Let's pray.
Father, as we look at the world in
which we live and we see how that
the wicked are in such prominent places in
our world and are having such a detrimental
influence upon our world and upon our nation,
with the psalmist, Lord, we often cry, how
long, oh Lord, before you take vengeance?
How long, oh Lord, before you act?
Father, we pray that you will help us
to realize that you are a God of
patience and that in your time you will
deal with these issues that cause us concern
today.
We know, Lord, that we can trust in
you and that you will work your work
of righteousness in this land in which we
live.
We pray, Father, do speedily bring our nation
to its knees that we might repent before
you as a people and seek your face.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
And you may be seated.
Tonight, Skip will be leading us through the
Bible as we study Isaiah chapters 29 through
31.
Again, we encourage, urge, exhort, whatever we can
do to get you to read your Bible.
Read it through and what an excellent opportunity
and how easy it is to just keep
up with our reading each week, three chapters
a week, as we go through the Bible
and then gather for Pastor Skip's excellent study
on the passages that we have read, as
he gives us such interesting background and interesting
facts concerning the text.
So we would encourage you, read and then
join with us as we go through the
Bible together and find out what God has
to say about our lives, about the world
in which we live, about how we can
have a meaningful relationship with him.
Tonight, studying Isaiah 29 through 31, but this
morning we'd like to just draw your attention
to Isaiah 29 verse 15 and 16.
Here the prophet Isaiah says, Woe unto 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 like the potter's clay, for shall
the work say of him that made it,
he made me not, or shall the thing
that has been framed say of him that
framed it, he had no understanding.
Isaiah is speaking of the folly of the
people who turn against God.
As I was thinking on these passages this
week, I thought to myself, for a person
to turn his heart and mind against the
Lord has to be ultimate folly.
Isaiah speaks of the foolish things that the
people were thinking.
Woe, he said to those who go to
great depths to hide their plans from the
Lord.
They thought that they could hide their plans
or their actions from God.
But in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 13, we
read, Nothing in all of creation is hidden
from God's sight.
Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the
eyes of him to whom we must give
an account.
You can't do a single thing but what
God knows all about it.
In 1 Chronicles 28 9, David said to
Solomon, And thou, Solomon, my son, know the
God of your father and serve him with
a complete heart and a willing mind.
For the Lord searches all hearts and he
understands all of the imaginations of the thoughts.
If you seek him, he will be found
by you.
But if you forsake him, he will cast
you off forever.
But David is saying to Solomon, God knows
you, Solomon.
He searches your heart and he even knows
the things that you imagine in your mind.
You can't hide anything from God.
Solomon, later as he prayed at the dedication
of the temple, he said, Lord, when people
come here and they pray unto you, hear
from heaven your dwelling place and forgive and
to render to every man according to his
ways, whose hearts you know.
For you only know the hearts of the
children of men.
Lord, you know our hearts.
Job said, For his eyes are on the
ways of man and he sees everything that
he does.
God is watching you.
There's nothing that can be done without God
knowing it.
In Psalm 44, 20, David said, If we
have forgotten the name of our God or
stretched out our hands to a strange God,
shall God not search this out?
For he knows the secrets of the heart.
In Proverbs 15, 3, Solomon said, The eyes
of the Lord are in every place beholding
the evil and the good.
So why would a person think that they
could sin in secret, God not knowing it?
How could a person be deceived into thinking
that they can actually do something that God
is not aware of, that they could actually
hide their sin from God?
I think that one of the reasons why
people are deluded into thinking that God doesn't
see them is that they can often hide
their sin from other people.
And seemingly, they are getting by with it.
It seems like people don't know.
And so they think because they can hide
from man that they are actually also hiding
from God because God doesn't bring instant judgment
upon them.
But that God often in his patience and
long suffering allows us a lot of rope,
so to speak.
And he doesn't bring instant judgment upon us
for our wrongdoings.
But Paul writing to the Romans said, Through
your stubborn and unrepentant heart, you are only
storing up the wrath against yourself that will
be revealed in that day when his righteous
judgment shall come.
The wrath of God like water being stored
up behind a dam.
And one day the floodgates will open and
you will be consumed.
You have not hid your sin from God.
He knows exactly everything you have ever done.
Paul in his writing to the Galatians said,
Don't be deceived.
God is not mocked.
Whatever a man sows, that shall he also
reap.
We reap in kind.
God sees what we sow and what we
sow, we shall reap.
They thought that if they did their works
in the dark, God can't see them.
This is sort of an anthropomorphic concept of
God in which man sees God as man
magnified.
And because we can't see in the dark,
we sort of presume that God can't see
in the dark.
But what absolute folly to think that I
can do something in the dark and God
doesn't know it and God doesn't see it.
In Psalm 139, David said, If I say
that surely the darkness shall cover me, even
the night shall be light about me.
Yea, the darkness does not hide from you,
but the night shines as the day, the
darkness and the light are both alike unto
you.
Jesus said, Therefore, whatsoever you have spoken in
the darkness shall be heard in the light.
And what you whispered in the ear in
the closets will be proclaimed from the housetops.
Isaiah said, The people are turning things upside
down.
Woe to them, he said, who call evil
good and put darkness for light and light
for darkness and put bitter for sweet and
sweet for bitter.
We are living in a topsy-turvy world
in which we are just what Isaiah described.
People saying good is evil and saying evil
is good.
They say today that for you to accept
and tolerate evil, that's good.
You're broad minded.
But if you speak out against evil, you
say that is wrong.
That's a sin.
Oh, that's bad.
That's bad to say that you're very intolerant.
We realize, though, that when we start calling
good evil and we start calling evil good,
that it brings total confusion in the minds
of people to where we don't really have
any concept of what is good or what
is bad, what is right or what is
wrong.
In our public schools here in the state
of California, to advocate homosexuality to the children,
oh, that's good.
They need to learn to be tolerant.
But if you would say, oh, homosexuality is
a sin, oh, that's bad.
You shouldn't judge a person for what they're
doing.
So you see, good becomes evil and evil
becomes good.
Here in California, in our public school system,
when the children are in seventh grade, they
now have to study the Muslim religion.
They study Muhammad.
They study portions of the Koran and are
required to memorize certain passages out of the
Koran.
They even are encouraged to sort of dress
in Muslim garb.
And they're saying, oh, this is good.
It is helping them to understand the various
religions of the world and what people believe.
However, it is bad to teach the children
concerning Jesus Christ and the teachings of Jesus
Christ.
They might get a wrong impression because Jesus
said that we're to love even our enemies.
Oh, we don't want them being confused that
way.
And thus, if we seek to teach Jesus
Christ and the scriptures, then immediately the ACLU
is filing a suit against the school and
your principal will be knocking at your classroom
door and asking you to resign or offering
you your termination notice.
How is it that it's good to teach
Islam, but it's bad to teach Christianity in
the California public schools at the present time?
America was not founded on the beliefs of
Islam, but it was founded on the beliefs
of Christianity.
And if you go back to the founding
fathers and you read the quotes and the
statements from the founding fathers, you'll realize what
a strong impact the Christian influence had upon
those men who established the constitution and the
bill of rights.
If it were established upon Islam, you would
not have the freedoms that you enjoy today.
We wouldn't be able to be here today
talking about the Bible.
If America was founded on the teachings of
Mohammed and upon the Islam religion.
In fact, we could all be sentenced to
death under the Islam religion.
If we sought to convert someone to believe
in Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and
savior, that is a capital offense in their
community.
So right now there is an effort by
our government to force the Christian schools to
use only their approved textbooks in our classes
on US history and world history.
The books that they want to force us
to use here in our Christian high school
are books that are revised history.
In the US history books that they want
us to use, there is no mention of
the Christian influence that existed in the establishing
of this nation.
They've removed all of that.
They've removed in our world history books that
they want us to use in our school,
any mention of the influence of Christianity in
the establishing of Western civilization.
And they have actually said that if we
don't use their schools that we could lose
really the authority to offer to the graduates
the opportunity to go on to higher public
education.
Calvary Chapel is involved in a suit against
the federal government over this particular issue because
we feel that the children have a right
to know the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth.
Jesus said you will know the truth and
the truth will set you free.
And where Christianity is a religion of liberties,
freedoms, and it has allowed us to want
and to enjoy the liberty and freedoms that
are not allowed under communism or under many
other religions.
China and those nations controlled by communism, Cuba,
and those nations that are controlled by the
Islamic beliefs, they don't have the liberties that
we have or enjoy the freedoms that we
know.
Why is the turning of things upside down
like potter's clay?
He said surely your turning of things upside
down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay
also.
Because it's ultimate folly and foolishness.
It's like this clay vase declaring to the
potter you did not make me I made
myself.
Now wouldn't that be rather foolish for this
little vase to say to the potter you
didn't make me I made myself.
Actually I was just clay and there was
a bolt of lightning several billion years ago.
It hit the clay caused it to spring
up.
The subsequent fire actually went ahead and glazed
it.
So here I am.
You didn't make me.
We chuckled because we realized the idiocy of
such a thing.
Now that's what Isaiah is saying.
It's like clay saying to the potter you
didn't make me I made myself.
Now we know that clay jars don't make
themselves.
This shows design and it shows that you
know it's something that just didn't happen.
There was a creator.
There was a potter.
He put the clay on the wheel.
He turned the wheel.
He formed then he put these little ear
things on the side and then he colored
it and then he fired it and created
the glaze and all.
And we recognize that and we recognize this
doesn't just happen by itself.
It was created by a potter.
Now this little vase is an inanimate object.
It hasn't any ability to think or to
reason or to compute.
It's just a lump of clay that's formed
into a vase.
Thus it's very very simple.
Just inert clay formed into a shape to
create some kind of utility purposes for it.
But to think that this just came into
existence apart from a potter is folly and
we immediately recognize that as folly.
We know that there was someone who created
this.
It doesn't just happen.
When you add intelligence or when you add
life actually, the DNA molecule with the codes
for the forming of the whole body in
this little DNA molecule.
All of the information to form the whole
body and all when you realize the information
within a single DNA molecule is so vast
that if it was written in the Encyclopedia
Britannica it would take 22 different separate volumes
of the Encyclopedia Britannica just to write out
the information in one little DNA molecule.
And when we have discovered the vast complexity
of a DNA molecule, we've come to the
realization and the acknowledgement that it just could
not have formed itself.
It's a mathematical impossibility that life could have
been spontaneously generated here on planet Earth apart
from design and intelligence that is built into
that DNA molecule.
So where did life come from?
Well we are spending billions of dollars trying
to find out.
Presently we have a couple of little rovers
up there on Mars and they're going around
to see if perhaps there was one time
water deposits there on the planet Mars.
Maybe life developed on Mars and there was
a rock that flew off of Mars and
came through space, entered into the gravitational influence
of the earth, and it survived through the
fiery descent through our atmosphere.
And this little molecule of DNA then began
to replicate itself here on the planet Earth.
And after billions of years of these fortuitous
occurrences of accidental circumstances, here you are.
Or maybe it happened on one of the
moons of Saturn and so we've got up
there the probing of Saturn.
And what are they looking for?
What are they telling you that you're looking
for?
We're looking for perhaps some clues for the
origin of life.
But just a minute.
If the DNA molecule is so complex that
it could not have just been spontaneously generated
here on the planet Earth, what makes us
think that it could be spontaneously generated on
Mars and have survived the fiery descent through
our atmosphere?
Or what makes us think that it could
have maybe started on one of the moons
of Saturn?
If it's an impossibility here, it should be
an impossibility there.
And of course, that's exactly what Isaiah is
saying.
People are turning things upside down and they're
like a bit of clay saying to the
potter, you didn't make me.
I made myself.
Or as he went on to say, or
shall the thing that is formed, that is
that vase, say to him that framed it,
he had no understanding.
For me to say, well, God really doesn't
have any understanding.
No, the design of the human body and
all of its complexities force us to the
conclusion.
There had to be a designer.
It doesn't just happen.
Things don't happen that way.
And thus to try to say that is
ultimate folly.
As the prophet Isaiah is pointing out, ex
-president Clinton appointed a man by the name
of Robert Rice to be one of his
advisers serving on the cabinet as the secretary
of labor.
Robert Rice recently has declared that people who
follow God pose a more significant threat to
the modern world than terrorist do.
Terrorism, he said, itself is not the greatest
danger we face.
As he wrote in a column in America
Prospect, American
and he began the column by criticizing the
Bush administration as he pushed for a liberal
understanding of America's separation of church and state.
He wrote of the religious zealots who, he
said, confused politics with private morality.
Concerning those who believed in God, he said
that the great conflict of the 21st century
will not be between the West and terrorism,
for terrorism is just a tactic, not a
belief.
The true battle will be between modern civilization
and anti-modernists, between those who believe in
the primacy of the individual and those who
believe that human beings owe their allegiance and
identity unto God.
Between those who give priority to life in
this world and those who believe that human
life is just a mere preparation for the
existence of life beyond.
Between those who believe in science and reason
and logic and those who believe that the
truth is revealed through scripture and religious dogma.
Terrorism, he wrote, will disrupt and destroy lives,
but terrorism itself is not the greatest danger
that we face.
It's those people who believe in God.
So you are one of the greatest threats
to America's future if you believe in God.
But notice how he likes to equate those
that believe in God as sort of unscientific
and unreasonable and illogical.
So it's very unscientific for me to say
that this vase created itself.
That's very illogical.
Because I believe that if you have something
like this, you've got to have a creator.
Be it a potter or, you know, a
pottery shack or someplace.
It was put together by intelligence and by
design.
And of course, that classifies me as a
very dangerous threat to the future of America.
And it makes me very illogical and unintelligent.
The clay vase would be one of the
simplest forms of creation because life is not
involved.
The moment you add the dimension of life,
you're adding complexity that is just, well, it's
just astronomical as far as chance factors.
In any chance factor.
I think that it's important for us to
realize that this man, Robert Rice, who was
Clinton's advisor, is expressing the opinion of the
liberals within the Democratic Party.
You who believe in God, according to these
liberals, and that you who believe that the
scriptures were inspired by God and should be
a guide for our life, obeyed and followed.
You are a greater threat to America's future
than the terrorist ever could be.
Remember that Clinton appointed this man to be
one of his advisors as the Secretary of
Labor.
But incidentally, if you look at the voting
record of the senators, Hillary Clinton and Ted
Kennedy are conservatives.
If you compare their voting record with two
men who are presently desiring to have the
office of president and vice president representing the
Democratic Party, they are first and fourth in
their voting in the Senate as far as
liberal causes are concerned.
The liberal mindset is that Christianity has to
go.
Christian influence has to go.
The Bible concepts have to go.
We're a threat to the America that they
want to create.
It's ultimate folly to say that God has
no understanding, that the Bible, the Word of
God has no relevancy to our lives today,
and that we are self-existent apart from
any activity of God.
That's folly.
God does no He knows everything about you.
He knows everything you have ever thought or
everything that you have ever done.
He knows what has been done in the
dark as well as in the light.
He created you, and God sent his Son
to redeem you from the power of sin.
The greatest threat to America's future are not
those who believe that the Bible is the
Word of God, but those liberals who believe
that the Bible has no place in modern
society.
They are the greatest threat to the future
of America.
The Bible tells us that one day, every
knee will bow, and every tongue will confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord.
This fellow, Robert Rice, who wrote this, one
day he'll bow his knee, one day he'll
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Everyone will.
You will.
But if you wait until that day that
is prophesied in the Scripture, your confession of
Jesus Christ as Lord will not be to
salvation.
It will be to condemnation, as you are
condemning yourself, declaring he is Lord, but you
never submitted to him as Lord.
And thus, you're acknowledging the righteousness of God's
judgment in keeping you out of the kingdom
of God.
To confess it today is a confession unto
salvation.
For Paul wrote, if we will confess with
our mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and
believe in our heart that God has raised
him from the dead, we will be saved.
Today it can be a confession that will
bring salvation.
If you wait until the day when it
is forced, it won't be to salvation but
to condemnation.
I would encourage you, receive the authority of
Jesus in your life today.
Bow your knee.
Confess Jesus as Lord.
Let him become the Lord of your life.
Realize that it is a very relevant thing
and a very wise thing to turn the
reins of your life over to him, to
let him guide you and let him be
Lord over you.
Let's pray.
Father, we read Isaiah as he speaks of
the ultimate folly of these people who thought
they could hide from you, who thought that
if they did something in the dark you
couldn't see it, who thought that you didn't
know what they were doing.
Those people who were like that clay pot
that said to the potter, you didn't make
me, I made myself.
That clay pot that said, the one that
framed me doesn't have any understanding.
Lord, we realize that you understand all things
and you understand the future.
And so Lord, we want to just submit
ourselves to you today.
We confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and
we wish Lord that you would just guide
and direct us according to your will, your
wishes, your desire.
Let us become Lord instruments created by you
to bring glory unto you.
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
Shall we stand?
The pastors are standing down here at the
front and they're here to pray for you
who today would like to make that confession
that Jesus Christ is Lord and to submit
your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Wisest thing you could ever do is turn
your life over to his control.
And I would encourage you take this opportunity
today.
One day you're going to make that confession.
Guaranteed.
If you refuse to do it now, one
day you you'll have to.
And I'll be there saying, I told you.
But you see, it won't be of any
benefit to you at that time.
Today it can be a world of benefit,
an eternity of benefit by doing it today.
And I would encourage you to do so.
They're down here to pray with you and
to pray for you.
And so I would encourage you just as
soon as we're dismissed, make your way forward.
And just tell these men, I want to
receive Jesus as my Lord today.
I want to turn my life over to
him.
I've really messed things up.
Things are in a real turmoil.
Things are upside down.
As the prophet said, you know, your world
is topsy-turvy.
Things are upside down, but the Lord can
put things right side up for you.
He can bring great transformations into your life.
He can mold and shape you into an
instrument that he can use for his glory
by your surrendering yourself to him.
The Lord bless thee.
And keep thee.
The Lord make thee his.