so so All right, good evening, everyone.
I'd like to welcome you again to another service. And it's good to be here and
gathered around the word of our Lord, to hear what our Lord says
to us this evening. I'm gonna open with reading the
scriptures, and I'll read from our text, which will be Isaiah
32. Isaiah chapter 32. And we're gonna look at verses
one through four. Behold, a king shall reign in
righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall
be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest,
as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great or heavy
rock in a weary land. And the eyes of them that see
shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. The heart also of the rash shall
understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall
be ready to speak plainly." Let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
Father, we thank you for your mercy, for your grace, which
you show to us in your Son, Jesus Christ. Lord, that you have provided
to us the King whom you have set over your people to be their
deliverer, their salvation, our all in all. Father, we thank you that you
have provided him to deliver us from Your just and holy wrath, which is due to us for our sin. But Lord, we thank You for Your
grace in Your Son, that Lord, You have provided a hiding place,
that You have provided Your Son to be the deliverer of Your people. Father, we thank you for gathering
us together here tonight. Lord, bless your people. Bless
your people, Lord, that are tuning in through this remote service. Lord, that you would bless us,
that you would knit our hearts together in the Spirit, that
you would cause us to love the same Lord Jesus Christ, to love
this Gospel, rejoicing in the work that our great Savior has
done for His people, apart from any righteousness or works of
ourselves. But Lord, that You save Your
people in free, sovereign grace. Lord, we ask that You would indeed
open our eyes, open our ears, cause us to see the Lord, cause
us to hear His voice, Lord, deliver us from darkness, deliver us
from the bondage of sin and the corruption of this flesh, and
cause us to walk by Your Spirit, ever looking to Jesus Christ.
Lord, we ask that You would teach us, that You would teach us the
knowledge of Jesus Christ and of His salvation. Lord, help
us In that, Lord, we struggle with sin, we struggle with doubts
and unbelief. Lord, we're nothing without you.
Father, we pray for those that are sick, those that are suffering,
those that are lonely, those that have nothing in this world.
Lord, we pray that you would be all to them. that you would
be the healing of your people, the comfort, that you would be
our husband, our faithful friend, our God and our Savior. And Lord,
that you would indeed give us your Spirit and make us your
people and cause us to walk before you in faith by your Spirit. It's in Christ's name that we
pray and give thanks. Amen. All right, so the text is Isaiah
32, and Lord willing, if we have time, we'll make it through the
first four verses of the chapter tonight. Now, the chapter opens,
setting our eyes upon a king, and this is the king, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Man proves himself to be foolish
and sinful, But the Spirit of God turns our eyes, not upon
self, and not upon our works and what we need to be doing
better. The Spirit turns our eyes upon
Jesus Christ, because He is the believer's righteousness. He's the one in whom God has
delivered His people, putting them in the care and the trust
of his faithful son who does all things well, and he redeemed
his people with the purchase price of his own blood." I've
titled this message, Behold the King. Behold the King. And we'll have three divisions.
First, we'll be looking at the one whom we declare. We declare
this king. And then we'll see a description
of this king, what he does, who he is, and then we'll look at
the king's effect upon his people, the effect of the king upon his
people. All right, so this one we declare. Our God now calls
our attention to this one by whom we are to be saved. He says, verse one, behold, a
king shall reign in righteousness and princes shall rule in judgment. Now this right here is very different
from how men in the flesh rule and reign over other men. All
kings are in the business of reigning. They rule over men,
and so they do what pleases them. A king is able to do what pleases
him, what he wants to do. But we never find one as a result
of that. Because men are in the flesh,
we never find any that rule in righteousness, in perfect righteousness,
as this one who is described here before us. Now, there's
been some good kings. There's been some good kings
in Judah. We know of David and his son
Solomon. These were good kings. And some
have even pointed out that this is likely a reference to Hezekiah,
historically. but Hezekiah and no other man
in the flesh is righteous, not righteous in the flesh, not righteous
in himself. So this is a description of the
king of kings and the Lord of lords. This is Jesus Christ,
the righteous. You see, Christ is the sovereign
king. He's the one whom the father
raised from the dead and raised him up to the right hand of the
throne of God, where he sits upon the throne of God, ruling
and reigning and implementing his will in heaven and in earth. He's the one who is exalted now,
having been raised up from the dead by God the Father." All
right, so it's this king, he's now king, he is sovereign, reigning
and ruling, doing as he pleases. This is the king whom we preach,
and we preach him through the gospel, the good news, the gospel. Listen to Isaiah 52 verse 7 and
8. Isaiah 52 7, how beautiful upon
the mountains are the feet of him, him whom we declare, that
bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings
of good, that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, thy God
reigneth. Now I emphasize that word him,
calling your mind and your attention to Christ, the subject who we
preach. He's the king. And you might
recall being familiar with Romans 10 where Paul The way he words
it, it sounds as though he's speaking of the preachers, the
one whom God raises up and sends out to preach the word, the gospel. But that's because when we're
preaching the gospel, we're not preaching ourselves, we're not
preaching our own words, we're not preaching words of flesh
exalting man and exalting the flesh, but we're preaching another. we're preaching Jesus Christ
and his righteousness. We're preaching the one whom
God himself has exalted before our eyes and pointing us to his
salvation whom he's appointed in his son. And I know that this
here in Isaiah is speaking of Christ because he says in the
next verse, thy watchmen shall lift up the voice. This is Isaiah
52.8. They shall lift up the voice
with the voice together. shall they sing, for they shall
see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring again Zion." And
that's declaring to us that when we speak the truth, when we are
speaking that gospel that God has declared, our voice is joined
with His voice. We're speaking not our own words,
but the words of our God, by His Spirit, declaring the gospel,
and there's a unity there. Because we're not speaking ourselves,
we're speaking of Christ. And so there's a unity there.
Our voices are declaring his voice. We're speaking his voice,
and he's speaking to you tonight, wheresoever the gospel is preached. Wheresoever the gospel is preached.
Not exalting self, but exalting Christ. And so these are the
words of our king that we speak. And so his words are sent directed
by the Spirit into the hearts of his people. He causes them
to go into the ear, the ear of faith which he gives, and to
go into the heart to be received in that heart prepared by the
Spirit. And so he causes us to look,
not to self, not inward to self, but to look to him, to look to
Jesus Christ. And so Christ's reign is very
different from the reign of those that are born of Adam's corrupt
seed, those that are born of Adam's corrupt flesh. Instead,
Christ himself reigns in righteousness. He tells us over in Isaiah 45,
verse 19, I, the Lord, speak righteousness. I declare things
that are right. So when he speaks, he speaks
the truth because he is God. And what he says is so, it's
true, it's true. It's not like the words of a
man which are false and empty and vain. These are the words
of our Savior. And so when we think of kings
who have descended from Adam's corrupt seed, right, we need
only think of ourselves to know what they do. If we're made honest
and we think of what we would do were we to be kings, then
we know that our ways and our works would be corrupt. Turn
over to Romans 3. Romans 3, and we'll pick up in
verse 10. Now, Romans 3, verse 10 through
11, Here we have a description of man, a description of all
men, all men. Verse 10 says, there's none righteous,
no, not one. There's none that understandeth,
there's none that seeketh after God. So that when they speak,
verse 12 says, they are all gone out of the way. They are together
become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good,
no, not one. So our Lord, if you read the
rest of that, it describes us. It describes how we would rule
as kings if we were kings and queens. This is what we would
do. But the law was given by God to Moses, given as a rule
to all those who have their part in the body of Adam, those that
are of like corrupt flesh of Adam. And Romans 3.19 puts this
in perspective. For those that would declare
their righteousness before God and before men and say, well,
wait a minute, I'm making good progress in my religion, and
I'm doing the best I can in my religion, Surely God will accept
these works and receive me because of my work, my good intentions,
my sincerity in religion and doing what I do. But he says
in verse 19, now we know that what thing soever the law saith,
it saith to them who are under the law, all in Adam, that every
mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before
God. And so, the law was given, Paul's
saying there, not for us to work a righteousness, but for our
mouths to be shut before God, to see that we ourselves are
sinners, that there's none righteous, no, not one. And none of us worships
God in spirit and in truth. Not in this flesh. This flesh
is wicked and corrupt, so there should be no boasting before
God. We're all guilty before Him.
The reason why I bring this up is because this is the reason
why we declare Christ. This is the reason why we turn
your eyes not to your own works and to what you must do to save
yourselves, but we turn you to Jesus Christ. We turn you to
the one whom God turns our eyes to, to look to the Savior. This is why we say, behold, a
king. A king shall reign in righteousness. Romans 1, 16 says, for Christ
and his gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. In other
words, all flesh, all flesh. This is a word for all flesh.
for therein is the righteousness of God revealed, not the righteousness
of man, not the righteousness of his false works, but the righteousness
of God is revealed from faith to faith, for it is written,
the just shall live by faith. And so the reason why it's worded
that way is because them who are described as them that believe,
those who believe Christ, We only know this, it's only revealed
because the Spirit of God reveals faith in them. We have faith
revealed in us. Many people, we speak of the
election of God. We speak as the Word declares
it, that there is a chosen people of God whom the Father has put
into Christ before the foundation of the world. before they've
done any good or any evil. God chose a people apart from
their works. He chose them in Christ and put
them in Christ. And so many people hear that
and they get caught up wondering, well, am I one of the elect?
Am I one of the chosen elect people of God? And God never
directs our attention to ask that question. He turns our attention
to the king. to Jesus Christ. Do you believe
Him? Are you righteous in yourself?
Do you have works that can save you? Can you make yourselves
righteous? Can you deliver yourself from
sin and from the bondage of iniquity and the wrath of God? If no,
and you see that Christ is the righteousness of God whom He's
provided, do you believe Him? Trust Him? Be settled right there. Trust Christ. Walk in faith,
believing, this is what my God has said to me concerning His
Son. This is the salvation He's provided. Though I don't often feel it,
though I see things in my own flesh that are a shame to me,
yet I see Christ. I see the salvation of God in
His Son, Jesus Christ, the King. whom God has said is the salvation
that he's provided for his people. Lord, I have no other hope but
that hope. If that's your hope, Christ,
in Christ alone, then believe and trust God. trust him to do
his faithful word in fulfilling it to you that all who believe
on him shall never be ashamed." All right, so with our mouths
shut before the law, guilty sinners without a righteousness of our
own to stand accepted by holy God, we're to hear of this king. He says in Romans 3 21, if you're
still there in Romans 3, Down in 21, he says, now behold, the
righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being
witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness
of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon
all them that believe, for there is no difference, for all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. And so God's declaring
to us, who in Adam have been under that rule and dominion
of the law of sin and death, right, to behold the Son, to
behold the King of righteousness, to look to the salvation whom
God has provided, that as sin hath reigned unto death, even
so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord." So this is the word that our God
sends to you now who hear my voice, hear the Lord, hear his
word, hear his word concerning salvation. look to the salvation
that God has provided in his son, Jesus Christ. Behold, the
king shall reign in righteousness." Now he goes on and he says, princes
shall rule in judgment. Well, we know who the king is,
it's Jesus Christ. And he says, his princes shall
rule in judgment. And he's speaking of pastors,
he's speaking of those that are pastors. Paul, when speaking
to Titus, said that we are those that hold fast, we are holding
fast the faithful word as he hath been taught. As the Spirit
teaches us Christ, as he shows us the salvation of our God,
turning our hearts and our minds to Christ, to look to him, to
believe him, to walk before our God in faith, That's what we
speak, that which we are taught of the Father. And so we, it's
not as princes, we're members of the body. I'm a member of
the body of Christ with you, my brethren, right? And he says
that that were a gift to the body. The pastors who faithfully
preach the word are a gift to the body, they're a gift of God
to you. Not as the flesh uses that term,
not as God's gift to people in the false way that people use
that term, but as servants, as those that minister the word,
that labor in the word, to minister the gospel to you, to you that
need to hear this word, to you that are suffering and have no
other hope of salvation but the one whom God has provided. And
so we're servants of our brethren, and the things that we rule in
is not as overlords the way the Gentile kings rule over others.
It's not that we're to be ministered to, but that we minister to others. And so he's speaking of spiritual
things as pastors, spiritual things. Paul said in Acts 20,
verse 28, speaking to pastors, says, over the which the Holy
Ghost hath made us overseers. How so? To feed the church of
God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." And he says
over in Hebrews, these watch for your souls as they that must
give account. So if I'm gonna give account,
then I wanna know that I've spoken the truth to you, that I've spoken
the truth of our God to you, that you've heard the truth concerning
salvation. that I'm not pointing you to
the flesh, that I'm not pointing you to bring forth thorns and
thistles, right? Dead fruit from the flesh, but
rather fruit by our God and our Savior, our husband, Jesus Christ. All right? So now let's move
on to this description that we're given of Christ the King. And
we see this in verse two of our text. Here's a very sweet and
blessed description of Christ. Verse two says, and a man, again,
this is Christ, a man shall be as in hiding place from the wind,
and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place,
as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Okay, so let's
break down these descriptions of our Savior. Now, he's called
a man, but we know he's no ordinary man. He's not born of the corrupt
seed of Adam, He was conceived in Mary's womb by the Holy Ghost. And so, this is God come in the
flesh. Paul said, without controversy,
great is the mystery of godliness, that God was manifest in the
flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto
the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory. He's no ordinary man, this is
the God-man. Fully God as though he were not
man, fully man as though he were not God, he is the God-man. This is Jesus Christ. And so
the reason that we rejoice in Christ, the reason that we exalt
him before the eyes of sinners, it's the very reason why God
sent him. Our rejoicing in Christ is for
the reason that God sent He was sent to deliver his people, right? These people whom we know only
because they believe. They have no hope but in Christ. And he was sent to deliver his
people from the coming wrath of God against sin and iniquity. Our God tells us that he hates
sin. He hates sin and he's going to
destroy this world, he's going to punish and judge the wicked
for the iniquities and the sin that they've committed. And so
we read in Romans 118, it says, for the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
hold the truth in unrighteousness. And so our text here reveals
the provision of our king, who was sent to deliver us." This
is what he's describing, is a king who delivers us from the wrath
of holy righteous God. And he begins saying that he's
a man or a man shall be as in hiding place from the wind. from the wind, so that Christ
is the hiding place for those who have been stripped in the
flesh. Stripped in the flesh of every
hiding place that we might have in the flesh. Thinking that some
works that we do, some service that we do, some giving that
we do, that those things are our beauty and our glory before
God. that somehow God's going to receive
us for our labors and our efforts and the good works that we've
done. And if we have enough good works on one side to outweigh
the bad works on the other side, that then it'll outweigh enough
and God will receive us. But that's not what scripture
declares. We don't save ourselves. If it
comes down to our works outweighing the bad, we all will perish in
hell. because we're all sinners. We
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. All right,
and so none of us is gonna be able to stand and boast of our
righteousness before our God. Now, the wind here spoken of
in the text is the spirit of God. And so, before the Spirit
of God begins to blow upon this flesh, to wither it, before that,
we feel good about our works. We feel confident about our beauty,
and our strength, and what we've done. We think that we've done
pretty good, and we're confident in those things. But when the
Lord appears, when by the Spirit He blows upon the flesh, just
like the harsh, cold, bitter winds of winter that wither the
flower, that kill the fruit, that destroy the beauty that
was once there. So the Spirit does that to the
flesh of His people. Before the wrath of God comes,
He comes and withers us in the flesh so that we have no confidence. Our beauty fades. the petals of the flower begin
to wither and die and corrupt and become brown and rotten and
withered and crinkled. So the spirit does this. If you
turn over to Isaiah 40, we can see this. Isaiah 40. Look at verse six. Now here it
was speaking of at the time when John the Baptist would come.
And the voice, God who called him and raised him up and sent
him, said, cry. And he said, what shall I cry?
Tell them all flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof
is as the flower of the field. You see a beautiful flower in
the field that looks strong and beautiful, but it's only a flower,
it's going to wither. You see the grass withereth,
the flower faded, because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon
it. Surely the people is grass. So that when the spirit deals
with us, when he's dealing with us in our flesh, he blows upon
that flesh, we become ashamed of our works. We see the depth
of our sin. We see that we are corrupt and
that we can't work perfect righteousness. Even if we could cease today
and do no further sin, we're yet corrupt in Adam. We're yet
sinful and dead in trespasses and sins in Adam. And we don't
have the Spirit of God to know how to worship God in spirit
and in truth. We need to be born again, and
that's a work that only God can do for us. Only the Spirit can
give us, can birth that new creation of Christ in us, that spiritual
seed of Christ. Because the corrupt seed of Adam
is sin and can never work the works of God. We can never do
those things that please God. So we become ashamed of our works
and we cast them off as dumb. We turn from those things the
way Paul was turned from all his religion as a Pharisee in
the flesh. He cast those things off and
ceased to have any confidence in those things. He didn't speak
of those things anymore, didn't boast of those things. His hope
was in one, the King whom God provided. We learn, when the
Spirit is dealing with us, we learn to fear God. We learn what
the fear of God is. To know that our lives are in
His hand. Where we're going to be in eternity
is determined by Him, and not ourselves. We're not in control,
but God is in control. He's our God, He's our Creator
and our Judge. He's the one who determines where
we shall be. And so we find that we've no
place, no hiding place in this flesh, meaning we can't work
works to create a hiding place, to create a robe of righteousness
for us to stand before God. We can't do that. We have no
hiding place in ourselves. But we're told here in the text
that a man, this man, The King, the righteous King, Jesus Christ,
shall be a hiding place from the wind. Christ is that hiding
place from the wind. You see, Christ, when he came,
took upon him the likeness of the sinful flesh, and he fulfilled
the law of God perfectly toward God and toward man that he might
be the fit sacrifice, the spotless Lamb of God, sent to take away
the sins of His people scattered throughout the world. He went
faithfully, obediently to the Father. He went to the cross,
bearing His people in His own body, bearing their sins in the
body before the holy, righteous, wrath of God, which was poured
out upon Him as our sacrifice, to make atonement for our sins,
by the shedding of His own blood, to purge us of our iniquity and
our guilt, to satisfy God as our surety, as our substitute,
He died the death of His people, in the place of His people, to
put away their sins. And he did that work faithfully,
redeeming us, paying the purchase price with his own blood to pay
the debt of righteousness that we owe to God, of perfect righteousness
that we owe to God. And he left nothing undone for
us to do. In other words, our salvation
was settled right there in Christ on the cross. He satisfied God
perfectly, ensuring that all the fruits we are ordained to
bear should be worked in us and in God's own appointed time for
us. All right, all these things are
done in his appointment. All right, so we see that Christ
was sent to do this work for us, and he was sent to deliver
us from the tempest, the wrath of God, the storm of God's wrath,
against our sin and our unrighteousness. Now the word in the text there,
it describes God's wrath, right? When it speaks of the tempest,
that he should be a covert from the tempest, it's describing
God's wrath. And so a tempest is likened to
a fierce storm, a fierce storm. You think of when Jonah was fleeing
from God, rather than doing the will of God, he fled from God. He fled from him, and the Lord
sent a tempest, a storm, on the sea, because he would have Jonah
go to Nineveh. And so the Lord raised up this
tempest. Now that's what it's like for
when the Lord is going to punish and judge the wicked. Psalm 11
verse 6 says, upon the wicked God shall rain snares, fire and
brimstone, and an horrible tempest. This shall be the portion of
their cup. Psalm 83 15, persecute them with
thy tempest and make them afraid with thy storm. But we are told
that this man shall be a covert from the tempest. Christ shall
be a covert from the tempest for his people, right? Christ
our Savior bore the wrath of God for his people. He died their
death. He paid the price for each and
every one of the sins of his people. He bore that wrath and
that judgment to put it away, to satisfy God. And so we're
given this imagery throughout Isaiah. If you turn back to Isaiah
26, Isaiah 26, we're shown this picture that
the Lord is directing us to Christ, get to Christ, because Christ
is the salvation of his people. He's the ark of his people. Just
like Noah went into the ark, when God destroyed all mankind,
God put Noah and his family, found grace in the eyes of God
in the ark. Well, that's Christ for all his people. He's the
ark that bears the wrath of God and his people in him are safe
and protected. Look at Isaiah 26 at verse 20
and 21. Isaiah 26, 20 says, come my people,
enter thou into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee,
hide thyself as it were for a little moment until the indignation
be overpassed. For behold, the Lord cometh out
of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.
The earth also shall disclose her blood and shall no more cover
her slain." And so Christ, He's the one whom we enter. He's the
chamber that we enter into. through faith, believing Him,
believing that He is our very salvation, not Christ plus our
works, not Christ plus what we do, Christ and Christ alone. And He's the one who forms faith
in the heart. It's His spirit that reveals
faith in His people who hear this word and believe, yes, Lord,
That is the salvation you provided. Get me to Christ. Lord, hide
me in him. Cover me with his blood. Clothe
me with his righteousness, for I have no righteousness of my
own. Lord, don't see me in my work.
See me in Christ's work. Don't receive me for my works
and my goodness. Receive me for Christ's sake,
for his blessed righteousness, for his work. For Lord, I believe. And God imputes righteousness
to us because Christ has made us righteous and bore this fruit
of faith in us whereby we believe unto righteousness and hope in
him and trust in him. So Christ is the chambers. He's the one in whom we died
to the law, and the law has nothing more to say to us. God is satisfied,
and there's no more wrath for us, which wrath is yet still
to come upon the corrupt seed of Adam, and all yet in the body
of Adam. All right, now, we also see that
Christ is our refreshing. Back in the text, in verse two,
as rivers of water in a dry place were told, are ye dry? Have you
been withered by the Spirit? Have you spent years in religion
trying endlessly to do this right and that right? You did what
the pastors told you or what other people told you to do and
all these other people telling you what to do and you tried
your best, but you were in darkness and you didn't understand what
God was saying. You didn't see that he was speaking
of Christ the whole time, turning you to Christ, Christ, Christ. And so you became withered and
dried up, shriveled in your religion, shriveled in your own righteousness,
because the Spirit was blowing upon the flesh, withering you,
causing you to see the futility of your own works and your own
righteousness and your own goodness. God bringing you to nothing in
yourself. in order that you might find
your all in Jesus Christ. If you are left dry, having no
hope in yourself, the Spirit of God says, behold the King,
behold the King. Our Savior stood up and he said,
if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. come unto
Christ and drink. He that believeth on me, as the
scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water." And he was speaking of his spirit, right? Out from us will flow the spirit,
the spirit of Christ, whereby the new man is created of him,
being born again, not of something that we have done, but being
born of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, his spiritual seed. And so Christ himself, when we
behold him, when we believe him, he satisfies us. For all our
need of religion, he satisfies us. And we are made satisfied
with Christ, just as the father is satisfied with his son, Jesus
Christ. We believe him, he's our confidence
to go before God, When we think of our works, we think of what
we've done and said, every idle word, every foolish thought ever
entered into our heart. We're ashamed of those things.
But in Christ, we believe that God has been satisfied with the
righteousness of His Son, that Christ has made expiation. He's put away our sins. He's
made us righteous. so that in his righteousness
we stand faultless before the throne of God. All right, so
Christ satisfies our thirst. We have no fear of the day of
judgment because we've been judged in Christ already. And so this
right, this hope, this confidence isn't in ourselves and our good
works. All right, people in religion
who don't hope in Christ are still yet looking for something
in themselves, still looking for a reason to believe and to
think that God will receive them in themselves. Don't do it. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. He is our righteousness, which
God has provided for His people. And so all who believe on Him
shall not be ashamed. all who believe on him have no
sins yet to pay before God. The debt is paid full in Christ. So venture upon the Lord, venture
upon Christ, because he's the one that keeps us. He's the one
that shades us in the fiery trial. All right, our God is faithful
to send trials, to allow trials to come, which prove the faith
which he's given to us. It proves the faith. Not proof
for himself to see whether it be so, but it's proof for us
to see and to know that we are his. Because he keeps us faithfully
looking to Christ. Though that faith sometimes is
brought down to nothing more than a tiny little mustard seed. Yet, Christ says that's enough,
that's sufficient. Because it's not our faith, it's
his faith. and he's worked it and given
us what we need to behold him and to believe on him. And so Christ is that shadow,
it says in verse two, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary
land, right? And it's amazing because Christ
who is the rock of his people, the one who shadows us, those
that are weary, those that have gone through the heat and the
fire of the trial, Christ is that very rock that the self-righteous
will workers stumble over. He's the one that the self-righteous
stumble over. Those who don't believe Him and
don't rest in Him, they're still thinking that there's something
that comes from them to cooperate with God. Not seeing that all
our cooperation, if you will, all our fruit, is born in us
by the Spirit. And we give Him all the thanks
and the praise. And we seek for Him to use us
and to bear His fruits of righteousness in us. And we give Him all the
thanks and the praise and the glory for it. All right, now,
let's close it up here with our last point, the King's effect,
right? Where Christ is believed by faith
in the heart, where he's been formed in the heart by the work
of the Spirit of God, which is through his regenerative power,
right? Him giving us life. There's gonna
be fruit. There's going to be fruit. Just
like faith is a fruit, there's going to be fruit. It says, verse
three, and the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the
ears of them that hear shall hearken. there's going to be
a response effected in the people of God. We're not gonna continue
to be indifferent to the things of God. We're not gonna be indifferent
to Christ. We're not gonna say, oh, that
was nice. That was good. I feel a little clean now so
I can go back and wallow in the mire. No, there's going to be
fruit because we'll see Christ. We'll see our need of Christ.
We'll see our sufficiency is Christ. We'll hear His voice
and we'll rejoice in hearing His voice. We'll rejoice to hear
and to know that He's my salvation. He's my hope. He's my Savior,
my God, my Lord, my King. He's all, and so we hear His
call and we believe Him. We rejoice in Him. When John
would have his disciples to know that this was the Christ. I believe
John knew that this was the Christ, but he wanted his disciples who
were still ministering to him at the time. And John knew, he
said, I must decrease. He must increase, but I must
decrease. And his time is coming when he would go away. So he
sends them to Christ to ask this question. Aren't thou he that
should come? Or do we look for another? And
this is what our Christ said. I'm thinking of what we just
read in verse three that we're gonna see in here. Christ responded,
the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk. The lepers
are cleansed, and the deaf hear. The dead are raised up, and the
poor have the gospel preached to him. There's our fruit, right? We see and behold that Christ
is our righteousness. The lame walk, we're led in the
paths of righteousness for His name's sake. We couldn't do that
in the strength of our flesh. Everything we did was wayward
and off and wrong and into sin. But now we walk in righteousness
in Christ and He alone cleanses us from our sin as the leper
is cleansed and healed. and we hear only his gospel. No longer being satisfied with
the dead, false husks of religion. No longer being satisfied with
those withered up, crusty old, rotten, stale bread of religion.
We don't wanna hear that anymore. We wanna hear the gospel which
exalts and praises Christ, our Savior. And so we are raised
from the death of our sins and trespasses given life in Christ,
and us poor sinners, destitute of any righteousness of our own,
have the gospel preached to them. That's a fruit. If God is sending
you the gospel, and you hear that gospel, and you rejoice
in that gospel, and you give God thanks for that gospel, that's
his fruit in you. You hear it and are settled in
Christ and believe Him. So all fruit that Christ the
King, it's of Him, it's showing us that He is walking among us,
that He is our God and our King, and that He is drawing us to
Himself, that He's our provider, and He is our faithful Savior. Now under the gospel, we see
in verse four, the heart also of the rash or the hasty, those
that are hasty, right? Those that thought they understood,
those who once ran in religion and thought they were doing very
well and were doing well, especially in comparison to others. They
see that all those false hopes, all those hopes they had are
false hopes. Those things, those truths that
they trusted are now lies and give them no hope and no comfort
anymore. They cast them away. They see
these are idols. These are a false hope and they're
idols. And they cast those things away and look to Christ alone. And they never gave ear before,
right? They never heard the truth. They
never listened to the truth of what God is saying concerning
his son. They believed that which was
every false way before, but now they trust Christ. Now they hear
the word, the good word, the good news of God our Savior.
But these, he says, these shall understand. They're gonna hear
the gospel of Christ who alone saves us from beginning to end.
And the tongue of the stammers shall be ready to speak plainly,
or they'll be made clear to them, right? And they'll clearly speak
and declare the simplicity of Christ. Not speaking of what
they need to do. When we speak out of one side
of our mouth what Christ has done for us, but then out of
the other side of our mouth speak of what, well, now we need to
be doing this, and we need to be doing that, as though it's
of this flesh, that's confusion. That's the mist of darkness and
confusion. It doesn't help anybody. But
once we declare that all our salvation is in Christ, and he
works this in our hearts, and he's the one who settles you
in it, then it's all clear, and you hope in him, and you rejoice
in his gospel message, because you know this, Christ in Christ
alone is salvation. And so all that confusion is
then lifted, and we hear and are settled in Christ our Savior. Behold the King. Behold your
salvation. Behold him whom God has provided. I pray that your eyes would be
open, your ears would be open to behold, to see, and to hear
Christ. Christ alone is your king and
salvation. And I pray that you would follow
this king. Don't be hasty with what you've
heard and push it aside and say, I don't know, that sounded okay,
but I don't know if I believe that. Don't be hasty, pray, pray
to the Lord, ask him to have mercy upon your soul and to show
you these things and to convince you of the truth of Christ, to
be settled in him, to know that he is your righteousness and
that you have no righteousness of your own. I'll close with
Philippians 1, nine through 11. Paul said, in this I pray, that
your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in
all judgment, that ye may approve things that are excellent, that
ye may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ,
being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by
Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. Let's close in
prayer. Our gracious Lord, we thank you,
Father, for your mercy. We thank you for the salvation
you've provided in your Son, Jesus Christ. Lord, we ask that you would save
sinners, save those that are struggling, save those that are
being withered in the flesh by your Spirit. cause us to see
and to behold that we have no righteousness of our own, but
Christ, that You've provided salvation, perfect, full and
free salvation in Your Son Jesus Christ. Oh Lord, that You would
save sinners, that You would bring them into Your fold, that
You would gather Your sheep and unite us under the banner of
Jesus Christ. Lord, call us out of darkness,
Call us out of dead religion. Call us out of Babylon. Call
us unto your Son, the King. Make us to see Him and to rejoice
in glory in Him and Him alone. It's in Christ's name that we
pray in these things, asking you for your mercy and grace
in Him. Amen.