Let us turn to God's Word and
directing you for a while tonight to the words that we have at
the beginning of Isaiah 61. Isaiah 61 and I'll read the first
three verses. You will notice it's the portion
that our Lord Jesus read there at the synagogue in Nazareth
after his baptizing and then led of the Spirit into the wilderness
tempted of Satan forty days returning in the power of the Spirit into
Galilee and then on the Sabbath he was in the synagogue at Nazareth
and the minister gave him the scroll of this prophecy of Isaiah
and he turns to these words Isaiah 61 the Spirit of the Lord God
is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings
unto the meek He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison
to them that abound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn,
to appoint unto them that mourn 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. It is in a prophetic word and
is a prophecy of Christ as the Lord himself makes quite clear
in that passage in Luke when he says, this day is the scripture
fulfilled in your ears. But it's also an historic portion. It's the prophet Isaiah who first
spoke these words under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and in a sense
he could say the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the
Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings. He was there of
course to minister ultimately to those who would be taken into
captivity themselves although he's living about a hundred years
before the Babylonian exile. He speaks of that, but he also
speaks of restoration when he receives his call and his commission. Remember in chapter 6, he sees
the glory of God, sees the throne of God there in the temple. The
king Uzziah would die, and the Lord calls this man to be his
messenger to Judah. and strange the message that
he is to preach. Make the heart of these people
fat, make their ears heavy, shut out and shut their eyes. They
say see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand
with their heart and convert and be healed. Then said I, Lord
how long? It was a dreadful message that
he was to preach. They were a people who had sinned. In the opening chapter he speaks
of them as Sodom and Gomorrah. There was just a very small remnant
of godly people left in the land, but God's judgment was going
to fall upon the nation. And this is the message. Then
said I, Lord, how long? And they answered, Until the
cities be wasted, without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and
the land be utterly desolate. And the Lord hath removed men
far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the
land. But yet, what a contrast, not just a but, but a yet also,
but yet, in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return. God would
preserve that very small remnant even throughout the 70 years
of exile, and they would be in God's appointed time restored,
and it was so of course. Daniel understood these things,
reading in the book of the prophet Jeremiah, who actually ministered
at the time of the Babylonian exile. And there in chapter 9,
as Daniel reads a word of God, so he is moved to pray that the
Lord would indeed fulfill that promise. But here is the prophet,
he also has a message to those who were to be preserved and
in due course restored to the promised land. It was, as we
read at the end of verse 1, to proclaim liberty to the captives,
the opening of the prison to them that abound, to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord. The message is to be understood
in that sense historically. It belongs to Daniel and to to
those amongst the Jews that he was ministering to, but ultimately. And we know this from what we
read there in Luke 4. This is a prophetic word. It
belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ because he is that one who is
the true prophet. He is that great prophet spoken
of in Deuteronomy 18, like unto Moses. And, of course, all the prophets
appealed to Moses to the Lord and to the Testament, he says,
Isaiah. They speak not according to this word. It is because there's
no light in them. They all appeal to Moses. He was the great prophet in many
ways there in the Old Testament. But Christ is greater. The law
was given by Moses. Grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. And so, this passage really speaks
to us of the Lord Jesus. This day is the scripture fulfilled
in your ears. Now, we did read this chapter,
this 61st chapter, last Thursday when I sought to say something
with regards to the Feast of Trumpets that's set before us
here in Leviticus 25 at verse 8 following. the year of Jubilee. The great
year of Jubilee is what's spoken of. Then shalt thou cause the
trumpets of the Jubilee to sound, was the command that God gave
through Moses concerning that year, the 50th year. It was the
sounding of the trumpet. But as I said then, the word
that we have there In verse 8 of that chapter, rendered trumpet
is really a reference to the ram's horn. On other occasions
we do read of the silver trumpets, but that was not a silver trumpet,
it was the ram's horn. And it's the Hebrew word Jobar. And the very idea of jubilee,
remember, is associated with that particular instrument. That's where the name jubilee
comes from and of course this last weekend or the end of last
week it was the the platinum jubilee of her majesty queen
elizabeth the second that was being celebrated throughout the
nation but there is a far greater jubilee set before us there in
leviticus 25 the wonderful type And the commandment was given
by God in verse 10 of that chapter, you shall hallow the fiftieth
year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land. And here again
you see we have the proclamation of liberty in verse 1, the proclamation
of the acceptable year in verse 2. It's a prophecy of Christ's
justice. Leviticus 25 is a type. of Christ
and the preaching of the Gospel. And the Lord Jesus, as He Himself
is the Great Prophet and the Prince of all preachers, so He
is that One who also commissions His servants. In chapter 62,
verse 6, I have said, Watchmen, upon thy walls, O Jerusalem,
which shall never hold their peace, day nor night, ye that
make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, give him no rest
till he establish, until he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. Or doesn't Christ commission
his own apostles go into all the world and preach the gospel
unto every creature? And what is this gospel? Well,
it's that that's addressed, as we see here, to the meek and
the poor and the broken-hearted, to the captives, to the mourners.
These are the ones that the Lord comes to minister to. And when
John the Baptist is in prison and he seems to be beset by doubt,
he's not sure if Jesus of Nazareth is really the promised one, the
Messiah, the Christ, and he sends his disciples to ask the Lord
if He is the Christ. And amongst other things, when the Lord answers those men and
tells them to go to John, amongst the various indications that
He is the promised Messiah, He says, the poor have the gospel
preached to them. It's not just the performance of miracles,
the healing of the sick, the giving sight to the blind, the
raising of the dead, but the poor have the gospel preached
unto them. The preaching of the gospel then.
And what suitable words we have in this portion concerning that
ministry of the gospel. Think of the words of the wise
man in Proverbs, a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold
in pictures of silver. all these words, how those that
were there present hearing the Lord even as he read the words
of Isaiah they could not but observe as he closed the book and sat
down all the eyes were upon him and he began to say This day is the scripture fulfilled
in your ears." Well, I want us tonight to consider reading the
second verse of this 61st chapter. To look at these words then here
in 61 verse 2, "...to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord
and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn."
And two things. First of all, what is this message
that shall be proclaimed? Well, there's the preaching of
the Day of Vengeance. The Day of Vengeance of our God.
Now, there are various Days of Vengeance that are mentioned
in the Old Testament. I assume we see God dealing in
the way of judgment with the sinful world. In the first two
chapters of Genesis we have that account of how God has created
everything and after six days and completing that work he pronounces
it to be very good. But then when we come into chapter
three we quickly read of the fall of Adam and Eve, the entrance
of sin, the disobedience of God's commandment, and within a short
while, why the whole earth seems to be full of evil, full of wickedness. God saw that the wickedness of
man was great in the earth, and every imagination of the thought
of his heart was evil continually. We read those words there in
Genesis 6, 5, just a few chapters into the Bible. The world is
full of wicked men, and God is going to destroy them. But Noah
finds grace in the eyes of the Lord, and then of course we have
the account of Noah making, building the ark, and God is going to
visit the judgment in the way of the universal flood. That
was a day of vengeance of our God, but he does preserve a very
small remnant. And then again, as we read through
the book of Genesis, we come to chapter 19, and we read about
God's visits, terrible judgment upon those wicked cities of the
plain. This is where Lot is dwelling now. There'd been that separation
between Lot and his uncle Abraham. And those cities of the plain,
they were wicked Sodom and Gomorrah. Why the very word Sodomite, of
course, is derived from the perversions that were practiced in those
cities. God will visit them, but God
in Genesis 18 will first speak to his servant Abraham, but then
the destroying angels ascend. And we're told, aren't we, how
the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire
from the Lord out of heaven. That was another day of vengeance
of our God. He doesn't wink at sin. And then, as we go further into
Scripture, we read eventually of the destruction of the Egyptians.
When God delivers His people, the Hebrews out of all that bondage
that they endured in the land of Egypt. How God has raised
up the Pharaoh to demonstrate something of his terrible power
and his justice. Even for the same purpose have
I raised thee up that I might show my power in thee and that
my name might be declared throughout all the earth. There are those
times as God hardens the heart of Pharaoh. How is he going to
bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? He will do it by
means of the 10 plagues. It's plague upon plague. Oh,
that's a day of judgment, surely. And then, after the 10th plague,
when all the firstborns throughout the land of Egypt are destroyed. And Pharaoh then wants rid of
those Hebrew slaves. And so he He sends them out with
some urgency, but then he begins to pursue after them with his
armies. And there are the children of
Israel at the Red Sea, and the mountains about them, and the
armies of Pharaoh pursuing them, and God makes a way through the
sun. And when the Egyptians go in
after them, God visits judgment upon those armies. And so in
Exodus 15 we have that great song of Moses celebrating, celebrating
the day of judgment of our God, the day of vengeance. But not only there in the Old
Testament, ultimately we come to the New Testament and what
is the day of vengeance? Is it not the sufferings? of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Oh, that is the day of vengeance.
The Lord, there in the synagogue, reads this portion of Scripture.
And when we think of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, why,
here of course, in Isaiah, we have much in the way of prophecy
relating to the Christ, We have the familiar words of chapter
9, verse 6, unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given,
and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall
be called Wonderful, Counselor of the Mighty God, the Everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace. What a statement is that concerning
the person of Jesus of Nazareth. This is the child born. The child
is born, but we mark the fact that the Son is given. The Son
given is the Eternal Son, the Eternal Son of God. But what
was conceived in Mary the Virgin's womb, that holy thing, that human
nature, joined to the person of the Eternal Son of God, unto
us a child is born. Unto us a Son is given. and He is the mighty God, and
He is the everlasting Father, and He is the Prince of Peace.
There then we learn something concerning the person of Christ. But in the previous verse, verse
5, is there not reference to the work of Christ? Every battle
of the warrior is with confused noise and garments rolled in
blood, but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire. what sufferings the Lord Jesus Christ
had to endure. And surely that was such a day
of vengeance of our gods. We have that lovely hymn of Gadsby's
that we sometimes sing, and especially at the Lord's table. 536 Behold
a scene of matchless grace, Tis Jesus in the sinner's place. Heaven's brightest glory sunk
in shame, That rebels might adore his name. Tremendous clouds of
wrath and dread In vengeance burst upon his head. Ten thousand
horrors seize his soul, And vengeful mountains on him roll. Surely
that was the day of vengeance, when the Lord God Almighty visited
the punishment of the sins of His people upon the person of
the Lord Jesus, how He suffered there. You see, we can see that God's
justice doesn't trifle with sin. How often are we guilty? We trifle
with our sins. We don't feel sin for what it
really is. Well, I don't. But sin didn't trifle with the
Lord Jesus. He was made sin for us, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. God's justice
didn't trifle there, and the Lord knew it, even as He contemplated
it there in the garden, being in an agony. He prayed more earnestly. if it be possible let this cup
pass from me nevertheless not my will but thine be done how
he agonized in that prayer he is God he has a divine will but
he has a human nature he has a human will and that human will
must submit to all that was purposed in the covenant of redemption
the covenant of grace In an agony he prayed more earnestly, and
his sweat was like drops of blood, we are told, falling to the ground."
Again, we think of the words of the hymn writer. "'Twas here
the Lord of life appeared, and sighed and groaned and prayed
and feared, for all incarnate God could bear, with strength
enough and none to spare, to proclaim the day of vengeance
of our God. Now, isn't that part of the gospel
message? Because Paul tells those Corinthians
what it was that he preached. We preach Christ. That's the
person. We preach Christ crucified. What was the crucifixion? It
is surely the great day of vengeance of our God. We're not to think of the sufferings
of Christ simply in terms of all that contradiction of sin
as all that men did to him. But what was it that the Lord
God visited upon his holy soul when he made that soul an offering
for sin? Oh, it was an awful vengeance.
And this is the message to be proclaimed, the great Jubilee
message the jubilee of the gospel, to proclaim the day of vengeance.
But also here we see to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. So in the second place, to say
something with regard to that acceptable year of the Lord.
You see, it's amazing that when God displays His wrath there
upon the cross, He is also at the same time revealing to us
is great mercy. Well, that's what the Lord God
does. There is the revelation of God
there, and there's the harmonizing of all those holy attributes
of God. As the psalmy says, mercy and
truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other. God is a just God and yet God
is the justifier of all them that believe. He's a just God
and a Saviour. How remarkable it is. It's the
great year of Jubilee. The very thing that we were saying
or trying to say something of only last Thursday evening. There's
a spiritual Jubilee that comes with the Lord Jesus Christ. What
does he do? He proclaims liberty to those
held captive. They're held captive by sin and
by Satan. As he says here in the opening
verse, "...the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because
the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the
meek. He hath sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening
of prison to them that are bound." Now, observe the order as it
follows there in that second verse, "...to proclaim the acceptable
year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our gods." What
is the order? Well, when that acceptable year
When this great year of jubilee is being announced, the first
thing we have is the day of vengeance. And then after that, the comfort
of those that mourn. And so in the second part of
the text, isn't there some instruction here as to the order in which
God deals with us when he comes to save us? The Lord begins with man by making
him feel something of that vengeance of God even in the depths of
his own soul. He has to feel something of his
sinnership. In some degree he must know that
he is a sinner in need of salvation. Nor can he expect to be perfectly
saved till he finds himself utterly lost, says Joseph Hart, and it's
true. They that are whole have no need
of the physician, but they that are sick Christ said, I came
not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Sinners
are high in His esteem and sinners highly value Him. All before
faith came, Paul says, we were kept under the law, shut up to
the faith that should afterward be revealed. There must be something
of that conviction and that's the ministry of the law, we know
that. by the Lord is the knowledge of sin. God sends his Lord to
shut every mouth and all the world is to be pronounced guilty
before him. God makes a sinner feel what
he is. He's a sinner. He makes him feel
his complete and utter inability. What can he do for himself? God
turns him into destruction. As we read there in Psalm 19,
they turn us men to destruction and say, return ye children of
men. Well, this is the way in which
God deals. There's a certain order here
then. Proclaiming the acceptable year, the day of vengeance, and
then the comfort that God will visit upon those whom he has
awakened and cause them to see themselves in the mirror of his
word caused them to see themselves in the light of his holy law
and then ultimately brought them to see the awful horror of sin
in all that vengeance that was visited upon the person of Jesus
Christ. All law and terrors do but harden
all the while they work alone but a sense of blood will part
and soon dissolves the heart of stone But it's the acceptable
time. As we read there in 2 Corinthians
6, they have heard thee in an acceptable time, in the day of
salvation of Isochitl. Behold, now is the acceptable
time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. This is a message. There's liberty
for the captives. If the Son therefore shall make
you free, ye shall be free indeed. Where the Spirit of the Lord
comes, or where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is that freedom,
that freedom from sin, that liberty of the Gospel, known and felt
in the soul of that sinner, blessed with the grace of God. and mark
the greatness of that grace. What do we read here in the text?
It's the day of vengeance. It's the acceptable year of the
Lord. It's the day, in contrast to
the year, or the acceptable year, the aboundings
of the grace of God in His dealings with His people. How remarkable
that is. Sometimes we have such low views
of the goodness and the grace of God. I have to say I was so
struck on Saturday when we went over to Jim North's place there
at Lanford Wood Mission to hear the ministry of Geoffrey Thomas.
and he preached on the prodigal son, I may have said this on
Lord's Day, I can't remember whether I said it here or at
Hagen, maybe in both places, but when he spoke first about
the ruin of that man, and then he spoke of his repentance when
he comes to his senses, and he remarked that the preacher held
that That's one of the marks of real repentance. We come to
our senses, as it were. We see ourselves for what we
are. We realize that we're sinners. But then also, another part,
he says, he remembered the house of his father. He remembered
something about his father. And he determines he's going
to go back and say he's no longer worthy to be called his son.
Will the father make him as a hired servant? And he said sometimes,
he's the preacher, he said sometimes Our views of what repentance
entails are so faulty and so inadequate. Because what does
the father do? He sees the son afar off and
he comes open arms and embraces the boy. He doesn't make him
as a hired servant. No, he says to his own servants,
this my son which was dead is alive again. He was lost and
he's found. Kill the fatted calf. Oh, how
God, you see, is so willing to receive the repentant sinner. We have such low views of the
goodness and the grace of God. It's a day of vengeance. It's
an acceptable year of the Lord. And how God, in His goodness
and mercy, continually extends this day of grace to us. Yet
another opportunity we have to come together tonight to open
God's Word, to hear God's Word, reading it, attempting to preach
from it, and then to turn these words of Scripture into petitions
and prayers and pleadings with our God. All the Lord helped
us in as we come to pray that we might remember what the day
is. It's the Gospel day, and we have
this glorious message to proclaim and to believe, and to pray over. Well, the Lord bless his word
to us. Let us, before we do pray, sing
that lovely hymn of Charles Cole, 984, the tune Amstead, 340. Hark
how the gospel trumpet sounds, Christ and free grace therein
abounds, free grace to such a sinner's burden. And if free grace, why
not for me? 984 TUNE 340