Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 21 from your Spiral Gospel Hymns
hymnbook, The Covenant, Ordered and Sure. Let's all stand together.
Number 21. God the Father and the Son and
the Spirit, three in one, made eternal ages past, made a covenant
sure and fast. God my Father chose His own in
the person of His Son, and ordained that I should be one with Him
eternally. God the Son agreed to come in
the flesh to bring me home. He would keep God's holy law. and retrieved me from the fall. Christ, in love so willingly,
stood as my great surety. For my price He offered blood
to appease the wrath of God. God the Spirit's heavenly dove
promised to come down in love, bringing life and peace and grace
to the chosen, purchased race. He seeks the lost, heals the
lame. and He brings us to the Lamb. By His mighty sovereign call,
God's elect are gathered all. This poor sinner is secure, for
God's covenant will endure. It is sealed by God's own word,
by His Spirit and His blood. Blessed Holy Covenant God, I
am yours by ties of blood, ties of grace and ties of love. Hold me to my God above. Please be seated. Good morning. Let's open our Bibles together
to Isaiah chapter 52. Isaiah chapter 52. Would you join me as we pray
together? Our Heavenly Father, The ties
of grace and ties of love that bind us to our God above. Oh, how thankful we are for them.
And how we hope and pray Lord that in this hour that you would
strengthen those bonds of grace. That you would draw us into thy
presence. That you would be pleased to
comfort our hearts with the knowledge. Of the glorious person. And finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We take great hope in knowing
that there is a covenant, a covenant of grace, a covenant that's ordered
in all things insure, a covenant that cannot be broken, a covenant
that the Lord Jesus Christ himself fulfilled in its every demand. And Lord, we pray that you would
increase our faith now and Grow us in your grace and. Lord, for
those. That would be in the sound of
your gospel that are yet strangers to your grace. We ask Lord for
our children particularly. That you'd be pleased to open
their eyes. Take out their heart of stone.
Put in a heart of flesh. Give them faith to trust Christ.
For it's in his name we ask it. Amen. I've titled this study,
we'll finish up, Isaiah 52, Lord willing, Joy for Waste Places. Joy for Waste Places. We come into this world spiritually
dead. and uh... even after our new
birth we bear this body of flesh on us and uh... and in that sense we we were
born in a waste place we still live in a waste place and uh... like the children of israel uh...
finding uh... those oasis in the desert, the
Lord is drawing us to that place where our souls can be refreshed
and where we can have knowledge of Christ, where we can have
hope and knowing that our sins have been put away. And in this
passage, he tells us to sing and to rejoice, ye waste places
of Jerusalem. I can't look at this passage
without thinking about Ezekiel chapter 36 when the Lord showed
the prophet a valley of dry bones and said to the prophet, son
of man, can these bones live? And you remember what Ezekiel
said? He said, Lord, thou knowest. If there's any hope of them being
made alive, you're going to have to do it. I don't see any way
it can happen. You see, you and I raised our
fist in our father Adam in rebellion against God, and as a result
of that rebellion, we died. We died spiritually, and we're
born spiritually dead, and we carry this death around with
us all the time, don't we? And so the Lord told the prophet,
he said, prophesy unto the bones. Preach the gospel of God's free
grace to those dry bones. Those dry bones were the remnant
of an army that had lost a battle and there was nothing left to
them. The birds had picked away all the flesh. The insects had
eaten out all the marrow and the bones. They were dry. The
scripture says they were very dry. And then when the Lord explains
the parable or the vision to the prophet, he says to him very
specifically, he said, these dry bones are the whole house
of Israel. So there we are. There we are. And as the prophet preaches the
gospel to these dry bones, they were in a waste place. They started
to come together, didn't they? Bone began to join to bone, but
there was yet no life in them. And so the Lord told the prophet,
he said, prophesy to the wind, pray to the Spirit of God that
he would come and breathe life into those bones. That's all
we do. We preach the gospel and we plead
with the Lord to bless the message to our hearts. And the wind came
and gave them life. And so there's our hope. Member
in Acts chapter 6, when the apostles, there was a dissension in the
church over the distribution of food among the Greeks and
the Hebrews. And they came to the apostles
and said, we need you to settle this issue. And Peter said, it's
not right that we should be engaged in such a thing. Choose out from
among yourself men that can handle this problem. For God has called
us to prayer and to the preaching of the word. That's all we do. I was talking to somebody this
week about our church and inviting them to come. And, well, what
kind of things do you do? I said, we pray and we preach
the gospel. We join our hearts. Singing is
praying. We're not singing to one another.
We're singing to God. uh... so when we sing hymns uh... we're engaged in prayer uh... and when we're preaching we're
speaking of christ and listening for him and so uh... otherwise apart from those two
things we're in a waste place we're in a waste place we live
in a dry and thirsty land There's no hope for water. There's no
hope for life. There's no hope for bread from
heaven. Apart from the preaching of the gospel and prayer. So
the Lord says here, look at verse 9, bring forth into joy and sing
together ye waste places of Jerusalem. We have reason to be joyful. We have reason to sing. There's
no reason out there, no reason outside of God's free grace,
outside of the salvation of the Lord. There's no reason to rejoice. There's no reason to sing. But
here he says, bring forth into joy, sing together. And you remember
previous verses where the Lord says, My watchman will all see
eye to eye. Several of you all were able
to be here Wednesday night and hear Angus Fisher preach. And I was so blessed by that
message and blessed by the fellowship that he and I enjoyed together
afterwards and the next day. And I'd never met Angus before.
We had only corresponded. I'd listened to him preach a
couple of times, and I knew he preached the gospel. But the
togetherness that believers enjoy, whatever other differences we
might have, pale in comparison to the union that we have in
Christ. And we don't have that with anybody else. We don't have
that with anybody else in the world. And so he says, sing together
in perfect harmony, seeing eye to eye about what God has accomplished
in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the only sustenance
you have. It's the only water for your
thirsty soul. It's the only bread that comes
from heaven. Everything else is just temporal, isn't it? The Lord said, labor not for
the bread which perisheth. Don't set your affections on
the things of the earth. Enjoy the things that God gives
you, but for the salvation of your soul, For that which is
eternal, set your affections on things above, where Christ
is seated at the right hand of God. And labor for that bread
which leadeth unto everlasting life." The Lord Jesus Christ
is the bread of life, isn't He? He's the man that came down from
heaven. And so, And when he instructed us to pray, he said, pray that
the Father give you your daily bread. This is a meal, you know,
you eat a big meal and you think, well, I just can't eat, I can't
eat, I'm not gonna eat for a week. You think, you know, well, a
few hours later, you're ready to eat again, aren't you? And
that's the way the soul is. Lord, just keep feeding my soul
with fresh manna. And so he says, break forth into
joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem. How do I know this is for me?
Because everything else in my life is a waste place. It's just
a waste when it comes to my soul. I can look at a beautiful landscape,
I can enjoy fellowship with people, I can enjoy union with my wife,
I can have all sorts of things that I pleasure in this world,
but they don't satisfy my soul. They don't speak to my heart
and they give me peace with God. They don't. None of those things
do. When it comes to my need to have
peace with God, everything else is a waste place. It's a waste
place. So that's who this is for. Is
that your experience? Is that your experience? For the Lord hath comforted his
people. The Lord hath comforted His people. He's done it. He's comforted
us. The comfort of knowing that my
sins have been put away by the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the comfort of knowing that I have an advocate with the Father,
the comfort of knowing that my warfare, remember Ezekiel 36,
fighting against God and being left as dry bones, my warfare
is accomplished. My iniquity is taken away, and
I've received of the Lord a double portion, a double blessing. He
says the Lord's done it. The Lord did it. You couldn't
help yourself. You couldn't fix the problem.
You're dry bones, very dry bones. You live in a waste place, and
there's nothing in the world that's going to satisfy this
need that you have to be right with God. to have assurance and
hope of your salvation to know God for him to know there's no
place else so he says the Lord's done it the Lord has comforted
his people you remember Naomi and Ruth came back from Moab
Naomi's husband had moved her from Bethlehem Judah which translated
means the house of bread because there was a famine in the land
It was a temporary famine, so Elimelech moves his family to
Moab for a better job, for more money. And while they're in Moab,
Elimelech dies, his two sons die, Naomi's left with nothing,
and her two daughter-in-laws, and she realizes i've got to
go back to bethlehem i've got to go back to the house of bread
and uh... she takes she tells her daughters
her daughter-in-law as he said you stay here this is your home
this where you belong remember ruth said ruth said no i'm not
staying i'm going with you your god is my god your people in
my people uh... wherever you go i'm going And
Ruth went back with Naomi. And they were destitute. They
had come from a barren land. And now they were in Bethlehem,
but they had nothing. Everything had been sold. Everything
had been lost. In the providence of God, it
just so happed, the scripture says, that Ruth found herself
at Boaz's field, gleaning the scraps that were left over. And
Naomi realized that Boaz had an eye for Ruth. And Naomi said,
you go to the threshing floor tonight and you remember you
know what the threshing floor is that's a place where they
separated the wheat from the chaff and that's what God does
every time the Gospels preached There's a threshing that takes
place. God is separating the wheat from the chaff, and He's
gathering the wheat into His barn, and the chaff is being
blown away and going to be thrown into a furnace to be made of
fire. And so, the Lord is saying to
us, go to the threshing floor. Uncover the man's feet is what
Naomi told Ruth to do. Uncover the man's feet and lie
down at his feet and he will tell you what to do. And there
we are, coming to the threshing floor, uncovering the man's feet. seeing that his feet, as he's
revealed in Revelation, are like fine brass burned in a furnace. And what do we have? We have
feet of clay. Remember the seraphim in Isaiah
chapter 6? They had six wings. With two
wings, what did they do? They covered their feet. Why? Because they were in the presence
of God. and your feet is a picture of your creature ness and the
fact that you can't walk straight and stand up in the presence
of God but his feet can uncover his feet and she she did like
Mary she sat at the feet of Christ and she chose that one thing
that was needful to hear what he would have to say and and
then Naomi told Ruth he said The next day, after Boaz had
spoke to Ruth, Naomi said, you wait. You just sit right here
and wait. For the man will not rest until
he has finished the work today. There's our Boaz, our kinsman
redeemer. He did not rest until he finished the work. And Ruth
was able to rest. She was able to be comforted
in knowing that Boaz was going to do everything necessary to
redeem her unto himself. And that's the gospel, isn't
it? That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
is. And we come to this threshing floor from a waste place, a place
where there's no bread, a place where there's no water. And the
Lord says, sit at my feet, hear ye him. He'll tell you what to
do. If the Lord's pleased to speak,
oh, it'll be clear, won't it? And what's the first thing he
says to do? Calm. Calm. Just like you are, just calm. Rest, believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Lord, verse 10, I'm sorry,
he hath redeemed Jerusalem. Hebrews chapter 9, verse 12,
by his own blood, he hath entered in to the holy place and has
obtained eternal redemption for us. The Lord Jesus Christ redeemed
us. That word means He bought us.
What did He buy us with? He bought us with the precious
blood that He shed, that sinless blood on Calvary's cross. He
did not make the offer of His blood to us. God's not saying,
here's the blood of Christ. Apply it. Apply the blood of
Christ to your heart. No, what the Lord Jesus Christ
did on Calvary's cross was he made an offering of his blood
to the father. And the father saw the travail
of his soul and the father was satisfied. This is my son, I'm
well pleased with him. Hear ye him. He has purchased
once and for all, all of God's elect. He fulfilled the requirements
of that covenant of grace that God established before time ever
began. The Lord Jesus Christ has done
it. There's our comfort. Everything, everything that God
requires of you and me, He's looking to Christ for. Everything. Now that's comfort. God's not
looking to me for anything. Nope. No. He's looking to my
substitute. He's looking to my redeemer.
He's looking to my advocate. He's looking to my sin bearer.
He's not looking to me for anything. If God's looking to me for anything,
I'm not comforted. I have no comfort in that. Because
I know myself. I came from Moab. I live in a
waste place. I was born spiritually dead.
I'm dry bones. What am I going to offer God?
My sincerity, my commitment, my devotion, my dedication, my
free will, my good works. What am I going to offer God?
If I look to any of those things, I lose my comfort. I lose the
assurance of my salvation because I have to be honest and wonder,
have I done enough? Did I do it right? I've watched people die, clenching
their religious trinkets, doing everything necessary to try to
do enough. Try to just got to do a little
bit more, a little bit more. There's no comfort in that. There's
no peace. There's no hope. Not to an honest
person. And most, most religious folks
are not honest. They're liars. They're hypocrites. They're pretending to be something
that they're not. God's God's chosen you you you can't be satisfied
with that Kenya you just can't be satisfied with so the Lord
says saying all you inhabitants of Jerusalem who have come from
a waste place you're wasted in and of yourself you've got nothing
you can do nothing you can offer got anything the Lord has redeemed
you The Lord has comforted you. He did it all. And He did it
all by Himself. There's your reason for singing.
There's your reason for rejoicing. There's the hope of your salvation. How did He do it? How did He do it? Verse 10, hath
made bare his holy arm." Look over the next chapter, Isaiah
53, verse 1. Who hath believed our report? And the second part of that verse
can be stated as a statement rather than a question. to whom the arm of the Lord has
been revealed. That's who's believed, I report.
Everyone to whom God has revealed His strong right arm. Everyone. They believe. You see,
what Paul say in Romans chapter 10 how can they call upon him
and whom they've not believed and how can they believe on him
and whom they've not heard and how can they hear without a preacher
and how can they preach unless they be sent oh how beautiful
are the feet of them that bring good tidings good tidings why
do we why do we just keep preaching Christ why do we keep looking
to God's word and and speaking of him Because that's the means. That's the means that the Lord
saves. He's revealing His right arm by His Word. This whole book is a revelation
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not a rule book. It's not
a book of laws. It's not a book of theology. It's not a book of history. It's
not a book of poetry. It's a book about Christ. It's
all about Him. It's our hymn book, isn't it? The Lord hath made bare His holy
arm. This thing was not done in a
corner. The Lord publicly declared Himself to be the Christ. The Lord publicly laid down His
life for His sheep. And right now publicly The Lord
Jesus Christ is sending forth his church to proclaim the gospel
of his free grace. So this is, this is the means. He says, I've, I've revealed
my holy arm. I have exposed my arm. I've,
I've made him bear in the eyes of all the nations and the ends
of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. Salvation is the
Lord's. It's the Lord's to accomplish.
It's the Lord's to give. It's His salvation. People talk
about getting saved all the time, don't they? It's the Lord that
saves. It belongs to Him. He will distribute
it at His will. And the truth of that will not
turn you into a fatalist. The truth of that will turn you
into a mercy beggar. Lord, have mercy on my soul.
Lord, reveal your holy arm to me. Show me the glory of Christ. Shut me up to your grace. Don't give me any other options.
Lord, I need to be saved. Here's the glorious truth. If
that's the desire of your heart, it's because the Lord has saved
you. It's because you wouldn't feel that way if the Lord hadn't
shut you up to him. So he says, the Lord hath made
bare his holy arm. Lord, make your arm bare to me. think about when the Lord the
Lord began and finished his public ministry with the cleansing of
the temple and that it it enraged the Pharisees what the Lord did
what was that what was the point of that you've turned the house
of God into a den of thieves the house a prayer the house
a prayer that's what that's what faith does faith praise faith
just please with the Lord for mercy and what they do they were
they were buying and selling in the temple making merchandise
of men's souls and making salvation something that you could buy
and and it it brought forth the wrath of God The Lord Jesus Christ
turned over those money changer tables and chased the animals
out of the temple. And I think about when he made
that whip. You know, you think about the
Lord was a carpenter. I mean, he said that he made
bare his holy arm. Carpenters just didn't go down
to the lumber store. They went out in the woods and
cut down the trees and hewed out the timber and brought them
back. When he made bare his holy arm
in the temple, can you see him with that whip? Just angry because of what man
had done in making the house a prayer den of thieves. If the
Lord's made bare his holy arm, you understand that wrath. You
understand that holy hatred. Why? Because God's given you
a holy hatred for it. You can't bear listening to someone
talk about salvation when it puts off on you something you've
got to do in order to procure it. Can you? You can't stand
it. You won't listen to it. You hate
it. Why? Because his holy arm has been
made bare. You understand that your only
hope of holiness before God is in the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Verse 11. Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out
from thence, touch no unclean thing, go ye out of the midst
of her, be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord. All of God's people bear the
vessels of the Lord. We're earthen vessels. We have
this treasure in earthen vessels that the glory and praise might
be of God, not of us. But what the Lord's saying is,
come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord.
Don't mix law and grace. Don't have yenae preaching. Don't
say, well, it's all of God, but you've got to do this. Don't
do that. It's a confusing message that
men can't hear. For you shall not go out with
haste, nor go by flight, for the Lord will go before you,
and the God of Israel will be your rear ward. Isaiah Psalm chapter 139 the
Lord will go before us and the Lord will go behind us. Here
they are the children of Israel when they were fleeing from the
Egyptians the Lord sent that set that pillar of cloud to separate
them from the Egyptians so the Egyptians couldn't get to them.
He He was their rear ward. He guarded them on the back side
and he led them on the front side. And that's what the Lord
is saying to every one of His people. You're not going to have
to go out in haste. Going out in haste is thinking,
well, I just need to do a little bit more. A lot of us came out
of religion. Religion will wear you out, won't it? It will just
wear you out. I mean, they've got committees
on top of committees, and committees for committees. I've been in
churches that had a committee of committees. I did. We had a committee for committees.
You know, and everybody had a job, and everybody had things to do,
and it was just, do a little bit more. Work a little bit harder.
And the Lord said, no, you're not going to go out in haste.
Why? Because the work's been done.
It's finished. Rest. Rejoice ye waste places
of Jerusalem. Sit down. It's already done. I went before you. I went into the holies of holies.
I put my blood on that mercy seat. I shred the veil. I've gone into the very presence
of God. I'm your forerunner. Come. Come to the throne of grace.
And I'm never going to leave you or forsake you. I'll go with you. I'm going to
protect you from the backside. Children of Israel were always
being attacked when they were wandering in the wilderness by
the Assyrians. And the Assyrians were real good
at guerrilla warfare. They were picking off the weaklings
that were straggling behind. And the Lord said, that's not
going to happen to you. I'm going to be your rearward. I'm going to
protect you. It's not going to be. I'll go
before you. I'll go behind you. You cannot
escape my presence. Why? Because I bought you. You're
mine. And I'm going to protect my possession.
I'm going to protect my children. Behold my servant. He's speaking
of Christ. My servant shall deal prudently."
Now, usually when we use the word prudent, we're talking about
being safe, being circumspect. You know, let's take the safe
road. Let's don't risk anything. Let's be prudent about this.
The word here means to have understanding and to prosper. To prosper. So, here's what the scriptures,
here's what the Lord is telling us. Behold, my servant, my elect,
the one whom I uphold, he's going to have perfect understanding
and he's going to prosper in everything he does. Now what
did he understand? He understood that the Father
had chosen a particular people before time ever began. He understood
the covenant of grace. He understood that God was holy
and that God required a holy sacrifice in order to redeem
those whom God had chosen. He understood that God demanded
a perfect righteousness that his people couldn't give. He
understood that they were dead in their trespasses and sins
and they were in a waste place. He understood that all the work
was on his shoulders. that he was gonna have to prosper
in their salvation if it was going to be accomplished. And
the Lord says, behold, my servant, he shall deal prudently. He shall
prosper. And he has prospered in what
he came to do. He's accomplished the salvation
of his people, hadn't he? There's our hope. There's our
reason for rejoicing. There's our comfort. And he shall
be exalted, and extolled, and be very high." Be very high. God's given him a name above
every name. That at the name of Jesus every
knee shall bow and every tongue confess. He's given Him preeminence
over all things. The armies of heaven and the
inhabitants of the earth all do His will. He's seated at the
right hand of God. He shall be extolled. And He's
extolled in the hearts of His people, isn't He? He's elevated
to that position of glory and honor in the hearts of His people. They realize that, well, they
see Him as God sees Him, don't they? They see him as God sees
him. And he shall be very high. Remember Isaiah chapter 6? If
you go to John chapter 12, it's clear, John makes it clear that
Isaiah saw the Lord Jesus Christ high and lifted up. And his train filled the temple. And Isaiah said, woe is me. I'm
a dead man. I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean
lips. I live among a people of unclean
lips. What am I going to do? Nothing you can do, Isaiah. Nothing
you can do. I'm going to have to do it for
you. So the Lord took one of those seraphims and got a hot
coal from off the altar and touched his lips and said, uh, you've
been made clean. Sin's been purged. That's the
fiery wrath of God's judgment on the altar of sacrifice, not
your sacrifice, not my sacrifice, the sacrifice that Christ made
on Calvary's cross. There's our hope. He shall be
extolled. He shall be exalted and he shall
be very high. And many were astounded at His
visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than
the sons of men." That was the wrath of God that
did that to the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross. It pleased
God to bruise Him, all those wounds that He suffered. And
you hear He say, and He had been beaten so badly, He didn't look
like a man. He didn't look like a man. Why? Well, the scripture says when
the spirit of grace and the spirit of supplication is poured out
on the house of Jerusalem and on the inhabitants of Israel,
they will grieve over him whom they have pierced as one mourneth
for his only son. That was my sin. that caused the Son of God to
suffer such brutality, such wrath. And the Lord says, we'll look
on Him. We'll see that His visage was
marred more than any man. So shall He sprinkle many nations,
and kings shall shut their mouths at Him. For that which had not
been told them shall they see, and that which they had not heard
shall they consider. Lord, I never saw it. Never saw
it before. And I'm hearing it again, almost
as if I'd never heard it before. Lord, you've opened my eyes. You've revealed to me the glory
of your son. And you've caused me to sing
and to rejoice, though I be in a waste place. You've given me
life in Christ. What hope? What bread? Nowhere else, nowhere else, nobody
else can speak like this, can they? Everything else, Solomon, Solomon
got it right, didn't he? Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. It's all it is. All right, let's
take a break. th th