Isaiah chapter 49, and we'll be looking at several
verses, but mainly verses 1 through 4 this morning. The title of the message is A
Gracious Call, A Gracious Call. The scripture says, listen. All isles unto me." The isles
that he refers to here are the same isles which refer to the
Gentiles in other passages of Scripture in this book. He refers to them in the isles
as those who are making other gods. those who are worshiping
other gods. He is talking about the Gentile
nations, the isles, the ones that are separated. He said,
listen to me, and hearken ye my people from afar. Now, from the time of Abraham,
from the time that Abram was called out from among his heathen,
idolatrous people, and given the promise of God, from that
time, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all their seed, till the
time that Jesus Christ came, died, and rose again, this nation
was the only nation that God had chosen to give His Word to. The only nation. Thousands of
years, the Jews were the only chosen people of God to receive
the blessings of His Word, His sacrifices, and pictures of Christ
that was to come. They had the Word of God. Go
to Romans chapter 9. Romans chapter 9, the Apostle
Paul reveals this to us plainly, talking about his kinsmen in
the flesh. Verse 4, he said, Who are Israelites?
To whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants,
and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises? Whose are the fathers, and of
whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all
God blessed forever?" He was, Abraham was chosen of God. And His line was to be the line
of the Messiah. Do you realize that this is why
God did not destroy this nation many times over? Because He did
it for His own namesake. Because He would have the line
pure all the way to Christ. And I'll tell you what, when
Israel was taken captive of the northern kingdom, They lost everything. They lost all records of who
their children were, and their fathers, and those ten tribes
we call the lost ten tribes of Israel. But we know this, Judah
kept its line. David, the line of David, continued
to be tracked all the way to Mary and Joseph. The Lord had
done this for Himself. This nation, God had parted the
Red Sea and destroyed Pharaoh. This nation, God gave the law
and the sacrifices to picture Christ. This nation drank out
of rocks. Isn't that something? A whole
nation. I'm not talking just a couple
of people. A whole nation drank out of a rock. Amazing. God had done amazing
things for these people. It was to Abraham and his seed
were the promises given. The Old Testament, we read of
God's saving grace here. Not only to the nation of Israel. We read of His heart. To call a people that knew him
not. To call the Gentile nations. Can you imagine for centuries
that only one nation had the truth? And God left everyone else to
a reprobate mind. But when Christ came and He preached
His first message, He told them that He was the
One that was to come and set the prisoners free. He was the
One to come and heal the blind. He was the One to come. He was
the Christ. And they all marveled at that.
They said, oh, wonderful. Oh, this is great. This is good
stuff. And then He said something that
made them mad. He said, Were there not many widows in Jerusalem when the Lord sustained that
one that was a Gentile? Were there not many lepers, and
yet only Naaman the Syrian, that Gentile was cleansed? They were
so mad they wanted to throw him off a hill. They wanted to really
take the Lord Jesus Christ and throw Him down a side of a mountain. How dare He say anything against
Israel, the Jews, God's chosen people. You see, they thought
salvation came by blood, by transmission of being part of the Jewish nation,
of being part of Abraham's seed. But Jesus unveiled that not to
be true at all, even in the Old Testament. Even when mostly the
nation of Israel had the law, the prophets, yet there were
some, there were some, a remnant that God chose. Praise God for this chapter,
because this is including us who are all Gentiles. This includes all of us who are
heathens by nature and are far off. And the one who is calling makes
this calling altogether lovely. If someone comes to you and says,
hey, listen, you know, really, you judge the character of that
person immediately, determine how much you listen. You have
somebody that's untrustworthy, somebody who lies a lot, and
they tell you, hey, listen, I got something good to tell you. Well,
take that with a grain of salt. You know there's another side
somewhere to it, so you better get it before you put it together
and trust it. But friends, the one who is speaking here is pure.
He is righteous. He is the ever-living, eternal
Son of God speaking. And when He says, listen, you
better listen. We better listen. I better listen
to this. Why? He says, listen! Listen
unto Me, you heathen sinners! Listen to me. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one calling out here. And this cannot be mistaken.
Look at this. He says this in verse 1. He said, The Lord hath called
me from the womb. From the bowels of my mother
hath He made mention of my name. Friends, from the womb of eternity,
God chose and appointed Christ to be the surety, the guarantee
for all His elect. And friends, He is calling even
this morning to you and to me. And I want to hear Him. I want
to hear His voice. I want to know His Word for me. I want to know what He says concerning
His person and salvation. Because that's all my hope is
Him. All my righteousness is Him. And the more I know about
Him, the more I know of what He's given me. And the more comfort
and assurance I can have. He says, listen to me, you people
from afar. Are you afar? The promise, Peter said, the
promise is unto you and your children and to all that are
afar off. Well, who's afar off? Even as
many as the Lord our God shall call. I don't know how many's
afar off. I don't know how many sinners I have in here. Actually,
I do, but I don't know I don't know if you know you're a sinner or not. But see,
it's those that are far off the Lord calls. Christ was sent to call those
that are far off. He was sent to call sinners by
nature as strange from the womb speaking lies. Is that you? Jesus said in those self-righteous
Pharisees, He said, they that are whole don't need a doctor.
If you're well, you don't need a doctor. Only those that are sick need
a doctor. Everybody can understand that.
The child can understand that. You don't go to the doctor unless
you're sick. If you're sick, you need a doctor.
You need somebody that can help. Somebody that can cure you, because
you can't fix it yourself. But if you're well, why in the
world would you need a physician? Why would you need a doctor?
He said, I came to call. Not the righteous. But sinners to repent. You see, that's why he was among
the sinners. They couldn't figure out why he was among the sinners.
They said, why did your master eat with sinners? I said, I came
to call sinners. I didn't come to call you, you
self-righteous hypocrite. I came to call sinners. Those that are far off. Those
who cannot make it themselves. Are you righteous in yourself?
Can you satisfy God by anything you do? Well, you don't need
a doctor. He's not calling you to listen. Oh, but if you're a sinner, I just saw people's ears perk
up. I just saw sinners ears go, that's
me! He's calling me! I know! That's
me! I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. Well, good. Because that's who
He came to call. That's who He's speaking to.
Those that are far off. The message is not for the whole,
but for the sick. The message is for sinners. Any man who thinks he can come
near to God by his own will and flesh is not being called. He's
never been called. He's not being called. It's not
his message. Christ speaks to all those who
are far off from God. Look at Isaiah chapter 1. Flip
over there and see if this is not a great picture of us. I love when God paints a picture
because he paints it as true as it is. He doesn't flower it
up at all. Isaiah chapter 1 and verse 3. He says, the ox knoweth his owner,
and the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not know, my
people doth not consider. He said, an ox and an ass are
smarter than my people. That's what he said. He said,
you're dumb as a box of rocks. Not a pretty picture, is it?
Well, it gets better. Watch this. Ah, sinful nation,
a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children
that are corruptors. They have forsaken the Lord.
They have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger. They are
gone away backward. Why should you be stricken anymore? You know, if you hit your head
against the wall, do you figure you would stop after the first
time? Not us. Not this old man. Not this nature. Then what he
said to the Apostle Paul, he said, why kick so hard against
the pricks? You're not going to prevail.
Friend, you could beat your head against this wall all you want
to. You will not prevail against
the studs and the wood and the concrete and all the things behind
it. You're not going to prevail.
Yet, we continually bang our heads against God. Always. And that's what He says. He says, Ye will revolt more
and more. Why will you be stricken? But
yet, you're going to do it. You're going to have your way.
You'll revoke more and more, the whole head is sick and the
whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot even
to the head is no soundness in it but wounds and bruises and
putrefying sores. I looked that word putrefying
up. It sounded bad enough when I read it. It means fresh oozing
and dripping. From the top to the bottom of
our feet is no sound flesh. No righteousness. You remember the leper, the law
of the leper. If he had one little piece of
flesh that was still good, he was still a leper. It wasn't
until he was found without one piece of flesh that was good
could he be declared clean. Now, is this you? Is that your
nature? Well, Pastor, you know, I admit
my arm is pretty bad. You know, it's got some wounds
and bruises. But I think I'm doing pretty
well not talking to you. This describes me. This describes
me to a T. That there is no goodness in
me at all. We confess with our brother The
Apostle Paul, when he said, For I know that in me, that is in
my flesh, in my nature dwelleth no good thing. He's not talking
about this body, because we who are believers, we have the Holy
Spirit in this body. He's not saying the body is evil,
or the flesh, the skin. That's what people want to torment.
They say, oh, if I just torment my skin, then I'm tormenting
the flesh. No! It's the nature that's corrupt. It's not that which goeth in,
but that which cometh out that's corrupt, because the heart is
corrupt. He said, you make the tree good and the fruit will
be good. You see, we have a corrupt root. The nature is evil. It's
a far off. from God and can't be reconciled. Not by its own will. Not by its sincerity. And definitely
not by its self-righteousness. I must know. You must know. Is this call for Then listen. Then listen. Listen to his call. He says,
listen unto me. Unto who? Unto him that was called
from his mother's womb, whose name was mentioned from the bowels
of his mother. Who is that but the Lord Jesus
Christ? In this same book of Isaiah,
it says, Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and
you shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted, is God
with us. Now, that was before Christ became
incarnate. You see, God had always purposed
that Christ become one of us. It was always purposed in the
will of God that Christ be made a man in the womb of the virgin. In fact, that is the first prophecy
of all of Scripture. The seed of the woman shall crush
the head of the serpent. Only Jesus was faithful to believe
from his mother's womb. I don't remember any part of
that, do you? I don't remember being in the
womb. I don't remember much of anything.
I don't remember much of yesterday, much less being in the womb.
But yet Christ had all understanding. He was given understanding and
faith even in the womb. He rested in God. He trusted. See, He had a body prepared for
Him of the Holy Spirit. And He condescended to unite
Himself with that body to become a man. This speaks of the Son of God
because of His Word. Look at this in verse 2, hath
made my mouth like a sharp sword." Very important for us to understand
that our Savior did not come to bring peace, but a sword. That's what He said
Himself. Now, He came to bring peace for
His people, But He did not come to unite all humanity together. He did not come like the Tower
of Babel when they all got together and they said, well, let's build
a tower to God. In other words, they were justifying
God. That's what they were doing.
God said, don't do it, and they did it anyway. That's what this
lost religious age is doing. They're all just saying, let's
get along. Let everybody just put aside differences about doctrine. Let's just all come together.
Jesus wants us to be peaceful. No, He doesn't. No, He doesn't. His Word is divisive. It's a
sword. It separates truth from lies. It separates darkness from light. It separates the righteous from
the unrighteous. The goats from the sheep. It
separates. It divides. And when the Word
is preached in the power of the Spirit, it divides asunder soul
and spirit, joints and marrow, the thoughts and intents of the
heart. You notice how Jesus never really beat around the bush about
anything? He went straight to the point. Went straight to the
point. Like that woman, when he was
taken in adultery, they threw her down and thought they had
him. They said, what will we do? We going to kill her? Like
the law of Moses says? Or are you going to let her go?
Like you talking all that mercy and stuff. You going to forgive
her sins? Now, if he forgave her sins,
then they could say he was neglecting the law of Moses. But if he stoned
her, then he would be neglecting the law of the Romans. So they thought they had him
either way. Listen to his words. You who are without sin cast
the first stone at her. You see how he pierces through
right to the heart. And even these wicked men knew
that they were sinners. Their own conscience told them
that. And they left Him alone with
her. The sinner and the Savior left
alone. Isn't that the best place to
be? A sinner. And Jesus was left alone and
the woman standing in the midst. I identify with her. I'm guilty. I should be put to death. But nobody can condemn me because
my Savior stands between. My Savior stands with me. Now, friends, either the Word
of Christ is true or it's not. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No man comes to the Father but
by Me. Is that not His Word? The Word of Christ said that
no man can come unto Me except the Father which has sent Me
draw him. He said to the Pharisees, You believe not because you are
not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I
know them, and they follow Me. See, these verses are divisive.
These verses mean that God's made a selection. These verses
mean that God has exercised His sovereign authority in eternity
and only chose a remnant of people to save. And by His grace, He has redeemed
every one of them. By His grace, He will call every
one of them. How? He'll say, listen to me. Who? Who, Lord? Who art thou? I am the one God spoke of from
eternity. I am the one whose word is as
a sharp sword. And we know it's Christ because
in the shadow of His hand God hid Him and made him a polished
shaft in the quiver hath he hidden me." What is this? This is the
mystery. Christ was the hidden mystery
of God as to how God can be just and justify the ungodly. Most people in this world don't
want to go to hell. If anybody has any inkling there
is a hell, they don't want to go. People love to be saved from
hell. Who doesn't? Jesus Christ came to save us
not only from hell, but from our sin. People don't want to
be saved from their sin. They like their sin. Only when a man is exposed, To
be a sinner, does he ever need a Savior? Most of this world does not need
a Savior. They need a buddy. They need
a little help here and there. They need some assistance financially,
emotionally, in their marriage, what they don't need. is an absolute
sovereign Savior. But that's the only one who calls.
That's the only one who calls. Christ Jesus is the sovereign
Savior. And friends, because of this,
man doesn't care one bit about God's glory. They don't care
how God can be just. and justify the ungodly. They
just said, as long as I get to go to heaven, I don't care how
you do it. No. In order for anyone to go
to heaven, God must be just. He will not allow anyone unless
His holy law is completely perfect. Uncompletely established, completely
satisfied, unless you are as perfect as God Himself, you will
not enter into heaven. That is clear in Scripture. Be ye holy, even as I am holy. Wait a second. You just said
we were sinners. Absolutely. That means I'm hopeless to save
myself. That's right, absolutely. Yes,
that's what it says. How then can God be just and
justify me? That's the question. It's a mystery.
It's a mystery that's only revealed in this one man, Jesus Christ. And here it is. Here's the mystery
revealed. He said unto me, Thou art my
servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified." The Son of God must become a
servant. And in order to serve God, He
must become a man. And notice this. Notice the name
that He takes to Himself. O Israel. That's strange, isn't
it? Isn't Israel the bride? Doesn't
normally the bride take the husband's name? You see here, the husband
takes the bride's name. Because he bore our sins in his
own body on the tree. He took our debt. as his own. God imputed that sin to him in
such a mysterious way that he bore our sins as guilty. And you and I stand now as righteous
as he is. You and I who believe in Christ
alone We stand just as righteous as Christ Himself. Why? Because my sin is gone. God can
be just. God can be just. And if God can
be just and justify me, what a glorious thing that is. And
He did it by Christ being made a servant. He suffered under
the strict justice of God for every elect sinner. Notice what
he says of his labor. This is how dependent he was
upon God. I just think that we miss that.
Because he is the Son of God, and we know he is almighty, omnipotent,
omniscient. We know he is all-powerful. But
yet, he condescended so low, that he was utterly dependent
upon God in every way. He had to be. Look what he says. He says, I
have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for
naught and in vain. In other words, he himself was
not trusting in his self. He was trusting in God. Look at this. Yet surely my judgment
is with the Lord and my word with my God." He said, He will
justify my word. Oh, I'm not justifying. He didn't
justify His word. God did. God proved that He said
who He was. He said, These words I speak,
they aren't my words. They're God's words. They're
the words He gives me in my own mind and my own voice. And I just tell you what God
says. And friends, God has judged his
work. And what was the result of his
judgment? The Scripture says, Whom God
hath raised up, having loosed from the pains of death, because
it was not possible that he should be holden of it. Therefore, let
all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made
this same Jesus both Lord and Christ. Friends, I'm not asking, and
neither is the Lord Jesus Christ asking you to make Him anything. Oh, make Jesus your Lord. No. God did that already. God did that already. Oh, make
Him your Savior. No. No. He already has saved His people
from their sins. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. You mean I don't have to do anything?
No. Done. Finished. I don't have to obey
the law? No. You can't. You haven't done
it thus far. What makes you think you're going
to finish that way? No. faith in Christ alone. He said, listen to me, believe
on me, and I'll save your soul. Jesus is now seated on the throne. Notice verse 5, And now thus
saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob again, though Israel be not gathered, yet I
shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall
be my strength." And he said, it is a light thing
that thou shouldest be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and restore the preserved of Israel. I will give thee for
a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto
the end of the earth." There is only one Savior. One. One. Only one. Only one. There's not your opinion of the
Savior and my opinion of the Savior. There is only one Savior. And if your Savior is not my
Savior, your Savior is a lie. If your Savior did not save,
He is not a Savior. If your Savior did not save all
of God's elect people, your Savior is not a Savior. If your Savior doesn't have any
control over all things, then your Savior is not Lord. Mine is sovereign. My Savior
saves whomsoever He will." Have you heard His voice? Sinner? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. called from his mother's womb
to be our Savior. Called from the womb of eternity
to be our Savior. And he said, it is finished. Rest, believer. You heathen, Rest in Christ. Isn't that a wonderful word of
peace? That God would speak of us. That God would call us even
before we were born. That He would redeem us and justify
us, glorify us even before we were born. Read that Romans 8. Who is He then that condemns
thee? God that justified you, Christ that died for you. What
shall separate you from the love of God that is in Christ? Nothing
and nobody. Not even our own sorry self. Isn't that wonderful? Glory be
to God. I pray the Lord will bless this
to your hearts. The stand will be dismissed.