the church has slipped into this form of relativism, health and prosperity, signs and wonders, ignoring biblical truth, disregard for good biblical exegesis. What the Bible means to me is far more important than what the Bible means, period. Relativism, the natural birth child of rationalism, Gnosticism at its worth. Truth is determined by whether or not I believe it's true, not by whether or not it's true. That's sad. Some of you are sitting there and saying, Well, I don't believe that. So what? You don't believe it. You see, you're gonna walk out of here and you're gonna say, Well, since I don't believe that's true, therefore it's not true. What happens if I am right? My son Dan, who's in college. He has freely and openly shared his faith with anybody who will listen. And he talked about the coming of Christ. Somebody asked him, Do you believe the end is near? And he said, Yeah, I do. I believe the end is near. One fellow turned to him and said, Why don't you shut up? Shut up. He said, Well, let me tell you something. He says, if I'm right, then I go to heaven, and you go to hell. And if I'm wrong, then we both win because we just cease to be, right? You know, as simple as that is, that's right on the money. Doesn't it really boil down to whether or not you believe reveal truth? Whether or not you really believe this book. And ultimately that's the name of the game. God is bound to prove Himself to us, we say. And what do we come up with? All kinds of crazy doctrines. For example, we say divine sovereignty, but you see, it pales against the backdrop of human free will. We create this new thing called free will. God is really not sovereign over the plan of salvation, he's really just wound up the clock and turned it over to me. So, yes, God is sovereign, but no, he really isn't sovereign because you see, my free will is what's sovereign. You didn't choose him, he chooses you. You're not saved out of the merit of your heart. The Gospel of John tells us it is not by human will or birth origin, it is by God's sovereign election that you are saved. Who are you, O man, to reply against God? Shall the thing formed say to the one who formed it, Why have you made me thus? How can the dirt say to the potter, why have you made me this way? Oh no. I have a free will. I make the decisions around here. Not a sovereign God. I don't like the idea of hell. People just go to sleep. Soul sleep replaces hell. I don't really have spiritual needs, I have felt needs. So meet my felt needs and let's ignore my real needs. Don't tell me about salvation through Christ alone. That's too narrow. Salvation by faith, no, it has to be salvation by works. Inerrancy is not scientifically verifiable, therefore, it's not believable. The Jesus of history must be distinguished from the Christ of faith. The physical resurrection is really spiritual. The virgin birth, a fabricated myth from overzealous early disciples. The miracles of the Bible demythologized to suit our pseudo-intellectualism. Biblical morality. Now we really get close down. What the Bible says is how I must behave as a believer. Changes from culture to culture, you see, the values of society determine the moral fabric of my being. Creation is supplanted by an evolutionary view that at best reduces God to a detached and uncaring, transcendent being, and at worst to virtual non-existence. And when the book of Genesis is reduced to a fairy tale, so is the doctrine of sin. So is the depravity of man, so is the character and the nature of a holy God all thrown out in one fell swoop. That's why evolution is such a dangerous doctrine, because it attacks the very essence of the character and nature both of God and man. We are then reduced to believe in a God who doesn't care, a Christ who was deluded, a Holy Spirit who lives only in the neighborhood of make-belief, and a church that is intellectually naive, moralistically neutral, and socially irrelevant. And that is what we have collectively become. The moral code is now reversed. Sin becomes an acceptable way of life. That's why Isaiah said in chapter 5, verse 20: woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Practical atheism gives birth to hedonism, gives birth to rationalism, gives birth to relativism. And that is why we read next in verse 21. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. You know what that is? Man is now insisting on his own privacy, the rights of personal autonomy. I have no social responsibility to anybody around me. It's what's in my eyes and my cleverness that determines whether or not I get involved. This is privatism. Privatism. Both the wisdom that provides ruling principles for life and the cleverness that decides specific issues, you see, they are now made privately and not within the context of any moral code or any system of authority. I decide if it's right for me, regardless of whether or not it's right. What I do privately is my own business. What I do in the privacy of my home and in my own life is my business alone. It is not for you to say that I'm right. It is not for you to say that I'm wrong. If it harms no one, then it must be right. Actually, it's between me and God, and it's none of your business to interfere, right? Wrong. Now you look at our country alone. This has been the legislative backbone of Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion. A million and a half babies every year are slaughtered in the name of privatism. It's the legislative backbone of the gay rights agenda. It's the legislative backbone of ultra-feminism. It's the legislative backbone of the ban on prayer and Bible reading in the classroom. It is that crowd that has legislated out of the public form any sense of moral code. Why? Because I have a right to privacy, but it is that same crowd that wants to invade our privacy and wrestle the minds of our children from us with an agenda that is anti-Christian, anti-family, and anti-Bible. I had a questionnaire given to me that's being passed out in the junior high schools in a neighboring county. How many of you have seen that? Just a few of you. Get informed. You would not believe what they are asking sixth, seventh, and eighth graders on a questionnaire that you probably will know nothing about. What they are asking little children about their sexual behavior, including their quote, sexual orientation. That's the same crowd who hollers about privatism. They want to control the minds of your children with their moral behavior and their moral code. This country has experienced a great scourge. You know what was interesting to me? I'll probably get into all kinds of trouble with some of my peers in terms of this not being good intellectual scholarship, and that's fine, and they're probably right, but I'll do it anyway. I look at the book of Isaiah, I see Isaiah, who was a good king, but did not put away the altars. I see Jotham, who was a good king, but did not put away the altars. And they keep saying that until eventually you come down to Ahaz and Manasseh, who sacrificed their children and ate their bodies in the name of the gods, the heathen gods of the altars that their fathers refused to dismantle. I go all the way back in this country to the early 1970s, when a young, quote, born-again Georgian politician stood up and captured with not only his smile but his demeanor, public politics, and became the president of the United States in 1976. Jimmy Carter stood up and said, I am a born-again person. He was not private about that. He let anybody who wanted to know know. I teach Sunday school, I'm this, I'm that, I'm the other thing. I'm personally opposed to abortion, but he did nothing to rip down the altar. Ronald Reagan did nothing to rip down the altar. George Bush did nothing to rip down the altar. And in this preacher's opinion, we now have Ahaz in the White House. What can we expect? What can we expect when we allow the altars to continue to be built? We look at them and we say, they're not pretty and they ought to come down. But we refuse to take them down. Finally, verses 22 and 23. Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, champions at mixing drinks, who acquit the guilty for a bribe but deny justice to the innocent. Where does all this leave us? Verses 22 and 23, passivism. You know what passivism is? We bear the consequences of life in a society that we've given away. The church has become passive to its calling. Instead of being salt and light, we have become leaven. In such a society, success is measured according to these verses by two things: the desire of self-satisfaction achieved and indulgence enjoyed. Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, champions at mixing drinks. Secondly, a legal system that succumbs to corruption. We acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent. This is pure pacifism, so wrapped up in self indulgence, so concerned about what's most important in my life, and that's me, I, me, I, my pleasures, my satisfaction. And as the church, we abrogate our responsibility to society. Society at large. And what have we seen? What has happened? The church for the past 30 years has abrogated her role as light and salt. We are now reaping what we have sown. A society that is bent on corruption. Corruption. Corruption. According to Isaiah, we must bear the wrath of God's justice for our pacifism. Let me wrap this up. Practical atheism, a self-dependence or a denial of the power of God in our lives. We must become absolutely dependent upon God if we're ever going to change this. Hedonism, self-seeking, self-serving interest must become the gospel of self-sacrifice. Rationalism must yield itself to the authority of Scripture. Relativism must bow at the law of God. Privatism must die, and public witness must emerge. And passivism must fade into vibrant prayer for revival. If ever the church was primed for revival, it is now. But if ever the church was primed for judgment, it's also now. Because all of these sins, all six of these sins characterize, form the heart of the church's thinking today. With very few exceptions, this is how we think. That's a pretty bleak picture, isn't it? But I'm so glad Isaiah 5 doesn't end right there. Isaiah 6 comes into play. God reaches down, and you are going to see in the call of Isaiah, which we'll address the next time we're together, the triumph of God's grace. Even in the face of practical atheism, hedonism, rationalism, relativism, privatism, passivism. Even in the light of such grotesque sins, God always has his prophets. He always has his people. And we'll follow that through and watch as the grace of God unfolds. Are you praying for revival? Are you praying for revival? I don't know about you, but I don't want God's judgment on the church. I know it's coming. But I'm praying for revival. I hope you are. I hope you're committed to it with all of your soul, all of your heart, all of your mind and strength. I hope that you pray that God would break the will of his church, starting with you. And that's where revival begins, doesn't it? Starting with you. Please don't walk out of here today and say, man, I wish so-and-so was here to hear that sermon. I get that all the time. I wish so-and-so was here. Well, so-and-so wasn't here, but you are. So maybe the message was meant for you and not so-and-so. Would you pray for revival? Would you pray for renewal? Let's stand, join hands with those around you as we close the service. Father, help us to focus on who you are. Not on what we think you ought to be. Help us to focus on the truth of Scripture, not what we would like it to say. Help us to focus on revival in your church and not judgment. Oh Lord, please spare us from your wrath. As we look around at our corrupt society, we must share significant responsibility for failing to be salt and light, and instead we have become leaven. Your church was designed, O God, to infiltrate society. Your church was designed to take the Great Commission into all the world, and for 2,000 years we've been debating what that means. Lord, even with this congregation, help us to see our role microcosmically in the big picture. Help us to see, Lord, what you've called this church to be and do. Thank you for the attentiveness of this crowd this morning. We pray that your word would not return unto you void.

SPEAKER_02 49:20

Now may the grace of God, the love of our Lord and our Savior, Jesus the Christ, the very presence, person, and power of his Holy Spirit abide with each of you now until Christ comes again and forevermore. And all God's people said it.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

You have been listening to In His Script, featuring the preaching and teaching ministry of Dr. Chuck F. Betters and produced by Mark Ace Ministries. Mark Ace Ministries exist to offer help and hope to hurting people by pointing them to the promises of God and the comfort of his word. Through In His Grip, ask Dr. Betters, Daily Treasure, and Help and Hope, we provide free, faith-based resources for those walking through suffering, grief, confusion, and seasons of deep need. To learn more about Dr. Betters, explore our resources, or contact us, visit Srkimc.org. May you rest today in the assurance that God can be trusted, even when we do not understand his plans.