Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to the chapter that we read,
Isaiah chapter 32. And we read for our text verses
one through five. I don't usually have long texts,
but I wish this morning to read these five verses by way of a
text. Behold, a king shall reign in
righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall
be as a hiding place from the wind, and a cover from the tempest,
as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock
in a weary land. and the eyes of them that see
shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. The heart also of the rash shall
understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall
be ready to speak plainly. The vile person shall be no more
called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful. Isaiah 32 and verses 1 through
to 5. Our Lord said to Pilate that
his kingdom was not of this world. If his kingdom were of this world,
then would his servants fight, but his kingdom was not from
thence. The dying thief, he had a request
of the Lord that the Lord would remember him when he came into
his kingdom. In our Lord's ministry on earth,
he said, the kingdom of God cometh not with observation that it
is within you. It is very evident that in Gospel
days we have setting forth a kingdom, and that is a kingdom which is
Christ's kingdom. We read in Hebrews in chapter
1 and verse 8, that unto the Son, he saith, thy throne, O
God, is for ever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is
the scepter of thy kingdom. Again, it is Christ's kingdom. We have it also in Hebrews and
chapter 12, where we read this word, Wherefore we receiving
a kingdom which cannot be moved Let us have grace whereby we
may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for
our God is a consuming fire. We also read when our Lord spoke
of John Baptist and his desire and inquiry, are thou the Christ
or do we look for another? And our Lord sent back to him,
go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see. The blind receive their sight
and the lame walk, The lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear,
the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached
to them. And blessed is he whosoever shall
not be offended in me." Our text, dear friends, here in Isaiah,
700 years before Christ, 2700 years before the time where we
are, it speaks of gospel days, it speaks of Christ's kingdom,
it speaks of the effect that will be in the hearts of sinners
and in their lives when Christ's kingdom is set up there. This
is a word for the days in which we live in, when the King is
King Jesus, when the man that is spoken of in this, our text,
is Christ, the God-man, a man that is to be a hiding place.
And so it is why I've read these five verses, they really summarize
up Three things by which God's dear people are known in gospel
days. Those things that shall be actually
done in them and for them. There's a description here, these
many years before, looking forward, and I trust, I hope it is so,
that as we look at these things, those of you here, those that
hear me, that know the Lord, you'll say yes. Those things
are wrought in me, I know them, I am not a stranger to these
things. These things are what I have
handled and tasted and felt. And you know a gospel is not
a gospel unless it really comes nigh unto us. Yes, it is good
news, but what we want is that good news to be received. and
that we might have the evidence of it in our own hearts and our
lives. The name of our Lord is Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins, not just proclaiming,
not just make a way, but he shall accomplish it and shall do it. And so as we come before this
word this morning, may we not just be hearing about others,
or hearing what the Lord shall do in gospel days, but hearing
what the Lord has done for us. And if he hasn't, may we hear
it as that which we desire him to do for us. This set before
us here, of which at Christ's coming and since that time in
these gospel days, many have known, have handled, have tasted,
have felt it, have realised these benefits and blessings in their
own souls. And if you don't know that this
morning, may there be that real desire raised up in your heart
that I might know these things, that I might truly have this
mark that is in these verses, These three things, and I want
to then summarize them, these three points, and look at this
morning. Firstly, Christ's reign in their
hearts. God's kingdom will be known,
his blessing will be known in his people by Christ's reign
in their hearts. The second thing is that what
Christ is to them. We have that specifically in
verse 2. And a man shall be as an hiding
place from the wind and a cover from the tempest as rivers of
water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary
land. What Christ is to them is described
here in verse 2. The third point is Christ's work
in them. which is described in verses
three through to five, which we'll look at when we come to
that point. But firstly, Christ reign in
their hearts. And this, of course, is contrasted
by what has gone on before, because when we come into this world,
our language is depart from us we desire none of thy ways. There is a rejection of anyone
to rule and to reign over us and in fact We are ruled, we
are reigned over by Satan and by sin. The Lord says, by whom
a man is overcome, that is whom he is actually serving. And yet we have this beautiful
promise to the people of God. Sin shall not have dominion over
you, for you're not under the law. but you're under grace. It is the Lord's promise that
though His dear people are still sinners, they are still fallen,
they still have an old nature, Yet they have a king set up in
their heart, a kingdom there of which the Lord is king, and
he rules and he reigns there. When we read in the book of Judges,
we read some terrible things that were done in the land of
Israel. Terrible excesses, violence,
abuses, And more than once we read this after such accounts,
there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was
right in his own eyes. And that was even Israel, God's Really, the Lord was their king.
In the days of Samuel, when they desired a king and the Lord gave
them King Saul, Samuel protested to them that the Lord was their
king, that they were rejecting him. So even in those days of
the judges, the Lord was their king. And when the Lord raised
up a judge that feared his name, then they followed that judge
and they followed the Lord in his days. And we see this right
through even when Israel were given a king. Where that king
served the Lord, and it was so especially with those over Judah,
Then the people served the Lord. The kings were leaders in the
worship of God. We see it with King David, we
see it with Solomon, we see it especially with Josiah and Hezekiah,
those kings like Jehoshaphat that really prospered in the
worship of God and leading the people to serve the Lord. And
it is so with the people of God. Where the Lord is king in their
hearts, where he reigns in their hearts, not just where there
is, as in the letters to the Revelation, a name to live yet
be dead. This is a King who reigns, a
King who has influence, a King whose righteous judgments are
followed, whose laws are obeyed, who is served gladly whose people
love him and they do his bidding. This is the mark of the people
of God where Christ reigns in their hearts and we have this
foretold here, behold a king shall reign in righteousness
and princes shall rule in judgment. Christ is the King, he shall
reign. The ministers of the gospel,
how Paul says, they remember them that have the rule over
you, who have spoken unto you the words of the Lord. It is
the Lord's purpose that He sends forth His servants and the Lord
says of them, And so you can't have a situation where a people is professing
to serve the Lord and yet they say, we will not serve his servants,
we will not regard his church on earth or church government
on earth, but we will serve the Lord and we will obey him. That is not a true mark of the
people of God. The people of God will have respect
not only unto the Lord, but unto his father, not unto his father
only, but also to his church and the church government and
the church officers and the ministers. It is a very discouraging thing,
like with Jeremiah, who came as the Lord's servant again and
again, and yet he saw a people that rejected the word that he
bought. in Jeremiah 43 and 42 where the
children of Israel that had been left in the land, they wanted
to know whether they should go down into Egypt or not, whether
it was the Lord's will or not. They made most solemn protestings
to Jeremiah that Whatever the Lord said by him, they would
obey and they would do, and very strongly said it would be so. And yet, when Jeremiah brings
the word and tells them that they're not to go down into Egypt,
Then they say that it was not the Lord. Thou speakest, they
said to Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely. The Lord our God hath
not sent thee to say, Go not into Egypt to sojourn there.
But Barak, the son of Neriah, setteth thee on against us, for
to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans. And so When Jeremiah
brings the word, a faithful word, from the Lord, they reject it,
they disobey it, and they may have been saying, yes, well,
the Lord is our God. In fact, they have said to Jeremiah
in verse 5 of Jeremiah 42, the Lord be a true and faithful witness
between us If we do not, even according to all things, for
the which the Lord thy God shall send thee to us, whether it be
good or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of the Lord
our God, to whom we send thee, that it may be well with us when
we obey the voice of the Lord our God. And yet, after a silence
of 10 days, Jeremiah must come back and say that they dissembled
in their hearts. The Lord knew that, and that
actually they had already decided what to do, and it was just lip
service. Really, the Lord was not king
there. He was not king over them, and
that was seen when they did not obey the servant of the Lord,
Jeremiah. And so it is in the work in the
hearts of the people of God, a true mark is that the Lord
is king in their hearts and that he works through his servants
and through the church and through the ministry, that there is not
a dividing between the two and a people that are saying, we
serve the Lord, but We're not going to pay heed to the word
of God, to the ministry of the word, to the directions in Zion
at all. The word here is, Behold, a king
shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. The two, they go together in
gospel days. And where there is that humbling
in the heart before the hand of God, there's a discerning
those things that come from the Lord's hand. The blessing that
will flow to the people of God will flow to them through humility,
through humbling before his hand, through submitting to the reign
of their God, to bowing before him, And may we notice that very
clear mark. What authority does the Lord
have in our hearts? Some of us, we can think back
to times of our unregeneracy and we may say, the Word of God
had no authority over us. The Lord had no authority over
us. The Church of God had no authority
over us. We just did what was right in
our own eyes. Our parents had no authority
over us. They may have wanted us to walk
in the Lord's ways, to observe the Lord's day, to gather together,
to forsake ways of sin. And we said, no, we don't want
that way. We will go our own way. We are
our own master, our own king. And we have a contrast between
that time and a time when the Lord then brought his laws and
his word and his authority into our hearts. And we can't return
back to that time. The Lord does rule there. Now
some poor sinner might say, yes, but I feel so much the working
of sin. I feel my own wicked, evil, deceitful
heart and it rises up and it's a rebel. I feel it is a rebel.
And yes, we are rebels, we rebelled in the Garden of Eden and we
rebel constantly. But you know, one that that is
a trial to and a trouble to, that sin is not reigning there.
It may trouble, it may distress, it may cause many a sorrow, many
a searching of heart, but it's not reigning. It doesn't have. A free course is something that
rises up against it. When the enemy shall come in
like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard
against him. Sometimes it might be like dear
Peter, in Satan's sieve and denying the Lord, but then afterwards
professing by the Lord's grace that love to him. Sometimes it
might be that even Satan takes hold of our mouth and we say
things like Peter did to the Lord when the Lord told of his
coming sufferings, be not that unto thee, Lord. Get thee behind
me, Satan, thou saviour. It's not the things that be of
God, but the things that be of men. Where is the Lord as king
there? And you see those times, it seems
to be like Satan has the ascendancy but he doesn't last long and
he doesn't stay long and he's thrown out and he's overcome
and we realize again and again the power and authority of the
Lord. There were times in the history
of Israel that there were those that sought to assert their authority. We think of in a time when David
was coming to the end of his life and Adonijah said, I will
reign. He was an older brother to Solomon,
but Solomon had been told by David that he would reign. Well,
Adonijah might have reigned for a few hours, for a day or so.
But soon that rain came to an end, and very soon Adonijah lost
his life as well. Absalom said that he would reign,
and for a while David had to flee from Absalom, and Absalom
had stolen the hearts of the people. But his reign didn't
last long, and David was restored again. So it might be with you
and with me. The Lord does reign in our hearts. But there comes these ones that
try and usurp that reign, try and overcome and try and ensnare
us and envelop us in lies, in worldliness. And our own wicked
heart is the leader of that. The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? So dear friends,
may we notice this, especially if there's that contrast between
day of unregeneracy in a day now, and notice that we will
have those times, like even those godly kings did, where there
will be those that try and usurp and do succeed for a little while,
but the Lord really does reign. He comes again. Though the people
of God, they fall a thousand times, yet they shall rise up
again. Peter did. You will. The people
of God will. Where the Lord reigns, He will
come. And He will deal with the matter
as none can but Him. He knows all about our case. He knows our heart. He knows
those things that trouble us. He knows those enemies and adversaries. It's a blessed thing to have
the Lord Jesus Christ as our King. King Jesus, happy moments
when King Jesus is in sight, when he reigns, when we bow before
him. Maybe there are those of you,
you've heard something of his reign, something of his kingdom,
like it was with The Queen of Sheba, she heard of the glory
of Solomon. You know, when she came and she
saw it, and she said, the half was not told me. The glory was
greater. It's a great blessing to be able
to recommend to others, to point others to Christ and say, this
is a good king. This kingdom is a blessed kingdom.
This is a kingdom, I'm glad I'm part of this kingdom. I thank
God for putting me in it, and I desire that he might fully
reign over me. And if there are any that may
be finding some things that the Lord decrees hard, may you think
of this, the children of Israel, when they rebelled against the
Lord as their king, Then he chastened them by sending them for periods
of time under another king, especially that 70 years in Babylon. And they had to then reflect
on what the Lord's service was and what that king's service
was. And the Lord knows how to chasten
and correct his dear people when they remember that they are much
better off serving the Lord and obeying him and walking in his
ways. But where the Lord has begun,
he won't forsake that work. Where he is king over his dear
people, he will come again. He will cast out those buyers
and sellers and he will reign again. May we look unto him,
look unto our king in all our troubles and all of our sorrows.
May we again acknowledge him as our king and we as part of
his kingdom, subject to his laws, not by constraint, but willingly
and lovingly. A beautiful mark in gospel days
of Christ in his people. Christ's reign in their hearts. But then secondly, it is what
Christ is to them. We have in verse 2, and Amen. O blessed be God, that the Lord
Jesus Christ is God and man, in one person, truly God and
truly man, made like unto his brethren, yet sin accepted, brought
into a place where he can redeem, brought into a place where he
can succor his people as a great high priest. He is just what
they need. He is their heavenly Boaz, a
man of near kinsmen unto us, said Naomi to Ruth. It's a beautiful word with, dear
Jacob, when he wrestled with the angel, there wrestled a man
with him to the breaking of the day. And dear Jacob had a lot
of trouble, didn't he? He had Esau. Esau coming with
400 men. And you know the very context
that is here in verse 2 is a context where there is wind and where
there is tempest, where there is a weary land, a dry place. And it's in this place and this
context that it is seen what Christ is to a people. You know,
if the Lord works in our heart, then it will be that this world
is a weary land. It will be a dry place spiritually. It'll be like the wilderness
was to the children of Israel. There's no food there, but the
manna from heaven. There's no water there, but the
water that God provided out of the rock, the smitten rock, where
there was wind. There was no place but to hide
from that wind but a large rock. When we have the case of the
tempest, a tempest, it doesn't just come from one direction,
it comes from every direction. And you have a picture in verse
two, of a people that have trials, adversaries, that need a hiding
place, that need a shadow of a great rock. Where are the people of God?
Where the Lord finds them. He finds them underneath the
law. When the children of Israel first came to Sinai, they came
to where the law was given and they were so fearful. the fire,
the voice, the thunder, they couldn't abide that. The law by the law is the knowledge
of sin, and the law condemns. And who can hide us from that
demands of the law, but one who has fulfilled the law, one who
has put himself under the law, made under the law. made of a
woman, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. Now attention is drawn
to that here, and all of the people of God will be drawn to
that, one that should come into their place, one that should
come able to redeem them and save them. We think of the wrath
of God against sin, that is revealed against all unrighteousness of
men. And it was the wrath of God that
was poured out upon the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? It is seen especially in the
types of the Old Testament when the fire came down upon the sacrifices
from heaven consumed those sacrifices as
it did upon Mount Carmel, as it did when Solomon dedicated
the temple, as it did when David before that on Mount Moriah. The children of Israel, he numbered
them, the wrath of God slew 70,000 of them. And then the plague
was stayed and the sacrifice was offered and the fire was
sent from heaven to consume it. that wrath, that fire fell upon
our Lord Jesus Christ. And what Christ is to the people
of God is that one that shall save them from the curse of a
broken law, that shall deliver them from the wrath of God, that
shall be to them all that they need in this world, in this world
that is so hostile to the things of God. The Lord says, I've given
them thy word and the world hath hated them. And they find that
this world is a waste howling wilderness. The Lord said, this
is not your rest. It is polluted. There is no rest
here. There is nothing that will satisfy
a living soul. And in fact, the Apostle Paul
says that if in this life only we have hope in Christ with all
men, most miserable, And yet in this life we do have hope
in Christ. And this second verse is a real
picture, a real description for the people of God. Some say we've
been converted, we've been saved, and we now live life to the full. And really this world is still
the element They still love it, they still have the friendship
of it with which the Lord has said, is enmity with God. They still find it goes along
with their religion, along with their worship, instead of finding
it contrary to them. He cannot serve God and mammon. The Lord says, if they have kept
my word, they will also keep yours. If they have done these
things in a green tree, as in Christ, They persecuted him,
they crucified him, they cast him out. What shall be done in
the dry? What shall be done to the people
of God when the Lord is ascended up on high? This world one day
shall be burnt up, shall be destroyed. But then, like it was with Noah
with the ark, the Lord shall be the refuge of his people then. The Lord shall be their hiding
place. But in all of their afflictions
and sorrows here below, in all of the trials that they have,
the things that come upon them, the sorrows, the disappointments,
the persecutions that they have from the world, from brethren
even, from those that are near to them, our Lord, we said they
all forsook him and fled. The Lord Jesus Christ is to them,
then, a hiding place. He is a covet. He's a shadow
of a great rock in a weary land. I always remember years ago going
for a time over in Melbourne in the peninsula, Western Port
Bay, there's French Island. And I went over there with my
bike and it was a very, very hot day. And I couldn't get back
very quickly because the ferries didn't run very often. They hadn't
brought much drink with me. But you know, I had to seek out
a place away from the sun. There wasn't a great rock there. There was a clump of pine trees
and I found there a refuge there. But if you've known what it is
to be in the burning sun and to then want somewhere where
there's a shelter, somewhere that there's a shadow. You know
something of the illustration, the beautiful illustrations in
this verse here as to what the Lord is to his people. For the
most part it is to come before him in prayer, to cast our burdens
upon him, to flee unto him, to look unto him, to trust in him,
to embrace the promises. to walk with Him in His sorrows
and how He was upon this earth. Our Lord walked this earth. We
are told in Hebrews that we are to consider Him that endured
the contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest we be wearied
and weak in our minds. What is Christ to us? Is He this? Is He this man, this real man? Is He our refuge, our hiding
place? Is he our first point of port
of call in all of our sorrows, when evil tidings come, when
sorrows come, when distresses come? To whom can we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. Being let go, the dear disciples,
after being persecuted, they went to their own company. It's
a blessed thing to come unto the Lord. When John Baptist was
slain, The disciples, they came and took up the body and went
and told Jesus. When was the last time that you
went and told Jesus? And you spread before him your
sorrows, told him all that had been happening and all that had
gone on. You laid it all before him, a
friend that sticketh fast, closer than a brother. What is Christ
to us? This will be one mark in these
gospel days, wherever the Spirit's work is, wherever there are those
in Christ's kingdom. Unto you which believe, he will
be precious. There will be a reason why he
is precious. And it is described here especially
in this second verse. I want to look then in the third
place, of Christ's work in them. We read that he which hath begun
a good work in you shall perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. And we have a description, and
there's five points here, from verses three to five, of a description
of Christ's work in his people. The first is this, he gives them
eyes to see. Verse three, and the eyes of
them that see shall not be dim. The Lord said of his disciples,
blessed are your eyes for they see. The work of the Lord is to open
those blind eyes. Being dead in trespasses and
sins, we see no beauty in the Lord. We do not see the things
of God. But when the Lord comes, the
eyes are opened. We see our state by nature, we
see our dangerous position, but we see also in the Lord's time
and way a beauty, attractiveness in the Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes
it is like the blind man, that when he first began to have his
eyes opened, he saw men as trees walking. It wasn't very clear
at first. You might feel like that. Not
very clear. But you can't say that you're
blind. The Lord is beginning to open
your eyes. And then the Lord worked further
and they saw clearly. We will see things in our heart,
we will see things in the Word of God, we will see things in
the world that we never saw before. And it's a blessed thing when
we begin to see a beauty and loveliness in Christ. The second thing is that ears
to hear. And the ears of them that hear
shall hearken You know, the Lord not only gives eyes, but he makes
those eyes see, not only gives ears, but they actually hear.
In John 10, the Lord gives the mark of his sheep that agrees
with this. My sheep, they hear my voice
and they follow me. The ears that the Lord also blessed,
that had been opened and heard the words of the Lord. James,
he says, be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving
your own selves. And the Lord told the parable
of the one that built his house upon the sand and one that built
his house upon the rock is the difference between one that hears
the word but doesn't do it and hears the word and does do it.
And so we have here, the ears of them that hear shall hearken. In other words, they don't just
hear, they do. They hearken, they listen, and
they obey that voice, and they follow that voice. And even when
we start to go astray and going into a different way, then it
shall be that we shall hear a word behind us saying, this is the
way, walk in it. when you turn to the right hand,
when you turn to the left. The third thing is a heart, a
heart to understand. The heart also of the rash shall
understand knowledge. We sung in hymn 76 to change
the heart, renew the will, turn the feet to Zion's hill. The
Lord gives that. This is the gospel work. It is
God's work in a sinner that is a heart work. And it affects
their heart. Instead of just rashly walking
here and thither, doing this or that, there's actually a considering
and a thinking and a meditating, pondering the path of thy feet. The heart also of the rash will
understand knowledge. Do we know that difference? Have
we been rash? Foolish, as the Lord then made
us to understand knowledge, shown us His right way, shown us the
truth of God and the gospel of God. This is what He's told of
the work of God in His people, Christ in His people. What He
shall do is work that shall be done in them. And the fourth
thing is that they shall have a tongue. A tongue of the stammerers
shall be ready to speak plainly. Instead of being so uncertain
on the things of God, do you know that the man that had been
born blind, when they so questioned him as to the reality of what
the Lord had done, he wasn't stammering, he wasn't uncertain
at all. He says, one thing I know, whereas
I was blind, now I see. And he was certain of that. If we come under this blessing,
we might say there is many things I cannot say, many things I don't
understand, I'm not able to clearly open up in the word of God, but
there is some things, and it may be one thing the Lord has
taught you, and you don't stammer on that. And you can be sure
if the Lord has taught one thing, then he'll teach the next, line
upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little,
precept upon precept. That's how it's taught in the
schools, isn't it? Grade one and two don't learn
the same things as first year in university. But those that
are in grade one and two that can say very clearly what they've
been taught is just as much a mark of their teachableness and what
has been taught them has been effectual as that in university
can acclaim to much more deeper things. Don't measure it by how
deep or how great, but the fact that at which we have been taught,
we're able to speak with the heart man believeth, with the
mouth confession is made unto salvation. What is Christ to
us? How are we able to speak to those
that have been our former companions, or to the Church of God, or to
the people of God? Whenever the Lord worked at work,
yes, there were some times He did say, He charged them not
to tell it, and people did. But many a time it was, go home
to thy friends and tell what great things God hath done for
thee. A tongue to speak, Christ's work in us, loosing
the tongue and speaking things that some of you this morning
you might think, I speak now things that in years gone past,
I never thought I would speak. I speak things now that once
I spoke against, you think of the Apostle Paul, Saul of Tarsus,
who hated the Lord Jesus, who persecuted his followers, who
went against him, would you have ever thought there'd come a time
that he now preached the name that he once despised and hated? He now loved that people and
claimed to that people. The Apostle Paul, his tongue
was very different after conversion than before. And with you and
I, it will be so as well. Then there's one last thing,
and that is true discernment. In verse five, we have, the vile
person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to
be bountiful. What a solemn thing, when there
is something that's evil, and people say that's good. And then
there's something that's good, and they say that's evil. But
that is how we are by nature. We will call the things of God
to be evil and troublous. When they started to bring the
gospel around, these have turned the world upside down. They become
here. We know that everywhere this
is a sect that is evil spoken against. But when the Lord works in the
heart, then evil is called evil. and good is called good. And
there is a true discernment. We have this in the word in Malachi,
at the end of the Old Testament, we have this word in verse 18,
then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the
wicked. between him that serveth God
and him that serveth him not. Paul in his epistle to the Hebrews,
he speaks of those that are exercised and their senses by reason of
use, exercised to discern between good and evil. The effect of
Christ's kingdom in the heart and his work in his people He
makes them honest and he delivers them from being deceived by those
that will call things the opposite of what they really are. The
Lord will set a true plumb line in the heart and those that live
close to the Lord discern his truth, discern what really is
right. And may we be of those that hear
the voice of the Lord and would obey God rather than man, and
walk in his ways, and love him, and love his dear people, and
to have that true discernment. This is opened up further in
the verses that follow, but verse five, it summarises that. Five things here then of Christ's
work in the people of God. Or may we know something of it
ourselves, the blessing, have been part of Christ's kingdom,
him reigning in the heart, and what Christ also is to us, and
what he has done for us, what our experience is of his work,
his teaching, his blessing. And this word written, prophesied
so many years ago, fulfilled in us, fulfilled in our life,
fulfilled in these gospel days. May that which our Lord has accomplished
at Calvary, the precious blood shed there, and the kingdom into
which he has entered and which he forms in the hearts of his
people, be so precious to us to be part of that, to be numbered
amongst his blood-bought people, people that have been redeemed
from the earth, and a people that have these three