We've got one more truck to back
in. One more door to go down. So maybe we'll just listen intently
until that's over. I was hoping it would be over
before we started. Alright, let's turn to Isaiah 62. You're going
to see quickly why I wanted to preach from Psalm 24 in the first
hour. We saw from here last week that
the Lord said, I've put watchmen on your walls. And He said, you
that make mention of the Lord now, hold not your silence. Preach
my gospel. And He says, and give him no
rest. Pray to God, ask God for the blessing. And He makes these
promises to us. The enemy won't invade, the enemy
won't conquer us anymore. We're going to have our corn
and our wine. And he promises we're going to eat this gospel,
the bread of this gospel, the wine of this gospel, in the court
of His holiness, His courts. That is, in His church, in His
presence, where He protects. And then He gives us Another
charge now. We saw this morning, he's gone
in, he's entered into the everlasting gates. To the everlasting gate
of heaven. Opened it forever for his people.
Now he begins here and he tells us something that has to do with
gates. Verse 10. Go through, go through
the gates. Prepare ye the way of the people. Cast up, cast up the highway. Gather out the stones, lift up
a standard, a flag, a banner, an ensign for the people. Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed
unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold,
thy salvation cometh. Behold, his reward is with him
and his work before him. And they shall call them the
holy people, the redeemed of the Lord, and thou shalt be called
sought out, a city not forsaken." A city not forsaken. Now, Christ has given this charge
to His watchmen, to His witnesses, to you and I. He's already called
out and saved by His grace. That's who this charge is to.
Just like we saw that urgent charge last week. Urgent it is. Don't hold your peace. preach
this gospel. And this word is to those he's
not yet called out because what he's doing here, he's telling
his witnesses who he's already saved, he's telling us what to
say to those who are yet lost. And he's telling us what to do
for those who are yet lost. And then he's telling us what
he's going to do as we do this. And he tells us what the end
of it will be. The end result is going to be. So this morning
I want to speak to both you who are the witnesses of Christ.
That's every one of you that believe. And I want to speak
especially to you who have not yet cast all your care into Christ's
hand. So this is to you who believe
on Him and to you who are yet lost. Now first thing Christ
tells His witnesses here, verse 10, is He says, Go through, go
through the gates. Go through, go through the gates,
He says. Now, again, Christ has assured
us that He has established His holy city. He's established His
church, His people, His heavenly Jerusalem. That's what He's done. We saw this morning the King
of Glory said, Open up, you everlasting doors, that the King of glory
might come in." And He went in and sat down at the right hand
of the Father. And there is where His church is now established. And His church is established
in this earth because He established it and sent us forth before He
left. So He's got His city established,
walls around it. And He assures us that He's opened
those gates and they won't be closed. You can call on Him. You have access to the Father
through Christ. He's assured us that He set watchmen
on our walls. Christ has set faithful preachers
in His churches to preach the gospel in the city. Jerusalem. Jerusalem here and
there and everywhere, wherever we are. He put us there to preach
the gospel, warn His people. He said there, sit on your walls.
And then Christ assures us that He won't give our bread and our
corn to the enemy anymore. We saw last time, they were always
breaking the law. Every time they'd break the law,
He'd turn them over to one of the enemy nations. Turn the children
of Israel over to one of the enemy nations. That's what historically
we have going on here in Isaiah's day. But He's promised us now
Christ has fulfilled the law. Because He's fulfilled the law
for His people, we can't ever break it again. So He said, I'm
not turning you over to your enemies anymore. You're going
to have this bread and this wine all the time in my city. And
then He assures us this, that we're going to eat and drink
this bread in His courts. Oh, that's what we saw last time.
in his church. Now historically at that time,
at the time of this writing, all this was true of earthly
Jerusalem. Of earthly Jerusalem. They were
delivered out. There were some already in the
city. There were guards on the walls and they were going to
eat there. The Lord said, I'm not going
to deliver you over again and all this stuff. But there were
still people who were steadily flowing into Jerusalem from a
highway. from a highway. And that highway
led all the way back to Babylon. That's where they'd been in bondage.
And they're coming from Babylon, slowly coming, and they're all
coming on that highway, and every day there's a few more entering
into Jerusalem. A few more entering into Jerusalem.
And so what he tells us here, there's a picture there. What
he's telling them is a picture to us as his church. He's saying
to us now, go through, go through the gates. He's telling us, that's
already been called, that's already in the church, already in this
heavenly city. He's saying to us now, make it
a welcome place for my sheep that are going to be arriving,
that are going to be coming in, that are going to be coming into
your gates. You open up those gates and you
make it a welcome place for my weary people that are weary,
traveling in my land, that are going to come into your midst.
Open those gates wide to them. He said in Isaiah 26.2, Open
ye the gates that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth
may enter in. He said in Isaiah 60.11, Thy
gates shall be opened continually. They shall not be shut day or
night, that men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles,
and that their kings may be brought. You see, this is metaphorical
language, but this is so. Nothing's going to hinder Christ
from bringing His people into His city. The gates are open.
And He says to you now, you go through the gate. Open these
gates. Make sure that they're open there. This church right
here ought to always be a welcome place for God's people that are
traveling through weary and want to come in and be refreshed and
hear Christ exalted and hear Christ preached and be fed the
gospel and fed some natural bread and if they need some money or
some gas money, whatever, this ought to be an oasis in the wilderness. Open the gates. Make it a welcome
place for them. And then we ought to always be
as welcoming to lost people too, because you never know, that
might be one of his sheep. He might have brought them there
just to hear the gospel. He's about to call them out.
He says, open those gates. But now there's another application
here to these gates, to going through these gates. He also
is commanding us not to sit behind our walls, but to go outside
of our gates and seek his lost sheep with this gospel. Go through
the gates, he says. Go through the gates. You know,
the gates of the walled cities were significant because that's
where you find in the scriptures, that's where people gathered
to get news, to get important news. They'd gather up at the
gates. That's where you heard the news. Good news, bad news. The gates represent here the
places where we work, places where we live, They represent
where we interact on a daily basis with people. And they represent,
these gates represent the door that Christ opens when he gives
you an opportunity to speak to somebody about the gospel. We're
not like religion, you know. Religion just, oh man, they worry
you to death because they're going around just intruding offensively,
you know, into you, wanting to ask you something about religion
or about you, what's your relationship with Christ, or something like
that, you know. Men sometimes are busy with what
they're doing. We're not like that. We wait
for Christ to open the door. Give the opportunity. And He
says, and what I do, you go through the gates. Go through it. Go through it. Speak a word and
seize it. And then there's another application here to these gates.
And I think this is most important right here. It applies to the
gates of hell. The gates of hell. What do I
mean by that? Well, Christ came into this world
and He laid down His life that through death He might destroy
him that had the power of death. That is the devil. His power
was our sin. To either accuse us with it or
to stir us up into self-righteousness. He's always kept us in bondage.
And He did it through a fear of death. Through a fear of death. The devil's most religious one,
there he is. Always making you see your sin.
Always accusing you. Always making you try to work
to make it better. And He's always keeping you in
that bondage. Christ came to destroy that power, take the
sins away from His people, to redeem His people, to destroy
that power, and to deliver them who through fear of death were
all their lifetime subject to bondage. And so the devil, if
he has one of Christ's lost sheep somewhere, maybe they're out
somewhere in immoral religion. I mean, immoral sin out in the,
you know, drunkenness and stuff like that. Maybe that's the gate
he's got bound behind. Or maybe it's some big nice cathedral
and he's got them wrapped up in all the trappings of religion
and doing all that stuff and that's a gate that he's got them
locked behind, in bondage behind that gate. That gates of hell
are the gates of the devil, and they're designed to keep the
Lord's people confined in those gates, in that bondage, so that
Christ can't get to them. But Christ said this concerning
His church, as we go forth preaching Christ the Rock, He said, the
gates of hell shall not prevail against my church. They're not
going to stop my word from going, into the midst of that place
and into the heart of my child and calling my child out and
not going to stop it. And so, He's telling you and
me, here, go through, go through the gates. Go through the gates. Now, all right, let me try to
do that. By God's grace, let me try to
see if I can't prevail over the gates of hell that's got some
lost sinner here trapped and confined today. Let me see if
I can't prevail by the gospel, by God's power and grace. I want
to tell you a story about a mistake that the natural children of
Israel made, a bad mistake. And you'll see how, naturally,
you'll see how awful this was. Now, they were bound behind the
gates of Babylon. They were in bondage in Babylon.
This giant empire of Babylon. They were in bondage there behind
the gates of Babylon. But God sent a Persian ruler
down there named Cyrus. And you know what he did? He
redeemed them. You know what that means? He
broke the gates. He opened the gates. God said,
they won't be shut. He opened them up. God said,
they're not going to be shut again. So there they are behind
this walled city that has all these gates, and the gates are
open now, wide open. And to let them know that it's
God doing it, he sends a messenger in there. And he told the messenger
when he went in there, he said, you go in there singing this.
This is such good news, you go in there singing this to them.
What was he going to sing? I'll just read it to you. Isaiah
48, verse 20. Go ye forth of Babylon. That was his message. Flee ye
from the Chaldeans. Go ye forth. You know what he's
telling them? Go through the gates. Go through the gates. They're open. Go through them.
The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob. Go through the gates.
That's what he told them. Now all they had to do, all they
had to do was get up Believe God. Just walk out of those gates. That's all they had to do. There
was a highway provided and that highway would have taken them
from Babylon all the way to Jerusalem, to their city. And they could
have went on that highway, went through those gates, left Chaldea,
went all the way on that highway and went to Jerusalem and entered
into that city. And you know what they did? Now
you just picture, you picture you being Somebody in the Middle
East has captured you. One of our enemies has captured
you. And there you are. You're confined in their camp
behind their gates. And God uses our president, sends
the seals over there and they break the gates down. And the
gates are broke down. And God sends a messenger to
you and says, now go through the gates. We've provided a highway
through this desert right here so that you can make it all the
way to the city of refuge. Just go through the gates. We're
going to have men behind you. We're going to have men in front
of you and nobody's going to touch you. Go through the gates.
You know what the children of Israel did? I don't see any reason to believe
that. I don't see any reason to go through those gates. We're
just going to stay right here. We're just going to stay right
here. Now, you can look at that picture,
naturally speaking, put yourself in that place, and you could
say, that is the most dumbest thing in the world. Well, sinner,
that's what you're doing when you don't believe on Christ.
That's exactly what you're doing. You're saying, no, I'll just
stay here. This is what Christ said to them. Oh, that thou had
hearkened to my commandments. Then hath thy peace been as a
river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea, never
ending. Then he said, But there is no
peace, saith the Lord unto the wicked. To the man that won't
obey God and cast his care on Christ, go through the gates
that He's broken open the gates of hell, and believe on Christ
the way. God says, there's no peace for
you. No peace. Now God sent forth Christ the
Redeemer, and Christ has redeemed His people out of bondage. He's
broken the gates. Christ has done it. And Christ
has sent His messenger forth, but now Christ Himself goes forth. Now, if He leaves you to yourself,
Like what he did to natural Israel there, and they stayed in Babylon,
they wouldn't go through the gates. He did that to show you
what you and I'll do if He just leaves you to yourself when He
declares this gospel to you. You say, I don't want to be part
of that. I'll just stay here. But He says now that this Redeemer
has come, He says this Redeemer Himself can go forth with the
message. Look over at Isaiah 49. Isaiah
49. Verse 8, he said, an acceptable
time, thus saith the Lord, an acceptable time, I've heard thee,
he's speaking to Christ. When was that acceptable time?
When the works were finished. When Christ said, it's finished.
He said, and then I've heard you. He said, and in the day
of salvation I help thee, And I'll preserve thee. He raised
him from the dead. And I'll give thee for a covenant
of the people. Christ is our covenant. And he
says, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate
heritages. That thou mayest say to the prisoners,
you see this? That he himself might say to
the prisoners, go forth, go through the gates. To them that are in
darkness, show yourselves. And he says, and they shall feed
in the ways And their pastor shall be in all high places.
They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor sun
smite them. For he that hath mercy on them
shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide
them." That's what he said. I'll make all my mountains away.
That's what he says, brethren. Now, here's my question. I'm
sitting here declaring to you. And I pray Christ will speak
this to your heart, otherwise you won't hear it. But I'm going
to ask you the question. Are you going to prove yourself
to be as ignorant as those natural children of Israel? And say,
I don't want any part of that. Are you going to prove Christ
is speaking into your heart, and Christ is making His Word
affectionate in your heart, and Christ is causing you to hunger
after Him, and causing you to desire to be free from this guilt,
and this sin, and this burden that you've been under, and you're
going to flee to Him. You're going to go through the
gates. Which one is it going to be? When Christ speaks, He
makes them go. He said in Isaiah 52, the Lord
will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your re-reward.
He said, I'm going to be in front of you leading the way, and I'm
going to be behind you. So, hey, you're going to be safe. I'm
going to lead you by waters. I'm going to keep you fed. I'll
make a way for you through this wilderness. You see, we're not
at Jerusalem yet. We're not at heavenly Jerusalem
yet. We're just going through the gates right now out of Babylon.
But we've got to go to Jerusalem. Well, here's the second thing,
back in our text. He says to you and me, because
this is so, because we're just coming out of the gates, there's
some just coming out of these gates now. He says to you and
I that's already been delivered, now don't just stay in Jerusalem,
don't just stay in the church. Now go out, go out, get the word
out, go out, and go to these folks that are just coming out.
And he says this now, Prepare ye the way of the people. Verse
10. Prepare ye the way of the people. Cast up, cast up the
highway. Gather out the stones. What does
that mean? He says, first of all, prepare
ye the way of the people. That means make the way clear
to the people. And he says there, cast up, cast
up the highway, exalt the highway. Why must the highway be exalted?
Why is it so important we make the way clear and we exalt this
highway? So that men will know this is
the highway that leads to Jerusalem, right here. Through the wilderness,
this is the highway. Because Proverbs says, there
is a way that seems right unto man, but the end thereof are
the ways of death. There's the way of superstition.
Oh, you think your God's the right God? Well, I believe God
is such and such that you might as well have a bone in your nose
and be over in the jungle somewhere. Ain't no difference between you
and them. You're superstitious. Well, there's the way of moral
reform. I think if I just do my best, God will receive me.
That'll end in death. There's the way of religious
vows and ceremonies and That won't help you. There's the way
of free will, the way of works. If you came out of Babylon, I'm
told, if you came out of Babylon to go to Jerusalem, there were
all different kinds of roads that came out and went through
the desert. And if you're out in a desert land, I wouldn't
be able to tell probably which road was which. Well, that's
how it is in this world. There's just all these different
ways. Listen to this, Matthew 7.13. Matthew 7.13. Enter ye
in at the straight gate. For wide is the gate, and broad
is the way that leadeth to destruction. And many there be which go in
thereat, because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way
which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Well,
what is this way? Well, if you're going to travel
from this sin-pursed Babylon to Heaven's Mount Zion, there's
only one way. There's only one highway. There's
only one way. It's a narrow way. It's a straight
way. And there's very few people that find this way. Very few. Now listen to the Lord. That's
the Lord Jesus. There's very few that find this way. You look
around today and it looks like everybody's found this way. There's
churches on every corner. I counted the other day. There's
25 churches in Princeton. That's a lot of churches. Princeton
ain't that big. A lot of churches. Christ said
there's only a few that's founded. Just a few. Well, what is this
way? Neither is there salvation in
any other. It's Christ the Lord. For there's
none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must
be saved. He's the only way. Christ said
this, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. You see, we're going to where
He opened those everlasting gates, opened those everlasting doors.
We're going into that new heavens and that new earth that's founded
on Christ the Rock. That's where we're headed. We've
left Babylon. We've been called out of Babylon.
And now we're just trying to make the way clear and we're
trying to cast up and exalt Christ for those who are just coming
out of the gates of Babylon. To tell you, come on now, this
is the way. We're going through the wilderness
and we're in Christ's way. That's how we're going to get
there. That's the way we're going to get there. The Lord alone
has prepared this way. We saw that this morning. He
alone came down from heaven and became a man. You had to have
a person that was holy and righteous before God, who is at the same
time God, eternal, so that everything he did was eternal, so that as
a man he could do everything you should have done for God,
and as God everything he did now is eternal so that it won't
ever fade away, it won't ever die, it's a forever. That was
the purpose of Him becoming the spotless, sinless God-man. He might work this work for His
people in the place of His people. Christ made this way because
He suffered in perfect obedience to the Father. He had to do that. You know why? In order to be
the perfect captain of our salvation. He had to perfect obedience.
That's what it means. And He did. He perfected obedience.
And He is our perfection of obedience. The believer's perfection of
obedience is not our obedience, it's Christ's obedience. It's
what Christ did that God imputes to us. And then He, in order
to justify His people, He had to go to the cross and be made
sin for us and be made a curse and be made to die our death. That eternal, that death He suffered
on the cross, in darkness in those three hours, forsaken of
God, and we can't even describe what was going on there. That's
the second death. That's that judgment death. That's
that eternal death that His people would have had to bear after
you died the first death. if Christ hadn't done that for
you. That's the death we could never
satisfy because we'd have suffered forever in eternity. But Christ,
in three hours, because He's God, He suffered that eternal
death and He accomplished that death. Put an end to that death. So that when He actually, literally,
physically gave up the ghost and died, it was just a signification
to me and you that that eternal death is accomplished. He put
a death to death. We had to have somebody do that
for us. He did that. That's how He made
this way. He made it by coming out of that
grave like we saw this morning, and being the forerunner, and
saying, open those gates, and entering into God's presence
for us, and sitting down with all of us there in Him. He's the head, so that from the
gates of hell, where we were in our bondage, our sin, and
our death. He frees us and says, go through the gates. And He's
the way, the whole way, the only way, and He delivers us all the
way to the gates of heaven. He says, keep them open wide,
we're coming in. That's what He does. Now, do
you see what I'm saying? We're trying to lift this way
up, trying to exalt this way before you. Do you see the way?
Some haven't even come out of the gates yet. Maybe by exalting the way and
seeing the way, maybe that will make you see, oh, it's safe to
come out of these gates. It's safe if you believe on Him. Well, now let me see here. He
says to us, gather out the stones. There are stones in this way.
You've got to gather out the stones in this way. Because if
the stones are in the way and you're walking along the way,
you're going to stumble. I can't nearly bounce together out all
these stones today. Because there's a lot of them,
I'm sure, some of them in people's minds that I never even thought
of. But I'll give you a few of them. There's the stone of, what
do I need to do? When you hear Christ say, come
out of the gates, you hear Christ say, I'm the way, believe on
me, I'll deliver you into the heavenly Jerusalem. Here's what
men think. First thought, I thought this,
I remember thinking this. What do I do next? I mean, don't
I have to do something to qualify to believe on Him or to confess
Him or something? I was so afraid to go speak to
my pastor about it because I thought, you know, he's going to ask me
a bunch of questions and he's going to put me through some
test and I'm not going to qualify. Christ's command to believe on
Him is our qualification to believe on Him. You know, if you came to my house
and I opened the door and I said, come on in. You don't have to qualify. That's
your qualification. Come on in. Christ's command
to believe on Him is all the qualification you need. And,
you know, the fact of the matter is what He commands, He gives.
When Christ commands you to believe on Him, He gives faith and repentance
with the command. There is no pre-qualification
necessary on our part. The work is finished, the table
is prepared, everything is set. He says, just come and eat. It's
all done. Then some stumble over the stone
of knowledge. Boy, this is a big stone right
here. Stone of knowledge. Well, I'm
not sure I know enough yet. I'm here and I know some things,
but I'm not sure I know just enough yet. I know this doctrine,
I know that doctrine, but I don't know everything yet. It's not what you know. It's
who you know. Not what you know, it's who you
know. This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. They that know Thy name will
put their trust in Thee, for Thou, Lord, hast not forsaken
them that seek Thee. We're not seeking doctrine. We're
not seeking a system of theology. We're not seeking to impress
anybody with what we know. We're seeking a Savior. We're
seeking only one who can save. That's the only one I need to
know is Him. I just need to know Him. Now
listen to why that's important. Anything you put between the
sinner and Christ is works. Anything. Anything. Even if you tell a sinner you've
got to have a certain amount of conviction and a certain amount
of feeling bad about your sin and all that. That's works. You've
turned something that is as in part truth to a work when you
start telling people that. Some people don't have as deep
a conviction as some other people. Here's what you've got to know.
Christ. You've got to know Christ. Let Him that glory, glory in
this. He understandeth and knoweth
me. And I am the Lord, which exercise lovingkindness and judgment
and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight,
saith the Lord." Alright, then you have this. Some stumble over
the stone of faith. The stone of faith. Well, I'm
not sure I believe I'm saved. Well, that ain't what you're
supposed to be believing. That ain't what God says to believe.
Believe you're saved? That's not what God said, believe.
I'm not sure I believe my sins are forgiven. That's not what
God said, believe. There's an excellent article
in the Bulletin by Pastor Todd Nybert. And he gave that illustration
there where those two blind men, the Lord was about to give them
sight. And he says, believest thou that
I'm able to do this? And he said, Lord, we believe. That's faith. I believe Christ is able. Well,
tell me what you know about doctrine of election. I really don't know
much about that, but I know Christ is able. I believe Him. That will suit any believer just
fine. That's a wise man right there.
That's a wise man right there. You could know the doctrine of
election, predestination, Hyper, supra, epa, all the different
things men have come up with to slice and dice doctrine all
you want to. And not know Christ and perish
and go to hell. The biggest stone of all is this
though, a false refuge. That's the biggest stone of all.
I'll put this off till another day. That's a false refuge. What is your life? When I was
20, 25 years old, And I had forever. I had forever up until really
a year or two ago. And then it hit me. You're almost
done, buddy. And you might be done sooner
than you think you're going to be done. You start seeing your
family die. You start seeing your parents,
those closest to you get sick. Start seeing yourself getting
feeble. You're just dust. Going back
to dust. It's going to happen like that.
Today is the day of salvation. You might not have another convenient
time more than today. This is the convenient time right
now. I was baptized back years ago
and I joined a church. I got my name on a church roll
down there somewhere. That's a false refuge. That's
a false refuge. Well, I would believe what you're
preaching, but I'm not of your denomination. You know, remember
that we had somebody sit here and amen to everything I preached
for about six months and the first time I made a bulletin,
And I put Sovereign Grace Baptist Church on it. And they said,
well, I can't come anymore. I didn't know you was Baptist.
Quit Amen and everything. I don't care if you're Baptist.
Call yourself Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist. It doesn't matter
to me. You know Christ. That's all I'm
caring about. What think you of Christ? Here's
the worst of all. Self-righteousness. Thinking
you don't even need Christ. Thinking you don't even need
Christ. The real stone, the real stumbling stone in all these,
in this stone of false refuge, is Christ Himself. That's the
real stone of stumbling. In this part, in this thing of
a false refuge. The Gentiles which followed not
after righteousness, they weren't even following after righteousness,
have attained to righteousness. even the righteousness which
is of faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness,
they followed the law. And they were religious. You'd
look at them and you'd say, if they ain't going to heaven, ain't
nobody going to heaven. Holy men, pious men, righteous men. And you'd look at them Gentiles
and you'd think, I don't want to be seen with them. And the Gentiles were made with
righteousness of God, and the Israelites perished. Why? Because they sought it not by
faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For, and here
was the offense, they stumbled at that stumbling stone. As it's
written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock
of offense, and whosoever believeth on him, It's a refusal to let
your hands off of it, take your hands off of it, and trust Christ
only. Faith is trusting Christ and
believing He's able. Trust Him alone. I'm persuaded
He's able. If He don't bring me to glory,
I ain't gonna get there. I'm trusting Him. Him alone. That man will be... He's righteous
and He'll enter God's presence. Let me go on here real quick. We have to move on to this then,
verse 10. He says, lift up a standard for
the people. A standard is a banner. It's
an ensign. It's a flag. That's what I've
been trying to do this whole time. Christ is our banner. He's
our ensign. He's our standard. We're lifting
Him up. I've been trying to lift up Christ Himself to you. Isaiah
11.10 says, in that day, talking about when Christ has redeemed
His people, starts calling out His people, in that day there
shall be a root of Jesse, that's Christ, which shall stand for
an ensign of the people, a banner, a rallying point, so that you
know, this is Him, this is where I'm going, I see Him, I see the
place to go, right here. And it says, "...and to it, to
the ensign, to Christ, shall the Gentiles seek, and his rest
shall be glorious." I want you to know glorious rest. That's something else. He's the
king of glory. He's the king of glorious rest. He's the only one that can give
you this rest. Rest from you. Your guilty conscience rests
from your worrisome works, rests from your taskmasters trying
to whip you into shape, rests from... Just rests knowing the
work's finished, God accepts me, end of story. I'm just traveling
to get there, that's all. I'm just going through this wilderness
to get there. And I'm going to be there, because He's going
to deliver me. He's got more to lose in this thing than I've
got to lose in it. His very glory and name and honor
and righteousness is at stake. His word is at stake. He has
to deliver me. I'm a member of His body. His
body won't be complete if He don't deliver me. I want you
to know that rest. All right. Briefly, real quick.
How long have I been up here? I don't know. We can't have strength
to do this and we can't make this word effectual. So let me
just give you this real briefly. How are we going to do it? Look
here at verse 11. Behold, He gives us some beholds
here. He wants you to see something
now. Behold, this is speaking to you who are His witnesses.
Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed, and He's proclaimed to the end
of the world, say you to the daughter of Zion. Alright, I'll
fix it and proclaim it. Daughter of Zion, listen to me. Listen to what the Lord says.
Wherever you are in the world, wherever you are in the four
corners of the earth, wherever you are declaring His name, He
says here, Behold, thy salvation cometh. If you've got a pen and
you don't mind marking it in your Bible, you can capitalize
that S, because that's Christ. And He says to you, when you're
out there and you're preaching the gospel and you're declaring
the truth, Behold, Christ your salvation is going to come. Remember
Christ said, where two or three are gathered in My name, there
I'll be in the midst of them. Christ is going to be there.
He said, He's the Word. He's going to come where He's
brought the Word, where He's gathered His people, where He's
made His Word go forth. He's going to be there. And He's
the salvation. I used to call Brother Henry
and I've heard stories of where they'd say, how many people do
you require to come preach to us? And Brother Henry would say,
me and you. He said, we're two. Three is
just a surplus. And I've heard of him sitting
down with a couple of people. He just sat down and preached
to them like he's preaching to a thousand people. And Christ said, I'll be there.
Your salvation will come. Look at this. And behold, His
reward is with Him and His work before Him. Now this word reward
doesn't mean He's going to come and reward men for their mercenary
efforts where they obligated God. That's not even what this
word means. This word is, behold, His salvation, His gifts of grace,
His wisdom, His righteousness, His holiness, His redemption
is with Him. It's in Him to give to those
that believe on Him. He is the wisdom, the righteousness,
the sanctification, and the redemption. He's the gift. He's the covenant.
He's all this. His reward is with Him. And then look at this, and His
work before Him. And this could be this. You could
write this down. The work that He's going to effect
in all His people will be accomplished before Him. are in His presence. That's what I'm going to try
to show you all over in 1 Corinthians 1. It says the gospel is what
He's devised, the means of saving, because no flesh is going to
glory in His presence. You see, when you're preaching
in God's Christ, you're really about to save somebody and give
them a new heart, but your salvation comes. And all His gifts that
He has to make that person wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption, when He enters into them, they're going to be
made what He is in His presence. And when that happens, they're
not going to boast in their flesh. No, sir. They're going to glory
in the Lord every time. Every time. That's why He saves
through the Word. When it's effectually made effectual
before Him, there will be no glorying in the flesh. Never.
Only in Him. Recently we preached, and I preached
to show you our message over in Isaiah 40, and I showed you
that it's almost the same message I'm preaching now. I showed you
our messages to preach, Behold thy God. And there's a verse
over there that's almost just like this verse 11. And it says
this in verse 9. It says, I'm sorry, verse 10. Behold,
the Lord God will come. He says here, you lift up the
voice and say, 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. Just almost the same
passage we just read about. What does that mean? If you read
the next verse, you'll tell you exactly what it means. This is
what it means. He shall feed His flock like
a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with
His arm, and He'll carry them in His bosom, and He'll gently
lead those that are with young." That's what it means. His rewards
with Him, and the effects of His works are going to be done
right before His presence, in His presence, by Him. Alright,
and this is going to be the end of it. When He's done this, when
He's called these folks out of Babylon and separated them out,
and He's delivered them on the way, and He's brought them into
Jerusalem, into holy Jerusalem. In the end, it's what's going
to be said about these people. Verse 12, Isaiah 62, 12. They shall call them the holy
people. Because they sanctified themselves?
No, because He brought them out. He separated them out. The redeemed
of the Lord. Why? Because He broke down the
gates, paid the price, and brought them out. Thou shalt be called
sought out. Why? Because He sent His witnesses
with His Word and He showed up in the salvation and made it
effectual and made you anew. And so, when He's assembled them
all together, preserved every one of them and not lost to one
of them, brought us all together into His presence, we're going
to be called a city that was not forsaken. He was forsaken. Now His city won't ever be forsaken.
Alright, brethren. Amen.