Isaiah chapter 31, and we'll
read from verse one. Woe to them that go down to Egypt
for help, and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because
they are many, and in horsemen, because they are very strong,
but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the
Lord. Yet he also is wise, and will
bring evil, and will not call back his words, but will arise
against the house of the evildoers, and against the help of them
that work iniquity. Now the Egyptians are men and
not God, and their horses flesh and not spirit. When the Lord
shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth shall fall, and
he that is halping shall fall down, and they all shall fail
together. For thus hath the Lord spoken
unto me, like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his
prey, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him,
he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself for
the noise of them, so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight
for Mount Zion and for the hill thereof. As birds flying, so
will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem. Defending also, He
will deliver it, and passing over, He will preserve it. Turn
ye unto Him from whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted,
For in that day every man shall cast away his idols of silver
and his idols of gold, which your own hands have made unto
you for a sin. Then shall the Assyrian fall
with the sword, nor of a mighty man, and the sword, nor of a
mean man, shall devour him. But he shall flee from the sword,
and his young men shall be discomfited. And he shall pass over to his
stronghold for fear, and his princes shall be afraid of the
ensign, saith the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace
in Jerusalem. Amen, may the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. When a mum or a dad wants to
emphasise an important message to their child, to enforce an
instruction or give them something that needs to be done. They often
say, I won't tell you twice. Or they might say, I'm not going
to tell you again. And the point that they're making
to the child is, you better listen and take note. You need to pay
attention and act suitably. And in Scripture, when the Lord
says something twice, it's a good thing if we take note. The Lord
emphasises by repetition, and it ought to be sufficient for
God to speak to his people only once. But if he tells us something
twice, we ought to listen carefully and act appropriately. Here,
Isaiah repeats God's word of woe on the princes of Judah that
go down for help to Egypt, rather than trusting in the Lord. Isaiah
calls these rebellious children, and we can almost detect in the
Lord's voice an, I warned you twice about this matter. Now here, as we come to this
scripture today, we are talking about spiritual matters. And
I just mention this so that no one is under any misapprehension
about what I'm talking about. Not seeking help from others
is not to suggest that we neglect to take appropriate steps in
practical matters. We're talking about spiritual
things here. So yes, by all means, get help
in practical matters. If your brakes on your vehicle
need fixed, take it to a garage and get them done, visit the
dentist when you get toothache, make preparations for things
that need to be done in practical matters. And yet even in these things,
let us as the Lord's people be wise to daily commit our everyday
needs First of all, into our father's hands. We're not given
wisdom to do everything that needs to be done. We're not all
car mechanics and dentists. We're not all doctors or aircraft
pilots. There needs to be a relying on
the skills and abilities of others. That's not what we're speaking
against. And it's presumptuous for the Lord's people to think
that we can be experts on things that we know nothing about. but we commit our needs into
our father's hands. And we live with a sense of his
overarching care and sovereignty in all our circumstances. What that means practically is
that we don't despair when things go wrong. And we don't get angry
when our plans don't work out. And equally, we don't get big-headed
when they do. Rather, we try to see the Lord's
hand in all our circumstances and in all our needs. There was a time when Give Us
This Day Our Daily Bread was a genuine prayer of the Lord's
people. Now we have the choice of five
supermarkets that we can go and buy anything that we need. And few of us are so poor as
to worry about where our next meal is coming from. Therefore, the Lord gives us
other problems to keep us humble, to make us modest, and to ensure
that we remain dependent upon him. In spiritual terms and with a
gospel awareness, trusting the Lord means resting in Christ
and knowing that he alone is fit and able to save us from
our sins. It's not resting in our own works. It's not relying upon the good
orders of our church or our minister. It's not imagining that because
our parents or our grandparents were Christians that we're Christians
too. It is going to Christ personally
for the help that he alone can give. It is knowing that he alone
supplies the righteousness and holiness that we must have to
stand in God's presence. It is to hear the Lord's admonition as it is recounted in Proverbs
chapter three, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean
not unto thine own understanding. And it is to confess in faith
and sincerity with the psalmist, it is better to trust in the
Lord than to put confidence in man. That is, don't trust in
yourself, and don't trust in any other man. Isaiah is about
to give his readers good reason to place their confidence in
Christ and not to flee to Egypt for help, seeking human aid and
assistance, wherever that Egypt might be. So I want us today
to look especially at verses 4 and 5. And I say that because
I hope that we do give a look to the little letter that comes
out on the Saturday before our service. I hope we take time
just to read that little article and get an overview of what the
Lord is teaching in this passage in its context. But today I want
just to take a couple of verses and make application directly
to the Lord Jesus Christ. I would say that probably Neither
of these two pieces, the sermon today nor the letter I send is
dependent upon one another but I do feel that together they
give us a more rounded appreciation of what it is that the Lord is
saying. So verses four and five are primarily
before our minds today and I want to draw some spiritual lessons
from the Lord's words to Isaiah here. As we read these verses
over, let us pause and think what a privilege, what a privilege
we have to have God's words given to
us. What a privilege that God speaks
to us and that we receive the gospel from the lips of our Saviour,
from his prophets, from his apostles, and from his preachers. Isaiah says in this little passage,
verse four, for thus hath the Lord spoken unto me. Thus hath the Lord spoken unto
me. And then he relates, then he
recounts the things that the Lord has said. May the Lord give
us ears to hear his word. May he give us grace to receive
it and wisdom to believe it to the salvation, support and refreshment
of our souls. The imagery that Isaiah uses,
or indeed the imagery that the Lord uses, is of a young lion
for fierceness and birds for speed. And we're told that the
Lord of hosts will come and fight for his people with fierceness
and with speed. This, as we have seen in the
little note, had an early fulfilment in the destruction of a large
part of the Assyrian army outside of Jerusalem. That's recounted
in 2 Kings chapter 19. But it also has a spiritual reference
to the work of our Saviour on the cross. And we're going to
take three phrases from these two verses that we might see
how the Lord fulfils this promise to protect and deliver not merely
the remnant of Isaiah's day, but all his elect, all of Mount
Zion, the church of Jesus Christ in every age, including our own. including for you and for me. This is how the Lord fights for
his people. So three phrases that we're going
to think about. The first phrase is, descending
he will fight. and that we're going to apply
to the Lord's conflict on the cross. Secondly, we're going
to use another phrase from these verses, defending he will deliver,
in the context of the Lord safeguarding his people in their own life's
experience. And thirdly, passing over, he
will preserve. And that we will apply to the
Lord actively attacking our enemies. So these are the three things
that are before us today. Descending, he will fight. Defending,
he will deliver. And passing over, he will preserve. So, first things first. Descending,
he will fight. And here we have in view the
Lord's redemptive battle on the cross. There are lots of examples
in scripture where the Lord fought for his people against their
enemies. You could almost open the Old
Testament anywhere and discover an example on any page of where
the Lord is fighting for his people. We've just spent time
thinking about Jericho, where Joshua was told, the Lord will
deliver this city into your hands. The people of Israel didn't strike
a blow until that city was completely flattened. Before that, there
was Egypt at the Red Sea, where the Lord fought against Pharaoh
and destroyed his army. Or Amalek, when Moses' hands
were held up by his associates there on the mountain and Joshua
fought that battle, Aaron and Caleb held up his hands. Or when
Joshua faced the Amorites and the sun did not set until the
battle was won and we're told the Lord slew more by hailstones
than died with the sword. The Lord had promised the children
of Israel in Exodus chapter 23, I will send hornets before thee
which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite and the Hivite
from before thee. Let me just pause there for a
moment. This is in brackets, this is a little aside. You see
what the Lord was saying here to the children of Israel? This
is in reference to what we've just spoken to the young people
about. The Lord was saying effectively that he would win every battle
for the children of Israel, even before they struck a blow. I
am sure that Ai would have fallen just as surely as Jericho fell. At the hand of the Lord had not
Achan taken that accursed thing into the camp of Israel. Achan's
sin was considerably more grievous than the 36 men who lost their
life before Ai. Every battle that had to be fought
thereafter was because these people did not trust the Lord. And all these examples that we
have, impressive as they are, are designed to point not to
the events of the hour of the time but rather to something
greater and grander. that battle that the Lord Jesus
Christ would fight on the cross against Satan and death and hell
when the iniquities of all the elect were placed upon him and
he became sin for us and he bore the punishment of that sword
of justice unsheathed against himself in his own body on the
tree. On the cross, the Saviour fought
the battle of eternal dimensions. The sword of God's justice being
unsheathed against God's shepherd. Here, the weight of the elect's
sin threatened to crush the Saviour's spirit. Here the bands of death
wrapped around his head. Here the gates of hell tried
to enclose and imprison him. When like Jonah he went down
into the depths. Here the strong man Satan set
his house against the Saviour. And yet here on the cross our
great Deliverer fought against them all and gained the victory. Psalm 98 verse 1 says, O sing
unto the Lord a new song, for He hath done marvellous things. His right hand and His holy arm
hath gotten Him the victory. That is a Messianic tribute to
the accomplishments of our Saviour on the cross. The whole of scripture
looked forward and back to that three hours on the cross. Now Christ's battle on the cross
included enduring pain and shedding blood. But by it, Paul tells
the Ephesians, Christ led captivity captive. That is, he conquered
and he triumphed over sin and Satan, the world, death, the
grave, and every spiritual enemy of his and his people. Especially the devil. and realising
that fact, realising that Christ led captivity captive, realising
that he obtained all the glory, that he obtained all the victory,
gives Paul's words to the Corinthians much greater meaning and value
and makes them more precious when we're told that he says,
thanks be to God, listen, who giveth us the victory through
our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ led captivity captive. Christ obtained the victory. But Paul says it's been given
to us by Christ's death. We have victory over sin, Satan,
the world, death, the grave and every spiritual enemy. He won
it and he gifted it to us. He gifted it to his people. This
is what the Lord is promising Isaiah and what Isaiah is speaking
to the remnant people about. This is what the Lord promised
Isaiah he would do when he said, I will come down to fight for
Mount Zion. And it's what Isaiah told the
people of his age to comfort their spirits in the midst of
all the trials and problems and circumstances that they had to
face. And sure it is that the angel
of the Lord came down and slew the Assyrians, but the fulfilment
was Christ's promise to come and fight for his beloved bride's
glory. That it was Christ's promise
to come and fight for his people's eternal life. And this he did
on the cross. Zacharias, the father of John
the Baptist in Luke chapter 1. made these comments. He said,
See, remember that Zacharias was just thinking about the Old
Testament Scriptures. All he had was the Old Testament
Scriptures. He hadn't seen anything of the
work of Jesus Christ in reality. He was still thinking about the
birth of his own son and the birth of the Christ child. And
this is what he says, and hath raised up an horn of
salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spake
by the mouth of his holy prophets. You see the Lord's people understood,
they understood that these things weren't just for the time of
their age but were messianic in their dimensions. as he spake
by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world
began, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the
hand of all that hate us. So that is our first point. The Lord Jesus Christ came down
to fight for us on the cross. And here's the second point that
I want to leave with you today. The Lord says that not only will
he come down and fight for us on the cross, but he says, defending,
I will deliver. Not only did the Lord fight for
his people on the cross when he died, he continues to defend
his people in their life's experience. Now someone might ask, if the
Lord gained the victory over all our enemies on the cross,
who's still left to fight? And why is it that the Lord's
people need to be defended? And why does Paul call on the
church to fight the good fight of faith? Who is it that we're
fighting? And the answer to this is that
while we remain in this world, living in this body of flesh,
we have to fight against its carnal passions. We are prone
to weakness. We carry about with us the old
man, the man of sin, who while no longer dominant as he once
was, nevertheless is active to trouble
and discomfort the spiritual new man in every way he can. He tries to spoil the life of
Christ in our soul's experience. Now this is an important lesson
for us to know and to properly interpret because these are the
daily battles we have as believers. This fight that we experience
day by day, this battle, this opposition is not because we
are not saved but because we are the Lords. If we weren't
the Lords, this battle wouldn't be real. In each believer, two
principles are at work, two natures co-exist, the old and the new
nature. We have an unrenewed body of
sin and death, which is carnal. and sold under sin and we have
an inner new man which is regenerate and which is renewed day by day. Apostle Paul says in 2nd Corinthians
chapter 4, for which cause we faint not. Why would we faint?
Because we're being attacked, because we're being made weary
in the fight, in the battle. For which cause we faint not,
but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed
day by day. I once preached a funeral sermon
on that very verse and it was very appropriate that we should
think in that way. We faint not, but though our
outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. Actually, the Holy Spirit teaches
the church to recognise the work of regeneration by this very
conflict. It is because of this conflict
that we can recognise the work of grace in our lives. The battle
between nature and grace, flesh and spirit, because it exists
in every true child of God. For the flesh lusteth against
the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary
one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye
would. And this is the fight of faith,
and this is the fight for which every believer is equipped with
the whole armour of God, gipped with truth. the breastplate of
righteousness, gospel shoes, the shield of faith, the helmet
of salvation, the sword of the spirit. These aren't real pieces
of armour. These are spiritual graces by
which we labour against principalities and power against spiritual wickedness
in high places. This is the spiritual battle
that every child of God is engaged in daily. And these spiritual
weapons are to fight spiritual enemies. Because while the Lord
has given us the victory, we must yet remain in the world
and engage with the old man, empowered as he is by fleshy
temptations, until the Lord allows us to lay down this body of flesh
and brings us home to glory. Now let me just wrap this point
up, if I may. Let me show you what all this
means. Isaiah was telling us, when he says defending he will
deliver, he is telling us that using these elements of our spiritual
armoury, we rest in the merits of Christ's victory on the cross,
and thereby the Lord defends us from the attacks by the old
man and the accusations and temptations of the devil, who once was able
to carry us captive at his will. but now is restrained to making
accusations against us while he roams round about seeking
to devour us. but he's prevented from doing
so by the power of Christ, our shield and defender. Because
of what Christ accomplished on the cross, because of the spiritual
armour that we wear, we have the victory experience, not only
in our head by faith, thinking about what Christ has done, but
in our experience day by day. We understand these accusations
that Satan makes. He's the accuser of the brethren.
We understand the accusations of unworthiness, the charges
that he levels against us of sin, the attacks that he makes
against our conscience. And we are sensitive to them. But the gospel tells us These
have no more hold on us because Christ stands for us, intercedes
for us, defends us by the merits of his own blood and righteousness
and the victory that he has gained on our behalf. So let me complete
this point with this little application. This is the work of faith in
your heart. Do you feel the weight of sin?
Do you feel guilty? Do you feel that you're failing
in the things that you try and do? Do you feel weak in every
sense, unworthy of Christ? Then with an eye of faith, look
away. Don't look at Egypt. Don't look
at man. Don't look at yourself. Don't
look at your failings. Don't look at your troubles. Don't look at your weakness.
With the eye of faith, look away to Christ. Look to his cross. Look to his blood. Look to his
righteousness. Look to his resurrection. His
victory. and believe it is ours because
it is ours. It's all ours in Him. This and this alone causes the
devil to flee from us and sets the old man on his backside. In this Christ has fought for
us on the cross and in this He is defending us daily as we exercise
faith in Him. And then very quickly, let me
just come to this last point that I want to draw from these
verses. We're told finally, passing over,
he will preserve. What does this mean then? What's
this third element of the Lord's fighting for his people? He will
come down and he will fight for us. Defending, he will deliver. And passing over, he will preserve. So here the Lord is adding a
third sort of spiritual militant action. He will fight, he will
defend, and he will actively attack our enemies. So that the sense seems not to
be only that the Lord passively defends his church against the
attacks of their enemies, but he is actively and aggressively
attacking our enemies. He confounds their schemes and
confuses the efforts of those who try to harm his people. He causes them to fall into the
pits that they dig and to be ensnared in the traps that they
devise. Do you remember in Egypt how
Israel hid under the blood on the doorpost and the lintel of
the houses? And the Lord went through the
land and slew the firstborn of every family. He passed over
the land of Egypt, bringing death and destruction in his wake. And this is the very same word
that is used in this passage. Passing over, he will preserve. And as the Lord passed over and
took the lives of the firstborn in Egypt, so he brings judgment
upon the enemies of his people in this world. We have protecting
angels, armies of mighty spiritual beings in fiery chariots who
constantly surround our foes and wait on the command of our
loving friend to strike such a fatal blow against them. How is it? using the Old Testament
picture. How is it that the line of promise,
the line of Christ, was preserved throughout the history of Israel
when numerous nations tried to exterminate the Jews? Multiple nations tried to exterminate
the Jews. That was Satan employing the
nations of the age to destroy the line of promise. But he was
never successful. He was never successful. How
is it that the Church of Jesus Christ is able to exist in this
world when the powers of hell are baying for our blood? It is because our Saviour takes
the war to our foes and He spoils their plans and their strategies. Let us never imagine that because
the Lord Jesus Christ is gentle with His church, that He is gentle
with this world. Let us not think that His patience
with sin will last long. He is a man of war. He is faithful
and true and he is coming swiftly in judgment to make war with
this world. Isaiah finishes these verses
by calling upon the Lord's people to repent and to return to the
Lord. Turn ye unto him, he says. And this is a very suitable encouragement
for us too. turn to the Lord, turn to the
Lord in every situation, lean upon him for every deficiency,
call upon him for all our need. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us. Amen.