Well, if we turn again please to the prophecy of Isaiah chapter 40. Our text this evening comes in verses 6 through 8. The voice said, cry, and he said, what shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof, is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever. Dear congregation, we have come again to the last day of another year. The last time we meet here together in 2018. The last public prayer we will hear of 2018. The last singing we will hear of God's praise in this building, the last sermon. For some of you here, the last opportunity of 2018 to repent and to believe the gospel. The last time we hear the voice of God coming to us in his preached word. In our text, indeed, you notice it is a voice that is speaking. Verse six tells us the voice, the voice said, cry, A week ago, we looked at verses three through six, and we saw there another voice, the voice of John the Baptist, verse three, the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness. But here is another voice, a different voice. Here in verse six, we believe the voice of God himself. The voice said, cry. And the one who would bear the message says, what will I cry? It's reminding us that Isaiah, as every gospel minister, receives the message he has to proclaim from God. Every preacher is asking the question, what shall I cry? What will I tell the people? I dare not make up my own message. And that's reminding us all then that ultimately it's not with man, but with God that we have to do. It is the voice of God that we are listening to when we have the word of God proclaimed to us. Well, what is this voice telling us on this last evening of this year? Two things. Firstly, the voice is telling us that the flesh is useless and must not be trusted. The flesh is useless and must not be trusted. The flesh here has the idea of the best that you have, the best you can offer. whatever belongs to you and all of it and the best of it, your strength or your beauty, your knowledge, your wisdom, your skill, your sheer effort and determination and perseverance, your reputation, your friends, whatever it is, the best that you have. That is here your flesh. Peter quotes this verse in his epistle in 1 Peter 1.24, and there he says, all flesh is as grass and all the glory of man. All the glory of man, the best of man is as the flower of grass. And because it's the best we can offer, because it's the best that we can contribute, the flesh then also is what we very naturally put our confidence upon. It's the thing in which we trust. It's the first place we go to deal with our difficulties or our problems or our circumstance. When difficulties come our way, this is where we go. We go to our wisdom. We go to our skill, we go to our effort, we go to our resources. And spiritually we have this tendency too, that the difficulty, the obstacle, yes, even the sin and the lack of holiness without which no man will see the Lord, there is this natural tendency in us all to go to our flesh, to what we can do. And here God is saying through his servant, tell them all flesh is grass. Whatever we think, whatever anyone else thinks, this is what God thinks, this is what God says. The best we have, what we naturally put our confidence in, God is saying all flesh is grass, grass. You might think that there might have been some kind of recognition for our effort. You might have thought that some of our great achievements might have been compared to great mountains. You might have thought that some of the wisdom that we have contributed would be compared to a great tree that lasts. But how different are our own thoughts? How different are the thoughts of man? Man's thoughts to be but vanity the Lord doth well discern. And you look at the thoughts of man in the world around us. You look at the wisdom of man and you have a Greek philosophers saying thousands of years ago, man is the measure of all things. And people sing about their achievements now. And yes, we very well would decry and speak against some of these songs. But the question is, is there not something in our own selves that finds an echo in some of this music, the wisdom of this world, indeed the folly of this world, Here are some lyrics from today. I'm the man. I wear the crown. Nothing can break me down. Nothing can break me down. Don't need no advice. I got a plan. I know the direction. I know the lay of the land. Or here again, another one. Don't believe in all that you've been told, says the wisdom of this world. The sky's the limit, you can reach your goal. No one knows just what the future holds. There ain't nothing you can't be. There's a whole world at your feet. I said, reach for the stars, climb every mountain higher. No wonder the gospel is such an offense to the natural man. Because this is what God is saying, all flesh is grass. The glory of man fades like a flower. You think of grass, and you see what we are like. This is what the best of us is like. It's like grass. Grass, it's so short-lived. That's surely the idea here. It's here for a moment, then it's cut down, and then it's gone. It doesn't last. It's so weak, it's so feeble, death will find it, it will be cut down. It's so vulnerable too, isn't it? The different ways in which grass can be cut down by the moor, by the blast of the eastern winds in the summer. The flower fades, the grass withers. And so it is with our flesh, the best of it, there comes a time, though it may appear to blossom for a time, we are cut down, we're so vulnerable to death itself. And there comes a time for everyone when no medical skill, when no family love, when no willpower to live will be able to keep us alive. We all die because of sin, because we have sinned against God. For as by one man's sin entered into the world and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men because all have sinned, and so all flesh is grass. It's so short-lived, it's so vulnerable, it's so unreliable. You can't trust in this, you can't put confidence in something like this. Oh, what fools we are. I wear the crown, nothing can break me down. God is saying thou fool, all flesh is grass. And what's true then naturally and physically is certainly true spiritually too. When it comes to thinking about truth. when it comes to thinking about what we're going to believe, when it comes to thinking about morality, what's right and what's wrong, but certainly when it comes to thinking about death and about eternity and about meeting with God, when it comes not to the last day of a year, but to the last day of our lives, to the last day itself, when we meet with God, how true it will appear then, all flesh is grass. How altogether foolish everyone will appear who trusts in themselves and their efforts and their achievements and their reputations. The late minister in Scotland said this on this text. If we have a religion that comes from us, it will perish. We need a religion that comes from God. If we have that which only comes from the flesh, a man-centered, self-dependent religion, however good it seems to us, it will fade and it will perish. It will come to nothing. All man-centered confidence will go with us to the grave. Salvation, deliverance is not going to come from any human effort. from any human resources. We've seen this over the past year in our sermons on justification and others. We must rid ourselves. We must get rid of this. We must let it go. It must go now. Everything that's outside of God. Everything that's outside of Christ. It's sinking sand, it's grass that withers and it's grass that fades and flowers that fade and are cut down. What shall I cry, the prophet says. Cry this, says God, tell them that the flesh, the glory of man is useless and must not be trusted in. All flesh is grass, all the goodliness that offers us the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. But then secondly here, cry this, the word of our God is absolutely reliable and must be trusted. The word of our God is absolutely reliable and must be trusted. If this was all that was said up to this point, it would deliver us perhaps from deluding ourselves into thinking that we can do something, but it wouldn't give us any comfort. It wouldn't fulfill what verse one had said, comfort ye, comfort ye my people. But you see, there's more here to this last voice that you and I are hearing on this last evening of this year. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, verse eight, but the word of our God shall stand forever. So unlike the flesh. So unlike the very best that we can give. Unlike flesh that is short-lived, the Word of our God stands forever. It is eternal. It does not change. We sang of it, thy Word, O Lord, is fixed in the heavens. It is just like its author. From all changes, the psalmist says, thou art free. Thy endless years, they last forever. As with the author, so with his word. It is an eternal word. Unlike the flesh, which is so vulnerable, The Word of God stands. It will stand forever, we're told. It will endures the idea. And you think of all the attacks the Word of God has had since the Word of God was given. People have tried, have tried to shake it, to destroy it, to cover it up, to question it, to challenge it, to distort it, right down to our own day, but it's still here. It has stood every test that it has been exposed to, and every kind of sinner that has come to this Word, and every kind of sinner with every kind of sin that has come and leaned upon this Word, wondering if this Word would take it, the weight of their soul, and has, as it were, added to the weight that is lying upon it. This Word has stood, and yet there is room Unlike the flesh that is so unreliable then, this Word is absolutely reliable. whatever impossibilities, whatever obstacles present themselves to you this evening and they come like great mountains and they speak against you and that's on one side as it were and all the confusion and what this person said and that person said and you're trying to make sense of things and on the other side there is the The bare word of God and these two things as it were seem to compete. Well, let this be your mantra from this point on forward. Let God be true and every man a liar. This word is sure, this word endures, it stands forever. What if God has said it, he will do it. How do you know? How do you know this word is so sure? How do you know this word can be relied upon and is eternal and is reliable? It's because it's the word of, don't you love these two words, our God. Not just the God that would give it enough to say it is absolutely sure and it will stand forever. It's the word of our God. Our covenant God, our covenant Lord. The God who is true, the God who is faithful, the God who is not man that He should lie or the Son of Man that He should change His mind and repent, that's not the God. It's this God who has spoken This God who has not been silent, this God who spoke to Adam after he fell, this God who spoke to Abraham, who spoke to Isaiah, who spoke to John the Baptist, who spoke to the apostles, who has spoken in these last days in his son. This God, this is how we know it's true because it's the word of our God. But you come along and you say, but, How do I know He's my God? How do I know, as we heard last, yesterday, how do I know this promise is for me? I'm not worthy of this word as though worthiness qualified anybody. I don't want to presume on this word when the word tells you it's presumption not to trust. I don't want a false hope very, very well. None of us want a false hope. Let's hear what the Word has to say through Peter. Peter quotes this. First Peter 1, 24 and 25, he says, for all flesh is as grass and the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, the flower falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth forever. And then Peter says this. And this is the Word which by the gospel is preached unto you. This is the Word which by the gospel is preached unto you. It is to you the gospel is being preached. It is to you that God is saying to Isaiah and to all His messengers, cry unto them. And what is it that is being preached unto you? Every word that God has said. What God has said about himself, preach it to them. What God has said about you and who you are and what you are like, preach it to you. What God has said about Christ his son, what God has said about the way of salvation in him, what God has said about his one sacrifice for sins forever, preach it to them, preach it to you. This is the word of the gospel which is preached unto you, the promises which are yea and amen in Christ Jesus, preach it to you, God is saying. What a contrast this is to all that is human, to all that is of the flesh, when we turn away from the thoughts of man. The late pastor said, and the religion of man and the pleasures of man. When we turn away from that, we are entering into a different world. We are leaving the dream world and we are entering into the world of reality. The Word of God is real and it's true how different it is to the way the world thinks. They think that you sitting here on the last night of this year, you are the ones in the dream world, but my friends, you are the ones who are in the real world when you hear the real Word of God spoken to you. There is nothing more real than this. There is nothing more that is false than that which is without God. What is all this saying to you on this last night of this year? It's saying, it's calling, it's crying this to you away from your confidence in your flesh. And here come and trust. In this word, and in this God of this word, it's telling us what Psalm 62 so beautifully says in verse eight. Oh, you people, you dear people here, trust in him at all times. Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. And it goes on and says, God has spoken once, twice, God has said it, Power belongs unto God. Yea, also mercy. Yea, also mercy. Power belongs to God. He's full of power. He's holy. He at one level would seem so unapproachable. How could we come near such a God of such majestic power and holiness? Mercy also belongeth unto thee, O God. He's a God who's full of love and love and kindness and compassion and care to those who put their confidence in him. They find he is so accessible. And you see this, don't you see this gloriously in the person of his son, the word who was made flesh. How near God has come to us in Christ. The one who came to seek and to save that which was lost. The one who came and suffered and died. The high priest, and this is the qualification of the high priest, he must have compassion on those who are ignorant and those who are out of the way. This man receiveth sinners. Oh, do you hear him on this last night of 2018? He's saying the same thing. He hasn't changed. The word hasn't changed. The word that he spoke all these hundreds and thousands of years ago when he walked on this earth, it's the same word that endures to this very evening that he is speaking because he is a living savior and he is speaking it to you now. Do you hear him? He's saying it in his word. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. Come to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. That, my friend, is as sure now as ever it was. What is the voice saying to us in this last night of this year? The flesh is useless and it must not be trusted. The word of our God is absolutely reliable and must be trusted. Oh, what an encouragement for us all. This is why God is telling us this. This is why he's showing us how weak we are so that we would come to an end of our own flesh. This is why he's presenting who he is so that we would come and trust in him alone for salvation. Where is your confidence this evening? Upon what, upon who are you trusting? You're either trusting in the flesh, in something you have, or you're trusting in God. You know, I think it's especially true of you, the father, you. You want to make sure the house is safe before you leave. You go off for work or you go off on a business trip somewhere for a few days and you're leaving your family behind. You want to know that the family is safe and you make every precaution to make sure the family is safe. You do it every night really when you go and check the doors are locked. You want to make sure everything is safe before you leave the day and go into sleep. As 2018 comes to a close, I want to know that you're safe, congregation. I want to know that you're safe for time and for eternity. Oh, there's so much that we're going to carry if the Lord spares us into the new year. We'll have to bring our flesh with us. But there's something you must leave behind, and I urge you to leave it behind. I urge you do not bring it into a new year with you. Leave it behind. Leave all confidence in your own flesh behind. It's grass. God is saying it's going to wither, it's going to be cut down, it's not safe. Leave that behind. But take this into 2019. Take it with you now. And that is confidence, trust in the enduring, faithful, reliable word of our God which stands forever. We've no idea what the future will bring. We've no idea the names that will be on this list if the Lord tarries in a year's time as to birth and as to death. There's so much we don't know. But I am absolutely certain about this and better than that, this is what God is telling us. His word, the word of our God, it will stand forever. It will not change, it is fixed. There are some of you here and you remember old year night sermons from decades ago. Some of you from over half a century ago. Isn't that an amazing thing that now, all these years, all these decades later, so much has changed. The people of then would not recognize the vast majority of us now. The vast majority of us would not recognize them. So much has changed, but not this. This Word has not changed, not a letter of it, not a promise of it. It's still here. It has endured. It has stood. It has been tested in all these years with all these people. The promises are the same. They're still faithful. They're still true. The Savior, He is the same. He is faithful. He is true. The same Jesus as was preached 50 years ago is being preached tonight. He is abiding. It is abiding. And in all these years, you think of all these people who have sat in these pews. And yes, they knew it in their own experience that their own flesh fainted and failed. But so many people have gone from this place into eternity trusting in this same Jesus, and in this same word, and in his blood, and in his promises, and Christ never failed one of them. He never failed one of them. And my dear friend, he will not fail you either. If you come and put your trust, all your hope and all your confidence on him alone and in his enduring word, we fail, we wither, we decay. That's what we do because all flesh is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God, it will stand forever. Sola gratia. Amen.