If you turn in your Bibles to
Isaiah chapter 46. I came across these verses yet
again a week or so ago. I'm thinking of our friend Isabel. What a remarkable story of the
grace of God she is. God says, fear not, in chapter
43, I am with you. I will bring your descendants
from the east. I will gather you from the west.
I will say to the north, give them up. And to the south, do
not keep them back. Bring my sons from afar. and my daughters from the ends
of the earth, whoever is called by my name, whom I have created
for my glory. I have formed him, yes, I have
made him. I don't know a lot of Isabel's
journey, but just in very basic terms, she was born of a Berber
father a Muslim in Morocco and then she married a German man
and was taken to Germany and then that man left her and she
was left with a daughter and then in the upheavals of Europe
in those days Egloff had a friend who'd come all the way to Australia
about as far away from messed up Europe as you can get and
he'd settled in Bermagui and Eglof came out here and while
he was here he brought a property down at Bermagui and he brought
his family all the way out here. What a remarkable journey, just
physically it is. But what an even more remarkable
journey spiritually. because she came out and they'd
been involved in Pentecostal churches and then they, down
in Bermagui, got involved in the Bega church. And our friend
Owe had been to hear Henry Mahan. And it's extraordinary, isn't
it? You would think that someone like Henry Mahan, it would be
great for God to take him to the big cities and have him preach
in the big cathedrals of Sydney and proclaim the gospel from
the most prominent and public places you could possibly imagine.
He took him to places like Tumbarumba. Isn't it remarkable? And Alan
loves to tell the story of he and his wife Helen going over
there and hearing Henry Mayan preach on election. Preach on
a God who is really God. A God who chose his people from
eternity and put them in the Lord Jesus. And they have been
kept and preserved and secure for all time. And they're in
the Lord Jesus when he walked this earth. and wove a robe of
righteousness for them. They were in and one with the
Lord Jesus when He died on the cross, and when He was buried,
and when He was gloriously resurrected, they were resurrected with Him.
And believe it or not, despite what their bodies look like here,
they are now seated with Him in heavenly places. And Owen
says that when Henry had finished preaching, he was just stunned
that he'd been so short. Henry preached for an hour and
for Owen it seemed like five minutes. He was just captivated
by the glory of God. Then he went back to the church
in Bermagui and he started in a Bible study that Isabel was
in with two pastors from the church there. Owen kept questioning
the pastor and Isabel became more and more intrigued with
the questioning. And in time, God brought the
gospel. to her and brought her to realize
who the Lord Jesus really is. What a great and glorious God
we have. And he says, bring my daughters
from the ends of the earth. He brings his daughters from
the ends of the earth. And he says to the South, do
not keep them back. The South is not going to argue
with our God. He will bring and he will gather. And he'll gather his people,
as he's done with Isabel, he'll gather them out of Babylon. And in these few verses in Isaiah
46, you've got to remember this is all prophecy. At this stage,
Nebuchadnezzar still hasn't come and captured Jerusalem. This is a couple of hundred years
before those remarkable events of the restoration of God's people. But in fact when God speaks,
He speaks declaring the end from the beginning. He knows what
the end is. So that's why He created everything,
that's why He does everything, is because He knows what the
end is. He has in mind, he has in his
plans and purposes, this glorious new creation. You see, he starts
with the end, and then he goes back to the beginning with the
end in mind, just like you do as an architect with a house
in it. You have a picture of what it's
like at the end, and then you go back and start laying foundations. And he gathered, and he still
gathers his people, And all of the gathering of His people here
is just a picture of that great gathering. That great gathering
in heaven. That great gathering that is
just around the corner. When all of this is burnt up
and worn away and God makes it all new again. But as He did
with Isabel and as He's done with us, He's got to take us
out of Babylon. Because the religion of Babylon
is the religion of natural man. We are idolaters by nature. We are idolaters by practice. And we create idols, just like
these idols here. In verse 46 it says, Bell bows
down and Nebo stoops. Bell and Nebo were the great
Babylonian gods, their chief idols of Babylon. In fact, their
names are encapsulated in the names of some kings of Babylon
that you might remember, Belshazzar and Nebuchadnezzar. So they not
only had these gods and worshipped them, but they named themselves
after them. What Osiris is talking about
here is the prophecy that these Babylonian gods and the Babylonian
empire with them would be destroyed almost in a night by Osiris. Osiris would come and he would
capture Babylon and he would set his people free. Osiris in
a sense pictures the Lord Jesus. He must come to Babylon. He must
destroy Babylon and he must let his people go free. And so as Cyrus came, he then
put these idols on beasts. He cut them up and he put them
on huge carts to take them back to his land. Because of all the
gold and the silver and all the jewels associated with them,
not because he wanted to honour the gods, but because the gods
were completely dishonoured. And these beasts carry these
idols away, and the beasts are made weary as they carry these
idols away. You see, whenever we read about
idolatry, and especially when we read about idolatry associated
with Babylon, We need to remember that anything that we have, anything
that man does, as you know Babylon was built where Babel was. And what was Babel, the Tower
of Babel? It was just a testament to the
power and the wisdom and the strength of man. Everything and anything that
we have confidence in, other than the Lord Jesus Christ, is
an idol. Anything we put our confidence
in, and it doesn't have to be a statue, it doesn't have to
be an image that anyone else can see we are idolaters by nature
and by practice until God strips our idols away. Everything we do, everything
we do and especially the things that we do as Christians, that
can be things that we do Things that others can see can be idols
in our hearts. In Ezekiel 14.3, God says that
one of the reasons He's destroying Israel, destroying nation Israel
and destroying Jerusalem, is because these people have set
up their idols in their hearts. see their own special idols in
their hearts and put them before them which causes them to stumble
into iniquity. Should I let myself be inquired
of them at all, says God. You see, the idols in our hearts
are far more dangerous than the idols that we see in Catholic
churches. The crosses that people wear,
the signs that they make as they walk onto the football field,
do whatever silly sign they make, it's all idolatry. It's all idolatry. What do you
look back to? Do you look back to religious
experience, some wonderful religious experience? Do you look back,
do you look upon some religious service? Do people hold on to
things like honour, position, titles, the esteem of men, possessions? Anything a sinner looks to, anything
a sinner trusts in, apart from the Lord Jesus alone, is just
idolatry. These idols of Babylon, cast
down, defeated, cut up, They are upon the beasts and upon
the cattle. Your carriages were heavy-loaden.
They are a burden to the weary beasts. They stoop and they bow
down together. They could not deliver the burden,
but themselves have gone into captivity. You see, even the
horses. and the oxen carrying the load
are burdened under the heavy load as they pull these wagons
for Cyrus. But our Lord Jesus, and that's
what these verses go on to show so beautifully, our Lord Jesus
carries and bears the burden of people. But anything other
than Him, anything other than the Lord Jesus, will not only
fail to bear our burden, it will indeed itself become a heavy
burden. Instead of carrying you, you
will have to carry it. When you take away from people
their righteousness, their righteous deeds, their religious righteous
deeds, their religious, righteous knowledge, their delight in doctrine,
their delight in the things that they have learned and their human
wisdom. When you take it away from people,
you'll see that those idols are things that they are continually
having to prop up, they're continually having to polish, they're continually
having to make strong and they're continually having to hold them
up and parade them before people. I never forget, and I remember
with horror, a fellow saying, it's all very well what God did
in Christ Jesus, but if I didn't make my decision, if I didn't
get up, If I didn't walk the aisle, then God wouldn't have
saved me." That, my brothers and sisters,
is idolatry. What a remarkable thing that
when that poisonous theology came in strength again to Australia,
our friend Isabel heard the gospel from Henry Mayhem rather than
believing a gospel of man's cooperation to save himself. It's infected all of our world. You can read about it in Revelation.
Babylon the great whore, and she makes the world drunk with
her wine. Isaiah 2 verse 20 In that day
a man shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold,
which they made, each one for himself to worship. I'll cast
these things to the moles and to the bats. to go into the clefts
of the rock and to the tops of the ragged rocks for fear of
the Lord and for the glory of his majesty when he arises to
shake terribly the earth. And this is the heart of idolatry
in verse 22 of Isaiah chapter 2. Cease ye from man whose breath
is in his nostrils for wherein is He to be accounted of. All
flesh is grass. All flesh is grass. We've got to remember, and the
Scriptures warn us again and again, that the idolatry of Rome
is obvious. that the idolatry and the dangerous
idolatry that Satan wants people to worship is a subtle, subtle
message. For Satan himself is transformed
into an angel of light, therefore it is no great thing if his ministers
also be transformed as ministers of righteousness. They'll come
and preach righteousness. They'll come and preach a word
about man having some contribution to the work of salvation. They might be doctrinally pure
in so many ways, but they'll compromise and allow the blood
of our precious Saviour to be trampled underfoot, and they'll
exalt the activities of the Church, and they'll attract people by
busyness, and they'll keep them busy. Churches are wonderful
at getting people to be busy, to do and to do and to do. So deceiving is the idolatry
of this age, that the Lord says, if it were possible, they shall
deceive the very elect. A message that takes God from
His throne must put man on a throne. It takes His blood, the blood
of the Lord Jesus, as a common thing, and says that it's effective
if you do something. It's idolatry, the most blasphemous
idolatry this world knows. And it's common, and its commonality
is its danger, because so many people say, well, that's just
the way it is. And then they preach a message
that says that we are the sanctifiers of ourselves. It's all very well
what Jesus has done, but now you have to add your works of
obedience. You must do something. Whatever
you must do is the idol that you have and the idol that you
worship. And here we have in Isaiah this
wonderful and delightful contrast. We glance at the idolatry, but
we gaze at the beauty and the wonder of our God. Here is the
word of the eternal, unchanging God our Saviour. What does he
say in verse 46 verse 3? Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob,
and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are born by
me from the belly, which are carried from the womb, and even
to your old age I am He, even to your gray hairs will I carry
you. I have made, I will bear, even
I will carry, and will deliver you. This is the Lord's word. as much to spiritual Israel today
as it was to those people two and a half thousand years ago.
He says to all his children, listen
to me, hearken to the voice of God. And we know that the only
way this is going to happen is if God Himself sends His Spirit
into our hearts and His Word becomes Spirit and life and power. With irresistible power, He opens
this Word and He sheds through this Word a light on His glory
and on His glorious Son. And we see Him and we see ourselves. It comes as a word into our hearts. It's a powerful word. It's an
effective word. But it's a personal word from
God. And how many voices are there
that we have in this world? How many voices? How many voices
do we have that infect our flesh? Our adversary the devil is called
the accuser of the brethren. How he loves to hear us. gossip
about His children, His chosen ones, how He loves for us to
be accusers along with Him. We are not to hearken unto Him. We are to resist Him and stand
steadfast in the faith. Hearken unto Me, says our God. Our flesh is prone by its deception
in the garden to hearken to temptation, to hearken to all sorts of other
things, God says, hearken unto me. We will go through heavy
trials, shockingly heavy trials and weights that bring deep discouragement. But God says to us, hearken unto
me. Hearken unto me, my child. Hearken unto me. You are just
a remnant, O house of Jacob. You are just a little flock.
But hearken unto me. He says I've made you. He says that we don't make our
God, He makes us. He says that He carries us from
the worms. Idols need to be carried around,
but our God carries us. He's carried us from the worm.
He says, even to your old age. I will carry you. I will. What a great promise from our
God. He says our God is the unchangeable
God. He says I am He. It's one of the words he used
to describe himself in Exodus. He meets Moses and he's the great
I am. And then in many other places
in the scriptures he says, I am he. In Deuteronomy 32, I am he
and there is no other God. I am he, the first and the last. I am he and none can deliver
out of my hand. I am he who blots out your transgressions. I am He who comforts you. I am He who speaks. And the Lord Jesus uses this
title Himself. In John 8, He says, When you
have lifted Me up from the earth, you will know that I am He. You will die in your sins, He
says to the Pharisees, unless you believe I am He. And then, in that remarkable
scene, as Judas comes with an army of soldiers into the garden,
the Lord Jesus again says, I am He. And then He says, I am He. You can have me, but you must
let my people go free. I am He, the great, eternal,
unchangeable God. You see, when our children were
little, we carried them and held them close to us. But now mine
are big. I can't carry any of them any
longer. But God doesn't change. He's carried us from the womb. He carries us right now. He changes not. he carries us
he says for I am the Lord I change not therefore you sons of Jacob
are not consumed you see he chose us in grace and he called us
in grace and he makes us alive in grace and he doesn't change
sometimes we seem like we're on fire for him and we have so
much zeal that we could be a blazing lamp. But most of our lives we
are like a smoking flax and a bruised reed. And it takes so little,
it takes so little to upset for us the foundations. But our God
doesn't change. He's the same in his power. the
same in His protection, the same in His truth, the same in His
faithfulness. His word to these people and
His word to Isaiah is the same word He speaks to us. He doesn't change. It's impossible
for Him to lie. He is the same yesterday, today,
and forever. I am He. I have made you. I have borne you from the belly. I have carried you from the womb. He will. He will carry His people. It was extraordinary when we
went to Canberra to see Isabel. Life for many people seems as
if it's eternal. While we're living here, when
we drove into Queanbeyan on Friday afternoon, we couldn't get into
Queanbeyan town. We had to take a diversion around
Queanbeyan town. We found out the next day why. There was a little old lady wheeling
her little trolley thing across the street, the main street in
Queanbeyan. And instantly she was hit by
a truck. Instantly she went to eternity. You see, people have their confidence
in things that are born of them, that they have made it, that
they have sustained it. that it is something that they
can hold on to securely, that everything that's confidence,
that's based on anything that happens in this flesh, will go
the way of all flesh. Hearken unto me, says God. He makes us. Idols are made by
men. He's the one who makes. And if
He makes, He sustains. We were born of Him spiritually. We were born for the purpose
of His grace. As we read earlier, we're born
for His glory. He makes, He creates, for his
glory. That's why he chose his people
from before the foundation of the world. We were born with
the purpose of God and we were formed. We were formed as promised
to Abraham, a great nation, a multitude beyond number, many nations,
born for His glory. And through all the days of our
rebellion, He carried us. Just think back on your life
prior to knowing the Lord and being known of Him. How many
remarkable, miraculous times did you survive? I, like Graham,
used to like riding motorbikes. I just look back, every time
I think about my five or six years riding motorbikes, I look,
think back and instantly I think back with horror at the number
of times I came within Millimeters of dying. The number of times
I went round corners in Sydney and I fell off. I remember one
night I went round this corner and I hit a steel thing on the
road and my bike slid out from underneath me and there were
sparks everywhere. It was really spectacular. And there was no
car coming the other way on a busy street. It's just remarkable,
isn't it? how much God has watched over
us, how much He's carried us. When we were rebellious and wicked,
when we were idolaters and we were hating Him and running away
from Him, He carried us exactly the same as He does now. He was long-suffering. His long-suffering
means that none of His children will ever perish. He did all
this for all of us. He carried us. In their afflictions,
Isaiah 63, 9 says, in all their afflictions, He was afflicted. And the angel of His presence
saved them. In His love and in His pity,
He redeemed them. And He bore them. And He carried
them all the days of old. I love the thought of being carried
by God. I love the thought of how He
bore us. In the wilderness, He bore Israel,
didn't He? According to Deuteronomy 1.31. Where thou hast seen how the
Lord thy God bore thee, as a man bare his son, in all the way
ye went, until ye came into this place. What was that 40 years
of wandering in the wilderness? It was 40 years of rebellion
against God and for 40 years He sustained them. He brought
us to hear the Gospel and He made us a new creation, created
in righteousness and true holiness and He says, I have made you. He has made the new creation. partakers of the divine nature,
a new heart, a new nature, born in eternity, born in Christ,
born in this world, born again and carried all the way. This people I have formed for
myself and they shall show forth my praise. You see, what God
is saying, isn't it, is that what He has made, nothing can
undo. You cannot undo what God has
done. Satan cannot undo what God has
done. You cannot undo what God has
done. Nothing in creation can undo
the work of the Creator. Spiritual life is God's to give. It's God's to carry. Nothing in creation can change
the Creator's purposes. And I will bear, even I will
carry you. He bears us and He carries us. In Isaiah 53, these same words
are used, aren't they? In Isaiah 53, 4. Surely He has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. Exactly the same words in Hebrew. He's borne our griefs. Our griefs
have been borne by Him. He's carried our sorrows. and yet in our unregenerate state
we did esteem him stricken and spitten of God and afflicted.
But, says our Saviour, he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. Not by our activity,
but by his stripes. We are healed. Even in your old
age, I am He. Even to the core hairs, the gray
hairs, will I carry you. You see, as these bodies wear
out, and we become more and more aware, the time is short, and
this is but flesh. What does God say? We are healed. perfectly healed. You're looking
at an old worn out body but a perfectly healed body. See these bodies
are given to us and given to us in their frailty. Sometimes
they might commend us and sometimes they might condemn us but they're
given to us in frailty that we'll just trust Him alone. We'll look to Him alone, not
to anything we do, not to anything that's done. None of those things
is going to commend us to God. We have to stop looking at ourselves
to save ourselves. We have to turn and hearken to
Him who is the Creator and the Sustainer. He will carry, He
will make the Eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are
the everlasting arms, and he shall thrust out the enemy from
before you, and shall say, Destroy!" Everlasting arms are under all
of God's people. You see, He carries, He sustains
in those arms and He holds His people close to His heart and
He carries them. There was that famous poster
that was all over, it seems, the Christian world 15 years
ago or so, 20 years ago, that footprints poster. And it seemed
so really nice, didn't it? this beautiful picture that there
was two sets of footprints walking along and then there was just
one set of footprints walking along and then there were two
sets of footprints walking along and the idea, the sweet idea
was that we walked along just fine by ourselves and Jesus was
somewhere around and then it was in the times of trouble that
he picked us up and carried us. That's not the God of this world,
is it? There weren't two sets of footprints walking in the
same direction. There's one set of footprints and the other one
was running as far away as they possibly could and into as much
wickedness as they possibly could and they were doing it all the
time. And our God carries us. What idolatry it is for people
to say that God has no hands but your hands and no feet but
your feet. There's so much that's so common
in our Christian thinking that in light of scripture, in light
of who God is, is just so blasphemous. The thought that the Creator
needs the creation to act, so that then the Creator can act.
Just let God, dear oh dear, what bless me, our God bore us, He
made us, He carries us. And every poor sinner is under
a weight of guilt. They've got to carry their idols,
haven't they? They've got to have them propped
up all the time because this world continually knocks them
down. But they sustain them with busy,
busy activities. They've got to keep polishing
them. They've got to keep parading them. They've got to keep saying
to people, look at my righteousness. Look at the things that I have
done. They're under a weight of guilt. They're under the burden
of the law. They're under the burden of sin.
They're under the burden of having to keep up appearances, to keep
up some pretense that they are righteous in themselves. just like those whitewashed tombs
of the Pharisees. They keep whitewashing it. In
India, it was beautiful in January. They used to have a festival,
and they used to paint the animals. But what they also did, because
it was the beginning of the dry months, is they used to repaint
the houses every year. And the houses in India looked
lovely. And all they did was have colored
whitewash to paint them. And soon as the rains came, they
got stained and marred and by the end of the monsoon season,
they looked mouldy and horrible. And then when they dried out
again, they'd polish them again next year and paint them with
their whitewash. And that's what people are doing,
aren't they? In religion. Busy, busy, busy. The Lord Jesus says, come unto
me, all that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find
rest for your souls. He is the great shepherd. He's
taken the responsibility for all of the sheep the father gave
him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather
the lambs in his arm and carry them in his bosom. He will gently
lead those that are with young. He keeps and nourishes his own. As one whom his mother comforts,
so I will comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. What good news we have from our
God. What a great gospel it is. How
much better is the true and living God from any idol, any idol that
we make, any idol that we hope in. any idol that we have to
carry and repair and polish. There is no God else beside me,
a just God and a Saviour, there is none beside me. Look unto
me and be you saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God
and there is none else. You see, to whom, in verse 5
of this chapter, will you liken me or make me equal? and compare me that we should
be alike. There is no one like our God. The idols couldn't deliver. I will make, I will bear, I will
carry, and the best is at the last. I will deliver you. See what's required of people.
in these verses. See, he doesn't require anything. He doesn't require his people
to do anything. He says, come to me as guilty
as you are. Come to me as sinful as you are. Come to me as wretched as you
are. Come to me as bankrupt and destitute. Come and buy without price. Feast yourself, delight yourself. Come and don't do anything. Come
and trust everything into His hands and none other. Every believer is someone who
has been delivered. He has delivered us from the
power of darkness, Col. 1.13, and has translated us into
the kingdom of His dear Son. You see, He has delivered it,
hath delivered it, already done. We have redemption. We have the
forgiveness of sins. He carries us from the womb to
old age. We often feel that death is upon
us, and we have a sentence. But God says through Paul, this
sentence, this darkness that comes upon us is so that we might
not trust in ourselves, but God who raises the dead. And he has
delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver. in whom we
trust that He will deliver. He has done it in the past, and
He's promised that what He's done can't be undone. He'll deliver us out of all affliction. He says that He'll deliver us
out of temptations. He'll deliver us out of the hand
of every enemy. He'll deliver us from this body
of sin and death. He'll deliver us from death eternal. He'll deliver us from the wrath
to come. You see, we're not going to die,
brothers and sisters, in Christ. We just go to be with Him. There is now no condemnation. In Acts chapter 7, when Stephen's
being stoned, what does God say about Stephen? as the rocks piled
upon him and his life slipped away. And God says, and he fell
asleep. He fell asleep in whose arms?
He fell asleep in the arms of God. Our unchanging God, and
our Saviour says, hearken unto me. When the distracting voices
come along, the voices of unbelief, the voices of carnal reason,
the voice of Satan, the voice of men who'll tell you that salvation
and sanctification and righteousness is a cooperative activity between
you and God, that God's work will be effective when you've
done your little bit, hearken unto me. Saints don't have anything
to worry about. My flesh and my heart fail, but
God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm
48, 14 says, for this God is our God forever and ever. He will be our guide. even unto death." That's the
Word of God, isn't it? Listen to Him. Hearken to Him. Ignore all the other voices. Trust His Word. Trust His Son. Delight in His freedom. Delight in all that He has done.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank
You for a Gospel that is really good news for sinners, good news
for helpless sinners, good news for sinners who have no righteousness
of their own, good news for sinners whose bodies are wasting away,
good news for sinners, our Father, that in the Lord Jesus we have
absolutely everything. He made us, He formed us, He
carried us, He's married to us. We are one with Him. We have Heavenly Father just
before us, the most glorious and great day. And this world
will pass away, and we will be in that new creation. Heavenly
Father, we pray that you'd show us what the idols are, that you
would open our eyes to see that they are around us and that we
are prone to follow them, Heavenly Father. and that we, in our flesh,
would go that way if it wasn't for your grace. We pray, Heavenly
Father, that we would look again and again to the Lord Jesus. We would hearken to your voice,
our Father, not to the voice that's in our hearts, but to
your voice in your word. And we would just simply, simply
trust the words that you say. These are glorious words, these
astounding words, these stunning words, these wonderful words,
and these words of great comfort. We thank you, our Father, that
they are sealed as precious and true by you who cannot lie, sealed
by the blood of your dear and darling Son. And as we participate
in this remembrance service of him, Heavenly Father, we pray
that we would be reminded again of the perfect sufficiency of
Him, the everlasting arms that bear us and carry us. We praise
You, Heavenly Father, that the only righteousness we have before
You is the perfect and pure and holy righteousness of Your dear
and precious Son. And He's taken away our sins,
and they're blotted out forever. He bore them in His own body
on the tree, and He's borne them and borne them away. We praise
you our Father for the great news of our Saviour's finished
work. We pray in His precious Name.
Amen.