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ISAIAH 28:20

"SHORT BED WITH NARROW BLANKETS"

Intro: Language of fine satire; sarcasm.

I. THE PEOPLE BEING ADDRESSED.
        A. God's chosen people.
                1. Created as a people of God.
                2. Owed existence and all national strength to God.
                3. Thoroughly acquainted with God's law.
                4. Owed their prosperity to God.

YET- B. A people whose impulses and perpetual mode was ungodliness.
                1. The form of godliness was self-satisfied contempt for
                   words of the prophet.
                2. Intellectually stilt believed in existence of God.
                3. Practically had abandoned the truth.
                        "Who hath believed our report?"
        C. The contempt of the people for God's prophet.
                1. "Whom will he teach knowledge?" Vs. 9. 
                2. "For it is line upon line" Vs. l0.
                        "This kind of preaching is out of date."
                        Let him teach babies this method line upon line etc.
                3. When Isaiah warned of God's judgment they replied, "We are not
                   afraid, we have made a covenant with death with hell."
                4. Vs. l6.

II. THE MESSAGE- CHRIST THE ONLY PLACE OF REST.
        A. "Shall not make haste."
        B. All of us in the deeps of our consciousness know this life is not all.
                1. If you do not believe this I have no further word for you.
                2. We cannot stop the wheels of time sweeping us to the end.

III. NO REST EXCEPT IN CORNERSTONE. MEN REST ON VARIOUS BEDS "I HAVE NO FEAR."
        A. I have always been moral making bed- morality.
        B. I have observed all rites of church external religious observance.
        C. Ten years ago I had glorious experience. Past experience.
        D. God is too good to punish. false doctrine.
        E. I haven't time for these thing now. That there will be time.
                Two things to say:
                1. The bed is too short, no rest.
                2. Blankets too narrow will not cover.
        A. Bed of morality. morality demands standard.
                1. What is your standard for morality?
                        a. I have always paid my way.
                        b. I have never defrauded or harmed.
                        c. God's standard "Thou shalt love Lord."
        B. Religious observances.
                1. Spiritual life never generated by material action.
                2. Renounced world, flesh, devil, have you? Resting on broken promises
                   bed too short.
        C. Past experience must be translated into present experience.
                1. Paul to Phillipians.
        D. God too good to punish, Truth is God too good not to punish, If God allowed
           sinful men to enter heaven.
        E. Plenty of time.
                God's time is perpetual "now is the time." "He that believeth shall not
                make haste."