May God be pleased to bless us
together this morning as we consider his word and let's turn to the
prophecy of Isaiah chapter 61 and reading the first three verses. The prophecy of Isaiah chapter
61 and reading the first three verses. The spirit of the Lord
God is upon me. Because the Lord hath anointed
me to preach good tidings unto the meek He has sent me to bind
up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the
opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the
acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all that mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn
in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for
mourning, the garment of praise, for the spirit of heaviness,
that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting
of the Lord, that he might be glorified. We should be aware that right
from the early days in the history of the earth, In that time in
the Garden of Eden, there was that glorious prophecy of the
coming of a savior. And how needful that was because
of that terrible day in the history of the world when Adam and Eve
sinned against God and sin entered into the world. You know, there's
that little phrase, in the hymn, O thou hideous monster sin, what
a curse hast thou brought in, and how true it is. We see, don't
we, everything cursed, all because of sin, all because of the deceitful
way that the devil presented his view of things to Eve and
how easily she was taken in My friends, we all suffer today
because of that terrible occasion. But thankful we are that the
Savior came and prophesied even in that Garden of Eden that the
son of the woman should indeed bruise the serpent's head. Hope there was there of mercy. Hope there was there of salvation. So as we read through the Old
Testament, there are numerous references and prophecies with
regards to the coming of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Because without that, without
that prophecy, without that evidence, you see, there would be no hope.
No hope. Just one eternal view of damnation. And so how I'm sure historically
God's people, they clung to various references which were recorded
for their benefit. Of course, we know that it wasn't
until Moses actually wrote the early books in the Bible there
was any written word. Prior to that, all those centuries,
thousands of years really, some two and a half thousand years
from the time when Adam was on the earth until Moses, there
was no written word of God. There was no actual Bible to
read. It was just as the words were passed down from generation
to generation of the truth of God. And then of course, Moses
wrote and the prophets wrote and there were so many words
of encouragement. And here we have in Isaiah, well,
there are many words of encouragement in Isaiah, but we have here in
this 61st chapter, the wonderful prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ. and how it was fulfilled, indeed
all the Word of God is fulfilled. Let us be quite clear about that.
Everything spoken in the Word will be fulfilled, either has
been fulfilled or it will be fulfilled. We have the Bible
that tells us what to expect. And we can expect there will
be an end of all things. We can expect everything here
will be burnt up. We can expect there will be a
new heaven and a new earth. my friends we can expect that
great day of judgment when all of us will come and stand before
that great white throne my friends we can expect all these things
to come to pass because we're able to thank God that those
prophecies which have come to pass came to pass precisely in
the way that they were spoken of and so we have this prophecy
here in the 61st chapter of Isaiah and as we read together the wonderful
account of the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ in that fourth chapter
of Luke how he stood up in the synagogue and he was given this
book to read and he opened it at this very place and he read
this very account and my friends all the eyes of the people in
the synagogue were upon him quite clearly the spirit of God was
there and yet wonderful it was how few there were that believed
there was here a wonderful fulfillment of the word of God which Israel
would have been looking forward to they were looking forward
to the coming of the Messiah. They were hoping for that great
time. And now it had come. And now
the people, for the most part, would not accept it. We may think,
well, how are we today? Well, how are we today? The truth
is that we have the great word of God, don't we? To be able
to read with all its wonderful contents. And yet, How few people
there are that believe the word of God. How many there are who
discount it as nothing other than just a book of fairy tales. Yes, as you well know, we have
a lady who often comes to our market stall and tells us every
time, you don't believe that, it's just a book of fairy tales.
Well we tell her we do believe it, it is indeed the Word of
God, and it is the truth of God. And my friends, this morning
I hope, by God's grace, and it is only by God's grace, that
you and I believe the Bible to be the Word of God. That it's
not just a collection of historical accounts, but it is the Word
of God. It's those things that God breathed
into those men of old, who were inspired by God's Spirit to write
the Word of God. And therefore today, we are wonderfully
blessed with it. And as we have here this morning,
these verses in Isaiah, which were spelt out by the Savior
himself in that fourth chapter of Luke. Now then I should remember
this morning, you see these are very encouraging words, aren't
they? Because they speak of what the Savior will do. and the power
of the Spirit as it's applied to our hearts, to think how needful
it is for every one of us to have such words applied to our
hearts. Let's not just read these and
think, well I don't understand this, this is just too difficult,
well I don't believe it anyway. My friends, tremble before God. You should ever contemplate placing
such words in a context like that. This is the very Word of
God. It's written for our instruction. And it's written for our encouragement. And so here we have these words. The Spirit of the Lord God is
upon me. That was of course, the Spirit
of the Lord was indeed upon the Lord Jesus Christ in a wonderful
way. Because the Lord has anointed
me. Yes, the Holy Spirit anointed
on this son of God to preach good tidings. The gospel is good
tidings. It always has been. My friends,
it will be. And may it be today, good tidings
to our soul and how blessed we are to know that God has ordained
the foolishness of preaching to be the way that the Lord has
purposed to bless souls. Sometimes we tend to ignore the
preaching of the gospel and tend to think, well, it's not of very
much consequence. Well, it is of great consequence
and people despise the preaching of the gospel today. People turn
away from it. People don't want to hear the
preaching of the gospel. How many places of worship today
have the preaching of the gospel? And the preaching of the gospel
is placed in a small context. What's the principal position?
Well, people go day to day to churches to be amused. They don't
really go to hear the word of God spoken to their souls. They go to be amused. But you know, the true church
of God go to hear the preaching of the gospel. And the Apostle
Paul, when he wrote to the Corinthians and he spoke about the preaching
of the gospel, he tells us, for Christ sent me not to baptize,
but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the
cross of Christ should be made of none effect. And that's important,
isn't it? It's not a great amount of clever
words and long words, which we can't understand. You know, if
people preach words you can't understand, you ask them what
they mean. Because my friends, we need to explain words so that
people can understand them. You don't want to preach and
people can't understand. There's no point in preaching. Might
as well sit down. Well, here we have these words
of the Paul, he tells us, for the preaching of the cross. That
means the death of Christ. the preaching of the cross is
to them that perish foolishness but unto us which are saved it
is the power of God well to all of us this morning then we come
into one of those two categories the preaching is either foolishness
or it's the power of God now there would have been perhaps
there still is a time when we think preaching is foolishness
but what a blessing it is when the Lord applies the word with
power just like it was on that day of Pentecost you see the
word came and it was proclaimed with power and it had an effect
upon the people and as the word of God is preached today as the
Holy Spirit comes upon us so there is that power to our souls
what it means is that we know that God has spoken. It's not just then a trivial
word. It's not something of no consequence.
It's something important to us. And so just briefly the Apostle
goes on speaking to these Corinthians and he tells them, it is written,
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing
the understanding of the prudent. So it comes down to the simple
things of God, the great things of God, the truth of God. He
tells us, for after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom
knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. Now my friends, that's the great
blessing of the gospel. The gospel is good news and it
declares to us that the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world
to save sinners. And if the Spirit of God has
come and convinced us of our sin, so that we may feel and
come into the category of some of these explanations here, to
realize then the gospel is preached, the gospel comes to us in a direct
way, to be a blessing to us, to encourage us to give us a
hope in His mercy, the mercy of God. And it's through the
preaching of the gospel. So my friends, never despise
the preaching of the gospel. Pray earnestly that whenever
you hear, whenever you come to hear the word of God preached,
the word of God may enter into your heart, that it may do you
good. And so here we have the expression
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has
anointed me to preach good tidings. And the gospel is good tidings. My friends, may it be good tidings
to you and me this morning. You know, the world today, it's
mostly sad tidings, isn't it? You pick up the newspaper. It's
pretty sad tidings, isn't it? Evil, murder, robbery, immorality. It's all there, isn't it? Sad
tidings. Pick up the Word of God, my friends,
and its good tidings. Well, may it be good tidings
to us today, because the Lord Jesus was wonderfully ordained
to preach good tidings, and as we know, we have the New Testament,
and we have the words there, the physical words that Jesus
spoke. We know in one sense, of course, the Lord spoke all
the Word of God, all the Word of God, but perhaps more particularly,
it's revealed to us in the New Testament, those words of the
Lord Jesus. And he was sent to bind up, to
preach good tidings unto the meek. Now that's a good start,
isn't it? You may say, why is it a good
start? Well, I'll tell you why. Because man is not meek by himself. You and I are very proud beings. To be meek is the work of the
Spirit of God and we're told Moses was a very meek man we
might not think so but he was a very meek man and you think
what opposition Moses had to face when he led those children
of Israel for those 40 years opposition again and again rebellious
people well my friends the blessing then to be brought to a condition
where we are meek. Now, I believe it's like this.
Left to ourselves, you see, we argue with God, as it were. We
think we know best and we can present our case and we can be
quite proud of our lives and what we're doing and we don't
really have very much time for God and we fit God into a little
corner if we can during our day and we think perhaps we've done
our duty and we tick our box and we go on our way. Well, that's
not being very meek, is it? You know, being meek is submitting
ourselves under the mighty hand of God. Being meek is to seek
that His will might be done in our life and to therefore not
come to God and say, well, God, I want this to occur and I pray
for this. I've got this plan and I think
it's a good plan. As I've said so often, my friends, God has
a plan. And it's not your plan, it's
not my plan. God has a plan, and that plan's a good plan.
And God will make you and I work to it. And the blessing is that
God's plans have a good end. Our plans don't. Our plans usually
would end in disaster if we were allowed to carry them out. But
my friends, bless God. He has a perfect plan for you
and me. if we are his children, and therefore in that plan, he
brings us to this position where we are made willing in the day
of his power. You see, to be made meek, to
submit ourselves to God, is not the work of the flesh, it's the
work of the Spirit of God. And what a wonderful truth it is when God works by
his Spirit, in our heart to bring us to a meek condition. Now then, in that condition,
what are we? We are made ready to receive
the good news of the gospel. Because we're not then dictating
to God. We're really found like Mary was. You know the sister
of Martha, Mary. What did she do? What was she
commended for? sitting at the feet of Jesus. Desiring to hear his words, his
direction, his instruction. That's what she wanted, and she
was commended for it. The Lord said, Mary has chosen
that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. Well,
my friends, what a blessing this morning. If you and I have found
today, sitting at Jesus' feet, wanting to hear his voice, waiting
to hear his voice. Well, the good news for you and
me today is the Lord came to preach good tidings unto the
meek. Good news. And that news is just
very brief. The Lord Jesus Christ came into
this world to save sinners. And how did he come? He took
on us our human form. And the Lord Almighty ordained
that He should therefore be a substitute for us. And He should die upon
that cross at Calvary to take away our sins. We could never
free ourselves from our sin. We all have sin, don't we? I
hope you all realize that. I hope everyone here this morning knows
they're a sinner, and bless God if you know you're a great sinner,
and to know that the Lord Jesus Christ came to take away our
sin, and that was taken away when he gave himself, when he
gave his life, when he died upon that cross at Calvary, when he
was able to declare those great words, it is finished. The work
that his father had given him to do, he had completed. And it was a satisfactory completion. It was a full atonement for all
the sins of his people. And my friends, that's the gospel,
to know that the Lord Jesus Christ came in this world to save us.
to deliver us from our sins, to atone for our sins, so that
we may indeed be blessed with that great and glorious gift
of eternal life. Well, that's in a nutshell, the
gospel. My friends this morning, do we
thank God for the preaching of the gospel? Do we thank him that
this word is true? The Lord came to preach good
tidings unto the mink, and let's run on. He has sent me to bind
up the broken-hearted. You may say, well, just explain
that. Well, if you are under the influence
of the Spirit of God and sin has been made sin to you, so
that you can't just brush it off, but that sin is a burden
to you and it bows you down. And it may be that it really
almost breaks your heart. You can't seem to free yourself
from sin. It's there, it's on you, and it grips you. Well,
and you're broken because of it. Yes, you're being brought down. This work of the Spirit of God
does this. It brings us down in our own estimation. So we
find that we're broken hearted before Almighty God. And we understand
then, perhaps what the Lord spoke of that publican, you know, he
couldn't lift up his head or eyes, he was bowed down and he
smote upon his breast. What was he? Broken hearted. What did he cry? God be merciful
to me a sinner. What was the verdict? This man
went down to his house justified. That was the verdict by Almighty
God. The Lord had come to bind up him. To bind up the broken
hearted. Well my friends, have you and
I been broken hearted? Has sin brought us down? Have
we been humbled before it? We realize we're a bad person. We're not a good person. My friends,
by nature, we think we're a good person. You speak to many people
today and ask them, are you a sinner? Well, a little bit, but not as
bad as that person. Now, when the Spirit of God comes and really
looks into our heart, my friends, God's light, it's very powerful
and it shines right deep down. And you won't be able to hide
things there. And you'll realize that God looks right into your
heart and reveals everything. Every single little sin. And
you may feel right broken down and broken hearted. And he says, therefore, the Lord's
come to bind up the broken hearted. What does that mean? To give
you hope in his mercy. Hope in his mercy. As you pray
to him for mercy. Mercy is welcome news, indeed! To whom? To those who guilty
stand. Not those who are justifying
themselves, but those who are guilty as they are in the eye
of God. And again, it doesn't matter
what people think of you. In one sense, it does so far,
but my friends, the great thing is, it's what God thinks of us.
And God looks right into our heart. You can look wonderful
person, can't you, outside My friends, look in the heart. What
have you been thinking of this morning since you got up, I wonder?
All good things? I'm sure not. See, God looks
into our heart. And that's why we become brokenhearted. And that's why we need God to
come and to bind up the brokenhearted and to proclaim liberty to the
captives. Liberty is a lovely word, isn't
it? you know, to have liberty, like we do today in our nation,
don't we? We can walk around and we have
liberty. And, you know, we don't have
to fear that we're going to be put in prison because of our
religion or anything like that. We can walk around in liberty.
What a blessing it is. There are many in the world today
who do not enjoy liberty. But nonetheless, here the word
tells us to proclaim liberty to the captives. now you see
the devil makes you and me a captive a captive because we sin and
you see the devil would keep us there as a captive in his
little prison or his big prison perhaps he would have us in there
and he would keep us captive and he would produce more evidence
and more and more sins so we realize we are more and more
captive and that we have no liberty, no liberty. We are condemned
under the mighty hand of God. We are condemned before God. If we were to stand, as it were,
in court before a judge, and he was to point out the sins
that we'd done, the sins which we were doing, And what would
our response be? Well, you imagine Almighty God
as the judge looking at you as you stand in that court and God
looks at you with his all-piercing eyes and convinces you of your
sin. What would you plead? Guilty. guilty guilty before a holy God and you knew
that the sentence the sentence that you deserved was eternal
damnation eternal punishment because you realized You could
not save yourself. You could not deliver yourself.
You were guilty. You were condemned. You recognized
that before a holy God, how was there to be any liberty? How
were you to be freed? The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth
us from all sin. That's what will bring liberty. Deliverance from the power of
sin. That's the only thing. So how
wonderful to have this proclaimed. To proclaim liberty to the captives. Captive under sin. And have the
Spirit of God apply the blood of Christ to your conscience.
So you're able to tell the devil, I'm washed, I'm clean. For the blood of the lamb, the
glorious freedom, what a glorious liberty. And to proclaim liberty
to the captives. So the devil can't stand, can
he? You know, when the devil tempted the Lord Jesus Christ,
you can read that in the earlier part of the fourth of Luke, how
did the Lord answer? He quoted the scriptures. My
friends, when the devil condemns you, you quote the word of God. You tell him, the Lord Jesus
Christ has died. Yea, he's risen again. He's conquered
sin, death, hell, and the grave. Oh, my friends, what a blessed
and glorious savior we have. And so here we have these words
to proclaim liberty to the captives. And this is the truth of God's
word in John's gospel. If the Son, therefore, shall
make you free, you shall be free indeed. And it comes on to these
words, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.
The devil keeps you bound, keeps you in prison. But you see, when
the Lord comes, and breaks those chains and opens the prison door
and you go out and you're free and there's liberty and it's
why it's all through the work the glorious work of the Lord
Jesus Christ and the opening of the prison to them that are
bound the Lord Jesus tells us I am the way the truth and the
life and He is the door My friends, it's through Him we have life,
eternal life. It's through His great and glorious
work that we have hope of glory at last, the opening of the prison
to them that are bound. You see, the devil cannot keep
you bound. He endeavors to. But my friends,
remember, if the Lord has made you free because of what He's
done, my friends, He's paid the price of your salvation. He's
paid the price of your freedom. The devil cannot disannul that.
Yes, the cost of your freedom was the atonement, the shed blood
of the Savior. That was the cost demanded by
a holy God. You read in Hebrews, without
shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness. There's no remission. But it's through that shed blood
that freedom is brought. Because our sins are washed away. They're taken away. They're forever
gone. And my friend, the devil cannot
bring them back. He'll try to. He'll try to. But you see, he
is a vanquished foe. Our blessed Saviour conquered. The devil was not able to gain
say. the work of the Savior. And so
here we have these great words to proclaim liberty to the captives
and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. Well,
if you're in prison today, my friends, what's the remedy? I'll tell you what the remedy
is. Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for
I am God and there is none else. There's salvation. There's refuge. There's refuge for sinners. The gospel makes known. It is
found in the merits of Jesus alone. To view what He's done, you see. Look unto Him. Look unto the
Saviour, my friends. Don't keep looking at yourself.
You must think lower. Look up. Look to the Saviour. Look at that glorious, wonderful,
finished work. accomplished. It's done, isn't
it? Never weary of looking to the
cross. Never weary of hearing those
words. They were conquering words, weren't
they? It is finished. The work was
done. It was completed. Never needed
to be done again. The Lord Jesus came in this world
for that wonderful occasion to suffer and to die, to shed his
blood that sinners might be eternally redeemed as the apostle Peter
says that we are not redeemed with corruptible things of silver
and gold from our vain conversation received by tradition from our
fathers but by the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb slain
my friends today may we rejoice in the finished work of Christ
There's no other place to glory. No other place to glory. You
know, we come down to the end of this third verse, and we read,
the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. My friends, as God plants his
great grace in our hearts, the wonderful unmerited favor, he
shows us his amazing love in dying upon that cross to redeem
our soul, My friends, what's the result? Surely our concern
is that He might be lifted up and honored and glorified. He
is worthy. He is worthy to receive all honor
and praise from such unworthy sinners. And you'll stand absolutely
amazed at God's love and His God's favor. And you'll understand
what John Newton said, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that
saved a wretch like me I once was lost but now I'm found His
grace has made me free oh you'll praise God for His grace you'll
praise God for His love for His mercy for His goodness towards
you and you'll rejoice indeed in the words that we read here
this morning great words they are wonderful truth and to think
they were prophesied and they came to pass. Oh, bless God for
the fullness of the gospel. Bless God for the certainty of
the gospel. Bless God that Satan cannot gainsay the word of God. The spirit of the Lord God is
upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings
unto the meek. He has sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening
of the present to them that are bound to proclaim the acceptable
year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort
all that mourn." Well, much to comfort us, isn't it? We have
much to mourn over. But what it is to comfort us in the death
of the Savior, to appoint unto Then that morning, Zion, to give
unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the
garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might
be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that
he might be glorified. Amen.