Alright brethren, let's go back
in our Bibles now to Isaiah chapter 40. Isaiah 40. Verse 9, O Zion that bring us
good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain, O Jerusalem,
that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength. Lift
it up, be not afraid. Say unto the cities of Judah,
Behold your God. Behold, the Lord God will come
with strong hand, and his arms shall rule for him. Behold, his
reward is with him, and his work before him. He shall feed his
flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with
his arm and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those
that are with young. This is Christ's charge to the
church. This is our Lord's charge to
His church. O Zion, that bring us good tidings. Oh, Jerusalem that bring us good
tidings. Zion and Jerusalem are names
that are synonymous. They both speak of the church
of our Lord Jesus Christ. They both speak of His chosen,
redeemed, regenerated people. that make up His church. We're
not talking about just the outward visible church. We're talking
about the true, chosen, redeemed, regenerated church of God. The true church within the visible
church. That's what we're talking about.
Does that make sense to you? Look at Hebrews 12.18 if you'd
like. This is what He's saying right
here. This is who He's speaking to.
Hebrews 12.18. He speaks to His people and He
says, ìYouíre not come to the mouth that might be touched and
that burned with fire. Youíre not come to Mount Sinai,
to an earthly mouth. Youíre not come merely to an
earthly church and a religious organization.î Verse 22, ìBut
youíre come to Mount Zion.î unto the city of the living God, the
heavenly Jerusalem. Verse 23, it says, You come to
the church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven,
to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made
perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the
blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel,
see that you refuse not Him that speaketh. He's speaking from
heaven. In our text, Our Lord Jesus,
speaking from heaven, says to you that make up His church,
you that He's purchased with His blood and called by His grace. He says to us, O Zion that bring
us good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain. O Jerusalem
that bring us good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength. Lift
it up, be not afraid. Say unto the cities of Judah,
Behold your God. We have here our means and our
method that God, our Lord commands. We have the message He commands. First of all, the means and the
method. were sent forth by Christ to
bring good tidings. That's the means. He's sending
us forth to preach the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Those
are the good tidings. The Hebrew lexicon, good tidings
means to bear news, to publish, to preach, to gladden with good
news, and the good news is salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. The
only means we're to use is the preaching of the gospel. This
is Christ, our head, commanding us to use this means. And here's
our method in using this means. He says, get thee up into the
high mountain. Lift up thy voice with strength. Lift it up and be not afraid.
The high mountain is his publicly assembled church that Christ
has assembled together. That's the high mountain. Throughout
scripture, the high mountain is His church that He's assembled. His people, He's assembled together. He charges us, get thee up into
the high mountain. Christ commands us, assemble
together. The first and foremost reason
for His preacher and His people together to assemble together
is to preach Christ and Him crucified. To declare the glory of God.
Paul said, the Lord didn't send me to baptize. He didn't send
me to make covenants. He sent me to preach the gospel
of Christ and Him crucified. We pray He saves some. We pray
He saves many. But first and foremost, it is
to preach the gospel of our Redeemer in all His glory. We preach to
one another even by our assembling together. That was the Holy Spirit's
application of that passage that came before this. We saw that
Thursday night. He said, seeing that your souls
have been purified unto unfeigned love of the brethren. He said,
seeing that you've been born of the word of the Lord that
endureth forever and knowing this is the word which by the
gospel is preached to you. Wherefore, laying aside all this
sinful grass, all this sinful flesh, all our offenses, That's
in us and all wherein we've been offended. Lay it all aside and
desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby.
You're going to have to assemble to do that. And brethren, just
by assembling together, just by assembling together, you encourage
one another and you strengthen one another and encourage
one another to love. just by assembling together.
He said in Hebrews 10.23, Let us hold fast the profession of
our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promised.
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good
works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. Just assembling
you provoke to love and to good works. It's so encouraging when
you have brethren together. You think of the offenses that
you've put up with at your job, yet you continue to assemble
at the workplace with your co-workers. Why? That's your livelihood.
Well, this gospel is our life. This gospel is our life. Job
said, I need it more than I need my daily bread. It's our life. So first, the Lord commands us
to get up into the high mountain, come together, and lift up your
voice and proclaim my glory. Proclaim my glory. That's what,
when you assemble here and publicly identify with the Christ being
preached from this pulpit, it's not just me preaching, it's all
of us preaching. We're sending forth this gospel
into the world together. and bearing witness that this
is the God of salvation whom we preach. There is salvation
in no other name but this one, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what we're bearing witness of by assembling together, getting
up into the high mountain and proclaiming the word. Christ
wasn't crucified in a corner. This wasn't done in a corner.
He did this publicly. And He tells you and me, proclaim
Him publicly. Preach Him publicly from the
high mount. From the high mount. You want
to bear witness that you believe God's sovereign? You want to
bear witness that you believe that He has redeemed His people? That He's ruling all things?
That He's able to chasten and correct and teach His people?
You want to bear witness of that? You want to set forth that glory
of Christ? Get up into the high mountain.
Assemble with His people under the preaching of the gospel of
Christ. Christ charges us, lift up thy voice with strength. You
know, in things that we, in which we have all confidence, in things
which we delight, we speak plainly and boldly and clearly and unapologetically
and constantly, uncompromisingly. In other words, we lift up our
voice with strength. That's what it means. He says
lift it up and be not afraid. Be not afraid. This is how we're
declaring that we believe. We're not fearful of things. We're not fearful of the devil. We're not fearful of enemies.
We're not sanctifying them and exalting them. We're fearful
of our Lord. We're exalting our Lord as being
sovereign and able to save. This is the means He said He
would save through. And we're declaring, we agree,
this is the means by which He's saving. Look over at Isaiah 51,
Isaiah 51 and verse 7. He said there, lift up your voice
and be not afraid. Isaiah 51, 7. Hearken unto me,
ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law. Fear ye not the reproach of men,
neither be ye afraid of their revilings. For the moth shall
eat them up like a garment, the worm shall eat them like wool,
but my righteousness shall be forever, and my salvation from
generation to generation. Awake! He says, Awake! Put on strength, O armor of the
Lord! Awake! Look down at verse 12. I, even
I, am he that comforteth you. Who art thou that thou shouldest
be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the Son of Man which
shall be made as grass? And forget us, the Lord thy Maker,
that has stretched forth the heavens and laid the foundations
of the earth, and is feared continually every day because of the fury
of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? Look down at
verse 15. But I am the Lord thy God that
divideth the sea, whose waves roared. The Lord of hosts is
His name. He's telling us, lift up thy
voice and be not afraid. Lift it up and be not afraid.
So that's our means. Preaching. Preaching. Assembling
together. Preaching the gospel. and the
method. And not only are we sending the
gospel forth, but in the process we're getting spiritual benefit
from it. We're growing in it. We're being
taught in it. And blessed by the Lord. So that's
our means and our method. Now secondly, Here's our message. Here's our message. Verse 9,
Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God. Now he charged before, he charged
us as his witnesses, especially his preacher, to comfort his
people, declaring our warfare as accomplished. He charged us
to preach all flesh as grass and the goodliness thereof. He
didn't say, and the sin thereof. You know the sin thereof is sin. He said the goodliness thereof
is sin. He sought us to declare that
the word of the Lord stands forever. This is the word by which the
gospels preach to you. This is the word by which we're
born again. This is the word by which He keeps saving us all
the way to the end. And now He charges us to preach,
behold your God. Behold who His person is. Behold who He is in His person. He's speaking of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He said in verse 10, Behold the Lord God will come. He will come with strong hand
and His arms shall rule for Him. Behold His reward is with Him
and His work before Him. This is a prophecy of the incarnation
of God. This is a prophecy of the incarnation
of God. coming and dwelling among His
people in human flesh. He says there, Behold, see that
capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D? Jehovah. Behold,
Jehovah God will come. That's who Christ is. He's Jehovah
God. He's Jehovah God. When the angel
of the Lord told Joseph that the child that was in the womb
of the virgin, was of the Holy Ghost. He declared that's the
prophecy that God gave through Isaiah 800 years before in Isaiah
chapter 6. This is what the Lord said. It
says in Matthew 12, 22, Now all this was done that it might be
fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
Behold. When you see that word, behold,
it means there's something wondrous coming. And it's always used
to announce something concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. Behold,
a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted
is God with us." Jesus Christ is God. He's God with us. God with us. As a man, he was
holy in that womb. He was the God man in that womb. This was a must. He had to be
a holy man in our nature. It was a must because he's the
last Adam. He came to live and to die as
each one of his people. He really, that real that he
represent us as our head, that he, when God looks at his son,
Christ Jesus, our mediator. He says, that's Adam. That's
Caelan. That's how real this head shall
be. And so the Lord Jesus had to
take our nature verily. The Lord God took not on Him
the nature of angels, but He took on Him the seed of Abraham. That is, He took the human nature
of God's elect, the brethren that He came to save. He took
our human nature. He's the only other man besides
the first Adam that came into this world not guilty before
the law and without sin in his nature. The only other man. Me
and you come into this world, we're guilty before the law due
to Adam and our nature is corrupt due to Adam. Every imagination
of the thoughts of our heart are owning evil continually from
the womb because that's all a sin nature can do, is sin. That was so of you and me and
that's still so of us in our flesh. Every imagination of the
thoughts of our hearts is only evil continually. Talking about
the sinful heart, the sin nature. But Christ came as a man. God
came as a man. The Lord God came and took a
human nature. Sinless. To be the head and substitute
of his people. He must be a man and he must
be holy in the womb, in our nature. This was something that really,
really blessed my heart as I was studying. This really, really
blessed my heart. You know in Romans 8, let's look
over there, Romans chapter 8, I want you to see this. I don't
know if I've preached on this specifically before, but it just
blessed my heart to see it. Verse 3, He said, What the law
could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending
His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned
sin in the flesh. That means He condemned sin as
a man with the nature of His elect. He took our nature so that we
might have a sanctified nature in Him. A perfect nature in Him. And what the law couldn't do,
because we're sinners, He came and taking our human nature without
sin, He condemned sin in our flesh. And look what it says
there too. And it says, He did it that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us. That means He did it that
He might fulfill the law for His elect as a man with our nature,
in our nature. That the law might be fulfilled
in us, in our nature. He had that nature and He fulfilled
the law in perfect righteousness in our nature. And God's not
looking at your... You know, I know people don't
want to preach on the two natures because they say that makes people
look too much at themselves. God's not saving you because
you've got a holy nature by His grace. It's Christ's nature that's
holy and righteous by which we're saved. It's in Him that we're
complete. We still have a sin nature that
mourns everything about us. But it's Him, it's in His nature
that He condemned sin. In that nature He went to the
cross and laid down His life in perfect obedience to God.
And in that nature brought in a perfect righteousness for His
people. He ruined Satan by the same nature
that Satan himself ruined. Satan ruined our nature. Well,
Christ took our nature and ruined Satan. Defeated him. He came to be a man. God came
in human flesh, holy human flesh, that He might fulfill all His
mediatorial offices. In every relationship office
there is, He is to His people. He became a man so that as the
high priest, the high priest was chosen from among men. If
he's going to be a high priest, he's got to be a man. God came
and became a man, that in his high priest's office. He might put away the sin of
His people, make atonement for our sin, that He might ever live
to make intercession for us. And because He's touched with
the feeling of all our infirmities, He was tempted in all points
as we get without sin, He's able also to minister to us and comfort
us. to fulfill His office as the
Prophet. He's the Bishop and Shepherd
of our souls. He's the one commanding you and
me, get into this high mountain and lift up your voice with strength
and be not afraid. And He's the reason for us not
to fear because it's Christ that's going to speak. That He might fulfill His office
as the King. Here's the God-man. The only
king that ever lived that controls everything. Everything that he
can, so he can bring you the gospel and he can rule everything
in providence and use, work it all together for our good to
teach us that he's our salvation. And also as he, God took flesh
as a man, that He might be our Father and our Husband and our
Brother and our Friend. All these offices, He came forth
a holy and righteous man, God did, who always did that which
pleased the Father, and now get this, in Him, in Him, only in
Him, Nowhere else but in Him. But in Him, all His elect have
always done that which pleased the Father and nothing else. Nothing else. Well, what about
Alma's sin? He put all that away at Calvary. God says, Reckon ye yourselves
to be dead indeed unto sin. You know what that means? God
is saying, Stop looking at yourself. Just stop it. Look to Christ. You are complete in Him. Complete
in Him. Oh brethren, it's equally wonderful
at the fact that Christ was a man in our human
nature. Equally wonderful is that that
is God in our nature. The Lord God came. He came in
our nature. His name is Immanuel, which being
interpreted is God with us. Isaiah 9, 6 says, unto us a child
is born. He's that holy, sinless man.
The son of David, according to the flesh. unto us a Son is given. He is God the Son, given by God. And the government should be
upon His shoulder and His name should be called Wonderful Counselor,
the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.
That's what I asked Brother Bill to read Revelation 1. He said,
I am Alpha and Omega. the beginning and the ending,
saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come,
the Almighty." He's saying, I am eternal God. I'm eternal Jehovah. That's who He is. God the Father
said to Him, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever a scepter
of righteousness, is the scepter of Thy kingdom. This is why if we don't bow to
Christ and believe on Christ, we're dishonoring the Father
because they're one. They're one. Without controversy,
great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. Well, what does that mean to
me and you? We can't just rejoice that in the fact, in the truth,
that God was beneficial. We have to know how that worked
for me. What benefit do I get from that? Everything he accomplished as
a man is eternal. Everything He accomplished as
a man in the room instead of His people is eternal. It will never be altered. It
cannot be changed. It cannot be undone. He is Jehovah, the Lord, our
righteousness. Eternally so. Eternal redemption
He accomplished. Christ is the true God and eternal
life. Remember when they're going up
that mountain? And Isaac said, Father, here's
the wood, here's the fire, where's the lamb? And Abraham said, my son, God
will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. The Lord Jesus
Christ is God providing himself in person as a man, to be the
lamb for a burnt offering for His people. That's who He is.
And so everything He accomplished is eternal. He's God with us. He said, no man has seen God
at any time. The only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. Because
He's God, He never ceased being in the bosom of the Father. He
didn't say the only begotten Son which was in the bosom of
the Father, because now I'm down here in earth. No, He said the
only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father. While
He was on this earth, He was one with God, in God, and God
in Him. One. And He declared the Father. That's
why when God's elect are given faith in Him and you're made
to behold Him, the Scripture says we behold the glory of God
in the face of Christ Jesus. He's the fullness of the Godhead
bodily and you are complete in Him. That's the glad tidings
we're to declare. Don't listen to what men tell
us we're supposed to preach. Listen to what our Savior tells
us we're to preach. He said, preach, behold your
God. Now look at the next thing. He
says there, behold the Lord God will come with strong hands.
That means with great sovereign power and His arms shall rule
for Him. Isaiah 59, let's look over there.
Isaiah 59, His arms shall rule for Him. Listen to Isaiah 59
and verse 16. He saw that there was no man
and wondered that there was no intercessor. Don't you love how
the scripture just undoes everything man's vain imagination comes
up with? Man in his vanity tries to undo
the doctrine of election and say, well God looked down through
time and saw who would believe. God says he saw there was no
man. There wasn't any. And there was
no intercessor. Therefore, His arm brought salvation
unto Him, and His righteousness, it sustained Him." He's the arm
of God. That's what our text says. Behold,
the Lord God will come with strong hand, and His arm shall rule
for Him. Look at Isaiah 63 and verse 5. I looked, and there was none
to help. It wasn't only nobody to work
out salvation and intercede, there wasn't anybody to even
help. And I wondered that there was none to uphold. Therefore,
mine own arm brought salvation unto me, and my fury it upheld
me. What's this strength He came
with? Is this His sovereign power? Well, He's certainly God. He's
sovereign over all. He calmed the waters just by
speaking the Word. He rules everything. Brethren,
the strength is He came and perfectly, thoroughly fulfilled all righteousness
for His people. He had strength to fulfill all
the prophets, everything that was written of Him. He had strength
to defeat the devil and conquer all our enemies. He had strength
to redeem His people from the curse of the law. He had strength
to overcome the power of sin in His people. And keep us and
keep teaching us and instructing us all our day. Now look what
He says next. Behold, His reward is with Him
and His work is before Him. His reward. His reward. What's His reward? What's His
payment for doing what He came to do? His own glory. His own glory. He came to establish
His own glory. That's what He came for. To manifest He's a just God and
a Savior. And that's His reward. His own
glory. And there's something else that
is His reward. We saw it this morning in Deuteronomy
32. His people are His portion. They're His reward. He did everything
He did to have a people made just like Him in His righteousness,
in His holiness, one with Him to give Him all that glory. That's
His reward. What's the reward that He gives
to His people? Well, what's the reward He gives
to men? Anybody who meets Him rejecting
Him, Anybody who meets Him trying to say that there's something
in this flesh by which we made ourselves worthy of Him accepting
us, when He said it's all sin, that's what He says of our flesh.
If we meet Him boasting and trying to give glory to ourselves, He
will reward us with eternal damnation cast out from His presence forever,
where the worm never dies, where you'll always constantly continually
have a remembrance of everything you could have had and everything
He is with no way, no way of cooling that burning conscience. But for them that come to Him,
confessing, in my flesh dwells no good thing. I have nothing
in my hand to bring. I have nothing with which to
make myself accepted of God. All my salvation is the Lord
Jesus Christ alone. And He says in His Word, for
them He gives everlasting life, eternal life with our Redeemer
forever. He paid it all. He purchased
it all. He did it all. Isn't that good news, brethren?
Isn't that good news? Every year I try to put that
article in the bulletin about gift giving. We're going to give
some gifts here in another week, probably. When you give a gift, you give
it to whomsoever you will, don't you? So does he. When you give
a gift, you purchase the gift. It wouldn't be a gift if you
told the person, I'm going to buy this for you, but I need
you to help pay for it. It wouldn't be a gift, would
it? No, you go buy it. Well, God came and bought the
gift. He purchased eternal life for
his people. And when you give the gift, you
take it to them, and you give it to them. You don't set it
up on a shelf somewhere and say, well, I bought it. Now, whoever
will, let them just come and take it. You bought it for a specific
person. You're going to see to it they get it. And you take
it to them, and you give it to them. That's what God does. That's
what God does. When He says, whosoever will,
Believe on Him, you shall have eternal life. He is telling you,
He is not stopping anybody from believing on Him. He says, Whosoever
will, are you willing? Who has believed our report? Who has believed the arm of the
Lord? Who has believed Christ Jesus? Are you willing? If you
can believe Him, He said, I did all this for you. If you can
believe Him, He did all this for you. And when you receive
a gift, When you're on the receiving end and somebody chose to give
you a gift, they purchased a gift for you and they brought the
gift to you, do you pat yourself on the back and say, and give yourself glory? You
thank them. That's what we do. We give all
the glory and all the praise to the Lord. And when it says His work is before
Him in our text, That means God's looking only on God's own work
that He accomplished for us. He's not looking on your work.
If you do a work, and all God's elect do good works, we're careful
to maintain good works, that's His work. But that's not the
work whereby you've been made accepted. The work whereby you've
been made accepted is all God's work, and that's the work He's
looking on. His work's before Him. He's the shepherd who shall not
lose one of his sheep. He shall feed his flock like
a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry
them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young.
We mainly looked at that this morning, so I'm not going to
dwell on it now. We'll look at it with the rest
of the passage another time. But Christ said, He said, other
sheep I have. He's talking to his sheep he
had caught in Israel. He said, other sheep I have that
are not of this Jewish fold. He said, them I must bring. Aren't
you glad that he got some elect sheep amongst the Gentiles? He said, them I must bring, and
there shall be one fold and one shepherd. 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 gave them Me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
My Father's hand. I and My Father are one. You hear that, and you
just fall on your face and your heart and thank Him and praise
Him for what He's done for you. You know what the Pharisees did
when He said that? They picked up rocks to throw at Him. They picked up rocks to throw
at Him. Who made the difference between
you not throwing rocks at Him and taking your shoe off and
throwing it at me right now? Who made the difference between
you and those Pharisees? He did it. He did it. Alright brethren, behold your
God. Now listen, I want to show you
one thing, Isaiah 45. You right now that are sitting
there, this is what He says. Now read this, Isaiah 45, verse
21. If you've never believed on Him,
never cast your care on Him, listen to what He says. Verse 21, Tell ye, and bring
them near, yea, let them take counsel together. Who hath declared
this from ancient time? Who hath told it from that time?
Have not I the Lord? There is no God else beside me,
a just God and a Savior. There is none beside me. Look
unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I
am God, and there is none else. I've sworn by myself, the words
go out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return, that unto
me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear, surely shall
one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength. Even to him shall
men come, and all that are set against him shall be ashamed.
But in the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified and
shall glory. Which one are you? We're all
going to bow. Every one of us are going to
come before him and bow the knee and we're all going to confess
that he is the Lord, he is the righteousness, just as he said
he is. We're all going to confess that. But are you going to be one that's
going to leave this world and meet him incensed against him? and be put to shame because you
were incensed against Him. Are you going to be one that
He calls here His Israel who He justified, who glory only
in Him? Which one? You believe Him today
and you shall be saved. That's what He said. That's what
He said. And child of God, you that believe
Him, our sinful flesh is mortified one way. through beholding your
God. That's the only way. The only
way. We're brought to obey Him one
way, beholding your God. He tells you and me, this is
His command, you get to this high mountain. Get to this mountain. You're going to be benefited
by it. You're going to be profited by the gospel. And as you're
profited by it, we're sending it forth together. bearing witness
to this world by our assembling together that we're not fearful
of anyone but our Lord, that He's salvation. And through this
Word, He's going to call out His people and save His people.
You want to love one another, gather together under the preaching
of Christ and Him crucified. You want to manifest the greatest
love you can manifest to somebody that's incensed against Christ.
Assemble together with His people and worship the Lord. That's
His command. Talk about obeying Him. That's
His Word. That's His Word. Amen.