Good morning. Zechariah chapter
13 verse 1 says, in that day there should be a fountain open
to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem
for sin and for uncleanness. Our hope this morning is the
Lord will fulfill that promise for sinners, those who are unclean,
those who need a fountain to be opened up, and that the Lord
will will make us clean in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, let's stand together. Tom's going to come and lead
us in a hymn. Number six in the hardback temple. Come Thou Almighty King, help
us Thy name to sing, help us to praise. Father, all-glorious,
all-victorious, come and reign over us, ancient of days. Come Thou incarnate Word, gird
on Thy mighty sword, our prayer attend. Come and Thy people bless,
and give Thy word success, Spirit of holiness on us descend. Come, holy Comforter, Thy sacred
witness bear In this glad hour. Thou who almighty art, Now rule
in every heart, And ne'er from us depart Spirit of power. to the great one in three. Eternal praises be, hence, evermore. His sovereign majesty may we
in glory see, and to eternity love and adore. Please be seated. If you'll open your Bibles with
me to Isaiah chapter 40, Isaiah chapter 40, you'll find that
our text this morning speaks to that prayer that we just sang
to the Lord. Come, help us. Lord, we are helpless. We have no strength. The natural
man says God helps those who help themselves. The truth is
that God only helps those who cannot help themselves. I wonder if you're in that state
this morning. Lord, I don't know anything.
I can't do anything. I don't have anything. I'm completely
dependent upon you to help me. That's what we just sang. And
that's what God's word teaches. Courage for those who are afraid. Look here in Isaiah chapter 40,
we'll begin reading in verse 28. Hast thou not known Isaiah is the one you remember
in Isaiah chapter 53 that says, who hath believed our report?
To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Hast thou not
known, oh, how quick we are to forget the truth of who God is
and who we are in relationship to him? How easy it is for us
to set ourselves up on the throne of God. how easy it is for us
to try to take control of our circumstances and even of our
salvation, and how dependent we are that the Lord would remind
us. And as we saw Wednesday night,
you remember when Mary came before the Lord in Luke chapter three
there at the wedding feast of Cana and said to him, or John
chapter three, said to him, you know, we're out of wine. And the Lord said to his mother,
he said, what do I have to do with you? Mary needed to be put
in her place. Mary needed to be shown that
she had no advantages because of her relationship as the Lord's
mother. That she was completely dependent
upon him. And so it is for each of us.
We need to be put in our place, don't we? We need to be reminded
that God is God and we're not. And that's exactly what the Lord's
doing here. Hast thou not known Have you
forgotten so soon? Hast thou not heard that the
everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth,
fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his
understanding. Everything that our God does,
he does in accordance with his divine nature, and his nature
is everlasting. So everything he does is from
everlasting to everlasting. Our God's never had a new thought.
Our God's never come up with a plan B. Everything that's working
out in time, he's ordained in eternity and purposed it for
the glory of eternity. And that's what he's saying here. Hast thou not known? Hast thou
not heard? That our God is from everlasting
to everlasting. Here we are living in this brief
moment of time that the Lord's put us in and he's completely
outside of time. He's the creator of the ends
of the earth and the sustainer of all of life, both physical
and spiritual. Everything is contingent on him. Everything is dependent on Him.
He brought all things to be that we know. He's the creator of
the ends of the earth. He faints not. He faints not. Someone said, well, if there's
no life on other planets, why would God go to all that trouble
to make so many billions and billions of stars? Trouble? What trouble? There's no trouble.
It was no trouble for Him. He fainted not. He spoke the Word and it happened.
That's who He is. This is what we need to be reminded
of, don't we? Because here we are living in
our own little world. We wake up and we open our eyes
and we look at the existence that we have as if we were the
center of the universe. And what the Lord does when He
brings us to His Word is He reminds us who we are and who He is. He's not weary. There's no searching
of His understanding. He's beyond our comprehension.
We can't figure Him out. And yet, how often we do. How
often we, in our minds, in our hearts, we want to know why God's
doing what He's doing and why things happen the way they happen. rather than just bowing to him
and submitting to his sovereign rule. The scripture says, he
hath done whatsoever he wills with the armies of heaven and
with all the inhabitants of the earth. And no man can say unto
him, what doest thou? And no man can stay his hand. The nations, he said, are a drop
in the bucket to him. Here's who he is. Oh, how important
it is for us to be reminded of this, isn't it? Hast thou forgotten? Do you not know he giveth power
to the faint? When we were yet of little strength,
Christ died for the ungodly? No, when we were yet without
strength. When we had no power, when we
had no will, when we had no ability to save ourselves or to present
to God any reason why He should save us. We were faint and He
gives power to the faint and to them that have no might, them
that have no power, no strength, He gives strength. Paul said,
when I am weak, then I am strong, for His strength is made perfect
in my weakness. There's no way we're going to
know the power of God until we are brought by the Spirit of
God to realize that we have no power. We have no ability. We have no will. We have no works.
We have no wisdom. We are absolutely, totally, completely
dependent upon Him. And the pride of man won't let
himself come to that. The Lord's gonna have to convince
us of that. He giveth power to the faint, and them that have
no might, He increaseth strength. Even the youth shall faint and
be weary, and the young man shall utterly fall. But they that wait
upon the Lord, they that trust Him, They that rely upon Him,
they that are able by the Spirit of God to look to Christ and
to rest in His finished work and to believe that He's sovereign
over all the affairs of man, both physical and spiritual. that he's the Alpha and the Omega,
the beginning and the end, and everything in between. They that
wait upon the Lord shall, you see that word renew in verse
31? Perhaps you have in the margin
of your Bible, I have in mine, the word actually literally translated
means to change, to change, or to exchange. their inability
for his ability. That's what Paul was talking
about when he said his strength. My strength is made strong in
him. How's it go? I just quoted a
moment ago. I'm made strong in his strength. But they that wait upon the Lord
shall change their strength. They have no strength of their
own. They shall mount up with wings of eagles. Eagles aren't
like other birds. They're not like the nervous
little sparrow. They're not like the hummingbird.
Eagles have an innate ability to feel the wind currents and to take
advantage of them. And so it is with those that
wait upon the Lord. They don't flutter around trying
to fix everything. They wait for the Spirit of God,
the wind of God's Spirit to blow, and they're caught up in His
strength. His strength is made perfect
in my weakness. They shall change their strength,
they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and
not be weary. Paul said, I've finished my course,
I've run the race. They'll be brought by the power
of God. Why? Because they'll be kept.
They can't keep themselves. They can't save themselves and
they can't keep themselves. They're dependent upon the Lord
to keep them and to present them thoughtless before the throne
of God. And he'll do that. They will be enabled to run the
race and to finish the course. And they won't faint. They won't
fall away. The scripture makes it clear
that those who have fallen away from the gospel never knew the
gospel to begin with. For if they had known, they would
have remained." The Lord finishes what he starts, and when he brings
one of his children to faith in Christ, he keeps them in Christ. He will not allow them to fall.
And that's what Isaiah is saying here. They shall run and not
be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Keep silent before me, O islands,
chapter 41, verse one, and let the people renew again, change
their strength for his strength. His works are the only works
that are pleasing to the Father. His faith is the only faith that
was acceptable to God. And the only hope that you and
I have to find acceptance before God is to be found in Him. Not having our own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that righteousness which is by the
faith of Jesus Christ. He's our hope, our only hope. He's our strength. His death
on Calvary's cross is the only thing that satisfies the demands
of God's holy justice. And when he died, all those for
whom he died, died in him. So that the Apostle Paul said,
I am what? Crucified with Christ. When Christ was crucified, I
was crucified. I had fellowship with his suffering. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless,
I live. Yet, it's not I. Christ lives
in me. That's the hope of my glory.
The life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me. He's our only hope. That's what Isaiah is speaking.
Keep silent before me. Don't justify yourself. Don't
say God's obligated to do something for me because of something I
did or something I said. Let the people renew their strength. Let them come near and then let
them speak. And let us come near together
to judgment, to judgment. By their words they shall be
justified and by their words they shall be condemned. Let
us come before him and speak of Christ and confess that the
only hope of us being reconciled to God is through the judgment
that was executed against the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's
cross. That's what we speak. We speak of Christ. We don't
talk about what we've done, or what we know, or what we've accomplished,
or what we've, we don't, we just point to Christ. What did John
the Baptist say? I must decrease, he must increase. Verse two. When we come together,
that's what we're doing right now, and we're speaking of the
judgment of God, the executing of his justice against the sin
bearer, the Lord Jesus Christ, who satisfied the demands of
God's justice and put away the sins of his people once and for
all. That's what we're doing. We're speaking of his judgment.
This is the judgment of God. This is what he considers to
be just. This is how he is able to be
just and justifier of sinners. Verse two, who raised up? Now, in our text, the scripture
says the righteous man. Notice the word man is in italics.
It really, and it is a reference to Christ, but the literal translation
is who raised up righteousness? The Lord Jesus Christ himself
is our righteousness, and we speak of his righteousness and
of his only. We have no righteousness of our
own. All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags before God.
In me, Paul said it, that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. Who raised up righteousness?
Well, the Father did. Where'd he come from? He came
from the east. He called him to his foot. He gave the nations
before him and made him rule over kings. He gave them as the
dust of his sword and as driven stubble to his bow. He does what
he wills with the men of this world. The kings of the earth
are in his hand. And like the watercourse, he
directs their path. He does. He's not threatened
by the opinions of men or by the attitudes of men against
him, not in the least. He's the righteous man. He's
the one who sits at the feet of God. He's the one who rules. God gave him rule over the kings.
And the nations are like the dust to his sword. They're like
the driven stubble to his bow. He pursued them and passed safely,
even by the way that he had not gone with his feet. Now with
his physical feet, the Lord Jesus Christ covered only a very small
part of this earth. He never left Palestine in his
entire life here on the earth. And yet, that doesn't limit his
reign, does it? He says here that he's given
him safety and peace in places even where his feet did not go. Verse four, who hath wrought
and done it? Calling the generations from
the beginning, I the Lord, the first and with the last, I am
He. Oh, if you and I are going to
be saved, He's going to have to do it. He's going to have
to choose us from eternity past in the covenant of grace. He's
going to have to arrest us in our rebellion against God. He's
going to have to open the eyes of our understanding. He's going
to have to give us the faith of Christ. He's going to have to cause us
to come. We won't come if he doesn't do it. This matter of
salvation, it's God's work. As is everything else in this
world. The next breath that you draw,
that's God's air. That's God's air. He can cut it off from you anytime
he wants. The next beat your heart makes, that's God's. Everything. How frail we are. How dependent
we are. Man in his pride thinks he's
got it all figured out. Verse five, the isles saw it. And what'd they do? They feared. The fear of God is the beginning
of wisdom. To fear him. This is not a slavish,
cringing fear like Adam knew when he tried to hide from God. This is a reverential fear that
brings us to the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ and causes
us to bow to him and confess our total dependence on him.
When they heard, when the isles heard this, they feared, and
the ends of the earth were afraid. They drew near and they came.
Oh, they fled to him. They, like
the woman with the issue of blood, thought, well, if I can just
touch the hem of his garment, I'll be made whole. Like Mary
had chosen that one thing that was needful, sitting at the feet
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Mephibosheth was fetched and
brought to the king's table. And what did he say to the king?
What did Mephibosheth say to David? What would you have to
do with such a dead dog as I? Now that's the fear. That's the
fear that God's people have when they're brought by the spirit
of God into his presence. Realizing that all the judgments
of their life physically and spiritually. He holds in His
hand. Now that's a God worthy of worship. That's a God worthy of worship.
Men who engage in religious practices who don't believe that our God
is absolutely, completely sovereign are pretending. They're acting. It's vain worship. Verse six, they helped everyone
his neighbor and everyone said to his brother, be of good courage. Here's the fellowship of the
saints among the believers. We don't say, as they said in
the old covenant, when most of the Israelites were unbelievers,
you need to know the Lord and stand in judgment over the unbeliever. No, we speak encouragement to
one another, don't we? Believers remind one another
of who the Lord is and what he's accomplished, and they draw strength
from each other, from their testimony, And they say, be of good courage.
Don't be afraid. Look what he's done. He's satisfied
God's justice. Judgment's been executed. It's
been executed. The sword of God's wrath has
been put away. It was sheathed into the heart
of the Lord Jesus Christ once and for all. God wet his sword
with the blood of Christ and it's now put away so that there
is now therefore no condemnation to who? To them who are in Christ
Jesus. To them who are in Christ Jesus. So the carpenter encouraged the
goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer, him that smote
with the anvil, saying, It is ready for the soldering. And
he fastened it with nails, that it should not be moved. The Lord is just likening the
church to a construction site. You know, the church is likened
to so many different things. It's likened to a body, it's
likened to a bride. Here it's likened to workers
putting together a building. And they're saying that each
member of the body of Christ is participating in the building
up of the body of Christ. And we're saying it's fastened. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
nail that's been placed in a sure place. Hang on Him, the burden
of your soul. He's not going to be moved. Oh,
we're being moved all the time, aren't we? Our circumstances
move us. Our trials and troubles move
us. He's not moved. He neither sleeps nor slumbers
and he's not moved. He never gets anxious. He's never
worried. He's in absolute, complete control
of everything. I'm so glad. He's omnipotent. He's God. He lacks no ability. Trust Him. Rest in Him. Wait upon Him. and change your
strength from your strength to his strength. But thou Israel, what does Israel mean, prince?
You're a child of God. There's no higher place that
a man can be brought to in this world. You know, let the people
of this world boast in their pedigree and in their associations
with whoever they want. God's people are called Israel,
the princes of God, the children of God, their true royalty. Yeah, there's our two natures,
isn't it? Oftentimes, God refers to his
people as Israel, and then other times he calls us Jacob, and
in some occasions, like in this verse, he puts them both in the
same verse. Why? Because we have two natures,
don't we? We have two natures. The new
man, created in Christ Jesus, that's Israel. Jacob's name was
changed to Israel that night that he struggled with the Lord. And that's what we do. And the Lord reminds us of the
new nature that we have. But the old man, he never changes,
does he? Never changes. Regeneration does
not make any part of the old man holy. He's just as unholy as he's always
been. And regeneration leaves no part
of the new man unholy. And when this mortal is made
immortal and this corruptible is made incorruptible, then we'll
have a body just like him. But thou, Israel, art my servant
Jacob, whom I have chosen the seed of Abraham. God did the
choosing. The Lord Jesus Christ said, you
did not choose me. It's not in your power to choose. You don't have the power to choose.
I chose you. I chose you. Everything. He's done it all.
And we're the seed of Abraham. Abraham was chosen by God. And
he's called the father of the faithful. And the Jews love to
pride themselves and be in the seed of Abraham. But the Lord
said, I can raise up children unto Abraham from these stones.
And that's exactly what he did. When he saved you, it saved me.
He raised up children to Abraham from the stones of the earth
and took out that heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh and
gave us faith. to be like Abraham to believe
God. And Abraham believed God and
it was accounted unto him for righteousness. Look at the last two words of
verse eight. In light of the fact that God
is omnipotent and we have no power, in light of the fact that
he's holy and we're not. He's the creator and we're the
creature. All the glorious things about him. And what does he call
us? My friend. My friend. The Lord Jesus Christ said that
to the disciples. He said, I no longer call you
servants. For the servants knoweth not
what the master doeth. They just obey blindly. They
don't know. But I call you my friend. Call
you my friend. I'm going to draw you to myself
and I'm going to reveal to you what it is I'm doing in saving
my people and reigning sovereign in this world. Thou whom I have
taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief
men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant, I have chosen
thee, and not cast thee away. Oh, David's prayed in Psalm 51,
Lord, take not thy spirit from me. Every sinner fears that God
would cast them away because of their sin. And he promises
here, he says, I'll not leave you. I'll not forsake you. I'll
not cast you away. I'm gonna finish what I started. And look at the next verse. Fear
thou not. Fear thou not, why? Because I
am with thee. I am with thee. In the midst of all your trials,
in all your troubles, Count it all joy, my brethren, when you
fall into divers temptations, knowing that the trying of your
faith worketh patience. He's with us. Rejoice in the
Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. Let
your gentleness be known unto all men. Why? Because the Lord
is at hand. Now how close to you is your
hand? That's how close the Lord is.
Don't be afraid. I am with thee. Be not dismayed. How easy it is for us to be dismayed. We just, we get confused very
easily, don't we? I am thy God. I'm not confused. I know what
I'm doing. Everything's right on schedule.
I'm going to have my way, and I'm going to bring glory to myself.
Look what he says, I will strengthen thee. Yea, I will help thee. Yea, I will uphold thee. How? With the right hand of my righteousness.
With the right hand of my righteousness. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's the strong right hand of God. He's the righteousness of
God. It's the Lord Jesus Christ that
said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. What hope for the fearful? What strength for the weak? Men go around boasting out their
chest, and priding themselves in what they are, and what they've
accomplished, and what they can do, and who they know. God's way is not our way. His thoughts are not our thoughts,
as the heavens are high above the earth, so are my ways above
your ways. The way up is down. That's God's way. And if He shows you the truth,
that's where you'll be brought. That's where you'll be brought. Behold, verse 11, all that they
were in, all that are I'm sorry. All they that were incensed against
thee shall be ashamed and confounded. They shall be as nothing. God's gonna make nothing out
of everything eventually. He'll make nothing out of you
when he makes you to be a sinner. He'll make you to be nothing.
In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth nothing, nothing, no good thing. And here he's speaking of those
who are in rebellion against him. And he says, in that day,
they'll be made to be nothing. They'll have no strength. They
that strive with thee shall perish. They shall perish. That's true
of those who strive with God, but you know what the hope of
a believer is? There will come a day when will, the scripture's
clear in Revelation, there'll come a day when every child of
God in glory, when they see the destruction of the wicked, will
say hallelujah. Because they'll know that God
did it, and it'll be to his praise and to his glory. But we're not
there now, are we? We grieve over the thought of
the unbeliever perishing. But you know what we do rejoice
in? Knowing that the unbelief that remains in our flesh is
gonna perish. Now that's something to rejoice
in. That's something to say, for me to live is Christ and
to die is gain. There's gonna come a day when
I'm gonna shed this flesh and it's going to perish. It's gonna
be put into the ground Never to be seen again. And God's gonna
give me a new body. It's gonna be the glorious body
of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's my hope. There's my hope. Who is it that strives with you
more than anybody else? You! You're your own worst enemy,
aren't you? I mean, you really are. If you know anything about
yourself, You know that you are your own worst enemy. And that old man, he's gonna
perish one day. Look at verse 12. Thou shalt
seek them and shall not find them, even then that contended
with thee, they that war against thee shall be as nothing and
as a thing of naught. There again, there's a double
meaning there. All the enemies that you have
in this world, all the spiritual enemies and physical enemies
of the gospel, you'll not be reminded of them anymore in that
day. But most importantly, the enemy
of your own flesh. Once it's put into the grave,
those that... This is the war, isn't it? The
Spirit wars against the flesh, and the flesh against the Spirit,
so that we cannot be what we would be. If it wasn't for our Spirit,
we would be perfectly holy. And that's every believer's desire. Verse 13, for I, the Lord thy
God, will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, fear not, I
will help thee. Now what he's talking about here
is when the day comes for you to shed your flesh. When the
time comes, which has been appointed by God, You're not going to rush
that day up. You're not going to prolong it.
It is appointed by God unto men once to die. You're not going
to change that. And what the Lord's saying is,
those that have learned by God's grace to wait on Him, those who
have been made to be nothing, those who have been brought to
see that Christ is everything, He says to them, I'm going to
hold your hand in that day. Truth is, God's people die well.
Why? Because He's with them. He's
with them. And He walks with them through
the shadow of the valley of death so that they fear no evil. Thy
rod is with me. Fear not. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid of death. Fear
not, thou worm, Jacob." Now there's something the natural
man can't see. Men in the world are in constant competition with
themselves and with one another, trying to prove who's better
than another. And that is most evident in religion. Men are competing with one another
to see who knows the most, and see who can do the most, and
who's done the most, and who's accomplished the most. And God says, fear not. Thou worm, Jacob. Worms don't contend with each
other to see who's a better looking worm than another worm. See who's
a little higher on the dung pile. The worm that's higher on the
dung pile is just closer to the next load that's fixing to be
dropped on that dung pile. You know? Isn't that glorious? Believers don't have to prove
anything to one. We know what we are. We know
we're worms. We know that we're nothing and
that He is everything. Everything. You men of Israel, I will help
thee. Why? Because I'm thy Redeemer. What the Lord Jesus Christ did
on Calvary's cross was that he accomplished the redemption of
his people. The death of Christ on Calvary's
cross is not an offer of redemption. He doesn't hold his blood out
there for you and for me and say, if you'll take it and apply
it to your sins, I'll save you. Not one drop of his blood went
wasted. He took every drop of it and
gave it to the Father. And the Father took it and covered
all the sins of all those for whom He redeemed. He redeemed them. How could He
do that? Because He's the Holy One of
Israel. You see that? That word holy means other. Other. It means He's not like us in
any way. He's not like you. He's not like
me. He's other than we are. He's
holy. Who are we going to compare Him
to? If He doesn't reveal Himself to us in His Word, We'll have
nothing in our sphere of experience to compare Him to that we might
know Him. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we thank You for Your Word, and we ask that You would bless it
by Your Spirit to our hearts, revealing to us the power and
the glory of Thy dear Son. For it's in His name we pray.
Amen. No.