Let's ask our Lord's blessing. Our Father, we are so thankful
that we can be together tonight. Thankful, Lord, that you're here. Thankful that you've been pleased
to allow this assembly to be here these many years. Lord,
as we assemble around the glorious gospel of Christ, Would you bless
it to our hearts? Lord, give us a fresh understanding
and appreciation for the truth of your goodness and mercy to
your people. Forgive us where we fail you.
For Christ's sake, we ask these things. Amen. I want you to take your Bibles
and turn with me to the book of Isaiah, chapter 40. Isaiah chapter 40. This is a passage of scripture
that we hear and refer to often. But it's a passage of scripture
that I know we need to hear again. A passage of scripture that not
only instructs the preacher that he might be true to the message
of Almighty God, but it also sets forth clearly and precisely
that which the Lord is going to bless the hearts of His people. As I was preparing this message,
I began to think on the seriousness of being plain,
of being simple. And what I would desire to do
tonight is I would want to preach this message by the guidance
and direction of God's Spirit as if we had never heard the
gospel before. that we'd never heard the message
of God's sovereign grace. That this was the first time
that you or I had ever heard the truth. I would want to be
that plain. I don't want to assume anything. I don't want to assume that you
know anything. I don't want to assume that you've
believed anything. I just want to be plain. I want
to be truthful. And I pray that God be pleased
to bless it. Now, I just want us to look at
a passage we've looked at so many times. Isaiah 40, verse
1 and 2. And again, I want to preach this,
I pray, as if none of us had ever heard this message before. Isaiah 40, verse 1. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith your God. Now, there's three things in
that first verse of scripture. Three things that I want us to
understand. First of all, God is speaking. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith your God. Now, God has been pleased to
speak. And he's speaking to somebody. He says, comfort ye. Comfort ye. He's speaking to
his preachers. Almighty God has been pleased
to call some men to the ministry of preaching. He's called them
to proclaim the good news about salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to what God Almighty has
to say, Jeremiah 3. Turn, O backsliding, children,
saith the Lord, for I am married unto you." Now can you imagine?
God has been pleased to marry a bride. God has a bride. The Lord Jesus Christ Turn, O
backsliding children, saith the Lord, for I am married unto you,
and I will take you one of a city and two of a family." God is
going to choose some that He's everlastingly loved. He'll take
them from here and from here. They're scattered all over the
world. Now, we don't know who they are,
but God has a people. I will take you one of a city,
two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion. I'll bring you to
the holy Jerusalem. The holy Jerusalem is God's church. God has a church. A set apart
people. And He said, I will give you
pastors according to mine heart. And they shall feed you with
knowledge and understanding. God's going to call a people.
people that he's been pleased to marry, and he's going to give
them some preachers. He's going to give some preachers.
He's going to give a man a heart to want to sit down and study
these scriptures. He wants to study the scriptures,
he wants to know the sense, he wants to know the meaning of
the scriptures, and he prays that God will give him a heart
of understanding that he might relate. to God's people what
God has to say. So that's the first thing I know.
God is speaking to someone. Speak ye. Speak ye. Now, secondly,
the Lord has called these preachers to a calling with a specific
commission. God's people are not sent to
preach whatever they think is best. God's people are sent to
comfort. Comfort God's people. Comfort ye, comfort ye. I want to be a comfort to you. I want to tell you that which
Almighty God has commissioned me to do that will comfort your
heart. And thirdly, He's instructed
His preachers to comfort a particular group of people. everlastingly
loved of God. Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people
saith your God. Now, here's what I know. God
has a people. He refers to them as my people. And according to the scriptures,
Almighty God has eternally loved his people. Jeremiah 31.3, he
said, I've loved you with an everlasting love. That means
before they were ever created, the Lord knew them. He told Jeremiah,
before I formed you in the belly, I knew you and ordained you a
prophet. So God has a people that He's
loved, but these people, these beloved people being found in
the loins of Adam, God loved them eternally. And when he created
man, he created man, put him in a garden, gave him instructions. You can eat of all the trees
of this garden, the tree in the middle of the garden, the tree
of knowledge of good and evil. You can't eat of that. In the
day that you eat, you're going to die. Man was created by God
and man disobeyed God from the beginning. and man fell in Adam's
transgressions. And their sins, the Scriptures
reveal, separated them from God. Because of our sins, the Scripture
says in Isaiah 59, 2, but your sins is the reason that God hides
His face. But now, the sins of His people,
though the Scripture says, and I'll explain what it is that
they were separated, how they were separated, these sins, have
separated us from the Lord, but they never separated us from
being eternally loved of God, chosen in Christ, before the
foundation of the world. They're not separated from God
in His love. The scripture says, the Lord
speaking, John 10, 27, 28, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them,
and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they
shall never perish, and neither shall any man, including themselves,
pluck them out of my hand. But they were separated, when
he says, your sin, your iniquities have separated between me and
yourself. When the Lord speaks of his people
being separated, It's in that the Lord wisely causes His presence,
according to His good pleasure, to be unknown. And at those times,
our peace and communion and comfort is not experienced. Now I'll
give you an example here from Song of Solomon. Hold your place
in Isaiah and turn to Song of Solomon. Chapter 5, Song of Solomon
5. Verse two to six. Now the bride,
he's got a bride, now he's got a people. And listen to the bride
speaking. She says in Song of Solomon five,
two, I sleep, but my heart waketh. It is the voice of my beloved
that knocketh, saying, open to me my sister. My love, my dove,
my undefiled, for my head is filled with dew and my locks
with the drops of the night. Now listen to the insensitivity
of the bride. Now this is the way we are. We've
got an old nature about us. And that old nature, still present,
has got this attitude right here. I put off my coat, how shall
I put it on? I wash my feet, How shall I defile
them? My beloved put his hand by the
hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him. The Lord
knows how to awaken his people. He knows how. I rose up to open
to my beloved, and my hands dropped with myrrh, my fingers with sweet-smelling
myrrh upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved,
but my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone. My soul
failed when he spake. I sought him, but I could not
find him. I called him, but he gave me
no answer. Almighty God knows how to arrest
his people because of our iniquities. Iniquities, sin that is present
with us. The debt of our sins been paid,
put away. but the presence of sin is there.
And those sins have separated, causes our communion and comfort
and peace with the Lord to have a barrier. That's what he's saying.
But before God's people fell in Adam, they fell in Adam, God
everlasting loved them. Before any man was ever created,
God, according to His good pleasure, put His people in a place of
safety. A secure place. The Father, according
to Ephesians chapter 1, put them in the only one that He trusted. He put them in His beloved Son,
His only begotten Son. The Scriptures declare that we
were chosen, God selected out of the mass of humanity, He selected
a people and put them in His Son for this reason. He loved
them and would not let them perish.
And He chose them in Him that they should be holy and without
blame before God in love. And the Son, the Son of God,
one with the Father and Spirit in holiness and will and purpose,
the triune God. One God set forth in the scriptures
in three persons. The Son himself in covenant agreement
stood for the elect as their surety. He will make good on
their problem. Fallen in Adam, they owe a debt
to the law of God that they cannot pay. And he stood as their representative. And God would deal with him only
with the surety from the time which was everlasting. God who loved a people, they
fell in Adam, but chosen in Christ as the surety. God only dealt
with the surety. There's our security. There's
our comfort. God was going to deal only with
the one He trusted. The Father had a will for these
people. The Father's will was, according
to John chapter 6, is that none of the sheep that the Lord Jesus
Christ had been given, the Father's elect. God's will was that none
of them should be lost, but that every one of the sheep should
be saved, and that the Lord Jesus Christ in the last day would
raise them up, that they should have everlasting life. So though they fell in Adam's
transgression, they fell, never did they fall from the love of
God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, the Son, according
to the everlasting covenant of God's grace, that covenant that
David said, this is all my salvation and my desire, this is all of
it, I couldn't keep myself Almighty God everlastingly loved me, and
because He loved me, He put me in His Son, who would answer
for me, who would answer before God, answer before God's law,
and would not fail. That's what the Lord said, He
will not fail. Now there's my hope. David said,
that's all my salvation. The fallen in Adam, the elect
of God that had fallen in Adam, they needed two things. Two things that they could not
supply. Here's what they needed. They needed their sin debt to
be paid. If they had to stand before God
in themselves, this is the way it is. The soul that sinneth
is going to die. If I have to stand before God
and answer for myself, I'm going to tell you right now, I have
no hope. None. I have no hope whatsoever. Because I'm a sinner. And the
wages of sin is death. So I need my debt. Somehow I've got to have my debt
paid. I've got to have my debt paid
and it's got to be paid justly. Because God's a just God. He's
not going to sweep it under the rug. He's not going to just ignore
it. He's not going to look the other
way. There's not going to be any plea bargaining. God is just. So I've got to have my sin debt
paid. And secondly, I need righteousness
before I've got to be holy. I've got to be as holy as God
is. Now that's a tall order. I've got to have my debt put
away. I've got to be justified by God. God's got to look at me And God's
law has to say no charge, no record of charge. No record. No record. Justified means it's
not there. And I've got to be holy before
God. I've got to actually have this.
I've got to possess it. It can't be that God says, well,
I'll count you. It's got to be so. Now, for these
requirements to be accomplished, the Lord Jesus Christ, in covenant
mercy, God had a covenant. There's an agreement, a contract. God made a covenant with himself
concerning his people. And the Lord Jesus Christ, according
to the eternal covenant of God, would come into this world, He
would have to be made like unto His brethren. He'd like to have
to be made like in the form of sinful flesh. So God Himself,
who is the Word, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. And the Scripture says in John
1.14, and the Word was made flesh. God Almighty took to Himself
flesh. He never relinquished His deity. He is God of very God. He's God Almighty. He's the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. But He took to Himself flesh. And He came into this world like
every other man and woman comes into this world. They were born
of a woman. And He came into this world just
exactly like they did, yet without sin. He had no sin. The Scripture says that the way
that that was accomplished, He had to be conceived in the womb
of a virgin. A woman that never knew a man.
And the scripture says that the Holy Spirit moved upon a virgin
named Mary, and she was said to be found with child by the
Holy Ghost. A son was born. A child was born, I'm sorry. A child was born, but a son was
given. And the Lord Jesus Christ, according
to the covenant of God's grace, came into this world for a specific
purpose. He came into this world to save
His people from their sins. He would come into this world,
made flesh, made true flesh, real flesh, and He, on their
behalf, would walk have his conversation, have his life. He lived a life
before God according to God's law. And what he would do and
did is that on every point, every jot and tittle of God's law,
he was obedient. He was found obedient. Now the reason I know that he
was found to be perfectly obedient in every thought every word,
every deed, everything about him, Almighty God said from heaven
at his baptism, when he was found on the Mount of Transfiguration,
a voice from heaven was heard and said, this is my beloved
son in whom I am well pleased. So he came into this world because
we needed righteousness. We had to be obedient. And here
the Lord Jesus Christ as the representative of His people,
God Almighty dealing with Him totally on behalf of His people,
He obeyed God and earned by His obedience the righteousness of
God. It doesn't say the righteousness
of man. He established as a man the righteousness
of God. as a man, the God-man. He was obedient as God. And God was pleased. And having
earned their righteousness by His obedience, that righteousness
that is charged to and given to and robes God's people, God's
believers, He also had to put away our guilt. Now He's earned
us a righteousness, but now He's going to have to put our debt
away. And so the Scripture says, according to God's mercy, covenant
grace, eternal counsel, the Lord Jesus Christ is God's Lamb. God has a Lamb. He's got a sacrifice. It's His Son. And this holy,
harmless Lamb of God who knew no sin personally, He knew no
sin. He did no sin. The Scripture
said something amazing happened. At Calvary, the Scripture declares
in 2 Corinthians 5.21 that He was actually made sin. God made him sin. He who knew no sin personally.
God made him sin for us, his people. Those that he came into
this world to save. He made him sin that God might
be just in dealing with the sins of His people. All of the sins
of all of His people for all of this time, duration of time
of mankind on this earth. All the sins, every infraction,
every ill thought, every evil deed, every idle word, everything
that Almighty God saw and knew to be an infraction. Every jot
and tittle that the law demand, where sin was found, it was known. God knew it. And all of them,
all of that, was found to be born by the Lord Jesus Christ
on Calvary. God Almighty was going to deal
with every one of those infractions of His people. And He did so
in the Lord Jesus Christ. He did that that He might be
just in dealing with Him as the representative of God's people,
that He might justify those that would be made the righteousness
of God in Him. And at Calvary, the Lord Jesus
Christ did put away the debt of sin of all of His people. And though the presence of their
sin is still found to be here, present, the penalty of that
sin was cast as far as the east is from the west, and God says,
I will remember it no more. Against them. It's gone. It's truly gone. And now the
scripture declares concerning those for whom Christ died, there
is therefore now No condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus
who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Now that
right there is the biblical account of Almighty God concerning His
will and pleasure to have a people, those that He loves, and that
He redeemed them, Christ earned them their righteousness. Now
that is the commission that the Lord God has given God's preachers
concerning the comfort of God's sheep. He says now concerning
everything that I just said, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. saith your God. Now, let me just
ask a couple of questions here and I'll close. How are God's
people comforted? How are we comforted? Well, Isaiah 40 verse 2 says,
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem. How do you comfort God's people? You speak to them. You speak. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing
by the word of God. But let me ask you this. How
does a creature of the dust speak to another creature of
the dust and comfort his heart? How? How is that? One way. By saying what the Lord has said. This is it. How can I truly comfort
the heart of God's people? How can I speak to the heart?
That's what it means when it says comfort. Speak comfortably.
How can I speak to the heart? When we speak that which is set
forth in God's Word and the Spirit of God blesses that Word to the
joy and the peace and the comfort of God's people. The heart is
revealed by the Spirit of God in these scriptures to be spoken
to. Now, listen to this. There were two men, this is found
in Luke 24. There were two men, the scripture
says, that one day were on the road to a place called Emmaus. And while they were walking,
the Lord Jesus Christ came up to them and they didn't know
Him. Their eyes were holding. Now what that means is God, the
Lord Jesus, God Himself, did not allow them to perceive who
He was at first. He held their vision. God rules
and reigns. All power is given him and if
he wants to hide himself, he can. They were standing there,
they were looking at him, and they didn't know who he was.
Their eyes were holding. And he asked them what they were
talking about. They asked him if he was new
around town. And he told them, he said, old
fools and slow of heart to believe all that was prophesied. concerning
the Messiah. And the Scripture says that He
expounded unto them. He began to talk unto them, and
He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning
Himself. That's what He did. He told them
about all the Scriptures. He started with Moses. He came
all through the Old Testament. And he began to expound, he began
to explain to them, in all the scriptures, those things that
were concerning him, which was everything. Everything. These scriptures speak of him. And what was the result when
he did that? Well, listen to what they said
in Luke 24, 32. They said, Did not our heart burn within
us? That is to say, did it not glow
and was it not greatly moved while He talked with us in the
way and while He opened to us, while He explained to us the
Scriptures? What happened was the Spirit
of God blessed the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ to their hearts
and they said, our hearts burned. We just rejoiced when we heard
what He was saying. God blessed it to them. So if
the people's heart is going to be spoken to, then that means
that they must hear The message of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those
things concerning Himself. This is the only thing that God's
people's heart is going to be spoken to. Speak to the heart. This is what God's going to bless.
Right here. So He says, cry unto her. Speak ye comfortably. to Jerusalem
and cry unto her, that is, herald this message. I want you to bring
this message to her, that her warfare, now I want to explain
something, the Lord Jesus Christ did not die for everybody. The
scripture says that He only died for the elect. He only died for
those that the Father chose. and gave him him. And the Lord
said that in John 10, 15. He said, I lay down my life for
the sheep. So I want you to cry unto her
that her warfare, and when someone says that the Lord Jesus Christ
died for everybody, the scriptures refute that. That's not true.
You tell her that her warfare, what does that mean, her warfare?
The time of her captivity. and the condition of her burdensome
misery, cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished. You tell her that her warfare
is brought to an end for the Lord Jesus Christ has atoned
for her sins. You tell her that all of her
guilt has been put away, that she has no debt to answer for
before God. Galatians 4, 3 and 4 says, even
so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements
of the world, but when the fullness of the time was come, God sent
forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem
them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption
of sons. You cry unto her that her iniquity
is pardoned. That is, you cry unto her that
God Almighty is well pleased with His beloved Son and with
His sacrifice of Himself for or because of the sins of His
people. That He's pleased with the payment
that was given for the debt. He said, when I see the blood,
I'm going to pass over you without the shedding of blood. There's
no remission of sins. The blood of Christ alone has
satisfied God. He said, now I want you to comfort
my people and you tell her that her warfare is finished, it's
accomplished, that her iniquity is Pardoned. And then I want
you to tell her this, this last part of verse 2. He said, I want
you to tell her that she, she only, has received of the Lord's
hand double for all her sins. She has received of the Lord's
hand double. Now that word, double. It's an amazing word. It's actually interpreted a duplicate. That's what it actually means.
When you look at that word right there, it's interpreted a duplicate
and it comes from a word, another word, that means to fold together
or to repeat, to fold together, to fold over. But to understand
and to come to the true heart of what the Lord is saying. We've
been able to pretty well grasp hold of what He's saying, but
that last part right there, you tell her that she's received
of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. To understand that
word double for myself, and I'll just share this with you, and
I hope it'll be a help to you. We have to go back and consider
the first place that that word was used in the scripture. It's
only used three times, twice in Job and once right here. This
is it. But I'll tell you what, if you'll
turn over to Job chapter 11, I'm wrapping this up. Job chapter
11. This right here is an amazing revelation to me, I'll be honest
with you. Wonderful, wonderfully amazing.
Job chapter 11, one of Job's friends is talking to him. And
he says in Job 11 verse 5, but oh that God would speak and open
his lips against thee. Oh, that God would speak and
that He would show thee the secrets of wisdom. Zophar, I think is
his name, one of his friends. He said, Oh, that the Lord God
would show thee. Now listen to this. Here's where
the explanation is coming into play. Oh, that He would show
thee the secrets of wisdom. That they are double. Same word
used in Isaiah 40. The secrets of God's wisdom that
they are double to that which is, that which is understood
or perceived. Job's friend was saying that
the secrets of God's wisdom is that which is folded over, hidden,
concealed, in the precious and glorious purpose and will and
mind of Almighty God. The Lord has done something for
us that we cannot perceive, you can't grasp. Tell me if you can
grasp hold of this, of this truth. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. Now, to get to the heart of that,
we believe it. We believe that. I mean, God
said it. We believe that. But the wisdom
in it, that Almighty God has a people
everlastingly loved that God has a people that He loved in
Christ before the foundation of the world. And I'm not talking
about a fake love. I'm talking about God loved them.
That the Lord Jesus Christ described His bride as saying that you've
ravished me with one of your eyes. One look of faith from
you has stolen my heart. That's what it means. Now, to
get to the wisdom of that, that redemption by the blood
of Christ, that Almighty God sees that blood that I just mentioned,
and when He sees that blood, He said, I'm going to pass over
you. That the blood of Christ, it's whose blood was shed. That
blood That one sacrifice for sin, one sacrifice, 1500 years
of blood of bulls and goats would never put away sin. But the sacrifice
one time of the Lord Jesus Christ has forever perfected them that
believe. The wisdom in the accomplishment
of that The Scripture sets forth that
Almighty God in His tri-unity, one God, set forth in three persons,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, has covenanted together. God Almighty has chosen a people,
Christ redeemed them, and the Spirit of God applies it. He
calls them out of darkness and seals them and teaches them. And we meet together like this. We come together as a people.
And the Lord said, I'm there with you. I'm with you. I'm not
going to leave you. I'm not going to forsake you.
That God Almighty can be right here in the fullness, the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. And He's every place that two
or three are gathered together in His name for their comfort
and their peace. That's a folded over thing. Canst
thou by searching find out God? Can you? Can you? Canst thou find out the Almighty
unto perfection? As high as heaven, what canst
thou do? Deeper than hell, what canst
thou know? The measure thereof is longer
than the earth and broader than the sea. The Lord told Isaiah,
he said, I want you to comfort my people. You comfort them. You tell her her iniquity's pardoned.
Warfare is over. And she's received double, double. What does that mean again? It
means that what he's done for us is so mysterious and wonderful
and hidden that we cannot find it out. We can never perceive,
we can't understand the depth of that which God's wisdom has
procured. And He's folded it over. And
what do we do right now? We believe it by faith. You explain
it to me. I can't. As I heard Brother Scott
say, I don't explain it, I proclaim it. It's the truth. That's what
the Lord has done for us in Christ. Though we know in part. It's
gloriously hidden from the depth of it, the breadth of it, the
height of it. Who can know it? Who can know
it? A truth that is known and set forth by the Apostle Paul
like this. We do see through a glass darkly.
We see dimly, don't we? How much do we know? Very little.
Very little. And tonight, by the grace of
God, I proclaim to you who believe, this is what I want to say to
you. Your warfare's accomplished. The battle's won. Your iniquities pardoned. The conqueror, the great conqueror,
has conquered all of his enemies, our enemies, as a man, God-man
mediator, shed His blood, your iniquities pardoned, and you
have received of the Lord's hand double for all your sins. You have received of the Lord's
hand more than you and I in this life, and maybe eternally, I
don't know, will ever fully and completely perceive and know. We're going to know just exactly
what He reveals to us, aren't we? But I can tell you this,
when men say, well, it's just a simple plan of salvation. Well, the Lord said it's double. It's
folded over. But in the glorious mystery of
salvation, we say, Lord, we are what we are by Your grace. I pray God would bless this message
as simple as I know how to say it, Carl. I don't know how to
say it any more simple. I pray God be pleased to bless it to
the salvation of His people for Christ's sake and our good. Amen.