If you would turn to Isaiah chapter
12, someone said if Jesus is not Lord of all, He's not Lord
at all. But He is Lord of all. That same Jesus who was crucified
at Calvary 2,000 years ago, redeeming His chosen people with His own
precious blood has risen. He is now seated. on His sovereign throne of power
and glory, Jesus Christ is Lord of all. Now our studies in Isaiah
have been pointing us to a very important
truth that all of God's preachers know. A truth that all of God's
ministers, Sunday school teachers, those who bring devotionals,
all of His preachers need to be reminded of. that Jesus Christ
and His Church is the subject of the Holy Word of God from
cover to cover. Those our Lord Jesus is pleased
to bring under our ministry cannot be educated into the kingdom
of God. We must be born again. That's
a miracle of God's grace performed by His sovereign power for the
glory of His darling Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Historical
accounts as interesting as they are and they have their place
is not the instrument that God has chosen to deliver his own
elect from the power of darkness. It's the gospel. That's the chosen
instrument that God uses to set us free. The Apostle Paul And
we're getting to this in our studies on Friday night, but
in 2 Thessalonians, you don't have to turn there, but verses
13 and 14 of that holy inspired book says, for we are bound to
give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the
Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation
through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth,
whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the
glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So it's the preaching of the
Gospel. The Holy Spirit sanctifies us, sets us apart as those who
are monuments of God's amazing grace because of a divine promise
and of a divine payment. So the divine power of God, the
Holy Spirit, moves upon God's elect at their appointed time
of love to reveal Jesus Christ to his chosen blood-bought people. And all of the Old Testament
prophets wrote of Christ. There's a historical meaning
to the Old Testament writings, but there's a spiritual meaning
as well. Listen to these words from our dear pastor friend,
Brother Don Fortner. He said, Whenever we read the
prophecies of the Old Testament scriptures, we need to see both
the immediate and the ultimate fulfillment of the prophet's
words. Each prophecy has both an immediate,
typical, and an ultimate messianic fulfillment. Certainly, this
is true with regard to our text today, which he was preaching
from Isaiah chapter 12. In its immediate context, when
Isaiah spoke these words, he was referring to God's deliverance
of the outcasts of Israel and the dispersed Judah from Sennacherib,
the godless king of Assyria. When he invaded the land of Judea,
it looked as though the nation of Israel would be utterly destroyed. And the Assyrian invasion was
a terrible display of God's anger against the sins of his people.
But here Isaiah assures God's elect remnant of salvation from
the hands of that wicked tyrant, Sennacherib. That is the immediate
typical fulfillment of the prophecy. But there is much more in the
text. In its ultimate spiritual messianic
scope, this text is a prophecy of the salvation of God's elect
in the day of His grace when Christ is revealed in their hearts. This text is an illustration
of what happens to each of God's elect when they are translated
from the power of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son.
This is what happens to a sinner when he is born again by the
power of God the Holy Spirit, delivered from the spirit of
bondage and wrath, and brought by the spirit of adoption into
the liberty of the sons of God. And I say amen to that. Now the
faith of God's elect is not blind faith. I said earlier, we cannot
educate anybody into the kingdom of God. But God's ministers must
preach and teach gospel truths. The Holy Spirit sanctifies God's
chosen blood-bought children under the preaching of His gospel,
giving us faith to believe the record God has given us of His
Son that is recorded in the Holy Scriptures. But the truth that
we are allowed to bring before our hearers must, and I emphasize
this strongly, must be made effectual by the life-giving power of God
the Holy Spirit. That's why the Apostle Paul wrote
these words to the saints at Thessalonica in the first epistle,
knowing brethren, beloved, your election of God for our gospel
came unto you, came not unto you in word only but also in
power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance. Our Lord said
in John 6, 44 and 45, No man can come to Me, except the Father
which sent Me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
It is written in the Prophets, and they shall be all taught
of God. Every man therefore that hath heard and hath learned of
the Father cometh unto Me. So, we must be taught. Like I said, it's not blind faith. It's faith based upon what the
Word of God clearly teaches. And it's God Himself who takes
the things of Christ and reveals them to us, teaches us these
things, makes them known to us. And those who are taught of God
shall come to the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, All that the
Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me
I will in no wise cast out. Listen to these holy inspired
words. You don't have to turn there,
but Romans chapter 10. Verses 13-15 says, For whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Have you
called upon the name of the Lord? You haven't been saved if you
haven't called upon the name of the Lord. But the scripture
goes on to say, How then shall they call on Him in whom they
have not believed? And how shall they believe in
Him in whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent. So we must hear the truth. And
God's preachers, God's Sunday school teachers, those who bring
a devotional, those who testify of God's grace as a witness to
their co-workers, their family members, their friends, these
things must be made known to those we witness to, to those
we preach to. The things concerning Jesus Christ
and His perfect redeeming work for His chosen people. And as
we preach these things, as we are allowed to witness these
truths to others, it is God alone who can make that effectual,
and when He does, There's a transformation that takes place that cannot
be put into words. A joy that fills the hearts of
God's children that cannot be described. It's unspeakable joy,
the Word of God tells us. It's an experience, a miracle
performed by God the Holy Spirit that delivers us from that awful
state of darkness that we were in, that awful pit, that slimy
pit of corruption we wallowed in, loving every minute of it.
Out of that, right into the waiting arms of Jesus Christ, and we
rejoice in Him and in Him alone. And with that as an introduction,
listen to these words of Isaiah chapter 12. There's only six
verses. Let me read them in your hearing.
Starting at verse 1 we read, and in that day, Thou shalt say,
O LORD, I will praise Thee, though Thou wast angry with me. Thine
anger is turned away, and Thou comfortedst me. Behold, God is
my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid,
for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song. He also has become
my salvation. Therefore, with joy shall ye
draw water out of the wells of salvation. And in that day shall
ye say, Praise the Lord, call upon His name, declare His doings
among the people, make mention that His name is exalted. Sing
unto the Lord, for He hath done excellent things. This is known
in all the earth. Cry out and shout, Thou inhabitant
of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of
thee. Now if there was ever any doubt,
if there was ever any doubt in your minds, as we've been going
through these first 11 chapters of Isaiah, that the message of
that prophet of old was Jesus Christ and His church. If there
was ever any doubt in your mind, I don't think there should be
after what we've looked at, but this should remove all doubts.
This is referring to that saving grace of God that we experience
as God brings us out of darkness into His marvelous light. In
that day refers to that day when God set us free from the prison
house of unbelief. Oh what a God, He's great. Now
there's just too much in these verses to cover in one message. So we'll probably look at this
in a series. I don't know how many messages,
but for this morning I just want to draw your attention to the
last verse, verse 6, which will be, I trust, a foundation for
these other verses as we go back to verse 1 and walk back through
them in a verse-by-verse study. But this sixth verse is so very
important to be laid as a foundation for those Scriptures that precede
this. I'll spend the time we have this morning on just that
one verse. Now, I've titled this message, The Inhabitants of Zion. The Inhabitants of Zion. Our
text in verse 6 says, Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of
Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee. Now Zion, and I know you know
this, but let me remind us, Zion is referring to the church of
Jesus Christ, the church He purchased with His own blood, the blood
of God. This is the same group of people,
the same Holy Bride, heavenly Jerusalem that the Apostle John
saw coming out of heaven adorned as a bride for her husband. Look
at the Scripture on the front of this morning's bulletin, if
you will. It's taken from Hebrews 12, verse 18, and then I skip
down to 22 through 24. The Word of God tells us, Ye
are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned
with fire. nor unto blackness and darkness
and tempest." That's the Old Mount Zion. We haven't come to
that. Those who are trusting in the laws of righteousness,
they don't know what they're trusting. They don't know what
they're saying. You know, if we offend in just one point of
the law that was given to Moses on that Old Mount, that burned
with fire, that even Moses himself trembled with fear, if we offend
in just one point we're guilty of transgressing the whole law
of God. I've illustrated this years ago, maybe you heard me,
but if not you won't mind me repeating myself, some of you
might not have heard this. Suppose you're in heavy traffic
and you're going on a busy street with several signal lights, And
every time you come to a signal light, it turns red and you have
to stop. And the traffic is so heavy, you go a block and by
the time you get there, it's red again and you have to stop.
By the time you get to the last signal light, you're frustrated
to say the least. But you have a little more speed,
the traffic is thinning out a little bit, and you see the light starting
to turn and you tell yourself, I'm not stopping and you floorboard
it. and it turns red just as you
get to the crosswalk, but you make it. Murphy's Law though,
there's a highway patrolman parked right there on the corner and
he pulls you over for running a red light. You can give this
argument till you're blue in the face, officer I stopped at
all those other signal lights. He's not giving you a ticket.
for those that you stopped at. He's giving you a ticket for
breaking the law and running that one red light. So if we
offend in any part of God's law we're guilty of breaking the
whole law of God. But our Lord Jesus by His wonderful
grace in his substitutionary death while he walked on this
earth he honored God's law perfectly and satisfied the holy justice
of God for his people and this is what Paul writing to the Hebrews
is telling us we haven't come to that old mountain but ye are
come unto Mount Zion worthy inhabitants of Zion, that
holy city, holy Jerusalem. You are come unto Mount Zion,
and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly
and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven,
and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men
made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant,
and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than
that of Abel. Now, if we've come to Jesus,
we've come to all of that, which our Lord has been pleased to
put in His Word to help us, to give us assurance, to make us
aware of the fact that we've been set free from old Mount
Zion and the law that God gave to Moses. We've been delivered. We've come to the spirits of
just men made perfect, sinners just like we are. All of God's
saints are nothing but sinners saved by His wonderful grace
through the merits of Christ our Savior. We read about them
all the way from Abel, actually from Adam, but from Abel whose
blood speaks better things than that of whose blood, the blood of Jesus
Christ speaketh better things than that of Abel, all the way
from him, all the way through the Old Testament saints, Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, David, all of those men that we read about, all of
those women we read about, Sarah, Ruth, all of those people were
sinners saved by the grace of God. We have a tendency to set
them up on pedestals above us. They were men and women just
like us, of like passions, who had the old nature to contend
with, who were Saved by the grace of God, we've come to the spirits
of just men made perfect, to an innumerable company of angels,
the elect angels. We've come to Christ Jesus, the
mediator of a better covenant than that which was given to
Moses on that old mount that burned with fire. He's the only
mediator between God and men. Not man, men. Jesus Christ is
the mediator of the new covenant. His blood is referred to as the
blood of the everlasting covenant. That's the blood of God that
flowed in His veins, that was shed at Calvary for the sins
of His people 2,000 years ago. So we're inhabitants of Mount
Zion. We've come to Jesus Christ, and
He is The power of God. God has called us out of darkness.
Out of the land of spiritual Egypt. Delivering us by the same
power He delivered all of His saints of old. Translating us
into the eternal kingdom of Christ our Savior. This world, brethren, is not
our home. We're just passing through. We're dwelling in tabernacles
of clay. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob dwelt
in tents, confessing they were sojourners and pilgrims on this
earth. They looked for a city whose
builder and maker is God. And we have that same faith.
We belong to heavenly Jerusalem. the church of the living God.
We, by His grace and His mercy and His power, through the finished
work of Jesus Christ, we are members of the body of Jesus
Christ. We belong to Him. Verse 6 says,
Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, for great is the Holy
One of Israel in the midst of thee. Jesus Christ, our Savior,
is the Holy One of Israel. Israel is referring to spiritual
Israel. God's chosen people. Not national
Israel. Spiritual Israel. All Israel
shall be saved. All spiritual Israel. All those
whose names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life before this
world was created. All of them shall be saved. And
Jesus Christ is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of us. And our text says, cry out and
shout Thou inhabitant of Zion, for great is the Holy One of
Israel in the midst of thee. Cry out with exuberant joy, with
heartfelt praise and adoration to the One who loved us and gave
Himself for us, confessing Him as our Lord and our Savior. From
our lips, as we go into the waters of baptism, as we gather together
to sing praises to Him, as we are allowed the honor of witnessing
to others of this wonderful grace of God in our lives. We confess
Jesus Christ to be the One who is great. He is great in the
midst of the... How can we, with human tongue,
describe His greatness? It cannot be described. The greatness
of our God cannot be described, but we can attempt to do so.
He's great in the midst of all of His chosen people. Now, let
me read this article that's in this morning's bulletin. It's
right across from Pastor Don Fortner's article on the inside
back cover. Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant
of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of
thee. In the above verse of Holy Scripture,
the article says, Zion is referring to heavenly Jerusalem, the city
of the living God. Zion is the church of the firstborn,
the church that our Lord Jesus purchased with his own blood.
Zion is the holy city, New Jerusalem, that John the Apostle saw coming
down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for
her husband. The inhabitants of Zion are God's
enlightened saints, whose names were written by God himself in
the Lamb's Book of Life, before this world was created. The Holy
One of Israel is Jesus Christ, the God-man, the risen, exalted
Son of God, the Church's blessed Redeemer. He paid the ransom
price in full for all the sins of all the inhabitants of Zion,
enabling God to be just and justifier of all who have been given faith
to believe in Him. Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant
of Zion, is what God's enlightened children are admonished to do.
Why? For great is the Holy One of
Israel in the midst of thee. Cry out and shout with exuberant
joy, because Jesus Christ, the Holy One of Israel, is great
in the midst of thee. All the inhabitants of Zion ascribe
all greatness to Jesus Christ, the risen, exalted God-man. Great
in agreeing to meet all the conditions of the eternal covenant of grace.
Great in His awesome power in creating all things by the word
of His mouth. Great in giving faith to all
the Old Testament saints who looked forward to the coming
of their Savior, who knew that He would redeem them with His
own precious blood. Great in humbling Himself to
be made of a woman, made under the law to redeem all His elect
from the curse of the law. and being obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. Great in being made sin for us,
enduring the wrath of God as our substitute. Great in delivering
us from the power of darkness under the preaching of His gospel,
translating us into His eternal kingdom. Great in His sovereign
power in keeping us through faith, looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. Great in giving all giving us
the blessed assurance that He will present us faultless before
Him on Judgment Day. Brethren, all the inhabitants
of Zion, and only the inhabitants of Zion, ascribe all the greatness
of God to Jesus Christ, confessing that He is Lord of all. We cry
out and shout with unspeakable joy to Jesus Christ, our Savior,
the Holy One of Israel. O Lord my God, how great Thou
art. This exuberant joy in ascribing
all the greatness of God to our Christ our Lord begins just as
soon as we experience the miracle of the new birth. And the longer
we have the honor of serving him in this life, The more His
greatness grows in our hearts and in our eyes as we feast on
Him. That's what we were singing about
in that song. He keeps me singing, feasting on the riches of His
grace. We feast on Christ here at Rescue
Baptist Church. This is our message. We love
the message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, buried, and risen
again, seated on His sovereign throne of power and glory for
not only being obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross. But for us, as our representative, as our blessed surety, as the
one who will not allow one for whom he died perish, Christ Jesus
is great. Those who are trusting in their
own polluted, sinful, self-righteous deeds for acceptance in God's
sight have never seen the greatness of God the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ our Savior. And the reason they have it,
they don't have Christ dwelling in them. They're still dead in
trespasses and sins. They don't have spiritual eyes
to see, spiritual ears to hear, or spiritual life in them to
recognize and acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord of all,
that He is the greatness that we love to talk about. Unless
God is pleased to give them deliverance from that awful state
of spiritual deadness. They will go through that door
marked death, dying in their sins, and spend all eternity in the lake of fire, in hell.
There's no escape from that. That goes on forever and forever
and forever. That's eternal torment. That's
what we rightly deserve. All of God's enlightened children
recognize that we were bankrupt, spiritually dead, no way to deliver
ourselves. We didn't know that when we were
in that state of spiritual deadness. It took the power of God to raise
us from that. to give us a mind to understand
that we were totally depraved, unable to set ourselves free. And once we are delivered from
that darkness, we look back and see that it was by the greatness
of our Lord Jesus Christ, by His sovereign power, we were
no different than those who are still dead in trespasses and
sins. had nothing to offer God. We
were bankrupt. And here's the sad thing about
this, but also it's a God-honoring truth. We didn't want to be confused
with the facts. We liked what we were doing.
We loved that darkness we were in. Oh, what a great God that
would come to us while we were in that unworthy, ungodly, self-righteous,
hell-deserving state, and reveal Himself to us. as our blessed
Redeemer, as our Lord and as our God. Great is the Holy One
of Israel in the midst of His saints. Pastor Fortner had this
to say about the greatness of our Lord Jesus. He said, great
in His person. It's so true. Great in His purpose. Great in
His propitiation. Great in His pardon. Great in
His preservation. He's great. You cannot ascribe
too much greatness to God's darling son, the Lord Jesus Christ. People
say, well, what about the Father? What about the Holy Spirit? There's
only one God. And God our Father is pleased
when we bow down before His Son, giving Him all the glory and
ascribing all greatness to Him. You're not going to make God
the Father jealous. This is what He purposed before this world
was created, that Jesus Christ would be the object of all worship
and praise. And the Holy Spirit doesn't even
speak of Himself. He takes the things of Christ
and reveals them to His people. This is His ministry. But when
we worship Jesus Christ, we are worshiping the great three in
one. All the fullness of the Godhead
dwells in Christ our Savior. Now let me leave you with these
thoughts concerning the greatness of our Lord Jesus. Our great
God and Savior agreed to the conditions of the eternal covenant
of grace, knowing what was before Him before He came into this
world. He knew he would lay aside his glory for a little while
to do his father's will. He knew he would be a man of
sorrows acquainted with grief. He knew he would be hated and
despised by those self-righteous religious Jews, those that he
himself had created. He knew they would blindfold
him, spit on him, smite him in the face, and mock him. He knew
he would be scourged by a cat of nine tails. Have you ever
considered that? Thirty stripes were laid across his back, and
you multiply nine times thirty, that's two hundred and seventy.
And the scripture says, by his stripes we are healed. He knew
he would endure that awful, excruciating pain. He knew He would die the
ignominious death of the cross, being put to death by those who
considered Him nothing but a common criminal. He knew He would be
made sin for His chosen people. The Holy One of Israel was made
sin for us by God the Father, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. He knew that. He knew while He
was hanging there on that cross, He would endure the wrath of
God for His people. He knew His Father would turn
His back on Him, forsaking Him. That's what made Him cry out,
My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? But He also knew,
He also knew there was no other way For His promised children,
those who were promised to Him in the eternal covenant of grace
by God the Father, He knew there was no other way for us to be
made acceptable in God's sight. He endured the cross, despising
the shame. But the scripture says, for the
joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising
the shame. that joy is His people. He loves
His people with an everlasting love. The songwriter said, love
sent my Savior to die in my stead. Why should He love me so? Meekly to Calvary's cross He
was led. Why should He love me so? And
I just have to believe every enlightened child of God has
asked themselves that question. Why should He love me so? I don't
have the answer, but I do know it's true. Our Lord loves His
chosen people with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving
kindness, He draws us unto Himself. This love was beautifully displayed
at Calvary when God our Father sent His Son to die for our sins. The Scripture says here in His
love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His
Son to be the propitiation, the sin-atoning sacrifice for our
sins. What great love God has manifested
for His enlightened children to ascribe all the greatness
of Christ. What love is displayed at Calvary when our Lord Jesus
suffered, and bled, and died, taking away all of our sins,
past, present, and future, burying them in the grave when He was
buried, leaving them there in the grave of God's forgetfulness.
God remembers our sins against us no more, and came out of that
grave, trusting in His Father to raise Him from the dead. He
knew that He would not allow Him to seek corruption. By the
way, the Scripture says our Lord raised Himself from the dead.
And He knew that He would come out of that grave, And that when
he did, he would come out. A victorious Savior. He didn't
die as a helpless victim at Calvary. He laid down His life for His
people and our victorious champion is great. He has paid the redemption
price in full for all of our sins and He's seated on His throne
in heaven right now as our great representative, as our surety. Our Heavenly Father has given
Him all power over all flesh that He should give eternal life
to as many as were given Him in that eternal covenant of grace
because Jesus Christ met all the conditions of the eternal
covenant. He knew, our Lord knew, all of
what was before Him and so much more that could be said, yet
He willingly came and subjected Himself to all of that which
was before Him and He knew that all the inhabitants of Zion would
be filled with praise and adoration to Him for His finished work
in their behalf. And that's what our text is saying.
Shout, thou inhabitant of Zion. Cry out and shout, great is the
Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee. Our great God and Savior,
who knew there was no other way but the way of the cross to redeem
His people, comes to us when we're running from Him, when
we hate Him, the same hatred in our hearts, that was in the
hearts of those who crucified Him, comes to us in that awful,
helpless, and hopeless condition, gives us His Spirit, puts His
Spirit within us, and reveals these wonderful truths to us
for the glory of Jesus Christ. and by His grace and His mercy,
we will continue to worship Him and praise Him. Crying out and
shouting to all of those we have the honor of being able to speak
to, Jesus Christ, the Holy One of Israel, is our great God and
our Savior who has delivered us and set us free and made us
members of that heavenly Jerusalem, members of His own body, as those
who are recipients of His amazing grace. for His glory and for
all eternity. This will be the wonderful relationship
between our great God and His people. This wonderful love in
our hearts for Him, for what He has done, giving Him all the
praise and all the glory for this unspeakable gift. Eternal
life through the finished work of Jesus Christ our Savior. Brethren,
we're on our way to glory. were marching to Zion.