Good evening, brethren. It's good to be here together,
finally on a Wednesday. It's really nice to be able to
meet together here. All right, I'm going to read
our text. And our text tonight is Isaiah
41. And we're going to be reading
from verse 21 to 29. Isaiah 41 verse 21 through 29. The Lord says, Produce your cause,
saith the Lord. Bring forth your strong reasons,
saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and
show us what shall happen. Let them show the former things
what they be, that we may consider them, Know the latter end of
them, or declare us things for to come. Show the things that
are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods. Yea,
do good or do evil, that we may be dismayed and behold it together. Behold, ye are of nothing, and
your work of naught. An abomination is he that chooseth
you. have raised up one from the north,
and he shall come from the rising of the sun, shall he call upon
my name. And he shall come upon princes
as upon mortar, and as the potter treadeth clay. Who hath declared
from the beginning that we may know, and before time that we
may say, he is righteous. Yea, there is none that showeth.
Yea, there is none that declareth. Yea, there is none that heareth
your words. The first shall say to Zion,
Behold, behold them, and I will give to Jerusalem one that bringeth
good tidings. For I beheld, and there was no
man, even among them, and there was no counselor, that when I
asked of them could answer a word. Behold, they are all vanity,
their works are nothing, their molten images are wind and confusion. Let's pray. our gracious Lord. Father, we thank you that you
have been pleased to gather us together and that you have gathered
this flock of your people, the remnant of your people, according
to the election of grace and given us to your son, Jesus Christ
for his inheritance and his bride and Lord, we are humbled and
thankful that you should think upon us and that you should do
all things necessary for our salvation to make us fit servants
of our holy, righteous, wonderful God. And Lord, we look to you
asking that you would, as you gathered us together, Lord, that
you would visit us, that you would come and fall upon us for
good, that your spirit would cause us to hear your word and
that you would give us faith to believe it. Lord, we ask that
you would deliver us from darkness and the confusion of this world,
the confusion of the troubles that we have in our lives. Lord,
that these distractions would melt away and that we would see
Jesus, our Lord and our Savior, our God, our husband, our friend,
that we would see him and rejoice with love and joy and gladness,
and that you would establish peace and comfort in our hearts,
knowing that our God has all things under control and that
you do all things well. Father, we thank you. We thank
you for Our brethren, we thank you, Lord, for the commitment
here that you've put in our hearts and this willingness to meet
together in this public place, even at the expense that it is.
We ask, Father, that you would be pleased to establish us, that
you would call out your sheep, even in this part of the world,
that you would join them with us together in the gospel of
our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and that we would, in unity and
of one mind, lift up the banner of Christ and his gospel, and
that we would march forth under the banner of Christ our Savior.
And we ask, Lord, that you would look to your people, that you
would consider our pain, our sorrows, our distresses, our
weaknesses, Lord, that you would be pleased to comfort us and
teach us and lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's
sake. It's in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
that we pray these things. Amen. Okay. If you would, let's stand and
sing 287 like a river glorious 287. The river glorious is God's perfect
peace, over all victorious in its pride and praise. Perfect
yet it floweth, fuller every day. Perfect yet it groweth,
deeper all the way. Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are
fully blessed. Finding as He promised, perfect
peace and rest. Hidden in the hollow of his blessed
hand. Never foe can follow, never trade
or stand. Not a surge of worry, not a shade
of care. Not a blast of hurry, touch the
spirit there. Straight upon Jehovah hearts
are fully blessed, Finding as He promised perfect peace and
rest. Every joy or trial falleth from
above, ? Praised upon our dial by the son of love ? ? We may
trust him fully all for us to do ? ? They who trust him wholly
find him wholly true ? ? Shain upon Jehovah hearts are fully
blessed ? Binding as he promised, perfect peace and rest. If you would turn to page 262,
Trusting Jesus 262. Simply trusting every day, trusting
through a stormy way, even when my faith is small. ? Trusting Jesus that is all
? ? Trusting as the moments fly ? ? Trusting as the days go by
? ? Trusting Him whate'er befall ? ? Trusting Jesus that is all
? Brightly doth his spirit shine into this poor heart of mine. While he leads, I cannot fall,
trusting Jesus. ? Trusting as the moments fly ?
? Trusting as the days go by ? ? Trusting Him whate'er befall
? ? Trusting Jesus that is all ? Singing if my way is clear,
praying if the path be drear, if in danger heard him call,
? Trusting Jesus that is all ? ? Trusting as the moments fly
? ? Trusting as the days go by ? ? Trusting Him whatever befall
? ? Trusting Jesus that is all ? Trusting Him while life shall
last, trusting Him till earth be past. Still within the Jasper
wall, trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting as the moments
fly, trusting as the days go by. ? Trusting Him whate'er befall
? ? Trusting Jesus that is all ? Thank you, you may be seated.
I would like to read from Psalm
121. Psalm 121. A song of degrees. I will lift
up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. My help
cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth. He will not
suffer thy foot to be moved. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber
nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord
is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee
by day nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee
from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. The
Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this
time forth and even forevermore. Our heavenly and merciful Father,
we thank you for allowing us to gather together in this place. Father, will you please be with
us this evening? Pour out your spirit upon us.
For Lord, it is in vain if we simply meet together and are
content with simply coming together. But Lord, will you pour out your
spirit and allow your servant Eric to declare the glorious
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to us? Father, give him liberty
and freedom and the unction of your spirit. Continue to go with
him, Lord, from day to day. him and Michelle as they labor
for us, Lord, continue to give them health and strength and
courage to go forward. Father, remember us also as a
local assembly. Give us, Lord, a hunger and a
thirst after thee. And remember, Lord, our loved
ones. You know all things most perfectly. Some, Lord, we are
able to declare the gospel to, but Lord, will you bless it to
their souls that we may boast and rejoice in the Lord Jesus
Christ, our only hope. Give us, Lord, the freedom to
declare you to them. Father, bless it, and will you
also provide opportunity locally as we come across people's pathways? Father, open our mouth that we
may clearly declare what you have done for your sheep. Father,
we thank you for doing all that is necessary for our salvation.
Nothing is left for us to do. That is our very hope. Father,
remember us in mercy. For Jesus' sake alone, amen. All right, brethren, let's turn
to Isaiah 41. We'll be in Isaiah 41 and finishing
up the chapter, looking at verses 21 through 29. Now, in our last
message, we were looking at verses 15 through 20 there, and we saw
how the Lord comforted His people. He gave them the promise that
He would fill them with His Gospel Word and with His Spirit, His
Holy Spirit. And these promises are assured
to you brethren that believe, that hope in Christ. They're
assured to you because of the Lord Jesus Christ and the sacrifice
that He made of Himself when He laid down His life to put
away your sins and to do all things necessary for you to be
accepted of God, for you to have fellowship with God, our creator,
who is holy and righteous and perfect, and he calls you his
people. And so we saw last week how that
the Lord would put his gospel in our mouths, in our mouths,
and like worms chewing through dirt and decay, So our mouths,
being filled with the teeth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, attended
with the power of his Holy Spirit, that he would use us to thresh
the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills
as chaff. And we saw how what these mountains
and hills, plural, what these many things are, we saw that
by the gospel, the Lord would cast down the imaginations and
every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge
of God. So all these imaginations that
we as men and women have in our natural heart and minds, the
Lord destroys them. He brings down those strongholds. He tears down the bulwarks And
he comes in, Christ, our conquering God and Savior, our Lord, our
husband. And he destroys these things
that oppose the true and living God. And so tonight what we see
is that these imaginations or these high things are seen in
man's idolatrous religion. Man is very religious. The problem
is it's idolatry. It's just dead letter religion. And so the Lord turns his attention
now to the idolaters, and to their idol gods, whether they
be practiced by heathens, or if their idolatry is practiced
by the Jews, or even idolatry which is practiced in the churches,
so-called, of Jesus Christ, going by his name, but not trusting
him, not believing his word, and doing what they think is
right, and how God is to be worshipped and honored. I titled this message,
The King of Jacob. The King of Jacob. And first I want to look at two
religions with you. It's been said, I'm sure you've
heard it before, I'm certainly not the one to say it, but it
bears repeating that there are but two religions in the world. Just two religions. And I'll
go through these and you may very well recognize one of these
or even both of these religions. Now in one, man believes, man
is taught that he merits acceptance with God, that by his works he
is turning God's favor toward him and that he'll be accepted
with God by the things that he does. And even by something as
small as his own will, his own free will, or by his good works,
whether they're religious good works, or they're just works
that man commonly looks at and says, oh, that's a good work,
what you did there. That's an accepted work, that's
a good work. And there's people of all different
sorts trying to come unto God by their own merits, by their
own works, to gain acceptance and favor with God. Then the
other religion says that salvation is Christ's work alone, right? That he accomplished all things
necessary for his people, and by his sacrifice and his power
and his glory, he makes his people acceptable to God the Father,
to the Godhead. And we are accepted by God because
of Jesus Christ. Now, which do you believe is
the true religion? Only one is true. One is a lie,
and one is true. Well, for most, when they hear
a description of the second one, like I just described, they think,
oh, that actually does sound like what I believe. Well, is
it? Let's be sure. Is that really
what you hold to? Do you really believe that Christ
is all your acceptance with God? Or are you trusting in your own
works to make you acceptable to God? Alright, so if you believe
that you have a free will, and that by your free will, you must
make a choice to either accept Jesus Christ or reject Him as
your Lord and Savior, and that it's by faith, that is, by man's
work of faith, according to his flesh, that he first has to hear,
and he's got to make a decision whether or not he's going to
believe God or reject God. And that God's waiting for that
decision to be made, and he's waiting to see what that man's
going to do, if he's going to choose him or if he's going to
reject him. And so man thinks, well, that
free will, that faith by my free will, that's my contribution.
I have to make that decision, otherwise God's powerless. He
can't. He can't save me. He can't do
anything for me unless I allow him by my faith. I've got to
give him permission first before he'll do anything like that.
Well, if that's what you believe, if you're hoping in your free
will to make the right decision, to make the right choice for
God, then you actually believe in option one. That man, by his
works, has to merit salvation. The work being his own faith,
his own free will that he's exercised to make the good decision as
opposed to the bad decision, right? And so you're holding
to a work's salvation and you're in agreement with those who go
so far as to say it's really not faith at all, it's your good
works. You've got to just do good works and keep doing good
works. You may not think that you have to do good works to
save yourself, but if you're trusting in your own will to
save you, then you really are agreeing with them, that it's
your work that's needed to save yourself. And the Lord says,
you're an idolater. You're worshiping an idol, God. And you're the one that God is
speaking to in this text. You're the one that he's calling
out and bringing forward to say, let's see if your God really
is God. Let's look together and see if He's the God, if He's
the sovereign God, alright? But if you believe that Christ
has effectually put away your sin, the sin of His people, and
that He accomplished our redemption, that He accomplished our purchase
unto Himself, and that there's nothing that can take you away
from God, there's nothing that can prevent you from coming to
God, rather, If you trust Christ fully, you believe that in God's
appointed time, He'll bring that Gospel Word to you. He'll bring
you to the Word, He'll bring the Word to you, and He'll cause
you to hear it. Even if you fight against it
and resist it, God, by His power, is able to overcome your hard,
rebellious heart and the darkness that plagues your mind, and the
bondage that you're in, and deliver you out of that, and bring you
to see the light of God in the face of Jesus Christ, his Savior,
that he's appointed to save his people. And you will hear it,
you will believe, and you will have faith revealed in you, not
of your flesh, not God waiting to see what decision you're gonna
make, whether it's the good decision or the bad decision, but you
will believe, you will bow before God and cry out to him for mercy
and grace and to save you. Save me, Lord, help me will be
your cry. You'll desperately need him and
he'll be your desire. So if that's the case, then you
agree with option two, that salvation is a work of God alone apart
from any works that you or I contribute. all the works necessary, Christ
will bring them forth. He'll, by his power and the fruit
of his spirit, he will produce those righteous fruits in us. All right, so which is it? Are
you the idolater who trusts in his own good judgment? Right,
that I made a good decision, I chose Jesus, but my neighbor
over there, he didn't, he made a bad decision. I'm not like
him, I'm better. I've done better, I made a good
decision, and they didn't. Or are you the sinner saved by
the grace of God and give Him all praise and salvation? Well, to the arrogant one who
boasts of his work, of his contribution, of his faith by his own free
will to get himself saved Our God says in verse 21, produce
your cause. Produce your cause. Let's prove,
let's see if your God, your idol God is the true God. Let's see,
all right? Verse 21, produce your cause,
saith the Lord. Bring forth your strong reasons,
saith the King of Jacob. He's saying, what is the strength? Let's talk about the bones, the
skeleton of your structure, your body here. What's holding you
up? What are you depending on to
keep you standing tall in your boast and in your confidence?
What makes you so good and powerful that you can go and defy the
Word of God as revealed here in His Word and what He says?
How are you so confident and so strong that you can stand
up to holy God and say, no God, this is what I believe is right.
I trust in my free will. I know that your word doesn't
agree with that, but I'm trusting my free will. I've heard from
people that I have a free will and I like the way that sounds
and it gives me something to glory in, so I don't care what
your word says. And the true and living God says,
well, what do you got to stand on? What makes you so confident
and so proud and arrogant and that you can defy the word of
God? Because the word of God declares that we're helpless
sinners, that we can't save ourselves, that we desperately need him.
Well, the Lord would have us look here, let's look at Ephesians
2 to help us see why the Lord says we're helpless sinners.
Ephesians 2, and we'll start in verse 1. Here, Paul makes it clear. He puts us all in the same starting
point, all in the same basket as helpless sinners, unable to
save ourselves. If it came down to us, If it
wasn't for God, if it just came down to us in the flesh when
we were born, we're all dead, helpless sinners. And he says,
verse 1, you hath God quickened. You hath God made alive who were
dead in trespasses and sins. He's talking about our spiritual
life, or lack thereof, that naturally, or spiritually, dead. We can't
produce spiritual fruits, such as faith, such as having a will
that will exercise good, spiritual good. We don't have that. We're
dead in trespasses and sins. Wherein, Paul says, in time past,
ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience. In other words, By nature, being
born of Adam, we all were under the power and sway of the evil
one. We were children of disobedience.
We were rebels, just like everyone else. Among whom also, verse
three, we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of
our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. All
right, so we too were born under the wrath of God. We were born
dead spiritually. We had no spiritual life and
no ability to do good. We weren't able to make a good
choice for God. We were children of wrath and
children of disobedience. Well, what made the difference?
Verse 4, but God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith
he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us,
made us alive together with Christ, by grace ye are saved. In other words, God chose us
in eternity past. He separated us and gave us to
Christ. He chose for himself a rended
seed, an inheritance for his son whom he would save and deliver
from those children of disobedience and out from the wrath of God. Now look at verse eight, for
by grace are ye saved through faith, right, there's that faith,
and that, that faith, not of yourselves, it is the gift of
God. That faith that the believer
exercises, we can't lay any claim to it as being something from
our flesh, as a good decision we've made, because it's actually
a gift, a spiritual gift of God whereby he gave us light and
life to hear His Word, to see His Son, and to believe on Him. That's why any of us believes
on the true and living God. It's not of works, verse 9, lest
any man should boast, for, and here it is, verse 10, for we
are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them. So that faith, that truly believes
that Christ died for me, it was ordained, it's a good work that
Christ has worked in us, which he's ordained in purpose that
we should bring forth that fruit by the power and glory of his
spirit. All right, now, the Lord here
in our text, he calls himself the King of Jacob, the King of
Jacob. Now, religion, would look at
men and women just like Jacob, and if they're honest, right,
because it's only because his name's here in the book that
they think he's a child of God, right, but we would normally
look at someone like Jacob in religion and say, that's a reprobate. That's a horrible person. He's a sinner. He's a bad boy. God's not gonna save him or have
mercy on him. So they would count him among
the reprobate sinners, and yet God, who was holy and righteous
and perfect. He claims Jacob as his own child. He's Jacob's God. He's Jacob's
hope. And he says, I'm his king. He's my servant. He's my child,
and I love him. And we who believe on him, we
love him because he first loved us. It wasn't because we first
chose him, and he was hoping for, please believe on me, I
can't do anything for you unless you believe on me. No, his love
is a saving love. His love is an active love that
goes forth and will deliver us from darkness because he loves
us. He laid down his life for us
actively while we were yet sinners, while we were yet unbelieving
and enemies of God. And so, when we consider who
Jacob is, understand your eyes aren't deceiving you. God's not
making excuses for Jacob, just as he doesn't make excuses in
the Word of God for any of his children whom he loves. We see
them in their raw, fallen form, right? We see them in the sins
that they've committed, and God never makes excuses for men and
women when they sin. He doesn't make excuses, we're
honest. When it says we confess our sins
one to another, it means we're confessing that I'm a sinner,
brother. I'm a sinner, sister. And you're
saying the same thing to me and to one another. We're just sinners
saved by grace. We've got nothing to boast in.
We're not boasting in how good and awesome we are and what good
works we've done. We know that I'm a sinner saved,
you're a sinner saved, and we trust God that he which hath
begun a good work and you and me is faithful to complete. He's gonna bring it all to pass
and bring us home. So this Jacob here, we know that
he was a supplanter even from birth. When he was born, his
brother was in the same womb with him and Esau came out first. He had the birthright, but Jacob
grabbed hold of his heel to try and yank him back to be the one
who was the firstborn And they saw right from the beginning,
this man's a supplanter. He's trying to usurp the authority
that his brother has over him. And so that went on for a time
until one day Esau, who was a good hunter, a very good hunter, came
in from the field having gotten nothing and he was starving and
saw that his brother made a nice little stew, a red stew, and
asked to have some of that porridge. And Jacob being the wily, sinner
that he was, said, well, how about this? If you sell me your
birthright today, I'll give you a bowl of this stew. And Esau
foolishly said, well, what's it to me? I'm going to die anyway
if I don't eat. Sure, you can have the birthright. And there
he despised his birthright. But we see there that it was
in Jacob's heart to usurp his brother and to have that birthright.
when their father Isaac was going to bless Esau, the eldest, he
sent him out to hunt some savory meat for him, and Jacob, under
the supervision of his mother, put on his brother's clothes,
and they made a goat, I think it was, or a sheep, and a savory-tasting
meal, and he put the fur on his hands and on his neck, and he
deceived his father. And he not only deceived his
father, but he took that that blessing of God that Isaac was
going to give to Esau. And so if you look at the two
of them, you would say, well, who's the sinner here? Who's
the wicked man? It's Jacob. And yet the Lord
says, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. So God chose
Jacob before the foundation of the world. before they did any
good or evil, and he set his love upon Jacob. And that means
that Christ had to come and bear all those sins that Jacob committed
and put them away in the death of himself for Jacob to make
him righteous and accepted with God. And so for this man, God
calls himself the King of Jacob. The King of Jacob. And that title
is the title he has for you that are his people, for you that
hope in him. He's your king and he's proud
to call you his child. He loves you and has set his
love upon you and is blessing you now with his word. You see,
the reality is that God is perfectly righteous and just to save Jacob
and then to turn to another man like Pharaoh and harden his heart
and show no mercy or grace to Pharaoh. And yet Jacob's heart,
God turned and delivered him from that wicked, being that
wicked man, he delivered him from that and gave him a hope
in God. And he wasn't perfect, but he loved God and he trusted
him. He was perfect in Christ, not
in his flesh. And so Romans 9, 18 and 20 says,
therefore, hath God mercy on whom he will have mercy And whom
he will, he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, why
did thee yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall
the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made
me thus? That's what a natural sinner,
hearing this word, that's their reaction. Well, if it's God's
choice, then why is he angry with me? How is he going to condemn
me? I'm only doing what I was created to do. And what Paul
says, by the Spirit, says, just because you are ignorant of the
wisdom of God and the power and glory of God, who are you to
talk back to God? Why aren't you instead falling
down on your knees, crying out to Him for mercy when you hear
that? Why do you assume that you're cut off and that God hates
you? Why do you not assume that, or
hope that, well, God's brought me here, though, to hear this
word? That I might be brought low in myself and have no pride
and arrogance and let go of that confidence of my own works and
my own faith and my own flesh and hear Him who saves His people
sovereignly apart from any works that they do. Man is so quick
to judge God and to condemn Him rather than falling down before
Him when he hears it and say, Lord, would you have mercy on
me? Did you do that for me? Would you help me and make me
to know whether or not I'm your child, would you comfort me with
these words? I want to hear those wonderful
words of salvation. Save me, Lord, have mercy upon
me. And that's the cry of a child
who's been touched by the Spirit of God. And they begin to seek
Him and desire to know who this God is that sovereignly saves
His people. And so, we who are fallen with
our weak, puny, little minds Just because we struggle to understand
and comprehend the wisdom and glory of God and salvation, who
are we to condemn him and to think that we know better than
he knows? But that's what man does. Paul said to Titus in 3.5,
he said, it's not by works of righteousness which we have done,
but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost. So it's a work of His power,
taking the blood of Christ by His Spirit and applying it to
our hearts and our minds and delivering us from that death
and giving us life in His Spirit, by His Spirit. So the Lord, the
challenge to the idol gods and to those that trust in those
idol gods, He says, if your God's true, then He's sovereign. If
He's true, Let's meet this God, and He must be sovereign, because
if He ain't sovereign, then He isn't God. All right, and that's
what He shows us. If He's sovereign, He can tell
the end from the beginning. He can show us and prove to us
that He's God. Look at verses 22 and 23. He says, let them bring them forth
and show us what shall happen. Let them show the former things
what they be, that we may consider them and know the latter end
of them. or declare us things for to come, show the things
that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods.
Yea, do something, do good, do evil, do something that we may
be dismayed and behold it together. So the Lord's, he's challenging
them. He's saying, come on, if you're gods, show us that you're
God. Let's see how sovereign and powerful you are. Are you
a God like me? Can you do these things? Because
I don't know of any other God. So let's see what you can do.
And the Lord himself, he does demonstrate. He does show the
end from the beginning. He does declare these things
in his word, whereby we see how he has fulfilled them throughout
the ages. And we'll see, especially concerning
Christ, but back over in Isaiah 14, 26 and 27, Isaiah 14, 26, he said, this
is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth, and this
is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For
the Lord of hosts hath purpose, and who shall disannul it? And
his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back? In other
words, God's got a purpose, and he executes that purpose as it
pleases him. He did it numerous times throughout
Israel's history, and everything he said, which was a picture
and a type and a shadow of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who came
to save his people, all those things were fulfilled in Christ. But the idol gods, they can't
do it. They come and they go, and they're not able to prove
or verify that they are any god of any consequence at all. And
he says, therefore, to them, he puts them in their place in
verse 24, saying, ye are nothing. And your work of naught and abomination
is he that chooseth you. So the idols, God says, you're
worthless. You're worthless. You're nothing.
And those that hope in you and put their confidence in you and
trust in their idol view of God, they're an abomination to me.
I don't hear them. I don't receive them. They're
nothing to me, just like their idol gods. And so, we declare
this truth, we take this time to trace out the true and living
God, that He is sovereign, and that He saves whom He will, as
He will. It's all by the blood, the death,
and resurrection of Jesus Christ, so that those who are trusting
in their free will, that it was their free will, or their works
that saved them, that they should know, wait a minute, you're trusting
in an idle God. A God who's not sovereign. A
God who cannot save unless you allow him to save you. And that's
no God. And that God that you're trusting
in, which is no God, the true and living God says, you're an
abomination to me. And I don't receive you. I will
not receive you or accept you unto me. And so our Lord has
sent us to declare this word, to tell this word to the people
that we let go of that filthy idol from our hands and have
nothing to do with it and cry out to God to have mercy upon
us. All right? And so some we know
will even go so far as to call their idol Jesus, right? They're trusting in idols to
save them, a false Jesus. They put the name Jesus on them,
but they really don't believe in the sovereign God who saved
them by his people. And no one's ever going to believe
on the truth of the God unless God gives them his spirit. Christ
said, ye must be born again. Ye must be born again. You must
be born of the Spirit of Christ. That's how we are given that
faith. That's how we're humbled and
brought low in self and enabled by His Spirit to hear Him and
to believe on Him. Ye must be born again. And so
I pray that hearing that, your prayer, your cry to the Lord
is, Lord, make me born again. And honestly, if you do, that's
the prayer of one who is born again, because that's the only
way that you even care to pray it and have any true desire in
your heart for the Lord to bring that forth in you and to save
you from darkness. All right, now this brings us
to our second point here. Having put us in our place and
shown us that we're all, by nature, idolatrous sinners, God now reveals
His salvation to his chosen seed and makes
them to hear and to believe him. Look at verse 25. He says, I,
right, you did all your works, which were nothing, but I, let
me tell you what I've done, I've raised up one from the north,
and he shall come. From the rising of the sun shall
he call upon my name, and he shall come upon princes as upon
mortar, and as the potter treadeth clay. Well, this is speaking
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And some looking at the types
in the pictures said, well, that sounds like Cyrus or that sounds
like Constantine. But all these types throughout
history, these point to, they're just pictures pointing us to
the Lord Jesus Christ and what he did in the conquering of the
hearts of his people. And so God says, I've sent him
to you. I've brought him to you. As we
saw Paul say in Romans, say not in your heart who shall ascend
up to heaven. That is to bring Christ down. God isn't calling
us to go up to heaven and to bring down a savior for ourselves.
He sent him willingly to save his people. He's provided salvation. So he's not asking us to do the
impossible. He's already done the impossible
for us in providing a savior. And then we read in verse 26,
he's provided this one, and he says, who hath declared from
the beginning that we may know, and before time that we may say
he is righteous? Yea, there is none that showeth.
Yea, there is none that declareth. Yea, there is none that heareth
your words. In other words, all men naturally
reject this one whom God has sent. You would think that we
would welcome him and gladly receive him, but he says, all
men and women are going to reject you. They're all going to turn
away from you. And just as we saw the Jews when
he came, they rejected him, and they crucified him, according
to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Because
it was God's purpose that his son go to the cross, to do that
work of salvation. That must be done. He must shed
his blood. He must lay down his life. to
put away our sins and make atonement. John said in John 1.11, he came
unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received
him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on his name. And that means that what God
is saying is that I've done this work for They must believe on
me, but I'm the one who's gonna bring that forth. And we see
that in the next verse, which says, which were born not of
blood, right? Not their lineage, nor of the
will of the flesh, not their free will, nor of the will of
man, right? I can't do it for you, but of
God. God is the one who gives birth
to his children. All right, now verse 27. The
first, he calls him, the first shall say to Zion. So the first
is Christ. Look back there at Isaiah 41,
verse 4. God calls himself the first.
This is the Lord God. And he says, I, the Lord, the
first, and with the last, I am he. And so this is Christ speaking
to us here. And he's the word of God. That's
how we know the true and living God, by the word of God. And
that word is the Lord Jesus Christ. And I know that this is Christ
himself, because Christ always refers to himself. He's always
called the first in the word of God. Turn over to Revelation,
chapter one. Revelation one, and look at verse
11. He says, saying, I am Alpha and
Omega, the first and the last. All right, go to verse 17, Revelation
1, 17. And when I saw him, John says,
I fell at his feet as dead, and he laid his right hand upon me,
saying unto me, fear not, I am the first and the last. I am
he that liveth and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore,
Amen, and have the keys of hell and of death. And so it's our
covenant God who's made a covenant to save us, to show us mercy
and grace. He speaks to us through his word,
and he reveals the Godhead to us through the Son, who is the
word of God. All right, now he says in verse
27 in our text, Isaiah 41, 27, the first shall say to Zion,
behold, behold them. Look now at all these worthless
idols that you've trusted in, that they're nothing and can
do nothing. And I, whereas I will show you by my power, I will
give to Jerusalem one that bringeth good tidings. So that he said,
his purpose, I'll send Christ. I'm sending the Messiah. Nothing's
gonna stop me from sending him, and nothing's gonna prevent him
from accomplishing the task which I've sent him to do. You see
that? How God, He does what He says
He will do. He purposed to save His people
by one who would bring to us good tidings. Right? Because
now we know, not by my works, I can't save myself. I can't
do this, Lord. The Lord says, you don't have
to. In fact, don't even. Hear Me.
I'm sending your salvation. Believe Me. Trust Me. Believe
Me because I'm going to do it. And He gives His people that
faith to believe Him and trust Him. and to let go of their works.
And so, another example where we see that everything in God's
word is fulfilled in Christ is actually in Luke chapter four.
And we see if we look at verses 18 through 21, Christ is there
in the synagogue, and he's reading from Isaiah chapter 61. And he
says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed
me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal
the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them
that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
And Christ closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister,
and sat down, and all the eyes of them that were in the synagogue
were fastened on Christ." Because no man ever did what he had just
done. They could just tell the Spirit
was there, and they could just see. There's something different
about this man. And he began to say unto them,
this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. So that Christ
really is the fulfillment of all that the Father has promised
us in his word. He is sovereign. He's able. He's
no idle God. He's done exactly what he said
he would do. And so we know that he who said
that he would save his people at the first also said he'll
come again for us. and He'll redeem us and raise
us up to ever be with the Lord in the heavens. We'll be with
Him forever. Trust Him, believe Him. He shall
fulfill His word just as He's always done it in time past.
Alright, so our God sent His Son to be the perfect sacrifice,
the Lamb of God, because we cannot save ourselves. Alright, we cannot
do it. Now look at verse 28. We made our idol gods. We thought,
this is going to please God. This is how he's going to meet
with us and receive us. But the Lord says, I beheld,
and there was no man, even among them. And there was no counselor
that, when I asked of them, could answer a word. So man by his
idols isn't able to save himself. And he's not able to please God.
And the Lord's telling us that very plainly. So if God doesn't
give us that gift of faith, We're not gonna open him. We're gonna
keep on trusting in those idols and believing that that's where
God meets us and that God's pleased with that. But he says in verse
29, behold, they are all vanity. Their works are nothing. Their
molten images are wind and confusion. And so that's really the sum
of it, that religion, man's religion, as he keeps on trekking and treading
in his religion, in his works, and trusting his free will, and
what he's done, and his catechisms, and books of religion, and his
preaching of works to his congregation. All those things cannot save.
That's the house of death, and God doesn't meet with his people
there. He meets with his people in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
you know where Christ is, It's where Christ is exalted and glorified
in the salvation of His people. And the Lord gives us faith to
really believe that He's done everything necessary, and that
all the works that He desires that we should bring forth, it's
by His power that He brings them forth, according as He's ordained
us to walk in them, because we're Christ's workmanship. And He
stirs our heart, He shows us how weak and foolish we are,
and He's the one that turns our heart and gives us that desire
to serve one another, to be kind to one another, to be forgiving,
to be patient, and to do things that we think are nice and helpful
to one another. Remember the widow who died,
Dorcas, and she used to sew the sweaters for the women just so
they could keep warm in the cold, just that little work was a work
of the Spirit in her, she did what she could to help the brethren
and to be a help, an encouragement to the brethren. So the Lord
uses even those things that seem small in our eyes, but they're
not small in God's eyes, and they really are an encouragement,
right? Just you brethren being here
is an encouragement to me, and it's an encouragement to your
brethren, just that you would be given the heart to be here.
So, glorify God. Rejoice in His Spirit and in
His power. He's not looking for you to go
and conquer New York City. He's saying, just be faithful.
Come and hear my word and rejoice in my Son, Jesus Christ, whom
I've provided for your comfort and your joy and your peace till
I come. And just keep looking to me,
He says. So, I pray the Lord bless that word and to the comfort
of your hearts. Let's pray with Him. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you, Father. Lord, you know our hearts and
how our minds spin and how we work ourselves up thinking that
Lord, our hope in you is not enough and our faith that you've
given to us is somehow not enough. But Lord, it's your power, it's
your work of grace in us. Lord, we ask that you would Indeed,
comfort us that you would reveal Christ in us and cause us, Lord,
to be settled in him, to rest in our Savior. Lord, comfort
your people. Give them rest tonight and help
them to get a good sleep. And Lord, that we would feel
refreshed and ready to serve you tomorrow. It's in Christ's
name we pray and give thanks. Amen. Let's stand and sing a closing
hymn, 175. 175, standing on the promises. Bending on the promises of Christ
my King Through eternal ages let his praises ring Glory in
the highest I will shout and sing Bending on the promises
of God Standing, standing, standing on the promises of God my Savior. Standing, standing, standing
on the promises of God. Sending on the promises that
cannot fail, When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail,
By the living Word of God I shall prevail, Sending on the promises
of God. Standing, standing, standing
on the promises of God my Savior. Standing, standing, standing
on the promises of God. Standing on the promises of Christ
the Lord, Bound to Him eternally by love's strong cord, Overcoming
daily with the spirit's sword, Standing on the promises of God. Standing, standing, standing
on the promises of God, my Savior. Standing, standing, standing
on the promises of God. Standing on the promises I cannot
fall, listening every moment to the Spirit's call. Resting in my Savior as my all
in all, standing on the promises of God. Standing, standing, standing
on the promises of God my Savior. Standing, standing, I'm standing
on the promises of God. Thank you.