And for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to the chapter that we read,
Isaiah chapter 58, and reading from our text just the first
part of verse 14, the last verse. Then shalt thou delight thyself
in the Lord. Isaiah 58 and verse 58. 14. Then shalt thou delight thyself
in the Lord. The Book of Psalms begins with
a blessing upon the man that walketh not in the counsel of
the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth
in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law
of the Lord, And in his law doth he meditate day and night. The mark of those that are blessed
of God and the people of God is that they do delight in the
law of the Lord. We also have the same message
that is set before us in the 37th Psalm. delight thyself also in the Lord,
and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. And then when
we come to the close of the Old Testament, and we have the expectation
of the coming of the Lord, in Malachi chapter three, verse
one, behold, I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way
before me. And the Lord whom ye seek shall
suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant,
whom ye delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith
the Lord of hosts, the spiritual church of God, the people of
God from the beginning. of the first promise of the seed
of the woman, the first promise of the coming of the Lord, they
delighted in Him. Their expectation was in Him,
their hope was in Him. And we, in a gospel day, we have
set before us the coming of our Lord, not just in the types and
the shadows of the Old Testament, but in the full revelation and
manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ. If the Old Testament
Church delighted in the Lord, how much more should we, when
we have so much clearer revelation of the Lord, that we might delight
in Him, not in the prospect of what He has done, or what he
will do, but what he has done and what he will yet do in heaven. And so we have the Church of
God here by Isaiah. Isaiah being sent to the Church,
to his people, and with a specific message to them. A message that
was to show the people of God their transgressions, and a message
that centres in this very important, this vital aspect of the worship
of the people of God, that they delight in the Lord their God. And in fact, the true and real
and only way that sin is to be mortified and put down and a
right way, walking in the ways of the Lord, is to be delighted
in the Lord. And yet Isaiah, he comes to a
people that profess that they did delight in approaching to
God, but he shows them their sin, and he shows them how hollow
and how wrong that delight was, that it was actually hypocrisy,
it was a deceit. And so he deals with it in this
chapter, and then having doubt with it, then comes to our text. Then, after it has been dealt
with, shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord. And so it behoves
us to rightly learn the lessons that are in this passage and
the charges that were given to the Old Testament Church because
the The thing that has plagued the church right from the beginning
and will to the end of time is hypocrisy, is a false worship,
an imitation that is not the real thing. And the Lord discovers
it, uncovers it here in this chapter. And so with the help
of the Lord, I want to look at four points this morning. And
I'll name them to you before, I don't usually when we have
four points, but I will this morning. The first is this, a
false delight that is discovered. And then the second, a true delight
in the Lord will take away our delight in sin. And nothing else
will do it but that. And then thirdly, how How we
are to delight in the Lord. And then lastly, what about the
Lord are we to delight in? But firstly, we desire as if
Isaiah here, with the Lord's messenger, speaks to this people
to discover a false delight. The beginning of this chapter,
the message is, cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a
trumpet and show my people their transgression and the house of
Jacob their sins. It is implied in this, unless
the Lord shows us our sins, we do not see them. We need the
Lord to show us our sins. And yet we read in verse two,
yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways as a nation that
did righteousness and forsook not the ordinance of their God.
They ask of me the ordinances of justice, they take delight
in approaching to God. What is wrong? What is wrong? The light is mentioned twice
here in this second verse. Delighting to know his ways,
delighting in approaching to God. And yet the message is that something
is wrong and vitally wrong. And especially when it comes
into something so important, so important, in the mortification
of sin and so important as a true token of being a child of God,
that there should be an imitation of it. I want to notice there are six
things that are mentioned here. No doubt you may even find more
of where this false line is actually discovered. And the first is
this, that there is no turning away from transgression. This is very evident because
God here is to show Israel their transgression. So whatever their
delight in the Lord is, it has not resulted in any way of a
mortification of sin and transgression, They are continuing in those
ways of evil. It is what the Lord has said,
you cannot serve God and mammon. And yet that is exactly what
Israel were trying to do. They were still continuing in
their transgressions. And yet they were professing
to delight in the Lord. Many times we have in the history
of Israel, How that on one turn they turned to the Lord and were
worshipping the Lord. On the other they were going
to their high places and their idols and worshipping their idols. And the two, they went together,
they walked together. So this is a searching word for
us. Do we delight in the Lord? But
are we still bound to our transgressions and our sins and love them and
walking in those sins? Well, with the children of Israel,
it would appear that this was their case, but they didn't know
and they didn't realise. And so God sent them and caused
that their transgressions might be shown them. The second thing
is that they took delight in a form only. We notice in verse
2 that it is that they delight to know my ways, yes, and take
delight in approaching to God. They like the form of religion,
the outward worship. And that was so with the time
when our Lord came upon earth. Those that were religious, they
appeared very religious. And even when it was the case
that our Lord was to be arraigned at the judgment bar, yet they
went not in because it was a high day. They were keeping diligently
their laws and they did not want to be defiled. They wanted to
eat the Passover. They were observing all of those
things at the very time they were crucifying the Lord of life
and glory. They took a delight in form,
and we can be exactly the same. We can have the form of our worship,
our services. We can have our reading, our
prayers, our sermons, our hymns, our gathering, our anniversaries,
our feast days. and we take delight in those
things. There's a man I worked with once,
and he said that he loved to go to the Church of England services. He had no profession really himself
at all, he didn't walk in the ways of the Lord, but he says,
I like the pomp, he says, I like the ceremony, I like the order,
I like the dress, I like the whole circumstance of the worship. And he openly professed and said
that. But here is a people that it
is to be shown them that really that is the whole end of their
worship, that they were just delighting in a form. One of our hymns says, rounds
of dead service, forms and ways. All right, in a right way, but
wrong when that is the end and that is the only aspect of our
delight in the Lord, is just in a form. The third thing is this, that
having walked in that way of worship, there is a expectation
that God should accept that. There's the idea that our worship
is very worthy of God and the Lord should praise us and bless
us and help us because of this. In verse three we read, Wherefore
have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? Wherefore have
we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? They were expecting this of the
Lord. They couldn't see what was wrong
at all. We have even in the chapter we
mentioned before, in Malachi chapter 3, where again there's
the charge of them that they'd gone away from mine ordinances
and have not kept them. And yet they say, wherein shall
we return? They didn't know. And they were
making out, we're doing nothing wrong. We're not doing anything
wrong, walking in a wrong way. There's a looking at that worship
and that path and thinking this is praiseworthy to God. The Lord
should be pleased with this. And this is one of these marks
of a false delight. The fourth is this is a worship
that is to be seen of men. In verse five we read, is it
such a farce that I have chosen a day for a man to afflict his
soul Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush and to spread sackcloth
and ashes unto him? Wilt thou call this a fast and
acceptable day to the Lord? And the Lord reproved those in
his day in exactly the same words. He dealt with them, he spoke
to them in the same way in Matthew. Chapter 6, he speaks in this
way, and in verse 16 he says, Moreover, when ye fast, be not,
as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces,
that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you,
they have their reward. He charged them with exactly
the same things. It is the same God, the same
Spirit, the same message, the same warning that Isaiah had,
that our Lord had. And it is to the Church of God
today, it is to us today, how much of what we do and of our
worship is to be seen of men. The fifth is this, that it is
a worship that does not have the spirit of Christ. In verse 6 and 7 we read, Is
not this the fast that I have chosen? Now this is the spirit
of our Lord Jesus Christ. To loose the bands of wickedness,
to undo the heavy burdens, come unto me all ye that labour, and
are heavily laden, and I will give you rest. And to let the
oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke, take my yoke
upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart,
ye shall find rest unto your souls. Is it not to deal thy
bread to the hungry, He fed 5,000. He fed them with the natural
bread. He says, I give unto you that bread from heaven, that
true bread from heaven, that thou bring the poor that are
cast out to thy house. When thou seest the naked, that
thou cover him, who is my neighbor. And he tells the parable of the
good Samaritan, that thou cover him, that thou hide not thyself
from thine own flesh. the spirit of the Lord Jesus
Christ was lacking in their worship. It was a hard, a cold form and
worship. The Lord said to the scribes
and the Pharisees, you do laid on men burdens grievous to be
borne and yet will not lift the least thing from off their shoulders. made those 638 or so laws, teaching
four commandments, the traditions of men. This mark of a false
delight in the Lord lacks the Spirit of Christ and is not surprising. If we have not been with Him,
nor delighted in Him, nor known of Him, we will not have His
Spirit. The disciples at one time, they
said, when the Samaritans wouldn't receive him, shall we, like Elias
did, call down fire upon them? The Lord said, ye know not what
spirit ye are of. The Son of Man came not to destroy
men's lives, but to save them. And the sixth is this, using
the time That is the Lord's time for our own pleasure. We have
this especially set forth in verse 13, where we have this
Sabbath set forth, going right back to the creation ordinance,
whereby the Lord gave man six days for his own pleasure, for
his own use, but one day to be hallowed for the Lord, to delight
in the Lord, to be a special day unto the Lord. But what were
they doing? If thou turn away thy foot from
the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call this
Sabbath a delight, not only delighting in the Lord, but delighting in
the Sabbath, to come apart from this world, You know, one that
is delighting in this world will find it very hard to leave this
world. One that sees no delight and
no attraction in the Lord Jesus Christ will say a day that is
spent for true worship and serving of the Lord is a wasted day because
there is so much more things that we could do. We've got a
harvest to get in. We've got a study to do. We've got work to do. We've got
families to visit. We can do this. from doing thy pleasure on my
holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord
honourable, then shall honour him, not doing thine own ways,
nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words."
And right through this verse, It is thy own ways, own pleasure,
own words. And here is the people that will
serve the Lord, but serve the Lord in the way that they want
to, and using their own words and own ways. And yet they say
they delight in the Lord, but when the Lord says, have a holy
day for me, to truly delight and worship me, Then they say,
no, we will not do that. We might have one service. We might gather for one service
in the morning and then the rest of the day we'll spend and we'll
do what we want and we'll walk in whatever ways we want. God
is not mocked, he sees this, he knows this, he knows the heart,
he knows that this is a people that is not delighting in him.
They may profess that they do, their name might be on a church
roll, they might sit down at the Lord's table, they might
even be a preacher of the gospel, and yet the word finds them out
is that they are not truly and really delighting in the Lord
at all. And you know, dear friends, it's
a great mercy if the Lord finds us out in this. The heart is
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. And what
a solemn thing to go through this life thinking that we are
right for eternity, thinking that we actually are the people
of the Lord. And then to find at last those
solemn words depart from me All ye that work iniquity, I never
knew you. Ye did not delight in me. Ye
delighted in a lie, a form, a shadow. You know, Israel is a real illustration
of real time. Many times the Apostle, our Lord,
used these things as a real warning and illustration to the people
of God. How close we can come, how easy
to come short. A narrow way is a narrow way,
and the broad way is a broad way. And there's many like thee
professing Israel here that are walking in it. And yet they are
walking as hypocrites and deceived and are not truly delighting
in the Lord. And yet we'll say, we delight
in approaching to God, we delight to know His ways. And yet the
Lord's word comes right between and finds it out as to what it
truly is. May we this morning, and I include
myself, and be searched by it, and to
really pray that the Lord will show us our true state and condition. What does it advantage us if
we live a lie, if we deceive ourselves? Eternity is long. The days here below are but short. What shall it advantage a man
If he deceives all around him, he never deceived the Lord and
comes short of that glory at last. I want to look then secondly,
that a true delight in the Lord will take away the delight in
sin. It is the law that makes known
what sin is. But you know, even if we were
to very successfully lay down for ourselves a whole set of
rules and guidance and laws so that we mortified every sin and
didn't commit sin, if we were to succeed in that, all it would
leave was a great big void. A void that something must fill. And something will fill. And
we are spiritual creatures, we are creatures that want to worship
and like to worship, and it will be something then other than
the Lord. The Lord speaks most solemnly
of one whose house was swept and garnished, and he came back
and found it so, and he took to himself seven spirits that
were worse than him. The latter end of that man was
worse than the beginning. The children of Israel, when
they came into the promised land, could not take it all over at
once, though a few in number, the reason was given, lest the
beasts of the field that they should increase upon thee. And
so as they grew in number, then they were to dispossess the inhabitants
of the land. It was their presence, their
blessing, the blessing of the Lord that was to push out the
idolatrous and the inhabitants, the Canaanites. And so a true
delight in the Lord will take away the delight of sin. Paul, when he writes to the Romans,
he says, if ye through the Spirit To mortify the deeds of the body
ye shall live. It is not through the deeds of
the law that we shall overcome sin. But it is through our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ, He shall save His people from their
sins. And I say this morning that one
way The way of saving his people from their sins is that they
are brought to delight in him. And it is as they delight in
him that then their delight in sin and evil is taken away. And this is a very vital principle. By nature we like to have just
enough religion to get us to heaven. But you know the Lord's way is
to follow the Lord fully and not partially. Not to have just a partial delight
because if that is so, then sin will not be mortified. It is
too strong for us, and we've sung off it. The carnal mind
takes different ways. It delights in things that are
contrary to the Lord. And only a delight in something
that is more superior and greater and precious and lovely and heavenly
will take away the delight that we have in things that are base
and vile and earthly of this earth. He cannot serve God and
mammon. And so this point this morning,
it is not an unimportant point and is not unrelated to us. And if there are those of you
struggling with sin, struggling with the working of it in your
members, struggling with the corruptions of your own heart, then the way that the Lord sets
his people is this way, that they seek that
their delight might be in the Lord, that a true delight in
the Lord will take away the power of sin. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And where there is a love to
the Lord, that serving is a serving because of love and delight. And it is a willing serving,
not a slavish serving. And it is a serving because there
is virtue, there is help, there is blessing that flows forth
from the Lord Jesus Christ. We like to think that we can
master sin and make ourselves holy in some way, independent
and separate from the Lord. And the Lord has ordered that
that will not be for the true Church of God. It will not be
masked, it will not be plastered over it will be exposed as being
something that is ineffectual. And it is only the Lord Jesus
Christ that can save his people from their sins. And he says
they delight in him and have a little touch here below of
what it shall be in heaven when that delight is fully, fully
realized. Well how then? in our third place,
how are we to delight in the Lord? You might say, well, he's
cut out in this chapter that external worship and that which
is open. But you know, where it begins
first inward, there is, and there can be indeed, a great delight
and joy in gathering in the house of God with the people of God,
when the motive, the desire, the expectation is right, where
we come seeking the Lord and we desire the Lord. What a difference it was with
those as they gathered in the upper room on that first Lord's
Day, the first day of the week when the Lord arose, They gathered
in fear, but then the Lord came with the doors being shut. Then
were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. They saw him,
they heard him, they saw his wounds. Those two on the way
to Emmaus as well began with sadness, ended with great joy. And it is a blessed thing to
gather together unto him shall the gathering of the people be.
And that innumerable multitude in heaven is that gathering of
those from every nation, kindred and tongue. But it is the spirit,
it is the way that we gather, the attitude that we gather in. And I might say this, it is what
precedes that gathering that really will show us are in. Again, we would bring
before you the teaching of our Lord while upon earth, how he
counted those that prayed at the corners of the streets, that
went about with long garments, that were openly parading their
religiousness, their godliness. He says, those of you that would
call upon the Lord, you go into your closet and you shut the
door upon you and you call upon God who is in secret and who
seeth in secret and he that seeth in secret will reward thee openly. How are we to delight in the
Lord? It begins first. with no eye
of man upon us. It begins in the closet. It begins
with that between our soul and the Lord. Being let go of the
disciples, they went to their own company. And with the people
of God, not only to the company of the people of God, but especially
to the company of their God himself. If we delight in a person, we
want to be with them, we want to hear them, we want to know
about them. And the people of God, they're
truly delight in the Lord. They're delight in how he is
set forth before them in the word of God. They're delight
in the word of the Lord. They were delighted also in that
meditation upon him. The psalmist says, my meditation
of him shall be sweet. He says, I prevent the night
watchers that I might meditate upon the Lord. Using those times
to think upon the things of God. This is how again the Old Testament
closes of those that feared the Lord and thought on his name. It is the thing that they shall
be marked out for. Then they that feared the Lord
spake often one to another. The Lord hearkened and heard
it. And a book of remembrance was written before him for them
that feared the Lord and that thought upon his name. They thought upon his name. The
psalmist says, I hate vain thoughts, but thy law do I love. And there is a meditating upon
it, those that are chastened in Hebrews 12. Now no chastening
for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, Nevertheless,
afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them
that are exercised thereby. There again is the secret inward
exercise of the soul, thinking, meditating, going over the things
of God, communing with the Lord. It will be in prayer. Prayer
is the Christian's vital breath. Not just as a form, and if we're
honest, we'll know what a difference it is, even in the closet, when
we're just reading because, well, it is just the passage for the
morning or evening, and we hurriedly skip over it, and we quickly
offer a few token prayers. Is that really delighting in
the Lord? Are we mindful of that delight
and pleasure of having in the Lord? So those ways how we are to delight
in the Lord is primarily and firstly as between our soul and
the Lord. As a true evidence that we are
not relying on the approval of men. We're not relying on outward
forms of worship. We're not relying on saying,
Lord, I've done this and I've done that, I've preached a wonderful
sermon here, I've spent the whole day in preparation, and then
I've laboured three times on the Lord's day. We're not looking
at those things that we can almost subconsciously look and think,
well, the Lord has got to accept us for for what our worship is,
but that which we actually spend with the Lord, that which is
quality time with Him. You know, we couldn't deceive a loved
one if we were to telling everyone else, we delight in you, and
they said to us, but we hardly spend any time with us. We don't
have much time. We don't hear much of each other.
We don't speak much one to another. Then we think, well, is that
really so? Do you really delight in me if
that is the case? And what would the Lord say of
us? If we testified before him this morning, we delight in thee,
how would he answer us? How would he search through our
closet worship? How would he search through our
prayers, our thoughts, our meditation, our deeds? How would he expose
the things that we are doing alongside our profession of delight
in him? Well, if that is how we are to
delight in the Lord, what about the Lord are we to
delight in? I want to just notice a few aspects. The first is this, the revelation
of Jesus Christ, that he has come. Now, if these Old Testament
saints, they look forward to his coming, and they're delighted
in the messenger of the new covenant. and surely the Church of God,
their delight should be in that wonderful message, that wonderful
realisation that the Son of God has come, that we trace from
the first of the Gospels in Matthew and in Luke of the coming of
the Lord, the seed of the woman that should bruise the serpent's
head, all that has been fulfilled of those Old Testament scriptures,
that we live in a day that we realise that the Lord has fulfilled
his word, and in spite of all that has happened over all of
the histories and all that Israel walked through, and all that
has happened, there's not failed one thing of all that the Lord
has promised. And we stand in a Gospel day
a day of such a provision and wonderful revelation of Jesus
Christ. And that should be such a delight. The angels they came from heaven
to proclaim his birth and they are the things that the angels
desire to look into. And surely it should be our delight
just in that fact that we stand in such a different relationship
as to the Old Testament church who look forward and we look
back and we say fulfilled and done and accomplished and that
we actually delight in that. That that is something that filled
us with wonder and delight that we may say that this is done. The revelation of Jesus Christ The second is this, to delight
in his person. He is the God-man. It is that
of which Job he puzzled how it could be that some clean thing
could come out of an unclean. But the wonder and delight how
God and man can be reconciled, how it could be in one person
that he should be both God and man, that he should be made like
unto his brethren, take on him the seed of Abraham, that he
should be a near kinsman. A near kinsman. A beautiful time
in the book of Ruth, that Boaz was a near kinsman. And that
should be a wonderful delight to us. You know, Boaz, he said
to Ruth, There was a kinsman that is nearer than I. And a
most solemn thing we may say regarding our Lord Jesus Christ,
there is a kinsman that is nearer, and that is us. We have a body,
we have a soul, we have a right to redeem. But you know, when
Boaz came to that nearer kinsman, he says, I cannot redeem it for
myself. I'll mar my own inheritance.
No man can redeem his own soul. If we tried to do so, our blood
would avail nothing. All it would avail was our death.
We would not rise from the dead. We'd not put away our own sins
even. We cannot redeem our own soul.
And so all that is left is Boaz, that near kinsman, not ourselves. And when we've realised that
concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, may we truly delight in him.
It just excludes ourselves, it excludes all of our brethren,
it excludes the whole of mankind, and it just leaves the God-man,
the Lord Jesus Christ, made under the law, made of a woman, made
to come where his people are so that he has the right and
the power and ability and the willingness to redeem his people. We should delight in his person. The person of the Lord Jesus
Christ is absolutely unique. No other will or shall or ever
Be as he, the eternal Son of God, the second person in the
Trinity, in dissolvable union with a body that thou hast prepared
him, Jesus Christ, the Son of Man and Son of God, and our delight
should be in him. I've no doubt it was a delight
to Ruth that Boaz was such a near kinsman and in such a position
An elder brother, we may say as well, born for adversity,
one that is made like unto his brethren, but sin accepted. The third thing that we should
delight in is his finished work. It is said of the Lord, I delight
to do thy will, O God. In the volume of the book it
is written of me." His proclaiming of Calvary was that it is finished. And our delight should be that
he has finished the work that his father gave him to do. The
tomb is empty. The sacrifice accepted. His place on earth no more. You see me no more. But because
I live, ye shall live also. He ascends up into heaven. It is a work done that is the
only work that puts away sin, the only sacrifice that all the
other sacrifice pointed to, and is the only work that is to save
a people from sin. If ye believe not that I am he,
ye shall perish, in your sins. And we should delight in that.
The Apostle says, I determine not to know anything among you
save Jesus Christ and him crucified. The Church of God has been given
the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper, not to, as
it were, delight in them as the ordinances of their own. Otherwise
it would be just the same as the Old Testament that just exacted
in all of their sacrifices. But we delight in, when they
set forth, being buried with him, and risen again with him,
and remembering his sufferings, his death. And the Church is
not to remember it just as an irksome task and a burden, but
to actually delight, to show it forth. Why would we want to
show something forth if we didn't delight in something? We show
forth the Lord's death till he come. And he lied in it, that
he hath done this thing, and he hath accomplished it. The
fourth is this, that his position in heaven. When the disciples
went back from seeing him ascending up into heaven, they had great
joy. You think, well, wouldn't they
be sorrowful? They just parted with their dear
Lord. He was not with them anymore.
He'd been received up into heaven. But they'd had this revelation
of what the work of God was, that he was alive, that he ascended
up into heaven alive. He sat on the right hand of God. They believed it. They knew it.
They'd had the promise of ascending forth of the Spirit. And we have
the picture of the Lamb as it had been slain in the midst of
the throne. Dear Stephen, when he was dying,
saw his presence in heaven standing to receive him. It should be
our delight that he is in heaven to appear in the presence of
God for us, but his very exalted position Now if it was a delight
to Joseph's brethren, to Jacob, that Joseph was next unto Pharaoh,
or with Mordecai speaking peace to all his seed, next unto the
king, surely it should be our delight. Wouldn't it be our delight
if we had a literal relative or one that was those to us that
meant so much to us and that their position of authority in
the land, that whatever they asked, whatever they wished they
could give to us and impart to us, the position of the Lord
is exalted for His people and lifted up for them. And that
should be what we delight in. And we should delight then in
the fifth place on his ongoing intercession, his care for the
Church of God. I pray for them he prayed while
on earth. I pray not for the world, but
for them whom thou hast given me. And we have a sympathising
high priest, one whose voice speaks for us in heaven's high
court for good. I will pray the Father. our advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. There's so much
regarding his position there, appearing in the presence of
God for us that we should really delight in. That he loves his
people, speaks well for them, and that he orders all things
well for them. He cares for his church from
the highest court of heaven. And then we have, sixthly, His
righteousness. Should not we delight in that?
When we think of our delight in the Lord is to mortify the
deeds of the body. When we realise that all our
righteousness is as filthy rags, then when we read of the Lord's
spotless righteousness, His holy life, His obedience, His acceptance
at heaven, and hear that his name is, this is the name wherewith
he should be called, the Lord our righteousness, should not
we delight in that? And as we read of his perfect
righteousness, as we read of how he dealt with Satan, with
sinners, with men, how he was accepted, that that should be
our delight. The Father delighted in him,
And he always did that which was pleasing in his sight, and
may it be pleasing in ours. May we view in the Lord Jesus
Christ that which shall be our clothing, our acceptance in heaven
above. And lastly, to delight in his
will. The will of the Lord. So expressed
again in John 17, Father I will that they whom thou hast given
me be with me where I am that they may behold my glory. Thy
will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In all our lives,
what we go through, those changing scenes, those various things,
we walk step by step and he sovereignly performs his will. We read in
that preparation before here, not doing thine own ways, nor
finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thy own words, but we
should seek to delight in the will of the Lord, not my will,
but thy will be done. What is it that you, that I am
walking through at this time, whether spiritually, whether
in the Church of God, whether in our lives, in all the things
that concern us, is it that we are delighting in the Lord and
in His will, and seeing His will being brought about and unfolded,
and a willingness to be conformed to that, seeing the suitability
of it, the preciousness of it for us, The Lord's will is at
last to bring his people to be with him. And that surely is
the most blessed thing, that we might delight that we know
that all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them that are the called according to his purpose. There are many
cross providences, many things we can't understand. that may
we delight in that this is the Lord's doing, and is marvellous
in our eyes, that shall not the judge of all the earth do right,
too good to be mistaken he, too good to be unkind. May the Lord grant us to truly
delight in the Lord, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord
in a real way, a right way, a way that sin is mortified, in a way
that brings us into sweet communion and fellowship with him, in a
way that is glorifying to the Lord and the comfort of our souls
and a true witness that we are his. May the Lord add his blessing. Amen.