In Acts 28 we have been studying
and trying to, in a sense, put ourselves
in that room with those many Jews and Paul chained to a Roman
soldier. And he preached to them from
morning till evening. expounding and testifying, verse
23, the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out
of the law of Moses and out of the prophets. What a day that
must have been! We will be finishing our journey
through Acts by spending some time in the book of Isaiah. But Paul persuaded them concerning
Jesus out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets. That's what this book is about.
That's what this service is about. It's concerning Jesus. Concerning
Jesus out of the law and the prophets. It's all of what salvation
is about, it's all of what church is about, it's all of what the
scripture is about. I love thinking about that journey
of those men on the road to Emmaus that day of the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he, beginning, it says in
verse 27 of Luke 24, and beginning at Moses and the prophets, and
all the prophets, all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all
the Scriptures the things concerning himself. If you go down to verse
32, this is the heart's desire of every God-sent servant. And they said one to another
as a result of this, did not our heart burn within us while
he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the
scriptures. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
source of all the scriptures, he's the purpose of all the scriptures,
he's the object of all the scriptures, and he's the one that opens all
the scriptures. He came as a preacher. It's really good to remember
that his work here on this earth was to be a preacher, a preacher. And all of the prophets, we're
going to look at Isaiah chapter 9 and some verses around it this
morning, but all of the prophets speak of him. I love the picture
on the Mount of Transfiguration when the Lord Jesus Christ was
there and for the one time in his earthly divinity shone through
his humanity and he glowed with a wonder that probably Paul understood
when he saw him on the Damascus Road. But he became shining bright,
didn't he? And Moses and Elijah were there
speaking with him. And what were they speaking about? We don't have to guess what they
were speaking about. They were talking about It says in Luke
chapter 9, Do you know what that word deceased means in the original?
It was almost better if we just left it as it was. to completion and of course your
mind should be taken straight back to the Exodus. That glorious
victory isn't it when the Lord Jesus Christ was revealed in
glory. What did Moses do? He went down
to a superpower, the superpower of that world at that time. We think of the power of nations
like China and the USA. Well, Egypt in those days was
as big as those, wasn't it? And as powerful as those. Why
did Moses go down there? He had a stick and the Word of
God. He had a stick, and he had the
word of God, and he had the promise of God that was given to Abraham
450 years beforehand. And he went down there with a
mighty arm. God rescued his people out of Egypt, out of that bondage
of slavery to works and to the law and to this world. And I love how Mark finishes
speaking about the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus Christ in Mark
9, verse 7, it says, And there was a cloud that overshadowed
them, and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my
beloved Son. Hear Him. And suddenly when they
looked around, they saw no man any more save Jesus. When Moses and the prophets had
done their work, They have spoken of him, and he has spoken of
himself. You'll see no man anymore, so
Jesus. You won't see the preacher, you
won't see Isaiah the prophet. You'll see the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's our prayer. I trust it's your prayer that
we would just see Jesus. We would see him as he really
is. We've had this on our pulpit
for probably a decade now, hasn't it? That was a great question
that was asked of those Greeks that came to Jerusalem and they
said to the is my hour has now come. You'll
see. You'll see. He is our Lord Jesus
Christ, the whole counsel of God. He is the preacher's determination,
as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2. He is the simplicity that's
in Christ. We don't want to complicate the
Lord Jesus Christ. We don't want to cloud Him. We
don't want His glory and His majesty and His name to be clouded.
by anything other than just a simple declaration of who he is. That's
what Paul said, it's the simplicity of Christ, the simplicity that
is in Christ. So when we come to these Old
Testament books, and I'd like you to turn with me to the book
of Isaiah, we'll be spending most of our time there this morning.
When we come to these books like Isaiah, we actually want to Lord
willing, to see that these words, though written almost 2,700 years
ago, are written for us. written for the Jews of the days
of the Lord Jesus Christ when they were read to them and when
Paul was speaking to these men in Rome. But they're written
for us. This is a living word. It's an
active word. It's a word that declares the
Lord Jesus Christ as clearly to God's people today as it did
to Isaiah, as it did to Paul, as it did to the apostles. Isaiah
speaks. of grace and mercy in the midst
of judgment. And it's a word for us today. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ
took Isaiah again and again and told the people in his day, in
his preaching, that what was happening in Isaiah's day is
exactly what's happening in his day. In Matthew 4, verse 12,
it says, Jesus heard that John was cast into prison. He departed into Galilee, leaving
Nazareth. He came and dwelt in Capernaum,
which is on the sea coast, in the borders of Zebulun and Naphthalim,
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet. saying, the land of Zabulon and
the land of Naphthalim, by the way of the sea beyond Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles. The people which sat in darkness
saw a great light, saw a great light. And to them which sat
in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. From that
time, from that time, Jesus began to preach, saying, What was happening what Isaiah
had saw and Isaiah spoke of in Isaiah chapter 9 was fulfilled
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We'll see more of that as we
go through the book of Isaiah. Paul finishes speaking to these
people by quoting Isaiah 6, and one of the things we need to
remember is that the chapter divisions in the Scriptures were
put there by men often in the 12th and 13th century, and I'm
pleased that they did, and I'm very pleased that they put in
full stops and commas and put in chapter divisions. But for
the Jews of Jesus' day and for the Jews of Isaiah's day, there
were no chapter divisions. So they saw Isaiah as a whole
and they saw the pictures one after the other as a whole. We
often divide things up into chapters and so often it's so good to
read without looking at the numbers on the side of the page and without
looking at the headings that man had put on the pages. Isaiah's name means salvation
of the Lord, or the Lord will save. He had a long ministry
from Isaiah's years until Hezekiah's years. He was a prophet for well
over 50 years, which is a remarkable time. Do you realize that all
of what we've studied in Acts for this last some considerable
time of Paul's ministry was probably not much more than 15 years?
Isaiah was a prophet for a long, long time. Isaiah was carried
along. Holy men of God were moved by
the Holy Spirit and he spoke. And then the beginning of Isaiah,
I just want us to see a few things before we read some verses out
of Isaiah chapter 9. It begins by saying, The vision
of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem
in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of
Judah. So Isaiah is speaking about the
church and he's speaking about the kingdom of God. They were
speaking about God's activities, about why. They were speaking
about history, weren't they? They were speaking about what
was happening in their day and they were relating it to the
Lord Jesus Christ. They were showing us again and
again the glorious pictures of grace in the midst of a rebellious
people. that God is just in his judgments
upon people, and God is righteous and just and gracious in the
salvation of his people. It's a message for our day. It's a message that speaks of
why God does what he does. He says in chapter 3, he says,
For Jerusalem is ruined and Judah is fallen, Their tongue and their doings
are against the Lord to provoke the eyes of His glory. They show
their countenance thus witnessed against them, and they declare
their sin as Sodom, and they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto
themselves. It's why we have, again, pictures
of God acting in judgment, and in the midst of that we have
God acting in extraordinary grace and mercy. If you turn over to
chapter 5, you'll see that this is, as I read these first four
verses, you'll see that this is exactly what the Lord Jesus
Christ described was happening in His day. I want us to see
again and again that what Isaiah was speaking about and what happened
in Isaiah's day was what was happening in the days of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and it's happening in today's day. that is unfolding around us,
then we're not seeing what God has for us to see. We're not
seeing Him as we ought to see Him, high and lifted up on a
throne. Verse 1 of chapter 5 says, Now
I will sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching
his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard
in a very fruitful hill. Do you remember this story in
Matthew 21.33 and following? And he fenced it, and gathered
out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and
built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress
therein. And he looked, and it should
bring forth grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O
inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you,
betwixt me and my vineyard, What could have been done more to
my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked
that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes. The Lord comes in mercy and grace,
I want us to spend some time this morning looking at Isaiah
chapter 9 and those glorious verses that we need to think
of and we need to be reminded that the Lord Jesus Christ is
the one that Isaiah sees in chapter 6 which is the passage that Paul
took those people to and they saw the Lord high and lifted
up. High and lifted up. Isaiah was smitten. Isaiah was
spittin' when he realized what he was in the presence of God.
But the people of Judah and the people of Israel, in verse 13
of chapter 9, For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth
them, neither do they seek the Lord of hosts. Therefore the
Lord will cut them off from Israel, head and tail, branch and rush. In one day, I want us to see
that Isaiah lived through a period of the most extraordinary judgments
upon the nation of Israel. The ten northern tribes were
decimated and taken away. And the armies of Sennacherib
in Hezekiah's time surrounded Jerusalem with enormous armies.
Isaiah was going to live through so much of this tumultuous time,
which is why in the midst of all the tumult, people who despised his counsel
and despised his name and despised his prophets. Isaiah was put
in a log and sawn in half at the end of his ministry. Jeremiah
was taken down to Egypt and he was stoned to death. Almost all
the prophets died in shocking ways. But these prophets spoke
to us today of the Lord Jesus Christ. We live in a world which
is under the very evident judgment of God, isn't it? Because God
has hidden himself from people and he's given people over. Let's
read these verses from chapter 9 and then we'll sing again.
We'll start in chapter 9, verse 1. I love the nevertheless. The nevertheless is like the
but of the scripture, isn't it? In verse 22 of chapter 8 he says,
Behold, trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish, and they
shall be driven to darkness nevertheless, nevertheless. The dimness shall
not be such as was in her vexation, At the first he lightly afflicted
the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterwards did
more grievously affect her by the way of the sea beyond Jordan
in Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in darkness
have seen a great light. They that dwell in the land of
the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Thou hast
multiplied the nations, and not increased the joy. They joy before
thee according to the joy and harvest, and as men rejoice,
then they divide the spoil. For thou hast broken the yoke
of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his
oppressor, as in the day of Midian. For every battle of the warrior
is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood, but this shall
be with burning and fuel of fire. Four. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. and the government shall be upon
his shoulder and his name, this is the Lord Jesus Christ, his
name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, Everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace. I'd like us to spend the rest
of our time this morning after we've sung how wonderful our Savior is.
We're going to sing number 19. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. Thanks, Tom. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground
is sinking sand. Darkness veils his lovely face,
I rest on his unchanging grace. In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil. On Christ the solid rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand. His oath is covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives
way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground
is sinking sand Then he shall come with trumpet sound, O may
I then in him be found, Dressed in his righteousness alone, Faultless
to stand before the throne. On Christ the solid rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand,