Isaiah 52 Before we begin, let's have a
word of prayer. Our God and our Father, how we do need for You to take off all of our bands, take
off all of the chains that keep us from hearing Your Word, make
us to hear the good news, make us to hear the proclamation,
make us to hear of Your wonderful works, of Your accomplished salvation,
that we might truly Be freed from the bondage of our corruption,
of our sin and our death, that we might truly serve You and
worship You. Make us, Lord, to worship You
this day. Oh, we need it. We need Your
power to make us worship You this day. Lord, forgive us our
sins, forgive us of our for our minds wandering and our flesh
interrupting as we try to have communion with You and turn us back to You. Cause
us to hear. Cause us to rejoice. We ask it,
Father, for Your glory, for the glory of Your dear Son, our Lord
and our Savior, Jesus Christ. It's in His name that we ask
it. Amen. Isaiah 52, verse 7. How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth
peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation,
that saith undesigned, thy God reigneth. Now, to understand
something of what would bring the children of Israel to say
this, to cry out and say this, we have to understand that Israel,
the children of Israel, Jerusalem and Judah, they had been captive
by Babylon, taken captive by Babylon. And they had been enslaved
for 70 years. They were slaves, captives of
Babylon. You imagine an enemy king coming
into our country and taking us captive. You imagine coming to
New York City, which is our capital city, and destroying all the
buildings in that city. Just breaking down and leaving
it just a waste of everything broken down. That's what they
had done. They had come in and they had
taken the people captive and they went to Jerusalem, the capital
city of Zion, and they broke it down, and they broke the temple
down, they broke the walls down, they destroyed it. And now they're
all captive, and they're held in captivity by these ones that
have enslaved them. Psalm 137 describes their sorrow. He says, By the rivers of Babylon
there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged
our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof, for there
they that carried us away captive required of us a song. You just
imagine they took them captive and then mocked them and said,
Now sing to us while we're holding you captive. They that wasted
us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's
song in a strange land? And then in the book of Lamentations,
to your right there, a few pages. In Lamentations 1, we find here
the sorrowful state they were in in captivity in Babylon. Jeremiah
says, how does a city sit solitary that was full of people? How
is she become as a widow? She that was great among the
nations, and princes among the provinces, how is she become
tributary? She weepeth sore in the night,
and her tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers she hath
none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously
with her. They are become her enemies.
Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction and because
of great servitude. She dwelleth among the heathen.
She findeth no rest. All her persecutors overtook
her between the straits. The ways of Zion do mourn because
none come to the solemn feasts. Her worship is gone. All her
gates are desolate. Her priests sigh. Her virgins
are afflicted. And she's in bitterness. So there
you are, you're captive in that land. And then one day you see
a messenger coming on the horizon. He's coming on the mountains.
And you watch him and he's inching closer and closer as he comes,
running fast to get to where you are. And you can hear him
cry, but you can't understand exactly what he's saying. And
you listen a little closer. And as you listen, gradually,
little by little, you begin to hear what His message is. You
begin to hear what He's saying. And this is what He's saying.
Look at Isaiah 51, verse 22. Verse 21, look at verse 21. Therefore
hear now this, thou afflicted and drunken but not with wine.
Thus saith thy Lord, thee Lord, and thy God that pleadeth the
cause of his people. Behold, I have taken out of thine
hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury. Thou shalt no more drink it again. But I will put it into the hand
of them that afflict thee, which have said to thy soul, Bow down,
that we may go over, and thou hast laid thy body as the ground. and as the street to them that
went over. Awake! Awake! Put on strength,
O Zion! Put on thy beautiful garments,
O Jerusalem, the holy city! For henceforth there shall no
more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself
from the dust! Arise and sit down, O Jerusalem! Loose thyself from the bands
of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion, for thus saith the Lord. You have sold yourself for naught,
but now you are redeemed. You've been made free. Your captivity
is no more. Redemption has been accomplished
by your Lord, and it is He that speaks to you, and He tells me
to tell you, you're free. You're redeemed. Now, if you
were there, and you were in that bondage, and you were in that
captivity, and you were the one enslaved, that messenger that
came with that good news, You'd wrap your arms around him and
you'd say, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of
him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth
good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation, that says undesigned,
thy God reigneth. Now, do we enter in to why they
were saying that? Do we see why the children of
Israel were saying that about this messenger? But you'd have
to be in captivity, wouldn't you? for that message to be a
good message. You'd have to be enslaved for
that message to be a good message. Well, there's some sitting here
now that are in a far worse bondage than the children of Israel were
in. It's a bondage that you were born into, born into captivity. You came into this world under
the bondage of the prince of the power of the air, under the
bondage of the devil. You came in held in captivity
in sin, under the curse of the law, held there in the chains
that you could not break free from. You had absolutely no way
of giving yourself any liberty of freeing yourself out of that
bondage. You'll never rejoice. You'll never say, oh, how beautiful
are the feet of Him, until you've been in bondage. We'll never
rejoice in salvation being accomplished by our Redeemer until we have
a need to be redeemed. That's just how it is. Only sick
people need a physician. And only sinners need salvation.
Only those who cannot save themselves need a Savior. So we have to
be brought to that place. We have to be brought to see
our sin. But God has done something for
you, like He's done, like He did for those that were in Babylon.
He sent an ambassador to you. He has sent an ambassador to
you. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter
5. An ambassador is one who, say
our president chooses an ambassador to go to a foreign country, say
he goes into Egypt and he's going to speak to those in Egypt on
behalf of the president. So he's speaking on behalf of
the president to those in that foreign land. Christ sends forth
His preachers, and His preachers are ambassadors for Christ. Look
here, 2 Corinthians 5.20, Now then, we are ambassadors for
Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's
stead. Be ye reconciled to God. I stand
here, look at Romans 10. I stand here each week and I
stand here speaking as though God did beseech you. I stand
here praying in Christ's stead. Instead of Christ standing here
and saying it audibly, I stand here and say to you audibly,
be ye reconciled to God. And I tell you what he's done,
what he's accomplished. Look at Romans 10. Paul applied
our text to preachers. He said in Romans 10, 13, Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then
shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how
shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. This is a serious time right
here when we come together. The most serious, the most important
thing of anything else that we do on this earth, because we're
coming here to hear a message from God. I have trouble telling
you that I'm an ambassador for Christ because I know what I
am. I know I'm just a sinner. And
it seems almost like it's a boast for me to say that, but it's
what the Scriptures say. And if God speaks to us, He's
going to speak to us through His preachers because He chose
to do so. He chose to do it that way. But
if you hear my message, if you hear my message, it will not
be because you've only heard me. It will be because Christ
is the one who has spoken. You notice there in Romans 10,
Paul says, How beautiful are the feet of them. Because he's
speaking of preachers. But in our text, it says, How
beautiful are the feet of him. And here's why. Look at Isaiah
52, 6. This text is speaking first and foremost of Christ
Himself. Therefore my people shall know
my name. Therefore they shall know in
that day that I am He that doth speak. Behold, it is I. Then we cry out. Then Isaiah
cries out on behalf of the church. How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of Him. The feet of Him that says, Behold
it's I that doth speak. The feet of Him that bringeth
good tidings, that publishes peace. Now I want to look at
this verse and I want to show you how that this verse is Christ
speaking. First of all, it says how beautiful
are Christ's feet upon the mountains. The Song of Solomon chapter 2
verse 8 says, The voice of my beloved How, O behold, he cometh
leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. Christ's feet
are beautiful upon the mountains. Think about it. His feet are
beautiful upon the mountains of Mount Sinai because He is
our Lawgiver. And they're beautiful upon the
mountains of Mount Sinai because there He teaches us we cannot
come to God by our works of the Law. We just cannot do it. And
He fulfilled that law for us. Christ's feet are beautiful upon
that exceedingly high mountain where He went up there and Satan
tempted Him. Because there we see the faithfulness
of Christ who could not be turned by Satan's tempting. Christ's
feet are beautiful upon the mount where He preached the sermon
on the mount. Because there we see what Christ our prophet is
doing right now as His gospel goes forth. He's in the high
mountain right now. And He's sat down and He's preaching
to His people all over the world. Christ's feet are beautiful upon
Mount Gerizim. That's where He converted the
woman by the well. And there we see what He does
through preaching. He converts His people. Christ's
feet are beautiful upon the Mount of Olives because that's where
He went all along by Himself and prayed to God. And there
we see Him all by Himself ever living to make intercession for
His people. Christ's feet are beautiful on
the Mount of Transfiguration because there we get a glimpse
of Him in all His glory. God, man, mediator, the Christ
who we worship. And we find out on that mountain
that He's the only one we're to worship. We don't worship
the law. We don't worship the prophets,
His preachers. We worship Him alone. And His
feet are beautiful on Mount Calvary. Because there He accomplished
the redemption of His people and put away our sin forever.
And His feet are beautiful right now upon the Mount Zion, His
heavenly Jerusalem, His church, where He's ruling and reigning
and sending forth His gospel to His people. Oh, aren't His
feet beautiful? The feet of Him, the feet of
Christ are beautiful upon the mountains. And then it says here,
He brings good tidings. He bringeth good tidings. Later
it says good tidings of good. He brings good tidings. Look
at Isaiah 61 in verse 1. Isaiah 61. This is Christ speaking here
and He says, The Spirit of the Lord hath anointed me to preach
good tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me. Paul said, how
can they preach unless they be sent? He was the first one sent. He says, He hath sent me to bind
up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and
the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord, the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all that mourn. to appoint unto them that morn
in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for
mourning, the garment of praise for the Spirit of heaviness,
that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting
of the Lord, that He might be glorified. And so He comes with
these good tidings. He comes with the good tidings
that we are forgiven. Because He stood in place of
all those the Father gave to Him and put away our sin. And
in Him we have forgiveness of sin. He comes with the good tidings
of full blood atonement accomplished. He's made us one with God. Justification
instead of divine wrath. Eternal glory instead of hell.
These are the good tidings He brings to His people. This is
how we're comforted by Him. All accomplished by Him. Everything
accomplished by Him. All the work is done. It's finished.
Doesn't it fill your heart with joy when you get good news? You
want good news. We always want good news. We
don't want bad news. Well, this is good tidings. The
gospels are good tidings of good things. These are the good tidings
of salvation accomplished. And when we have this good news,
we come here to hear the good news and then we leave and we
go out in the world. And what do we hear? We hear
bad news. All week we turn on the TV, bad
news. We go to our job, bad news. We
talk to our friends, bad news. Complaining, murmuring, worry,
anxiousness, just all these cares and we come back here to hear
some good news. And that's what we hear through
the gospel. Good news. And then he says there
in our text, he says that Christ publisheth peace. He publishes
peace. He's called the Prince of Peace.
Our Savior's the Prince of Peace. And the reason He's the Prince
of Peace is because He became a man. And as a man, for His
people, the God-man, He reconciled His people to God. Look at Colossians
Chapter 1. And hold your place in Colossians.
I'm going to come back here at the end. Colossians chapter 1. Look at verse 20. And having
made peace. Doesn't that sound good? Having
made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile
all things unto Himself. By Him, I say, whether they be
things in earth or things in heaven." You know what those
things are? They're His people. They're His people. Some are
in heaven. Some are on earth, but they're all reconciled to
God by His blood. And you that were sometime alienated
in enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled
in the body of His flesh through death to present you holy and
unblameable and unreprovable in His sight, if you continue
in the faith, grounded and settled and be not moved away from the
hope of the gospel which you've heard. You see, we must cast
all our care into His hands, and we must continue to cast
all our care into His hands, and never turn away from Him,
because He's our hope. The hope of glory is Christ in
you. The hope of glory is Christ who's come and accomplished the
peace of His people. And He says, now continue in
Him. And He's our peace. He's all our peace with God.
You just think about that. Us who sinned, us who rebelled
against God, us who were enemies in our minds, God was the enemy
to us in our minds, and we were enemies to God by all our wicked
works. But now we have peace with God because somebody came
stood in the gap between us and endured the trembling cup that
He had to endure for us. That's great news, brethren.
Nobody can disrupt the peace we have with God because it's
been accomplished by our eternal Savior. Then look in our text,
it says Christ not only publishes peace, it says there that He
publishes salvation. What is it to publish salvation?
What is that, to publish salvation? Well, it's to publish that salvation
is of the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. And
Christ not only publishes that salvation, He is that salvation.
He is our salvation. His name shall be called Jesus,
Joshua, Savior, because He shall save His people from their sins. He is our salvation. And the
publishing of salvation is to declare salvations of the Lord
from our eternal election. It was God the Father who chose
His people in Christ Jesus. Because He chose Christ first,
and then He chose His people in Christ. To our redemption,
Christ came and accomplished our redemption by His blood.
To our regeneration, God the Holy Spirit quickens us and gives
us faith and life and all things that pertain unto godliness.
To our preservation, He that has begun a good work in you
will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. And to our resurrection,
we've got to be resurrected first. He'll raise us from the dead.
He'll speak and raise us from the dead. And then, our glorification. Just as we saw in Ephesians,
Christ was raised from the dead and then He was exalted high. And so we'll share in that glory
with Him that He's earned for His people because He said, I
will that they be where I am, that they behold my glory that
I had with you from before the foundation of the world. Salvations
of the Lord. And any preacher that puts even
just one aspect of salvation in your hand, just one aspect
of it, He ceases preaching salvation is of the Lord. You mean it's
that bad? A little leaven leavens the whole
lump. If you had a glass of water and
you put just a tenth of a tenth of a tenth of rat poison in it,
you going to still drink it? No, it ceases to be water and
it becomes poison. Just a little bit of leaven makes
the gospel cease to be good news and it turns it into work. Don't
heed such a man. Let me tell you this. The Holy
Spirit guided Isaiah to write this. How beautiful are the feet
of them who preach glad tidings. And the Holy Spirit moved Paul
to write this. I would that they were even cut
off which trouble you. The Holy Spirit says of those
that preach Christ, you won't find any more beautiful feet
than those. And He says of those who preach works, I would that
they were cut off. So don't heed them. Don't heed
their word. Now look, here's the last thing
our text says. By His person, by His work, He
saith to Zion, Thy God reigneth. That's what Christ says. He came
forth, and when we look at Christ, we see God reigning. That's who
we see. We see in Christ God reigning. Look at Colossians again. Look
back at Colossians chapter 1. Christ is God. Listen to this. Verse 14 says, In whom we have
redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins.
Now that's Christ we're talking about. Now listen to what it
says about Him. Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn
of every creature. For by Him... What does it mean
that He's the firstborn of every creature? Here's what it means.
By Him were all things created. that are in heaven and that are
in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers, all things were created by Him
and for Him, and He's before all things, and by Him all things
consist, and He's the head of the body, the church, who is
the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things
He might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that
in him should all fullness dwell. Now look at Colossians 2 and
verse 8. Now you beware, brethren, lest
any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit. Don't let a
man tell you Christ is not God. After the tradition of men, after
the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in Christ
dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He's God
reigning. Christ Jesus shall not fail. That's what the Scripture says.
He shall not fail. And He has not failed in anything
the Father sent for Him to do. Because He is God with us. God reigning. And He shall not
fail. He shall not fail. And not only
is He God reigning with us, He's Christ our King reigning. Christ our King reigning. He's
stilled the sea. He spoke and it was a calm sea. He fed multitude with a few fish
and a few loaves. He gave sight to the blind. He
spoke and Lazarus came forth from the dead. This is Christ
our King reigning. Zechariah 9.9 says this, Rejoice
greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem.
Behold, thy King, thy King cometh unto thee. He is just, and having
salvation, he's lowly, riding upon an ass and upon a colt the
fold of an ass. That's how he came, isn't it?
That's Christ our King reigning. Thy God reigneth. For the Lord's
our judge, the Lord's our lawgiver, the Lord is our King. He will
save us. I'll make her that halted a remnant,
he said, and her that was cast far off a strong nation, and
the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion henceforth even
forever. Now you and I don't have any
strength. No strength at all. And we don't reign over anything.
And that's good. That's very good. And it's also
very good that none of our enemies reign over anything either. None
of them do. Christ Jesus the God-man reigneth. He reigneth, and none's going
to stop His reign. Matthew 25, 31 says this, When
the Son of Man shall come in His glory, When the Son of Man
shall come in His glory, We've been looking at that glory in
Ephesians 1. He's coming in that glory. He's
going to come the second time in the glory that they thought
He was going to come in the first time. But the second time, He's
coming in that glory. And it says, And all the holy
angels with him, and then shall he sit upon the throne of his
glory. That's where a king sits. It
says, And before him shall be gathered all nations, and he'll
separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep
from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on
his right hand, but the goats on his left. Then shall the king
say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
the world. That's our king. Every time I
prepare a message, I pray to that king. And I ask him, God,
please give those that do not hear, those who are your sheep,
those you've loved from the foundation of the world, give them ears
to hear. Give them an understanding. Give
them a heart to know you. I pray that every time I'm preparing
a message. And I pray it when I come here
for you. And if He does, if you're one
of His own, and He will eventually give you eyes to see. And you're
going to see that messenger coming across the mountain, Christ Himself. And you're going to hear Him
speak. And you're going to hear Him saying, Thy God reigneth. And when He's brought you to
see your sin and to see the worthlessness of your flesh and of your will
and of all your righteousnesses, when you begin to cry for mercy,
He's going to reveal to you who He is. Because He said, My people
shall know My name. They're going to know My name.
He's going to reveal this and He's going to make you know it's
Him that's calling. You won't hear His voice audibly,
but you will hear it in such a way that you'll know it's Him
that's calling. And He'll bring salvation. And when He does,
you'll believe Him. And when you believe Him, it'll
be because He makes His people willing in the day of His power.
Power. And when He gives you freedom,
He gives such sweet freedom that you'll say, how beautiful upon
the mountains are the feet of Him. Oh, how beautiful are the
mountains are the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings, that
publishes peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publishes
salvation and says, Thy God reigneth. And you know what you'll do from
then on? You'll latch hold of those feet and you'll sit at
those feet And through faith you'll submit and you'll set
at those feet like Mary did for the rest of your days. Because
you'll know He's the one thing needful. And you will not be
moved from those feet. And you have this assurance that
all your enemies are cut off so that you can continue worshipping
Him. Because this is what Nahum said. Behold upon the mountains
the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings that publisheth
peace. O Judah, keep your solemn feasts. You keep coming and worshiping
Him. Well, my boss said I can't. He's
not in charge. Your king is. Well, the world's
telling me I need to go to this thing and that thing, and I need
to do this and that, or I won't get ahead in life. The world's
not in charge. He is. You keep your solemn feasts. Perform thy vows. That is, you
stay a faithful bride. Remain a faithful bride. Don't
play the harlot. Don't leave Him. For the wicked
shall no more pass through thee. They're not going to hurt you
anymore because He is utterly cut off. So you have peace and
you have assurance. You can worship Him. You can
worship Him. Aren't those feet beautiful?
Those are beautiful feet, the feet of Him. Amen.