Turn with me to Isaiah 25. Isaiah 25, at this time of year, You can't help but think about gifts. Giving gifts. Last Sunday morning we mentioned the fact that our Lord giving himself as the sacrifice for our sins was the unspeakable gift. And after all of the gift giving last week and after our Lord being acknowledged as the unspeakable gift, I couldn't help but think about the fact that the natural and appropriate response to receiving a gift is to say thank you for it. Thank you.

So that's what I'd like for us to do. first thing and all morning, I'd just like for us to say thank you to our Lord and our God for every good and perfect gift, most importantly, the gift of our Savior. What a gift, what a gift. I ended up landing on Isaiah 25 for our text. The heading at the top of my page says, The prophet praiseth God for his benefits. All of his benefits. All of his gifts to us.

Let's read the first eight verses. Isaiah 25, beginning in verse one, it says, 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. For thou hast made of a city an heap, of a defensed city a ruin. a palace of strangers to be no city, it shall never be built. Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee, the city of the terrible nations shall fear thee, 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. And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces. And the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth, for the Lord hath spoken it.

Verse one says, oh Lord, thou art my God. I will exalt thee. I will praise thy name for thou hast done wonderful things. That's the point of everything we just read. Lord, you are our God. We will exalt you and praise you because of everything you've done. Isn't that why we're here? Isn't that why we're here? I think about it all the time. We're not here for us. We're not here for us. We're here for Him. We're here for Him. We're here to exalt Him. We're here to praise Him. We're not here to praise us. We're not here to worship and serve this flesh and glorify this flesh. It's Him. We're here for Him. Lord, you are our God and we exalt you and we praise you because of everything you've done.

This is a good declaration and thought to end a year on. Because of everything you've done for us. Because of everything you've done, we will exalt you, we will lift you up, we'll praise you, we'll worship you. You've done such wonderful things. Such wonderful things.

Turn with me to Psalm 72. Psalm 72 verse 18 it says, blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. That's all that he does. Wonderful things, things full of wonder. Verse 19 says, and blessed be his glorious name forever. and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and amen. Let every knee bow and every tongue confess because he's worthy of it. Is that not your desire? Wouldn't you love for the whole world to bow the knee to Jesus Christ? I would love for the whole world to be saved. We know that that is not gonna be the case. But we also know that every knee is going to bow, saved or not saved. Every tongue is going to confess. I've known of characters and celebrities and things like that throughout time that have been so arrogant, and look, no more arrogant than me. But nonetheless, I have seen flesh just like me throughout this world. And I thought, I would love for that person to bend the knee to Jesus Christ.

Rebels against God, and that's all of us by nature. That's what is going to happen. That's what will happen. Every knee is going to bow. Every tongue is going to confess. They're going to have to confess. He is the worthy one.

Turn with me to Psalm 106. Psalm 106, verse 47. Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the heathen. Why? To give thanks unto thy holy name and to triumph in thy praise. Lord, you do this. so we can give you thanks for it. Would you do this so that we can thank you for it and triumph in what you do? Triumph in your holy name. Verse 48 right here says, blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting. Oh, I love how his blessedness has never changed. So blessed from the eternal beginning, he will be so blessed throughout the eternal end. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting and let all the people say amen. Praise ye the Lord.

Look with me at Psalm 126. Psalm 126, verse three, it says, the Lord hath done great things for us. What things? Well, verse 1 says, when the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. When the Lord set us free, some of you came to know the truth out of false religion. Some of us came to know the truth out of the truth. We just didn't know it and couldn't see it because God hadn't revealed it to us. And I'm going to tell you this, I had my own bondage made up in my own mind. When I was young, I lived in the bondage of what I thought, you know, was salvation. You have your own thoughts and your own ideas and God has to set you free from your own thoughts and your own ideas. And for that reason, I can enter in with anyone who was converted from the bondage of false religion, those who grow up under the truth. One of these days, all these children, if God is merciful, they're going to have to be converted from their own bondage of sitting under the truth, whatever they've done to themselves.

But when the Lord finally sets you free, when you see freedom in Christ, It's the most wondrous, wonderful. We were like them that dream. You mean it really is finished? It really is paid? I really am okay? You mean I really am okay? If Christ is everything, he's all I need? Verse one, when the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter. You ever been so happy over the truth you laughed? Our tongue was singing, then said they among the heathen, all right, among the heathen, they said, boy, the Lord hath done great things for them. Verse three says, the Lord hath done great things for us. And what's our response to it? We're glad. We're glad he did it. And we're glad. That'd be a good title for a message from this verse. He did it and we're glad. That's the declaration because that's exactly how it went. He did all the work and we're glad that he did all the work. That's the gospel message. If anybody wants to know, you tell me really, what is the gospel? Here it is. He did all the work and we're very glad that he did all the work. See you later.

Bear with me back to Isaiah 25. Verse one, it says, Oh Lord, thou art my God, I will exalt thee. I will praise thy name, for thou hast done wondrous things. Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. Faithfulness and truth. Thy counsels, your purposes, are faithfulness. All of your purposes are faithfulness. That means full of faith. It means firm, steadfast, unchangeable, and full of truth. That means worthy to be trusted. Why? Because they're full of Christ. He is faithfulness. He is truth.

Verse 1, 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. For thou hast made of a city in heap, of a defenced city, a ruin, a palace of strangers, to be no city, it shall never be built. We could say that that city is, you know, the enemies of Christ. We could say that city is the enemies of us, his people. We could say that city is all of our sins that so easily beset us. But you know what that city is to me? That city's my own flesh. It's my own flesh. That city is my own pride and my own vanity and my own arrogance and my own self-righteousness. It's the place where I live in my flesh. Like when the walls of Jericho fell down. That's what God Almighty did to the vanity and self-righteous pride of my own flesh. He knocked it down. He overruled. He overran. He conquered me. He conquered me. He broke me. He humbled me.

What I thought was something. Let me tell you what our problem is in the flesh. We think we're something. We think there's something of value here. We think there's something of worthiness here. What I thought was something, he made it to be nothing. I mean, He made it to be nothing. Verse 2, Thou hast made of a city a heap, of a defenced city a ruin, a palace of strangers to be no city. It shall never be built. Thank God you won't ever allow this wickedness to prosper. This wickedness will try. but you're not ever going to allow it to prosper. The sin of my flesh will try to build itself up and build itself up and every time you'll knock it back down. Thank you. Thank you Lord.

Verse three says, therefore shall the strong people glorify thee. The city of the terrible nations shall fear thee. Who truly are the strong people? You know, everybody thinks they're so strong. Who truly are the strong people? That's every soul who God the Father placed in Christ. strong in him, every soul who has been caused to be weak in self and strong in Christ. Verse three, therefore shall the strong people glorify thee. The city of the terrible nations shall fear thee. The whole verse means, Lord, you will conquer your enemies and you'll turn them to yourself. All of his people were his enemies. We were at enmity against him. And he conquered us and he turned them to himself.

Look, if your Bible has a center margin, look at where it says the city. Mine says chapter 19, verses 24 and 25. Turn over to Isaiah 19. This is an amazing verse to me. Or an amazing couple of verses. Isaiah 19 verse 24. In that day shall Israel be the third. That means a third part of the whole, one third. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria. Even a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord of hosts shall bless saying, blessed be Egypt. My people, is that not amazing? And Assyria, the work of my hands and Israel, my inheritance.

He said, Lord, you're going to make your enemies to be your footstool. You'll conquer your enemies and you'll draw them to yourself. To bow to you, to serve you with fear and trembling, that's what he did to us. He conquered us, he subdued us, he lovingly drew us to himself. It's what he does for all of his people.

Go back to Isaiah 25. Verse two says, for thou hast made of a city and heap of a defense city a ruin, a palace of strangers to be no city. It shall never be built. Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee. The city of the terrible nations shall fear thee. 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.

When was he a strength to us in our distress? Well, he's a strength to us every day in our worldly distresses, but when was he a strength to us in our great eternal distress? When was he a refuge from the great storm? and a shadow from the great heat? How was he our shield against the stormy blast? The answer to every bit of that is the cross of Calvary.

The cross of Calvary, he hid us in the cliff of his rock. He hid us in the secret of his tabernacle. Verse five says, 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 one shall be brought low. Every bit of that was brought down on Christ. He suffered the mighty blow of God's wrath He endured the condemnation and death that was owed to his sinful, prideful, self-righteous people. And in doing so, he safely delivered them on the other side.

And that's what verses six to eight are talking about. It's talking about the accomplishment and the victory of the cross that delivered his people to glory. Look at verse six. It says, and in this mountain, Mount Calvary, In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things. That means a feast of a fatling, a lamb slain. Verse six goes on to say, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees, well refined.

Wines on the lees. That's the point in winemaking. When broken, crushed grapes are laying there in the juice that has been wrung out of them. And that's what happened to Christ on the cross of Calvary. The lamb slain, his blood was wrung out of him because he endured the winepress of God's wrath alone.

Verse seven says, and he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will destroy, that means swallow up in this mountain, Mount Calvary. He will destroy the veil that was keeping his people in darkness. That's exactly what he did. When he bowed his head and gave up the ghost, he tore the veil in the temple that covered the holy of holies and kept his people removed and separated. He removed the veil, took away the veil by tearing it in two and in doing so, he swallowed up death in victory.

That's what verse eight says. He will swallow up death in victory And the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces. Every face that he swallowed up death for he did not swallow up death for every soul on this earth. And he will not wipe every tear from every face on this earth. But every soul that his father gave to him, every soul that he came to do wonderful things for, to all, to all of them, every single one of those elect, chosen, before ordained, foreknown, foreloved souls.

Verse eight says, he will swallow up death in victory. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces, and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth, for the Lord hath spoken it. That's what he promised to do. That's what he did. That's what he did.

In closing here, verse one says, Oh Lord, thou art my God, I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name for thou hast done. Wonderful things. Hast done. Verse two says, thou hast, thou, you have. Verse four says, thou hast. Verse five says, thou shout. Verse six says, the Lord shall, shall the Lord. Verse seven says, he will. Verse eight says, he will. The end of verse eight says, for the Lord has spoken.

If he says it, it will come to pass. That is a real comforting thought to me, if he says it. it will come to pass. That's not something we're used to from man. You know, man says a lot of things. But with God, if he says it, if he promises it, it's a done deal.

Lord, you've done such wonderful things for us. We're so glad. We're so thankful. Because of that, we exalt you, we praise you, we worship your holy name forever. Amen.