You'll take your Bibles and turn
back with me to Isaiah chapter 41. Isaiah chapter 41, we're
looking at the first ten verses in this chapter this morning,
the Lord willing. The title of my message this
morning is, God's Challenge for Truth. God's Challenge for Truth. The opening verse of Isaiah chapter
41 begins like this. Keep silent before me, O islands,
and let the people renew their strength. Let them come near. Let them speak. Let us come near
together to judgment. In this passage, the Lord God
has set up His court. He has set up His court of judgment,
His court of truth. He sets up His bar and standard
for what is right and what is true. And He says to all those
outside of Christ, all those who are islands, who are apart
from God, He says, come near. Come near. Come to the bar of
judgment and find out truth. You notice he says, keep silent.
Keep silent before me. This has reference to a court
or a courtroom of justice. When you go into a courtroom
today, and I've been one this last week for someone, I went
into the room and they stood up and they said, all rise, come
forward and you shall be heard. And a courtroom is silent. Why?
For order. Order. There's order in the court.
And God is demanding order. He's saying, order so that all
may bring their cause, their case before Me, that we may judge
together. They judge to see what is true,
to bring your case before God. He calls those who are outside
of Christ, in particular, separate from the living God. If you'll
read this book of Isaiah, you'll see God many times challenging
idol worshipers. He challenges idol worshipers.
In one section he says, can your idol tell what's going to happen
and call it like it is before it happens? Matter of fact, can
your idol speak at all? Can he have a mouth? Can he talk? He has eyes. Can he see? He challenges
all those who worship a false deity, a false god. He says to them, let them renew
their strength. What does that mean? He says,
let them get all of their causes, all of their arguments together.
He said, everybody just hush. Let all these islands get all
their causes together. Let them gather together their
armies if they will, their strength, their power, their emotion, their
proof, their evidence for their false gods. All who bow down
to gods who do not exist, who are the creation of their own
imagination. God tells them to muster up all
of their evidence, proofs, arms, passions, emotions, feelings,
educations, religious, religious testings, whatever
they have, religious proofs. He says, you bring that before
me. And he says this. when the end of the day has come,
and you set what you worship up against, what I'm going to
tell you is God. You tell me if your God matches
up." That's what he's saying. See if your God matches the description
given by the deity who has set forth this challenge." Notice
that God is not afraid of hard questions, is He? God is not
afraid of the difficult questions of men. He's not afraid of the
rage of men. God is not afraid of the feelings,
the anger, the education, the historical data, the government,
the propaganda, whatever you can bring forward, God's not
afraid of that. He says, bring it. Bring it on. That's what he says. Come on.
Bring it before my judgment bar and see if it's right. I have
a litmus test for truth, God says, and if your God matches
this, then you've got the right God. If he doesn't, it's not
the right God. Therefore, let all who hold the
truth and righteousness not be afraid of the word of men. If you are a believer in Jesus
Christ, do not fear the education, the rage or the historical data,
whatever they come up with. Don't be afraid of that. God's
not. We're not to be afraid of such things. Let us not be so concerned with
our own education or lack thereof. Let us who know the gospel of
Jesus Christ be ready to confess Him. Let us be bold in His Word."
I was reading this morning, somebody had told Spurgeon they were appreciative
of something he said to them at the college, and he said,
well, what did I say? And he says, there were only
two occasions a man's supposed to preach the gospel. And Spurgeon
said, well, what two occasions was that? In season and out of
season. In season and out of season. Don't be afraid of the
gospel. Don't be afraid of the hard questions of men. Let us
not be ashamed to say that the Bible is the absolute, inerrant
Word of God. Don't be ashamed of that. We're
not ashamed of that. The Word of God has no errors. Men wrote this book as they were
moved by the Spirit of God to write it. God's not ashamed of
His Word. Matter of fact, he's going to
use his Word as a litmus test, isn't he? He's fixing to use
this Word here. Don't be ashamed of the Word
of God. These things are for us, and
as many as our Lord God shall call. That's what this book's
for. It's for us. God gave it to us. We're not
ashamed of it. It is the Word of God. Let all
keep silent before the Word of God. Let all the world and these
who worship false gods of the free will, worse religion of
men, come near to this Word, and God challenges you to compare
your God to this One, to the One stated in Scripture, to see
whether He be true or false." Isn't that kind of like what
Elijah did before the prophets of Baal? He said, if your God
be God, let's worship Him. But if my God be God, worship
Him." Whoever God is, worship Him. Worship Him. And put your
God to the test. We should all put our God to
the test, shouldn't we? What test? This test. Here it is. You put your God
up against the God of this book and you will find out if your
God is true or your God is a lie. And I'll tell you this, truth
will always prevail. Truth will always, always, always
prevail. It's not as fast as a lie is.
A lie is pretty quick. It'll go all the way around the
world twice before truth gets its shoes on. Isn't that right?
Absolutely. But truth will always prevail.
And I'll tell you, you can make up a God and you can close your
eyes to this book and you say, well, I'm not even going to look.
I'm just going to blind leap of faith and jump off into eternity. You can do that if you want to.
I'm not going to jump off with a blind leap of faith. That's
not faith. It's not faith at all. It's not
a blind leap. God gives us evidence of Himself
in this book, and if our God doesn't match, Truth will prevail,
the problem is it'll be too late. It'll be too late. And second
of all, I'm not ashamed of this Word, for it is the power of
God unto salvation. This preacher is not the power
of God unto salvation. No. This preacher is not. And you're not. But my friends,
this Word is the power of God unto salvation if it is applied
by the Spirit of God. It is the power of God and His
salvation. Many believers let us hold fast
to the Word of our profession, not because of our knowledge,
but because it is God who has exalted His Word above His name. Get a hold of that. God exalts
that book above His very name. In other words, if this book
is not true, God's got a lot more to lose than you. If this book is not true, God
Himself is a liar. I'm not ashamed of this book.
God's not either. I'm not ashamed of it, and it
is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. And
so he sets forth this court and he says, hear this, all you oppose
me, all that you that have a false god, put your god to the test. And here's the test. Look at
this in verse 2. Here's the test. Let us come near to judgment.
And he asked the question, who raised up the righteous man from
the east, called him to his foot, gave the nations before him,
and made him rule over kings? Who did that? Who did that? And who is this speaking about?
Who is this speaking about? Who hath wrought such a thing
and who is it talking about? In order to find out who it is
that done it, let's look at who it was that's spoken of, first
of all. who raised up the righteous man
from the east." Now, I've read commentators on this quite extensively.
And you'll find out, if you read the commentators, you'll find
a great discrepancy of who this man is. There's a wide variety
of people that think differently concerning this righteous man
that was raised up. Some believe this righteous man
that was raised up was Cyrus. Remember, the Lord said before
Cyrus was born, He says, I will call My ravenous bird from the
east. When that's where he comes from,
he says, he shall raise up a righteous man from the east. He said he'll call him to his
foot. And in Isaiah, it says that he shall bow down. He said
he shall call his ravenous bird from the east, the man that excelleth
my counsel from a far country. Isn't that awesome? That God
says, I'll call a man that doesn't even worship me. I'll call him
out and I'll bring him to my foot. And He'll do exactly what
I tell Him to do. He says, "...and He shall give
the nations before Him, and He shall rule over them as kings."
Well, Cyrus, didn't he do that? Absolutely, Cyrus did that. Cyrus
was a great king, and nobody withstood his force. He did exactly
what God determined him to do, and he mowed over anybody that
got in his way. So it definitely could be talking
about Cyrus. But I don't think it's talking
about Cyrus. I think it could be. Some people think it may
be talking about Abraham, and this is a little bit better than
Cyrus even. Because Cyrus, you know, we can't
prove that he was a righteous man, right? He wasn't a righteous
man. So that kind of disannulled Cyrus, but nonetheless, it was
a good analogy. And some men think it's Abraham.
Well, Abraham was sure called from the east, wasn't he? He
was called from Ur of the Chaldees, from a heathen nation. He was
an idol worshipper. He was an idol worshipper. And
yet God called him to be a righteous man. How did God call him to
be a righteous man? Romans 4, verse 3, Abraham believed
God and it was counted to him for righteousness. Isn't that
how God makes a righteous man? Through faith in Christ? Absolutely. It is counted to him, it is imputed
unto him. The righteousness of Christ was
imputed unto Abraham. who believed God. And God called
him to His foot. He called him from idols to worship
the true and living God, didn't He? Absolutely. He called him
to His foot, to faith in Christ, His seed. He called him to His service
and worship, to kneel down before Him. Did not Abraham do that
though? Think about the things that Abraham
was called to do. He was called to get up and leave
his family. Leave his home. God spoke to him and said, Get
up and leave your kindred and your idols and go into a land
that I will show you. You know where he's going. He
just went. He followed God. When God commanded
him, Take thy son, thine only son Isaac, and offer him as a
sacrifice, did he not bow down to God and give him his son? Absolutely. He gave Abraham the nations of
promise. Look at that down in our text
again. He shall call him to his foot. He gave him nations before
him. Isn't that the promise of Genesis
13, verse 15 through 17, when he says, Look out there, Abraham,
and see that nation that's before you. Imagine Abraham on top of
a mountain looking down at this vast amount of land that's in
front of him, and God says, I'm going to give that to you. I'm
going to give that to you. God gave him the nations and
put them into his hand. And it says this, that he was
made to rule over kings. Well, wasn't Abraham made to
rule over kings? Didn't God make him rule over
kings? Well, sure He did. Remember in
Genesis chapter 14, when he fought after the kings, he had those
kings that took Lot and his family and all of their treasures from
the kingdom of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he subdued those kings with
357 men. That's amazing, isn't it? 300 men that weren't even trained
in warfare, and yet they subdued kings. He subdued them. He beat them. Chased them down
and took everything they had. He pursued them and passed by
safely. Not one of his men was killed.
Do you know that? Not one of Abraham's servants was killed
in those battles. It's an amazing feat. It's an amazing thing that
was done. And we could speak of Abraham,
and it could speak of Abraham, but it could also speak of us
believers, couldn't it? Couldn't it speak of us as well
as Abraham, who is the father of the faithful? Yes, it could. It could very well speak of us,
whom He raised up from sin to be righteous men by the righteousness
of Christ. You that believe in Christ, you
are righteous now because of Him, because of Christ. We have His righteousness. Hath He not called us to His
foot? Do you serve the living God today? Do you serve and worship
Him through Jesus Christ His Son? Well, this could be talking
about you. And sure enough, one day we shall
rule over kings. Scriptures tell us that we shall
rule and reign with Christ. That's our inheritance, isn't
it? That's our goal. That's what we are looking forward
to. So it could talk about us. And we shall pass through this
life safely. But this morning, I want us to see, most of all, how this best pictures the Lord
Jesus Christ. I want us to see that this righteous
man, this righteous man that is called to the foot of this
deity, I want us to see that it is none
other than Jesus Christ You see, He is the only righteous man
by nature. He is the only righteous man.
If you look at that word in the margin, righteous man, it's really
the word righteousness. So if we read it in the original
text, it would say, who raised up righteousness from the East? Who raised up righteousness from
the east? Christ is righteous in and of
Himself. Only Christ is righteous in and
of Himself. We have the imputed and imparted
righteousness of Christ, but He Himself alone is righteous. God the Father, by His Holy Spirit,
prepared the Lord Jesus Christ, His Son of Body, and He raised
Him up that He might be the only righteousness in the earth. There
is no other righteousness apart from His. Does anybody else see
any righteousness apart from His righteousness? Is there anybody
good other than Christ? Can anybody fit that bill? Anybody. I have the righteousness of Christ
because He perfected my righteousness. No man by nature is righteous. but are sold under sin, and there
is no hope of righteousness, no hope to meet God's standard
of justice. But God, who is rich in mercy,
sent His Son to be righteousness. To be righteousness. Raised up
to be the righteousness of God. The righteousness of God comes
by the God-man Jesus Christ, You see, my friend, we speak
of election, and we love that doctrine, but I'll tell you what.
He is the elect. He is the elect of God. Flip over one page in Isaiah
42, you see that? Behold, my servant whom I uphold,
mine elect in whom my soul delighteth. This righteous man is Jesus Christ. then how did he obtain this righteousness? Who called him to his foot? Jesus
Christ, who is God, blessed forever, always had righteousness. When
I speak of Jesus, I'm talking about the eternal God. That's
who I'm speaking of. I'm not talking about a weak
effeminate Jesus with long hair from the hippie generation. That's
not who I'm talking about. That God is no God. And when
you compare Him, as I'll show you in a minute, you compare
Him to this guy, He's nowhere close. He's not even close. I'm
talking about the God of the universe who is righteous in
and of Himself, but yet He obtained righteousness. Isn't that something? He obtained it. How? By His obedience
unto God. His obedience unto God. He obtained
righteousness. This is why he became a man.
This is why it was necessary that the Lord call him from an
eastern country, so that he would become a man. In Hebrews chapter
2 and verse 17 it says, It behooved him to be made after the seed
of Abraham, that he might be a faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God. He did that by righteousness
that he obtained by his obedience. This man Jesus, whom God hath
raised up, preached unto you righteousness, not by the obedience
of us, but by His own obedience. He called him to His foot. He gave the nations to rule before
Him. Think of this. Jesus Christ,
who is God, has been called to the foot of
the Father. Is that not what He did when
He took on our human flesh? When He united Himself with our
nature, barring sin? He yielded Himself to God so
that He might obtain righteousness, that we who are rebels, haters
of God by nature, that we might have righteousness
to stand before God. This man who is spoken of is
righteousness, and the only way to have righteousness is by his
obedience unto God. Now, he gave the nations before
him, in our verse, in our text, he said he gave the nations before
him and made him to rule over kings. He gave them as the dust
to His sword, as driven stubble to His bow. He pursued them and
passed by safely, even by way which His feet had not gone."
How is this reflective of the Lord Jesus Christ? How does that
picture Him? When the Lord came to the earth,
you remember Satan tempted Him. When He was driven out in the
wilderness by the Spirit of God and Satan comes to Him and tempts
Him. What was one of the temptations? He flashed all of the nations
before Him in a moment. And He said, if you'll bow down
to Me, I'll give you all these things. Now isn't that arrogant? Isn't that arrogant considering
who He was talking to? The One who created all the nations? The One who sustains them by
the power of His might? And yet Satan dares say, I'll
give them to you. What arrogance and folly! What
arrogance! Christ is the Creator, and yet
being made subject to God, He must have waited on God to give
Him the nations. That was the promise. God would
give Him the nations. He would give Him the nations.
Satan, he was making a promise he couldn't keep. And by His
obedience and by His blood, He accomplished what God sent Him
to do. And God has now given Him all
power, all power to rule over all nations. By His death, burial
and resurrection, our Lord Jesus Christ was here. all of his enemies
were as dust to his sword." I love that, because I thought about
that a lot this week. I watch the History Channel a
lot, and I like to watch those medieval things. You know, you
get to see how they have the swords and the axes, and they
put this big thing of gelatin out there, and they hit the thing
of gelatin to see what it would do to a human, you know. And
I thought about that, and I said, you know, what if you put dust
on those swords? How much would it impede the speed and impact
of a sword? Dust. Dust adds nothing to the
weight of a sword to hinder it from doing whatever the person
who has it wants to. You see, all of the enemies of
Christ are made as dust to His sword. But what is His sword? His Word. His Word is His sword. Remember the vision of John?
How he had the two-edged sword coming out of his mouth? That's
the Word of Christ! The Word of Christ! You see,
His Word was not impeded by any of His enemies. When the Lord
Jesus Christ spoke and they tried to trip Him up, what happened?
What happened? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It did not impede His preaching
in any sense of the word. Matter of fact, He made them
look like fools, and He kept on preaching. You see, their
words could do nothing to His Word. It could do nothing to
affect Him. And my friend, the Lord Jesus
Christ, By His obedience and by His death, pursued the enemies
of our souls, Satan, hell, the world, sin. He pursued them to
kill them. Isn't that awesome? This is speaking
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He did this and He passed through
safely. When the Lord Jesus Christ was
speaking to those men, they said, oh, we want to kill Him. We want
to kill Him. We're going to kill Him. What happened to Him? Nothing. He passed right through them
safely. He passed through them safely
every time. Not till His hour was come. Not till His hour was
come. No man taketh my life, the Lord
Jesus Christ said, but I lay it down of myself. I lay it down
of myself. He pursued the enemies of our
souls to the cross and slayed them there. And this speaks of
Christ being made sin for us. Look at this. I love this. He
pursued them and passed by them safely, even by the way that
He had not gone with His feet. What does that mean? What is
that talking about? It's telling us about how Christ
bore our sins on the cross. You see, when He took our sins
in His own body on the tree, His feet did not go that way,
did He? You see, He had gone away that
His feet had not gone. Our Lord Jesus Christ was made
sin for us who knew no sin. He was the innocent, sinless
Son of God, and yet He bore the weight of God's justice for the
sins of His people. He bore God's wrath so that all
who believe, all that are chosen, redeemed by His blood and called
by His Spirit, to faith in Him alone shall be saved. That's
the reason He did it. That's the reason He went away
His feet and not gone. How did He come out of this?
What was the result? He passed through safely. When
He came out on the other side, He came out pure and holy and
righteous as He had always been. And now then He has ascended
to the throne of God. Then the question comes by God
who has set the bar of judgment, who did this? Who did all of
this? Who raised up Christ, the righteous
man? Who called Him to His foot? Who
was it that made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin? Who did
that? Did your God do that? Here's
a litmus test about your God. Who did this? God sitting at
the bar of judgment says, does your God produce a Savior? Does
your God produce a Savior? I'm not talking about making
salvation possible. I'm talking about accomplishing
salvation. Does your God accomplish salvation
through Christ or does He make it possible? It's a litmus test. Who's God? The one who wrought
this says, I'm calling the generations from the beginning. Calling the
generations from the beginning. Did your God call the generations
from the beginning? Did your God choose a people
that He would save? Purpose to save them only through
Christ? Purpose to send His Spirit and
to call them by the preaching of the gospel? And to save their
souls and keep them until He comes back? Is that your God?
If that's your God, you've got the right one. If you got the
right one, He says, I the Lord, the first with the last, I am
He. There's nobody else. There is
no other God. Any other God is a figment of
a man's imagination. The true and living God says,
I am the one who planned, purposed, accomplished, and calls men to
salvation through Christ alone. God says, I am the first and
the last. He is the author of salvation. And He will wait and continue
until He has called His last, and when God calls His last,
He will take us home. That's it. All that God our Father
shall call will come. They will come to Christ. They
will bow down. They will serve Him. When the
last comes in, we shall be saved. The true God moves all things
after the counsel of His own will. Does your God move all
things after the counsel of His own will, or do you have something
to do with it? No. If you have anything to do
with your God's ability to do anything, your God's not God.
If you have the ability to stop your God, then your God is not
God. I want us to notice then the response of those who come
to this litmus test and see that their God is not God. Look at
this. In verses 5-7, it says, The islands
saw it, and they feared, and the ends of the earth were afraid,
and they drew near and came. It's not that they came to God.
You see, when a man sees who God is, and yet he loves his
God, He will reject that and He'll try to find a whole bunch
of other people to come together around Him. You know, you ever
heard that misery loves company? You ever see when somebody wants
to do something bad, usually they try to get a group of people
to get in there with them? That's right. You see, they want support
from somebody else to try to enforce what they believe to
be right. You see, I don't care if I stand
alone in this. As long as I stand with God,
as long as I stand in Christ, it matters not if I stand alone. But you see, the wicked of this
generation will gather together all of the crafters and they
will blend their religions. You see, the Pharisees and Sadducees
were opposed to each other until what? Until they killed Christ.
Herod and Pilate were enemies until they killed Christ. Baptists and Catholics will be
friends against this. Presbyterians, Protestants, Pentecost,
assembly of God, atheists, Muslims, they all have their different
gods, but when their gods don't match this God, they'll pool
with anybody else and they'll try to make one God together.
Isn't that right? Acts 4.26 says, "...the kings
of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together against
the Lord and against His Christ. They will work together, sanding
their gods and blending them together, so that they might
rebel against God, who asks, Why do the heathen rage, and
the people imagine a vain thing?" You see, if your God doesn't
match up and you reject God, God says, the God of heaven shall
laugh and have you in derision. In other words, you're not doing
anything to Him. His truth will stand. His truth will prevail. It will. No matter what you say
or do, His Word will prevail against those who worship any
other God. And lastly, a comfort to his
service. A comfort to his service. Look
at that in verse 8. But thou, Israel, my servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham, my friend, whom
I have taken from the ends of the earth and called from the
corners thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant, I
have chosen thee, and cast thee not away, you who are in Christ, The only God-man mediators see
His blood and righteousness as our atonement, His grace, the
cause of our salvation and faith, that this righteous man and His
blood is enough. Do you see that? Do you see His
grace is enough? It's enough. You add anything
to it, you've got another God. I rest solely on the Lord Jesus
Christ and His blood and righteousness and nothing from me. Not even my faith. I don't rest
in my faith. I don't put faith in my faith.
My faith is like a roller coaster. It goes up and down. But my faith
rests in Christ alone. Those of you who have that faith,
why should we not be afraid? Why should we not fear when men
come with their educated minds? Why should we not fear them?
Because God says, I've chosen you. I have chosen you. You're my servant. I won't cast
you away. How many times do I feel like
the Lord has cast me away? How many times have I sinned
against my Master? Yet He says, don't be afraid. I won't cast you out. I won't
cast you out. Fear not, for I am your God. He's our God. He's our God. He said, I will strengthen thee.
You need strength? He says, I'll do it. I will help thee. Are you in
distress? He will help you. Is there any who need upholding
because of our unfaithfulness to Christ? He says, I'll uphold
you how? By my righteousness. By that
righteous man, I'll uphold you and I'll carry you all the way
through the tears and troubles of this life until you come to
be with me. That's the God I serve. That's
my only hope. Who is your God? Whom do you
serve? Bow down to the Lord Jesus Christ
and believe on Him, and He will save your soul. Let's stand. We'll be dismissed in prayer.