The Lord Jesus Christ led captivity captive. He came
to this earth and He captured the captors, those who had taken
captive His people and He delivered His people who were captive.
We've been looking in Isaiah 45 and we've seen here that Cyrus is a picture of our Lord
Jesus Christ. He came from a distant place
and he fulfilled everything that was written beforehand that God
said he would fulfill. Christ the Lord came from glory
to where his children were in this earth in bondage. And He
fulfilled every word spoken of Him throughout the Scriptures,
spoken well before He came. He fulfilled the law. He took
the sin of His people upon Himself, and He laid down His life, and
He justified His people from all our sin. He broke the bars
and broke the prison doors. He broke the gates of hell that
were a defense, that were trying to keep his children captive. He broke those gates, and they'll
never prevail against his church again. That's what we saw in
verses 1 and 2. And just like Cyrus came forth
and he took the treasures that the king of Babylon had taken
away and hidden for himself, Christ came forth and he took
by his own blood, by his own purchase price that he paid,
he took the children given him of God who are the treasures
of God. the spoils of His victory. He
took them out of Babylon into Heaven's Zion Himself. That's what Christ accomplished.
He led captivity captive. We saw three reasons that God
calls His child to life in Christ. Verse 3 says, for you personally,
that thou mayest know, that thou mayest know, He calls His own
that we may know that all salvation, all righteousness is Christ alone.
And then He calls His child for His elect's sake. Verse 4, He
said, For Jacob My servant's sake, and Israel Mine elect,
I have even called thee by thy name. I have surnamed thee, though
thou hast not known Me. He calls His children to provide
for His sheep that He's already called right here in this place
and in other places as well, and to set forth the truth of
what He's done. And through that gospel, He calls
out those elect who are yet in the bondage and sin of their
own flesh. And then He tells us here that
He did it for His glory and His praise in verses 5 through 7.
I'm the Lord and there is none else. There is no God beside
me. I girded thee, though thou hast
not known me, that they may know from the rising of the sun and
from the west that there is none beside me. I am the Lord and
there is none else. I form the light and create darkness.
I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things."
It's not that there is a force of evil and a force of goodness
and sometimes one overcomes the other and That's not so. God is in control of all things.
God doesn't do evil. Man would shout, say, well, God
doesn't create any evil. You're right. You do. You're
the evil. Man's the evil. All the sin's
done by man. But the only evil that comes
about is that which is going to glorify God, and all the rest
of it God restrains. That's exactly what Psalm 76
10 says. The wrath of man shall praise
God, and the remainder He'll restrain it. Now we've seen the
picture of Christ coming forth. We've seen the picture of Him
leading captivity captive. We've seen the picture here of
that in Cyrus. Now we're going to look at Christ
ascended to the Father that He might fill all things. That's
what the Scriptures said. He ascended up on high. He led
captivity captive. Ephesians 4.10 says that He might
fill all things. He's fulfilled all righteousness.
He's fulfilled all the law, every word that's written of Him. And
He, the Father, has been pleased, in Him should all fullness dwell.
And of His fullness, every child that He calls is going to receive
grace from Him, of His fullness, through Him, by Him, so that
all the glory goes to Him. Now, in Isaiah 45 verse 8, we
have an analogy of how the Lord gives the command and regenerates
His child from death to spiritual life, creating them anew. And
since this analogy that we're going to read here is of nature,
it's of rain coming down, watering the earth, and life coming forth
because of it, So we're going to title this message, The Nature
of Grace. This is The Nature of Grace.
Now let's read the verse, verse 8, and we're going to see that
there are three commands here and there's a declaration here.
And this is going to make up our divisions for our lesson. Verse 8, here's the first thing
that is commanded. The Lord commands, Drop down,
ye heavens, from above. and let the skies pour down righteousness."
You see the picture there of rain falling out of the sky,
rain falling down. He says, drop down ye heavens
from above, let the skies pour down righteousness. Here's the
second, that'll be our first point. Here's the second thing
the Lord commands. Let the earth open. Let the earth
open. Then here's the third thing that
the Lord commands, and let them bring forth salvation, and let
righteousness spring up together. That's three commands that the
Lord commands. The Lord commands, drop down
ye heavens from above, let the skies pour down righteousness.
The Lord commands, let the earth open. And the Lord commands,
let them bring forth salvation. and let righteousness spring
up together. And then the Lord makes a declaration. And this
will be our fourth point. The Lord declares, I, the Lord,
have created it. I, the Lord, have created it.
Well, here's the first command. Drop down, ye heavens, from above.
Let the skies pour down righteousness." Now, all through the Scriptures,
the Lord speaks to you and I in language that we can understand.
He speaks to us in metaphor and in simile, in types and pictures
and figures. In Hosea 12, verse 10, He said,
I have spoken by the prophets. And He said, I've used similitudes,
pictures and types. That's what God does. That's
how he's speaking to us here in a similitude. And one of those
types that he uses a great deal is of dew and of rain coming
down from heaven. And the dew and the rain in scripture
often represents the word of the gospel going forth and the
work of the Holy Spirit, the work the Spirit of God does in
the heart. Look back at Isaiah 44, look
at verse 3. He says, I will pour water upon
him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour
my spirit upon thy children, thy seed, and my blessing upon
thine offspring. And they shall spring up as among
the grass, as willows by the watercourses. This is what the
Lord, this is a picture, this is an example of His Spirit being
poured like water is poured out, like rain comes down. I won't
have you turn here, but in Deuteronomy 32.2, He says, My doctrine, my
gospel, my word shall drop as the rain. My speech shall distill
as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as
the showers upon the grass. It was custom in the last day
of the Feast of the Tabernacles that the Jews would pour out
water. figure of the Holy Spirit coming
and being poured out. And our Lord stood up on that
day, that very day in John 7 37. It was the feast of that great
feast and he stood and he cried and he said, if any man thirst,
let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the
scripture had said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water. life, and he's speaking there
about the Spirit giving life in the heart in the new man of
a child of grace. And then we see it again fulfilled
in type, the type fulfilled whenever the Lord had ascended and then
he sent forth the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost and baptized
the church into the Holy Spirit. So throughout the scripture we
see the word of the gospel being represented by rain coming down.
We see it representing the Spirit of God working by the word. You get the picture. All life,
everything, and God's given us a great big illustration called
the earth. And all life in this earth, grass
and seed and all life, every creature in this earth depends
entirely upon God giving rain from heaven, upon Him sending
forth dew from heaven. It's all working to give life
to creatures, to the living things. Well, it's the same with all
spiritual life. That all spiritual life depends
entirely upon God sending down the rain of His grace, upon Him
sending forth life by His grace. God's elect children are born
into this world like a dry field, just a barren, dry desert. No life there, no goodness in
our flesh, and no ability to bring forth any life there. our
sovereign King, Christ Jesus the King, God our Savior, He
sends forth His gospel, He sends forth His doctrine, His truth. He sent forth, He's the Word,
and He said, I'm going to send forth the Word, and in the fullness
of time, exactly when He said it would, Christ the Word came
into this earth. And he's ascended and he says,
I'm going to send forth my word, my gospel, and I'm going to call
out my people. Why? Because it's glorifying
to him who is the word. He's the king. He has the sovereign
ability to do it. Some folks don't think he's sovereign.
Some folks don't think he's really sovereign to do that. Most in
Judah and Jerusalem did. They had church and they were
playing church and they had too much time and too much going
on and they were building too much to have anything to do with
God. That's why I turned them over
to Babylonian captivity. and then delivered them out and
made a huge statement. I'm the one who saves. Sovereignly. Don't err again. Don't go back
to that trash. That's what God said through
this whole thing He manifest. And that's what He does in the
heart of His children. That's the truth of God. Our Savior
is sovereign to send forth the Holy Spirit to create life. He's
sovereign to do that and He does it. He's sovereign to come forth
Christ Jesus who is our righteousness. He came forth. He is the righteousness
who came down. He is the salvation brought in
the earth. Psalm 85 says, salvation sprang
up in the earth and righteousness looked down from heaven. How
can that be? He's God and He's man. He is
God and He is man. Righteousness and peace are met
together in one, in Christ. And He comes forth and He enters
into the heart through the doctrine by the Holy Spirit as rain, as
the latter and the former rain unto the earth and He becomes
everything. He becomes everything. You think
about the dew and the rain. You think about the rain. If
you can prevent it, stand out there and try to prevent it.
If you make it fall, stand out there and try to make it fall.
God gives it when He will, where He will, and it comes at His
command. He says it and it is. That's
how spiritual life comes. It comes of the Lord's command,
not man's. It comes by grace, not by man's
merit. It comes from the Lord above,
not from man below. That's how it comes forth. You
stand out there sometimes at night, and you get to playing
around, and it starts getting later, and you're out there as
it gets dark, and all of a sudden, you fill up your clothes, and
all of a sudden, you're completely damp with the dew. It's distilled
upon you. It's soaked you. It's just covered
you entirely. That's how His Word comes forth. His gospel comes forth, and it
does at His command. Drop down, ye heavens from above,
and let the skies pour down righteousness. Here's the second command, verse
8. The Lord says, and let the earth
open. Let the earth open. Look at verse
9. The earth is a spiritual representation
of a center, the heart of man. We're just a lump of clay in
the potter's hand. Look at verse 9. Woe unto him
that striveth with his maker. Let the potsherds strive with
the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that
fashioned it, what makest thou or thy work? He hath no hands.
Adam means red. Adam is formed out of... Adam
and clay mean essentially the same thing. Just red dirt. Just dirt. He was a lifeless
lump of clay, is what he was, when God formed him from the
dust until God breathed into him the breath of life. That's
what a sinner is. That's what every elect child
of God is in this earth until God rains down and says, let
the earth open. Let it open. Before God breathed
that life into Adam, he was just a lifeless lump of clay. We cry,
right now, what I'm crying, what I'm setting forth right now is,
oh earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. That's
what I'm saying. But it won't do any good. A sinner
has no ability in himself to bring forth anything out of the
dead lifelessness of this flesh any more than the earth had power
to bring forth life out of it until God gave the command. But
when God gives the command, when the Lord speaks and says, let
the earth bring forth grass and the herb yielding seed and the
fruit tree yielding fruit after His kind whose seed is in itself
upon the earth, it was so. It happened. Because He said,
let the earth open. And whenever the Lord speaks
to a man, He does the same thing. Look at Acts 16. Acts 16, verse
14. You can come to this place and
listen with the natural ear. How are you going to really hear?
Look at Acts 16, 14. A certain woman named Lydia,
a seller of purple of the city of Thyatira, which worshiped
God, heard us. She came there to that place.
She was going through all the form of worship. She came there
into that place by the riverside where prayer was apt to be made,
where folks came to worship the Lord, just like you've come to
this place today. She came there, and she was at
that place to worship God. But look at this, what happened
to her that day. Whose heart the Lord opened,
that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And
then she was baptized in her household and besought us, saying,
if you've judged me to be faithful, Lord, come into my house and
abide there. And she constrained us. He opened
her heart. That's when the heart is going
to be open. When is a man going to truly
hear the Word? When the Lord says, let the earth
be open. Let the heart be open. Then you'll
attend to the words that are spoken. Psalm 119.30 says, the
entrance of thy words giveth light. Whenever the Lord says,
let the heart be open, It's not just His Word going forth like
it is right now and you just hear it. It comes in as light. It enters in as light into the
heart of the sinner. The soul is illuminated by this
rain. It's illuminated by this flood.
He's the light that enters in. He's the He's the life that enters
in. Christ is. The conscience is
turned to the voice of the Lord. And a man begins to hear the
voice of the Lord. He begins to hear The Voice speaking.
Aren't you glad that we're not born of our will and of our flesh,
but that we're born of the Spirit of God? You know why I'm so glad
of that? This is somewhat what we're going
to look at in the next hour. I'm glad that God Himself commands
our hearts be open. and that God Himself causes His
Word to enter in great light. Christ Himself enters into the
heart. Because I so often see what I
am in my flesh, how dead and cold and worthless it is. And
if it wasn't for God being able to speak and give me a reviving
and give me life and give me a view of him and refreshing
in him. I would never thirst after him
like the deer panteth after the water brooks. I never would,
unless he did it. I'm glad he does the work from
beginning to end, because if I know if he did it in the beginning,
I know he'll keep doing it. I know he'll keep me. and keep
providing for me. And that's grace, great grace,
for the Lord to keep us ever knowing that in our flesh doesn't
dwell any good. We don't have any power in us.
The power is of God. It's not of Him that willeth,
nor of Him that runneth, but of God to show us mercy. That's
great, great grace. If you know that in your flesh
you're not willing, If you know that about yourself, that's wonderful
news to know that it's of God's will. Wonderful news. Because
in the dry seasons, I mean in the dry seasons, when you and
I, when He showed us that all we are is just dry dust, He can
speak And He can flood our souls with the rain of His Spirit,
with the rain of His grace. And we're like the parched, dry
ground. We'll just drink up and just
drink and drink and drink of His grace. I like tulips in the spring. They're one of my favorite flowers.
And I love to see a bed of all different colors together. beautiful,
I think, when they come out in the spring. You know that bulb? It's just in the dirt from the
fall all the way through just a dark, cold winter. It's in
the ground. It's in darkness that whole time.
But when the rain comes and when the sun shines, it springs up
out of the earth and there's beautiful, vibrant color and
life there. That's what God does through
the Spirit when He sends forth and says, now let the rain fall.
And then He says, let the earth open. He calls us to spring forth. Look at the next word. The Lord
gives this third command. He says, verse 8, and let them
bring forth salvation. And let righteousness spring
up together. You know, the seed that is planted,
is going to be the kind of plant that springs up. The seed that's
planted will be the kind of plant that springs up. Christ came
into this earth. He is salvation. He is righteousness. He is the seed that came into
this earth and fell into the earth and was broken and died
that life might come from Him. He's divine. and out of his hymns
come in the branches and the fruit from him. If he's not the
seed that's done this work in the heart, if it's not the word
of his doctrine that's created this in the heart, if it's not
the spirit of God that's created in the heart, then the fruit
will be, the branches will be boasting in the branches. They'll
be boasting that they brought forth the fruit of themselves.
If I, by my will, started this thing, I'll boast in my will
all the way through. All the way through. I won't
have, this message won't be good news to me. A man will delight
in the gospel he believes he was saved by. That's right. For whatever the plant of the
seed is, whatever kind of seed's planted, that's the plant that's
gonna grow. That's the plant that's gonna
grow. Christ is our salvation who enters into the center and
out of the dry dust of nothing, a saved child is brought forth. Christ is the righteousness that's
formed in his children, the seed implanted into the earth of his,
into the dry dust of earth called this body of death. And in the
midst of it, a babe of righteousness springs up. That which is planted
springs forth. That which is planted springs
forth. There's two kinds of righteousness. One is a righteousness that most
people in this earth speak about. They speak of the righteousness
and a sanctification as being an inherent righteousness. That's
what most folks are being told and that's what most folks believe.
It is something you produce in your own flesh. You have something
good in your flesh, something good in you that can produce
this righteousness and this holiness. That's a lie. That is an absolute
lie. If you never hear it from these
lips again, you heard it today and I'm free from your blood
because that is a lie. That is a lie, an absolute lie. The truth is, there is the righteousness
of Christ whereby He justified His people from all our sins
by His work on the cross, by what He did Himself. That righteousness
is imputed to us, it's charged to us, it's given to us. Look
at Romans 4.3. It's not of us, it doesn't come
from us, it's solely without us. Look at Romans 4 and verse
3. Let's say it to Scripture. Abraham
believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the
reward not reckoned of grace but of debt. If you're working,
for righteousness. If you're working to be, whether
you call it righteousness or you call it holiness, if you're
working for that, to be accepted of God, you got to do everything. You got to do everything. You
don't need God. And God won't have you. That's just so. This is a righteousness of justifying
from without us. It's of grace and not of death.
But to him that worketh not, verse 5, but believeth on him
that justifieth the ungodly. He's the one who does the justifying.
Christ justified. That person's faith is counted
for righteousness. It's charged. Righteousness of
Christ has been charged to that man who's trusting the righteousness
of Christ. Even as David also describes
the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness
without works. You mean all that's required
in the law? You mean I have all the righteousness,
I have free justification, not by doing, but by Christ who did
the doing and the dying? That's what faith believes. The
righteousness imputed without works, saying, blessed are they
whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. That's
the righteousness Christ wrought for His people. But you and I
have absolutely no idea about that righteousness and will not
rest in that righteousness until this seed comes into our heart
by the Word of God, by the Spirit of God, until Christ be formed
in you so that we are made partakers of a righteousness that's created
in the new man. A new man created in righteousness
and true holiness. That you put on the new man,
which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
This is created of God. It's created of God. It's righteousness
imparted. It's holiness created by the
Spirit of God. A new man created within the
Spirit of God. and not the righteousness that's
outside of us that Christ did, nor this righteousness that is
born of the Spirit of God, either one, neither one of them are
of us, of our flesh, inherent to us. Neither one of them are
of us at all. This is the righteousness that
the Lord described that you have to have. This is the righteousness,
He said, which exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees.
It's a righteousness wrought for us by Christ and born in
us by the Spirit of God being born again. This is the true
righteousness. Well, I can't do that. Christ
our King can. He can. The King's daughter is
all glorious within. Her clothing is of wrought gold.
All that Christ worked Himself for His child, that's the robe
that she's robed in. Christ, our righteousness, is
the robe of righteousness whereby we're perfected forever in Him. And this Spirit coming into the
heart is the righteousness whereby she's inwardly adorned, making
her all glorious within. This is all the work of God. All the work of God. Now, here's
the declaration. If we don't believe that, you
don't believe this is all the work of God, listen to the declaration. Verse 8. I, the Lord, have created
it. I, the Lord, have created it.
You know what the Lord just did? He just weeded your garden. He
just weeded mine in your garden. He just took all the weeds of
our vain boasting and plucked them right up by the roots. He
said, I did it. The Lord created it. The Lord
created it. He reveals in our heart that
Christ is our righteousness and our salvation. He is the righteousness
and the salvation. He comes and He reveals in our
heart that He's the great husband who commanded the skies to pour
down righteousness. He commands, He reveals in our
heart that He commanded our hearts to be open. He reveals that He
commanded salvation be brought forth in the conscience and righteousness
spring up in the new heart. That's when of God, of God, Christ
is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
That as it is written, He that glories, let him glory in the
Lord. And you know what, you know what,
you know what a sure sign that a tulip is a tulip. It looks like a tulip and it
talks and it has the color of a tulip because it is a tulip. It came from the bulb of a tulip.
You know what the sheer sign of this glorious grace being
wrought in the heart of the sinner is? He's going to stop talking
about what he did. He's going to stop talking about
how he planted himself, and how he watered himself, and how he
grew himself, and how his leaves have budded forth and are so
pretty, and how he's bloomed out so pretty himself. He's going
to stop talking about that. That's going to become, in reality,
what it is to him, just an old, dead weed that sprung up. It's not good for nothing. He's
going to start glorying in the Lord who created it. That's what
the believer does. All we are and all we bring forth
is that which God has given us. And it's Christ Jesus, our righteousness. That's all. Whatever we give,
whatever you've given, God gave it to you. And you don't give
it back to God unless you give it back in the blood of the Lamb.
In the blood of the Lamb. Look over at verse 24. Surely
shall one say, in the Lord have our righteousness and strength.
If you have a marginal reference, you see that says, surely he
shall say of me, in the Lord is all righteousness and strength. In the Lord, all righteousness
and all strength. Well, what do I do with this? What do I do with this Word?
What do I do with it? For you that are waiting, you've
been born in the Spirit of God and you believe the Lord, and
you're waiting. You're waiting on somebody you
dearly love who's just parched, dry, lifeless dust. This is what the Lord says for
you to do. Be patient. That's patience only God can
give. That's patience only God can give. We have a bad tendency if we
don't see the plant springing up, we have a bad tendency of
pulling out our tiller and our hoe and just tilling the whole
ground up again and starting over. Be patient. Be patient, the Lord said, until
the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waited
for the precious fruit of the earth and had long patience for
it until he received the early and latter rain." Waiting on
God is something a man can't do unless God makes him do it. That's right. That sounds like that's just
too tough for me to have to wait on God to do this through His
Word, through His Spirit. You won't unless God gives you
this patience. You won't unless you're planning
of His planning. But if you are, you'll wait.
You'll wait. And hope in the Lord. That's
all our hope. That's all our hope. And for
you who have been watered from on high, who have been born of
His Spirit, You think about what it is to have nothing and yet
be a possessor of all things. Think about what it's like to
be completely and totally ignorant. That's what you are. That's what
I am. You and I are completely, thoroughly
ignorant. And yet, in Christ, we have all
wisdom. Who's leading us and directing
us and guiding us. All wisdom. Think about what
it's like to be a sinner. A sinner. Having in yourself
no righteousness, no holiness whatsoever. That's what you and
I are. But we have Christ who is all
righteousness and all holiness. Think about what it's like to
be completely and thoroughly captive in a body of death. That's what you are. That's what
I am. thoroughly captive in a body
of death, and yet totally, completely redeemed
by Christ Jesus. We mourn, we long for the redemption,
don't we? For Him to come and take us out
of these bodies of death. To be able to say this, brethren,
to be able to say Tell me about your salvation.
Tell me about your hope. Tell me about where you're hoping. What's your hope? Here's my hope. I did the sinning. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit did the saving. That's my hope. If you can say that and mean
it and rejoice in it, God be the glory because the Lord created
it. Amen.