Shell's on her way home now,
so she'll be getting here probably right after this service, but
she'll be listening, tuning in as she drives. All right, brethren,
we're gonna begin. Let's read from our text. I'll read a little extra. We'll
be in Isaiah 33. And I'm gonna pick up in verse
18, and we're gonna read to the end of the chapter. Our text
is verse 21 through 24. Speaking to the Lord's people,
he says, thine heart shall meditate terror. Where is the scribe? Where is the receiver? Where
is he that counted the towers? Thou shalt not see a fierce people,
a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive, of a stammering
tongue that thou canst not understand. You're not going to see them,
the Lord says. Look upon Zion, the city of our
solemnities. Thine eyes shall see Jerusalem,
a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down.
Not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed. neither
shall any of the cords thereof be broken. Now here's our text
for tonight. But there the glorious Lord will
be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams, wherein shall go
no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. For the Lord is our judge, the
Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our King, He will save us. Thy tacklings are loosed. They
could not well strengthen their mast. They could not spread the
sail. Then is the prey of a great spoil
divided. The lame take the prey. And the
inhabitant shall not say, I am sick. The people that dwell therein
shall be forgiven their iniquity. All right, let's seek the Lord
in prayer. Our gracious Lord, Father, we thank you for your
great love and mercy, for your abundance of grace to your people,
which you pour out upon them through your Son, Jesus Christ,
who has richly provided for us who has accomplished our salvation,
and delivers us from all our enemies, the threat of our enemies,
and that which they would do to us if they could. But Lord,
you shall never allow your people to be taken away from you, to
fall from your grace. to fall away into everlasting
darkness. Lord, your salvation is sufficient,
full, and free. And Lord, we thank you. We thank
you for your grace and for what you've provided for us in your
Son, Jesus Christ, our glorious Lord. Father, we pray for our
brethren, those who are suffering and hurting, those, Lord, who
feel the sting of being without their spouse, Lord, who need
comforting, who need to be comforted by Your Spirit, and to feel Your
love. Lord, help us, help us to indeed
be a help to our brethren, help us to remember those who are
suffering, and those who are weak, in those who just need
someone to be thinking of them. Lord, help us. Help us to speak
a word in season. Help us to be a help where we
can. Lord, enable your people to be
standing at the ready to serve you rather than our flesh. Lord,
we know that it's by your Spirit that you turn our hearts and
give us that desire and that longing to be used of you and
to be a help to our brethren. Lord, we ask that you would bless
your people now. Lord, that you would soften our
hard hearts, that you would make us tender to the moving of your
spirit, that you would open our ears and give us a soft heart
to receive your word. Lord, we ask that you would bless
this hour. Father, please pour out your spirit upon us. Help
me to preach your word For Lord, You are worthy, and You are to
be declared and rejoiced in. Help me, Lord, to declare Your
Gospel and to speak clearly. And Father, help Your people
to hear it, to receive Your Word, and to believe the Lord Jesus
Christ. Lord, help us to see Jesus, our
Lord and Savior. It's in His name we pray and
give thanks. All right, brethren, we're gonna
be in Isaiah 33, and we'll be looking at verses 21 through
24. 21 through 24. Now, last week, we saw how that
the Lord brings his people to acknowledge the might of their
God in the salvation that he has wrought for them. He says
there in verse 13, Isaiah 33, 13, He says, hear ye that are far
off what I have done. And ye that are near, acknowledge
my might. So what he did was accomplish
the salvation of his people on the cross. That's what we are
to hear that the Lord has done. He's accomplished our salvation. He's done for us what we can
never do for ourselves. And so the Lord draws His people
who are far away, far out in darkness, He draws them through
the gospel and He brings them near to confess his might, to
acknowledge the might of our Lord and Savior to accomplish
our salvation, to deliver us from darkness and the bondage
of our sin. Tonight, our message shows that
not only are we protected by our Lord and that he provides
salvation to us, delivering us from our enemies without, But
within these details of this passage that we're looking at
tonight, within these details of that salvation, of our deliverance
from our enemies, We also see that salvation has come to the
election of grace where they themselves are saved and delivered
from the dead works of this flesh. And that we are delivered from
the dominion of the body of sin. We're no longer under the rule
and the power of the dominion of the body of sin. because Christ
our Savior destroyed that body of sin. He destroyed the powers
of darkness. He triumphed over the principalities
and powers in high places which ruled over his people. He did this when he was crucified. I've titled this message, A Great
Spoil Divided. A Great Spoil Divided. So, in light of the church's
provision and protection by her Lord from her enemies, our text
begins in Isaiah 33, verse 21. But there, the glorious Lord. Now this is a reference to our
risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. who is now raised up
to the heavens and seated on the right hand of majesty, on
the right hand of the throne of his father. And this, our
glorious Lord, will be unto us, us, this being the church, the
new Jerusalem, the bride of Christ. He will be unto us a place of
broad rivers and streams, wherein shall go no Galiwathors, neither
shall gallant ship pass thereby. The thing about rivers and cities
is that a river made it so that a city usually benefited and
profited greatly through trade. But the negative about the river
is that it also allowed access for their enemies to approach
them and to attack them either by land or by sea, by water. So unlike Egypt though, unlike
Egypt, which had the Nile River and Babylon, which had the Tigris
and the Euphrates rivers, Jerusalem has no great waterway around
it. It had some springs, but it had
no great river or waterway near it. And yet the Lord says here
in this text that He will be unto us a place of broad rivers
and streams. And so the picture that the Lord
is giving us is that he will put a great gulf, he will fix
a great gulf between us and our enemies so that we can never
be touched by them. Think of that gulf which was
recorded for us when our Lord spoke of Abraham and that rich
man. in Luke 16, 26, and Abraham said
back to him, beside all this between us and you, there is
a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to
you cannot. Neither can they pass to us that
would come from thence. Now, in spite of the Lord being
to us a place of broad rivers and streams, were told wherein
shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass
thereby." Now, there is a sense in which our Lord defends his
people against their enemies so that, as Isaiah would say
later, no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper. And
every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou
shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants
of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord." So
the Lord's going to continually deliver his people from their
enemies that would destroy their souls. In this life, we may be
touched by hardships and afflictions, we may hear the words of our
enemies, and they may seek and sometimes do us harm. But that's
not what the Lord is saying. He's saying that in spite of
all their attacks, they shall never be able to remove you from
my hand. We are always the possession
of our God. we are his people, we are his
inheritance, and we shall never fall away into outer darkness. And so, the people of God, they're
never going to perish in their sins. They're never going to
come into judgment for their sin. They're never going to be
conquered by their enemy, who would seek to separate us from
the love of our God. But there's also another sense
that we have here in these words, which I believe enables us to
understand why our enemies can never shipwreck the faith of
God's people. We worry about that sometimes.
We see our sin, we see our weakness, we see our folly, we see our
faults. And there's many times where
we think, Lord, I think if you don't save me, Lord, I'm going
to fall away. And that's true, if the Lord
doesn't save us, we shall fall away. But the Lord promises us
that we won't fall away. He's the one keeping us. It's
not ourselves keeping us. It's not our faith. And so the
Lord is giving us here a picture so that we see and know that
we shall always be delivered and never eternally lost to the
will of our enemies. We're told that the glorious
Lord himself will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams
wherein shall go no Galiwathors, neither shall Galen's ship pass
thereby. In other words, the picture that
we're given here of a broad river and streams is a metaphor. It's a metaphor. And this is
why no ship shall pass thereby, because it's not that kind of
a river. and it's not that kind of a boat
either. In Revelation 9, verses three
and four, we see how the Lord in scripture uses metaphors.
He gives us metaphors to help us understand things. And so in Revelation 9, three,
we're actually given a metaphor about locusts. And we're told
in verse three that there came out of the smoke, that's the
smoke of the furnace, which is a picture of every foul and lying
doctrine, every falsehood, every lie that is just evil and speaks
against the truth, that exalts itself against the truth of God. And there came out of the smoke
locusts upon the earth. and unto them was given power,
as the scorpions of the earth have power." And scorpions are
found in the wilderness, and we're in the wilderness. This
is a barren wilderness place that we're in, and we're told
that their sting would pierce them, and the sting of a scorpion
injects poison into you, and it can kill you. And it was commanded
to these locusts that they should not hurt the grass of the earth,
nor any green thing, neither any tree." In other words, these
aren't normal locusts, because as you know, locusts, we even
have a plague of locusts in the world right now, which is begun
in Africa, in the desert areas of Africa, in the Middle East,
and making their way to China, where the rain is falling and
it's getting cooler over there. And so there's much vegetation
for the locusts, right? Because that's what locusts do,
they eat green things. But these don't eat green things
because they're not normal locusts. But they harm only those men
which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. You see,
that seal of God is a picture of the elect children of God,
and they can't touch them, but only those that would suffer
from their noxious, poisonous lies. Those are the ones that
they hurt. The falsehoods cannot infect
and destroy the people of God, right? Those who have the seal
of God on their foreheads. Now, the seal of God in their
foreheads and this place of broad rivers and streams is the same
thing. It's a picture, it's declaring
to us the blood of Christ, which cleanses us, which keeps us,
which delivers us from our sins. It's the grace of our God's righteousness
upon us. It's the blood of Jesus Christ. And so the reason why the enemies
shit. ships will never arrive on our
shores to defeat us and to take us away captive is because of
the grace of our God and our Savior. It's because the Lamb
of God has prevailed. He's prevailed in the work which
the Father sent him to do, when he sent him to accomplish and
redeem his people and accomplish their salvation once and for
all by the death of himself. through the shedding of His blood
to justify us from all our sins, to deliver us out of the house
of bondage and bring us into fellowship and reconciliation
and peace with the Father, all through the blood of the Lamb. And so we're delivered from our
enemies. We're delivered out from their
dominion and their fierce rule over us. and we're delivered
into the arms of our Savior. Turn over to Romans 6. Romans
6, and we'll pick up in verse 5.
Romans 6, 5. Here, the Spirit moves Paul to
write, for if we have been planted together in the likeness of his
death, and we have, we shall be also in the likeness of his
resurrection. We shall, brethren, knowing this,
that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin
might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, for
he that is dead is freed from sin." You see, death entered
into the world with sin. When sin entered, death followed. And so once a person dies, they
cease to commit sin there in their flesh. But the sting of
death is sin. Alright, that's the problem with
dying, is that we are sinners and we're all guilty of breaking
the law of God. And so judgment follows those
who die outside of Christ. Judgment follows those who die
without having the seal of God in their foreheads. They're not
covered in the blood of Christ. But for the people of God, our
Savior's death, which he, when he willingly laid down his life
for his people, he delivered us, he justified us. He saved
us so that in Him we've already been judged. We've died to the
law and we are free now from sin. And we are free now by His
Spirit to worship and serve the true and living God. And so Romans
6 verse 8 says, Now if we be dead with Christ, We believe
also, or we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that
Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more. Death hath
no more dominion over him." And that, what we see here in this
passage is that the dominion which is over those people who
all have their part in Adam, Yet in the body of sin, with
all its lies and practices and dead letter religion and dead
works and practices, they're under that dominion and power
of sin. But we have been delivered unto
Christ. We are His people and we're under
the dominion now of Christ our Savior. And so this is the place
of broad rivers and streams It's the grace of our God for his
people in Christ. We are wrapped up and covered,
surrounded by the grace of God, pictured in this broad river
and streams, that there's this water all around us protecting
us. That's the grace of God, brethren. It's all about us. protecting
us and keeping us. We're under Christ's dominion,
right? And so when it says here that
there shall go no galley with oars, he's declaring to us that
our salvation is the work of Christ our Savior. It's not based
on our works. We didn't roll this galley with
the works of our hands upon the oars to get us to this grace,
to have us tread in the waters of the grace of our God. It's
all been done for us, in grace, by Jesus Christ himself. And so we're never going to land
upon the shores of our God's grace by rowing hard in the works
of religion and these things by the strength and the will
of our own flesh. There's no galley of oars that's
gonna be seen on these waters. Like those men who were with
Jonah. when they heard the word declared
to them of their salvation, Jonah said, cast me into the wrath
of God, cast me into the sea of God's wrath. And we're told
that first, their first reaction was that they rode hard, right? They heard the word, nevertheless,
the men rode hard to bring it to land, but they could not,
brethren. and we can either, for the sea
wrought and was tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto
the Lord. And that's what the Lord has
done for us, right? Through the gospel, we've heard
of the salvation of God. We've heard of the holiness and
the righteousness of God. And many years we rode hard in
religion. We rode hard in our good works,
trying to bring it to land, but could not, for the sea wrought
tempestuously against us. but in the grace of our God,
he caused us to cry out to the true and living God and to seek
his forgiveness and his mercy and grace, which can only be
found in his son, Jesus Christ. All right, now when it says,
neither shall gallant ship pass thereby, it's because we don't
have anything in ourselves to boast in, right? There's no pomp
and glory and gallant ship here. We've got nothing to declare
and boast in of what we've done. There's no skill of our pride
that we can look to and say, because I did this, or because
I did that, or I refused this, and I said this to that person,
and I did it this way. No, we're nothing in ourselves. We owe all our salvation, all
the glory, the praise and the honor, to our God and Savior,
Jesus Christ. It's all of grace. And the Lord
is revealing to us over and over again in His Gospel Word that
salvation belongeth unto the Lord. It belongs to Him. Psalm 3 8. All right, so we now
are under Christ's dominion. In Isaiah 33, verse 22, here
we read, for the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver,
the Lord is our king, he will save us. All right, in other
words, Christ is our prophet, our priest, and our king, and
as such, He is the one who saves His people, right? He laid down His life to give
us life, to obtain eternal redemption for us. He's our righteousness,
our sanctification, our redemption, our resurrection. So that in
Christ and in Christ alone, it won't be in the gallant ship
of ourselves, but in Christ alone we make our boast in Him. And so now our passage here provides
a beautiful illustration for us of how our glorious, exalted
Lord, Jesus Christ, the Savior, how he triumphed over our enemies
in the very vessel which they thought would slay him and take
captive his people, that they might lead the Lord's people
away forever in the chains of sin and darkness. They thought
that they had him, and in the very vessel of death that they
thought to inflict upon him, our Savior turned it around and
triumphed over them gloriously. We're told there in Colossians
2, 14 and 15, There the very instrument of death which was
used upon him was the very place in which our Lord removed the
curse that was upon his people and set them free. He let us
go free and he bore our death. He bore our curse. He was made
a curse for us. He was made sin that we might
be made the righteousness of God and him. Colossians 2 14,
we're told that he was blotting out the handwriting of ordinances
that was against us, which was contrary to us and took it out
of the way, nailing it to his cross. And having spoiled principalities
and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over
them in it. All right, now you see this next
verse here describes that mighty sea vessel, right? It's a mighty
sea vessel by which an army would appear great and glorious, right? They would ride up in their ships
and it took money to do that. They had to be a wealthy and
a powerful nation to have these ships. And so here they come
in their mighty vessel. That's the picture we're given,
right? It's just like what Israel, or Judah rather, in that day,
when Isaiah is preaching to them, when he's declaring to them what
the Lord's word is for them, they were looking at Assyria
invading. And so the comparison here is
Assyria is being compared to a great, and mighty vessel, a
great ship that's coming in to make war against the people.
You see the tacklings of a ship, this would be the ropes and the
cords and the tacklings which would be likened in a great army
to the princes, the commanders, the captains, the sergeants,
the majors, the colonels, the generals. That's who would be
compared there in the tacklings of a ship and they would be used
to control and direct the ship tactically. They would maneuver
the ship to go in the direction it needed to go to seize the
goals that they had. And then the mast of the ship,
the mighty, great mast of the ship would be likened to the
king, right? From which the ship would draw
all its strength and power. Because if the mast is broken,
that ship, no matter how glorious one thinks it is, it's going
nowhere in the water. not in those days, it needed
the mass, because that's what the great sale went up upon and
made it move. And so the sale here is the army. It's comparable to the army by
which the king unfurls the sale of his army and sends them into
the land, conquering the people of the land. So here in this
next verse in Isaiah 33, 23, We read of these tacklings and
the mast and the sail. It says, thy tacklings are loosed. They could not well strengthen
their mast. They could not spread the sail. Then is the prey of a great spoil
divided. The lame take the prey. Now, We know what the Lord's
declaring to us, what he's showing to us here is that no enemy shall
conquer his people. They shall not be able to overcome
us and to take captive our souls and bring us, drag us down to
everlasting damnation, but rather we are protected by the grace
of our God, all right? Now, the reason why we are protected. The reason why we are under the
grace and the kindness and the mercy of our God is seen in Christ,
our willing Savior, who laid down His life for His bride. This is why the enemy cannot
touch us. When it says, thy tacklings are
loosed, The margin says, they have forsaken thy tacklings. All right, the mariners there
have forsaken thy tacklings. You know, what princes are wiser
and able to better maneuver than Christ? Who's more skilled than
him? And yet Christ our Savior was
forsaken by all. Christ our Savior was forsaken
by all, and He went alone and accomplished our deliverance. He accomplished our salvation.
He put away our sin by the death of Himself, all alone, being
forsaken, not only of His brethren and all those who followed Him
and knew Him and were His friends, but even the Father forsook the
Son. And it says that he's the mighty
mast, right? When we see this mighty mast,
he's the mighty mast. He's the great strength of his
people. And yet for his people, his body
was broken. His body was broken when he suffered
and died as the sinner's substitute. When he died the death of his
people, when he was numbered with the transgressors. Brethren,
that's you and that's me. We're the transgressors and our
great glorious Lord and Savior was numbered with us, with us. And then we see the cell, right? Christ did not spread the cell. He didn't spread the cell, though
he could have called legions of angels. to come down and to
take him off that cross and to destroy his enemies. He didn't
do that. He didn't unfurl the sail. He
didn't send out the sail like that. But instead he remained
there on the cross to save and to deliver his people. Instead
of delivering himself, we're told that he made himself of
no reputation. He took upon him the form of
a servant and was made in the likeness of men. And being found
in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross. And because of his great
work, we see here in this passage, it says, then is the prey of
a great spoil divided, the lame take the prey. Brethren, we're the lame ones. We are those that are lame. And Christ is the great spoil. He's our inheritance. He's the
one whom we've won, brethren. His salvation, His work, His
righteousness, which He's obtained, is divided unto us. the picture of us being lame,
what the Lord is saying there, the beautiful picture here, that
the lame take the prey, the encouragement for us is that to you and me,
who are the chief of sinners, who know ourselves to be the
slowest to get it, the most foolish in the way, the most sinful of
the sinners, the weakest of our brethren. We that can't ever
seem to get there, by the time that we get there, we expect
there's nothing left for me. And yet there's such an abundance,
so great is the spoil, so great is the love and grace and mercy
of our God, that though we be the lamest and weakest, who just
get to the crest of the hill and expect to see nothing there
left for us, because we're so late and we're so feeble, and
yet There's such an abundance of love, grace, and mercy of
our God and His Son, Jesus Christ, that even the lame shall go away
full, having a full portion of this great spoil of Jesus Christ,
our Savior. There is plenty of grace left
for His people. you that are sinners, you that
have no hope, you that have no ability to row the oar and to
take yourself safely to the other side of grace. He says, lay down
your weapons, throw aside your works and your strengths by which
you think to save yourselves, and look to the Savior. Look
to my Son, whom I have provided the salvation of my people, and
whom I am gracious and long-suffering to, who stand before my throne,
faultless. Look to the Savior. Behold the
King. your King and your Savior. Now,
we're told here in verse 24, and the inhabitant, all right,
those are the people of God, the people of his land, the inhabitant
shall not say, I am sick. You see, when you partake of
this prey, he heals you of your sickness. What's our sickness? Our sin and our iniquity. Brethren,
we sinned in Adam. We're dead in our trespasses
and sins. We've all come short of the glory
of God because we're fallen, sin-sick creatures. We have no
spiritual life naturally of ourselves. We have no ability to know the
true and living God. We have no strength or knowledge
of how to serve Him, of how to cleanse our filthy hands of the
sins and iniquities which we've committed. the trespasses we've
done, the debt of righteousness which we owe to God and cannot
pay, Christ has paid it all. And he's made you righteous in
himself. Believe him, trust him, look
to him, go to the Savior. To all whom the Lord has given
an ear, they hear this word. and feeble as they be, they crawl
up by his strength and power and find a full portion of grace
in Christ the Lord. And so brethren, the sickness
that we had is our sin and iniquity, but now in Christ we say, we
shall no longer say, I am sick, I'm healed, I'm forgiven, I've
found forgiveness with my God. We're told the people that dwell
therein shall be forgiven their iniquity. That's because of Christ. That's the one whom we thank. He's the one whom we praise and
give glory to, because we're healed of our disease. We're
healed of our sicknesses and made whole by him. And we are
now forever saved by his grace. I pray the Lord will comfort
you with these closing words, which I'll read from John chapter
10, picking up in verse 27, and we'll go down to verse 30. Our Lord said, my sheep hear
my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, right? His salvation assures that we
hear his voice and follow him." It's his work of salvation. It's
all of his work. And he says, I give unto them
eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any
man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. I pray that the Lord would bless
this word to your hearts, and though you be a feeble, lame
sinner, if you have no hope in yourselves, no strength, no goodness,
no righteousness to make yourself right before the true and living
God, I pray that He reveal to you Jesus Christ. because it's
the Spirit of our God which regenerates us and gives us life, enabling
us to look to Christ, to see Him, to hear His voice, and to
believe Him. I pray the Lord would do that
for His people, even this very night. Amen. All right, brethren,
let's close in prayer. Our gracious Lord, we, Father,
help us, for we are so weak. we are so helpless in ourselves
and have no means of saving ourselves or delivering ourselves from
the hand of the enemy. But Lord, your word is full of
promise, abundant with promises that you protect your people
and that our enemies shall never overcome us and shall never defeat
us in the end. Lord, shipwrecking the faith
which you've given to us, but you forever shall keep us and
protect us and provide for us. Lord, we pray for your people,
those that are ill and not well, those that are suffering, those
that are struggling and fearful. Lord, encourage your people,
strengthen them in Christ. Help them to hear the word of
grace and give them faith to believe it. Lord, it's in Christ's
name we pray and give thanks. All right, brethren. I look forward
to seeing you soon.