Isaiah chapter 60 Look at verses 1 through 9 Isaiah
60 verse 1 arise Shine for that light is come I and the glory
of the Lord is risen upon thee. For behold, the darkness shall
cover the earth, and gross darkness the people. But the Lord shall
arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And
the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness
of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about
and see, All they gather themselves together, they come to thee.
Thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed
at thy side. Then thou shalt see and flow
together, and thine heart shall fear and be enlarged, because
the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee. The forces
of the Gentiles shall come unto thee. The multitude of camels
shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah All they
from Sheba shall come, they shall bring gold and incense, and they
shall show forth the praises of the Lord. All the flocks of
Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee. The rams of Nebioth
shall minister unto thee. They shall come up with acceptance
on mine altar, and I will glorify the house of my glory. Who are
these that fly as a cloud and as the doves to their windows?
Surely the owls shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish
first, to bring thy sons from far, and their silver and their
gold with them, unto the name of the Lord thy God, and to the
Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee. Let's ask the Lord to meet with
us. Father, we do pray that you would Come by your Holy Spirit
Lord you teach us through the preaching of your word that your
spirit would breathe life into our hearts that we might hear
and see and Rejoice in him who is all and in all In his name
we ask amen Now you'll remember in the in
the previous chapter In chapter 59 of Isaiah, Isaiah wrote of the great darkness
that was upon the nation of Israel as a whole nation. Remember always
that he's speaking of Israel as a nation but also at times
Israel, spiritual Israel within the nation of Israel. And here
in verse 9 of chapter 59, remember this part, look at that with
me again, Isaiah 59, 9. Therefore is judgment far from
us, that is discernment, is far from us, neither does justice
overtake us. We wait for light, but behold
obscurity for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope
for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no
eyes. We stumble at noonday as in the night. We are in desolate
places as dead men and indeed many of the nation of Israel,
most of the nation of Israel as an earthly nation will be
destroyed because of their sin. It was their own sin that had
plunged them into the darkness that we just read about in verses
1 through 8 we saw that such a vivid description We have that
all through scripture, very vivid and detailed descriptions of
our condition before God. You remember those first eight
verses. But at the end of chapter 59,
Isaiah speaks of the Redeemer and the covenant. And remember
that there's no chapter break in the original prophecy. This
is all one big book, Isaiah. The chapters are there just for
reference. So it's important to remember that sometimes because
the context here the next verse after he speaks of redemption
and covenant Arise shine The light has come darkness, but
then Redemption and now light Darkness and blindness and no
eyes, but then God's covenant is preached and now There's a
shining of brightness that can be seen and displayed and gloryed
in. Arise, shine. My grandfather
used to say we'd be at the deer camp you know and it'd be dark
30 and it'd be time to get up it'd be 19 degrees outside and
time to gotta go chase down those poor little deer. Couldn't wait
till the sun come up you gotta get out there before that. Because
if you don't suffer, you're not really a deer hunter, let's face
it. And he would say, rise and shine, rise and shine. I never
had any idea where that came from. But you know it did. It's not just made up, rise and
shine. That's from the word of God. And notice your light has come.
It doesn't come from within. It's called, we're called upon
to shine and it's called our light, your light. But it don't
come from you. It's the glory of the Lord. You
see that there? This is a good place to point
out now that the glory of the Lord, you think about God's glory,
we don't know a whole lot about that. But what we do know, it's
very key and important and vital. The glory of the Lord is not
some aura that surrounds him. It's not even an attribute of
his. Listen to Hebrews 1.1 again. I know you're familiar with this,
but listen. God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners
spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these
last days spoken unto us by his son, whom he hath appointed heir
of all things, by whom also he made the worlds, who his son
being the brightness of his glory. God's glory is somebody. and
the express image of his person and upholding all things by the
word of his power. When he had, when God's glory,
the brightness of God's glory had by himself purged our sins,
he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. That's
what God's glory looks like. It looks like his son purging
our sins with his precious blood and sitting down on the throne.
That's it. We talked about that, I think,
Wednesday night, didn't we? When you see God's glory in the
face of his son, what are you seeing? You're seeing Christ
crucified. God's glory is described as light here in our text. The
glory of the Lord is risen upon thee like the sun, so you can
shine now. Okay, listen to this, Revelation
21, 22. And I saw no temple therein.
This is John given a revelation of what we call glory, heaven. He said, I didn't see any temple
because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of
it. That's where we gather to worship, in him, not in a building
anymore. And the city had no need of the
sun, neither of the moon to shine in it. How come? For the glory
of God did lighten it. What does that look like? The
lamb is the light thereof. Is that plain enough? That's
pretty plain, isn't it? The glory of God lightens that
place. What is the glory of God? It's
the lamb who is the light and glory of God Almighty himself. This is what dispels our darkness. What dispels our darkness is
a who. And he is called our light. The
darkness of our sin, our pride, our way, our rebellion, our self-righteousness
is gone now. As far as God is concerned, it's
gone, and so it's gone. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believe it. There goes the
darkness. You know, that's what darkness is. The law for righteousness
is darkness. That's the darkness that men
are born into and live in until God shines his light upon them.
Only a blind man, groping without eyes, as we read in chapter 59
there, would believe that he could please God by something
he does. That's blindness. By his obedience
to God's law, by his obedience to anything, by his making a
decision and walking down an aisle or anything like that,
if you think God's gonna take that, and accept you on that
basis, you're blind as a bat. He don't care how many aisles
you walk. You've got to be perfect in his sight. The lamb is the light. Light that dispels darkness when
we see Him as our only righteousness before God. And listen, there
ain't no better way to say that. He is our righteousness before
God. Explain that. There's no explaining
to do. Christ is our righteousness. He doesn't just give us righteousness.
He doesn't just make us righteous. He doesn't, he's not the standard
of right. He is my righteousness before
God. And when I see him that way,
I've got eyes now. I'm not groping in the dark anymore. When I see Christ as my sin offering,
God has set him forth to be the propitiation of our sins, our
sin offering. And we have life through faith
in that precious blood. When I see him that way, I'm
not groping in the dark anymore. I've got eyes to see. Remember
what he said to his disciples, blessed are your eyes, for they
see. The only way a human eye is gonna
see is if it's blessed of God. When we stop going about to establish
our own righteousness, then we rise and we shine with His light. Look at verse 19 of our chapter.
We won't look that far tonight, but look ahead a little bit.
Verse 19 of Isaiah 60. The sun shall be no more thy
light by day. Neither for brightness shall
the moon give light unto thee, but the Lord shall be unto thee
an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory." That's Christ. He's the glory. He's the light.
It's a person. And that's important now. We've
got to stop thinking of God's glory as some aura or something
and of sin as some principle. We're talking about people. Me
and Him. I need Him. Don't need to be in a place.
I need him. I Don't need to be in some state of I need him. I just need him And he said your light he shall
be your light Now it's called our light and we ourselves are
called upon to shine, but not because the light comes from
us It's because the light came for us and Think about that for
a second. Why is it called my light? Not
because it came from me, but because he came for me. This
cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you.
It's yours because I shed it for you. Paul called the message
of Christ my gospel, not because it originated with him. He said
in Galatians 1.11, on the contrary, I certify you, brethren, that
the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I
neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation
of Jesus Christ. It was a revelation of him, and
it was his revelation of him to Paul. Now that's the light
Isaiah's writing about. I'm not groping without eyes
anymore. Christ has revealed himself to me and he is my light. He is my glory. He's all I need. We see that every time we open
this book, don't we? The lamb is the light thereof. If you have any, that's who it
is. I believe on him now. That's
why I can shine. He is the author of my faith.
And so I believe. I love him now. And you know
why? Because he first loved me. I want to serve him now. And
it's because by his grace, I reckon that if he died for me, I ought
not henceforth to live unto myself, but unto him, which died for
me and rose again. And I don't live before Him in
order to establish a righteousness before God. By God's grace, before
God, I tell you tonight, I'm not even trying to do that. It would be utter vanity for
me to try to be righteous before God. I want to honor Him. I want to serve Him because I
love Him. I don't need a righteousness.
I have one. It's Christ. I live unto Him, I want to, because
He, simply because He's worthy. And if I do, it is Him that worketh in me
both to will and to do of His good pleasure. So He gets the
glory in all of it, whatever you want to call it, shining,
faith, He's the author of it. Love, love is shiny, isn't it?
He first loved and that's why I love him Ephesians 2 10 we are his workmanship
That's why you shine Rise and shine His glory is shining on
you and in you and We are his workmanship created in Christ
Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we
should walk in them We're not getting any glory There's gonna
be glory, but it ain't gonna be It's not gonna be ours. It's gonna be his and he is our
glory That's what we want You see how it is my light, but it
is him all him and He calls upon us to shine in all of those ways
that I mentioned, faith, love, service, good works. I'm not afraid to talk about
good works. It glorifies Him. He calls us the light of the
world because we shine with His light. He is the light, capital
L, of the world. And we, like the moon, reflect
his light. That doesn't mean that he's the
light for everyone in the world, that he is the light for everybody. Look at verse two of our text, Isaiah 60, verse
two. For behold, the darkness shall
cover the earth, and gross darkness the people. You remember what the Lord Jesus
said? He said, if your light is darkness, how great is that
darkness? That's the gross darkness that
he's talking about, the darkness of religion. People running around
saying, I've seen the light, but your light is a lie. If your
hope is hopeless, how great is that hopelessness? If your sight
is blindness, how blind are you? It's gross darkness, isn't it?
But the Lord, we're the children of wrath even
as others, but God, not but you, but God. But the Lord shall arise upon
you. He's not just gonna arise, He's
gonna arise on you. You see that? He's not just gonna
rise, you know, the world is covered with darkness. Well,
he's gonna rise and give hope to the world. No, he's gonna
rise on you. Not everybody. Whoever he's talking
to here. The spiritual Israel of God.
And his glory shall be seen upon you. He's not gonna rise on the world.
He rises on his elect, his chosen, his loved ones, those which he
gave to Christ before the foundation of the world, those who were
included in that covenant mentioned in verse 21 of chapter 59. Listen
to 1 John 5.19, we know that we are of God. And the whole
world lieth in wickedness. What do you think John's talking
about there? 1 John 5.19, we know By God's grace, because he turned
the light on, we know that we are of God. And the whole world
is not. They lie in wickedness. And we
know this. The Son of God has come and has
given us an understanding. That's why we are of God. And nobody else is, because he
gave us an understanding. He turned the light on for us. And what's the result of that?
That we may know Him that is true. And we are in Him that
is true. Remember what Paul said in another
place? Of God, of Him, are you in Christ
Jesus, who is made unto you wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption? We're in Him that is true. In His Son, even
in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and that's
eternal life. The word darkness in our text,
it's interesting. If you look up the word darkness
there in the Hebrew in Isaiah 60 verse 2, it doesn't just mean
an absence of light. It means destruction, death,
ignorance, and misery. What a word. All of that in that
one word. That's our condition by nature
in our sin. We're vessels of wrath. We're
children of wrath by nature. Now it doesn't mean that God
once looked at us with wrath and then he changed his mind
and now he loves us. But by our nature, by what we
are, the way that we're born into this world, we're children
of his wrath. We deserve his wrath. Destruction death born dead all
of us born dead in trespasses and sin ignorance We don't know
up from down look at this world And look at us without his grace
and misery misery And here's God's promise to his people My
light shall shine upon you. You see that there? My light
shall shine upon you. Not upon the world. Not on mankind. He's not going to shine his light
on everybody to give everybody a chance. He shines on one and
not on another. He said, it's given unto you
to know the mysteries. That darkness is ignorance, right?
It's given unto you to know, to not be ignorant concerning the mysteries of the
kingdom of heaven, but to them it's not given. So, that's so clear here. He's
going to shine on you if you're His. Christ is called in John
chapter one there, the light that lighteth every man that
cometh into the world. I'm sure you remember that in
John chapter one. He's called the light that lighteth
every man that cometh into the world in this sense, that every
man is without excuse before him. There's enough light at least
to honor him in his power and Godhead which are seen in the
things that are created But men will not glorify him Romans chapter
1 But in order for a sinner to
see and himself shine with the light of God, the same God who
commanded the light in the beginning to shine out of darkness must
shine in our hearts. He's got to shine in that sinner's
heart. He does not do that for every man. When he does that,
he gives the light of the knowledge. That's what we're seeing now.
Physical light pictures spiritual light, which is knowledge of
God. This is life eternal, John chapter
17, verses one through three. That they might know thee, the
only true God in Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. That's eternal
life. To know him, that's spiritual life, the light of the knowledge
of his glory in the face of Jesus Christ, second Corinthians four,
six. Now look at the last part of
verse two back in our text. And his glory shall be seen upon
you. We are a new creation in Christ
Jesus, created in righteousness and true holiness. Now you're
not gonna look in the mirror and see that. And don't ever
look to yourself for any hope, for any encouragement even. You're
not gonna find it. But his glory shall be seen upon
you. Not in you being holier than
everybody else and things like that, but as a vessel of his
mercy. It's really just the opposite.
It's God saved you, he must really be gracious. His forgiveness, boy, is deep,
isn't it? If he had mercy on a worm like
you, that's what you say when you look at me. An old preacher said, if you come
to know the Lord Jesus Christ, it'll get out on you. In other
words, everybody is going to know about it. It will get out
on you. It will. That's the truth. And
this goes back to that word shine in verse one. His glory will
be seen on you, upon you. That's why we're able to shine.
We shine by proclaiming his glory. You remember what he said there?
I believe it's Ezekiel 16. That dead baby laying in the
field. He said your time was the time of love. and I clothed
you and I decked you with jewels and I hung gems around your neck
and you were beautiful through my comeliness. You shone because
his glory was on you. We shine by proclaiming his glory. We shine also as monuments to
his grace and power. Think about these verses in talking
about that. His glory shall be upon you.
Listen to what the Lord said in Matthew 9 20. It says there, and behold a woman. Now this is a book written by
God. Through the instrumentation, the Holy Spirit inspired men
to write this book. It's the word of God Almighty.
He said, behold, a woman, look at her, look at this woman, which
was diseased with an issue of blood 12 years and came behind
him and touched the hem of his garment. And you remember what
she was saying. She said, if I could just touch
the hem of his garment, I'd be made whole. That's how glorious
he is. That's how powerful he is. in
his saving power. And she did and she was. Listen
to Matthew 15, 22. And behold, a woman of Canaan. Behold a woman. Behold her, look
at her. She came out of the same coast
and cried unto him, saying, have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son
of David. My daughter is grievously vexed
with the devil. And you remember the Lord didn't
even answer her. and she kept crying she kept
crying have mercy on me and he said it wouldn't be right for
me to take the children's bread and give it to a dog and she
said truth Lord but even the dogs eat the crumbs which fall
from the master's table in Luke 7 37 it says this and
behold a woman in the city which was a sinner when she knew that Jesus sat
at meet in the Pharisee's house brought an alabaster box of ointment. Three times behold a woman. Why
are we called upon to look at these women? Shouldn't we be
looking at Christ? Well, in beholding them you're
going to see his glory. That's what our text is talking
about. Behold these monuments, these
These trophies of His mercy. He said to that woman of Canaan
there in Matthew 15, O woman, great is thy faith. Great is
thy faith. He called attention to her faith
because her faith exalted Him. It trusted Him. It looked to
Him. It honored Him. Lord, I'm your dog. Everything
you say is the truth. I don't deserve a crumb from
you. But sometimes dogs get crumbs. from their master's table. Christ is the author and the
finisher and the object of her faith and ours if we have any
from God. And so to look at the trophies
of His grace is to see His glory. For Christ to be our light, He
had to take all of my darkness. For me to be healed, He had to
take my disease within himself. He bore all of our sin, our destruction,
our misery, our death, all of those things that define the
darkness of our text. And remember what happened when
he hung on the cross? Darkness fell upon the land to
signify the great darkness that he suffered for us On Calvary
and now because he died and is risen again for us. We shine
for his glory. We just do That's to his praise
not ours Turn with me to Matthew 5 14. I want you to see this Matthew 5 14 I want you to see
one little word in this of course in the context of all of it and Matthew 5 14 You are the light of the world
a City that is set on a hill cannot be hidden Neither do men
light a candle now. He's talking about the church
there the city set on a hill. That's the church And you can't
hide the light There's gonna be a many that don't see it that
aren't interested in it. I But he set his church up on
a hill, didn't he? Paul said these things weren't
done in a corner. You may not be interested, but it ain't hid.
If it's hidden from you, it's because the God of this world
has blinded you. You're walking around popping
off about a free will and Satan is controlling you like a puppet. That's why you don't see the
light. But it's sitting on a hill, isn't it? His church, and not
only that, but each candle, This is every believer, neither do
men light a candle, one candle, and put it under a bushel, but
on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the
house." He said, you are that light. Let your light so shine. I wanted you to turn here. You
could quote this scripture without us even looking over there. But
I wanted you to concentrate on that one word, so. Let your light
so shine. Let it shine this way, in other
words. Let it shine like this, that
they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which
is in heaven. So shine. So that when people see what
you do, your good works, they glorify
God and not you. So shine like that. If God is
not glorified, then you're still in the dark. But if we shine
by his grace for his glory, then the result of that is back
in our text verse three in isaiah sixty verse three and the gentiles
shall come to thy light you see that? godless dogs that's what
the gentiles are in the scripture now godless dogs will see the light and they'll
come that's how God saves sinners They pleased him by the foolishness
of preaching, his church, his candles, to save them that believe. They'll come to the light and
the kings to the brightness of thy rising. The Lord Jesus said,
if I be lifted up, if your light so shines that he's glorified,
The father is glorified in the exaltation of his son. He said,
if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me, people from
every kindred, tribe, and tongue under heaven. And this is how
the Lord saves his people, by shining through a man, a preacher,
a witness, his church, his people. God's not going to give anybody
a direct revelation of Him. You're not going to see a light
from heaven shining on you like Saul of Tarsus did. It's not
going to happen. It's going to happen like that. The Gentiles here represent all
who are yet in darkness. Listen to this. This is talking
about the Gentiles here in Matthew 4.12. It says, When Jesus had
heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee,
and leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which
is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim.
that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet,
saying, the land of Zabulon and the land of Nephilim, by the
way of the sea beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the
people which sat in darkness saw great light. And to them
which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. You see, this is not physical
darkness. This is the shadow of death,
spiritual death. And spiritual light shines unto
those that sit in that great, they which sat in darkness saw
a great light. In verse four, and back in our
text, it brings it a little closer to home. The Gentiles are gonna
come to the light, and I'm so glad. But you know what blesses
my heart? Verse four, your sons and your
daughters are gonna come. Now this is speaking of the church,
all our sons and daughters of the church, of God in the church. But bless God, some of them are
our sons and daughters too, aren't they? May the light of God shine upon
all of our children and our grandchildren. So shine, that's how he'll do
it. Now so shine that his glory is seen, not ours, we don't have
any. By what I'm doing right now,
and as I've said to you so many times, this is all of us doing
it. This is all of us having a part in the shining forth of
the gospel light in this place. And that's how you sons and daughters
are gonna be saved, according to God. Verses five through nine,
let's look at them together. Then thou shalt see and flow
together And think about this now. It's talking about people
flocking to the church from all over, from all over the place. And that's true, not just here,
but all the church, the true church, everywhere where the
gospel is preached and where God's people gather and worship
him and honor Christ. But notice there's a flowing,
there's a coming to that he's continuing to talk about. But
also notice the richness of the language, the abundance. that's expressed in this. Then
thou shalt see and flow together and thine heart shall fear and
be enlarged because of the abundance of the sea shall be converted
unto thee. Often the sea, it's talking about
the sea, it's talking about people. And I believe it is here, the
forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee, the multitude
of camels shall cover thee, and the dromedaries of Midian and
Ephah, all they from Sheba shall come, they shall bring gold and
incense. When our Savior was born into
this world, they brought gold and incense and myrrh, gold and
frankincense. And they shall show forth the
praises of the Lord. And they said, that's what they
did, they praised God. All the flocks of Kedar shall
be gathered together unto thee. The rams of Nebioth shall minister
unto thee. They shall come up with acceptance
on mine altar, and I will glorify the house of my glory. Who are these that fly as a cloud
and as the doves to their windows? You see again, here they come,
here they come. They come this is the way God has ordained it
that his son shall have glory in this world the lights gonna
shine forth And people are gonna see it and come to the light
and when the last one comes to the light Then the only light
after that is this world burning up here anyway Because we'll
be in that place where the lamb is the light So you see there
all of the language talking about his church and coming to his
church, to his gospel, to his worship. And it speaks of the
opulence, the great wealth of his church. Not in physical earthly
things, the camels, the gold, the incense. This is a picture
of a wonderful spiritual truth. We're rich here. Think about
this. What a place. We live in a world
with no water. But we can come here and drink,
can't we? We live in a land of no pasture.
That's where Mephibosheth lived in Lodibar, a place of no pasture.
But then he wound up sitting at the king's table. Does that
sound familiar? That's me. No pasture in this world, and
yet he maketh me to lie down in green pastures. That's his
church. Rich in every way that matters. We live in a world where there's
no peace, but we come here and we can rest, can't we? Isn't
that wonderful? You know, there's a physical aspect to that. Not
just rest in the body, but rest in your soul and your spirit.
Isn't it good to come out of the madness for a little while
and think on things above where Christ sits at the right hand
of the Father? That's the way Paul put it. Think
on things above where Christ is. And that's what we do here. I
can rest. Can you put a price on that? David said Mount Zion, the church,
is beautiful for situation. The city of the great king. Listen to that with me in Psalm
48.1 where he said that. I want to read some of the context
of that and think about this church. Think about God's church
in this world. Great is the Lord, and greatly
to be praised in the city of our God. Where is that? Where's the city of God in this
earth? Well, the citizens of God meet
together in one place. It's His church wherever they
are. In the mountain of His holiness, beautiful for situation, the
joy of the whole earth. There's not anywhere on this
earth where there's really any joy and happiness except in his
church now. And his church, remember, is
people, not a building. It's not this building, it's
his people. The joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion. On the sides
of the north, the city of the great king. And the next verse
says this, God is known in her palaces for a refuge. Yes, he is. Yes he is indeed. Two final thoughts from verse
8 of our text and verse 9. Who are these that fly as a cloud
and as the doves to their windows? Well there's another place in
the scripture where a dove flew to a window. Do you remember
that? They fly as a cloud because there's
a bunch of them. You looking around saying, well,
Chris, it don't look like a bunch. It's a multitude, John said,
that can't be numbered. 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands
of thousands, a multitude which no man can number, singing the
praises of the Lamb. And here's a handful of us right
here. They fly as a cloud. A multitude which no man can
number, and they fly as a cloud. How does a cloud fly? Wherever
the wind takes it. That's where we want to go. The
spirit bloweth where it listeth. You can hear the sound thereof,
but you can't tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. So
it is with everyone that's born of his spirit. We move like a
cloud, don't we? and were doves at the window.
Think about this with me for a second, we're almost through.
When Noah was in the ark, in order to see, you know the ark
sat on the top of a mountain and they were waiting for the
waters to recede so they could leave the ark. In order to see
if God's wrath had passed, Noah sent out a raven and a dove out
of the window of the ark. The ark just had one window.
He sent a raven and a dove and the raven never came back. It's
not hard to figure out why. Ravens eat dead things and he
had plenty to eat. He had a place to land and rest
and eat and be fulfilled in the world of God's wrath. And he never came back, even though the floodwaters had
not receded. He was able to feed upon the
death that floated on the waters. But the dove flew back to the
window, and Noah brought it back into the ark. Why did the dove
come back? Simply because the dove had nowhere else to go but
to the ark. It could not rest nor feed upon
the death of this world. The only place that it could
live and be safe and happy was the
ark. And so it flew to the window,
and so do we, by God's grace. And the final thought is in verse
9, and it just simply says there, all of this is for His glory. You see those words, unto the
name of the Lord thy God. It's all unto His name. Everything. Everything Christ
does, everything we do as His people, it's all for His glory
now. Even the judgment of the damned
is going to be unto His name. It's all unto His name. He's
making a name for Himself. in this world and it's his doing. Look at the word because at the
very end. Our part in all of this is because
of what he did for us. David wrote in Psalm 118.21,
I will praise you. For thou hast heard me, and art
become my salvation. The stone which the builders
rejected has become the headstone of the corner. This is the Lord's
doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Let's pray.