Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.heritagesermons.org/sermons/23812/separated-for-a-wilderness-journey-quality-average/. Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions. Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt. [0:00] The prophecy by Hosea, the second chapter, speaking again with the Lord's help, from verses 14 and 15. [0:16] The second chapter is a prophecy by Hosea, verses 14 and 15. Therefore, behold, I will anew her and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably unto her. [0:41] And I will give her her mignard from then, and elevate her for God's hope. She shall sit there in the days of her youth, and as in today, she came up out of the land of Egypt. [1:03] We did not lose her this morning, speaking from these verses. She saw and speak comfortably unto her. [1:18] We were speaking of some of those blessings which the Lord gave in the valley and the wilderness. [1:31] And how he allured his people away from the things of the world and things of God. [1:42] He raised often a gentle manner. So that the word allure I left with you for your consideration. See how God is, if he is, a good in you way from the changing and passing things of time. [2:05] From mortality to immortality. That both changed from a body of sin and death to a body of immortality. [2:20] This weaning, this alluring, this separating, this blessed proper. And without this separation, there's not the slightest evidence of the work of grace. [2:37] This separation is one of the essential doctrines of the word of God. In just the same way as Israel, we're separated. [2:49] Became a separate people. And still are. After a natural manner, Oh, the people of God are a separated people. [3:02] And if there's no separation from an ungodly world and its pleasures, It's maxims and its motives. There is no proof whatsoever of having been allured into this wilderness. [3:20] But where there is this separation, Where the Lord has wrote His work of grace, And wrote about this gradual change, So, There is some of the Heal evidence That it is not our rest. [3:51] It must of necessity in the mowing, Be a work That is Distinctly private, In one's own power. At the same time, It must manifest itself outwardly. [4:06] A man is known, We are told, By the problem, By the books that he reads, Which is perfectly true. [4:18] And a man is known also, By the company that he keeps, Which is equally true. Though there are the natural problems, They are Distinctly in life, In the word of God. [4:34] And so, The alluring is not to loneliness, But to friendship, Fellowship, Union, And Fellow Feeling And understanding In the bonds of the gospel, In the wilderness, Where They are likened unto Children Who have much in common, The same time, They envy Of the devil, Who will do his best to scatter them, And Persecute them. [5:21] So that Great part about The Desert Theme Is that There will be Big yards there at all, Places To invigorate, Places to Answer to fight, Iron to sharpen iron, Those that will Help you along the road, Where one Shall Confess another, There shall be that Fellowship in the gospel, Which God has ever given His people, And is ever Adiable. [6:06] You imagine That You who enjoy this Reality There is in it, Even if you only meet Once a week So that These are some Of the vineyards, But There is this Cause now To consider And seek A Concepulator Unto Which is a very Well-established Scriptural phrase Found in many Scriptures If you care to Take the Interest To Search them out So they can call them You will soon see How beautifully They pick in The places Where they are mentioned The margin here Is exactly the same As it is In other references And it says [7:06] Speak to a heart And this is What rude self This is one of the Same references How spoken Comfortably To thine hand Like many others The most interesting Study which I commend to you Of the ones in particular So this thinking Is north to the ear Or the head Up to the heart This is where the gospel Becomes So Pressure Real And vital To those Who Talked one Here With the other As in Malachi Of the things Which God Has done For their souls And register A general agreement Among themselves Though they may not Always speak Of these things Of the clues [8:07] That they believe In their hearts Because how can two Walk together Except they be agreed Common question And only one answer To it So that the Lord Has promised In his church To speak Comfortably to her In the wilderness Look at the chapter That we read And the wilderness Chapter indeed The thirty-six Of Isaiah How many Can fact As the elder is They have found The Lord speaking Comfortably to them In that chapter And of course The hundred-step Sounds There are the Lord Speaks Comfortably To his people There we find [9:09] That There are various Ways In which He led them And fell down There was none To help Then They cried Unto the Lord And not till then But there was A real Exemnity An urge of Claim And they were Left to prove The barrenness Of the wilderness In their own In superficial And they fell down There was none To help Then That beautiful Psalm One hundred and seven Enlarges upon This As you know And Think of Various Phases Of Christian Experience Always Master Always Cases of [10:10] Extremity When you are Yourself Christian Of all Your Fancy To approach The thread I am You are Led then To see All fitness Sentry In the Worthy Land So This Comfortable Voice Is the Voice Of the Gospel Speaking Comfortably Or Again As the Banding Says Speaking To the Heart Of Jerusalem Of Jerusalem Her Warfare Is A Conflict So Let's See Our Things Found In the Wilderness And And Her And They Are Effectual The [11:12] Prophet Isaiah Beals Much With Them And The Lord Jesus Himself Quoth From This Very Prophecy By Isaiah To The Opening Of His Ministry As We Know We Hold Past Three Things Which Affect Our Heart Now What Is This That In Its True Meaning That Affects The Heart What Is This In It Something Of A Spiritual Nature Yes It Is What Is This Effect It A Softness Of The Heart Making The Heart Receptive The Words Do Not Grind Over Your Ears And A Loss Is The List Of Times You [12:14] Receive The Word In An Honest Time It Is In Other Words Mixed With Faith And So God In Speaking To His People Comfortably Brings Comfort To Them In The Desert They're Still In The Desert Still In The Wilderness Still Allured Out And From The World Still Tent To Occupy Our Time And Exercise Of Mind Still Plenty Of Proof That This Is A Violent Tears And Yet Mingled With Joy And There Is Reviving Comfort Vinyard Vinyard From Then Means Of The Production From The Vine Which Is Wine And [13:15] Wine And Wine To Half Of That Now This Wine You'll Find In A Two Verses Lower Down I Will Beclose The Unto Me Forever I Will Beclose The Unto Me In Righteous Verse Nineteen And In Judgment And In Loving Kindness And In Merciful It Is The New Wine Of The Kingdom God But It Is Under This Promise Of Seclusal Now We Said This Morning That It Fell To The Labour Of Godly Hosea To Use Much The Parallel Of Human Wickedness In The Adultery So [14:15] Common Among Men Which God Took As A Most Prominent Teacher To Convince Them Of Their Iniquity With Him That As This Between Man And Woman Or Man And Wife So Evil And Vile In His Side So And Departures Been From Him Now He Comes To The Blessedness Of A Married Junior Now He Comes To That Which Is The Perfection Of The Bride Of Christ And Shows For How He Will Bring Them Together Bethold Is Not [15:16] A Marriage In The First Sense I Will Bethold The Unto Me In Forever I Will Bethold The Unto Me In Righteousness As Learned In The Wilderness This Is Where You Value Something Of A Headly Nature Namely A Union With Christ Again A Virtually Fundamental Point Of The Believers Doctrine And The Word Of God Union Without Me That Is Disconnected Or Disassociated From Me And They Are No Fruits Or Apart From Me As [16:16] In The Parable Of Divine And This Union Is Set Out Here Also In These Words The Sixteenth Of And It Took Me That Day Thou Shalt Say Thou Shalt Call Me Fish Eyes And Thou Call Me No More Bain Eyes As You Got The Margin In Your Bibles Look At It You Will See If I In The Alternative Renging As My Husband Thou Should Call Me My Husband And Thou Should No More Call Me A Fela Or Master [17:17] You Read Of Sarah Calling Abraham Master Again We Are Dealing With Eastern Terms Doctor Surely As We Regard Them Now But In Their Essence Exactly The Same It Is The Change Of Name Change communion From Being A Servant Calling The Lord Jesus Master To That Holy And Great Blessing Of Adoption In Calling Him And He Called His People As His Bride The Bride Of Christ So That In The Valley In [18:18] The Desert Allured Away From The World Where The Vinyards Are To Be Found And Where The Lord Is To Speak Comfortably To His People If We Turn To The Eighth Of Romans Those Well Known Words We Find The Spirit Of Adoption Mentioned The Union With Christ The Oneness With Christ And If We Turn To The Revelation We Come To The Highest Point Of All That Is The Bride Of Christ Inconceivably Great Let us Agree Upon That Voice We Are Only Children If We're In The First Class We Made It Past We [19:19] Got To Put On The First Rung Of The Ladder We Made It Past To To Reach The Top And Who Consider The Unbreakable Union Between Christ And His Church And That Is Not A Not Only To Call Them Brethren But Also To Call The Church To Christ To Her Was Granted That She Should Be Arrayed In Fine Linings White And Clean And Of Of Course We Read Of The Married Supper Of The Lamb Our Here Behold I Will Renew Her To A Glimps Of You By Pay Of [20:19] These Blessed Projects Will Help Very Considerably To Weed To Weed You From Time And The Way For Those Things That Is Followed In And You Are Left In Unregeneracy Will Leave Return To God To God Is Through God's Comfortable Words To You In The Wilderness And The Constant Comfort Through The Gospel You Feel A Weaning And A Separating And An Alluring To Christ You Will Feel It In One Way Only And Daddy Who Is Righteousness I Will Behold The Unleaning Righteousness [21:20] The Righteousness Of Christ Is A Glorious Attraction To A Guilty Sinner In The Wilderness Who Feels Everything Else Is Thine Barren That His Holiness He Has None That He Is Absolutely Unpicked For The Holy God That He Has Nothing Of His Own Worthy To Marrying Of Righteousness But The Comfortable Words Of The Gospel Speak To Him Of That Glorious Role Which He Is Encouraged To Hope For One Day Where And We Will See This In A Moment In The Daily Later But At The Moment The [22:21] Words Are Comfortable And They Are To The Path In And Casted Away Who Feel That Is A Drag On Their Spirit Rather Than A Hull Is Not This An Alluring An Added Reason Why They Could Speak From Their Own Work Is Not This [23:21] The Very Answer To The Question What Must I Do To Decide Indeed It Is And This Ritual Carried On By The Holy Ghost In The Heart Most Definitely Separates From The World And It Takes A Taste Out Of Your Mouth As I Mentioned This Morning In The Rillies And The Onions And Garlic Of Egypt By The In Gospel Life And In These Gospel Days We Are Able To See How The Lord Keep It His People To Leave The World To Think For Sure And Leave It To Return No More And Not One To Go Back Though They Feel The Elements [24:21] Of It In Their Own Heart And Realize That They Are Still In An Enemy's Land Yet Their Eyes Are Not Toward Egypt But Towards Kenya The Lord Therefore Has Words Of Comfort Speaking Comfortably To Jerusalem Care unto Her That Her Welfare Hidget That Her Iniquitous Pardon She Hath Received The Lord's Hand Double For All Her Sin Grace And Glory But Comfortably When Her The Rise Received In Faith There Is [25:21] Nothing To Equally It It Is The Very Marrow And Madness Of The Gospel And The Grace Of God And Of Course It Emodies The Perfect Righteousness Of Christ But Associated With It In This Nineteenth Throne In This Detotal I Will Be Throne Unto Me In Righteousness There Is A Learning A Less Quite Natural Betrothings Of Coming Together Of Two In Their First Love The Days Of Their Best And Look At Them Now In The Day That Have Long Been Past They Can Broken And [26:23] Those Cores That Were Bound To Other Men Sat Alas They Do In Many Charities But Where Love Once Begun Continues Through Married Life Until Death Are Too Fast For A Glorious Blessing It Is Now This Righteousness This Diversal This Promise In Beautiful If pure and without thoughts, blemish, or any success. [27:24] It's a crust, it's a lure, and I hope to warn if they pray for it. The more they pray for it, the more they pray for it, the more they realize it's not, the further they are being separated from the world. [27:41] And it is by this, the wilderness yields its blind, its reviving cordial, and it is here that comforts themselves, and the word of God alone can administer them. [28:04] So that here, there is yet one more thing, or two, in righteous death, and in judgment. [28:19] Judgment. The wilderness of old was constantly applied as judgment. [28:30] You can't read many pages of the history of the wilderness journey of the children of Israel without to come across some solemn incident where God needed out his judgment. [28:48] You find a time when your hope was swallowed up for a dozen and a fire. [29:00] You find times when a fiery serpent was sent to bite him. You find times when God serviced Moses in his anger. [29:13] He said, Here ye rebels, must we bring water out of his rock? And he, instead of fighting his both foot, all the reverse, the water came out, just to find that God dealt with his dear servant Moses in judgment. [29:37] He called them the waters of Christ, the waters of Marybeth. And from that point, Moses was debarred entrance into the land of Caves. [29:50] And perhaps one of the heaviest blows the dear man of God ever sustained. You can all know, hear him crying, and see the tears rolling down his feet are being sentimental now. [30:07] But I have stood with Moses as he viewed the goodly man and begged the Lord that he might go there. That goodly man did him, he said, and God said to him, Take no more worry about this matter. [30:28] Moses, I've spoken, and I will not divert you. And this was to Moses. Judgment. [30:45] The Lord deals in judgment with his servant. We have to feel the smart in judgment of Jehovah as well as the people. [30:59] there is no exclusion or excuse. So, good to Moses learn God's judgment. [31:17] But what is the Lord Jesus Christ here? when he tasted death, he spared not, the Father spared not, to deliver that vital blow of infinite justice into the heart of his dear son when he cried, by God, by God, why hast thou forsaken me? [31:55] Now, in this valley, or rather, in this wilderness, we are in the God's judgment. In our various lives, I spoke of your thorny password this morning, you know, you might be feeling in the wilderness. [32:21] And God's purpose in bringing you out of the world and into the wilderness. And the advantages of this, but there is another thing that we must remember, that whom the Lord has to take you, and corrected every sound whom he received. [32:47] God does it. Not in anger. Things may be completely at an utter loss with you today. [33:01] You may never have been in the place you are today. you know therefore the weight of God's judgment and you're absolutely powerless to organize. [33:19] Is this what he's learned in the grace or wine or the barren wilderness? Is this how God speaks comfortably? [33:29] is this any comfort to you to have your weight cast up and someone come to you and point out why this is? [33:45] And they're not procured that you should come to thyself. God's judgments are seeable, discernible. [34:03] His corrupting hand is known. It's as well they and is in the wilderness. [34:18] You could wonder therefore that there is taron mess all around and there is the comfort of the gospel and the only comfort of the gospel. [34:36] Your friends are helpless. No one can come and lift you up and say well my dear friend don't worry that's only rubbing salt into the wound but if the gospel comforts you it will comfort you quietly it will have effect as a remedy it will revive you as wine revive the heart of man I'll give her her vinyard to men I will stick comfortably unto her and be this gradual so the next is loving kindness in verse 19 still and in mercy this is God the total and can you try that we have to start with you in loving kindness how shall we measure it how shall we try for what do you marry if he was strict to mark in equity can you justify yourself or must you cry guilty guilty happy are you if you can because there is no other way out other than the admission of grace is loving kindness that middly touches this point the best of any of our hymn writers we think is his mantra loving kindness who cannot possibly describe the word fully but this is how [36:50] God betrays himself and his faithfulness and mercy with people that in mind in the wilderness and are lured away from the world the wilderness and it is this wilderness where he manifests his loving kindness and bubbles as a groovy cloud gathered thick sundered loud near myself is always true loving kindness oh how good and one more word and that is mercy again found in the wilderness wilderness mercy you could write a book on that wouldn't you [37:54] I believe there's a book called will the next mercy but if you wrote the book and titled it will the next mercy you wouldn't be far out with the title will the next mercy you you can't count them you can't see them all you do not know what you have been preserved from you do not know what dangers the Lord has kept you through will it says there's a journey concerning these mercy I should counsel there are more in the hairs of my hair so it is in the wilderness and [39:03] God speaking comfortably how many years has he been speaking comfortably to you remember the first time you heard a gospel sermon can you remember the second and the third can you begin to count out the preciousness of the gospel to you and what comfort it has brought to you in this dress can you count out the number of times that his word has been made a blessing to you in private reading at home for in countless other ways his mercies have been made known to you in your office in your home mercy I have said quoting from [40:06] Psalm 89 that mercy shall be built up forever and as our God's mercy is alive in bricks and the wool one built up upon another yes and cemented together by great experience and divine love but now we have this other part of the text and I will give her vineyard from then to the valley of acre for door of hope this valley of acre you will see from the margin is associated with faith hand it was dying in the valley of anchor when that her man was brought out and all his family and his clothes when they took the city [41:19] Jericho and when Achan took and Woodley hid him under the floor of his chest and when Israel was defeated before he approached to I.I. [41:38] by a handful of poor men and when Joshua absolutely collapsed in his feet it ever ever seen in the word of God that a noble character a warlike able man the man that was half filled with promises only been strong and good courage is inevitable for man who absolutely collapsed under this and his justice he is here in lamenting before the Lord and what will thou do to thy great name as if everything heaven and earth was going to pass away before a handful of men and I which was called the right hand ship and that valley where right hand was found called the valley of it it simply means the valley of trouble that's a marginal rendering of [42:52] I call the valley of trouble or a dual road now I can't sing for visited without mercy he was cut off and condemned to eternal condemnation and merely and I say that advisably merely through covetousness he didn't want it he couldn't use it he didn't appear in it the golden wind was no good to it not when he had it not glad less the goodly done about his garments but their covetousness always with him and he perished without help now what of this valley of acre which the lord opens with people in the wilderness there's a door in it an exit a way out and with all your guilt and your present day trouble and as much as you can justify your god in his actions and dealings with you and as much as you can say that he's right and say that he's home in a dark hour and dark day and your soul may be at an end to things [44:45] I don't know the valley of acre the valley of trouble was drawn what trouble adorn by the most able theologian apart from grace to give around for that question how can the valley of trouble be adorable but a poor simple tribe believer can I can understand this hope for me how it's the righteousness of Christ hope for me in a judgment of God when he made his son a sacrifice when he bore sin there's hope in his loving kindness there's hope in his tender mercy he delighted in mercy but hope why this room in our dinner is to restore to you this is the price gate of which [46:16] Jesus holds this is the door of hope grace this wonderful grace with eyes seven eyes in his head the seven spirits of the Lord that can see that in the midst of all this that holds but in the midst of all this upheaval unworthiness this barren land total destitution where in then does this hope bring why from the vineyard from this precious fountain divine food this vineyard and the food we have before us you wouldn't have any hope or prospect without it you see without hope and without [47:19] God in the world in a thousand dollars is there hope in thine end therefore is there a way out of this a posture that the Lord is separating you from all future help separating you from all others so giving you fellowship and union with his people in the gospel yes there is this sure of hope and that is in Christ and in Christ alone I am away the fruit the life no man can't answer the father but by me behold I will lure her bring her into the wilderness speak comfortably to us and I will give her vineyard from then the valley of atr a door of hope for people to see as in the days of her youth and as in the days when she came up out of the land of [48:39] Egypt after the gospel knows with Old Testament history and the outcome of this is Christ and the expression of it singing with grace in your heart and making melody unto the Lord so that there are songs in the wilderness songs in this session and they are to the praise honor and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ the we is people from the world and separate them unto itself Amen