Let's go to the next chapter
that follows Isaiah 55. I want you to look at Isaiah
56. I mentioned to Ron just before
I stood to read the verses with you, I said, you know, I said,
I was going to give you a choice. You could either lead the singing
or read scripture and pray. And he did not hesitate with
his answer. I appreciate him reading and
leading us in prayer. I never mind leading the singing. I did that for years and years
and enjoy doing it. and thankful for any part that
I can have in a worship service where we gather to honor our
Lord and Savior. In that chapter he read, Isaiah
55, that is a gospel call. And the unique thing about Isaiah
55 is that it is a message, of course, What's a little unusual,
the preacher is Jehovah. It is God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And in this portion of scripture,
we find our Lord full of compassion, we find him full of tenderness,
and we find him full of mercy. This is God's call. sinners. The Lord preaches to folks like
you and me to come to the blessed Savior. The passage he read,
Isaiah 55 1, ho means hey you, hey you. And I'll tell you what, if you're
thirsty for the Lord Jesus Christ If you're thirsty for God's way
of salvation, if you're thirsty for our Lord Jesus Christ, if
you're interested in the banquet of grace, the banquet that feeds
destitute and hungry sinners, if God has given you a thirst
and God has given you a hunger for the gospel of the grace of
God to sinners through the Lord Jesus Christ, then that call
in Isaiah 55 is to you. It's to you. And at the very
end of Isaiah 55, our Lord says that his word goes forth like
rain to satisfy the thirsty, As the
rain satisfies the thirsty ground, and we're having an abundance
of rain. As everyone in this part of Kentucky and Ohio and
West Virginia, we know quite well that the streams and the
rivers are up. Lots of people are flooded. Well,
I'll tell you what, that reminds us that our God has, he has flooded,
he has flooded this earth. with His good things. And He
indeed floods us with the gospel of forgiveness, the gospel of
righteousness, the gospel of acceptance through the doing
and the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord, may He make
us thirsty for that great righteousness that He Himself, Christ Himself,
established upon the cross of Calvary. And toward the end of
the chapter here, we find that only God who can make sinners
thirsty, He's the only one who can satisfy the thirst. And I'm
hoping, I'm praying, I'm preaching to somebody here or watching
that is thirsty for the Son of God. You're thirsty for His salvation. You're hungry for the banquet
of grace. And if you're thirsty and if
you're hungry, I know who gave you the thirst. And I know who
caused you to be hungry. And our God says in the end of
chapter 55 that His word will go forth and it will always be
successful. It will always prosper. And the
thing or her two, the Lord sends it. And then we get into chapter
56. And going into chapter 56, we
read in the first verse, Thus saith the Lord. He says, Keep
ye judgment and do justice. He says, For my salvation is
near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Now as Isaiah
55 is God speaking to sinners who are thirsty and hungry for
the gospel of forgiveness, the gospel of righteousness, the
gospel of peace. As we get into the 56th chapter,
here's God saying, the day is coming when all righteousness
will be fulfilled. In fact, He says it's drawing
near. Salvation is near to come. It's
near to come. Oh, 750 years in the future from
this passage of scripture, God's salvation will come, and His
name is the Lord Jesus Christ. Roughly 3,3200 years have come
and gone since Genesis chapter 3, And verse 15, which talks about
the seed of the woman is coming, and it ever is growing nearer. And now God Himself announces
that salvation is near to come, the gospel age. And the gospel
age began with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. It began
with His birth and extends all the way to the time when He shall
come again, the second time, in not only power, but he will
come in great glory. And here's what Isaiah 56 is
about. It's about that God has a call
of grace, not only to the Jews, but in the gospel age to the
Gentiles as well. Now one of the things that the
Jews despised was that the idea that the Gentiles would ever
be in covenant, a covenant relationship with God. They were totally against
that. But in Isaiah chapter 56, now
we learn a little bit more of the people he's speaking about
in chapter 55. It also includes Gentiles, Gentiles. He's gonna make Gentiles thirsty
for Christ. He's gonna make Gentiles hungry
for the bread of life, who is our Lord Jesus, who came down
from heaven. Gentiles will not be left out
in feasting upon the gospel banquet. Notice what he says in the second
verse, blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man
that layeth hold on it, that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting
it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil." And what he's
saying is, blessed are those people who continue to offer
the sacrifices, who continue to observe the Sabbath, remembering
that in the gospel age, the Sabbath is not something, it's somebody. It's Christ Jesus. And then he
says this in the third verse, and now you'll see how he's writing
now that the Gentiles, folks like us, are included in the
call of grace. Neither let the son of the stranger,
that's us, Gentiles, that hath joined himself to the Lord speak,
saying, The Lord hath utterly separated me from his people. Neither let the eunuch, Say,
behold, I'm a dry tree. There's no hope for me. Don't
say that. Verse four, for thus saith the
Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my Sabbaths and choose the things
that please me and who take hold of the covenant, even unto them
will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a
name better than of the sons and of daughters. I will give
them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. In other
words, what he's saying is, in the gospel age, I know in the
Old Testament, the gospel of God's grace was primarily sent
to the Jews. The Word of God was sent to the
Jews. The feasts were given to the
Jews. All those things that pointed to Christ and His first coming,
His advent, His incarnation, His birth, all of those things
were mainly given to the Jews. Here and there, a few Gentiles
were called, but not many. But then we get into the gospel
era, and that's the era we're in now. That's the time we're
in now. And the Lord speaks not just of Jews, but also of Gentiles. There's going to be, and there
is in fact, ever since our Lord came into this world, a gathering
together, not only of Jews, but of Gentiles. And this is really
good news for folks like us, because we're Gentiles. In this
passage of scripture, we're like those that are strangers. Romans
chapter nine, we're strangers to the covenants and promises.
Those things weren't given to us. In fact, the law of God,
the 10 commandments, they weren't given to us. They were given
to the Jews. And all those appointed sacrifices,
all those animals that died in the way that they were to die,
setting forth the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, those weren't
given to us. They were given to the Jews.
But now the Lord has Isaiah announce good news for the Gentiles. We're not left out of the mercies
of God. We're not left out of the grace
of God. We're not left out of God's free
salvation. So if you, though you're a Gentile,
as am I, as are most people that we know, if we're truly hungry,
For our Lord Jesus, that bread of life, if we're thirsty for
Him who is the water of life, if we long to know God, If we
want to be forgiven of our sins, to know that we stand in a right
relationship with God, though we are by nature strangers to
the covenants and promises, the word to us is, ho, everyone that
thirsteth, come to the waters, come to Christ. Oh, that God
would give you the desire to come to Him right now. I love
what Scott Richardson used to say, he said, come to Christ
and don't move a muscle. You see, coming to Christ today
by many is like the same thing as coming down to the front.
As they say, coming to the altar. There is only one altar and that's
somebody, our Lord Jesus Christ. We come to Him by faith, and
I call upon all of you, and I pray that God will issue a powerful
call to come to Christ, to draw near to Him, to embrace Him. There is no other Savior. There
is no other Redeemer. And though we are by nature strangers,
though we are enemies of God, born in sin, guilty, Listen,
if you see your sinfulness and you need a savior, The Lord says, come. He says
in Matthew 11, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I'll give you rest. I'll give you rest. And that's
the idea of a Sabbath, resting. He is our Sabbath. What was the
law of the Sabbaths? Now, in this passage of Scripture,
you'll read about people. The Lord says they keep the Sabbath.
What was the law of the Sabbath? Rest. Don't do any work. That's the law of the gospel.
Don't work. Don't labor. Don't try to do
something to merit God's favor and God's mercy and God's grace.
Just rest fully in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is salvation. You see, that's what it means
in verse one. My salvation, God says, is near to come. It's near
to come. Drawing ever nearer. You say,
is Christ himself salvation? A man by the name of Simeon said
he was, when our Lord was just a wee little infant. Our Lord
had said to Simeon that he would see God's salvation, and he would
see God's salvation before he died. And when Joseph and Mary
came into the temple, The Holy Spirit had directed the path
of Simeon to be there and he saw that baby in her arms and
he took that baby in his arms and looked in the face of the
Son of God and he said, now I'm ready to die. And let me tell
you something, if by the gift of grace You, as it were, spiritually
take the Son of God in your arms, realizing He is God's salvation. He is the mighty Deliverer. Take Him in your arms of faith.
I'll tell you this on the authority of God's Word. He has never turned
anybody away who came to Him with a good attitude. And he
won't turn you away either. He'll say, Jim, you just don't
know me. You don't know what I've done.
You don't know my past. No, I don't. And I don't need
to. And I'm thankful you don't know my past. I'm thankful you
don't know my thoughts. But our God issues this call
of grace, call of mercy in chapter 55. And now he says the call
even goes forth to the strangers, to the Gentiles in this world. Look at verse, let me read. Verse six, also the sons of the
stranger that join themselves to the Lord to serve him and
to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants. Everyone
that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it and taketh hold
of my covenant, even them will I bring to my holy mountain. That means bring into his church. The holy mountain is the church.
He will bring to join you in with His people. He will bring
you. That's the effectual call right there. And then He says, and make them
joyful in my house of prayer. There's no joy like the joy of
knowing God through Jesus Christ. That's the greatest joy there
is. You can rejoice in things and to a degree, that's okay.
But when God the Spirit draws you to Jesus Christ, the only
Savior of sinners, and you see His blood shed for the guilty,
His righteousness freely credited to the sinner, and when the Lord
causes you to reach out by faith, with the arms of faith, and you
embrace the Son of God, He will give you a joy in your soul like
you have never had before. To know that all is well between
me and God. That's the greatest joy there
is. See, earthly joys, earthly happinesses,
they pass. I'll tell you what, even death
can't separate us from this joy we have in Christ because actually
at death we enter into the fullness of the joy. of God's salvation. You know, our Lord Jesus, hold
your place here. Go with me to John chapter 15. He spoke of the Gentiles being
brought in. Look at John chapter 10, verses
15 and 16. John 10, 15, and 16. And you'll recognize, most of
you will recognize this passage. Here's the shepherd, and he's
speaking of his relationship to the sheep. And he says, as
the father knoweth me, even so know I the father, and I lay
down my life for the sheep. That's his substitutionary work. He says, other sheep and other
sheep I have, which are not of this fold. Now we know this,
his immediate fold in his presence were Jews, right? They were Jews. But he says, other sheep I have,
which are not of this fold, them also I must bring. I love that. I must bring them. These are the Gentiles, he said,
and they shall hear my voice. The voice of our Lord is his
gospel. The gospel of substitution, the
gospel of satisfaction, the gospel of God's saving grace. They shall
hear my voice. Brother Barnard said, if the
only voice you ever hear is my voice, you're not gonna be any
better off. You need to hear another preacher.
You need to hear the Spirit of God. And if He preaches to you,
something's gonna happen. My voice can't accomplish spiritual
life. It won't accomplish the new birth.
But I tell you what, the voice of our God raises the dead. Our Lord said, you must be born
again. And by the power of the Spirit,
we're born anew. And his voice will be heard. Not with these ears, though as
you hear me preach, you hear with these ears. But the voice
that you must hear, and I pray God will speak from heaven to
your heart. The voice that you must hear
is voice, the life-giving voice of our Lord. Because if he speaks,
You will hear His voice. And you will be quickened by
His might and brought to faith in Christ. And He says, and there
shall be one fold. That's why in Ephesians the Apostle
Paul speaks of Jew and Gentile as being one group, one body. There's not the Jewish church
and the Gentile church. It's not the Baptist church and
the Presbyterian church or name any other church that perhaps
and hopefully preaches the gospel. There's only one true church
and that's the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. And wherever you
find the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, you will find somebody
who's telling them about the blessed Savior, about the shepherd
who laid down His life that the guilty might live. So our Lord
says there shall be one body, one flock, and there'll be one
shepherd. I want you to notice in this
passage of Scripture two little statements, and I want to work
on them for just a few minutes. One of them is in the end of
verse 4, and the other one is in the end of verse 6. Verse four, for thus saith the
Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths and choose the things
that please me and take hold of my covenant. That's important. Take hold of my covenant. For
God to say something one time, that's better than gold. But
for God to say something two times must be significant. Look at the end of verse six.
And taketh hold of my covenant. Taketh hold of my covenant. Our Lord often speaks of his
covenant. Let me just show you a few verses.
Go back to chapter 54 and verse 10. And you can get your concordance
and note how many times Isaiah uses the word covenant. Chapter
54 verse 10, for the mountains shall depart and the hills be
removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither
shall the covenant of my peace. That's the everlasting covenant
of grace. Neither shall the covenant of
my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. Look at chapter 55, the third
verse. Ron read this to us a little
bit ago. Chapter 55 verse 3, he says, incline your ear and
come unto me, hear, and your soul shall live, and I will make
an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of
David. And what he's saying is, when
you believe the gospel, the Lord will manifest to you the reason
why you believe the gospel is because of the covenant of grace,
that everlasting covenant. And now over here in chapter
56 and verse 4 again, he talks about, take hold of my covenant. And in verse 4 and in verse 6,
him that taketh hold of the covenant. Before the world began, the great Jehovah convened in
covenant. This is before time ever was.
Nobody existed but Father, Son, and Spirit. And eternally, they
agreed amongst themselves to save poor sinners who would fall
and spiritually die in Adam's transgression. And out of the
host of all mankind, the Lord would show mercy to a multitude,
which no man can number, of Jews and Gentiles. God would save a people. God chose these to be saved. And the Son of God, in that covenant,
He said, I will in due time, take upon myself a body. I will be joined to a woman,
a virgin. And the Father had ordained a
body for Christ, and the deity, the Son of God, the eternal God,
took into union with Himself our flesh, our nature, except
He didn't have any sin. And He agreed to do that in the
covenant of grace. You say, are you sure of that?
Yes, because it says in Revelation, He is the Lamb who was slain
before the world began. All of this was worked out and
purposed in the mind and heart and desire of God. And this everlasting covenant is in effect, it is still in
effect. And if you, even this morning,
are brought to believe on the Son of God, and I pray that you
will be, it is all because of the fact that before God ever
made the world, He wrote your name down in the Lamb's Book
of Life. And it is due to his own free
and sovereign grace that you now believe. It's all to be traced
back to our God. Now, let me just give you two
things. First of all, a reminder of that
other covenant. You remember the other covenant?
I've been preaching about it. from time to time, especially
of late. That's the covenant made with
Adam. It's called the covenant of works. It was made with Adam
and the blessings or the mercies of that covenant were dependent
upon Adam obeying everything God told him to do. And basically
he's had one law to keep of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. Thou shalt not eat of it, for
in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And as
long as Adam refrained from eating of the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, all was well. And we remember that
Adam was our federal head. He was our representative. When
he stood upright, when he stood righteous before God, we were
righteous before God. But when he fell, when he came
crashing down, all of the rest of us came down with him. He was the bad apple. And now
we're all bad apples. That's the way that works. That covenant of works consisted
in this basically, obey me and live, disobey me and die. It's called the covenant of works
because it was a covenant that God entered into with Adam that
God would continue life to him and we know God ain't gonna turn
from his promises. He's the one mind who can turn
him. But the fulfillment of that covenant was now dependent on
Adam. Mercy is dependent upon his obedience. Well, did he obey? We know he
didn't. He broke that covenant. And that
is rightly called a covenant of works. And all men and women
and young people, we still hang on to that covenant of works,
and this is our thinking. If I do something for God, surely
He will do something for me. That's the way people think.
That's the way I thought, and I got news for you. That's the
way you thought. Maybe not in those exact words, But that's
what we're born. We're born under a covenant of
works. This do and live, disobey and
die. And so people try to do lots
of different things. They try to keep the Ten Commandments,
try to be a good person. Well, if I'm a good person, surely
God will look down on me and He'll say, well, He's putting
forth a good effort. So I'm gonna let him into heaven.
That's the covenant of works. And let me tell you something,
that covenant will damn you. It's a killer. There's no hope
for anybody who tries to approach God on the basis of the covenant
of works. That was the religion of Cain. In the fourth chapter of Genesis,
we have Cain and Abel. Abel brought unto God the firstling
of his flock. And fire came down from heaven
and devoured his sacrifice, indicating God was well pleased with Abel's
sacrifice. And then Cain, it came time for
him to worship God. And he went out in his garden
and he picked the most beautiful tomatoes and cantaloupe and corn
on the cob. and he washed it and shined it
up real good, and he put it up on the altar, and he told his
wife and his youngins, he said, now y'all back up, because fire's
gonna fall from heaven and devour my offering just like it did
my brother Abel's. Yeah, fire did fall upon Abel's
and burn it up, showed God accepted what he brought, because Abel's
sacrifice pictured the Lord Jesus Christ in his sacrificial character. So Cain brings all of this and
he tells his wife, says, back off now. It's going to be a roaring
fire going to fall down from heaven. Guess what? Nothing happened. Because that
which he brought was the labors of his hand. I prepared the ground. I planted the seed. I made sure
the weeds were taken out. I watered, I fertilized, I picked
it, I washed it, I put it up on the altar. Surely God's impressed
with all that I've done for Him. God was not impressed because
His offering did not picture the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ. and thinking that you can do
something for God that will get His attention and cause Him to
show mercy to you, that is a deadly religion. That's the covenant
of works. It's the covenant of deuce. I've
got to do something. But here's what people who seek
to do something to please God, here's what they miss. That which
God demands has already been done. It's the substitutionary
death of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said in His dying breath,
it is finished. What's finished? All the Old
Testament types and pictures. The law of God, the justice of
God has all been satisfied. It's finished. It's completed.
And the reason we're saved is because of the work of Christ
upon the cross of Calvary, which is made applicable to our hearts
by the power of the Holy Spirit. Well, the covenant of works is
bad. Because in 2 Corinthians chapter
3, Paul calls people who try to keep the law, I'm doing the
best I can. Well, I'll tell you what Paul
calls that. He said it's a ministry of condemnation
and death. So here's the big question I
want to answer in just a very few minutes. Well, then how can
we take hold of the covenant of grace? That's what I'm interested
in. Right? Aren't you? How can I
take hold of the covenant of grace? Well, it's actually very simple,
but it's so simple people miss it. In order to take hold of the
covenant of grace, to take a firm grip on salvation in, through,
and by the Lord Jesus Christ, here's how you take hold of the
covenant of grace. You release your hold on the
covenant of works. That make sense? Isn't that simple?
Just turn and look at the covenant of works. I'm not gonna go to
God on the basis of what I'm doing, because I know that will
not get me accepted by God. Well, what shall I do? I will
flee to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Lamb of God, who is
slain for sinners according to the covenant of grace. I'll run
to Him. And I'll take hold of him, for
when you take hold of him with the arms of faith, you take hold
to the covenant of grace. But you can't hold on to both
of them. Ah, that makes sense. You can't
hold on to both of them. And as long as you think, well,
there's something I got to do. To please God. To satisfy God. As long as you entertain that
thought, you're holding on to the covenant of works, and it'll
kill you. Oh, may God, even if He has to
break your fingers, release your grip of the covenant of works.
And you run to Christ. who is the surety of the new
covenant. He's the mediator of the new
covenant. We come to God through him. And
coming to God through Christ will always be accepted and will
never be cast away. Because the Savior said in John
6, 37, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. When were
they given to him? In the covenant of grace. And
he says, him that cometh to me, regardless of what they've done
in the past, regardless of what they do in the future, shall in no wise, he shall in
no wise cast out. That's the salvation I'm interested
in. I hope and pray God gets you
interested in it too. Well, let's get our psalm books.
I want you to turn to.