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 the book of Isaiah. I've
been preaching several messages just as a sort of a survey of
the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament. And I'll be preaching
from Isaiah 52. And the title of the message
is The Heavenly Jerusalem. the heavenly Jerusalem, and I
want you to follow along on this, and I hope it's a subject that
you're really interested in, because it is very important
for our understanding, both of the Old Testament and the New
Testament, and it's important for our understanding of the
future, when we consider the second coming of Christ. But
as you know, in the Bible, when it's in the Old Testament historical
books, we talk about the city of Jerusalem, the physical city
of Jerusalem, which originally was the capital city of the state
of Israel as it began. And it was called the city of
David because that's where David established his kingdom, the
seat of his kingdom. And that's where the temple was
built. And that's where the people of Jerusalem were to go to worship.
Now, you know, after Solomon died, David's son Solomon died,
the kingdom was divided into two kingdoms. You had the northern
kingdom, which in the Bible remained to be called Israel. And it consisted of 10 tribes,
10 of the 12, or some people say the 13 tribes, because after
the tribe of Joseph was divided into two tribes, his sons, Manasseh
and Ephraim. But anyway, there were 10 tribes
in the Northern Kingdom, and it established its capital as
Samaria. And so then they had a temple
built there. You might recall in John chapter
four where the woman of Samaria that Christ confronted, she said,
we worship in this temple, you worship in Jerusalem. And they
had a temple. There was a false temple. And
of course, all the kings of the Northern Kingdom were evil kings.
It was never said of any king of the Northern Kingdom that
he did that which was right. in the sight of the Lord. Now
the southern kingdom was made up of two tribes mainly Judah
and then Benjamin and the kingdom was called Judah and the capital
remained to be Jerusalem and Judah is the tribe from which
we derive the term Jew. A Jew was really one who came
from the tribe of Judah. It wasn't just a general Israelite
to start off with. It was one who came from the
tribe of Judah. And Judah was the kingly tribe, the royal tribe,
through whom the kings of Israel, the kings of Judah, were to come.
And it was the tribe, the earthly tribe, from which the humanity
of Christ was created and born. Born of Mary, who both Joseph
and Mary were of the tribe of Judah. And of course, Christ
was born as a virgin birth, and he was born of Mary, but he was
made of the seed of David, according to the flesh, and that's the
kingly tribe. So, Jerusalem. Now, in the Bible,
we see a transition from where the old covenant law of Moses
ended, and that was at the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, Because
you remember when Christ spoke those words, it is finished and
he gave up the ghost and the veil and the temple was torn
in two from top to bottom, indicating that was a sign from heaven that
the Old Covenant was over. And the new covenant was about
to begin, the new covenant church, the new covenant testimony and
witness. And that new covenant is the
fulfillment in time of the everlasting covenant of grace made before
time. The Bible talks about an eternal, everlasting covenant
that never changed. That's the gospel, that's the
salvation covenant in which God the Father chose the Son, God
the Son, it's the Trinity now, and placed all of the conditions
of the salvation of His chosen people upon Christ. Well, Christ
was made the surety of the covenant. He was made the substitute. He
had to be the substitute. And in order to substitute himself
in the place of his people and perform the work of a surety,
which is paying their sin debt, which was imputed to him, he
was made sin, he had to come to earth and he had to unite
with sinless humanity and obey the law. The Bible says in Galatians
4 and verse 4 that he was made of a woman in the fullness of
the time God sent forth his son made of a woman made under the
law to redeem them that were under the law. And so we see
that covenant. Well that establishment in time
of the terms and conditions of the everlasting covenant made
before time that establishment in time is the new covenant.
And Christ ushered that in with His death, His burial, His resurrection,
and His ascension. And it was inaugurated, you might
say, at Pentecost when Peter and the other disciples preached
the gospel. And you see the fulfillment of
the prophecy of the prophet Joel, where the Holy Spirit descended
in a special way. And that began the New Covenant,
the New Testament ministry. Well, in that transition, That
was where God, the state of Israel had already been virtually abolished
because back a hundred, or I'd say about a hundred years before
Christ came into the world, or you might say it might be a little
bit less than that, but anyway, it was about, Well, it was actually
490 years from the time that Israel went back to Babylon,
or back to Jerusalem from Babylon. But even before that, the state
of Israel was under a foreign government. And when Christ came,
they were under the Roman government. And so that was the end of it.
Well, Israel, Jerusalem, the temple, all of that physical
stuff under the Old Covenant were types and pictures of heavenly
things, spiritual things, eternal things. For example, the state
of Israel, they were typical of God's elect out of every tribe,
kindred, tongue, and nation chosen before the foundation of the
world whose names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life. And
you can't make all the things that Israel did fit with that
type because most of Israel were unbelievers. But under the New
Covenant, you wouldn't find any unbelievers in the kingdom of
God. Jeremiah spoke of that. He said,
they shall all know me from the least to the greatest. And God
said, I'll give them a new heart and give them faith to believe.
And then the temple, that was typical of Christ and His church. So we're not looking for a physical
temple today. The temple today is Christ and
His church. Christ tabernacled. among his
people, John 1.14. He dwelt among us. That's tabernacle.
And God says, you are the temple, that is the church, believers
who know the gospel. And then that type has been fulfilled
in Christ and the church. And then Jerusalem physical Jerusalem
was typical of the heavenly city. And of course, we see that. Before I get into chapter 52
of Isaiah, let me just read you this. This is verse 22 of Hebrews
chapter 12. Verse 22. And what the writer says here,
but you are come unto Mount Zion. Now, Zion or Zion, the same thing. That was a hill outside of, in
Jerusalem, where David built a house. And it's typical of
the church. And he says, and unto the city
of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable
company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn,
the firstborn being Christ, his church, which are written in
heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of
just men, righteous men, made perfect, that's the justified
sinners who are in heaven now, because they're without sin,
and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, the New Testament,
and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than
that of Abel." Speaking of Abel's lamb. In other words, we don't
have the blood of animals now to worship God. We have Christ,
the Lamb of God. The blood of animals only typified
Christ, the Lamb of God. So the heavenly Jerusalem. The
book of Revelation speaks of the heavenly Jerusalem. Jerusalem,
which is above. Paul made a distinction in Galatians
4 between Jerusalem which is above and Jerusalem below. And
he said Jerusalem which is below is in a bad way, lost in their
sins, but Jerusalem which is above, the heavenly Jerusalem,
populated by true believers, sinners saved by grace. Now if
you go back to Isaiah 52, Isaiah is going to be talking about
Jerusalem here, but what he's actually talking about is not
the physical city of Jerusalem, but a heavenly Jerusalem, a better
Jerusalem, an eternal Jerusalem. And of course you know the name
Jerusalem, it means city of peace, and that's what God's kingdom
is. It's peace between God and sinners based upon the blood
of Jesus Christ. And so he says, look at Isaiah
52 verse one, he says, awake, awake, put on thy strength, O
Zion. Now Zion, again, spiritually
speaking, is speaking of the church, the place where God dwells. And he says, put on thy beautiful
garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city. For henceforth there shall
no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Now all of these
things have a spiritual application that is intricately woven in
the prophecy of Isaiah. For example, put on thy beautiful
garments. He's not talking about physical
clothing here. He's talking about righteousness.
the righteousness of Christ, which in the Bible, metaphorically,
is called a garment. And it's not a garment because
we wear it on the outside or anything like that. And I've
heard false preachers speak against righteousness imputed, because
they think, well, that means you have a righteousness on the
outside, but you don't have anything on the inside, and that's not
true. Now, we don't have a righteousness
on the inside, but we do have the Spirit of God, if we're believers
now, if we're born again, we have the Spirit of God, we have
a new heart, new life, new knowledge, faith, all of that. But that's
not our righteousness before God. The believer's righteousness
is the merit of Christ's obedience unto death as my surety, my substitute,
and my redeemer. It's his righteousness imputed,
charged to me. We read about that in the book
of Romans in several places. Romans 4, for example, in verse
6, where Paul is quoting King David from Psalm 32, speaking
of the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness
without works. And, of course, he's speaking
of a righteousness that Christ alone worked out in His obedience
unto death for His people And God has laid that righteousness
to their charge, to their account. And I often use a banking analogy
to explain that. It's kind of like if you were
in debt, and you didn't have one penny to pay off that debt,
and you went to the bank to throw yourself at their mercy, And
then they opened up the books to see your name and see your
account. And they look on there and they say, wait a minute,
somebody has paid your account. You don't owe a thing. Well,
that's what Christ did for his people on the cross. He paid
my debt in full. Have you ever sang that hymn?
Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. Some of them sing it this
way. Jesus paid it all, all the debt I owe. Sin had left a crimson
stain. He washed it white as snow. When
we talk about sin being purged, when we talk about sin being
washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ, What can wash away my
sins? Nothing but the blood. What we're
talking about is that Christ, having the sin debt of his people
charged to his account, The Bible puts it this way, he was made
sin, 2 Corinthians 5.21, our sin debt charged to his account.
Not everybody's now. Not all without exception. It's
only those who are brought to faith in Christ. But their sin
debt was charged to him and he went to the, he kept the law
perfectly and went to the cross and died for those sins, paying
the full redemption price. You see that? Now that's what
happened. And then, if you're sitting there
at the bank and you just find out that your debt has been paid
in full, you don't owe a dime. Boy, what joy would that bring
to your mind and your heart. But before you leave, the banker
has some more news for you. I've just told you half the story.
Like old Paul Harvey, here's the rest of the story. Listen
to this. Not only was your debt fully paid by someone who was
able and willing to do it, You have a million dollars put to
your account in the positive. They've given you this. And that's
what we talk about. That's what Christ did in His
righteousness imputed to us. My sins were imputed to Him,
charged to Him. His righteousness is charged
to my account. So that when God looks upon the
account books at judgment, what does He see for me as a believer
in Christ, a sinner saved by grace? He sees righteousness. imputed to me by his son. Now that's not the only thing
that salvation, that's the ground of salvation. It's the ground
of justification. But now salvation doesn't stop
there. For those that he has died, Christ
died for them and paid their debt, to whom he has imputed
righteousness, he also gives them life from the dead in the
new birth. They shall be born again, and
they shall be given the gift of faith, and repentance, and
perseverance, the gifts of God, spiritual blessings. That's what's
happened to them. And when we look at this passage
in Isaiah 52, it says here, verse one, awake, awake, put on thy
strength, O Zion. Well, what is this being awake?
Well, by nature, we're spiritually dead. We're in the sleep of death,
spiritually. And we have to be awakened, we
have to be raised from the dead. Well, that's what God does when
he sends the spirit in the new birth. to give life under the
preaching of the gospel. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. Paul said, Romans 116, I'm not
ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth, the Jew first, the Greek also. For
therein is the righteousness of God revealed. What is that?
That's the righteousness of Christ. From faith to faith, from knowledge
revealed to knowledge received and believed, And he says, it
is written, the just, the justified shall live by faith. So wake
up. This is the call of the gospel,
and it's an invincible call. If this call comes to you, you
will never turn it down. Because it's the product of the
invincible calling power, convincing power of God the Holy Spirit. And you cannot ignore it, you
cannot deny it, and you cannot leave it. That's the truth. So he says, awake, awake. And
then he says, put on thy strength. How do I put on my strength?
Well, who is my strength? Christ is my strength. I'm not
my own strength. I have no strength. Paul said,
when I'm weak, I'm strong. Why is that? Because when God
brings me down from my self-righteousness and my self-ego, and makes me
weak, shows me my sin and my depravity, that's when I cling
to Christ, who's my strength. Christ is my stronghold. Christ
is the power of God, the wisdom of God, all of that. So when
you put on strength, you cling to Christ, you believe in Him,
you look to Him, you rest in Him. And then it says, put on
thy beautiful garments. Look to Christ for righteousness.
Rest in Christ for righteousness. That's what's putting on. Put
on the Lord Jesus, the scripture says. Putting on Christ. What does that mean? Does that
mean I put him on like a coat? No, it means I believe in him.
I submit to his righteousness as my only ground of salvation.
For Christ, Romans 10, four, for Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believe. And he says, oh,
Jerusalem, the holy city. Now, physical Jerusalem didn't
do this. Somebody says, well, they may
do it in the future. Well, God has a people among all nations,
Jew and Gentile. And at some appointed time, when
God brings them under the gospel, they will wake up, they'll be
raised from the dead, they'll be born again by the Spirit,
they'll be given new hearts and new minds, they will cling to
Christ, they will believe in Him. And the Bible says it's
only a remnant according to the election of grace. And he says,
for henceforth, from this time forward, There shall no more
come into thee uncircumcised and unclean. Well, what is it
uncircumcised? Well, you know, that's what the
Jews called the Gentiles. But uncircumcision basically
was a type of an unregenerate person. one who didn't know the
Lord, who was not born again. Paul dealt with that in Romans
chapter two in verse 28 when he said that circumcision, he
is not a Jew which is one outwardly, physically, but he is a Jew which
is one inwardly, and circumcision is not of the flesh but of the
heart. That's talking about the new birth. In other words, in
this holy city of Jerusalem, this heavenly city, This kingdom
of God, kingdom of salvation, the church, no one's coming in
who is uncircumcised and who is unclean, who is not born again
and who has not been washed clean by the blood of Christ. But everybody,
everybody who has been regenerated and converted, born again and
washed clean by the blood of Christ, all for whom he died,
they're coming in. And how are they gonna come in?
They're gonna put on Christ. They're gonna put on that garment.
They're gonna realize that Christ is their only righteousness.
Well, look at verse two. He says, in Isaiah 52, he says,
shake thyself from the dust, arise and sit down, O Jerusalem. Loose thyself from the bands
of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. You know what he's talking
about there? When a person, when a sinner,
having been chosen by God before the foundation of the world,
having been redeemed by the blood of Christ, having been called
by the Spirit, you know what happens? They're called out of
legalism, the bondage of legalism, the dust, the dirt of salvation
by works, and they're freed, they're liberated from that bondage
which was so heavy that they could not bear. You see, if salvation
is conditioned on me or you, that's a burden we cannot bear.
We won't make it. Paul spoke of it in Romans nine
when he talked about Israel followed after righteousness, but they
didn't attain it because they sought it not by faith, but by
works of the law. Well, what is it to seek righteousness
by faith? It's to seek it in Christ. So
he says, loose these bonds, oh captive daughter. Verse three,
he says, for thus saith the Lord, you have sold yourselves for
naught or nothing and you shall be redeemed without money. Sinners
by nature, unregenerated, not born again, sell themselves out
to false religion and it's for nothing because it will end in
eternal damnation. But all whom God chose, whom
Christ died for, they're redeemed without money. In other words,
it's free. It's unconditional. All conditions were placed upon
Christ and He fulfilled those conditions and secured the salvation
of all of His people under glory. Think about that. That's what this is all about.
The heavenly Jerusalem, verse four says, for thus saith the
Lord God, my people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn
there, and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. This is talking
about the nation, the Hebrew nation, and the nation of Israel,
who was always attacked, always in bondage. He says in verse
five, now therefore what have I here, saith the Lord, that
my people is taken away for naught? They that rule over them make
them to howl, saith the Lord. and my name continually every
day is blasphemed." You see that? Now that's a picture of us by
nature, but look at verse 6. He says, therefore my people,
God's elect, shall know my name. They're going to know who God
is. They're going to know God by the truth of the scriptures
revealed in the power of the Spirit. And he says, therefore
they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak, behold
it is I. And how are they going to know
that? Verse 7, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet
of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth
good tidings of good, that publishes salvation, that saith undesigned,
thy God reigneth. That's the gospel. Preachers
preaching the gospel. And he says in verse eight, the
watchman shall lift up the voice, with the voice together shall
they sing, for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall
bring again Zion. They're not gonna be in disagreement
here. They're gonna see eye to eye. And so he says in verse
nine, break forth into joy, sing together, you waste places of
Jerusalem, for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath
redeemed Jerusalem, and the Lord hath made bare his holy arm,
his power in the eyes of all nations, and all the ends of
the earth shall see the salvation of our God. That's the heavenly
Jerusalem. That's not physical Jerusalem.
That's not the state of Palestine that's over there today. No,
sir. That's the church of God, the
living God, the elect of God, the redeemed of the Lord, the
justified, the caught, regenerated, and called who come to Christ. 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 3-1-7-0-7. 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.