True worship and sacrifice (Quality: Average)

[0:00] Depending upon the help from the Lord, one would desire to draw your attention to a text recorded in the book of the prophecy of Jonah, the second chapter and verses 8 and 9.

[0:27] The second chapter in the prophecy of Jonah, verses 8 and 9.

[0:39] They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

[0:53] But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving.

[1:08] I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.

[1:22] I must freely confess, friends, that I know not how to open the text before us.

[1:44] Yet, I do believe that it has been laid on my mind to speak from it.

[1:56] And our dependence upon the Lord is therefore very great.

[2:09] May he guide us and open his word to us. The prophet Jonah, as you well know, has fled.

[2:28] Rather desired he to go to Tarshish than to do what God has bid him to do.

[2:41] God, who is a sovereign, has taught him and teaches him this way.

[2:55] For I believe the case is left on record purposely for the instruction, not only of the Lord's servants, but of all the Lord's people for their instruction.

[3:20] Now you see, the Lord has taught Jonah that his decrees cannot be crossed, cannot be laid aside, that his appointments, his wise decrees must be performed.

[3:52] They are often performed in a most miraculous and wonderful way. And our God often brings good out of that bad and out of that which seems ever so wrong to our eyes.

[4:18] So we see in the first chapter that the Lord has used the flight of Jonah to the instruction and preaching of the truth to the mariners.

[4:42] And in our chapter, we have read how the Lord has instructed Jonah in many things.

[4:57] And the Lord Jesus refers to Jonah and in the Gospels we speak of that only sign which shall be given to the generation to the generation of that time.

[5:29] Anyhow, my dear friends, we have to look to some of the matters that the prophet was taught.

[5:45] and one of them is that what he saw expresses in our text.

[5:57] They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

[6:07] this may seem a very strange language from one who has disobeyed God.

[6:23] That may seem very strange language from a person who has fled from the presence of his God and turned his back upon his commandment.

[6:45] But the merciful thing in it is that he was taught the truth of what he said.

[6:57] it was nothing that he has heard from others. It was nothing that he has read in the books.

[7:12] It was nothing of what he was instructed in taught by the passing of a word from man to man tradition.

[7:30] This is something what he was most solemnly taught for himself. And it is something my dear friends which I believe the Lord's people at all times at times learn very bitly.

[7:56] What I mean is this in a rather difficult way which causes them to learn it the hard way that they may learn it well.

[8:18] They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

[8:31] Now we have very briefly noticed this that this truth compasses every man.

[8:48] both man that are profane man who possess a full godliness and also it compasses man who through and by the grace of God are made possessors of divine life.

[9:24] You may perhaps say surely one would not find the latter to come unto the same.

[9:37] But we shall first then observe the wicked. You see the wicked observes lying vanities.

[9:54] His very heart is filled with them. His mind, his whole nature, his flesh, they are all subservient for it.

[10:10] the empty professor perhaps has his outward a little bit polished, but his heart is just the same.

[10:26] He knows nothing of his heart being broken up, his hollow ground being under the operation of the holy ghost broken and the stones gathered out of the way.

[10:49] No, he knows nothing of divine teaching that he is a lost sinner. And one of the character that is found grace and favor in the sight of God.

[11:17] By nature he is as much a child of the devil as the profane and the professor.

[11:31] By nature they have wicked heart, heart that is desperately wicked, in which they learn a little here and little there, how desperate it is indeed.

[11:52] now my dear friends the mercy is that the elect vessels of mercy are stopped in their way in the appointed time and way God the Holy Ghost begins to deal with them and they are brought under the law brought under condemnation they are brought into a straight path yea they are wakened and made alive they are made to cry give me Christ or else I die now you see these people have this in them the living principle of grace a new living principle as it is is deposited in their souls they are artakers of divine life not through their own marriage no but through the marriage blood and righteousness of that great high priest after the order of

[13:37] Melchizedek the Lord Jesus Christ of whom you have sung that his sacrifice yea his precious blood so exceeds yea his much nobler sacrifice than all the sacrifices offered on three shoulders precious invaluable blood of the Son of God was shattered by him who alone can pay the uttermost might of the debt of the church I like those lines there in that hymn deep in his breast and grave he bore our names with every penal score when pressed to earth he prostrate lay shocked at the sum have you been shocked at the sum were you old shocked at the sum yet prompt to pay down to

[15:46] McLaren through this marriage of this precious Redeemer, of this great high priest of the order of Melchizedek, that these people are partakers of divine life for they are his brethren.

[16:22] They are made by his blood nigh unto God. They are redeemed.

[16:33] They are his brethren. Now we must come to that, what our text speaks of.

[16:47] To the empty professor and to the profane lying vanities are sweet.

[17:08] But they observe them freely. They are not troubled with them. Yea, they indulge them as much as they can.

[17:23] It's the part of their natural life. But for a child of God, Oh, my dear friends, those lying vanities are great snare, and they shun them.

[17:46] They are much afraid to be left to self, to their foolish understanding, to their natural, ekkano knowledge, that they might not be trapped by any one of them.

[18:11] But I want to go a little further in noticing what those lying vanities are.

[18:23] If we look into the Old Testament, we observe plainly that the heathenish gods were thus named.

[18:41] God has spoken of them as lying vanities who cannot have, who are dumb, who are but stocks, who are dead.

[19:00] perhaps you will say, this was in the time of old Israel.

[19:13] And do you think that times have changed much? Oh, there are many lying vanities of this sword in the world.

[19:27] And I but point to some which are very near and close.

[19:40] You know, the measure of best lands passed in our parliament is made another step that word these lying vanities being brought into our established church.

[20:06] The church of Rome presents and stood that worshippers and a piece of wood or a piece of stone or a piece of iron laid over with silver or gold and say to them these be thy gods.

[20:38] Oh, what wretchedness that will compare God with an image. Oh, God is a dizzling and I am rather afraid that this is the beginning an inroad by which images which shall be worshipped shall be brought into the establishment.

[21:18] end. But leaving this we must observe that there are lying vanities my dear friends in doctrines and lying vanities also in practice and just very briefly let me mention one or two.

[21:54] The lying vanities in doctrine that doctrine of Unitarianism and the doctrine of free will the doctrine of perfection of perfection in flesh and what lying vanities these are and I feel I must warn you before that.

[22:36] The doctrine of Unitarianism are wherein these people are the throne of the gods and your son from his rightful place and position as the co-equal co-eternal son of the eternal father and co-equal and co-eternal with the holy ghost that proceeds from the father and from his son Jesus Christ.

[23:33] For mark as my dear friends that is the Lord Jesus is not the high priest after the order of Melchizedek and that means as the description of him is without beginning and without end.

[24:05] If he shall not have the co-equal son with the father from all eternity then oh then your home is in thine for nothing nothing can satisfy the broken law nothing can satisfy the offended justice of God but the blood of Christ the blood of God's fellow the blood of him of whom the Lord God has declared that he was brought up with him that he was with him from all eternity if the

[25:15] Lord Jesus then is not being the son of God oh oh oh then every hope is lost but blessed be God that the Lord Jesus is he and that he received the testimony that there are those witnesses ah those witnesses ah that have been heard this is my dear son in whom I am well pleased and again this is my dear son for obey him now ah ah the second lying vanity ah is this ah the free will ah

[26:40] I should have perhaps mentioned ah the idea which was behind ah the ah lying vanity being laid up ah in ah the last century or so ah by Satan you see ah that notion of ah ah agmanism is nothing new and that was behind that idea of unitarism that they hoped ah that there would be uniting with the Jews with the Muslims with everybody oh what foolish foolish lying vanity and foolish creature ah that are trumped ah by that and then the doctrine ah of ah ah creatures ah ah righteousness creatures free will

[28:10] I trust there is none among you my dear hearers that are trumped with it and that ah you realize solemnly that a truth declared in the word of God the steps of a righteous man are ordered by God the lot is cast into the lot by the holy sposing thereof age of God yes and us and the power and the wisdom and the sovereignty of

[29:13] God is here at stake and he mad in eyes that he is soon on a wrong and sunny ground the doctrine of creature righteousness creature's perfection I hope that you understand what Satan pretends in it that you can grow better improve yourself and so much so that in the end because of your good word good behavior

[30:15] God will accept you as a child in heaven oh what a lying thing it is it is complete lie for it is deceitful and deceiving and it would deceive the very elect if Satan was permitted to trap them with it but I know that at times the children of God may toil under them too anything that they can improve a little here and little there and that they will grow better and will be more acceptable in the sight of

[31:26] God no my dear friends you never will but it is a mercy if you are taught and a complete depravity and lost and ruined condition of your soul and your total dependence upon God's free mercy and that blood which did for sin once at all I will just briefly mention some of the lying vanities in practice and I would warn you back before them for they are very easily overcoming you see

[32:38] Satan first of all suggests more charity you must love everyone is that not the commandment of God that we should love our neighbor as ourselves and he comes and says and how can you and how do you love God if you declare on him that he is not a child of God now you see in our and I'm speaking here to you as church we must be very careful about this matter and only where there are evidences where those people can give good ground of their hope in

[33:48] God's mercy when they can testify on their mouth and say come and be blessed of the Lord and I will tell you what the Lord has done for my soul only where that testimony comes forth you can walk together and acknowledge as such and rightly so as your brethren the lying vanity is humanitarian and it is that having charitable more than God oh my dear friends our practice must be at all a walk in the word of

[34:58] God and to walk in accordance with it in our church order at all and then in practice this is a lying vanity as some sort of light an ash some sort of making it easier oh how many churches how many examples there are that a little are giving in and then there was a great slave so much so that one would hardly recognize that it was the church of

[36:01] God once they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy well my dear friends I shall not speak much more of those lying vanities there are some very common ones which the world offers and which sometimes seem ever so attractive little pleasure here little comfort little ungodly company little frivolity little objects or that Satan says it will not have you those are lying vanities flee from them for the word of God says they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy but I want to come at what the prophet was able to say too and and that it's said sweet morsel to the tried family of

[37:23] God because they are not left destitute they are not left to self they are blessed with that what is above and I should say which outweighs and which fills their hearts in such a measure that they can in the end praise God for all what he has done now the prophet had experience of something that caused him to declare when my soul fainted within me

[38:24] I remembered the Lord and my prayer came in unto thee into thine holy temple experience of God's undertaking for him snatching him out of the snares and traps of the devil delivering him plucking him out like a brand out of the fire true he stripped him from all his fancied meekness true he has cut down all that undergrowth all that which was out of his heart but God has in his mercy shown him that what he had to declare salvation is of the

[39:27] Lord quite different from the lying vanities yes yes they can never save they can bring into deeper trouble they would bring into destruction at last but to mercy there is a salvation there is a redemption to blood to the marriage sacrifice righteousness death and resurrection of God's dear son salvation is of the Lord complete salvation not only the salvation wrote on the cross but also the communication the application of it to the soul that is whose name is written in the

[40:43] Lamb's book of life that is awakened and is brought into deep distress on account of that wretched wretched thing that it finds within the past salvation is of the Lord free salvation full salvation without price and without money freely given and when that salvation is experienced when the Lord bestows it upon a heart broken sinner there is my dear friend and a going out of that soul but

[41:51] I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanks to me there is pain on the curse of the lips unto the Lord there is sacrifice of praise unto him who had led and died for redeem to save to the uttermost and there is also this a water we read I will pay that that I have bound when the soul is in deep trouble deep exercise when it is groaning under the load and misery of sin when it is in a roomful place of condemnation when it so feels that had itself well owned its mouth and swallow and so there is

[43:18] I believe crying going out crying a lamentation going out unto the Lord God save me for thy mercy sake I cannot let thee go except thou bless me except thou let me out of this bottomless pit I must perish forever and ever and you know in that deep disgrace the sorrow on walls the Lord and as well as is

[44:23] Lord if thou save me I will be thine and will walk in thy ways and in thy precepts that soul that being delivered is brought with I will pay that that I have known I will walk in thy ways I will walk in thy precepts I will walk in the ordinances of the gospel tour perhaps there is someone who is made vows unto

[45:25] God I don't know what they may be they may be in that respect they may be also concerning the ordinance of baptism and concerning the ordinance of the Lord's Supper I will pay that I have vowed soul that receives mercy that has evidences of God's undertaking and so experience salvation from the Lord that soul may justly and rightly and is bound to it to perform their vows to walk humbly before

[46:42] God and obey his command that command is in respect of the ordinance of baptism let us fulfill all righteousness and in respect of the ordinance of the Lord's Supper just do in remembrance of me well I see the time is gone I haven't got anywhere in my text they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy my dear friends seek to be delivered from them no doubt there are others which

[47:49] Satan will bring before you but your God is a faithful God strong mighty to deliver and Satan is a conquered enemy and when you know and have felt and tasted of the salvation of the Lord do remember that what Jonah was led to say that I will sacrifice unto the Lord unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving may and I believe that those who receive mercy are never like those who were healed and have gone away and only one has come to return thanks

[49:15] I will pay that that I have vowed I believe that they that do such honor God and receive answers of a good conscience in it on the other hand our God despises those who make vows and pay not I have to leave it here may the Lord pardon anything that has been amazed amen to