Good evening. Alright, we're
going to be in Isaiah 24. Our text is verses 5 through
23. And we saw last week this sober
view of the judgment that the Lord brings upon this earth. And it's described as an emptying
of the earth and the earth being made a waste. And we saw how
that God had foretold of the coming judgment day throughout
history. He sent his prophets throughout
history and the holy apostles as well. And Peter says in 2
Peter 3 verse 2, he reminds us of this, he says that ye may
be mindful. Remember the words which were
spoken before by the holy prophets and of the commandment of us
the apostles of the Lord. and Savior. And then Peter in
that chapter, he warns us to be aware that there's going to
be mockers, scoffers, who will mock God at this idea that God's
going to bring the earth into great judgment and that they'll
mock you who preach it or speak of God destroying the earth,
because they hardly believe much in God, and they certainly don't
believe in the true and living God. And so Peter goes on to
say in 2 Peter 3, 5, he says, For this they willingly are ignorant
of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the
earth standing out of the water and in the water. whereby the
world that then was being overflowed with water perished. It perished. God destroyed it completely except
for those whom he put in the ark which we know pictures the
Lord Jesus Christ. So only that which God put in
the ark was spared and kept alive to repopulate the earth. And
he says, verse 7, that the heavens and the earth, which are now
by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against
the day of judgment and perdition, sin of ungodly men, so that we're
assured that God shall indeed punish his enemies. He's going
to punish sin and wickedness and he's going to restore all
things and put them right as they should be. And that can
be a terrifying thought to us. And I mentioned last week I can't
say that everything in here is only a spiritual word of what's
to come, but there could very well be indeed a physical fulfillment. And it sounds like a very physical
fulfillment of these things. And we've seen throughout history
a physical judgments and it's interesting how we in the flesh,
that terrifies us more than the fact that there's actually a
spiritual deception and a spiritual delusion that's come upon the
earth and men and women except God have mercy and grace on them
are shut up and bound up in a prison of darkness. And that is more
terrifying when you realize when God has revealed himself to you
and you see what you are and you see your need of Christ,
you realize that is a much greater judgment. That's a more fearful
judgment because there's nothing we can do. We're completely dependent
upon the mercy and grace of God in His Son, Jesus Christ. But
thankfully, Paul tells us, But ye, brethren, are not in darkness,
that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the
children of light and the children of the day. We are not of the
night nor of the darkness. So we see that God, our God,
has promised us salvation in His Son, Jesus Christ. He has
delivered His people from that pit of darkness, that prison
of bondage, that sin and wickedness that we all came forth bound
in by nature until God delivered us and put us in Christ and revealed
Himself to us to the faith which He gave to us when He revealed
Jesus Christ to us as our Lord and Savior. Alright, now this
week I want us to notice here how man continues in his effort
to change things, to alter whatever he can, and if you haven't heard
Sunday's message from Romans 1, I highly recommend doing that
because We saw it's a good base, a good foundation for this, how
we saw that man denies God as He is. He refuses to worship
the God of these scriptures here. As God has revealed Himself to
us in Jesus Christ, man refuses and denies that God. but he'll
worship and make and change the God of his imagination and that
God he'll bow down to and worship because really that God is bowing
down and worshiping the man himself and so man makes all these changes
and does all that he does in the hopes to free himself from
God entirely and to take himself out from under the authority
of God our creator, God our maker, God our judge, who has the right
over us and has the authority over us. And we do answer to
him, but man doesn't like that. So man wants to change that.
He wants to go off doing his own thing. Our title is Made
Right by Christ. Made Right by Christ. And first
we'll look at this turning of things upside down, and then
we'll see how that the remnant rejoices, because that is seen
in this passage. You might glance over it, but
we'll see it together that there is sweet gospel here in this
chapter. All right, let's look at verse
1 again. Verse 1, and then we'll move
on to verse 5. So Isaiah 24-1. Behold the Lord
maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside
down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof." And so
we'll be focusing on that back half, the Lord turneth it upside
down and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. And what
that's really saying or what we'll see here is that everything
that should bring man joy and comfort and peace and rejoicing,
is turned bitter, made bitter to him, so that even wine, which
should make the heart happy and rejoicing, it makes the heart
sad. and brings us low and we're weakened
and without joy and sapped of strength and joy and comforts
in this life now because of what we've done, because of the sin
that we as God's creation have gone into, we've gone far away. And man has sought to alter his
relationship with God since the Garden, since the Garden of Edom. And he listened instead to the
servant, to the devil, and he listened to his words and believed
his words. and is still subject to his words
and still listens to what the serpent says rather than listen
to what his faithful God and Creator says and instructs us
to do. It says in Genesis 3, 5, the
serpent speaking, For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof,
then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God's, knowing
good and evil. So that man now does know what
filth and And darkness and vileness his
sin produces. He understands what evil is.
But when it comes to goodness, when it comes to righteousness
and that which is good, he doesn't know how to perform it. He's
so corrupt and so vile and so dark in sin, he doesn't know
how to please God. He doesn't know how to worship
God. And so rather than be humbled
before God, rather than coming to God and confessing his sin
and saying, Lord, I know that you're God and I've listened
to that wicked one and I ought not to have listened to that
wicked one, but how to do that which is right and good before
you, I don't know how. And rather than say that and
ask the Lord for mercy and for his spirit and for his teaching
to hear him, Man seeks instead to change, to change God. And because God's immutable,
he can't change the true and living God and bring God down
to him, so instead he changes the God of his imagination. He
changes and corrupts the image of God and his view of God and
what he believes or understands to be of God. Look there at Isaiah
24, verse 5. The earth also, and tell me if
this doesn't sound like Romans 1, 18-32 like we saw last Sunday. The earth also is defiled under
the inhabitants thereof. Because they have transgressed
the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. And the Lord calls them here
inhabitants. doesn't even necessarily refer
to them as men and women, but inhabitants, occupiers of this
land. And that would fit very well
with what we see today with men and what they're doing, their
pursuits to change themselves and to alter that which God has
made and made that which was good and right before God. And man seeks to change that.
And so he's called inhabitants. And so Adam first did this when
he transgressed God's law and we're told the reason why we're
in darkness, the reason why we do the things that we do is because
death has entered in because of sin. We became sinners and
we died because all are sinners. Paul told us that, he summarized
that in Romans 5 verse 12. He said, wherefore as by one
man, that's Adam, sin entered into the world, and death by
sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. All right, we've all sinned in
Adam. And we come forth of Adam's seed, so we're born of that corrupt
seed. There's no living man in us. There's no new man, no spiritual
man to understand the spiritual things of God and the revelation
of God. We're just dead in trespasses
and sins. And so we died in Adam, and we
come forth bearing and producing more and more fruits of deadness,
just sin and transgression and iniquity, and we're just were
just evil and dead to the things of God. And so we saw that and
you look there at Romans 1 at the end of that chapter you see
how Because man couldn't, fell from God and doesn't know God
and doesn't understand Him and can't attain to Him in his own
works, in his own flesh, he changes God. And so you see, just as
he sought to change God, so he perverted himself. And he changed. Everything about him changed.
And sexually, especially, you see, he changed. You see it first
there in the homosexuality and we see it continuing to march
on into weirder and weirder things where it's just going further
and further away from that which God created. And that man's never
going to escape God. He's God's creation and God will
bring him into judgment for the things which he's trying to do.
And it all started there. in the garden, and we see that
it's that spirit of Antichrist that's always looking to change,
and always looking to bring about change to turn us, to turn the
Lord's people, to turn God's creation from the true living
God to follow Him, to keep following that wicked one. It says in Daniel
chapter 7, Daniel chapter 7 verses 25 and 26, It says, and he shall speak,
this is speaking of Antichrist. And he shall speak great words
against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most
High, and think to change times and laws. And they shall be given
into his hand until a time, and times, and the dividing of time,
which most agree is three and a half, a time being one year,
times being two more years, so that's three, and the dividing
of times, which is a half, so three. Three and a half. But
the judgment shall sit and they shall take away his dominion
to consume and to destroy it unto the end. So you see that
spirit that's in man, always changing, always moving further
away from the Lord, that's the spirit of Antichrist. in him.
He's listening to and following that voice of the evil one because
he's still in darkness and still dead in trespasses and sins until
the true and living God gives faith and reveals himself to
that man, to that faith that he's given and makes himself
known and gives him his spirit and makes him born of incorruptible
seed. It makes him born of Christ,
who is that incorruptible seed. Then that person is delivered
from their darkness, brought into light, and looks to the
Lord Jesus Christ, and seeks to follow Him now, and only Him,
and hears His voice, and follows His voice now, as it says in
the Scriptures. Because this is the heart of
dead man, to follow that wicked one and follow him, our Lord
says, by Isaiah in verse six, Isaiah 24, verse six, therefore
hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are
desolate, therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned and few
men left. Few men left. And it struck me,
Just as you could see a picture in there of the remnant, the
remnant. The Lord always has a remnant,
and there's few men, few that are the lords that he's called
out and separated unto himself. But thankfully, there's always
a remnant. There's always a remnant that the Lord calls to himself.
The rest, they're inhabitants. but the Lord has his men, his
men and women that have not changed and not sought to change the
true and living God but have begged God, Lord have mercy on
me, change me, turn this dark wicked heart from seeking the
things that I seek and to seek and to bow down to you and to
to seek you, to know you Lord, and to follow your words and
what you would have me to do. Then God shows man the vanity. All that man brings forth, all
that he's now doing in his going away from the Lord and what he's
changing, The Lord shows the vanity of it and how it's brought
to nothing and how it doesn't bring him joy but brings him
sorrow and suffering. Look at verses 7-9, Isaiah 24,
7-9. The new wine mourneth. The vine languisheth. All the
merry-hearted do sigh. The mirth of tabrets ceaseth.
The noise of them that rejoice endeth. The joy of the harp ceaseth. They shall not drink wine with
a song. Strong drinks shall be bitter
to them that drink it." And that's because, as the Lord said in
the beginning of the chapter, behold, the Lord turneth it upside
down. and he scattereth abroad the
inhabitants thereof." So that everything that man does is turned
to confusion, right? He listens to the voice of confusion
and that which he produces and does is confusion and you look
at it, right? When you look at it, when someone's
not yelling at you, telling you that you're evil and darkness
because you can see the corruption of what man is doing, but you
just look at it and you can say, how do they not see how what
they're saying is right and light and good and man is not darkness
and confusion? It's utterly confusion. I mean,
to be genderless and let alone homosexual is confusion. It's
just the confusion in men's hearts. But why is man confused? Why is he so confused? Well,
he continues to drink that mixed wine of the whore of Babylon.
And that's what we see in our text in verse 10. Thankfully,
though, it says, the city of confusion is broken down. Every house is shut up that no
man may come in. Alright, so that man by being
utterly confused by the evil one, drinking that wine which
he mixes for the kings of the earth and all those that are
partaking in her trade and her traffic and doing what people
do in this world and trust trusting in the things of this world,
and putting all their hope of happiness and joy in this world,
and the riches of this world, and what this world approves
and says is good and right, that's all confusion. And that's the
horror of Babylon. She's the city of confusion.
And just for time's sake, I won't read all of Revelation 18, but
you could read that and see it speaks of her. But I'll read
one verse, verse 14, where John notes, thinking of how everything's
turned around and brought to... the opposite of what it should
be. It says here, and the fruits that thy soul lusted after are
departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly
are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all. And so we see there how throughout
the scriptures the Lord's showing us this turning upside down of
what man seeks to exalt and lift up in himself and to find his
own joy and gladness in his things apart from the true living God.
Or under the voice of a changed God that he's invented and made
of his own imagination, the Lord turns it all upside down and
he won't bless it. And it's not going to bring joy
and peace and comfort to our hearts. especially if you're
the Lord's, it's a mercy for him to bring you low and to see
the emptiness of those things. And the world says, oh, you're
cursed. Boy, you've got it bad. That's
just terrible. You can't get it together. But
the child God sees, Lord, your hands in it and you're separating
me from the love of this world and bringing me to see how empty
it is and thank you for shutting up my way and walling up my way
so that I was shut up to nothing but Jesus Christ and to find
my all in Him and my peace in Him. That's a mercy. Though this
flesh has hands cut off and eyes plucked out and feet kicked out
and you're you know, ripped up by the thorns and the thistles
of this world, that's not a curse. That's a blessing when you're
shut up to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's something to rejoice
in and to be glad in and thank the Lord for that. And the Lord, what He does is,
in the midst of all that going on and that judgment that's going
on, He's so faithful and merciful to raise up His people, to give
them a voice, to give them an understanding of what he's done
for them, men and women, who then go out and speak of these
things as they have opportunity to speak of them and to support
the gospel and to want to see it go out, you know, to A, feed
themselves and their own brethren, but also for others to hear,
others that are trapped in the pit of darkness and lost and
drinking that wine of confusion and they're brought out and so
The world, though, when they hear it, they think that's confusion. They think that's upside down
and backwards. And that's what they said of
Paul and Silas when they went out preaching. It says in Acts
17, they were crying, saying, These that have turned the world
upside down are come hither also. And so when they heard the light,
when they heard the truth of the gospel, they said, that's
upside down. That's backwards. That's not
right. But it was the truth. And it
did. I mean, I also understand there's a sense in which it just
brought the whole world into utter confusion, because it just
changed everything. Everything that was, you know,
one way, going one way, and tilted towards that which is evil and
darkness, the Lord brought back that which is right and good.
He now sent out that gospel by his servants, not just to the
Jews, but to the Gentile world, that then were heard this truth
for the first time. And they were worshipping many,
many gods and many ideas, many imaginations, many false things
and understandings. And they heard the truth. And
just through the preaching of the gospel, the power of God
was revealed in that they were delivered from that deadness
and darkness. And sometimes when you just read
Acts, you wonder, is that really all that they said? But that
was the meat of it. I mean, Luke was recording the
essence of what they were saying for sure. And it's just amazing
how they heard that. They heard of the resurrection.
of the dead and many wanted to hear more and followed Paul as
a result of him preaching of the resurrection of the dead.
So by the grace of God, men and women are brought to hear it
and they're brought out of, they're delivered from that confusion,
which the Lord says earlier in that chapter in Revelation 18,
come out of her my people, that you be not partakers with her
of her judgments. And so where the Lord says they
shall, or I will, then you know they, we shall. We shall come
out. The Lord brings his people out.
All right now. The wicked, they're gonna face
judgment in their own works. And it says in Isaiah 24, verses
17 through 18, fear in the pit and the snare are upon thee,
O inhabitant of the earth. And it shall come to pass that
he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the
pit. And he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall
be taken in the snare. For the windows from on high
are open and the foundations of the earth. do shake." And
that last phrase there, the windows on high are open, the foundations
do shake, it calls to mind the judgment that the Lord brought
upon the earth the first time with Noah, right? When it says
the same day where all the fountains of the great deep broke up and
the windows of heaven were open, so that you understand that the
judgment, the trouble that's coming upon the earth, or that
has come upon the earth is, you know, there's trouble below,
there's trouble from above, you know, and the Lord does that. He's bringing judgment upon them. And it says, verses 19 through
20, oh, well, just that, you know, Speaking of the pit and
climbing out of the pit and falling into the next one, it just shows
that though a man in deadness and darkness, though he might
escape one lie or one false thing, he's going to fall into another
one. There's going to be no escape. You may avoid this pit or that
pit, but you're going to fall in the pit. Those that are not
the Lord's, those that are not His, will be destroyed in that
way. All right, verses 19 through
20. The earth is utterly broken down,
the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro
like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage. And the
transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall
and not rise. again. And this appears to be
a description of the end, of when Christ returns to the earth. And Paul, when Paul's speaking
of it, and think of the imagery that it's giving you here at
the end of, I'm sorry, in Isaiah 24, but Paul speaks of it as
well, and he's speaking about those that are in darkness, he
equates to being drunken. And those that are in the light
of Christ, he equates or he likens them to being those that are
sober and aware and understanding of what's going on, what the
Lord's doing. I'll read a bit of it. You could turn there as
well in 1 Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians 5 and I'll read
verses 6 through 9. I mean certainly the earth if
he wanted to could cause the earth to shift like that. It could be. But I think what
we're to see here especially is that we're to know the Lord.
We're to seek him because he's the one that sobers us. He's the one that writes us.
He's the one that reveals to us the will of God. Because then
whatever physical thing may or may not happen it doesn't matter
because you're ready to be with the Lord. You're ready to be
with him because you know him. You know him in spirit and in
truth and you worship him. But notice here that Paul speaks
of it in terms of those that are of light and those that are
of the darkness. Those that are sober versus those
that are drunken. Therefore, he says in 1 Thessalonians
5, 6, Therefore let us not sleep as to others, but let us watch
and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in
the night, and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But
let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate
of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope of salvation.
For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation
by our Lord Jesus Christ. And so you see there in Isaiah
24, the real picture to grasp there is that this whole world
is just stumbling around in darkness. They're stumbling around as drunken
people that are off their rocker, not understanding, not willing,
not desiring to hear the truth of God. They don't want to hear
the gospel. They don't want to hear of coming judgment. They
don't want to hear that they're full of darkness and sin, that
they might seek the salvation that God has provided in His
Son. They're contenting themselves to remain drunk in their own
lies and drunk in their own heart's imagination in their darkness.
And that's the problem with man, that he denies God as he is. He refuses to hear the true and
living God. But those that are God's people,
He reveals Himself to them. They are children of light, meaning
that He's revealed Himself to them so that they know Him. All right? And so you might wonder,
well, why is God so patient? Why is He so patient with the
wicked? Why does He not just destroy
this earth and just end it all? Why does it continue to go on?
And we're reminded of what Peter said in 2 Peter 3, 9, that the
Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count
slack slackness, but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any
of us, any of his children, should perish, but that all of us, his
people, should come to repentance." We would all hear that gospel,
and we will, I believe, that all that are his will bear the
fruit which he's determined for them to bear, even if that one
fruit for that last individual is faith, to believe what they've
heard and then the Lord will return. Alright now, let's go
on to the second point which is the remnant rejoices. So go
back there to Isaiah 24 and look at verse 13. Verse 13 says, when
thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people,
when all there is this confusion and darkness, there shall be
as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaming grapes when
the vintage is done. Now, what we're to see here is
that all of us that are the Lord's, we that believe on Him and have
the hope of salvation, We are in Christ. We were in Christ
when He went to the cross and was judged, when He was shook,
and when He was shaken under the wrath of God, and when God
poured out His wrath and righteous judgment upon Him, It's because
Christ was made sin for us, right? For He hath made Him to be sin
for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. So that Christ bore the penalty. Christ paid the debt for our
sin. Christ put away our iniquity. He bore that debt as our surety,
as our substitute, as the Lamb of God, because He is the Lamb
of God, to put away the sin of His people to make us righteous,
so that he bore that judgment. We already were judged in Christ. We already were shaken in Christ. And what comes forth now? Fruit.
Fruit from Christ. Olives and grapes as in the gleaming,
so that while this judgment is going on to the world, we've
already been judged in Christ. And there's fruit coming forth.
The Lord is receiving the fruit that he's purposed and determined
from before the foundation of the world in his people. Alright, these olives and these
grapes because we're made a faithful, I mean a fruitful people by the
faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse 14. Here's
what that faithful work looks like. They shall lift up their
voice, they shall sing for the majesty of the Lord, they shall
cry aloud from the sea, from the sea, so that this people
here, through the midst of this judgment, They're taught the
song of the redeemed. They're taught the song of salvation. They sing of God's grace and
mercy, of his gospel and the Lord Jesus Christ to them. That's
what's coming forth. So in the midst of this darkness
and this judgment that's come upon the world, We're singing. We're singing and confessing
the Lord Jesus Christ and bearing fruit to Him. Hebrews 13, 15. By Christ, therefore, let us
offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is,
the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. And the Lord teaches us that
because he shows us we've got nothing to boast in. It's not
my works. I was of that part, of those
that were in dead works and dead to the things of God until God
delivered me out of it. So it's not my works, but it's
of God's works. And we give him praise and thanks
for what he's done. All right, now verse 15, Isaiah
24, 15. Wherefore glorify ye the Lord
in the fires, even the name of the Lord God of Israel in the
isles of the sea. And I looked at that word fires,
and that's not the typical word that they use for fire, but rather
it's the word for light. for light and it's speaking to
the revelation the light that God gives to his people. It's
the light of the Lord Jesus Christ so that in the midst of the fires
that is we see in the midst of his revelation and his regeneration
by his Holy Spirit giving us life We see Jesus. We see the
Lord Jesus Christ. We behold His glory, His beauty,
His salvation of what He's done for us. And it speaks of the
Isles of the Sea, which is again that gospel going out to the
Gentiles so that not just in Jerusalem, but all the way out
to the Isles of the Sea, this word of the gospel goes out to
the people and they hear it and they lift up that word of rejoicing
and glorifying the Lord for what He's done. Verse 16, From the
uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to
the righteous. But I said, my leanness, my leanness,
woe unto me. The treacherous dealers have
dealt treacherously. Yea, the treacherous dealers
have dealt very treacherously. So the Lord raises up his people
and they go forth with this gospel, declaring and preaching the gospel
through a world that hates the Lord and is rejecting him and
seeking to change the truth of God into a lie. And so through
that persecution and through that opposition, they declare
the truth of God. And our Lord said, you'll be
hated of all men for my name's sake, but there shall not in
hair of your head perish and in your patience possess ye your
souls. And so the Lord says in verses
21 and 22 that he'll arise and he'll judge the wicked. Look,
it says there in verses 21 and 22. And it shall come to pass
in that day that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones
that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
And they shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in
the pit. And they shall be shut up in
the prison, and after many days shall they be visited. You know,
it sounds like those where they're described in, I think it's Matthew
24 and in Revelation, where the kings of the earth cry out for
the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them, as though they're
buried under rocks so that they can't hear, they will not hear,
and they're just set for judgment. Whatever that picture is, they're
set and they're waiting for the day of judgment, when the Lord
will return and judge them and give them their just due because
they wanted to practice their own works, they wanted to be
judged in their own works, they wanted to be judged for what
they think is right and should be done. And the Lord says, all
right, when I return, I'll deal with you. I'll deal with you.
It may be after many days, but he'll deal with them and they'll
be judged in that day. And so, our Lord, though, has been very kind and very gracious
to his people to deliver us from the judgment that's coming upon
the earth. And that's what he's made known
through his scriptures throughout the history that he's revealed
himself to his people And it's through faith. The Lord's always
saved his people through faith, just as he saved faithful Abraham. We made faithful and gave him
that faith, and we too are saved in the same way, through faith.
And He's fixed our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. When He said
to put away the sin of His people, look to Him because this is the
judgment that's coming. And this world is seeking to
change the truth of God. They're seeking to change themselves
that they think for whatever reason that they won't have to
answer to God their Creator. And God, they're judged, but
they will. They will. God promises us. He assures us
that you're not going to change what's coming. Judgment is coming. And God will deal with those
people. But he's been faithful to you
that are his sheep, and to you who have been given an ear to
hear, to know that you have no righteousness of your own. And
you can't keep that law perfectly. before God and and we're to do
what is right and we don't do what is right and we sin all
the time in ways that we understand and ways that we don't understand
and the Lord is very merciful very kind to us very gracious
through the Lord Jesus Christ when you seek him and you seek
to hear his word and to obey him, to love him and to love
one another and pray for one another and pray that he bless
us and help us to hear and to stay looking to him because this
world's under grand illusion and just going further and further
away from the truth so you be thankful and it says There at
the very end, in Isaiah 24, 23, I'm almost done. Then the moon
shall be confounded and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts
shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and before his ancients
gloriously. And this ruling, this reigning,
has already begun. He is the King of Kings. He is
the Lord of Lords. And He rules and reigns even
now. Even now. And you could say,
alright, well maybe that's what is being pictured there. They're
in the pit now. Those that are to be judged and
those that will not hear, They're already in the pit, because judgment's
already been settled. It's done. Everything's been
decided and settled, and we're just bearing that fruit that
the Lord has purposed for us to bear, and we're to be faithful
in that, not fatalistic or throw up our hands in fear or worry,
but trust the Lord. He's done all the works. It's
all done. We see here, I'll just show you
this in closing, Revelation 21-23, speaking of that last verse. And you can see how this is true
even now for us. And the city had no need of the
sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God did
lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." And so we're
thankful that God has made Christ, made us to see the light of Christ,
and that He's our Son, He's our moon, He's the light that we
have, whereby we know the true living God and worship Him in
spirit and in truth, aren't seeking to change God, we're not seeking
to, to change the God that we love and bow before, but we bow
the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ and confess Him now that He is
Lord and Savior and has every right over us, that we're His
people, we're His work and and we're the lords and we're okay
with that and we believe him and trust him in that and so
i encourage you to trust him in that and whatever you see
in terms of judgment just trust the lord because we can see how
that darkness is already here and the people have been going
through judgment for hundreds of years and so the lord's been
pleased to give his light to his sheep to know him by that
that gospel light all right let's pray Our gracious Lord, we thank
You, Father, for the light that we have of Your Son, Jesus Christ,
that He has revealed Himself to us through this Gospel, whereby
we know Him and worship Him and bow down before Him. rejoicing
in bearing the fruit of olives and grapes which you have purposed
through the judgment that is upon this earth even now. Lord,
you're bringing forth that fruit from your people whereby they
glorify and worship you through your Son, Jesus Christ. We thank
you for the Lamb of God. We thank you for His willingness
to shed His blood, to put away our sin forever, and to make
us righteous before our God. Lord, help us to Continue to
rejoice in hearing this word, this gospel word. Indeed, help
us to be fruitful in faith and love and hope in our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ. We pray this and rejoice in his
name. Amen.