morning. All right, our text is going
to be in Isaiah 25. Isaiah 25, and we'll be looking
at verses 6 through 8. Isaiah 25, 6 through 8. Now here,
in this passage, the Lord has prepared a feast for his people
in the Lord Jesus Christ. When our Lord came into this
world, he came to accomplish the salvation of his people. And so in saving them, he brings
them under the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is where they learn
of the Lord Jesus Christ and what he's accomplished for them
in his redemption work. And in the final day, when this
world is judged by God for their wickedness, the people of God
are able to rejoice in Christ for what he's accomplished for
them. Because what we'll find is the
rebuke of God against iniquity, against sin, has been removed
for the people of God by the Lord Jesus Christ. Our title
is A Joyful Feast in the Mountain of Salvation. A Joyful Feast
in the Mountain of Salvation. And we'll have three divisions.
First, we'll look at the Mountain of Salvation. Then we'll look
at the feast that God has prepared. And then we'll see our victory
in Christ, which is seen here this morning in the Rebuke, Remove. All right, so let's look at this
mountain of salvation. Our text begins, verse six, Isaiah
25, six. And in this mountain, in this
mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast
of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full
of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined, All right, so there's
a feast of fat things and of wines on the leaves laid before
us. But where is this feast? Where
has this feast been prepared? It tells us in this mountain. And this mountain refers to the
mountain of salvation, the glorious exaltation of our Lord Jesus
Christ, what he's accomplished, all the wealth of everything
that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished for his people.
Now, looking in the context, where's the last time that the
word mountain is mentioned in this scripture by Isaiah? Well,
if you look up in Isaiah 24, verse 23, the last verse of 24,
it says, then the moon shall be confounded and the sun ashamed. when the Lord of hosts shall
reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously."
Now, this passage here is talking about the great judgment day
in which the Lord Jesus Christ is going to judge all men, all
women. young and old. So this Mount
Zion and in Jerusalem being referenced by Isaiah, it's pointing to his
exaltation. Why is this Lord, why is Jesus
Christ exalted? What has he done that he is exalted
to the right hand of his Father in glory? Well, it's because
he worked and he accomplished salvation for his people. He did all the work The work
is finished and he left nothing undone that needed to be done
so that there's nothing left for his people to do and finish
up because Christ finished it all himself. He accomplished
salvation. And so because he accomplished
this work, the father is well pleased with him. And because
he's well pleased, he raised him from the dead. And as he
rose from the dead, he also ascended up to the Father, so that he
is now exalted with God the Father, sitting at his right hand, reigning
and ruling until all his enemies are made his footstool. So this
salvation, when we speak of salvation, what is it that we're saved from?
What is Christ accomplished in this salvation? The scriptures
declare that we ourselves are sinners. We've offended a holy
and righteous God. We commit sin. We harbor sin
in our heart, which is iniquity, and try to hide it. We trespass
or break his laws. We work wickedness in ourselves. And Christ came perfect, holy. He took upon him flesh and worked
righteousness, perfect righteousness for his people. And he came as
their substitute, standing in their place, so that because
of our sin and iniquity and our trespasses, which we should bear
the judgment and punishment of God, Christ came and in the place
of his people, stood and took that punishment, took the rebuke
of God against his people, he bear it to put away the sin.
He died to justify us. He shed his blood to wash away
the sins of his people, to purge them of their sin, to cleanse
them of the stain of sin, to make them righteous before holy
God, fit to stand before him. And because of Christ's faithful
work in fulfilling the will of the Father, and by that I mean
God the Father chose a people, elected a people, In eternity
past, before he ever created the earth, he chose a people
and committed them, committed their well-being, committed their
salvation, committed everything necessary for them to stand holy
before God, committed all that work to his son, Jesus Christ,
and Christ fulfilled that will. He did it. He did everything
the Father asked him to do, and so the Father is well pleased
with him and raised him from the dead. The Apostles spoke
of this resurrection. In Acts 2, I'll just look at
a couple of verses, Acts 2.32, we see that the Apostles spoke
of this resurrection. They were witness to it. It says,
this Jesus, this Jesus, this Jesus of Nazareth, who is not
just a man, he's fully man, but he is the Son of God, this Jesus,
hath God raised up whereof we are all witnesses. And because he was raised, that's
saying to us that he accomplished salvation. God is pleased with
his work. Therefore, he raised him from
the dead. He's not still in the grave. He's been raised from
the dead. That's what it means. And then in verse 36, it says,
therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that
God hath made this same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both
Lord and Christ. calling him Lord in Christ, letting
us know that he's Lord in Christ, says that he is now ruling and
reigning, accomplishing the will of the Father, doing everything
that God requires in the earth to be done. The Son is ensuring
that it's all unfolding, all coming to pass, just as God has
determined that it should come to pass. So it is in this mountain,
this mountain of salvation, where the Lord Jesus Christ, He satisfied
divine justice where this Lord Jesus Christ paid the debt of
righteousness that you and I owe. for his people, that we owe God
righteousness. That's what it means by this
debt of righteousness. We owe him righteousness, and
we don't do it. We don't fulfill his will. We
don't please him. Our works don't satisfy him and
please him. We owe him perfect righteousness. And all our works are tainted
and filthy with sin and darkness of heart and blindness, so Christ
came and he paid that debt of righteousness, and he reconciled
his people to God, meaning that he made peace. He made peace
between us and God, enmity. He took away the enmity so that
now there is peace. When God looks upon us, he doesn't
look upon us in our works, the works of righteousness which
we've done. He looks upon us in the faithful work of his son,
Jesus Christ, who made us righteous and fit to stand before God.
So it's in this mountain of salvation that God has prepared this feast
for you, his people, who believe on him and have no righteousness
in and of yourself. All right, so this brings us
to our next point, the feast. Look there again at verse six,
Isaiah 25, six. And in this mountain, This salvation
shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat
things, a feast of wines on the leaves. Now, the greatness of
this feast is directly tied. It's in proportion to the greatness
of the work that Christ has accomplished for his people. This fat things
full of marrow is speaking to that rich, flavorful, savory
meat. that we love and that's delicious
to us, and wines of the Lees well refined. What we're hearing
here, what he's saying to us is that we are to feed upon the
Lord Jesus Christ. We're to feed upon him because
he is our hope, he's our joy, and he's our righteousness to
stand before God. Now I looked up this lees, wines
on the lees, because it may not be familiar to you, it wasn't
familiar to me, but that's a component, a part of the wine. And they
leave the lees in there because it adds a creaminess, a richness,
a bold flavor. It fills out the body of the
finished wine product. It adds texture and the richness
of it so that it tastes delicious to the person who's drinking
it. And like that lees of the wine, that's Christ to us. He's the richness. He's the beauty
and the creaminess and the flavor and the savory meat of the gospel. So that without Christ, We who
worship in what we call Christianity, it would just be dead, letter,
empty, hollow, vain religion. All right, without Christ. And
you that worshiped in Christianity, as I did, without Christ, having
no knowledge of him, it was just dead letterworks that profited
us not at all. It was worthless. So Christ has
made it full and wonderful and delicious and lovely. That's
how we serve God, looking to Christ, reverencing his son,
believing on him. That's our hope. Turn over to
John 6. John 6. And we'll just look at
a couple of verses here, starting in verse 48 and 49. You see the relation of our spiritual
life to spiritual food and spiritual drink. Once you see it, you see
it throughout the scriptures. Even Christ, right, when he was
hungry and he sent his disciples into the village to get him some
meat, to get some food, when they returned, they thought he'd
be starving and he wasn't ready to eat because he was ministering
to the people. And he said, I have meat to eat
ye know nothing of. Well, now we know it. You that
know Christ and hope in him, you know what he's talking about.
We feed upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says in John 6, 48, I
am that bread of life. Those Jews that were leaving
Egypt, they did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead.
They partook of religious things. They partook of what God had
provided for the people, and yet they're dead. Not talking
physically dead, though they were, but he means spiritually
dead. They have no part in the living
God. And then he tells us plainly
that we're to look to him in verse 55. He said, my flesh is
meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. And he explains
this to us in verses 57 and 58. John 6, 57, as the living Father
hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me,
even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came
down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat man
and are dead, he that eateth of this bread shall live forever. were to feed upon Christ, and
our worship of the Lord, our service in ministering to one
another and gathering together, it's described of us feeding
upon him, feasting upon him, and looking to him. We're not
to trust or have any confidence in our flesh partaking in this. That is our natural affections,
our natural wisdom, our natural intelligence that we are born
into this world with or bring to the services here. It's not
the flesh. God isn't pleased with the works
of the flesh, he's pleased with Christ. And so we're not to bring
to the worship of God those things that we think please him. He tells us what pleases him.
It's the Lord Jesus Christ. Keep looking to Christ. Trust him and him only. Because
if you're gaining any satisfaction in something that you're doing,
you're not looking where you're supposed to be looking. You're
looking to Christ, because our works are up and down and all
around. There's nothing good in us, in
this flesh. We deceive ourselves, but we're
to trust him. Now, Paul spoke of this when
he said in 1 Corinthians 5, verses 7 and 8, he said, purge out there
for the old leaven, Those are the works of the flesh, our natural
affections and thoughts and our good works that we did before
we knew the truth, thinking that, well, I'm not going to lie to
people today. I'm going to go to church today
and be nice to the people and read my Bible and say my prayers. That's what the flesh thinks
is salvation. That's what religion teaches,
is salvation. So that when people start coming
to church, don't they often, when I did anyway, I thought
that was my life. Well, I've been going here for
six months or 12 months now, and I'm meeting with these people
and reading my Bible now during the day and praying. I guess
I'm a Christian. I've accepted Christ as my savior.
I've walked an aisle, I was baptized multiple times, we do all these
different things and we think that's our salvation. We hear
of Jesus and we give lip service to him, but we don't know at
all what salvation is. We think it's in those things.
And then when you fail and stumble, you get nervous and afraid because
we're not perfect at all, because you're looking to something you're
doing. But you look to Christ and you trust him. Forget about
your works. Those will follow, looking to Christ. But you look
to the Lord Jesus Christ and what he accomplished and believe
him and rest in him. There's peace. So he said, purge
out the old leaven, that ye may be of new lump as ye are unleavened,
for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore,
let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the
leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread
of sincerity and truth, so that we're brought to beg the Lord,
have mercy. on me. Lord, bring me to the
feast. Let me see you this day. Lord, keep me. Don't look at
my works. Don't look at me because I'm
a failure. But Christ, he's successful.
He's the successful Savior. He did not fail. Look upon me
in Christ, covered in his blood, forgiven by him. Let me hear
your gospel, Lord. Let me meet with your people.
And there's a desire, right? There's a desire to be kind and
to serve one another, but that's not our salvation. Our salvation
is in Christ, and those other works will follow. We're to hear
the gospel in the new man, the new man, because that's also
part of the gospel, right? Again, it's not this flesh, our
ability to learn doctrines, our ability to discern different
truths, that's not our salvation. The Spirit gives life, the new
man created in us of Christ, whereby we look to Christ and
believe him. We hear of what he's accomplished
and we believe it. You either believe it or you
don't. You believe it or you don't,
and the Lord works faith because he's the one that gives faith,
and he's the one that reveals his gospel in Christ to the faith
which he's given. That's the faith unto faith,
so the Lord does that, and in that gospel, he nourishes us
and feeds us in Christ. As the psalmist said, they shall
be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house. and
thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures, for
with thee is the fountain of life, and thy light shall we
see light. So we're brought to Christ, because
he's the fatness of the Lord's house, he's built the house,
he's that river of pleasures, and he is the fountain of life,
he's our light. And so the Lord reveals that
light to us in his son Jesus Christ. Let's go to our final
point, our victory in Christ. Ephesians 1.3, Paul says that
God hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings. That means
he's provided everything. Every spiritual blessing that
we have is provided for us in Christ. That includes our faith,
our believing. As Peter, the apostle said in
2 Peter 1.1, And when he wrote, he wrote to those that have obtained
like precious faith as us. See, we've obtained that faith.
You that believe and hope in Christ, you've obtained that.
It was given to you, a spiritual blessing, earned and obtained
by Christ and given to you as it pleases him. So we've obtained
like precious faith, just as the apostles. We didn't earn
it, we've obtained it. It was given to us by our God. So these blessings include the
Holy Spirit that gives us life, that is that he regenerates us
and reveals this word to us and reveals the truth of the fact
that we're sinners, undeserving of his mercy and grace, but he's
freely, abundantly given it to us, given us life in his son,
Jesus Christ. And so one of those blessings
that we've received is the removal of the veil of darkness. So I
spoke of our flesh. Well, our flesh comes forth naturally
being dead in trespasses and sins, being in darkness to the
things of God, being unable to know who the true and living
God is or how to approach him and how to worship him and how
to serve him and trust him. We're dead to those things. So
in Isaiah 25 verse seven, We see this blessing here that he
says, and he will destroy in this mountain, right, in his
mountain of grace, his mountain of salvation, the face of the
covering cast over all people and the veil that is spread over
all nations. So it's for all peoples, Jew
and Gentile, those with the law, those without the law, all people,
this salvation has come because Every one of us, those born under
the law, those born without the law, every one of us has that
veil of darkness covering our heart, covering our mind. We
don't know how to please God. We're unaware of that. We don't
even know that we don't know until he reveals that to us and
lifts that veil of darkness. And turn over to 2 Corinthians
3. 2 Corinthians 3. And go to verse 14. In this passage
here, Paul is talking about that former glory that was in the
law, which was given by Moses. And the people didn't know the
truth of God. They didn't understand what was
being revealed in the law. But the truth is Moses knew. He didn't trust the law. Moses
wasn't looking to the law for salvation. He was looking to
the promise of God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. He was
looking to that day, but we see in 2 Corinthians 3.14, but their
minds were blinded, for until this day remaineth the same veil
untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil
is done away in Christ. All right, so it's Christ is
the one that removes that veil for us. He put it away by taking
the death of his people, by dying in their place, and making them
righteous by the shedding of his blood so that we're now righteous
in him. And part of that life which he's
given to us now is to know what God has freely given to us in
his son Jesus Christ. It's the pleasure of God to make
us know this. He doesn't leave us in darkness
to these things. So we're going to hear the gospel.
We're going to be brought under the gospel. We will hear it with
the ear of faith, and we will believe it, all by the power
of God. All right, so look at verse 15,
2 Corinthians 3, 15. But even unto this day, when
Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart, nevertheless, When
it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. What
is it? It is the heart, the heart of
man, when it shall turn to the Lord. All right, well then, didn't
I say it's not by our faith? It's not our works. That's right,
it's by the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what he says here.
He shows us that the one turning us is not us turning ourselves,
but the spirit of God. Now the Lord is that spirit. and where the spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty. So that when it pleases God,
we will come to know the true and living God. We will hear
it. You could sit here and listen for year after year after year,
and when it pleases the Lord, when his spirit attends that
word, he'll bring it to your heart with power and glory, and
he'll take that veil off, and your heart will turn from looking
to dead works, dead religion, trusting what you're doing or
not doing, he'll turn it from that to the true and living God,
to believe Christ, to finally hear by faith, Lord, thank you. You did all the work. Thank you,
Lord. That's what the turning is. And
he says, but we all, verse 18, with open face, beholding as
in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image
from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord. We once looked to the works of
religion, that former glory under Moses, and were turned from that
to look to the greater glory, the Lord Jesus Christ, wherein
we are saved. And there is hope and peace and
joy forevermore. All right, so in the light of
Christ. He removes the grave cloths of dead religion. He calls
us out from that prison of the flesh, that trusting of the works
of the flesh. He says, prisoner, show yourselves,
come out of that darkness into the light. He brings us there,
and it says in verse eight, back in our text, Isaiah 25, verse
eight, he will swallow up death in victory,
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces. and
the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the
earth, for the Lord hath spoken it." So the Lord, if you're his
people, he's going to reveal this gospel to you. He's going
to reveal Christ to you. You're going to know I'm the
sinner. I've earned hell. I've offended holy God. There's
nothing I can do to fix that. I can't make amends for that.
I can't improve myself and do that which is right before him.
I'm a dead man. I'm hopeless. But he comes and
makes you to hear that gospel, to hear that Christ has done
all the work and that God is satisfied with what his son has
done And so we then are brought, we're given faith and brought
to believe and confess him. and believe on him and walk before
him. And that's the fruit of the first
resurrection. That's the first resurrection.
While you're here walking around in this flesh, dead in trespasses
and sins, when God gives you faith and eternal life in his
son, we're raised from the dead, and that's the first resurrection,
wherein we believe him and trust him. That's fruit that God has
produced in his child to believe him. All right, now I looked
up this because I wanted to better understand the rebuke of his
people. What does this mean, the rebuke
of his people? Well, in Psalm 39, verse 11 and 12, he words
it this way, Psalm 39, 11. He said, when thou with rebukes
dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume
away like a moth. Surely every man is vanity. Selah. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give
ear unto my cry. Hold not thy peace at my tears. Now, when we're just sitting
in the works of the flesh, the strength of the flesh, the understanding
of our flesh, that is what we know naturally about God or think
we know about God, when we might be sitting here, and you're calling
out, you see that you're a sinner, you hear you're a sinner and
you're calling out and you're begging God to save you and have
mercy upon you and you're calling out upon him and you're trying
to do works better, you're trying to be more faithful and diligent
in what you do, you're trying to be nicer to people and less
mean to people and trying to stop lying and stealing or whatever
it is that we do in the flesh, getting angry, without a cause,
and getting mad, and just speaking behind people's backs. Those
things that we do in our flesh, we try stopping those things
because we think that's our salvation. And we're crying and begging
Him, and we're withering away, withering away, withering away. But when the Lord shows us Christ,
He won't hear our cries. He doesn't hear our cries when
we're looking to self. But when we're brought to see
Christ, that He is salvation, then the Lord removes that rebuke
because now we're not trusting in our own works and we're not
looking to something we're doing. While we're looking to our works,
we're under the rebuke, we're under the anger and the wrath
of God. We feel it against ourselves. But when he brings us, when he
gives us faith and life in Christ and we look to him, then the
rebuke is removed because now there's peace and there's reconciliation. We're not looking to ourselves
anymore. So that's what the Lord does. When he says that he's
removed the rebuke of his people, he brings us to the light of
Christ, to behold that he is all our salvation and that God
isn't looking to my works. And so we hear the promise that
their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. So through
that stroke that God laid upon his son, Jesus Christ, we are
removed from the rebuke of God against us, which is coming against
the world for their iniquities and what they're doing. All right,
so thank the Lord God for his mercy and kindness and grace
in his son, Jesus Christ, because that's the feast that we have
is the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
we thank you, Father, for your mercy and your grace which you
have freely provided in your son Jesus Christ. Lord, turn
us from looking to our works and having confidence in the
things that we're doing. Lord, wither us away while we
look to those things. But Lord, give your people faith
and hope to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and to be satisfied
with his work just as you were satisfied with his work. It's
in Christ's name we pray and give thanks, amen.