Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'll be preaching from Isaiah chapter 55 in the
Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah. I've been preaching several messages
through this book, and today I want to talk to you about this
subject, the sure mercies of David. The sure mercies of David,
that comes from Isaiah 55. And the prophet here is prophesying
of the coming of Christ. And what we're going to see is
that the sure mercies of David doesn't refer to King David personally,
and does not refer to an earthly kingdom, but he refers to Christ,
Jesus Christ, who is known as the Son of David, because according
to his humanity, he came through the line of David, made of the
seed of David according to the flesh, as Paul wrote in Romans
1. And David, King David, was a type and a picture of the king
of kings. And so we also learn that it's
not talking about an earthly kingdom, it's talking about a
spiritual kingdom. This is the prophecy. Christ's
kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. He didn't come to set up a kingdom
here on earth. What we see is the manifestation
of His kingdom on earth is His church. The people of God that
are brought under the headship of Christ as they are brought
to believe the gospel of God's grace in Christ. And so this
chapter starts out in Isaiah 51 by showing us the freeness
of salvation. Salvation is totally 100%, can't
emphasize it too much, by God's grace, and it doesn't cost us
anything as far as buying its benefits, its blessings, all
of the graces of the Spirit. Now, you know, people talk about
the cost of discipleship, and what they're talking about there
is the issue of repentance. When a sinner comes to Christ,
that sinner gives up everything that would hinder faith in Christ
and repentance of dead works. But that's not the price of salvation. What Isaiah is talking about
is the price of salvation. And based upon what God's Word
tells us, our salvation, the salvation of sinners, is by free
grace. There's only, and that's redundant
because there's no other kind of grace but free grace. And
what that means is that salvation is conditioned on the Lord Jesus
Christ, the glory of His person, and the power of His finished
work. And we come to God by the Spirit's power, bringing nothing
of ourselves, not our works. You're familiar with Ephesians
chapter two, verses eight and nine, what it talks about. For
by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
So look at what he says here. Verse one of Isaiah 55. He says, ho, everyone that thirsteth. Now this is a call, a command
to the thirsty. And what is he talking about?
He's not talking about physical water. We all get thirsty for
physical water. We drink the water and we get
thirsty again. You remember Christ talked to
the woman at the well in John chapter four about the living
water. And so what he's talking about
here is living water, salvation and all of its benefits and blessings.
In the book of Matthew chapter five, one of the Beatitudes says,
blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for
they'll be filled. Now man by nature has a hunger
and a thirst for religious things, for salvation, for spiritual
things, but it's not for the things of God. The natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. You may be thirsty
for religion. You may want to live forever,
as everybody does. So you become thirsty, and you
try to quench that thirst with the things of the world, the
things of man, like the works of man. Somebody says, well,
I want to live forever, so I'll start working hard to get to
heaven. Well, my friend, you're not going
to make it. Spiritual thirst, if you have it, is not going
to be quenched that way. It takes a work of the Holy Spirit
to make us spiritually thirsty enough so that our spiritual
thirst will never be cleansed except by Christ and God's grace
and the righteousness that Christ brought forth in his obedience
unto death as our surety, substitute, and redeemer. In other words,
how do you know it's a spiritual thirst brought on by the Holy
Spirit? Spirit conviction. If that thirst cannot be quenched
by the works of man, the wills of man, the religion of man,
it can only be quenched by the grace of God in Christ as he's
presented in the gospel. So he says, ho everyone that
thirsteth, come ye to the waters. The waters, the waters of life.
Christ is the water of life. And then he says in verse one,
and he that hath no money. That's us by nature. We have
nothing to buy, with which to buy our salvation in ourselves,
in our persons, in our works, in our value. We don't have,
we're sinners. We fell in Adam into total, into
sin and death and total depravity, total bankruptcy. We don't have
one penny, or as the Bible would say, one farthing to pay God
for our salvation. So this is a call, an invincible
call to the thirsty who have no money, and it said, but now
look what it says. This may seem contradictory to
you, but it's not. It says, come ye, buy, buy, purchase,
and eat. If you're hungry, thirsty, come
ye buy and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk without
money and without price. Now, how is that possible? I'm
thirsty, I'm hungry, and God commands me to come and buy.
Well, what it is, He's teaching some important truths here. Number
one, salvation doesn't cost me anything as far as anything that
I can use to bargain with God. Not even my faith. You know,
people today, they say, well, Christ died for everybody and
put you in a position where you're savable, but now you've got to
buy it with your faith. You've got to believe. Well,
that's not how faith works. Not at all. We don't have faith
to believe. Faith is a gift from God. For
by grace are you saved through faith, not of works, that not
of yourselves, not of works, lest any man should boast. What
it's saying here is this. Salvation doesn't cost us anything,
but it costs God everything. There was a price, but we don't
pay it. Christ did with the price of
his blood, his death. And God gives that to all whom
He has made thirsty and hungry for righteousness. So how do
we come and buy any? We come naked. We come thirsty,
we come hungry, we come bankrupt, pleading the blood of Jesus Christ. Now this was pictured back in
Exodus when the law was given surrounding the tabernacle and
the temple, when the people, when Israel was numbered, they
would bring silver. And that silver was a picture
of the blood of Jesus Christ. So it's nothing that we earn
or merit or buy. It's all of Christ. And that's
what he says. And what do we come and buy?
We buy wine. Now wine is a picture of the joy of salvation that
the Holy Spirit brings us to. It's not to get drunk, but it's
to get filled with the Spirit. And that's a gift from God. And
then milk. Milk, that was the nutrients,
the nutrition of our health. Salvation. So those who are thirsty,
come and come to the waters, but I don't have any money. Well,
Christ provides that for his people. It's free, totally free. And then he says in verse two,
now listen to this. He says, wherefore do you spend
money for that which is not bread? That's a picture of false religion. Men and women trying to save
themselves with their works, their efforts in false religion,
But it's not bread. Christ is the bread of life.
He's the staff of life. He's the giver of life. And if
you're trying to labor, it says, and your labor for that which
satisfies not. He says, hearken diligently unto
me and eat ye that which is good and let your soul delight itself
in fatness. Now fatness in the Bible has
to do with health. Something that is healthy, not
obese or overweight, as we think of it today. But what he's simply
saying here is, why are you trying to save yourselves by your works? Because it won't work. You don't
end up, you're on the broad road that leads to destruction. And
you won't receive life, you won't receive salvation, you won't
be righteous. Paul in Romans chapter nine spoke
of Israel. which sought righteousness by
works of the law. Well, what were they doing? They
were trying to spend money on that which is not bread. They didn't make it because they
didn't seek it by faith, meaning seek it in Christ. Seek ye the
Lord, the scripture says. That's what he says here in verse
six of Isaiah 55. Seek ye the Lord while he may
be found. Call ye upon him while he is
near. See, and He's near when the gospel is preached. The gospel
that sets forth the glorious person of Christ, who Jesus Christ
is. He's God, manifest in the flesh. Can He save me? Can He feed me? Can He quench my thirst? Well,
He's God, manifest in the flesh. He's God and man in one person.
Very God of very God. And all man without sin. When the angel came to Joseph
and told him that Mary was with child by the Holy Spirit, he
says, you shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his
people from their sins. And then later on, he said in
the verse after that, one of the verses after that, he said,
his name shall be called Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God
with us. That's the glory of his person.
Can He accomplish the payment price for my salvation? Well, that's what redemption
is all about. Christ redeemed His people from their sins, and
all whom He redeemed on the cross shall be saved. Mark it down. Mark it down. And if you're one of whom Christ
redeemed, if you don't believe that, sometime between now and
your physical death, you will come to believe it, because God,
Christ said, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and
him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out, John 6,
37. He also said that those who come to me, he said, of all,
this is the Father's will that sent me, that of all which he
hath given me I should lose nothing. but raise it up again at the
last day. He said, they shall all know
me from the least of them to the greatest. So those whom he
calls, and then in verse three, now look at verse three of Isaiah
55. He says, incline your ear, listen
to this now, and come unto me, come unto Christ, and here and
your soul shall live. Now, don't get the cart before
the horse. You don't come to him and then
receive life. You come to him because you've
already seen life. If you're hearing with the hearing
ear, the ear of faith, from life, that's because God has given
you that ear. And he says, and I will make
an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of
David. Now, what are the sure mercies
of David? Well, he mentions an everlasting
covenant. And what he's talking about there
is the covenant of grace made before time between the Father,
the Son, and the Spirit concerning the salvation of those whom he
identifies in the Bible as the elect of God. Now, God chose
a people. The Father chose a people and
gave them to Christ and put all the responsibility of their salvation
on Christ. And Christ was made their surety. All of their sins, all of the
responsibility of their salvation placed squarely upon His shoulders. He bore the burden. He had the
onus upon Him. He had the work to do. And because He was made the surety
of His people, their salvation is a sure thing. And that everlasting
covenant between the Father and the Son and the Spirit cannot
be broken. Now any covenant between God and human beings is broken. The covenant, the old covenant,
the law of Moses, Israel broke it. God divorced Himself from
them. But that covenant was given to
show us the sinfulness of human beings. That if salvation were
conditioned on us in any way, at any stage, to any degree,
we'd be lost forever. It would not be an everlasting
covenant, and it wouldn't be a sure thing. The book of 2 Corinthians,
I believe it is, chapter one and verse 20, if I'm not mistaken,
says that all the promises of God That is, to His chosen people
in Christ are in Him, yea, and in Him, amen. Sure and certain. And when he talks about the sure
mercies of David, you know, in the Old Covenant, back over in
2 Samuel chapter 7, we see where God made a covenant with David. It's called the Royal Covenant.
And it says here in verse 12 of 2 Samuel chapter 7, this is
the royal covenant. Now this covenant is a manifestation
of the greater covenant of grace made before time between the
Father and the Son and the Spirit. And it says in 2 Samuel chapter
7 verse 12, and when thy days be fulfilled, this God speaking
to David, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers. I will set
up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels,
and I will establish his kingdom. Now that's not talking about
David's offspring as far as an earthly kingdom. That's talking
about David's offspring that's fulfilled in the humanity of
Christ. If you think about it, and you
can look at this later, Romans chapter one, where Paul opens
that talking about the gospel of God, that is about this person,
Jesus Christ, who was made of the seed of David according to
the flesh. That speaks of his humanity.
Christ's humanity was born of the lineage of King David, the
tribe of Judah. That was the kingly tribe. That
was established back in Genesis 49, when Jacob, who was known
as Israel then, was blessing his son. And when he came to
Judah, he said, the scepter will not depart from Judah until Shiloh
come. Now it's talking about the kingly
line of Israel that was realized in the line of Judah. the tribe
of Judah. David was born in that kingly
line. And he said the scepter, the
rulership, the kingship over Israel would not depart from
Judah until Shiloh, that's peace, the Messiah came. When Christ
come, that earthly line stopped, never to be brought back up again.
But that's referring to the humanity of Christ. And he says in verse
13 of 2 Samuel 7, he says, he shall build a house for my name
and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. Now David,
that's not referring to the temple, the physical temple. David didn't
build that, Solomon did. But it was through the line of
David that it was built. But that's referring to what the
temple typifies Christ and his church. That's the sure mercies
of David. He says in verse 14, I will be
his father and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I
will chasten him with the rod of men and with the stripes of
the children of men. Now Christ did not commit iniquity,
but all the iniquity, the sin of his people was charged, imputed,
laid on him, and he suffered the chastisement of our peace.
In other words, the punishment that was required to save the
people of God, the elect of God from sin, was put upon Christ. And he drank damnation dry. And
so he says in verse 15, but my mercy shall not depart away from
him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee.
And verse 16, and thine house and thy kingdom shall be established
forever before thee, thy throne shall be established forever. Now that's not talking about
King David's physical throne in Israel. Physical Israel. That's talking about Christ.
And David said essentially the same thing on his own deathbed
over in 2 Samuel chapter 23. This is David on his deathbed.
And he says in verse 5 of 2 Samuel 23, he says, although my house
be not so with God, Yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant,
ordered in all things, and sure. Now if that had been conditioned
on David, it would have been a failure. And he says that,
although my house, my kingdom, my family is in a mess. You know David, the story of
David, his obedience, his psalm writing,
and his sins. And he made a mess of the kingdom.
But this kingdom that he's talking about, this covenant, ordered
in all things and sure, for this is all my salvation and all my
desire, although he make it not to grow. This was David's salvation. And it wasn't based upon David's
obedience or good works. It was based upon the coming
of Christ, who is the sure mercies of David. You see, all the salvation
of all of his people is sure and certain because he fulfilled
all the conditions of that salvation. He brought forth an everlasting
righteousness, Christ did, not David, but he's the son of David. You know, the unbelieving Jews
couldn't understand this. One time the Lord asked them,
he said, what do you think of the Messiah? Who is, what think
ye of Christ, he said, the Messiah? And they said, well, he's David's
son. Well, according to the flesh, he was David's son. But Christ
then followed up with this question. But David called him Lord. Now,
not in the way of just a human being who's Lord of a manor.
But what he's saying here is David called him God. Now, how
could he be both David's offspring, child, and David's God? And they didn't know how to answer
him. Well, I'll tell you how. He's both God and man in one
person. He's David's God, the everlasting
God, the second person of the Trinity, God the Son who had
no beginning and no end, but he's David's offspring according
to the flesh. His sinless humanity came through
the tribe of Judah, the line of David. And he united himself
with that humanity in order to fulfill all the requirements
and conditions and stipulations to save his people from their
sins. He made them sure because he is the sure mercies of David.
He's the surety of the covenant. Well, look back at Isaiah 55.
In verse four, he says, behold, I have given him for a witness
to the people, a leader and commander to the people, Now, this is not
talking about David personally. David's dead by the time Isaiah
was preaching. Isaiah prophesied about 700 years
before Christ. He said in verse five, behold,
thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not. That's talking
about the spiritual nation of Israel, which includes the elect
among the Gentiles. And nations that knew not thee
shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God, and for the
Holy One of Israel, for he hath glorified thee." Again, that's
Christ. The sure mercies of David. The
Lord, our righteousness. That's why Paul said, I'm not
ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God and the
salvation to everyone that believe it, to the Jew first, then the
Greek or the Gentile also, for therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. not the righteousness of the
man, King David, the righteousness of the God-man, Christ, the merit
of his obedience unto death as my surety, my substitute, my
redeemer, my life-giver, my preserver, the one who will lead us into
glory. And he says, from faith to faith, from knowledge revealed
to knowledge received by the power of the Holy Spirit, which
brings us to faith in Christ as it is written, the just shall
live by faith. And so he says in verse six,
listen, seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon
him while he is near. Verse seven, let the wicked forsake
his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return
unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God
for he will abundantly pardon. Salvation, cleansing from sin,
forgiveness, justification, What is it to be justified? It's to
be forgiven of all my sins. It's to be declared righteous
in God's sight. All of that is based upon the
work, the obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
it's in Him, this is the only way that these blessings of eternal
life and glory can be sure. If it were conditioned on you
or me, it would be sure to fail. But my friend, we look to Christ. If we're saved, we look to Him
who is the sure mercies of David. He is my righteousness. It's
by His blood alone that my sins are totally forgiven. All my
sins. Not just some sins. Not just the sins of the past.
A lot of people teach that when you believe, your sins of the
past are forgiven, but then you've got to repent and do all this
stuff to get your sins in the future. No. Christ is my surety,
the same yesterday, today, and forever. And it's all accomplished
in and by Him who is the sure mercies of David. Think about
that. Salvation a sure thing. My surety,
the surety of the covenant, the sure mercies of David. He is
the only one who can make salvation sure for his people. No other
one can do it. You can't do it. I can't do it.
I hope you'll join us next week for another message from God's
Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.TheLetterRofGrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.