Sermon # 199 Series: Isaiah

Title: CONTENTION ENDED – GRACE REIGNING

Text: Isaiah 57:16-18

Subject: Holy Spirit Conviction

Date: Sunday Evening – December 11, 1994

Tape # Q-75

Introduction:

In verse 15 the Lord God describes himself as “the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy! Yet, he tells us that he dwells with those men and women who are of a contrite and humble spirit.” When I read these words, I am anxious to know one thing – Where on earth is there a man with “a contrite and humble spirit?” We are, every last one of us proud, strutting peacocks by nature. We sometimes put on a show of modesty and humility before men. But there is nothing spiritually and truly contrite and humble above us. So before God almighty, “the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy,” before he will come to dwell with any human being, before he will take up residence in your heart or mine, we must be made contrite and we must be humbled.

Now read verses 16-18. It is still the high and lofty One speaking. God Almighty is talking about coming to dwell with men, coming to dwell with sinners like you and me. Read the text with me…

It looks to me like the Lord God is holding a conference with himself, which he allows his prophet to hear. God is not addressing sinners in this text. He is not telling man what he must do to “get saved.” Rather, the Lord God is addressing himself, telling himself what he intends to do that he may make chosen sinners, with whom he is determined to dwell contrite and humble before him. The title of my message tonight is Contention Ended – Grace Reigning.

Proposition: When God almighty comes to sinners in saving power and grace, before he establishes his reign of grace in the heart, he stirs up and puts down all contention against him.

May God the Holy Spirit now speak through these lips of clay to you who have been gathered here by Divine Providence to hear this message.

I. When God First Comes To Sinners In Grace, He Comes To Contend With Them.

This is implied in the opening sentence of our test – “I will not contend forever.” I want you to understand this. If the Lord God has eternal purposes of grace toward you, if he has purposed to save you, his first saving operation will be a work of contention. Oh, when God comes to contend with a sinner he means business. He sticks his finger in your heart, stirs up the enmity of your heart, turns everything up-side-down, and contends with you personally. Job understood this; and his strength withered as he thought on it (Job 9:28).

God never saves before he slays. He never converts before he convicts. He never lifts a man up before he brings him down. When the Almighty first comes, he will appear to you as a man of war, with his bow bent, hurling his arrows one after another at your heart. He will never apply the balm of his grace until the heart is wounded. Before God sends the spirit of Sonship, he stirs up the spirit of bondage. Before he sends the comforting showers of his grace, he terrifies the heart with the thunders of his law.

The fact is there is so much in you and me by nature that is opposed to God, and contrary to his gracious designs, that there must be a stern conflict until we are overcome and surrender to the rule of Jesus Christ. Conversion in the Scriptures (Luke 11:21-22; Matt. 12:29; Mk. 3:27) is compared to an invasion, the invasion and conquest of a palace or a house. It is the binding of a strong man, armed to the teeth, and casting him out of his palace. The strong man armed will not go out peaceably. He must be thrown out by force. God never comes into a man’s soul accept as a conqueror!

Maybe I am talking to someone right now who is at wits end, trying to figure out what is going on inside. You once lived carelessly and at ease, unbothered by sin and thoughts of God. But now there is a terrible upheaval in your soul. There is a terrible conflict and warfare raging within you, a tormenting of heart and conscience that you can neither explain nor endure. The Lord God has taken up a controversy with you! I am so thankful he has. You are miserable. I am thankful. “Hell is tormenting me,” you say. I bless the Lord that your deadly sleep is broken, that your fatal peace is disrupted, that the spell of sin and satan that has so long controlled you is now broken. When God contends with a man, there is hope. But if God leaves you alone, you will die in your sins.

A. God Has A Controversy With You!

If he has chosen you as the object of his love and grace, If the Lord Jesus bought you with his blood, God is determined to make you “a contrite and humble spirit.” With whom he will dwell forever. – He is determined to bring you to your knees – He is determined to make you raise the white flag of surrender in your soul – He knows exactly how to do it (Ps. 107:1:31, 43).

This contending of God with man is what we normally refer to as Holy Spirit conviction. Preachers do not talk about it much anymore. Everybody is in too big a hurry to get sinners in church to see anybody saved. But I am going to tell you something this generation needs to hear – Nobody ever gets saved without Holy Spirit conviction (John 16:7:11). If the Lord God comes to you in saving grace, he will contend with you until he convinces you of five things.

1. The Lord’s design in contending with you is to convince you of Your sin – (Jer. 17:9; Matt. 15:19; Isa. 64:6; 6:1-8).

2. God’s controversy with you is about Righteousness.

· Your Lack of Righteousness!

· God’s Demand of Righteousness!

· Christ’s Fulfillment of Righteousness!

· God’s Gracious Imputation of Righteousness!

3. God’s Controversy with you is about Judgment – the judgment of you sin!

Is God dealing with you about your sin? Has your heart and conscience been pricked with guilt? Does your sin now torment you? If so, I am so very thankful! Let me show you three things that you must acknowledge before him.

· The Justice of God in Punishing Your Sin (Ps. 51:4).

· The Judgment of Sin in Christ’s Sacrificial Death (John 12:31).

· The Justice and Grace of God in Forgiving The Sins Of All Who Trust His Son (Rom. 3:24-26).

4. God’s controversy with you is about his Grace.

The contention between you and God is simply this – You want to do something to be saved, and God will never accept you on the basis of your works, your worth, or even your will. If ever you are saved, you must be saved by grace done – (Eph. 2:8-9; II Tim. 1:9). God will never give you peace until you come to Christ acknowledging…

· The Sovereignty of His Grace (Rom. 9:16).

· The Sufficiency of His Grace (I Cor. 15:10; II Cor. 12:9).

· The Freeness of His Grace (Isa. 55:1-8).

5. God’s contention with your soul is about his Son.

God will never speak peace to your soul until you surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ and trust him as your only, all-sufficient Lord and Savior.

· “What think ye of Christ?”

· “Thy Salvation!”

· “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!

Will you or will you not trust the Lord Jesus Christ? That is the issue!

Illus: Elimelech to Rebecca!

· Lamentations 1:12

· Colossians 2:9-10

· Colossians 3:11

· I Corinthians 1:30-31

If God has put his finger in your heart, you may as well surrender. You’re not going to get away from him. You may try to drown his voice out with amusement, riotousness, and drunkenness. But you will not be able to do so. You may try to quieten his word in your soul by reformation and religion. But in the dark, lonely watches of the night, you will still here this word reverberating with hell in your soul – “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked!” You will find no peace, you will find no rest until God has convinced you of – Your Sin!

· His Righteousness!

· The Judgment of Sin!

· Salvation by Grace Alone!

· Christ’s Singular All-Sufficiency!

B. Let me turn for a moment to apply my text to you who are the people of God and say, Sometimes God Contends With His Saints Too.

He has sworn that he will never leave you nor forsake you. And he has sworn that he will not allow you to depart from him. Yet, we must all confess that there is in each of us a horrible wickedness that makes us chant –

“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love!

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for thy courts above!”

We are compelled by experience to confess that we often behave unworthily before him and that “it is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed!”

When we would leave him, when our hearts grow cold toward him, then he contends with us. He strikes at our very hearts. Oh, when God strikes a man or a woman in the heart, it is a staggering blow that he gives! Our heavenly Father never takes out his rod needlessly. But when he takes it out, he means business (Heb. 12:5-12).

1. He strikes us with adverse providences.

2. He strikes us by withdrawing his face from us.

3. He strikes by taking away the manifest, sweet influence of his Spirit.

4. He strikes by leaving us to ourselves! – By taking away the things we have neglected!

It is written in Amos 3:2 – “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” Spurgeon said, “His love is as strong as death, blessed be his name, but as a natural consequence his jealousy is as cruel as the grave; he will not endure unchastely of heart in the beloved object of his eternal choice.”

5. God strikes his children with the rod because he loves us and will not allow us to forsake him – Bless him, O my soul, and return to him when he strikes!

II. That brings me to my second point – God’s Contention Will End When His Goal Is Achieved.

He says, “I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wrath.” When will this promise be fulfilled? When will God cease to be angry? Read verse 15. God’s contention will end as soon as you crouch before him as “a contrite and humble spirit,” seeking his mercy in Christ. Omnipotence will not lift its hand against a one who yields. Surrender to Christ, unconditionally. Sue for mercy. Lay down your weapons of rebellion against the throne of God. Bow your proud heart in humility to the throne of the great King and cry, “God be merciful to me!” And mercy is yours! The contention will be over immediately!

Illus: Bunyan – Pilgrim at Mt. Calvary!

· I John 1:9

· Psalm 32:1-2 – “He delighteth in mercy!”

III. Briefly notice in verses 16 and 17 that God Finds Reasons For Mercy Where No One Else Could or Would.

Since God saved me by his grace and gave me a hunger for his Word, I have never ceased to marvel at the reasons given in this Book for God’s mercy to sinners.

· David Cried, “Pardon mine iniquity, O Lord, for thy name’s sake, for it is great!” (Ps. 25:11).

· God saves sinners for his name’s sake (Ps. 106:8).

· God has mercy for Christ’s sake (Eph. 4:32).

But I do not think I have ever seen such amazing reasons for mercy as the three that God gives to himself in our text. God says, “I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wrath” for these three reasons:

A. “The spirit should fail before me” – God finds a reason for mercy in our inability to stand before him when he contends with us – (Lam. 3:1-26).

His object is correction, not destruction! Our Inability.

B. “The souls which I have made.” – I take that to mean, God will not destroy, but will have mercy, because he will not lose even one whom he made for himself, as the object of his grace. His Election.

C. “I hid me and was wroth, and he went on forwardly in the way of his hear.” God is merciful and gracious because we are so obstinately rebellious that nothing will break our rebellion and humble us but the revelation of his mercy, love, and grace in Christ!

“Law and terrors do but harden

All the while they work alone.

Nothing but a blood bought pardon

Can dissolve a heart of stone!

IV. Now, lastly, notice in verse 18 that Grace Reigns Supreme In God’s Method of Putting And End To His Contention With Sinners.

My time is gone, I know. And I do not want to weary you. But I have to show you this.

A. Here is Astonishing Grace. “I have seen his ways!”

Though God has seen all your ways, yet he says, “And I will heal him!” “His father saw him a great way off.

B. Here is Effectual Grace – “I will heal him!”

God treats sin in his elect as if it were a disease. He heals it.

C. Here is Tender Grace – “I will lead him!”

Not drive, but “lead him.” How tender! God graciously, effectually leads his people…

· To Christ!

· In His Way!

· Up to Glory!

D. Here is Complete, All-Sufficient Grace! – “I will restore comforts to him and to his mourners.” Look at both parts of that statement.

1. God graciously restores comforts to those whom he saves by his grace. The Comforts (Plural) of…

· Complete Forgiveness!

· Total Reconciliation!

· Perfect Righteousness!

· Blessed Sonship!

· Assured Acceptance!

· Immutable Security!

· Good Providence!

2. He even restores comforts to those who morn for lost souls, when he saves them. – “And to his mourners” – To those who mourn for him!

Illus: Jarius at the Rising of His Daughter.

The Canaanite Woman.

Martha and Mary at Lazarus Resurrection

· Parents!

· Preachers!

· Teachers!

· Witnesses!

Application:

· Psalm 107:43