Isaiah chapter 14. Good to see Brother Charlie here again. Good to see Haley. You remember
the signal now, Haley, if I go too long. If her back starts
hurting, she's gonna tell me to cut. Instead of reading this whole
chapter 32 verses. I want us to Well, I'll tell
you what we better do that one time and then we'll focus in
on a few Verses key verses that I think will give us the essence
of the message of this chapter Let's read it together. The Lord
will have mercy on Jacob and will yet choose Israel and set
them in their own land and the strangers shall be joined and with them, and they shall cleave
to the house of Jacob, and the people shall take them and bring
them to their place. And the house of Israel shall
possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids.
And they shall take them captives, whose captives they were, and
they shall rule over their oppressors. And it shall come to pass in
the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and
from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made
to serve. But thou shalt take up this proverb against the king
of Babylon and say how hath the oppressor ceased? The golden
city ceased and in the next several verses, I think I will skip down
Because it talks about how how he is gonna overthrow Babylon
and Assyria Look at verse 12. How art thou fallen from heaven?
Oh Lucifer son of the morning. I How art thou cut down to the
ground, which didst weaken the nations? For thou hast said in
thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne
above the stars of God. You see how the Lord very righteously
and properly, when he's condemning Babylon, these great evil cities
and their rulers, then he all of a sudden is talking to Lucifer.
Same thing. You remember the king of Assyria,
he was saying, I'm going to destroy you and you're not going to be
able to say a word about it. He was he was saying, I will.
I will just like Satan. Same thing. When Peter thought
on the things of himself and not the things of the glory of
Christ, the Lord called him Satan. So there this shows where this
is coming from, this spirit of anti Christ and spirit of exalting
the will of man and We're gonna we're gonna do you know, we're
gonna do big things It's Satan. This is it's the same spirit
But but look at verse 24 the Lord of hosts hath sworn saying
surely as I have thought so Shall it come to pass? And as I have
purposed so Shall it stand? That I will break the Assyrian
in my land and upon my mountains Shred him underfoot Then shall
his yoke depart from off them and his burden depart from off
their shoulders And notice this now and this is this whole chapter. Remember how it started. I'm
gonna have mercy on my people Mercy on my people and the way
I'm gonna do that is destroy every enemy they have Absolutely
annihilate every enemy they have and look this Verse 26, this
is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth No matter
where you look in this world. That's what's going on. God's
having mercy on his people And dealing with their enemies And this is the hand that is
stretched out upon all the nations for the lord of hosts hath purposed
it and who shall disavow it Who's gonna make it for it? And his
hand is stretched out and who? Turn it back. We'll focus in
on those verses and I believe this will give us the The message
of this very simple clear as always message of this chapter
in this whole book The verse 1 explains quite a bit It explains
a lot. It explains God's whole purpose
in this earth. The word for is key for The Lord
will have mercy on Jacob That's referring to these previous chapters
where God is talking about the overthrow of the Assyrians and
the destruction of Babylon. It explains why God used both
of these nations and others that were confederate with him to
afflict the nation of Israel. It's not only why God deals with
his enemies, the enemies of his people the way they do. It's
why he deals with his people the way that he does, because
he's going to have mercy on his elect. That's the purpose of
it. The spiritual lesson that before
God will bring us out of bondage, he'll make us to feel the affliction
of our bonds. The Babylonian captivity, the
Assyrian captivity, that all pictures the same thing. Before
God's gonna bring us out of spiritual bondage, like this earthly bondage
that they suffered under very greatly, he's gonna make us feel
the affliction of our bonds. You know, he talked to the Pharisees
and he said, the Son will make you free. If you
believe on me, believe my word, you shall know me. And when the Son makes you free,
you'll be free indeed. They said, we're free? We've
never been in bondage. I hope that's not true of you.
And that's what this is teaching now. There must be bondage before
there's freedom. If you've never been in bondage,
you're not gonna be free. That's what the Lord taught them that
day. That's why they despised it. They didn't need to be free.
Oh, but I pray the Lord will cause us to feel the bondage
of our sin, the bondage of Satan, those who through fear of death
We're all their lifetime subject to bondage, the guilt that we
were born under. Oh, may the Lord cause us to
feel our bondage so that he might set us free. And that's what
this is, the hopelessness of our captivity to sin. You don't
have to. And they were. And, you know, the king of Assyria
was saying, look, you're not even going to be able to peep
at me. I'm going to destroy you so bad, you're not even going
to be able to open your mouth and peep at me. And sure enough,
he did. They had no power over him. But
their God did. And that's what he showed. And
that's what he shows us. We have no power over sin, over
Satan, over death, over any of our enemies. He makes us to feel
the hopelessness of our captain. We're not going to be able to
do anything about it. And he'll show us that we deserve it. You
remember why the Israelites were who are called by the name of
Jacob here, you remember why they were afflicted and put into
captivity by the Babylonians and the Assyrians? Because of
their idolatry. Because of their evil, wicked
hearts. Their rebellion against God. That's why they had to suffer
the way they did. And these are physical manifestations,
physical pictures, physical things teaching spiritual things. Called
by the name of Jacob here, the Israelites were afflicted and
captive because of their great idolatry, and so are we. That's
why we're in spiritual bondage, because of our hatred of God,
our idolatry, our sin. And we're delivered for the same
reason also. Why will God have mercy on Jacob? Why? He says he's gonna have
mercy on Jacob. Why is he gonna do that? Well,
we know from Scripture, it's because he will. He wants to. You see that in our text? The
Lord will have mercy on Jacob. That doesn't just mean he's gonna.
That means it's his desire to do it. That's what he wants.
He wants Jacob to have mercy. And that's why they're gonna
have it. Listen to Exodus 33 19. He said I will make all my
goodness Moses to pass before thee and I will proclaim the
name of the Lord before thee and I will be gracious to whom
I will be gracious. And we'll show mercy on whom
I will show mercy. Well, I don't know who he will
show mercy on except this Jacob. who represents all of his elect.
I don't know who they are. I got some pretty good ideas
about some of them. But whoever Jacob is, God said, I'm gonna
have mercy on him because I want to, because I will. That's good
enough. That's good enough right there
for me, if God wills it. But why did he will it? Can we
dig a little bit deeper? Why did he want to have mercy
on Jacob particularly? We know the answer to that from
scripture too, don't we? Jacob have I loved. He didn't
have mercy on Esau. Because Esau, he hated him. But
as it is written, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated.
That's why God will have mercy on Jacob. Mercy. The word for the phrase there,
will have mercy, if you look it up, If you have a Strong's
Concordance, either just that big old book, you know, or maybe
online somehow, look that up and see if I'm telling you the
truth. Will have mercy, those three words, there's one word
in the original, and you know what it means? To love deeply. You look it up, I'm telling you
the truth. I love Jacob deeply. And that's
what mercy is now. It's the love of God in action.
The love of God is always in action. To love deeply. Every blessing that you have
and will have, ever will have, ever have had, have right now
or ever will have springs from the love. The electing, you see
that? I will yet choose Israel. The electing deep love of God
for you every bit of it And God loved you if he loves
you He's always loved you and always will love you and he loves
you freely. Hosea 14 4 freely He loves unconditionally
And here's what that means because people get confused People can
argue and find another way of looking at the simplest things.
You can say the sky is blue. And somebody will say, well,
wait a minute. It's not technically blue. You can only see the color
blue because of the way the light is filtered or something. The
sky itself is not really blue. Look, from where I'm standing,
the sky is blue. That's good enough for me. How
about you? And God's love is unconditional. You can confuse
that and complicate that and talk about, well, there's reasons
why God loved, but there's no reason in you why he loved you.
It's unconditional in the sense that you met no condition to
attract his love. Is that simple enough? That's
just plain now. That's just plain. He loves unconditionally. There was nothing in you that
would cause him to love you. Oh, on the contrary, he had every
reason not to. But God commended his love toward
us in that while we were yet vile, wretched, anti-Christ sinners,
Christ died for us. That's what we're talking about
now. And it, look, it says he will set them in their own land. He will set them in their own
land. You know, you have to think about how that's always been
true in the scriptures. Always been true. And notice
it says he will set them. He will set them in their own
land. It's almost like moving pieces on a chessboard. He's
just going to set you in your own land. You say, well, that
makes a game out of it. No, well, it's not. It's not
a game. And you know what I'm talking
about. But what it shows to me is just how simply God does it.
It's just like me picking up a pawn and moving it two squares
forward on the chessboard. That's how easy God's just going
to put us where he wants us to be. chose his power, his sovereign
authority. Oh, and that's so true. And you
might say, well, they had to fight for that land. Now, when
they went to the land of Kenneth, they went through a lot to get
there and many died and didn't make it. That's just details.
God said, I'm going to set you in your land. And the rest of
it's just details. That's what God did. He put them
where he wanted them to be. And he used various means to
do that. But that's what God did. The sovereign God eternally
purposed that they would have their own land. And in his good
time, he picked them up. Like a child going, we used to
catch lizards in our backyard. You know, we thought that was
a big deal. They had those green lizards. I don't see them around
here with a big long tail. And you know, you can like make
them bite your ear and hang on your ear. You know, you let go
and they're just hanging from your ears. These weird little
lizards we had in Texas. And we would catch that thing.
And it's just like a child catching a lizard in the backyard and
put it in an aquarium, you know, put some sticks in there and
some leaves. So he'll have something to climb
on, put a little bowl of water in there, you know, maybe a couple
of crickets for him to eat. That's what this is kind of talking
about, isn't it? God's just gonna, and he's always
prepared a place for his people, always. Before he ever made us
he created a paradise He created a paradise And he put some trees
in it He put some beautiful flowers in it and he put streams and
rivers and lakes in it and he put some fruit Growing in it
and vegetables and things and everything imaginable that we
could ever need or want And he made us and put us in there like
that little child finding that lizard and making a place for
it. And then, in this fallen earth, when the earth had been
cursed and God's people were separated in a great sense from
him, although he told them how he'd be worshipped, when God
chose a people, he promised them a land of their own. Do you know
how he described it? It's a land flowing with milk
and honey. Sound pretty good, doesn't it? Sound pretty good. Do you remember
when they were in Egypt, when his people were in Egypt, even
before the captivity and before when Joseph was in charge? And
there was a great famine in the land. Do you remember how God
took care of Jacob and his sons and daughters and grandchildren?
Turn to Genesis chapter 45. I want to remind you of that
because we're talking about God making a place for his people,
a land, preparing a land for them and putting them in it. Genesis 45 verse 16. And the fame thereof was heard
in Pharaoh's house, that Joseph's children, Joseph's brothers and
father, had come to the land, saying, Joseph's brethren are
come, and it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants. And Pharaoh
said unto Joseph, Say unto thy brethren, This do ye, laid your
beasts, and go get you unto the land of Canaan, and take your
father and your households, and come unto me, and I will give
you the good of the land of Egypt. And you shall eat the fat of
the land. Now thou art commanded this do
you take you wagons out of the land of Egypt for your little
ones and for your wives and bring your father and come also regard
not your stuff. Don't worry about don't worry
about packing your when you get back there. You don't need your
to pack your old clothes and things like that for the good
of all the land of Egypt. Is yours this little ragtag group
of starving to death jews It's all yours You see how god takes
care of his people now And then genesis 47 11. Let me read this
to you flip over there Genesis 47 11 and joseph placed his father
and his brethren And gave them joseph place. But what was what
was that? That's just god saying i'm gonna
put you over here and gave them a possession in
the land of Egypt, in the best of the land. You see that? That's
where we've always been. Paradise, a land flowed with
milk and honey is yours. There's somebody else living
in it now, but it's yours. And when they were in Egypt here,
the best of the land, the best of the land in the land of Ramesses
as Pharaoh had commanded and Joseph nourished his father and
his brethren and all his father's household with bread, according
to their family. You see that? God's always had
a place for him, a land, a prepared, wonderful, beautiful, goodly
place. And Zion, you know, the scripture talks a lot about Zion,
the city of God, a picture of the church, where God's people
dwell. It's described this way in Psalm
50 verse two, out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has
shined. That's where we live. Psalm 48 too, beautiful for situation. The joy of the whole earth is
mount zion On the sides of the north the city of the great king
God is known in her palaces for a refuge. That's where we live
zion the city of god Psalm 132 13 for the lord hath chosen zion
He hath desired it for his habitation. That's why it's so beautiful
because god lives there And do you know what all of this
pictures? We know what it pictures. God's going to make a new heaven
and a new earth. He's already in his. He's already purposed a paradise,
a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
And it's described in Revelation and all these beautiful celestial
grand terms and descriptions. But you know what all of that
represents? Our Lord Jesus Christ said when he went to Calvary,
he gathered his disciples together and he said in my father's house
are many mansions. If it wasn't that way, I would
have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself. Where is the land of Goshen?
Where is Zion? Where is the new Jerusalem? Where
I am, there you may be also. That's where it is. It's where
he is. It's the city of God. Christ
is our home. Our Lord said to that thief on
the cross today, thou shalt be with me in paradise. That's what paradise is, with
me. God has always had a place for
his people and it is with him in paradise. And all these earthly
places are just pictures of that now. That's what he's talking
about. He's going to set them in their own land. And it's all Christ in it. The place, the provision there.
You know, they had everything they needed in the garden. Christ
is our meat indeed. He's our drink indeed. He's our
bread from heaven. He is the beauty that we want
to behold. It's a gorgeous place. What are we looking at? One thing
have I desired of the Lord, David said, and that will I seek after
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my
life to behold the beauty of the Lord. And to inquire in his
temple. David wrote in Psalm 73, 26,
My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my
heart and my portion. You know what that word portion
means? My portion forever. God is my
portion forever. That means a parcel of land. That's where we live. Our life
is hid with Christ in God. And next, our text says, Strangers
shall be joined unto them and they shall cleave to the house
of Jacob Gentiles of every nation. It's talking about the Gentiles
now those that sat in darkness Those that didn't have the oracles
of God those that didn't have You know the presence of God
in the Old Testament The Gentile those that sat in darkness. They're
gonna see a great light. He said and they have we have
Those who were strangers are no more strangers. Remember Ephesians
2? Let's look at it. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 14. Strangers are going to come,
he said in our text. Listen to it. For he is our peace,
Christ is our peace, who hath made both one and hath broken
down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished
the in his flesh, the enmity, even the law of commandments
contained in ordinances for making himself of twain one new man.
So making peace and that he might reconcile both unto God in one
body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby and came and
preached peace to you, which were far off and to them that
were not for through him, we both have access by one spirit
unto the father. Now, therefore, you are no more
strangers in four. You came as strangers. Strangers
are going to come into the land. They're going to cleave. They're
going to be glad they're there. But God says you're not strangers
anymore. Fellow citizens with the saints and of the household
of God. That's where you live now. You
can call it the land of Goshen, the land of Ramesses, as it was
mentioned there, or Eden. If you live in the house of God,
you're in paradise. The household of God and are
built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.
What is that foundation? Jesus Christ himself, the chief
cornerstone. So, there are one time strangers,
aliens, but not anymore family. family now, the household of
God. And we're all strangers to one another until we're joined
in the fellowship of Christ. People that I don't know at all,
never have met, when I meet them, they're going to be family, aren't
they? So it's been that way all my life because of our Lord Jesus
Christ, because of us both being in Him. There's fellowship, there's
unity, there's brotherhood. Galatians 3.28, there is neither
Jew nor Greek, neither There's neither bond nor free. There's
neither. That's that's nationality. That's status in life. There's
neither male or female even. For you're all one in Christ
Jesus. Colossians 311, where there is neither Greek nor Jew,
circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian bond nor
free. But Christ is all. And you know. Where Christ is all. That's where
his people are one And he says that you're going to cleave to
they're going to cleave to the house of jacob. Do you do that?
Is there any more anything more precious to you? Than being one
of the household of god being one of his church in this world
cleave to it And verse two says if you uh, say where are we?
Back in our text isaiah 14 Those who were our oppressors,
those who ruled over us, we're going to rule over them. See
that? We shall rule over our oppressors.
Now, what does that mean spiritually? We know what that meant then.
The Lord's going to turn the tables. Right now, you're in
bondage to them. It's going to be the other way
around. Well, the way that translates into the spiritual reality of
the church today is not hard to see. All of our enemies, God
has turned the tables on me. I was in bondage to this world,
but now this world serves me. Not because I'm me, but because
my God is my God. And it's easy to get that mixed
up now. But we know this is right. Our
very enemies will be used by God to cater to us. We were in
bondage to Satan, but even Now, I guarantee you that everything
that Satan does against me, everything he does to hinder me, everything
he does to harm me, is going to work for my good. We know
that, don't we? You see how it's the same thing?
Same thing. We're in bondage now to Satan.
Children of wrath by nature, even as others, but not anymore. It's the other way around now.
This world was a place of bondage to me before I was caught up
in the wickedness and walked after the course of this world.
That's what he said in Ephesians there. You walked at one time
after the course of this wicked world, but now, Paul said, now
all things are yours. God has a world because he loves
you. That's why there is a world. He made it to bless you. He'll prepare a table before
you. As David said, I love this. I love that whole song, of course,
but he prepares a table before me in the very presence of my
enemies, and they're going to serve the table and not even
know why, not even know they're doing it. They won't even know they're
doing it. Now Satan, nor this world should
be trifled with. And we're warned many times in
the scriptures now. So we're surrounded by real evil,
real enemies to our soul. No question about that. And we're
warned to be sober and to be vigilant. But rest assured that
if you are Christ's, the victory over every enemy is already won. And you didn't have to lift a
sword. It's already won. You see, look at our text again. Isaiah 14 Verse 12 How art our fallen Oh Lucifer
from heaven fallen from heaven Oh Lucifer son of the morning
How art thou cut down to the ground which did weaken the nation?
For that has said in that heart. I will ascend into heaven. I
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit
also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I
will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like
the most high, that Satan and all those in this world who are
in bondage to him had the same attitude. I will, I will, I will. Yet that shall be brought down
to hell. Satan said, I'm going up. I'm going to ascend. The
Lord said, no, you're going down. You're going to hell. You'll
be brought down to the sides of the pit, not the sides of
the north, the sides of the pit. They that shall see thee, they
that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee and consider thee
saying, is this the man that made the earth to tremble and
did shake kingdoms? that made the world as a wilderness
and destroyed the cities thereof, that opened not the house of
his prisoners. You see how he's equating Satan
himself with the kings of these nations and those leaders of
the nations that rose up against his people. Ain't no match for
God. And I'm always reminded of what,
you know, Elisha's servants said, we're done for. And Elisha said,
no, there's more with us than there is with them. There's more that be for us Than
that be for them How encouraging that is as we struggle in this
world Well, let's close just by considering verses 26 and
27 again, just look at them. This is the purpose That is purposed
upon the whole earth This is what we've seen everywhere now.
God has a chosen elect Loved deeply loved precious people
and lacked precious Peculiar people his own people
That he loved and chose before the foundation of the world And
he does everything that he does that he might have mercy on them
Chooses them over everybody else sets them in their own land and takes care of them, protects
them. The whole purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth
for all time is mercy on God's elect. A land prepared for them,
triumph over all of their enemies. And the last part of verse three,
look at what he said, or all of verse three, look at verse
three. and it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall
give thee rest. Rest from your sorrow, from your
fear, from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve. Rest. Deeply loved, chosen, given
a land, given a home, given a place, All of our enemies destroyed
and rest. Hebrews 4 now there remaineth
therefore a rest. To the people of God. For he
that is entered into his rest. He also hath ceased from his
own works. As God did from his. Rest means
you quit trying to please God with what you do. Now, we want
to please our Father, but not for favor with Him. We enjoy
favor with Him. We rest in that Christ pleased
the Father and did always those things that pleased Him as our
representative, and then fully satisfied Him with His precious
blood for all of our sin. Rest. We rest. We enter into, as it says there
in that verse we just read, which is Hebrews 4, 9, and 10. We enter into his rest. What
is his rest? It is that rest enjoyed by those
who know that there's nothing left to do. And it's called his
rest because he's the reason there's nothing left to do. Christ
has done it all. We rest in his finished work
of salvation. We do not work for salvation.
We rest in what he did He pleased the father in all of his life
And he satisfied god for the sins of his people by his sin
atoning death And always remember now what it said right there
in our text. This is the purpose that is purposed in the whole
earth Why is there an earth and what in the world is god doing
with it? All those things we just talked about He has an earth
and he does everything he does in it because he deeply loves
his people, has chosen them, has taken them somewhere, got
a place prepared for them, has destroyed and is destroying
and manifesting the destruction of all of his enemies. He's going
to bring them finally to eternal, perfect, wonderful rest. And this purpose can't fail.
Did you notice that in verse 27? The Lord of hosts has purposed
it and who is going to disannull it? Who's going to turn it back?
Who's going to make it void? His hand is stretched out. Who
is going to turn it back? And so our rest can never be
disturbed. This purpose can't fail. All
these things he's purposed in the whole earth can never fail.
So that even in our rest, we can rest. We rest in Christ,
but what if our rest in Christ is ever disturbed? It can't be.
For it says God has stretched forth his hand. It can't be turned
back. So even in our rest, we can rest. Christ is our Sabbath. He's our home. He's our portion, our parcel
of land. We have a home in this world.
It's where we live. It's where we stay. It's where
the love of our family is. It's where we eat and fellowship
together. It's where we sleep and rest.
It's where we feel safe. It's the place of provision and
happiness and fellowship and love and all of those things.
You know what our parcel of land is spiritually? Let's pray together.