Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Isaiah chapter 41. Brother Bill told me he didn't know why
the Lord laid that scripture on his heart. And I do, because
it goes so well with the message. It goes very well with the message.
Our text is Isaiah 41, and this is a good word for the first
message of the new year. Christ our Mediator, we saw Sunday,
we looked at the first four verses mainly, and we heard Christ our
Mediator declare that He has worked and done it, calling the
generations from the beginning. He's the one that called Abraham.
He raised him up, sent him forth, made him more than a conqueror
by Christ our Lord. He's the one that raised up Paul,
sent him forth to the Gentiles to preach the gospel. And the
Lord declares here, when the Gentiles saw it, they feared.
And they helped each other to strengthen each other to continue
in their will worship. That's what we saw with Paul
in Acts 19. They were fearful of losing their
livelihood that they made from making idols. to worship Diana. And that's why all men hate the
gospel, is because it takes away the vain refuge of their so-called
free will and their works that they've done to try to save themselves,
just like that took away his money that he was making for
making idols. Men hate the gospel because it
strips them. of every vain refuge and gives
all the glory to Christ. And the Lord said that here.
He said in verse 5, The Gentiles saw and feared, and the ends
of the earth were afraid. Drudner and Cain, they helped
everyone his neighbor, and everyone said to his brother, Be of good
courage. So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smotheth
with the hammer, him that smote the anvil, saying, It's ready
for the soldering. And he fastened it with nails,
that it should not be moved. That's what they were doing there,
and we got to see just an example of it in Acts 19. And they would
have killed Paul. They wanted to kill Paul. But
now, the Lord here declares what it is that makes you different. Believer, why did you not continue
in your vain refuge? Why did you drop your vain refuge
and all your vain works and trust Christ? And why is it that, like
Paul, we continue to preach the gospel and believe Christ when
men object and reject the gospel? Why is that? Who makes the difference? Our Lord tells us right here
in verse 8, this is His Word, this is the Lord's Word to us.
He said, But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob, whom I have
chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend, thou whom I have taken
from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men
thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant, I have chosen
thee, and not cast thee away. It pleased God to hide these
things from the wise and prudent, but He's revealed them to babes.
And our Lord is declaring that right here. He said, I'm the
one that called you. And brethren, it's the fact the
Lord called His people, that He says that we're Israel, and
we're Jacob, and we're the seed of Abraham, His friend. It's
these names He gives us, whereby He assures us in our heart that
He's going to keep us and strengthen us. He says here, I took you
from the ends of the earth. I brought you from the ends of
the earth. I called you and I separated you and I haven't cast you away.
That's what is your assurance. And this is not just assurance
in that we read this word and well, let's muster up some strength
to hope in that. No. This is the word Christ speaks
in your heart. This is why we're preaching the
gospel. As it's going forth, Christ speaks this into your
heart, and he says to you personally, fear thou not. You are Israel. You are Jacob. You are the seed
of Abraham, my friend. I've called you, I've made you
my servant, I've not passed you by, I've chosen you, I've not
cast you away. That's Him, when He speaks that,
that's our assurance. I've titled this, Every Believer's
Assurance. And it is Christ, it's Him speaking
this to us in our heart. He says in verse 10, because
these things are so, He says, fear thou not, for I am with
thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God. I will strengthen thee. Yea,
I will help thee. Yea, I will uphold thee with
the right hand of my righteousness. Thou shalt seek them and shall
not find them. What does He say? Behold, all
they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded.
They shall be as nothing, and they that strive with thee shall
perish. Thou shalt seek them and shall not find them, even
them that contended with thee. They that were against thee shall
be as nothing and as a thing of naught. But why? Because there's
strength in you? No, because I, the Lord thy God,
will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, fear not, I will help
thee. That's the assurance of every
believer, it's Christ. So I want to look at these names
mainly, and I want to see what we can learn in these names and
see from these names how it is we have assurance in what Christ
is saying to us here. Now when we hear the Lord call
His people Israel and Jacob and the seed of Abraham, that's who
He says you are. You're sitting here that believe.
He says you are Israel, you're Jacob, you're the seed of Abraham.
Now when we hear Him say this, we need to make sure we understand
who He's not speaking about. Who's He not speaking about here?
You'd know this, but I'm going to say this because this is going
to go on, this is going to be recorded. And somebody that'll
hear this later may have never heard this, and they don't know
this. And we need to repeat this, and you and me need to hear this
again, don't we? We need to hear this again. When
he calls his people Israel, he's not speaking of the nation Israel.
You know, most in Israel rejected the Lord. They rejected God. When Christ came, they rejected
him. When he speaks here and calls his people Jacob, he's
not talking about the natural sons of Jacob. And when he says
here, when he calls us the seed of Abraham, he's not speaking
of all the children of Abraham. Most people in this world won't
confess what it means to be a Jacob. They won't confess themselves
to be what it means to be one of Christ's true Jacobs. That
is, to be the supplanter, the sinner, the one in whom dwells
nothing good. Most people won't confess that,
and we wouldn't either until Christ spoke this word to us.
And not all the children of Abraham are the seed of Abraham. You
know, there's three major religions in the world and all three claim
to be the seed of Abraham. The Jews, the Muslims, and Christians. But not all, not even the Muslims
and the Jews are not. But he saves some out of all
those three and not all those that claim to be Christians are
a seed of Abraham. It's just those he calls. Look
at Romans 9 and then we'll just be brief here but I do want you
to see it because somebody's going to hear this that hadn't
heard this and we need to be reminded of it. Romans 9 verse
6. Paul's praying for his countrymen, and he said in verse 6, he said,
he wanted, he prayed for them that they might be saved, those
who were the natural children of Israel. Because he said they
didn't believe. And he said, verse 9, but it's
not as though the word of God had taken none effect, for they're
not all Israel which are of Israel. He calls his people, Christ in
our text calls his people Israel. But here he says they're not
all Israel which are of that nation Israel. Then in our text,
he calls us the seed of Abraham. He said, neither because they're
the seed of Abraham are they all children. But in Isaac shall
thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children
of the flesh. These are not the children of God, but the children
of the promise are counted for the seed. For this is the word
of promise. God said, at this time will I
come and Sarah shall have a son. That was his word of promise.
And then he deals with Jacob. He says, we're Jacob. But he
says here, not only this, when Rebecca had conceived by one,
even by her father Isaac, the children being not yet born,
neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of
God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him
that calleth. It was said unto her that elders
should serve the younger. For it's written, Jacob have
I loved, but he so have I hated. Salvation doesn't begin with
us, does it? Salvation doesn't begin with
the sinner. Salvation began with God the Father choosing whom
He would in the Lord Jesus Christ. Does that make God unrighteous?
No, that's His glory, that's His glorious God, that's His
prerogative as God. When Moses said, show me your
glory, He put him in the cleft of the rock and the Lord declared,
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. That was the word
of the Lord. So this right here is why, child
of you that are the children of Abraham, this is why he says,
fear thou not. You're Abraham, you're Jacob,
you're the seed of Abraham, you're Jacob, you're Israel. Now let's see what that means. Let's see what that means. Let's
look at these three names and let's hear the Lord declare who
His people are. He says here in verse 8, You're
Israel, my servant. You're Jacob, whom I've chosen,
the seed of Abraham, my friend. Now let's talk about Israel.
You know that's Christ's name. That is Christ's name. Turn over
to Isaiah 49. Isaiah 49. That's Christ's name,
verse 1. This is Christ speaking right
here. He says, Listen, O Isles, unto me, and hearken, ye people
from far. The Lord hath called me from
the womb. From the bowels of my mother
hath he made mention of my name. This is Christ. And He made my
mouth like a sharp sword in the shadow of His hand, if He hid
me, and made me a polished shaft in His quiver, hath He hid me. That's what Christ is promising
to do for us in our text. He's promising, I've called you.
He's promising, I've made you my servant, I've made you, I'm
making you a threshing instrument to preach my gospel, and I'm
gonna hold you in my hand and keep you. That's what he's promising
to do for us. And Christ said, and that's what
my father did for me. And he says, and he said to me,
thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
You see, that's Christ's name, Israel. And I can show you, look
down the page, and you see this can only be said of Christ because
He says this in verse 8, Thus saith the Lord. This is what
the Lord said to Christ. He said, In an acceptable time
I have heard thee, in a day of salvation I have helped thee,
I have preserved thee. Give thee for a covenant of the
people to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate
heritages, that thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth, and
to them that are in darkness, show yourselves. They shall feed
in the ways, and their pasture shall be in all high places.
Only Christ can do that. He's the covenant and only He
calls His people to Him. And do you see there? His name
is Israel. That's His name. Christ gave
His name Israel to Jacob. That's how come His name was
changed to Israel. Christ gave Him His name. And
that's what He's declaring that He's done to you and me, that
He's called by His grace. He's given us His name. He's
given us His name. Israel means, as a prince, you've
had power with God and men and have prevailed. That's what it
means. That's Christ. He's the prince of peace. And
as the God-man mediator, He had power with God and with men.
He came and bore the sin of His people and put it away and redeemed
us from the curse of the law. And so that He reconciled and
through regenerating us, He brings us into peace. God and His people
into peace. He has power with God and with
men to make peace between us. He's Israel. That's who He is.
And when He calls you, the reason He's made peace with God for
us is He gives you His name and truly God receives you because
He receives Christ who is Israel. And He receives you as Christ
Himself. Thou art Israel my servant. That's
what he says in our text. You know the willing bondservant,
when it came time to go and he had served to pay his debt, he
was free to go, he could leave. But his master was so good, that
he was willing to stay and serve as a free man. He wasn't a slave
anymore. He was free now. He just wanted
to serve the master as a free servant. Well, Christ, that's
what he's done for us. They would take him to the door
post and they would bore his ear through and open his ear.
Christ has opened our ear. He's made us hear that because
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, he's made us free.
He's made us absolutely free. He says there's no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh
but after the Spirit. Why? Because the law of the Spirit
and life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of
sin and death. Christ came and did for us what
we couldn't do. He came in our nature and fulfilled
the righteousness of the law for us and made us free. And
when He's made you know this, regenerated you and made you
know this, he makes you willing to serve him. You want to. You're
not a slave, you're not a servant as a slave, you're a willing
bond servant to Christ. You're Israel my servant, he
said. What about this name Jacob? That's our name we got from Adam.
That's our name we got from Adam. Jacob means supplanter, it means
sinner, and that describes every sinner that comes into this world.
But not every sinner that comes into this world thinks they are
a sinner. And they're certainly not all
Christ Jacobs. But what the Lord teaches you,
his child, he makes us know we're Jacob, we're the sinner, we're
the supplanter. And you see what he's declaring
here, like what we saw with Paul and that whole city being on
the uproar and ready to kill Paul, that was the Lord showing
Paul that he had no strength in himself. That was the Lord
keeping Paul knowing he's Jacob. He's the sinner. He's weak. He
has no strength. He could not change that or fix
it or get out of it. And he said, we had the sentence
of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves,
but in the Lord who delivered us from that great death and
does deliver and we believe shall deliver. That's why he calls
us Jacob. He's made us Israel in him. We're
righteous in him, but he's going to keep you knowing in yourself
you're Jacob. And he does it by working providence to bring
you to a place like Athens and into a situation like what Paul
was in. Now let's see how he did that
with Jacob. Turn over to Genesis 32. This
is how he gave Jacob the name Israel. Look over here, Genesis
32. Men will preach this, and they
preach this as being how you need to wrestle with Christ in
prayer until you get what you want. That's not what's being
taught here at all. Jacob is scared to death. He's
alone. He's absolutely weak because
he's afraid his brother Esau is going to kill him. That's
where he's at. And it says here in Genesis 32,
24, and Jacob was left alone. And they wrestled a man with
him until the breaking of the day. And when Christ saw that
Jacob prevailed not against him or with him, Why wasn't Jacob
prevailing with Christ? Because he was trying to wrestle
in his own strength. He was trying to actually do
what men preach from this text. He was trying to wrestle Christ
to get what he wanted. And you're not going to prevail
with Christ when you're trying to do anything in your own strength. Whether if it's making yourself
righteous by the law or if it's saving yourself in providence
that the Lord has brought your way, you're not going to prevail
that way. Wrestling and trying to do it
in your wisdom and in your strength, you're not going to prevail that
way. And so what did Christ do? Christ touched the hollow of
his thigh. That's what, when you see Paul and all Athens being
in an uproar and ready to kill Paul, you know what that was?
That was the Lord touching the hollow of Paul's thigh. That's
what he said. He said we have the sentence
of death in ourselves that we shouldn't trust ourselves. That
was the Lord showing him he's still Jacob. He don't have the
strength to save himself. Why is he doing that? To keep
you trusting him. And when he touched the hollow
of his thigh, the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he
wrestled with him. And Christ said, let me go, for
the day breaketh. And Jacob said, I will not let
thee go, except thou bless me. Now, this is where men preach
that he wrestled with him until he got to bless him. No. Christ
has touched the hollow of his thigh, and it's by the power
of Christ, him working in providence, Him working, speaking affectionately
in your heart, Him working all things to touch the hollow of
your thigh. And whatever it is He brings
to pass, what it is is just Him bringing you to see you are the
center with no strength in yourself. And so at that point, the only
thing Jacob could do was hold on and beg Christ to have mercy
on him. to beg Christ to have mercy on
him. And Hosea 12.4 says that's how he prevailed. Listen to this.
From Hosea 12.4. I'm not just making this up.
This is how Scripture says he prevailed. Hosea 12.4. Jacob
had power with the angel. Christ is an angel. The word
means messenger. He's the messenger of the covenant.
That's who wrestled him. We're going to see that. He had power
with the angel and prevailed. How? It says he wept. and he
made supplication unto Christ. Christ found him in Bethel, and
Christ spake with us. Christ is teaching me and you
right there. What he did with Jacob, he's
teaching me and you. Now look at what he did. Genesis
32, and look here in verse 26, and Jacob said, I will not let
you go except you bless me. And it says here, verse 27, and
Christ said unto him, what is thy name? Christ does this work to bring
you to come to Him and confess to Him, Lord, I am a sinner. I'm the sinner. He's gonna make
you say you're Jacob. He's gonna bring you to a place
where, and He's not, if you keep trying to wrestle against Him
in the power of your own strength, saving yourself out of whatever
providence He's brought your way, whatever He's done and doing
in your life, and you're trying to save yourself by your strength
and your wisdom, and you think you're really wise, you're not.
You're not. And if you're His, this is what
He's going to do. He's going to keep going, touching
the hollow of your thoughts until He brings you to, He's going
to say to you, what's your name? and you're going to confess,
He might not be bringing you to cry out and say, I'm the sinner.
He's bringing you to say, Lord, I cannot save myself. I can't do one thing to help
to do anything to save myself, not in this situation, not in
my life, not eternally, not before the law, not before anybody. He's going to bring you to say
that if you're His. Do you get what I'm saying? That's
what providence is. Together with Him speaking this
word to you, it's Him touching the hollow of your thigh and
bringing you to confess, I'm Jacob. I can't save myself. And as long as we're leaning
to our own understanding, we won't prevail. As long as
we're leaning to our own strength, we won't prevail. But if we're
Christ, He's going to make you prevail with Him. He's going
to make you prevail. He's going to bring you to weep
and beg for mercy. And he's going to bring you to
confess your Jacob. Verse 28, And Christ said, By
name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel. For as a prince
hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
Do you see how he prevailed? The Prince of Peace came and
made him prevail. The Prince of Peace Christ Israel
came to him and brought him down to nothing. And made him confess
he's the sinner. And Christ blessed him and gave
him his name. And our Lord doesn't stop this
work. He's going to keep, if he didn't, if he only did that
work one time, you know what would happen? We would think
we had strength. Why did Paul say in 2 Corinthians
4, or 5 I think it is, why did he say they had all that trouble
in Asia? That we should not trust in ourselves.
Christ is going to keep showing us this. He's going to keep touching
the hollow of your thigh. And look what happened in verse
29. And Jacob asked him and said, tell me, I pray thee, thy name.
And Christ said, wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my
name? He just gave, he just told Jacob his name. He gave him his
name. You're Israel. And it says here,
and He blessed him there. It hurts and it's painful when
He touches your thigh and works it to bring you to nothing, but
that's Him blessing His child, making you know you're Jacob.
You're the sinner. He's the Savior. He's the wisdom. He's the strength and power.
That's what true sanctification is, what He just did to Jacob
right there. And Jacob called the name of
the place Peniel, for I've seen God face to face, and my life
is preserved. That's what Christ did for him.
And when he passed over Peniel, the sun rose upon him. The sun
of righteousness rises and heals you when he does this. And he
halted on his thigh. From that day he first called
you, you started walking by faith. You walked differently than you
did before. Jacob walked differently. He walked by faith. And Christ
is going to keep you walking by faith but keep continuing
to show you this over and over that you're Jacob. So that you
see you're utterly dependent on Christ to save you. That is
the point of Isaiah 41. Salvation is not just knowing
the five points of Calvinism and confessing Christ in water
baptism. Salvation is Christ saving us every day by making
us know we're only the sinner. That's it. Nothing more. Nothing
more. That's what the trouble's for.
Nothing to keep you knowing you're nothing more than a sinner and
that He has worked it and He has done it. Go back and read
Isaiah 41, 1-4. That's the whole point. That's
the whole point. This is why he tells you back
in our text now, Isaiah 41, when he makes you know you're Jacob,
the sinner, he says, but thou art Israel my servant. You're
Jacob whom I've chosen. Verse 9, thou whom I've taken
from the ends of the earth and called thee from the chief men
thereof and said to thee, thou art my servant. I've chosen thee
and I cast thee away. Fear thou not, for I'm with thee.
Be not dismayed. That means weak in heart, troubled
in heart. Why not? For I am thy God, I
will strengthen thee. It's in spirit, it's in heart.
And yea, I will help thee, I will uphold thee with the right hand
of my righteousness. That's the believer's assurance.
It's Christ speaking this and doing this work and keeping you
looking only to Him. That's our assurance. Alright,
let's look at this name, the seed of Abraham, my friend. He
promised Abraham when he called him, he said, He said, I'm going
to save a seed out of all the nations, Abraham. They're going
to be your seed. They're going to be your children,
your true spiritual children. Now let me ask you this. The
first one of Abraham's true seed that was produced, it was not
Ishmael. Ishmael was produced by Abraham,
the work of his hand. That wasn't the first seed. That
wasn't one God promised. That was a child of the flesh,
the work of Abraham's hand. The first child that was a true
seed of Abraham that God produced was Isaac. Do you know how he
was produced? God said he was a child of promise. God said at this time I will
come and Sarah shall have a son. And it was God who produced that
child. He was born of a miraculous birth. He was born from above.
He was born of God. That's how every one of Abraham's
spiritual children are created. Born from above. Born of the
Spirit of God. Christ did it. Christ worked
it. He said, I've wrought and worked
it. Look at Galatians 3.26. And that's when you're united
to Christ, you're one with Christ, and you're one with your brethren
because you're born of one Spirit. One Spirit. He covered the multitude
of our sin. Because He was committed to us,
agape love, and He makes you cover the multitude of your brother's
sin and be committed to Him. That's the love of God. And He
says we're one. Galatians 3.26, He said, You
are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. So as
many of you have been baptized into Christ and put on Christ,
there's neither Jew nor Greek. It's not fleshly differences
that matter. You're neither Jew nor Greek,
neither bond nor free, there's neither male nor female, you're
all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be Christ, then are
you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. There's
but one reason, brethren, that you differ from any other sinner
in this world. One reason. There's but one reason
we have to not fear. It is because this is all by
Christ. That's his whole point in verse
4. He said, Who has worked it and done it? Who called the generations
from the beginning? I the Lord, the first and with
the last, I am He. He's going to say it again down
the page. When Demetrius and that multitude wanted to kill
Paul, Paul said, it's 2 Corinthians 1. He said, we had the sentence
of death in ourselves. Christ touched the hollow of
his thigh that day. Well, I thought he did that on the road to Damascus
when he regenerated him. He did. He did. He made him know
he was the sinner that day. But again, at Athens, he touched
the hollow of his thigh and he made Paul know, I can't trust
myself. We had the sentence of death
in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God
which raiseth the dead. Do you believe God's able to
raise the dead? That's why Abraham went up that
mountain and in his heart sacrificed his son. Because he believed
God was able to raise from the dead. That's a work of faith.
He'll bring you into a situation where you're helpless to help
your brethren or to help yourself to manifest that he's given you
faith to trust he's able to raise the dead. We had the sentence
of death in ourselves. Paul said that we should not
trust in ourselves, but in Him that raiseth the dead, who delivered
us from so great a death, and doth deliver, and in whom we
trust that He will yet deliver us. You see, the power to fear
not, that's not even of you, brethren. It's not of us. It's
Christ speaking in power. Look here. Verse 8, He comes
to you through this gospel, and this is how He's going to do
it. He's going to use the providence to bring you into a situation,
health-wise, whatever it is, where you can't save yourself.
And He's going to speak through this gospel, and He's going to
say, But thou, Israel, are My servant. Verse 8, You, Jacob,
whom I've chosen. You are the seed of Abraham,
my friend, thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and
called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee,
Thou art my servant. I have chosen thee, and I cast
thee away. Fear thou not, for I am with
thee. Be not dismayed, I am thy God. I will strengthen thee. Yea,
I will help thee. Yea, I will uphold thee with
the right hand of my righteousness. And behold, all they that were
incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded. They
shall be as nothing, and they that strive with thee shall perish.
Thou shalt seek them and shalt not find them. They won't be
found. even them that contended with
thee. They that were against thee shall be as nothing and
as a thing of naught. For I, the Lord thy God, will
hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not, I will help thee. That's why God's people don't
want to go against one another. The Lord's saving His people
and protecting His people. And we know that's what the Lord's
gonna work for every one of us, brethren. He will save you. You're His Israel. He gave you
His name. You're Jacob in yourself, but
you're a seed of Abraham. He entered covenant promise to
save His people. That's what we are by His grace.
I pray He give us grace to trust Him. He has, He is, and He shall
deliver. Fear thou not. That's our assurance. Amen. Let's go to Him. Our gracious
Lord, we thank You for this Word. Thank You for continually teaching
it to us over and over. Thank You for working all providence
to teach us, to keep us ever looking to Christ alone and not
to ourselves. Lord, we have every reason to
trust You. Lord, work this in us, speak
into our heart and keep us not fearing any but you. Keep us
trusting you, keep us looking only to you. knowing that you
shall make good on every promise, every word you've spoken to us.
You've made us righteous. You'll keep us. You'll protect
us by your grace. Thank you, Lord, for this word.
Thank you for working this in every one of your people. What
a peace you give us to be able to just rest and trust you. You're
able to teach your people. Thank you, Lord, for this word.
Forgive us our sins for not believing you, for trying to lean to our
wisdom and our strength and our works. Lord, save us from us. You are our sanctification, we
pray. In thee we have righteousness
and strength. It's in Christ's name we pray.
Amen.