Isaiah 49 Verse 8 thus saith the Lord in an acceptable
time have I heard thee and in a day of salvation have I helped
thee and I will preserve thee and give thee for a covenant
of the people to establish the earth to cause to inherit the
desolate heritages. Let's pray. Thank you again, Lord, for your
holy word. Bless us tonight, Lord, as we
meet and look into it and speak and hear. And by your grace,
worship, meet with us, Lord. All we need is your presence,
your blessing. Help us to remember, Lord, thank
you for this beautiful, simple ordinance that brings us back
to the simplicity that's in Christ. And may we remember him and truly
worship tonight in his precious name. Amen. Well, y'all remember
how I talked about wanting to just kind of Preach on this whole
chapter Isaiah 49 and because every time we've been in it for
five weeks and every time I feel like I need to review you know
where we've been and so I'm like I'm just gonna I'm just gonna
go through it and just make a comment on each verse Well tonight it's
one verse Again I tried But I think you'll understand again How much
is in this in an acceptable time. We mentioned
that, we quoted from the New Testament where Paul quotes that
passage, this passage, and said that today is that day, now is
that day. He didn't say today, he said
now is the acceptable time. Today is the day of salvation. And so we know, or now is the
day of salvation. And so we know what this refers
to. Thus saith the Lord. This is
still clearly the father speaking to his son as that began in verse
six. It's the son speaking through
the whole chapter and he's saying this is what my father's saying
to me. And he does and he did. And this acceptable time, the
time of salvation is when Christ came into this world. Because
you think about it. If he doesn't come down here and become me,
There's no salvation. That's the day. And it's not
talking about a 24-hour period day. Remember, we talk about,
you know, back in the day or something. That's the way, sort
of, this is used here. It's not specifically a 24-hour
day. It's the day of the Lord. The
day in an acceptable, in a day of salvation. But when that day
came, Paul said, now. Now, seeing that Christ did come,
seeing that he did shed his precious blood for his people, seeing
that there is access to God through the veil by our high priest and
the offering that he offered, now is the time. Now is the day. of salvation. He sent his son into this world.
It means literally an acceptable time. It means a time of goodwill. What does that remind you of?
Peace on earth and goodwill toward men. That's what he's talking
about. Glory to God in the highest and
on earth peace. goodwill toward men. And God
said, I've heard thee. That was interesting to me. I've
heard thee talking to the Son. And this is so important now.
Think about this. I don't know that I've ever thought
about it or heard it or looked at it. Christ came as the man. God deals with all men in two
men, Adam and the last Adam. Adam and Christ. And Adam fell. And if there's never another
Adam, then God don't want to hear from sinners. He can't listen
to you. He can't hear you. He don't want
to hear from you. There's no hearing, there's no
crying out to God. Christ is the God-man. But think
of Him for a moment as the man. The man. As the man. He called upon God for all of
us. And God said, I've heard you.
And not only did He say that, but He said to everybody else,
hear Him. He's the one that needs to be
heard for me, for you. We need for God to hear him and
we need to hear him. We think of ourselves calling
upon God and Him hearing us, but the only way He hears us
is by Christ. No man cometh unto the Father,
He said, but by me. And that's in any sense. You
don't come to Him in prayer. You don't come to Him for mercy.
You don't come to Him at all, except by Christ. You don't come
to God without a mediator, without a high priest, without an offering. And that's what this is referring
to. I've heard you. And because He heard His Son,
He hears us. Because we come in His name.
We cry in His name. It says in Job 35.13, Surely
God will not hear vanity, neither will the Almighty regard it.
Well, that ruled all of us out then. He's not going to hear
any of us. Man at his best state is altogether
what? Vanity. He's not going to hear us at
all. Except Christ is our voice. He is our representative. He's
our intercessor. He's our high priest. Remember
what he said to Simon Peter? Satan hath desired thee, that
he might sift thee as wheat. And he did sift Judas as wheat,
didn't he? That man died in anguish and
regret. I've betrayed the innocent blood.
And he went out and hanged himself. But he said, Peter, it's going
to be all right. I've prayed for you. I've prayed
for you. And the father heard him. Remember when he prayed, I think,
remember when the Lord said, he hears me always. That's good. He heareth me always. He said, I prayed that for those
standing around so that they'd understand what's going on here.
He said, I know that thou hearest me always, praying to his father. And so he prays for us. He cries
to God for us. And the Father says, I hear you.
In that day, in that acceptable time, I hear you. And that sacrifice,
the precious blood, is all about that. Because without that, there's
no hearing at all. You say, well, God hears sinners
because He loves sinners. Yes, but His love is in Christ. Don't forget that. Well, he's
merciful to sinners, you know, because he hears sinners because
he's merciful to sinners. Yeah, but his mercy is in Christ. God hears sinners because he
hears his son. And he heard his son when his
son came down and took my place and as me, he called upon God. And it's in that same sense that
the next phrase is true. I've helped you. I've helped
you. I've helped you. We say, well
Christ doesn't need any help. As God he don't. But as man,
as God, understand this, there are three persons in the Godhead,
but it's one God. He's one God. So it's God helping
God. In other words, he's self-sufficient.
But as man, God the Father sent angels down to minister unto
him. We have that benefit too. We have that benefit too. In
a day of salvation, I have helped you. This is that day of Christ
coming into this world and accomplishing the purpose for which he came.
It's not just him coming, but remember why he came and what
he accomplished when he came. And not only the first day, but
all of the time of his sojourning here. That's the day That's being
referred to here. Look at turn to Luke chapter
1. I want to read this one passage of scripture Luke chapter 1 In a day of salvation We know
what that is and I've already told you it's the day of Christ,
but let's look at it in in the scripture and rejoice in this
if the Lord is pleased to Give us eyes, Luke 167. And his father, Zacharias, that's
John the Baptist's father, was filled with the Holy Ghost and
prophesied, saying, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he
hath visited and redeemed his people. and hath raised up an
horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. Now
he's saying this upon the birth of Christ. As he spake by the mouth of his
holy prophets which have been since the world began that we
should be saved from our enemies. That's what this is. This baby
that was born. That's God saving us. In this
same context here, Simeon said, I've seen your salvation, God. He's looking at a baby. This
is the day in our text. That we should be saved from
our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us to perform,
this is what God is doing, to perform the mercy promised to
our fathers and to remember his holy covenant. Now, that's the
day he's visited us in order to save us, and this baby is
that happening. That's what he's saying. This
is the day God's saving us, like he always promised that he would. And notice that he says there,
and to remember his holy covenant. That's in verse eight also of
our text in Isaiah. And God sending His Son was God
remembering His covenant with His people. And that's what
He calls upon us to do tonight, remember. God remembers. He don't forget. Remember we
talked about, can a mother forget the baby at her breast that depends
upon her and is so precious to her? She might. But God said,
I'll never forget you. He'll never forget the covenant
that he made. And the Lord Jesus Christ now
is himself the covenant. Notice in the text, to be a covenant.
To be a covenant. That's how we know for sure who's
talking to who here. Because the rest of it, it almost
sounds like he's talking about us, doesn't it? I've heard you.
I'm going to save you. The day of salvation, I've helped
you, that's true. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
fulfillment of that covenant in every way. When this was instituted,
the Lord's table, and he said to them, do this as often as
you do it, remember me. As often as you do, eat this
bread and drink this cup. And at that supper, when the
Lord's table was instituted, the Passover, Christ fulfilled
that. We don't keep a Passover. Christ
is our Passover. There's a whole nation of people
keeping Passover. It's too late for that. There's
no need for that. And I say that with all kindness,
I hope. and desire for their good. Christ is our Passover. He's the blood that God spoke
of when he said, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. Judgment
will not touch you. A thousand will fall at your
left hand and a ten thousand at your right hand, but it will
not come near you. He's called the angel of the
covenant. the messenger of the covenant, which means angel,
the angel of the covenant. His blood is called the blood
of the everlasting covenant. And when he kept that supper,
he said, with desire, I've desired to have this supper with you.
And he handed him the cup, didn't he? And he said, this cup is
what? Remember what he said it was? The new covenant in my blood. That's what our text is talking
about. The new covenant, this is, He is the covenant, to be
a covenant for the people, for God's people. And I like what
he said. And we can, we can obey this
tonight. He said, this cup is the new
covenant in my blood. Remember what he said after that?
Drink all of it. I intend to, don't you? And that's
just symbolic. That's a symbol, but the reality
of that, that we might be partakers and the beneficiaries of what
he accomplished on Calvary when he shed his precious blood for
us. Remember what that covenant is to us. I don't want to take
a lot of time We've talked about this a lot over the years. There
are four things that I see And you could look at it in different
parts of the scripture. It's worded differently here
and there, but I love Hebrews chapter 8 verses 10 through 12
four things That this covenant he said I'm not it's not gonna
be like the old one because You didn't keep the old one This
one's not like that, because it's this one. It's not about
you keeping it or not keeping it. He said, here's what I'm
going to do now. I'm going to write my word on
your heart. Paul said, I love the law of
God after the inward man. And I sure do want to honor him.
I want to do it. I want to keep it. I want to
observe it. I want to remember it. I want
to obey it. You know why he wanted to? Because
God wrote it on his heart. That's why. We still ain't going to do it,
but we're going to want to. Because he wrote it on my heart
by his grace. That's the covenant now. And
you know what else he said? He said, I'll be to you a God,
and you'll be to me a people. Well, he's everybody's God, not
in this sense. Isn't it good? I want to say
this the right way. Isn't it good to have a God? He is to me a God. He's my strength. He's my encouragement. He's my peace. He's my ability. Our sufficiency, Paul said, is
of God. I will be to thee a God. We bow
to Him by His grace and we're mercy beggars and we wouldn't
be anything else. He is to us a God. He's our friend. The friend of sinners. He's our
shepherd. He takes us up on His shoulders
and carries us. He has the responsibility of
us. The charge of us. He found us. He brings us home. But He is to us, perhaps most
wonderful of all, a God. There's nothing too hard for
God. Do you need a God? Is it wonderful to have God say
that? I'm going to be your God. Boy, that would preach for a
while right there, wouldn't it? He's our God. He don't need us. We need Him. He is to us a God. He's not waiting on us. We're
waiting on Him. He's mighty to save. When you're
praying for your children, think about this. I'll be to you a
God. That's what I need. That's who
I need. When I need something so bad that I can't do anything
about. He is to me a God. He can if he will. And he said you're going to be
my people. What an honor. What a privilege. And then the third thing he said
is this, you're going to know me. I'm going to reveal myself
to you. And this is Hebrews 8, 10 through
12 if you want to look at it later. We probably ought to read
it. But he said, I'm going to reveal, everyone will know me. They'll all be taught of God.
The Holy Spirit this very night is taking the things of Christ
and showing them to us. That's what he sent him for. And I like that fourth one. I
like all of them. He said, your sins and your iniquities,
well, I remember. No more. He remembers us in love. He remembers us in mercy. He
remembers his covenant. But he don't remember my sins. Oh, boy, I'm glad of that. I'd
like to forget them myself, wouldn't you? But whether I do or not,
it didn't make that much difference. God said I don't remember them
anymore. Christ made all of that reality
for us with his precious blood. That's why this is such a special
thing. To remember that, to be often
brought back to the simplicity, bread and wine, Christ and Him
crucified. His person and His sin-cleansing
blood, His person and His work. He fulfilled all of the terms
of that covenant. All of the promises of God in
that covenant are yes and amen in Christ. He earned all of the
benefit of it and all we do is drink. Think about what he's saying
now, the magnitude of that when he said this right here is the
new covenant. Now, understanding that that's
a symbol in my blood. That's not his blood. But he's
saying this represents my blood, which is the fulfillment of that
covenant. All of the benefits of that covenant
are ours because of that blood. He's saying that blood, my blood, all of the covenant promises
of God that we just talked about, and much better than I can talk
about it, are ours, are contained in that cup. And He said, here, drink all
of it, just drink it. And we can't even do that without
Him, can we? We can't even do that without His grace. But isn't
it wonderful that we just drink of it, just drink it. And it's
all ours. Glory is ours. The blessing of
God is ours. He's our God and we're His people.
We know Him. All of our sins are gone because
of that. Boy, drink all of it, my friends. Drink all of it. He gives us grace to drink. Now with regard to the father
helping his son, I want to say another word or two about that.
As a man, God sent his angels to minister unto him. We have
that help too. Our Lord had no special privileges
as a man while he represented us here. He became us. He was tempted in all points,
like as we are, yet without sin. That's as opposed to us being
tempted in all points and sinning every time, in every aspect of
it, in every situation, in every trial, in every circumstance,
every moment. But he was tempted in all points,
like as we are, yet without sin. Without sin. The Father was his strength and
encouragement, just like God is our strength and encouragement.
He believed God, like we do, with one little difference. Perfectly. Big difference. Real big difference. He believed God. Perfectly. Boy, that's my hope. If my faith
is my hope, I'm in trouble. But our faith unites us to Him
who is everything we're not. For us, but for God. He believed God as a man perfectly,
but remember that he was forsaken of his father in that hour when
he bore my sins, O Calvary. The father forsook him. There was no help from God then,
from the father then. He bore our sins in his body
on that tree. the unimaginable weight and horror
of our sin. And he did it alone. It wasn't help from the Father
that got him through that. You know what it was? His own
personal excellence. You think about that. His own
value and excellence and holiness and intrinsic power and glory
and worth that caused him to be triumphant at Calvary. Think
about that. Don't ever forget that. It was
who he is that made that successful. Boy, I wish we could just somehow
just sit here and just think about that for a little while He said I preserved thee I thought about this John 10
27 Listen to this now He said, My sheep hear my voice,
and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand, my Father, which is greater than all, which gave
them me. is greater than all in the sense
of Christ and this reminds us that he came he condescended
he humbled himself as a man and became one of us and as a man
he humbled himself further and became obedient unto death even
the death of the cross and he's saying the father is greater
than me he says that in other places too in office at the time in status at the time because
he submitted himself to the will of his father in obedience to
his father for us as us and that's the sense in which he said my
father which gave to me is greater than all and no man is able to
pluck them out of my father's hand. Now picture that you're
in my hand and we're all in the father's hand. The father is only greater than
the son in office and status as Christ became us. When he
was made in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned
sin in the flesh and as man, the father was well pleased with
his son, accepted his son as our representative and therefore
preserved his son. The reason he came out of that
grave is because of what he accomplished on Calvary. Because the sacrifice
was accepted It was enough because of who He is. And we are in His Son's hand. He preserved His Son and we're
preserved by the Son. We're doubly preserved. And in
case that's confusing to us and we begin to think, well two heads,
God the Father, He said, I and my Father are one. Don't forget
that. We're one. He said this is the next phrase
there in our verse verse 8 in Isaiah 49 to establish the earth Think about that for a second
now without Christ and what he did for his sheep on Calvary
Do you know what this earth whole earth is the whole world? You
know what it is. It's a firebrand to stoke the
fires of hell with that's what it is He established the whole
earth When he came down here Colossians 116, for by him were
all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth,
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers. He created all of this. Without
Christ was not anything made that was made, but also all things
were created by him and for him. He did it for himself. That's
selfish if I do something just for myself. People always say,
well you need to do something for yourself. Well, I don't know
about that. I don't see that in the scriptures, do you? Talks
about doing things for other people in the scriptures. That's
selfish if I do. You know what it is when he does
it? It's right. It's just right. He's worthy
of it. He just did it for himself. He
did it for himself. For thy glory, for thy pleasure,
they are and were created. And this, all things were created
by him and for him, and he is before all things. He's preeminent
in all things. And by him, all things consist. That word consist right there
is pretty much the same word if you look at the definitions
as the word establish in our text. They both mean to hold up, to
hold together. Christ is all. Christ is all. There's no universe without Him.
There's no world. There's no nothing. Without Him, it'd be better if
there never had been an earth. I don't want an earth without
Him, do you? But think about when you look around, think about
everything. He is to be glorified in all
of it. The heavens declare His glory. The firmament showeth
His handiwork. And we're new creatures in Him.
Everything and everybody. To cause, listen to this, let's
close with this. To cause to inherit the desolate
heritages Now that's a moment there where you want to look
up the original Hebrew. The desolate heritage, what is
that? That's when I'm studying and I'm looking at this and I'm
thinking, what is he referring to there? It helps a lot of times
to look at the original language and what's actually being said
there. Think about this, to cause to
inherit The desolate heritages. I thought of Psalm 2 verse 7. I will declare the decree. The
Lord hath said unto me, thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee.
Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance. The desolate heritages. and the
uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. And you know
the Lord did ask him, didn't he? In John 17 he asked him,
I pray that all those that you've given me, all those heathens,
be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory. He said,
ask me and I'll give them to you. You know what the word desolate
in our text means? It means horrible. Horrible. To cause horror. And the word
heritages means what you probably thought, an inheritance, a portion. The horrible portion. That's
what we are. But bless God, we're His horrible
portion. Do you know what it is in all
of this world that's most horrible? It's you. It's me. God has chosen the worst, the
most vile and wretched sinners, in this world and given them
to his son as his portion. That's what he wanted. He asked
for us particularly and we were given. But we're not going to be horrible
for long. We're not always going to be horrible. And you see that's, he saved
the most horrible to exalt his mercy. To exalt his grace. He said he did it, you remember
this? He said this is why that no flesh should glory in his
presence. Let him that gloryeth, glory
in the Lord. If we ever see this we will.
The horrible portion. You know the truth of the matter
is we already are not horrible in him and that's what really
counts. I tell you if you look at yourself
you're gonna see horrible. But when he looks at us he doesn't
see that. He passed by us and saw us in
our blood and corruption and said unto us live. And then he
clothed us. And we are now beautiful through
His comeliness. We were base, weak, foolish,
despised, and now because we are His. You know what we are
now? I want to show it to you. Turn
to Ephesians 5. He deliberately chose the horrible. Ephesians 5.25, you're familiar
with how the apostle speaks of marriage and how it's a beautiful
picture of Christ in his church, but I want to see especially
the language that he uses to describe his bride. Husbands,
love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave
himself for it. That he might sanctify it and
cleanse it with the washing of water by the word that he might
present it to himself. Now the church, that's us now.
That's you and me. That's those who believe him.
That's those who know him. That's those whom he chose. That's
his bride. And look at that word. We just
saw in our text what we are by nature. Horrible. But after he gets through washing
us with his precious blood, He gave himself to sanctify us,
to purify us, to make us holy. And then he gave us his word,
and we experience his grace by the preaching of his word, that
he might present it to himself a glorious church. From horrible to glorious. That's
a pretty big leap, isn't it? That's the power of the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish. That's the power of his sin-cleansing
precious blood and such is the love of God that God commendeth his love
toward us in that while we were yet horrible Christ died for us. Well, I hope we can think about
that for a little while. I pray that he'll enable us to
think about that for a little while tonight. One of these days,
we're not going to think about anything else.