Good evening. Alright, we're
going to be in Isaiah 25, and we'll be looking at verses 2
through 5. 2 through 5. Now last week, we spent our time
rejoicing in the Lord of our salvation. we saw Jesus Christ
and that He is the boast of the believer. He's our boast. He's
our rejoicing. He's the one who we exalt. And we looked at each phrase.
There was five phrases and we looked at each of those phrases
in verse one and saw how they declared to us or they reveal
In the Rejoice in the Believer, what you see revealed is that
God is the one who has worked all the salvation for his people. He did this and it began with
them seeing that the Lord is their God. He's their God. He
reveals that to them so that they cease worshiping themselves
and they fall down and worship God, who is God and the God of
their salvation. And they saw that he did all
this work of salvation in faithfulness and in truth. Let's look at that
verse, Isaiah 25 verse 1, just by way of reminder. O LORD, thou
art my God. I will exalt thee. I will praise
thy name. for thou hast done wonderful
things. Thy counsels of old are faithfulness
and truth." All right, so that's what we saw last week. Now tonight
I want us to go through verses two through five in which we
see the Lord's provision and his protection for his people. His provision and protection.
So I titled it, The People's Provision and Protection. The
People's Provision and Protection. And so we'll just have the one
division looking at these truths of God's provision and his protection
of his people. Alright, now, because of the
glorious work of salvation, which was accomplished for us by the
Lord Jesus Christ, as we know, He did this work apart from any
works in us, apart from our will, choosing Him, apart from our
worth, apart from anything in us, the Lord Jesus Christ did
this work of salvation willingly. because the Father gave him a
people, and eternity passed, and so Christ was made willing,
Christ is willing, and was willing to come in the flesh, the weakness
of this flesh, and do this work of salvation for his people,
and so the believer As we know, it's by revelation. The Lord
reveals this work that He's done for us. He reveals that to us.
He gives us that knowledge and He grows us in the knowledge
of His grace. What He's just abounded toward
us and pouring out to us in His grace and mercy and peace and
kindness through His Son. Jesus Christ. And so the believer,
seeing what Christ has done, seeing what he's accomplished,
understanding that more and more as they sit and being settled
under the Gospel and the preaching of the Gospel, they grow in these
things. And so they rejoice in what the
Lord has done. And it's like what Peter, in
2 Peter 3.18, the very last verse of the last epistle that we have
from Peter, he said to us but grow in grace, and in the knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to Him be glory both
now and forever. Amen. And so, we hear that word,
and we know that it's not even the strength of our flesh that
grows us in grace. We don't cause ourselves to grow
in grace, but the Lord provides that, all in His provision, all
the spiritual blessings, that He pours out upon us through
His Son because of what Christ has accomplished for you brethren. The Lord is pleased to do that
and He grows us in that knowledge, in that grace that He's shown
to us. So as we grow we see that if
God has done all this work If God was willing and sent His
Son into this earth, sent Him in the flesh, if God gave His
only begotten Son, He gave Him up for us, and that He spared
not His own darling Son, if God did all this, then nothing, nothing
can take us out of the hand of God. Whatever trouble you're
facing, whatever sorrow you face, whatever fears you have, you
who have that hope in Christ, though it be as tiny as a little
mustard seed, though it be imperceptible to your own sight and you just
doubt yourself, but you know that Christ is the Savior of
sinners. You know that you're the sinner and that you need
a Savior. You who have that little bit of hope, nothing. Nothing can take you from the
hand of God because it's God who gives you that hope. It's
God who gives you that faith That would be so small so imperceptible
to you and Paul said it this way in Romans 8 38 And 39, he
said, for I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature
shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord. So the Apostles write that our
Lord himself tells us in Hebrews 13 5 I will never leave thee
nor forsake thee that's his promise to you That's his promise to
you. I'll never leave you nor forsake you He's the one keeping
you and you have that brethren rejoice in that so this truth
is the safekeeping, the preservation of the Lord's people, it's further
confirmed to us through our experiences, right? You're still here. When
you look back and reflect on your life and what you've been
through, the word you sat under, hearing, being preached, and
your upbringing and all the various things, the troubles you've had
in this life, And yet here you are, sitting under the sound
of the gospel. The Lord has blessed you with
that. He's been kind to you in spite
of you and me. In spite of ourselves, the Lord's
been kind to pour out his gospel, his blessings upon you in Christ.
You can see that, right? You can see the experience of
that, how the Lord's provided and protected for you. You didn't
do anything to earn that. When you look back on your life,
you say, wow, I shouldn't even be here. There's better people
than me that should be sitting here right now and not me. And
yet the Lord has you sitting here and not them. Alright, so
verse 1 declares to us the glories of our God and the salvation
of His people through that blessed work of His Son, Jesus Christ. Then what we see in verse 2 declares
to us the assured destruction of our enemies. The assured destruction
of our enemies. Look at Isaiah 25 verse 2. For
thou, this is still the believer talking, for thou hast made of
a city an heap, of a defenced city a ruin, a palace of strangers
to be no city, it shall never be built. Now we know in general,
we're familiar that typically in this book, especially with
Isaiah, but throughout the scriptures, that city that gets that distinguishing
mark of being the city marked for destruction is Babylon. Babylon
is the city in view here prophetically of what the Lord destroys, its
works, the city, its foundations as well, it's Babylon. And that's because every one
of us in the earth, every one of us on earth has drunk from
the whore of Babylon's cup, right? By nature, we partook of that. By nature, we were bound in sin
and darkness, and we were under the, well, we were servants of
sin, under the influence of the enemy. You can see that in Hebrews
2, verses 1 through 3. You can see that we were all,
just like the children of wrath, and the children marked out for
destruction, we all went along in that way. of destruction and
so what that means is you know we were we were deceived and
we were deceiving others we were hated we were hating others so
that all of our all of our actions all of our deeds all of our words
were just colored and scented and flavored with that mixed
wine of the Whore of Babylon. It was just dead and deceit and
deceitfulness. And we were just mixed up in
that. We were dead in trespasses and
sins. It says in Revelation 18.3, for
all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication
We've earned that wrath, and the kings of the earth have committed
fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed
rich through the abundance of her delicacies." Alright, so
now while the city of Babylon is in view here, what the redeemed
learned experimentally is that Christ destroys those works.
of Babylon in us. We couldn't set ourselves free.
We didn't even know we were dead. We didn't even know we were in
darkness and in prison and intoxicated with her wine. We didn't know
that. But the Lord is the one who destroys all these works
in his people, for his people. To deliver her out of her destruction
that's coming upon her. He's the one that separates that
rule and that power and sway that that city has over us. Because all the world is drunk
and intoxicated with her wine still and only we are brought
out to see and behold that that's death and they're going to be
judged and we've We've fled to Christ, we've run to Christ all
by the working of God doing that in us. It says in Revelation
18.4 We hear the word of God which tells us, well, John writes,
I heard another voice from heaven saying, come out of her, my people,
that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not
of her plagues. And so the Lord sends that call
to us through the preaching of the gospel to see that all our
works are dead, all our works weren't speaking well for us,
they weren't They weren't earning us any favor or righteousness
or glory before God, and so the Lord calls us out, and He makes
that gospel call effectual in our hearts. Though many hear
that same word being preached, but the Lord only comes effectually
in that word to the hearts of His people, and so He brings
that home to the hearts that you hear I've got a problem. I'm a sinner. I've got no righteousness
of my own. And I've tried and I've done
various things to improve my status, my religious status,
and try to please God and do what I thought was right according
to what they were telling me from the pulpit. As I read in
the scriptures, looking at that law, and I could not do it. And the Lord makes you to see
that and to know that. And then the Lord brings home
the good news to you, so that you hear what Christ has accomplished,
and you believe. You believe it. That's all of
His work. That's all the gifts which Christ
does for His people. So, our enemies, sin, the sin
which we were servants of, and Satan, that one who rules over
the hearts and the minds of the children of wrath, and then our
own selves, our own flesh, which is deceitful and wicked and corrupt
and rebellious against the things of God. They were ruining every
man-soul suburb of Babylon. That's what we are. Every man-soul,
we're a little city in itself, a suburb of Babylon, until the
Lord destroys that and breaks that covenant and breaks that
rule between those two cities. He delivers us. It's Christ that
is made of a city in heap, and it's Christ that is made of a
defensed city, a ruin. And so that it's Christ himself
who is the one that comes and destroys those works of Satan,
of sin that we've worked and done in our flesh and the deeds
of our own flesh and ourself. He destroys all those. Turn over
to to Colossians 1. Colossians 1 and look at verses
21 and 22. Colossians 121 says, And you
that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked
works, yet now hath he reconciled. See, Christ restored that which
we lost. When we went away, Christ restored
that which he took not away. Christ restored it and reconciled
us to God in the body of his flesh through death. to present you holy and unblameable
and unreprovable in His sight." So that's why Christ came. He
had to come in the flesh because that's how we all came forth.
And none of us was righteous. God counted us all in sin. None of us, whether we had the
law or didn't have the law, none of us can work righteousness
before God. And so Christ came in the likeness
of His brethren, in the likeness of the bride for whom He came
to lay down His life, and He came and bore His people in His
own body, He took them up there with all their sin and their
shame, and the Scriptures say that God made Him to be sin for
us. whom knew no sin." He's not a
sinner. He himself committed no sin.
He bore the sin for his people that he might bear the wrath
of God justly and die justly under the wrath of God. And he
satisfied God's holiness. He satisfied God's justice. He
satisfied God's righteousness. and he worked righteousness so
that now he made us righteous. He purged us of our sins. We're purged of our sins, made
righteous by Christ so that God the Father looks upon us and
imputes to us now what we have been made by Christ righteous. Christ made us righteous and
God calls it. He declares it. You are righteous. Righteous in my Son Jesus Christ.
That's what Christ did so that now we're reconciled. There's
no enmity between us. There's nothing, there's no,
our sin doesn't separate between you and God anymore. Christ has
reconciled us. He's made peace of the two in
himself. He's made peace between God and
men as our faithful mediator. It says, for this purpose the
Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of
the devil. Christ did that. That's 1 John
3.8. So we're shown in the Scriptures
this, that the Father did this. He determined this with the Son
in covenant before the world was ever formed, before the foundation
of the world was ever laid. And so All, for us to receive
those promises, Christ had to do what he did, because we can
never fulfill the covenant for ourselves on our behalf. We're
rebel sinners. We couldn't do it, but Christ
alone can do it. Turn over to Isaiah 42. Isaiah 42 and look
at verse 6 and 7. Isaiah 42.6 says, I the Lord
have called thee in righteousness. So this is the Father, God the
Father speaking to God the Son. He says, I have called thee in
righteousness and will hold thine hand and will keep thee. and
give thee for a covenant of the people for a light of the Gentiles."
So Christ is our covenant promise. In Him, all the promises are
given to us because of His effectual work, the satisfaction He made,
the accomplishment of our salvation. Because of Christ, all these
promises are given to us. And verse 7 shows us what those
promises are, just summarizes them in two things. Look at verse
7, 1, to open the blind eyes. He gives us sight, sight to see,
I'm the sinner, I'm the rebel, I'm the enemy of God. I hate
God in my flesh and except God had made this known to me, I
would not have known it. I would have gone on in my ignorance
and death and wouldn't have cared about it. But the Lord made it
known to me. He's opened my eyes. And to bring out the prisoners
from the prison. So he gives us sight. He gives
us life and light. That's why he is the light and
the life of men. And so he gives that to his people
in sight and then he brings us out of that prison so that he
doesn't leave us there. He doesn't just make it known
to us, but he actually delivers us out of that prison. all in
the covenant promises. To bring out the prisoners from
the prison and then that sit in darkness out of the prison
house. And so these promises were all
given to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what Paul
was saying when he wrote to the Galatians in 322, but the scripture
hath concluded all under sin. that the promise by faith of
Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. So the promise by His faithfulness,
those promises which all are given to us through and by that
faithfulness of Christ are given to them that believe. And then
that belief, that faith, is also one of the gifts of the promises
of that covenant, of what Christ has done. Alright. So now, In
verse 3, back in our text, in Isaiah 25 verse 3, here we see
the result of Christ's effectual sufficient satisfaction, His
accomplished, finished work, alright? And I emphasize this
finished work, I emphasize that He's satisfied, it's done, it's
accomplished, because in religion they like to dangle that carrot
out in front of you and whip you from behind because they
want to keep you engaged and focus on what you need to be
doing. Because they don't trust Christ. There is no life in Christ
in the gospel. It's not the power of God. It's
what they're teaching. It's religion. It's their power.
Religion is what they think saves them in studying the scriptures
and doing their religious deeds. That's what they think saves
them. So they hold that carrot out and they whip you from behind
And so I emphasize that because what the Gospel declares to us
is that it is finished. Christ has accomplished the work.
Everything that is necessary and needed by us for life and
godliness is provided for us. It's all given to us by God.
You can see that right in 2 Peter. 1 verse 3 first in verse 1 you
see that we've obtained like precious faith. We didn't have
that we obtained it It was given to us by God and then it's all
according to to to what he's given to us for life and godliness
everything necessary and he's provided it all in his son Jesus
Christ, so So basically what we see therefore is because it's
Christ, our praise, our rejoicing, the honor and the glory that
we give doesn't go to ourselves. We don't pat ourselves on the
back and say, well, I'm doing pretty good here. It all goes
to the Lord. Jesus Christ. We praise God for
His good work. And He's going to make sure that
we know it. He's not going to leave us in
darkness. He's going to make sure that we know what He's accomplished
by grace. Alright, so Isaiah 25 verse 3
says, Therefore shall the strong people glorify Thee. The city
of the terrible nations shall fear Thee. And understand, when
it talks about the strong people, I think us who believe here would
say, well, that discounts me. I'm not strong. When I look at
me and what I am, I'm not strong. But this strong people are a
weak people who have been made strong. We've been made strong
by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so these glorify the Lord. We glorify the Lord, and that's
why the Lord, he chooses the weak. He chooses the foolish.
He chooses the base and those that are despised in this world.
He chooses those and makes us to know what we are, because
sometimes we started off proud and arrogant and boastful and
thinking we were something, but He brings us to see that we're
not strong and not able to do those things, so that we're made
weak, that we would glory in Him, that we would glorify His
name for what He's done. And our Lord says in Psalm 111,
verse 10, I'll read it, the fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom, of good understanding, have all they that do his commandments,
and then he connects them to these words, his praise endureth
forever. Because when God teaches you
his fear, when he shows you that he's God, And we shrink down
and become nothing in our own sight. And He is exalted before
us. And He becomes God. We have that
fear. Then that praise comes from our
lips. He just draws it forth because
we see, Lord, what am I? What is the Son of Man that Thou
art mindful of Him? Why do you take thought of me
when I can do nothing for you? And the Lord delights to fill
empty, broken vessels. He delights to fill them and
to show His glory in them that they're a prize of His grace,
they're a prize of His glory. That's why He delights to do
that. For this cause, to make this
to be so in people, that they rejoice in Him, that's why the
Son of Man came, to reconcile us to God, to destroy the enmity
between us. The Son of Man has come to seek
and to save that which was lost. Alright, so upon Christ's saved
people, He now pours out these spiritual blessings upon us.
which he secured for our benefit, and we see this same language
used elsewhere, like Isaiah, he uses it again, he speaks of
these strong ones, and these great ones, in Isaiah 53 of all
chapters, where Isaiah 53 is where the Lord, you see what
the Lord Jesus Christ did in your place. You write Isaiah
53 where we see that He was beaten and the stripes, our stripes,
those that we earned were laid upon Him. And in that chapter,
the last verse of that chapter, Isaiah 53, 12 says, therefore,
because Christ did this work, because He made satisfaction
to His Father, He says, therefore will I divide Him a portion with
the great. And he shall divide the spoil
with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death.
And he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the
sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. We see
how He did this work so that these sinners that He died for,
these sinners that He was beaten for and bore that wrath for,
they're made strong. They're called strong and great
because that's what He has made them, all by His effectual work. Right? It says, Paul said in
Romans 5, 6, just to get a sense of what that really means, For
when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the
ungodly." So that's how effectual Christ's blood is. That's how
effectual and perfect and acceptable His work is to God. That we who
are weak are made strong and we who are despised and worthless
are made great in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have those promises
given to us in Him. So the Lord teaches us and in
that gift of faith, He gives us that strength of faith. He gives us that we're made strong
or Our faith is strong in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's all by
what He's done. It's all His work because we're
fixed in Him and connected to Him. And let me show you this. Go to 2 Corinthians 12. We'll
see an example of this with Paul. He says in 2 Corinthians 12,
9, Paul had been praying that the
Lord heal him of an infirmity that he had. He says that the
Lord said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength
is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will
I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may
rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in
infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions,
in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I
strong. So, we see that, that's the strength
being spoken of, that we're weak ourselves, but Christ has made
us strong, because we're not confident in ourselves, we have
no confidence in this flesh, we're confident in Christ and
what He's done in us. Alright, so prior to Christ speaking
to us in power, we had that withering of the flesh, right, the spirit
comes in the preaching, while the gospel is being preached
or even afterwards, but the Spirit comes and He brings that word
home and He withers this flesh. That's where we're broken down
and made low in ourselves so that we might hear what Christ
has done, that we might be made ready by Him to hear what Christ
has done. Really, what we were before that,
before that withering, is we were a defense city. We were
that city so, so shored up, right? We were so, we had our religion,
we had our confidences, we had those things that we trusted
in, we had our moral superiority, we had our judgments of others,
and we trusted in what we knew and what we were doing. And we
were a defense city because the most fearful thing to us The
most scary thing is when we were talking to somebody is that they
figure out that we were hypocrites, that we were liars, and that
we really weren't as strong as we were boasting ourselves to
be. And we were always so afraid that someone's going to call
me out, someone's going to figure me out. and I'm going to be exposed. Because our confidence, our defense
was, well, if I can fool everybody and fool myself, if I can convince
everybody else, if I can convince myself that I'm really His, then
God must be convinced with me too. He must be alright with
what I'm doing and where I am. We were like that defensed city,
but thankfully the Lord Jesus Christ stripped us of it in His
time, not through the humiliation of others finding us out so much,
but He did it through His Word. He withered us and stripped us
down of those vain confidences, showed us the phoniness of our
palace that we were in and our defense city, and He called us
out of that and delivered us from it that we not be destroyed
with those that are. truly the unrighteous and are
confident in themselves. So God revealed there before
our eyes, and that day when He did that, He showed us the true
cornerstone. He showed us Christ. And there
stood before us a Lamb, a bloody Lamb, as it had been slain, the
Lord Jesus Christ, sacrificed for my sins, for your sins, sacrificed
for you that believe, who had nothing to boast in. Christ laid
down His life, and there He stood before you by the power of God,
a victorious Savior. And you were made to see that
He is the righteousness of the believer. He is the Savior and
the salvation of His people, so that He made you to see and
to confess, My righteousness is Christ. I have no righteousness
of my own. I've got nothing, Lord. If I
don't have Christ, I've got nothing. And Lord, see me in Christ, receive
me in Christ. Have mercy upon me for Christ's
sake. And that became our prayer. We
stopped looking at and protecting those vain, dead, religious things
and that knowledge that we tried to say that we had and things
of that sort. He delivered us from that so
that now we willingly confess, I'm a sinner. And I've got nothing
to boast in before you, brethren. But my hope is like your hope,
that God will receive me in the Lord Jesus Christ, and not because
I'm some mighty person, and not because I'm great in myself.
I have no knowledge, I have no works, I have nothing to boast
in, except the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's our hope, and that's
what unites us. And that's why we're not judging one another
and being hard on one another for those things, and we're patient
with one another and kind to one another, because that's what
The Lord has shown us in ourselves. So, we're nothing and Christ
is all and that's the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His
name. Alright? We give thanks to His name because
He does this for us and He's patient with us. He's patient
with us. He knows that. He knows the infirmity
of our flesh. He knows that we're but flesh
and that we're but dust and going back to the dust in this flesh
until He returns again. So, He knows that and we're thankful
for that. Alright, now verses 4 and 5.
These affirm to us that God is our strength and though we have
not earned any of his favor for us, Christ alone earned it. But
there can be no mistake in this that God is gracious toward his
people of his choosing and he reminds us of this truth, making
sure that we understand that we're only received in Him and
accepted in Him because of Christ, right? That's what we see. We're
made to see that so that we cry out with the psalmist who said
in Psalm 115 verse 1, O Lord, not unto us, but unto
thy name give glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake." We
see it's not me, Lord, it's you. You, above, you're the gracious
one. So in verses four and five, we
see how the Lord helps his people and that he arises for their
protection and for their security. Look at verse four and five.
For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the
needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from
the heat. When the blast of the terrible
ones is as a storm against the wall, thou shalt bring down the
noise of strangers as the heat in a dry place, even the heat
with the shadow of a cloud. The branch of the terrible ones
shall be brought low. All right? Our God, you know,
there will be assaults, but they won't be able to achieve their
chief or their end purpose why these assaults come. They won't
be able to do the damage that they'd like to do. So we may
go through siftings from time to time, like Peter, if we get
too big for our britches and we need to learn something, the
Lord will do it. The Lord will do it, and he'll
bring us to see our need of him again. And we may be called,
not because of any sin in us, but we may be called to go through
fiery trials. If need be, Peter said, right?
He said that we go through these if need be. If the Lord purposes
and designs it, we may need to go through those trials. But
what we'll see in all that is more and more clearly that the
Lord is our protector, that the Lord is our provider, and that
he does all things well. He'll only increase our faith. As the need is, he'll provide
whatever is necessary for us to do what's needed. And so the
Lord gives us this word, he says in Isaiah 54 verse 17, 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 that's the Lord's promise,
brethren. You can trust him. He's His people's
provision and their protection. And so He does all things well
and He's done this for you. He's given you His Son and He's
not going to leave you in need without Him. He's not going to
leave you hanging. He's going to provide and arise
for you in the hour that's necessary. He's done everything up to this
point. He'll continue to do it to the end. So I pray the Lord
will bless that word to your hearts. Let's pray. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you, Father, for your mercy, for your grace and
kindness to us through your Son, Jesus Christ. Lord, we do ask
that you would grow us in this grace and the knowledge of our
Lord and Savior, of what you've done for us, that we would see
our Savior and our Lord, Jesus Christ. that You would fill us
with His Spirit, that we might walk in faith before You in a
manner, Lord, that is growing in the things that You've done
for us, in the knowledge of these things, and in love toward You
and love toward our brethren. Lord, we pray this in the name
of our Savior. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.