Good evening. All right, our
text will be Isaiah 23. We'll be looking at all 18 verses
tonight, Isaiah 23. Now, as we've been going through
these burdens, As we've been looking at these various burdens,
we see the pictures of the sinner, pictures of the sinner being
stripped from all different nations. These nations are being stripped,
sinners are being stripped, and things which they're trusting
in are being taken away from them, showing the taking away,
the removal of their vain, dead self-confidences, these things
which they would look to for their comfort and their peace
and their joy, but the Lord takes it away from them and saves them
in righteousness. So God shows his elect, his chosen
children, that there is salvation, and that salvation is in one,
the Lord Jesus Christ whom he has sent. And in saving some
out of these nations, It can be said of those nations that
the Lord has had mercy upon that nation. And we see also that's
why the Lord has mercy upon a nation and why a nation continues because
the Lord has a people there and he's being merciful to those
And we see in Revelation 5, 9-10 it says, And they sung a new
song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open
the seals thereof, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to
God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people
and nation, and has made us unto our God kings and priests, and
we shall reign on the earth. So tonight we're going to be
looking at the city of Tyre. The city of Tyre, and we'll see
that this city here, it lusts after, it has the same spirit
of Antichrist that we see spoken of in regards to Babylon. As we read of Babylon, and as
we look at the descriptions used of Tyre, we see tremendous similarities,
because they're all under that same fallen, wicked spirit of
Antichrist. What we see though is that the
Lord has a people. The Lord has a people, a chosen
elect people that he is determined to have mercy on, to be gracious
to. And so he saves them out of even
this nation. And then he uses them and the
wealth of those people that he gives to them to further the
gospel, to send that gospel out to the benefit and the salvation
of his people. So it continues to grow and expand.
Our title is, The Stripping of Nations to Spread the Gospel. The Stripping of Nations to Spread
the Gospel. And we'll have just two divisions.
First, the Lord strips man, and then the Lord saves man. The
Lord strips man, and the Lord saves man. So let's look at this
first point of the Lord stripping man. And the reason why man needs
to be stripped is because man is proud. He's proud, he's arrogant,
he's boastful, he's confident in his own works. Many of you,
no doubt, probably have someone in your family or someone that
you know that is just irritating to be around them because they're
constantly talking about and boasting what they've done, how
they got over on somebody, some great deal they've got done and
how they made out in this way or did that and they're always
talking about something they've accomplished and done and how
wise they are, how wealthy they are, the wisdom they have, the
influence and the strength that they have and the reality is
that's just a means of us seeing just how proud man really is.
But that pride is in our own hearts and we need to be saved
from our own vain self-confidences because we may not be as vocal
and loud about some of the things that others are very comfortable
speaking of, but the reality is we have confidence in ourselves
and in our own strength and in our own wisdom and mind. And
so what that pride results in is that man is always looking
to his own works, his own hand for salvation. And you see it
even in the thoughts that we have when we get ourselves into
a fix and we're like I got myself into this mess and then we get
to working ourselves out of that that fix and that mess that we've
done we try to write things as best that we can because we're
still just we look to ourselves in our own flesh in our own strength
we're constantly looking to ourselves and we so easily forget the Lord
and dismiss Him. So man, whether he confesses
to believe in God or not, he is looking in the flesh, he's
always looking to his own strength, his own wisdom, his own hand
to save him or to deliver him out of his troubles and what
he finds himself in. And when God saves a sinner,
He doesn't let that sinner have something to glory in. He doesn't
leave that sinner with that sin that's standing between them
and their God. But that sin that prevents us from having fellowship
with God, God is going to strip us of that. I'm not saying that
He strips every single sin away in this flesh, but there are
things that the Lord will deal with each one of us on that has
to go, and He will hold us to the fire of that trial until
we cry out to the Lord for mercy and grace and forgiveness to
deliver us from that. And what we find, what the saved
sinner finds, is that whatever they've lost in the flesh, it
cannot compare to the gain that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.
and what God freely and abundantly gives to us in His Son, Jesus
Christ. Alright, so let's begin with
this stripping of Tyre, because God is going to strip this nation
here, this people here in this great city of Tyre, and what
it results in is it's good for His people. It's good for his
people. And actually even, we'll see
that the nation of Tyre, they're benefited because they are restored.
After a time, they'll be restored, but it's all again for the benefit
of his people. So a nation is happy when It's
occupied by the people of God because God will be merciful
to that nation for the sake of the people. And even if they
are stripped and destroyed or brought low, that nation, it's
for the good of his people. So it's all for the good of the
people. Then the Lord say, I gave nations,
whole nations for you Israel. He gave nations for the people
of Israel. And for the elect's sake, it
benefits those nations. He said in Mark 13 20, and except
that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved,
but for the elect's sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened. the days. So, for their sake,
he's shortened the days. He'll do things to strip a nation
and bring them low, but for the elect's sake, he'll show himself
merciful. And it's always working good
to the elect. Woe to the wicked, but it'll
be a blessing to the righteous, right? He said that in Isaiah
3, 10 and 11, I think it was. Alright, so let's look at the
first verse. Isaiah 23, verse 1. It says, the burden of Tyre,
how ye ships of Tarshish, for it is laid waste, Tyre is laid
waste, so that there is no house, no entering in from the land
of Chittim, it is revealed to them. So in this burden of Tyre,
we see immediately these two other cities, these other places
are named Tarshish and Chittim. And Tarshish was likely a specific
place. I think it's believed to have
been around on the Atlantic side of Spain, on the Iberian Peninsula
there of Spain or maybe even what is called Portugal. now. And it's also a term in that
could be generally used for any country, any seafaring people
that traded by the sea with Tyre. All right, so all these other
ships and nations would come bringing all their wares and
it would go to Tyre and that was an entryway into the rest
of Asia, the Middle East, and then and then it would go on
beyond there. So this was a pretty important city, a pretty major
thoroughfare for a lot of people and a lot of products to be moved
in and out. And then Chittim is likely referencing
Cyprus, the island of Cyprus there, which I think is zoned
between nowadays Greece and Turkey, I believe. But anyway, it's Cyprus.
there is what Chittim is. And these two names, Tarshish
and Chittim, are of the sons of Javan. Javan, yeah, Javan. And Javan was the son of Japheth,
and Japheth was the son of Noah. And so that's where these boys
came from, this Tarshish and Chittim there. It says in Genesis
10, 4 and 5, I'll read it, and the sons of Javan, Elisha and
Tarshish, and Kittim, or Chittim, and Dodanim, by these were the
isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands, everyone after
his tongue, after their families, in their nations. And so in our
text now, this city of Tyre is destroyed. It says it's laid
waste, so that there is no house, no entering in. And as you read,
just reading the scriptures, you see that Babylon is the one
that's actually attacking Tyre at this time. And Babylon doesn't
even exist at this time, hardly at all. It's just a nomadic people
out in the wilderness. So the fact that Isaiah is prophesying
of this is just amazing that it's being revealed. It's clearly
being revealed to him by the Spirit, and by the time that
Babylon broke through, it's believed that they got basically nothing.
It says in the scriptures, I'm not going to go there, but they
wore themselves out, and by the time they got into the city,
there's nothing there because the people were fleeing, taking
all their treasures with them. They were leaving and going to
places like Chittim, and they're bringing word. They're bringing
word of what's going on, how they're under siege, it's being
destroyed, the city's being taken, and so these cities that trade
with Tyre, though, even though the people are getting away,
there's problems because all that great commerce, that route
of commerce, is all wiped out, and they're sad and upset and
bewildered by the destruction of them. And actually, when Babylon,
I think it's in Ezekiel, I forget, but it's basically, that's why
the Lord gave them Egypt, because they wore themselves out on Tyre
and got nothing for their hire. And so the Lord said, all right,
I'll give you Egypt for this. You know, because by the time
they broke through, they were all, everybody was gone, it emptied
out. All right, verse two, be still
ye inhabitants of the isle, thou whom the merchants of Zidom that
pass over the sea have replenished. And so, This is speaking to the
inhabitants of Tyre. It's everything that they've
worked for, all their hopes, their goals. I mean, you know
when you wake up and you have a job and you have goals and
you have plans and something major happens and it all unravels. And that's what's happened to
these people. And they're silenced. There's nothing to say anymore.
And it refers to the merchants of Sidon. And that's where in
the New Testament you read of those that came from Tyre and
Sidon. Sidon, so that's in the New Testament,
it's with an S. But anyway, this city was founded
by the men of Sidon, and they're Phoenicians, they're seafaring
people, they're mighty, they would go out and colonize all
around the Mediterranean Sea and bring their wares all around
there, and so They did these things, but everything they had
built, everything that whereby they were enriching themselves
was all brought to ruin. And the reason why the destruction
of Tyre is significant to every sinner, to us sitting here, the
reason why we look at it is because It's a picture, it pictures the
destruction and the stripping of every sinner, of every sinner
that is brought to ruin. That is all that we look to to
find our peace, all that we look to to find our comfort and to
have a sense of honor and pride and the things that we're doing,
it's stripped and it's taken away so that everything that
they were looking to and fixing their hope in was all taken away
because what we do, what we do in the flesh is we don't want
to seek the Lord. In the flesh, we don't want to
seek after the Lord. We just want to be doing our
thing and puttering around and doing what we do and just have
confidence in those things and really don't give much, if any,
thought to the Lord and our need of Him. And the Lord knows just
how to put his finger right where it needs to be put and remind
us of our need. And for us, it's for our good.
It's for our good to bring us back to realize, where am I? And I haven't thought of the
Lord in so long, and now we're reminded, now we're brought to
see that we thought, I know I've thought at times that, you know,
I remember the verse, I'm thinking, oh, the Lord, when all is right
between you and the Lord, he makes even your enemies to be
at peace with you. And then I find out my heart
wasn't right with the Lord. I just was off really far and
all these things were coming together and I was brought low
when I needed to be brought low. And the Lord knows just how to
do that. So He does that in His way so
that we, the people of God, won't continue to look to our own means
and our own strength and our own confidences and comforts.
And so when the Lord has a people, and when he has a people, especially
in a nation where that word of the gospel is not there, he'll
strip that nation, he'll bring that nation to trouble and bring
them low in order that they'll be prepared for that word to
come in there and to reach them and to deliver out His people,
to save them and bring them to Himself. Turn over to Isaiah
8. Isaiah 8. and go to verse six, and we'll
read from six to eight. Now remember, the Lord has raised
up Isaiah, he sent Isaiah, Isaiah is speaking to the people of
Judah, and he's speaking to Ahaz, their king Ahaz, and it said,
he says, for as much as this people refuse it, the waters
of Shiloh that go softly and rejoice in reason and remolise
them, all right, that was Israel and Syria at the time. He says,
Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters
of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and
all his glory. And he shall come up over all
his channels, and go over all his banks, and he shall pass
through Judah, he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even
to the neck, and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the
breadth of thy land, O Emmanuel. So the people of Judah, they
spoke of God, they spoke of religious things, they spoke in these things,
and they had a certain understanding of religious things, but their
heart was far from them. And so the Lord, he deals with
them. It's for the good of his people.
And you notice, after the promise of Christ, because right after
chapter eight, then we see the promise of Christ, a virgin shall
be with child, and the government shall be on his shoulders, And
we see all these beautiful pictures all throughout chapters 8, 9,
10, 11, and 12, and then 13 comes and all the burdens begin, all
these burdens. And what it is against all these
other nations, including Israel, and so that all those wealthy,
powerful, magnificent nations around Israel, upon whom they
were trusting and looking to and glorying in, the Lord strips
them. And he begins to move around.
Nations are rising, nations are falling. Babylon didn't even
exist until the Lord had purposed for it. Assyria wasn't even powerful
until the Lord purposed it. And Media and Persia, they didn't
even exist until the Lord purposed it. And you see all this jockeying
of nations rising and falling, and it's all bringing about now
to bring that promise of the Christ to pass under the Roman
Empire, right? And so that really there's tremendous
blessing. So it was a blessing to the Jews
and it was a blessing to all the Gentiles, not in the immediate
portion, right? All the trouble they went through,
but eventually the Lord had his select people among the Gentiles
and there's the Empire of Rome where now you could go all the
way through countries under the protection of Rome with their
roads that they built and various protections and little fortresses
that they've set up to protect against Marauders and thieves
and things like that and it helped spread the gospel Amazingly,
so this is what the Lord's doing you see all these burdens are
for that purpose to bring about the good of the Lord's people
and so So you wonder, does anybody hear it? But the Lord's people,
they hear and they do understand. And that's why when we look at
it and see it in that light, you understand, all right, this
is what the Lord's doing. And remember, for our day and
what we see in our day, it's all for that gospel. to keep
marching forward and to reach the people wherever they are
in whatever nation they're in. Proverbs 11, I'm sorry, Proverbs
15, 31 through 33 says, The ear that heareth the reproof of life
abideth among the wise. He that refuseth instruction
despiseth his own soul. But he that heareth reproof getteth
understanding. The fear of the Lord is the instruction
of wisdom, and before honor is humility." And so, Tyre is being
humbled, and it's not for that nation's good, but for the elect
of that nation. It's for their good, and they
would, all that wealth leaving probably was a preservation for
that wealth to flow west into Europe, which would eventually
hear the gospel, as opposed to flowing east into Iran and China
and things like that. It flowed the other way. So it
all worked to the good of the gospel going and reaching the
far corners of the earth in this direction at least. Alright,
verse 3. And by great waters the seed of Sihur, the harvest
of the river, is her revenue, and she is a mart of nations."
So Sihur is the Nile River in Egypt, and so even Egypt was
trading with them. But notice it says there that
Tyre is a mart of nations, and this is where we begin to see
the unflattering language used to describe the spirit of Tyre
which is the same as the spirit of Babylon. Turn over to Revelation
18. Revelation 18. and we'll go to verse, we'll
start in verse 2, we'll just read a few verses, I'm not going
to read it all, but by all means you can make a note of Revelation
18 and then if you're doing that make a note of Ezekiel 27 and
you can look at Tyre in Ezekiel 27 and then look at the description
of Babylon in Revelation 18. But let me just read a couple
verses. So an angel, a messenger comes down from heaven and this
appears to be Christ because it says the earth was lightened
with his glory. Because Christ himself is the
light of men. He's the one that reveals the
will of God. He's the one that gives light
and life to the prisoners, to the sinners bound in sin and
darkness. He's the revealer of truth and
light to us." It's the Lord Jesus Christ. And he cried mightily,
verse 2, with a strong voice saying, Babylon the greatest
fallen has fallen and become the habitation of devils and
the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and
hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of
the wine of the wrath of her fornication and the kings of
the earth and have committed fornication with her, and the
merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of
her delicacies." And the Lord says that he's destroyed Babylon
because he's the one who gained the victory for his people. He's
the one who defeated the power, the rule, and the reign of sin
in the heart and in the believer, that we're no longer servants
of sin. But we have the Spirit of Christ in us so that we desire
His righteousness and we are made the servants of righteousness. We don't want to keep doing the
things that this flesh lusts for and does and strives to do. Yes, the flesh is weak. Yes,
this flesh is still wicked. No, this flesh isn't any holier
than it was. But it is set apart and sanctified
in the sense that God preserves us for the good of His creation
so that He delivers us from that death and the things that we
would do he turns us and gives us a new heart and new desires
and a hunger and thirst as we sung in the first song a hunger
and thirst for righteousness and we desire him by his mercy
and grace and so he does that and his people are brought to
hear his voice because He's defeated the spirit of Babylon. He's defeated
the devil and the power of sin in us. And his people hear his
voice, which says, come out of her, my people, that ye be not
partakers of her sins and that you receive not of her plagues. And so our God, in irresistible
grace and mercy toward his people, causes them. He gives them life
and causes them to hear that word. and gives them light and
faith to believe that word and trust him to obey the gospel
call because it's to them and so he commands them and says
believe and they believe because it's all by his power and grace
and might. Others here And it means nothing
to them because they don't think highly of Christ. But all of
us were in that darkness. He says in Ephesians 2, 2-5,
Paul says, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,
among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in
the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as
others. And then it says in Ephesians
2, 4, But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith
he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved. The Lord
brings his people to see that all our hopes, all our trusts,
everything that we fix in this world and how this world goes,
whether this world goes up and we go up or down and we go down,
the Lord breaks that and delivers us from having our hopes and
our joys and our deliverance and our salvation from being
fixed and tied to this world, which is destined to be destroyed
by the Lord. He's going to destroy it all
and burn it all up in fire. All right, and so it says in
Isaiah 23, four through seven now. Isaiah 23, four through
seven. He says, be thou ashamed. He's going to bring us to be
ashamed of those things that we once joyed in and gloried
in. He's going to bring shame for that. He says, be thou ashamed,
O Zidon, for the sea hath spoken, even the strength of the sea,
saying, I travail not, nor bring forth children, neither do I
nourish up young men, nor bring up virgins. Now, of course, that's
true. Once the city is brought to ruin,
it doesn't do that. But spiritually, There's no people
there. But spiritually speaking, this
flesh can't bring forth any fruit. This flesh doesn't bring forth
any works that are pleasing to the Lord. And so we bring forth
dead, stinking works that God will not receive of the flesh
of our hands. And it says, verse five, as at
the report concerning Egypt, so shall they be sorely pained
at the report of Tyre. And we saw that with Egypt a
few weeks ago where we looked at Egypt and the stripping away
of all their confidences, their trust in the defense that the
river brought and the food, with the fish and all the watering
and the grains that they had, and the Lord stripped all that
away. And he's saying, just like I
stripped away everything from Egypt, I stripped everything
away from Tyre here. And he says, verse 6, pass ye
over to Tarshish, how will ye inhabitants of the island, right?
Run away, go away. And he says, is this your joyous
city, whose antiquity is of ancient days? Her own feet shall carry
her afar off to sojourn. And so the Lord will bring us
to flee from all those vain dead works when we see that they're
nothing but shame and they cannot save and they do not speak well
for us and they will not cover our nakedness, they will not
cover our shame. And so we see that everything
in this world, everything that man glories in and delights in
are not the things that the Lord God glories in and delights in.
He glories in and delights in His Son Jesus Christ. That's
why we preach and exalt and lift up the Lord Jesus Christ and
tell sinners, get you to Christ. Get to Christ. Look to Him. Trust
Him, beg Him for mercy, because that's the one in whom God is
merciful and peaceful and gracious and kind to. And all those who
come to Him in Christ's blood shall find God to be merciful
and gracious, warm and welcoming. He receives sinners in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Alright, now, We see this, look
at verses 8 and 9, and here we see how the Lord is just shaming,
shaming the honorable of this world. He says, verse 8, Who
hath taken this counsel against Tyre, the crowning city, whose
merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honorable
of the earth? And that's the language of Babylon,
right? Their trade included slaves and
the souls of men. They trafficked in everything,
everything, including the movement of people in and out. And so
the Lord, when the Lord purposes it, he'll allow a nation to be
shamed, right? To expose even the honorable. And we see that even today in
our own nation. I don't know what's gonna come of it. Maybe
it'll all be buried, but that whole Epstein case, that disgusting
stuff there where They say, according to just the tweets of people
on both sides of the aisle, it looks like people of honor and
respectability are going to be shamed. And it's a shame to our
nation that that's going on and allowed and accepted in the nation.
That's what he's doing here. He's bringing them, this nation,
to shame. And he says, verse 9, that it's
the Lord, the Lord of hosts hath purposed it to stain the pride
of all glory and to bring into contempt all the honorable of
the earth. And yet man continues to say,
no God, no God, I won't hear you, I won't have this, I won't
look to you for anything. And so they'll be shamed and
destroyed, they'll come to ruin. But the Lord's people, they hear
and they see, Lord have mercy upon us, Lord have mercy upon
me, save me Lord, deliver me. The Lord God, He is glorified
one. He's glorified His Son Jesus
Christ. So that it's not by man's shame. It's not by man's decision. It's
not by his will. It's not by his works. And the
Lord brings us to see I'm the vile sinner. I wasn't seeking
after God. I didn't want to know God. I
wanted the God of my imagination, but not the true and living God.
And so he strips us and brings us to see that all our confidences,
even as religious as we are, all our confidences were in my
works. And I was coming to God because
I could come to God. I thought I had put away certain
sins and cleaned up this act and cleaned up that thing, and
then I could come to God. But in mercy, the Lord will strip
you. If that's your hope, if your
hope's in those... I mean, I know, even my own experience,
I spoke the right things, and yet all my confidence was in
the things I was doing. And all my fears and terrors
were in the things I was doing or not doing. And all my confidences
were in the things that I was doing. And the Lord has to break
that and separate us from trusting in self. It's not you. It's not
what you do or don't do. It's the Lord. You seek the Lord,
and the Lord will take care of all those things that need to
go. He'll strip you. He'll take away those things,
and He'll conquer those sins. You look to the Lord. You seek
Him, and trust Him, and seek ye the kingdom of God first,
and all these things will be added unto you. Alright? And
so it's to the intent that we see Christ, that now unto the
principalities and powers and heavenly places might be known
by the church the manifold wisdom of God according to the eternal
purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. And so all these various chastenings
and strippings that that we endure, you know, They won't stand in
the belief that the Lord is effectual in what He does. He knows exactly
how to remove those things that we're trusting in and having
confidence in. I can't even begin to describe
all the things that go on in our hearts and the things that
we trust in and have confidence in, but the Lord knows. He knows.
And so, I need only lift up Christ and say, He is salvation. You're
never going to find peace and comfort in the darkness of your
heart. It's never going to be there. It's only in Christ. And so, in Christ shall we stand
and live in Him forever. In Christ we're accepted of God. Alright? But until we hear Him,
look what the Lord says in verses 10 through 12. Isaiah 23, 10
through 12. He says, Pass through thy land
as a river, O daughter of Tarshish. There is no more strength. He
stretched out his hand over the sea. He shook the kingdoms. The
Lord hath given a commandment against the merchant city to
destroy the strongholds thereof. And he said, Thou shalt no more
rejoice, O thou oppressed virgin, daughter of Zidon. Arise, pass
over to Chittim. There also shalt thou have no
rest. And so God will cause his children
to loathe the fruits, so-called, that they produced in their own
flesh, and like a river that sweeps away the debris and everything
away, that's how it'll be. The Lord will take those things
away and strip us and bring us down to nothing before him, that
we would find our all in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now verses
13 and 14, Behold the land of the Chaldeans, this people was
not, even when Isaiah is saying this, this people was not, till
the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness.
They set up the towers thereof, they raised up the palaces thereof,
and he brought it to ruin. How ye ships of Tarshish, for
your strength is laid waste. And so the Lord, he strips and
destroys these cities and these nations for the good of his elect. Alright, that's the main thing
to really understand here. It's for the good of his elect. Now let's look at the second
point here, and it won't be as long as the first. Alright, the
Lord saves man. The Lord saves man. So here's
Tyre, they're stripped now and they're destroyed, and now we
begin to see the gospel word in verse 15. It says in 15 and
16, it shall come to pass in that day that Tyre shall be forgotten
70 years, according to the days of one king. After the end of
70 years shall Tyre sing as an harlot. Take in heart, go about
the city thou harlot that has been forgotten, make sweet melody,
sing many songs that thou mayest be remembered. So the Lord, if
you notice the 70 years is the same as Israel. When Babylon
was destroyed and taken over by the Persians and the Medes,
and then the people of Tyre began to come back and try to rebuild
the city. And then they're singing and
they're saying, hey, we're back in business now. Everybody come
to us. We're ready to start trading. That's basically what they're
doing, like a harlot. And all it is, they're just trafficking
the things of this world. They're just selling and moving
product through this world. There's nothing, you know, that
inordinate about it seemingly and that's all it is. It's just
that love of the world, just the ways and the means and all
that this world is. It's just going on there and
the Lord calls it. But there's some spiritual things
here for the elect, right? Everything that the wicked, they
trust in, shall perish. And what we see, though, is that
for the elect, for the people of God who have nothing for God,
no righteousness, no good works, nothing that they could give
to God, we see that Christ himself came and he was forsaken. He was put into darkness. He
was forsaken of his father there on the cross. He went to that
cross. For you sinners that believe, that hear His voice, that know
you have no righteousness of your own, Christ went to the
cross for sinners, to put away their sin. And on that cross
He was forsaken of His own darling Father, with whom He enjoyed
fellowship with for all eternity. And He became poor for our sakes,
who have nothing to give to God, but hope in His mercy, and have
heard the word of His grace and His kindness to us through Christ. And there on that cross, when
Christ was forsaken, He defeated all our enemies. He defeated
sin, Satan, the spirit of Antichrist that we walked in. He defeated
death and hell so that we have no fear now of the second death.
We have nothing to fear. When this body dies and goes
in the ground, Nothing to fear, because we'll be immediately
with the Lord, all thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ. And the
Lord says to his saved people, sing as in harlot, take and harp,
go about the city, thou harlot, thou hast been forgotten, that
thou hast been forgotten, make sweet melody and sing many songs
that thou mayest be remembered. And I was thinking, you know,
when I was looking back at where the burdens began, just at the
end of of chapter 12, we're told in Isaiah 12, 5 and 6, So what
we're seeing here is that gospel now, that city being rebuilt. and coming back there, it's all
gonna be done for the good of the people, for the furtherance
of the gospel, for that gospel word to go out to the Gentiles,
and for them and their riches to give to the furtherance of
the gospel and the spread of the gospel there. So what we
see here is that Tyre itself, they're a harlot, and sinners
saved, Our sinners saved. They're saved
sinners. This flesh isn't improved at
all. It's still the wicked flesh that
it is. It's only by the grace of God
that we are what we are. It's only by the grace of God
that our desires are turned toward Him and seek Him and seek His
people, His brethren, and they're good. but being sinners saved by their
gracious lord we sing the songs of our salvation that's accomplished
in the lord jesus christ right that's our song we that are saved
our song is the lord jesus christ and then this nation though it's
still a harlot it's benefited because of the alexei god has
a purpose for this nation. That's why it's being rebuilt.
Otherwise it could have been stripped away like Babylon there
in the desert. That old city Babylon is still an old ruined
city. It isn't built up or used anymore. All right, so Isaiah 23, 17 and
18 says, and it shall come to pass after the end of 70 years
that the Lord will visit Tyre and she shall turn to her higher
and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the
world upon the face of the earth. So the nation itself, they go
back. There's nothing special about that nation, Tyre itself,
right? They go back and do what they're
going to do, but it's all now beginning. Everything's beginning
to come into place now for the Kingdom, for the coming of Christ.
That's what the Lord's working. He's working everything for the
coming of His Son, Jesus Christ, as He purposed it as he testifies
to it by his prophets and the things that Daniel said and he's
bringing all that to come to pass according to the scriptures.
That we would see what they saw, the suffering of Christ and the
glory that should follow. It's all showing and revealing
this to us. And then that word would spread
out to the Gentiles, right? Even those descendants of Tyre
and Zidon and all those. It says in verse 18, and her
merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the Lord. It shall not be treasured nor
laid up, for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell
before the Lord to eat sufficiently and for durable clothing. So that eating sufficiently is
that Gentiles, they would hear of Christ and they would feast
and feed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, right? And so, it's just
as we saw when these inhabitants fled Tyre when they were being
besieged and destroyed, and they spread that word, so it is with
the gospel. As the Lord scattered and sent
out his people, they went out carrying that word and dispersing
the gospel seed, the gospel word, going out and reaching the Gentiles.
Turn over to Acts 11. And we'll see this, Acts 11,
verse 19. Acts 11, 19. It says, now they which were
scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen traveled
as far as Phinese, and we'll see that this is Tyre and Sidon,
and Cyprus, or Chittim, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but
unto the Jews only. And some of them were men of
Cyprus and Cyrene, which when they were come to Antioch, spake
unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand
of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned
unto the Lord. All right, now go over to Acts
21. Acts 21, I'll show you that phonicy. or Phoenicia is Tyre
inside in there, that area. All right, Acts 21 verse 2. And
it says, in finding a ship sailing over unto Phoenicia, we went
aboard and set forth. Now, when we had discovered Cyprus,
we left it on the left hand and sailed into Syria and landed
at Tyre. For there the ship was to unlaid
her burden. All right, and it said that they
were looking for a ship going to Phoenicia, and where to go?
To Tyre. to unload its burden, because
it's Phoenicia basically, that's the land of Phoenicia. All right,
and then verse four, and finding disciples we tarried there seven
days. So what we see in all that is
that the Lord destroyed Tyre, brought them low, scattered them,
and began to position all the nations. and to get them all
into position with kingdoms rising and kingdoms falling and all
these things going on and the Lord's bringing about to establish
the Roman Empire that would then make it easier for the gospel
to flow and to go out. to the people and so we can take
comfort in that in every change that we see in this world. I
mean I don't like change more than anybody that has a family
and people that they love. I don't love change for that
reason but I take comfort in the thought and and the knowledge
that God is in control. Nothing that happened here in
Isaiah got out of his control. Nothing was set loose or hurt
the people, but it all worked to the good of God's elect people. It stripped them of their competences
in this world, and it shows us Christ. It shows us our need
of Christ and the kindness of God toward us in Christ. And
it's so that we, too, might receive that durable clothing. And that
durable clothing is not our righteousness, but the righteousness, that righteous
robe of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the durable clothing that
we want and that we need to stand before the throne of God without
fault and know that he shall receive us. coming to Him in
Christ, and trusting Him. So, I pray that that's the last
of the burdens there, but that's what we see there, and the burden
is the Lord stripping all the confidences of Israel, so it's
for their good, and then it would also send that gospel word out
to the Gentiles, which sat in darkness, that we too would see
a great light in the Lord Jesus Christ, and know the salvation
God has provided for His people. In that one name, the Lord Jesus
Christ. All right, I pray the Lord will bless that. Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you just in seeing how you have all things under
your hand. All things are in your control
and they all work according to your will and to your glory and
purpose. And Lord, we thank you that this
little gathering of people, Lord, have been gathered in your name,
and that we have your promise, that where two or three are gathered
in your name, you are there in the midst with them. And so,
Lord, we ask that you would bless this word, that you would comfort
our hearts and settle us, looking to Jesus only, that we would
see our Lord and our Savior, and that you would indeed turn
us and deliver us from trusting and loving this world which is
passing away, but that we would find our all in the Lord Jesus
Christ. We ask that You would settle
us and keep us. Lord, let us not be moved or
fearful of the things going on about us in this world, but help
us to see our Lord and Savior and to know that You do all things
well, Lord. We pray that You would Indeed,
as our brother prayed earlier, that you would call out your
sheep from the areas about us, and that you would bring your
people into the fold, and that you would unite our hearts in
the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we pray. It's in his name. Amen.