In Isaiah 61, as we mentioned, last time our pastor was gone,
I mentioned that we were going to begin a series on the next
few times that he was gone on the fabric of grace. name of
the message. And the last time we met on part
one was regarding the robe of Christ that was woven from top
to bottom without beginning, without end. It was complete. It couldn't be rent. It was just a picture of grace. And every fabric that we're going
to look at is going to describe those type of things. The very
threads that made up this robe of Christ, they were all interwoven
and all interlocked. Each one was a type of of the
grace of God and they were all intricately woven together and
there was every thread that was needed and there was none that
were left out. It was perfect in every respect
and woven from eternity by the hand of grace. What a picture
that was. That woman that came up to him
and said, if I could just touch the hem of it. That would be what I needed.
And today, the fabric that we're going to, when I was talking
this over with Norm, I said, I'm going to do a series on this
fabric of grace. And he says, the robe of righteousness,
the robe of righteousness. I said, right, that's it. So that's where we're going today.
And I mentioned that in the original outline. I said, we're going
to look at the robe of Christ, and we're going to look at the
robe of righteousness, and we're going to look at maybe the coat
of many colors. And if we have time sometime,
we'll maybe look at the fabrics that enclosed the tabernacle. There were layers upon layers
of different fabrics in the tabernacle. Each one of those layers represent
some aspect of grace that we'll examine when we get to there. When I started studying in on
this, I thought, It was kind of one of those things that when
you start looking for it, you just see it everywhere. Everything
that we find in the scriptures is there for a purpose to tell
us something about the Lord and his redeeming work of the church. They're not just in the scriptures
for no purpose. They're there and as we grow
in grace, sometimes he allows us to see more and more of him.
And then when we see more and more of him, then we see more
and more of him. And that's just kind of the way grace is. So
as we look at this, our text verse today in verse 10, I will greatly rejoice in the
Lord." Boy, I really appreciated those songs that Mike Richardson
brought. Every one of them were praising God for what he did
and for not sparing his own son, sent him to die for us. all those
things that Isaiah is saying here. We're gonna kind of go
back to the beginning of the chapter here in a minute, but
in verse 10, so I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul
shall be joyful in my God, for he hath clothed me with the garments
of salvation. It wasn't something he came up
with on his own. He laid it solely at the feet
of Jesus. He hath clothed me with the garments
of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride
adorneth herself with her jewelry. There's just so much in this
chapter that we could go on and on about that, but we have to
stay focused here to the time that we have this morning. This
robe of righteousness, this garment of salvation, It's just a metaphor for Christ
himself, for the fabric of grace is found throughout the scriptures
and this righteousness that God provides, this imputed righteousness
that he applies to us is found from the very beginning of the
Bible. If we were to go back to Genesis, the very first chapter,
and we would read in the very first verse that God created
the heaven and the earth. And then the earth became without
form and void. And if you look those words up,
it describes kind of a calamitous situation, a turmoil, a bad thing. And then it says, the spirit
of God moved on the face of the waters. And when you look up
that word moved, it says brooded. And it kind of gives the picture
of a hen brooding over her eggs, covering them, protecting them
until they hatch and become chickens or whatever. So then we go right
to Genesis chapter three, and we have the related to us, the
fall in Adam. And what do we find? A covering. And that's what that brooding
is. It's a covering. And that's what this robe of
righteousness is. This word robe is a covering. This garment of salvation is
a covering. We are looking at it from that
aspect today. Adam tried to make his own covering.
He knitted himself an apron out of fig leaves to cover his nakedness. That did not work out well. I
always kind of thought that was humorous because fig leaves are
kind of scratchy, not good, and they are not very durable. But we find that's what the robe
of righteousness that the Lord provides us to cover us is durable. And it fits perfectly and it's
made out of the best things. Fine linen it says in the scriptures. And he made a covering for Adam. And his wife, he took skins and
made a covering for them. He clothed them. And in order
for that to happen, skins just do not appear out of nothing. Skins come off of living things
that are killed. and their skin is taken from
them and utilized for other things. We're pretty familiar with that
process here, I think. So from the very beginning, our
point is that from the beginning of the Bible, it tells us about
the nakedness that we find ourselves in toward God because of sin
and the fall. And our inability to cover ourselves
and the Lord sending His Son, not sparing His own Son, but
sending Him as that hymn we just sang. God spared not his own
son, but sent him to die for us, to cover our sins. And so our text from Isaiah chapter
61, 10. He hath clothed me with the garment
of salvation and covered me with the robe of righteousness. The
whole chapter speaks to the grace of God and salvation to a people
As Craig read our scriptures from verse 1. To a people who
though in bondage to sin that were captives in prison. All these things that describe
how we are in our nature before we are reborn in prison. Yet
the Spirit of God has moved upon them. And as it's related to
us in Ezekiel 36, remember the I will chapter that we always
like to go back to, Ezekiel chapter 36. I will take them out from
among the heathen. I will wash them. I will clean
them up. I will breathe into them the
breath. I will wash them and give them
a new heart, take away their old heart. and all these things
that God does for them. And then, what does it say at
the end? And then you will look at your
old ways and loathe yourself for your ways which were not
good. That's kind of a paraphrase of that. I'm not gonna read that
whole thing. But he says, you'll loathe yourself
in your own sight for your iniquities and your abominations. And that's
a position we find ourselves in. And we're naked and exposed
in that condition before God. And yet here in Isaiah, God sending
his son, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord hath
anointed me to preach good tidings. Here's some good news. to the meek. We're not meek in
our natural state. We're meek when we get to be
like Isaiah when he says, as Mike read in the Bible class,
I saw the Lord on His throne and I said, uh-oh, woe is me. And then he says, your sins are
covered. Your sins are purged. Fear not. He hath sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted. We become broken hearted when
our sin is revealed to us, as Ezekiel said. I'm gonna give
you a new heart. And the new heart's gonna look
at your old ways and say, oh man, that is so awful. To proclaim liberty to the captives. We're captives all our lives
to sin until the Lord sets us free. the opening of the prison
to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord
and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn."
Remember in the Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, blessed are they
that mourn that they shall be comforted. I've sent them a comforter. to appoint unto them that mourn
in Zion to give them beauty for ashes." They're sitting there
with sackcloth and ashes on their head, and God is going to send
them beauty. The beauty of His Son taking
care of their problem there. The garment of praise. Again,
this covering, it says. This garment. The garment of
praise for the spirit of heaviness. They're feeling as in Ezekiel
when he said, you're going to loathe yourself after I give
you a new heart. But then he's going to give you,
as Isaiah says, rejoicing in the Lord because he's taken care
of it. He's done it all. That they might
be called the trees of righteousness. the planting of the Lord, that
he might be glorified. And then it gives us this metaphor,
this analogy of the old waste places are built up. And at the
end of the chapter, it says, as the earth bringeth forth her
bud. You know, all this winter we've
been looking at the orchard out there and the trees are all dead
looking. They're just a bunch of sticks
sticking up there. And then one day you go out there and there's
all these kind of red things sticking up in the air, these
new growth. And the other day we were out
there and you watch this, oh look, the buds are coming on.
Well they looked dead last week. And so he uses this analogy here,
that as the earth bringeth forth her bud when it seemed dead and
trespassed, and as a garden causes things that were sown in it to
spring forth, the Word of God is sown forth and suddenly springs
forth in praise. And before all nations, they
just tell everybody, oh boy, guess here's something wonderful.
And you know, Jesus, I think Mike alluded to this in the Bible
class and in Luke chapter four, Jesus, he quoted this Isaiah
61, most of the 61, one and two and three. When he came out of, I think
it was Capernaum, he came out and went to the temple and they
handed him a scroll and he opened it to Isaiah 61 and he read that. He read. And he said, he closed
the book and said, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your
ears. He has sent me. I'm here, he
said. And of course, if you read on
a little bit longer in that chapter, you'll find out they took great
umbrage. The ones that were unbelievers said, hey, that's not cool that
you said that. They just didn't understand. And when the new birth causes
us to remember our former state, our iniquities, which the Spirit
reveals to us all too clearly, and we enter into this state
of mourning for our sins, a state of being broken hearted, a sense
of meekness in which we know that in me, in my flesh dwelleth
no good thing, and there's nothing in me that would elicit or invoke
a reaction of mercy from God, and contrarily, establish every
motive for wrath. Because we're at enmity with
Him. He looks at us and says, I've loved you with an everlasting
love. I've sent my son to redeem you and save you, and yet we're
still kind of glaring at him and we're not in a good position
there. And into that state we're brought
to know that Jesus has been anointed to preach the gospel, the good
news to the poor. To give them the good news that
their sins have been paid for. In the scriptures that Mike read
earlier, your sins have been paid for double. It says that
in like three different places. You've received double for your
iniquities, not just barely. I didn't just miserly dole out enough grace
to just barely cover it. It's double. And you get the
double blessing, more than you could hope for. You get the garment
of salvation, the robe of righteousness, that robe that declares that
in God's eyes, your righteousness, and it covers completely. And this good news heals their
broken heart by saying, there are sins and iniquities I will
no more remember. They're covered. It lets them
know they've been delivered. He says, to deliver them. In the old West things, they
were saying, well, there was a jail delivery. This guy was
locked up and his pals came and hooked their ropes on the back
window and yanked out the bars. The guy escaped and they call
that a delivery. Being taken out of the prison
that they probably justly were incarcerated in. Their ransom was paid. All their
debts are covered. And Isaiah adds in those couple
of verses in chapter 61, verse 2, to comfort all that mourn. And then he says in verse 3 there,
to appoint. And that means to impute, convey,
or determine. to impute something to those
people that mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the
oil of joy instead of the mourning that they're experiencing, the
garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. All these bad things
that we have are exchanged for the good things. that are provided
by the Lord. Even though we say, thank you,
Lord, for exposing them in me by giving me a new heart and
a heart to see how our sins and iniquities are in relation to
the most holy God. that we just didn't understand
and saving us from being like Adam and trying to cover ourselves
with our own righteousness. People are always saying, well,
when I get to heaven, I'm going to tell God a thing or two. I'll
tell him how the cow ate the cabbage. And if I didn't do enough
good things in my life to overcome the few, very few bad things
that I did, well, who needs him? That's kind of the attitude of
people. When the Lord gives us a true sense of sin, then we
get a true sense of deliverance. And only then that they might
be called the trees of righteousness. A sprouting up of righteousness
that glorifies God. The trees sprout up and they're
visible. all the things that they don't deserve that are given
to them by free grace alone. Now, this first fabric of grace
we have in here in verse 10 called the garment of, let me read it
here. He hath clothed me with a garment
of salvation. And that's a metaphor. It's an analogy there that shows
that It's a covering. It's a, it's a imputed covering
to us provided by someone else. And just as we saw in, in Genesis
that from the very beginning, someone else had to pay the price
to provide that, that covering. And I will greatly rejoice in
the Lord. My soul shall be joyful. All these things causes him to
say, oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. How great thou art,
as that other hymn that we sang was so appropriate. Because he's
clothed me with the garment of salvation, he's covered me with
the robe of righteousness. Grace is always a perfect fit,
too, if you ever notice that. It's never too small. Well, He
didn't quite give me enough. It's always double. But it's not too big. It fits
you perfectly. It covers all your iniquities. It covers all your sin. It covers
every problem. And that these are really just
metaphors for Christ. They're not, you don't really
just go in the closet and get something out and put it on and
say, okay, I'm saved now. It's just a metaphor for Christ,
our robe of righteousness, as Mike pointed out in Jeremiah
in the Bible class this morning in chapter 23. He is called the Lord our righteousness. That's his name. And then in
chapter 33, He talks about the church, and they say, this is
the name wherewith she shall be called. It's the same, the
Lord our righteousness. He is it. In Romans, the 13th
chapter, Paul kind of closes out that chapter, and he says,
put you on the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the covering that takes
care of all the issues. The robe of righteousness, it's
a covering. Mike mentioned in, it was interesting. We kind of talked a little bit
earlier this week about a couple of things that we were studying
and he mentioned that. And I says, well, isn't that,
I thought, isn't that interesting? He's bringing a text from Isaiah
chapter 32 about the man, Emmanuel, God with us. the man, Jesus Christ,
being a covert from the tempest. And if you look that word covert
up, it says cover, covering. Behold, a king shall reign in
righteousness. And this king, the man, Jesus
Christ, shall be as a hiding place from the wind and a cover
from the tempest. A great rock that we can get
behind. A cover for the nakedness of
our sins and our iniquities before God. I think we mentioned in
one of our earlier studies, we went back to Ezekiel chapter
16. Norman had brought this out in one of the Wednesday night
lessons I think. In Ezekiel chapter 16 verse 1, again the word of the
Lord came unto me saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know
her abominations. Well how does that happen? He
delves into that in chapter 36 and says, I'll give them a new
heart, a heart to know me. as God and then they'll look
at their own ways which were not good and shall loathe themselves.
So here we have it in chapter 16. Cause Jerusalem to know her
abominations and say thus saith the Lord God to Jerusalem thy
birth And thy nativity is of the land of Cain, and thy father
was an Amorite, thy mother a Hittite. It's just, it's a metaphor for
the church. The church is in the world. And
that's where you come from. And as for thy nativity, in the
day thou was born, thy navel was not cut. Your umbilical is
still attached to that. Neither was thou washed in water,
To supple thee, that was not salted at all, nor swaddled at
all. Now there's several sermons right
in there, that water of the word that we're told about in the
New Testament, that you are the salt of the earth, that kind
of thing, nor swaddled, you weren't swaddled. That means you had
no covering. You were just laying there naked
and kind of disgusting looking is what this scripture says.
And that's how we are in our sin. None I pity thee to do any
of these things to thee to have compassion upon me. And as the
analogy goes, it was unable to do those things for itself. It
had no ability to provide any of those things of its own self. And when I passed by thee and
saw thee polluted, that's what the Lord said. When I walked
by and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee,
when thou was washed in thy blood, live, I said unto thee, when
thou was in thy blood, live. I've caused thee to multiply
as the bud of the field, and has increased and waxen great,
and thou art come to excellent ornaments. Thy breasts are fashioned,
thine hair is grown, whereas thou was naked and bare. Now
when I passed by thee and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was
a time of love. And that's an eternal time from
God. I've loved thee with an everlasting
love. And he said, and I spread my skirt, my covering over thee and covered thy nakedness. Yea, I swear unto thee, and entered
into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou became
mine. And I don't remember which lesson
we were in, but we ran across that same, I think it was Norman's
lesson that he brought out from Ruth in chapter 3 verse 9, where
Ruth the Moabitess went into Boaz and laid down at his feet
and he covered her with the edge of his skirt and she became his. What a beautiful
picture there. Back here in Ezekiel, In chapter
16 verse 9, Then I washed I thee with water, the water of the
Word. Yea, I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee, and
I anointed thee with oil. It's just like in Isaiah, I'm
taking away the disgusting bad things and replacing them with
the good things. I shod thee with badger skins,
One of the coverings of the tabernacle is badger skins, ram skins. And I girded thee about with
fine linen, and I covered thee with silk, the best things, the
best materials. I decked thee also with ornaments,
and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck,
and I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and
a beautiful crown upon thine head, Thou was decked with gold
and silver, and thy raiment was of fine linen and silk, embroidered
work. Thou did eat fine flour and honey
and oil, and thou was exceedingly beautiful, and thou didst prosper
into the kingdom. And thy renown went forth among
the heathen for thy beauty, for it was perfect through my comeliness
which I had put upon thee." Now it goes on through the rest of
that chapter, And it kind of gives a warning to the church
not to do as the church in the wilderness was when God showed
them many things and yet they rebelled against him and kind
of went off their own direction. And he says that all those things
happened, but he closes out, he says, but nevertheless, I
remember my covenant with you. It's not dependent on you. It's dependent on me remembering my
covenant. It's dependent on me giving you
the robe of righteousness, covering you with the garment of salvation,
the fabric of grace, the fine linen, the embroidered work.
The finest material made the Lord Jesus Christ our righteousness
exceedingly fine. John noted in his revelation
that they are made white in the blood of the lamb. That is a
spiritual metaphor. You don't take a bucket of blood
and wash something in it and expect it to come out white. Physically, that is not going
to happen. But spiritually, that blood of our substitute, it provides us a robe, a covering. And it's because it's the Lord
Jesus Christ. When we see pictures of him in
the scriptures, in his more natural condition, when he went to the
Mount of Transfiguration, He was just glowing light. And His raiment was white as
light itself. And when we see pictures of Him
in Revelation, everything about Him is white
and bright and light. And the saints, the same shall
be clothed in white raiment. I counsel to buy of me gold tried
in the fire that thou may be rich and white raiment that thou
may be clothed and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear.
And of course, this nakedness, a picture as we've gone through
here and shown a picture of our natural condition and sin and
the whiteness of the robes is a manifestation of the pureness
and the righteousness of God in Christ, which is imputed to
the church. through Christ, through His death
on the cross, through His work in satisfying the righteousness
of God. A robe, the fabric of which has
no imperfections. It's as pure and fine as Christ
Himself, and it's a covering for His people. A covering of
their nakedness, a covert from the tempest, And so, with this heaven-sent
knowledge, the church rejoices in the finished work of Christ
for them. And that's what Isaiah says here in verse 10 of our
text verse, I'll greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be
joyful in my God, for He hath clothed me with the garment of
salvation, for He have covered me with a robe of righteousness. And so we'll close there until
next time. And as we always say from John 8,
verse 36, where the Lord said, if the Son therefore shall make
you free, you shall be free indeed. So be free, my friends, until
the next time. Never mind.