Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God. Saviour, if of Zion's city I
through grace a member am, and let the world deride or pity,
I will glory in thy name. Fading is the worldling's pleasure,
all his boasted pomp and show, solid joy is our lasting treasure. None but Zion's children know. I wanted to speak this morning
about Zion's children. In Acts chapter 4, where we've
been spending some time of late, we've come to a verse that we
won't be looking at in detail this morning, but it's Peter
declaring that the Lord Jesus Christ, this Lord Jesus Christ
who was crucified, whom God raised from the dead, Acts 4.11, This,
this is the stone which is set at nought of you builders, which
is become the head of the corner. It's a great description of our
Lord Jesus Christ. The reality is that man is building
religious edifices all the time. He has been doing so since Cain
turned up at a worship service just outside of the garden. Men are building their religious
activities, continuing to do so. But I have for this last,
because of that verse speaking about the stone the builders
rejected, it's a verse that's quoted in Psalm 118, verse 22. But I've been struck by a verse
in Isaiah 28 and been pondering it for some time over this last
couple of weeks. And I wanted to spend our time
just in Isaiah 28. And in a sense, I want to ask
the question, The question that we sang about,
if I am a child of Zion, I am by grace a member there. The question that is raised,
isn't it, in Acts, and the question that is raised before us all
the time, and as I've been studying this verse, I've had more than
usual contact contact in this last week or so with people from
other churches here in town. I don't wish to hide from them,
but it's always a salutary lesson for me. was the work that was
begun amongst us all those many years ago, was it a work of God
or was it a work of clever men? Clever men say that it was a
work of clever men. What is the true Church like? Who are the true worshippers
of God? The Jews to whom Peter preached
those sermons and to whom in Acts 4 he is bearing witness
would have said again and again and continue to have said for
the last 2,000 years that that Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ
that Peter spoke of was a false messiah, in fact, I think it
was at Norm I took to the great synagogue, one of the big synagogues
in Sydney, and the big synagogue in Sydney, in a huge stone banner,
they had this, what did they say? He is coming soon or something
like that. They are still waiting, they
are still waiting now 2,000 years later for Messiah to come. Despite all that was laid out
before them by Peter, despite all of the witness of the Holy
Spirit, man continues to build his religion. And the reality
is that we believe that the Lord has drawn us out and we have
reason to look look over the fence as it were and see what
is happening in the other religious institutions around here and
particularly the ones that we were close to and particularly
in the context of people that we were close to. And the reality
is it's a very serious question, isn't it? I remember listening
to a sermon by Henry Mayne and he was talking about his days
in the US Navy during the Second World War. And he was watching,
we witnessed poker games on the ships where men would bet their
entire year's wages on the turn of a card, the roll of a dice. His point is that there are high
stakes. There are high stakes in this
game. There are very high stakes, eternal
stakes in this game. We are saying that the Gospel
we proclaim here is the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It
declares the truth of who He is, it declares the truth of
who man is, it declares it from the scriptures. And therefore
necessarily everyone and every institution that is opposed to
it is wrong. That was a declaration, brothers
and sisters, that we made nearly ten years ago when our church
formed, that we could not We could not worship God in spirit
and truth in their institutions. And yet the people that I was
with this week were saying to me, as they do every week and
have done so for nearly a decade now, you are wrong and you are
deceived. And therefore all who are here
together today are wrong and deceived. They're making a declaration
to God as they walk in their churches this morning. They are
making a declaration to God that the place they go to is a place
where He can be worshipped. They are making a declaration
to all of humanity that where they go is a place where God
can be worshipped. And they are making a declaration
to all of humanity that this is a place where they cannot
worship God. The stakes are huge, brothers
and sisters. The stakes are enormous, as I've
reminded many of them. If I am wrong, the deepest, darkest
pits of hell are reserved for people like me, who lead little
ones astray. And the Lord Jesus warns people
that the blind lead the blind, and they both fall into the ditch. It's not as if the blind lead
the innocent, and the innocent are rescued. Our great God has
a people. Our great God has a gospel. Our great God has a declaration
of his truth. And in the scriptures, again
and again, we are asked by God the Holy Spirit to examine yourselves,
whether you're in the faith, whether you be in the faith.
Prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves,
how that Christ is in you, except you be reparate, 2 Corinthians
3.15, when before you take the Lord's supper, God says, let
a man examine himself. I'm so pleased that's what the
Holy Spirit said, because I can't examine someone. I can't see
someone's heart. I never pretend to. If God says
you are to examine yourselves, God says that you are to test.
Beloved, believe not every spirit but try, but test the spirits. He's talking about preachers.
John is talking about preachers. He was soon to leave this world
as the last of the apostles. They had just about finished
their testimony of the glory of God in the scriptures. It
was now to be wrapped up. There was a call from him to
test. So God would not ask us, the
reality is God would not ask us to examine ourselves. God would not ask us to try the
spirits if it was any difficult secret thing. As I've reminded
you, Peter was a fisherman from Galilee who preached those sermons. You don't have to be a brilliant
theologian to discern these things. They are things that are discerned
on the surface of scripture. They are things that are discerned
easily by God's people. They are not complicated things.
You do not need to go to Bible college. You just need the scriptures. You just need the scriptures. And all three of those verses
I quoted, 2 Corinthians 13, 5, 1 Corinthians 11, 28, 1 John
4, 1 and 4, 6, all of them, all of the text relates to one thing.
The answer to the test relates to one thing. Do people hear,
do people hear what the apostles say? Do they hear and believe? has the white flag of self-will
and self-reliance gone up and people bowed to God and said,
this is what God says, this is what God says. And so I wanted
to spend some time this morning, if the Lord will allow, just
looking at verse 28, 16 of Isaiah. Let me read it to you, you can
have your Bibles open there. It is a simple verse. It's a verse that's descriptive
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a verse that is descriptive
of the religious world that we live in today. When you read
the Old Testament prophets, you read them as if the ink is wet
on the page. Isaiah would not have to change
a single word if he wrote this in 2017. Isaiah 28, 16. Therefore, thus
saith the Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation stone,
for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone,
a sure foundation. He that believeth shall not make
haste. Let's ask the Lord to bless our
time together. Our Heavenly Father, we are talking
about deep and serious things that involve the eternity of
the souls of men before you, either in grace and glory and
infinite and endless joy, or people who by their own willful
rebellion against your warnings and against your word and against
your word made flesh will spend eternity under your just and
holy and righteous wrath. Father we keep pleading with
you that you might be our teacher as you have promised you might
guide us into all truth, and that truth might set us free
from the things that so easily entangle us in our flesh, and
set us free from the religion of this world, which is, Heavenly
Father, as you say, an abomination to you, the things that men esteem
are abominable in your sight. Oh, our father, we come before
you acknowledging that we have nothing in ourselves or of ourselves
to plead, but we come before you on the merits of your dear
and precious son. and His bloodshed for His people,
His bloodshed for His Church, that you might be the one, Heavenly
Father, that teaches us to profit, and that you might be the one
who sends the Holy Spirit, that the Lord Jesus Christ might be
revealed to us, that we might find Him precious, we might find
ourselves like Moses, put in the cleft of the rock, hidden
in Him, at rest in Him, our Father, having the full assurance of
faith that you alone can bring and continue to bring to your
blood-born children. Heavenly Father, we are in your
hands, and we are thankfully so, for we pray these things
in the name of your dear and precious Son, our Lord Jesus
Christ. Amen. So my text and my outline is
in the verse, isn't it? It's, therefore, thus saith the
Lord, behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried
stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation, he that believeth
shall not make haste. And I think this is a wonderful
description from God the Holy Spirit of the true Church of
God, its activities in this world, how it begins, what it stands
on and what its activities will be, its rest in this world. But our birth begins with a therefore.
And if you read the rest of the chapter, and I don't wish to
do so all the time, if you read the rest of the chapter you will
see that Isaiah is speaking in judgement of a religious people. are a people who had a Bible
in their hands. When we read the scriptures and
we read warnings, we are drawn wrongly, or I am anyway, I'm
drawn wrongly to think that God is speaking about atheists. In
every warning in the scripture, God is speaking about religious
people, and almost every single one of them is speaking about
religious people who have a Bible in their hands, who think they
are on the inside track with God. who think, as the Jews we've
looked at in Acts chapter 4, who think that they can do away
with the Lord Jesus Christ and then they can do away with the
apostles and his word, and they can build a religion of themselves,
a religion based on the things that they build. If you look
at verse 13, He said, but the word of the Lord. You see, in
verse 12, he said, this is the rest wherewith you may cause
the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing, yet they would
not hear. Do you know what they did with
Isaiah? Isaiah wrote the most remarkable
gospel in the Old Testament. Do you know what they did with
him? These Jewish religious people. I put him in a log, a hollow
log, and then I sawed the log in half. Religious people. And then I
went to church. They would not hear, but the
word of the Lord, so they had the word of the Lord, was under
them. Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line,
line upon line, here a little, there a little. that they might
go and fall backward and be broken and snared and taken. Wherefore,
hear the word of the Lord, they were scornful men that rule this
people which is in Jerusalem." There they were, the leaders
of the Jewish religion. Because you have said, we have
made, you said they were building, weren't they, these religious
people? They were building. We have made a covenant with
death. Their covenant with death is
that death is not going to trouble me. I can go to death with a
smile on my face. We've made a covenant with death.
They've made it. Not the one that God made. And
with hell we are in agreement. And really what that means is
that we know that there's a hell. We know that there's a hell.
And hell is for those other people and not for me. That's the agreement
they made with hell. And when the overflowing scourge
shall pass through, when death or when the judgment of God comes
shall pass through, it shall not come to us. I'm free from
the judgment of God. If you went to the churches and
spoke to the people coming outside of the churches in this town
today, you would find that that's exactly what they would say.
You challenge them about those things and you would find that
they're right. Up the road, they're right. They've
done their ritual, haven't they? They've re-sacrificed the Lord
Jesus Christ and their sins have been put away by a priest and
a piece of wafer and all the silly nonsense that goes on.
and down the road and other places, they've done their religious
duty and they go home feeling satisfied with themselves. The
overwhelming scourge is not going to touch us. With hell we are
in agreement. It will not come to us. But God
says of them, for we have made lies our refuge and under falsehood
have we hid ourselves. There is an overwhelming scourge
coming, brothers and sisters. In 28.18 it says, your covenant
with death shall be disannulled and your agreement with hell
shall not stand. When the overflowing scourge
shall pass through, then you shall be trodden down by it. I don't wish for that to be the
portion of people that I love and speak to. These are serious matters, aren't
they? So they searched the scriptures. They searched the scriptures.
They knew the Bible well. They had it in their hands, didn't
they? These weren't like that wicked king who actually took
the words of Jeremiah and cut them off with a scribe's knife
and burnt them in the fire. These ones actually had their
Bible and they searched their Bible like the Jews did and they
found out that there were 600 and something in the Scriptures,
so many positive ones and so many negative ones. Then they
gathered all those together and they put little hedges around
them so that you wouldn't even get to break one of the big ones
because you had to break their little ones first. And they ended
up worshipping all sorts of silly nonsense, even to the stage where
they thought that if you actually moved a chair on the Sabbath
day, you could be doing work, because accidentally as you moved
your chair you could be making a furrow. This is how particular
they were about line upon line. If you go to Israel today, they
have the lifts set on a Sabbath setting. On the Sabbath setting,
you're not allowed to press a button to make something work. But on
the Sabbath setting in the lifts, you actually go to the lifts
open on the first floor and in you go and you don't touch anything.
You don't touch anything. You're innocent, haven't touched
anything, haven't done any work. And it goes up to the first floor
and the door's open and you can walk out and it closes again
and goes all the way up and down the building without anyone touching
a button. And people think they're righteous.
People think they are righteous. We might laugh, brothers and
sisters, but the religious people of this town have got rabbit
foots like that that they rub on a weekly basis. They thought
that the Bible was a book for Christian living, didn't they?
A rule book. They could actually get the rule
book out and they could make all the rules, and they could
find in it some advice for how they could be a better person.
And they would work and work and work to make themselves better.
They memorised Scripture, they quoted it, and they thought that
that would give them Salvation. But this book, this book as we've
been seeing, and I trust we see again and again every time we
meet, this book is about Jesus Christ and him crucified, brothers
and sisters. This is about salvation in him. This is not about some
cooperative salvation between us and God. This book speaks
of him. In the volume of the book it
is written of me. It's a book about him. It's a
book for his people. There is a way, says our God,
that seems right to a man. They have their ways, and they
seem right to them, and they hold on to them. There's a way
that seems right to a man, and the ends thereof are the ways
of death. You can know a lot about God,
can't you? And you can know a lot about His Acts. The Jews knew
all about it. without knowing His ways. You
can know much of the Word of God and not know Him and why
He has done the things He has done. So that's the question,
isn't it? The question is, what is the
true Church? What is the true gospel? What is the impact of
that gospel on the hearts of God's children? We know from
Acts chapter 4 and the rest of the scriptures that God's children
will be persecuted for proclaiming the things that we proclaim.
But nevertheless, God stands firm and stands with His people. So let's look at this in light
of what we have seen around us and what we have seen before
us. Let's look at these statements and see whether we examine ourselves
and find ourselves in this faith, resting and trusting on Him.
The true Church, the Church of God, says this, doesn't it, in
everything, in every issue, thus saith the Lord. You read it there, thus saith
the Lord God. There is just one source of authority. I trust that at every juncture
in our history, In the past and in the future we keep wanting
to say, what does God say about this? What does God say? What
does the Word of God say about it? Our only warrant for what
we preach and for what we do is, thus saith the Lord. We just want God's Word to be
honoured. And that's what Peter's sermons,
8,000 people converted in those two sermons in Acts 3 and 4.
And the church, grown and put together by God, is a remarkable
testimony to His grace and a remarkable testimony to the victory of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And He's doing it exactly the
same today, brothers and sisters. If it was fine on the day of
Pentecost, it's exactly fine now. There's no need to change
anything. See, Peter's sermons are just
full of scripture, aren't they? Scripture in prophecy, speaking
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Scripture fulfilled in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Scripture fulfilled in the witness
of these people. Scripture describing events and
giving a spiritual meaning to reveal facts. Behind every revealed
fact is a spiritual meaning. God is not silent, brothers and
sisters. He speaks and it's his word that
interprets this world and not the other way around. It's his
word that describes this world and not the other way around.
The history is understood by the scriptures and spiritual
realities precede physical realities. And the scriptures, as I said,
just have one object. They just speak of Him. They
speak of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is what
all the prophets give testimony to, isn't it? And the people
of Jesus' days, the Lord Jesus said to them, isn't it, you search
the Scriptures, you go searching the Scriptures, because in them
you think you have eternal life. But these are they which speak
of Me. Our God speaks of His Son. Our God speaks in faithfulness.
He cannot lie. He's faithful to His promises.
He's faithful to His holy covenant. He's faithful to glorify His
Son, He's faithful in the building of His Church, He's faithful
to all those who are one with Him. We have just one warrant, we
have just one reason, one source of authority for absolutely everything
that we do. We obey the government authorities
and we are thankful that Cole and Mayer look after things so
well there for us because God says that they're His authorities.
We have no reason to stand opposed to them except when they stand
opposed to the things of God. And then we have, having thus
saith the Lord, we have this wonderful, wonderful word, Behold. Behold. That's our task, isn't
it? That's my task week in, week
out. And others who speak here and
around the world, they just want you to behold. And to behold
is not just to look at something. Behold is to look at something
in amazement. When John the Baptist said, Behold
the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, he was
amazed. He had been his first cousin
for 30-something years, brothers and sisters, and had absolutely
no idea. until God, the Holy Spirit, revealed
that this is the One, this is the One. John the Baptist said,
Behold. It's amazing, isn't it? We say,
Behold. We beheld Him, says John. We
beheld Him full of grace and truth. We beheld His glory. The
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. The Word was made flesh
and He tabernacled with us. He dwelt with us. And we beheld His glory as of
the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." That's
our cry, isn't it? Again and again, isn't it? Behold
Him. Don't look at a preacher. Don't look at other people. Don't
look at the world out there. Glance at them and gaze at Him,
and gaze in awe and wonder. When I finish preaching I'm often
down because no matter what we've said about him, no matter how
we have tried to lift him up and have him high and glorious
in your sight before you, you always feel like he deserves
more. He's worthy of much, much more. He's much more glorious than
this vessel of clay can possibly, possibly bring to you. He's glorious. Behold. Behold, as John says,
1 John 3.1, I love that verse. Behold what manner of love the
Father has bestowed upon us. Behold what manner of love, brothers
and sisters in Christ. Behold, be amazed at what manner
of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called
the sons of God. Family members with God. The
Lord Jesus Christ is our elder brother, children of the living
God. Behold what manner of love! We
should be called the sons of God, and therefore the result
of it is, first John, 3.1 says, therefore the world knoweth us
not. Because we are the sons of God,
the world doesn't have a clue who we are. The world will never
understand who we are, the world will never understand our motivations,
the world will never understand our love and our desires, the
world will never understand our actions. It won't know us. Why? Because the world didn't
know him. The world didn't know him. He
is, to go back to Acts chapter 4, he is that stone that the
builders rejected. Wonderful thing about beholding
something, if you are awestruck by something like I was by that
rainbow the other day, everything else fades into the background
and becomes irrelevant to your gaze. Just behold him. Just behold him. Keep beholding
him. You can't look at two things
at the same time. You can't look at your good works
and your good deeds and look to Him. You can't look at your
religious performances and look to Him at the same time. Just
look to Him. Look to Him and be transformed
by Him. That verse in 2 Corinthians 3
is just remarkable, isn't it, in terms of its promise. Brothers
and sisters, isn't it? But we all with open face beholding
as in a glass the glory of the Lord. If you behold Him, things
are going to happen, brothers and sisters. God promises it.
Behold. We behold the glory of the Lord
are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by
the Spirit of the Lord. gaze upon him, brothers and sisters,
and you will find life changing. All the things that this world
holds dear will have a perspective. Like everything around that rainbow,
all of it became irrelevant because it was just so glorious. You
can't look at two things at the same time. The Church is saying
behold him. Just behold him, brothers and
sisters. Behold him who He was before the world was created.
Behold Him perfectly one with His Father, perfectly one with
the Holy Spirit. Behold Him in that eternal covenant
as the surety of that covenant of grace and love and peace,
that holy covenant in His precious blood. Behold Him creating the
universe, just speaking a word and a universe comes into existence,
brothers and sisters. A universe that man with all
of his intelligence can't fathom. And every time they look out
and find something exciting, they realise there are more exciting
things there that they don't know. It is revealing the ignorance
of man and the glory of God day by day by day, as he promised
it would be. Behold Him in all those promises.
The promised woman's seed who will crush the head of the serpent.
Behold Him as the sacrifice who covered the shame of Adam and
Eve in the garden. Behold Him. Behold Him as He's
promised in all the scriptures, pointing to this one event, His
sufferings and the glory that is open. Behold Him as John did
in Revelation chapter 4. Behold, before me there was a
door opened. And what did He see through that
door? He saw the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ sitting on
that throne of heaven, ruling and reigning over all things.
Behold Him, Christ in you, the hope of Galilee. Behold Him coming
again and transforming these vile bodies to be like His precious
body. Behold Him, the author and finisher
of faith. The Church has one warrant. The
true Church has one warrant for everything it does. One place
of authority. One place that it goes to all
the time, and that is the Word of God. It has one task in this
world, isn't it? To behold Him. To hold Him up. And the Church is built. The
Church is built by God. Do you see what it says? in our
verse, therefore will I say of the Lord God, behold, I lay in
Zion. God does the laying, brothers
and sisters. God lays this stone People are
busy trying to earn their way to heaven, aren't they? And they're
too busy to meditate on the things of God and the works of God.
They're too busy to examine themselves. They're too busy to ask the questions,
aren't they? The big questions of eternity.
Am I right with God? Who speaks for God? Who speaks
for God in this world? Who preaches the gospel in this
world? What is the false gospel? People
are too busy. too busy, but our God, our God
lays in Zion." He says, I lay. It's not laid by some preacher
or some denomination. This is God's doing. As the Lord
Jesus said, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not
prevail against it, which is why those apostles were taken
back to that very place, weren't they, where they where the Lord
Jesus Christ was judged of men and found worthy of death. The
gates of Hades are defensive weapons, brothers and sisters.
They're not attacking weapons. The gates of Hades will not prevail
against them. The strong man has come and he
robs. Satan's house, of any goods that
he wants to take from it. Because he's stronger than him,
he's defeated him, he's publicly made a mockery of him. I will
build my church. As Psalm 2 says, I have set my
king on my holy hill of Zion. He builds, he builds with a purpose. His will is done, God hath made. That same Jesus whom you have
crucified, both Lord and Christ. God lays, God does the building. And when he builds, he builds
beautifully and he builds perfectly. If you turn in our scriptures
down to the verse 17, he says, Isaiah 28, 17, he says, judgment
will I lay to the line and righteousness to the plummet. And hail shall
sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters shall overflow the
hiding place. Judgment he lays to the line,
the two instruments that are necessary for building a building.
You need a measuring line. And God's measuring line is absolutely
perfect. Judgment, justice I lay to the
line, perfect justice. And righteousness, righteousness
to the plummet. I love that picture of the plummet.
If you hold a plumb bulb, you have a string and you have a
steel weight at the end with a little point on it. And if
everything and the conditions are right, that point points
to one perfect place which is perfectly perpendicular. That's
the righteousness of God. That's the righteousness of our
Lord Jesus Christ. That's how he builds. He builds
his church. He builds it. I lay in Zion. I lay it. Fleshly works make fleshly religion. People might say, well, I'm doing
my best, and I'm sincere, and I'm zealous. So were these Jews
on the day of Pentecost. And so were these people who
persecuted Isaiah. So were these men that persecuted
Paul and persecuted that early church. They were zealous religious
people. They were sincere. They were
sincere. They'd come to Jerusalem on that
day of Pentecost. circumcised males, adult males,
having their foreskins removed and then coming all the way to
Jerusalem. They were zealous. Zealous and
lost, brothers and sisters. Fleshly religion makes fleshly
followers. The Lord Jesus Christ made it
so abundantly clear, isn't it? Flesh gives birth to flesh. But
I lay in Zion. I lay. I lay. This is the Church's basis for
existence. Psalm 127 verse 1. Except the
Lord build the house, they labour in vain that buildeth. Except
the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. Unless the Lord builds a house,
you labour in vain. If this is the house of God,
He's built it and He'll sustain it. I love what Philippians 1
says, He which hath begun a good work in you, and the you there
is plural. It's a good work begun in individuals,
but it's always a good work begun in individuals to put them together
into a church. He that hath begun a good work
in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. I can't do it. You can't do it. But He lays a foundation. He
lays a foundation. And our God lays things and He
lays them perfectly, perfectly with righteousness and perfectly
with justice. And He does it as a sovereign
God. I love what Ecclesiastes 3.14
says, I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. If God lays it, it's laid forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor
anything taken from it. And God doeth it, that men should
fear before him. God's children love the way God
builds. They love the way God builds
this church. It's awesome, isn't it? We just believe, don't we? For we which have believed do
enter his rest, as he has said, as I have sworn in Moroth, if
I enter into my rest, although the works were finished from
the foundation of the world." He finished it before the foundation
of the world. The eternal covenant is the way
God makes believers. If they are believers, they are
believers forever. forever. Our works, brothers
and sisters, are just frail and temporal. But when God lays,
God lays the foundation. He lays it. We didn't lay it. When He lays it, He gets all
the glory. You didn't do it. He gets it
all. He gets all the glory. He has the right. Now and unto
God are all these works from the foundation of the world.
And where does he lay? Where does he do this work? I
lay in Zion. He lays in Zion. Behold, I lay
in Zion for a foundation. He does it in Zion. Zion is a
wonderful Hebrew word that means a monument raised up. It is the place where he's promised
to reveal himself. I have set my king on my holy
hill of Zion. Zion is mentioned throughout
the scriptures as the place of God's church. It is the true
Israel of God. It is the true church of God. Beautiful for situation, the
joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion. Glorious things of thee
are spoken, thou city of God. Zion is a reference to the Church. It's a monument, isn't it? A
monument raised up to His glory. It's a monument raised up by
God the Holy Spirit to testify to the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That these blood-bought children
can be knitted together, one with Him, drawn to Him. made one with him, raised up
for all eternity. David built his city there, and
it's typical of the city of God. Solomon built the temple there,
and it's typical of the Lord Jesus Christ's church. For the
Lord hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall trust
in it. Isaiah 14.32. And one day, One day, through the eye of faith,
the children of God, like John in Revelation 19, will say, Behold
the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, surrounded with all his redeemed. This is where he lays the foundation,
brothers and sisters, in the Church of God. And you think
of that building, that building that's built. It's a building
that encloses and it's a building that excludes. It's a building
that surrounds and protects and shelters His people. It's a building
like the temple and the tabernacle. The tabernacle looked very ordinary
from the outside and unbelievably glorious on the inside. It could
have been dismissed as some pretty ordinary looking tent from the
outside, but inside it was glorious, just like the Church of God.
Psalm 45 says, The Bride of Christ is all glorious within. When
Christ dwells in people, God sees them as all glorious within. Zion, the city of the living
God. And that's where we come, don't
we? We come by faith to Mount Zion, the city of the living
God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of
angels, to the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn,
whose names are written in heaven, and to God, the judge of all,
and to the spirits of just men, made perfect. and to Jesus, the
mediator of the new covenant and of the blood of sprinkling
that speaks of better things than the blood of Abel. That's
why the ransomed of the Lord return, and they come to Zion
with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. They come to Zion. They're drawn
by God. If they're drawn by God, they're
drawn by God to the church. It's in the church. It's in the
church. It's in Zion where he lays this
foundation, where he lays this stone. It's in the church where
he speaks to his people. It's in the church where he ministers
to his people. It's Zion. God inhabits the praises of his
saints. The church is the habitation
of God by the Spirit. So nothing is so vital as fellowship
in church. Nothing, nothing, nothing in
the world can in any way mimic or do what happens in the Church
of God gathered around the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ where
he ministers his grace to his people. If he is here, If he
is here, brothers and sisters, everything is okay. Wherever
he is, everything is okay. Everything is okay. Oh, that
the salvation of Israel were to come out of Zion, when the
Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice,
and Israel shall be glad. Exactly what happened in Acts
chapter 3 and 4 is that they gladly received the word of God. They gladly received the word
of God about who they were and what they'd done. Just wicked,
evil murderers. They gladly received the word
of God about who the Lord Jesus Christ is. He is God and Christ
and reigns and rules over all things. Out of Zion, the perfection
of beauty, God has shined. That's where he shines. He shines
out of Zion. No wonder our scripture says,
therefore thus saith the Lord, behold, I lay in Zion. He lays it there for his people
and the rest of the world won't have a clue about it at all. And the more religious they are
and the more zealous they are in their religion, the less they'll
know of him, and the more their hearts will be hardened against
him and his people." That's why we don't have to shame people
to come to church. We don't have to bribe them to come to church.
We long for them to come to church, and we plead with God that he
might bring them to church. But those who have tasted that
the Lord is good, they know where the meal is served, brothers
and sisters, don't they? They know where the food is,
like any sensible sheep. They know where the pasture is,
which at the end of Isaiah, I don't have time to read it, but you'll
find that God gives wisdom to farmers about ploughing and sowing
and harvesting seed. He's saying that that's how simple
it is. You don't need to be a theologian, but you do need to be someone
who knows God. And you'll come to Mount Zion.
Remember Mount Zion, wherein thou dwellest." And what's he
laying his eye on? He does the laying. The Word
of God is our warrant. The call to behold is our task
before men, isn't it? And we watch God laying in Zion,
a Zion of his blood-bought people. He lays in Zion for a foundation. That's what he lays, isn't it?
That's why it's so important. It's a foundation. Without the
foundation, the building will not hold up. It doesn't matter
how fancy it looks on the outside. Without a foundation, That's
its only strength at the end of the day, brothers and sisters,
is the foundation. I love what was said of Abraham. Abraham wandered through Canaan,
didn't he? He'd come from Babylon, he'd come through Haran, and
he'd come down into Canaan. There were towns and cities all
over the place. But Abraham, what was Abraham doing? He was
looking for a city with foundations. All of them had been built by
man, hadn't they? He was looking for a city with foundations.
With foundations his builder and maker was God. When God lays
the foundation, that foundation is precious, isn't it? precious
rock. Upon this rock will I build my
church. That was Peter's profession of
the Lord Jesus Christ, wasn't it? On that foundation. It's
a foundation that's sure. It's a foundation that's solid.
It's a foundation that's eternal. It's a foundation that's unmovable. It's a foundation that has withstood
all the winds and waves and tempests of Satan and evil men and it
stands as strong This house will stand. We are, the Church of God is
built upon the foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. See, religion
is built on men's wisdom and men's understanding and they
have their denominations and they have their creeds and they
have all of their activities. But God's church just stands
simply on what God says, simply on what God says about His Son. For other foundation can no man
lay than that he's laid. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3.11,
which is Jesus Christ. There is just one foundation,
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul spoke of himself as a wise
master builder, and he went to the Corinthians to know two things
amongst them, just two things, brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. Anytime we're talking to people
and we get an opportunity and a door of opens is open, that's
all we need to talk about, Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and
then we wait. We wait for God to build. We wait for God to move in the
hearts of people. No other foundation. And what's
this foundation like? Go back to our text, Isaiah 28. I love these descriptions of
it. a foundation, it's a stone, a
tribestone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. Like me, brothers and sisters,
every time you've tried to do something, you've failed. Every
time God has tried us, we have failed. That's why the Lord so
wisely asks us to pray, lead us not into temptation. Because
if we are led into temptation, what will happen? Every single
time, brothers and sisters, own it. Be honest. You fail. You
fail under every possible one, don't we? He was tried. He's a tried foundation. He was tried. What extraordinary
trials our Lord Jesus Christ went through. Even His conception
was a trial. Those Jews knew what they were
saying. They'd heard the gossip that
came out of Nazareth, weren't they? And when they said, mocking
at Him, we weren't born in fornication. They were trying him for what
happened to his mother when the Holy Spirit came upon her. They
tried him. Herod tried him as a baby in
Bethlehem and killed all of those children. He was tried at the
beginning of his ministry. He was tried by Satan in the
wilderness for 40 days. He tested him and tried him.
He was tried by the law. Tested, wasn't he? He was examined
minutely. He was examined minutely by man. He was examined minutely by God's
law. And he was tempted. He was tempted
in all points, as we were. Please don't think the temptations
weren't real. They were more real for him.
They were more real, because he was the only one who knew
what holiness was like. He was the only one who knew
what sin was really like. They were real. He was tempted
in all points, but without sin. Then he was tried, tried by men
in their courts of law, and he was tried on the cross, and he
was tried by his father. He was tried in that awful agony
of Gethsemane. When that cup, that cup was given
him, wasn't it? He says, if this cup pass not
from me. The cup was given him there,
brothers and sisters. It couldn't pass from him, he
didn't already have it. And the cup was very clearly
and very evidently the cup that contained all of the sins of
all of God's elect. And he drank it down. I love what Joseph Hart opens
his little hymn book with. He says, Come, all ye chosen
saints of God, that long to feel the cleansing blood, in pensive
pleasure join with me to sing of sad Gethsemane. Gethsemane,
the olive press. fit name, fit place where vengeance
strove and gripped and grappled hard with love. T'was here the
Lord of life appeared and sighed and groaned and prayed and feared. I love this line that Hart wrote. For all incarnate God could bear
with strength enough and none to spare. It's so true, isn't
it? The powers of hell united pressed
and squeezed his heart and bruised his breast. What dreadful conflicts
raged within when sweat and blood forced through the skin. Dispatched
from heaven, an angel stood amazed to find him bathed in blood. Adored by angels and obeyed,
but lower now than angels made. He stood to strengthen, not to
fight. Justice exacts its utmost might. This victim vengeance will pursue. He undertook and must go through."
He was tried. He was tried in that awful agony. He was tried when his father
turned his back on him. At the ultimate moment of his
shame and ignominy before men, at the apex of his faith, his
father turned his back on him. And yet his faith remained strong. His faith was in his father. That's why he's precious. He's a precious cornerstone. He's precious. The word precious
means priceless. Priceless. Precious. Precious to his father. Precious
to the angels. He was precious to the Old Testament
saints and he's precious to every believer. He's precious to all
his blood-bulked children. It's one of the things that horrifies
me when I encounter people in religion who claim to know the
truth and claim to know who God is. And I fear the warnings of
scripture for them because they claim to see, the Lord Jesus
said, therefore their guilt remaineth. They claim to see, they claim
to believe in the doctrines of grace and yet they go to places
where the Lord Jesus Christ, His death upon Calvary's tree, His infinite unchangeable love
for His own, are trodden underfoot before men and angels and others
in that place. He can't be precious, brothers
and sisters. He can't be precious if you're
there. It was the preciousness of Him
that drove us out of religion. It was the preciousness of Him
that drew us to Him out of there. To those who believe He's precious,
and something is precious, the last thing you want to do is
have it marred and sullied and made dirty. That's why the Lord's
people sell everything they have for Him. It's all His. You can
have the whole lot. If I have Him, the pearl of Great
Cross, you can have the rest. It doesn't matter, squirt. Have
Him. to have him is a precious cornerstone,
that cornerstone that holds the building together in both directions,
doesn't it? Both directions. He both unites
God and man. He both unites Jew and Gentile. He completes and finishes all
of that old covenant and he brings in that new in such glorious
ways. He makes it precious. He makes
himself precious. There is no Jew nor Greek, male
nor female. He joins them all together. He is that cornerstone that holds
the building together. A wall on its own is incredibly
unstable. I was amazed when I was working
up on our mountain place years ago. There was a brand new house
being built next door and they built this great big garage wall
that seemed to have buttresses and other things. And a westerly
wind came along and blew it down. I was stunned to come over there
one day to work and see this massive, messy... But when you
have a building that is joined with a cornerstone and walls,
like our Lord Jesus is. It's a sure, that's what he goes
on to say, doesn't he? It's a sure foundation. It's
a sure foundation. This stone was tried by every
wind and every storm of trial that creation can provide. Hell
tried him and he was triumphant. And he didn't fail me. He didn't
fail me. When he was tried by Satan, 40
days in that wilderness, And if He won't fail me then, He
won't fail me now, brothers and sisters. He's promised never
to leave us nor forsake us. And He didn't fail me on the
cross. He went to Calvary's tree bearing the infinite wrath of
God. He went to Calvary's tree as that great priest offering
that sacrifice of himself and on his breastplate was the name
of every single one of his children. And on his shoulders he bore
their names. He bore their names on His shoulder
because the government's on His shoulder. He rules all things
for those precious blood-borne children. And He takes them,
doesn't He? He takes them personally on His
breastplate, close to His heart, into the Holy of Holies in Heaven's
glory. He's the sure foundation. He
didn't fail me when everyone deserted Him. He didn't fail
me when the Father deserted Him. He didn't fail me when He was
alone as anyone could ever be, and He won't fail me now. He's
been tried, brothers and sisters. He's been made precious. He is
laid by God in Zion. A precious cornerstone, a sure
foundation. I love a course, isn't it? I
know whom I believe and I am persuaded. I'm persuaded. I trust you are persuaded, brothers
and sisters. And this leaves one thing, doesn't
it? What are we to do? What are we to do? What's the
response in the true Church of God? All the other religious
organisations have one thing in mind, get you busy. They can
get you busy in doing things, they've got you. And then they'll
give you another busy thing to do, and another busy thing to
do, and then you'll be like the days, running around busy, busy,
busy. And then everyone else that's
joined with them will be busy. We're all busy. What do God's
children do? Thus saith the Lord God, when
he lays his eye on for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious
cornerstone, a sure foundation, he that believeth shall not make
haste. I love that. He that believeth
shall rest. He that believeth can watch and
wait and rest on the covenant promises of our Almighty God. These people in Isaiah 28, if
you go back you'll see that they were building, and they were
making, and they were doing, and they were busy, and yet God's
people, God's people are at rest. That's what he says in verse
12 in Isaiah 28. This is the rest wherewith ye
may cause the weary to rest. Those who are weary of their
labours, weary of their sins, weary, they find rest. Come to me, says the Lord Jesus
Christ, all who are weary and heavy laden, and He'll give you
rest, rest for your souls. You cast yourself upon Him, you
trust Him, you profess just to trust Him and nothing else, you
don't look anywhere else, you behold Him, and rest. And if the Lord is pleased to
give you faith in Him, you'll find yourself continually being
drawn back to the fact that it is He who gives rest, He who
promises rest to His people, gives rest. They have nowhere
else to go. They have nowhere else to go. when that great crowd in John
Chapter 6 had left. The Lord Jesus said to the apostles,
as Naomi said to Ruth, you can go back to Moab, there it is,
Moab is attractive and all of the things of this world are
there laid out for you. What did the apostles say? I've
got nowhere else to go. Let's rest, brothers and sisters.
I've got nowhere else to go. If you can go somewhere else,
if you can go somewhere else to find the things that satisfy
your life, you can go there. God's people can't go anywhere
else. They're shut up to Him and they rest. They rest because they have perfect
favour with God. They're in Zion. They're in this
building, that garden enclosed, that spring shut up at St Solomon. Enclosed by him. And they believe. See, faith is the evidence. I can't see my justification. I can't see those things. But
by faith, by faith, We enter into the rock and hide
in the dust for the fear of the Lord and the glory of His Majesty,
and He shall be for a century, and he that believeth shall never
be moved. To go back to that verse in Colossians
2 that we began with, that their hearts might be comforted So
I'm comforted, brothers and sisters, by what God has done. I'm comforted
by the way he gathers his people. I'm comforted in the midst of
the trials of being out in that world and being mocked in all
sorts of ways by that religious world. I'm comforted in Zion,
brothers and sisters. their hearts might be comforted
being knit together in love, unto all the riches of the full
assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery
of God, and of the Father, and of Christ. Amen. Let's pray.