Thank you so much. Open your
Bibles to the eighth chapter of the book of Isaiah. I'm going to begin in chapter
eight and then I'm going into chapter nine. Isaiah chapter
eight. My message is good news in sad
times. I think that's an appropriate
title for the portion of scripture that I want to break open for
you this morning. I hope it will, when I break
it open to you, be like an alabaster box of precious ointment as I
try to set forth this passage of scripture to you. And I hope
it will be good news to us in this day of sad times. I was talking to a couple of
people earlier this morning about the days in which we're living,
the times in which we're living. In many ways, they're sad and
just not much good news on the surface, of course. We have good
news through our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the good news. Salvation
is in through and by him. Isaiah, of course, is a prophet
of God. As with so many of these prophets,
their names end in I-H, which is Jehovah or God, Lord, And
his entire name, Isaiah, means the salvation of Jehovah, the
salvation of our God. And indeed, salvation is of the
Lord in its commencement, in its beginning, and in its end,
and all along the way. Salvation is of our God. I would
have you notice the very first line of verse 1 of Isaiah 8,
and I only want to read this to you, and I'm going to go toward
the end of the chapter, but it says, Moreover, the Lord said
unto me, just stop right there. Let me tell you, Isaiah got his
message from the Lord. It wasn't something he thought
up, something he decided he ought to talk about and write about. Rather, God gave him a word from
on high, and Isaiah was inspired of God to write these words that
he wrote. Now, nobody is inspired today. Nobody's inspired by the Holy
Spirit. The last inspired writer of Holy
Scripture was the Apostle John. And when he died, the apostolic
gifts were gone, those supernatural gifts of speaking in other languages
without studying them, performing healing miracles and things of
that nature, and also inspiration by the Holy Spirit. All of those
things end. But that's not to say that God
doesn't speak through the men that he chooses today to sound
forth the gospel. Blessed is that congregation
who hears a message that God has laid upon the heart of his
servant. And blessed is that servant of
God who has received in his own heart words that he's convinced
that God would have him speak to those who are going out into
eternity and needing perfect righteousness which is only to
be found in the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah was such a man that God
gave him his word. God gave him the scriptures.
And may we be so blessed that God will break open for us the
words that he gave Isaiah. And may the Lord bless the feeble
words that I speak this morning to bless them to your eternal
good. At the end of chapter 8, Isaiah
sets forth the very sad times that Israel was going to be facing. They faced these sad times because
of their own wickedness, because of their own idolatry, because
they had forsaken the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob,
God therefore sent judgments upon Israel, and in these last
few verses of chapter 10 of Isaiah, the Lord predicts, or Isaiah
predicts, that God is going to send even more severe judgments
upon the nation. He specifically sets forth a
three-fold stinging prophecy of judgments that God was going
to send. Here's the first one, look at
verse eight. And when they shall say to you,
who's the they? The preachers of the day, the
false prophets of the day. When they shall say to you, he
speaks to Israel now, He has a word of admonition for them,
but he also has a very serious word of warning. And when they
shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits,
that is, let's unify with other religions. When they shall say
unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto
wizards that peep and that mutter. When they shall say this to you, he says, should not a people
seek unto their God? Should not a people seek unto
their God for the living to the dead? Why would people who seek
life go to those who only speak words of death? And as he speaks
to Israel concerning the judgments here in the latter part of chapter
8, the words are a stinging rebuke to Israel. Because these judgments,
you see, they do not come without warning, and they do not come
without a valid reason. These are people who had forsaken
God. They still went through some
of the events of religion, some of the sacrifices they offered
those, but he tells them back in chapter 1, their worship was
a heartless worship. They were like the people of
our Lord's day, and our Lord likened them to the people of
Isaiah's day when he said, they call on me with their lips, but
their hearts are far from me. Listen, I heard God demands heart
worship, not lip worship, not just making a quick profession. He insists that you worship Him
from your innermost being. Render unto God the praise and
the glory that is due Him. He's your God. He's your Creator. He's your sustainer. Everything
you have, He gives it to you. He is unworthy of mere lip service,
and that's all Israel gave Him. In fact, the Lord will say later
on in the book of Isaiah, through His prophet, He will say, when
you bring the blood of a sacrifice to Me, He said, you might as
well be bringing pig's blood. Because God said, as he says
back in chapter one, it's all smoke in my nose, he said. It's
offensive to me. To worship God with only lip
service is an abomination to him. Here's what Solomon said,
my son, give me your heart. God demands heart service and
heart worship. Our Lord says that God calls
men to worship Him, to worship Him in spirit, to worship Him
from your soul, from your innermost being, and with truth, with truth. The Israelites did not do that,
and consequently, the Lord warned them false prophets were gonna
rise up and lead them further away from the Lord. That's the
first warning. They rejected his prophets. They
had forsaken the worship of God. They refused to worship him from
the heart. Their sacrifices meant nothing
to them. They had no interest in the promised
Messiah. So Isaiah predicts a time of
divine judgment when God would raise up false religious teachers
and leaders who would say, let's just join together with other
religions. Let's unify. Let's unify. Let's all get along. Let's compromise. Our forefathers were too narrow-minded. But you see, there can be no
compromise. of truth with error. We worship God through Christ
Jesus. Salvation is only by grace. The Word of God and therefore
we denounce free will worship. We denounce works worship. We proclaim salvation by grace. in through and by the Lord Jesus
Christ. We preach the blood of the Son
of God. We preach salvation by suitable
sacrifice that God ordained and God therefore accepted. For God
will always accept that which is ordained. He ordained the
sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ and the sacrifices that were
offered throughout the Old Testament were to be offered in a foreview
of, in looking toward the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the only way sinners are accepted. We're accepted in the Beloved.
You're not accepted in your works. You're not accepted by your deeds.
You're not accepted by your religious words or utterances that you
have, you're accepted only in Christ, the sovereign Savior
of sinners. Surely you know that. But you see, the Lord says in
judgment upon Israel, He said, I'm going to raise up these false
prophets and they're going to say, let's all join with the
other religions. Look what he says in verse 20.
He says, to the law and to the testimony. Let's go to the scriptures. That's what Isaiah says, let's
go to the scriptures. Wouldn't it be refreshing, wouldn't
it be refreshing if preachers on television, on the radio,
if they opened the book of God and said, let's see what God
has to say about this. Not what the denomination has
to say, Not what the church records have to say, not what grandma
and grandpa used to say. Let's see what God has to say
about salvation. What does God have to say about
sin? What does God have to say about
being received through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ? What
does God have to say on this subject? That'd be refreshing. He says, go to the law and to
the prophets. And he says, if they speak not,
now listen what Isaiah says, if they speak not according to
this word, it is because there is no light in them. And if there's no light in them,
there's only darkness in them. Oh, let's consult what God has
to say. Hey, I appreciate what the old
writers wrote, Men who knew the truth, and I enjoy reading them,
but they're not inspired. One preacher I heard tell of
that he said to someone who was gonna preach, said, before you
preach a message, you need to read five different commentaries. I think that's what he said.
Five different commentaries on a passage of scripture. Here's
what I say, read the word of God, not just five times, read
it a dozen times. Tell you what, when I get stumped
over what I'm gonna preach on, I go to the word of God. When
I looked at this passage of scripture, I got to thinking about it and
praying about it, you know what I did? I read it and read it
and read it again. I said, shame on you if the first
book you go to is a commentary. Shame on you. Hey, I appreciate the writings
of Brother John Gill, but if you go to him first, you've done
wrong. Go to the Word of God. It's amazing. I got up yesterday morning, and
this passage was on my mind. And I just took the Word of God
and read it and read it. I tried to bathe my soul in the
Word of God. And it's amazing what the Holy
Spirit will show you. Just read it over and over again.
You know, I'm all for reading the Scriptures through in a year.
If you want to do that and we put that out for you so you can
do that, that's fine. But I'll tell you what, What's
even better is take a passage of Scripture and actually saturate
your mind and your heart with that portion of Scripture. It's amazing what good it'll
do you. You see, this is an ocean of truth without a bottom. You will never exhaust the Word
of God. Read it over and over and over
again. How many times have you heard
passages of the Scripture preached on, and you'll hear them preached
on again, and you'll say, you know what? I never saw that before. Or it refreshed me again. He says, to the law and to the
testimony. Go to the testimony of God. Be
like the Bereans. Do you remember the Bereans in
the book of Acts? They were more noble than the
people in Thessalonica, is what the scripture says, because they
searched the scriptures daily to see if the things Paul preached
to them were actually so. Well, you think if the apostle
Paul's preaching, you don't need to check the Word of God. Oh
yes, you do, because Paul's just a man. Take the Word of God. So here's
the first judgment. God's gonna send, he's gonna
send false prophets that were gonna rise up and lead them further
away from God, further away from the truth. Here's the second thing. The Lord would send a terrible
famine, not only a time of scarcity of physical food, but a more
horrible Judgment, a time of dearth, an absence of spiritual
food, an absence of the word of God. Look at verse 21. And
they shall pass through it, hardly, and that word it, I think it
means life. They shall pass through life,
hardly bested and hungry. And it shall come to pass that
when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves and curse
their king and their God and look upward. And the idea is
they're going to look upward and curse their king, their God. They'll curse him for his providence.
They'll curse him for the things that he does. You see, this time of dearth,
this time of famine, It's not so much a time of lack of physical
food, but a time of the lack of the spiritual food, the gospel
of God's grace. You read in the book of Amos,
Amos writes about this in Amos chapter 8, I believe it is. He
writes about a time when people will wander around looking for
spiritual food, can't find it. They want to hear what is the
truth, but nobody's preaching the truth. This is a judgment of God. They
wouldn't hear the word of life, the bread of life. They wouldn't
feast on it when God gave it to them. So they say, well, I'll
cause a spiritual famine to come about. I won't give you anything. You listen to me. Our God is
sovereign. He does what He wills. And those
who refuse to feed upon the gospel of the grace of God to poor sinners
through the doing and the dying of the glorious person of Christ
Jesus, He may send to you a spiritual famine and cause you to hear
and believe that which is absolutely contrary to the truth, and you'll
believe it. You say, would God do that? Read
2 Thessalonians chapter two. Because they wouldn't receive
the love of the truth, God shall send them a very strong delusion. And he'll send the lie, and they'll
believe the lie. The judgment is they'll embrace
the message of the false prophets. And that's not gonna soothe the
conscience. That's not gonna calm their fears.
And these judgments that God brings about, they're going to
look upward and curse the name of God. You hear me, God's not obligated
to send the truth to anybody. He doesn't owe you the truth. There are people who are watching
by way of the internet, and some of them don't have a place to
go where they can hear the pure gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ
preached on a consistent basis, week in and week out. They have to travel a long ways
or turn on their computer or their television and find somebody
on the internet telling the truth. God help us who hear the message
of Christ and Him crucified, of salvation by His bloody sacrifice,
of salvation by the pure grace of God. God have mercy on us
if we fail to hear and love and believe this message, because
we leave ourselves open for the judgment of God. Do not take this opportunity
lightly. You are privileged to hear the
gospel of the grace of God to poor sinners through Christ,
the only Savior. This is not a salvation of doing. It's a salvation that's done. We're reconciled to God by the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, God help you to hear and
to believe, to believe the message of Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ. Shame on us if we neglect the
Word of God. Shame on us. Could have been
fed, but didn't bother to. Didn't bother to come hear the
Word of God. The preacher prepares and sets
before us a table spread with spiritual dainties, a spiritual
feast, I hope it is to you. Well, if you don't come to the
dinner table, If you don't come to the dinner table when mom
fixes a fine meal, well, that's your fault. And when the message of redeeming
grace is laid out and you don't come, that's your fault. And then thirdly, here's the
third judgment, verse 22, they would experience at times of
severe trouble and a deepened spiritual darkness. Look at verse 22, and they shall
look unto the earth and behold trouble and darkness, dimness
of anguish, and they shall be driven to darkness. Did you notice
the contrast at the end of verse 21 and the beginning of verse
22? In verse 21, they look upward
and curse God. And if you're not gonna look
to God for help, you're gonna look to the earth for help. And
that's what it says, they shall look to the earth. They shall
look to something down here. Why would you look to anything
down here to give you peace with God when peace with God is through
the Lord Jesus Christ? Don't look up and curse God for
his providence, for the things that he does, for the physical
judgments that he sins. Look up to God and say, oh God,
bless me, I pray through Christ Jesus. I'm unworthy, I'm a sinner,
I'm a fallen son of Adam, but if you will, you can show me
mercy. But these people, when they looked
up, they were mad at God. Mad at God. And verse 22 says, here's the
judgment, they'll look upon the earth. And looking to the earth, well,
they'll find any number of things. They'll find lots of error. But if you look to anything on
this earth for help, you are looking in vain. The psalmist said, I will lift
up mine eyes unto the hills. From whence cometh my help? My
help's not going to come from down here. If I'm to be helped,
I've got to look up to the Lord. My help cometh from above, from
the Lord who made heaven and earth. He's the only one who
can help you. He's the only one who can help
me. the sovereign savior who sets up on his throne of grace,
having gotten there by way of a bloody tree. God has exalted
him. He's exalted to be a prince and
a savior and to give repentance and life and mercy and grace
and salvation. Look up to Christ. But if you
look to the earth, the earth is cursed. You're not going to
find any help down here. No help down here. What awful judgments awaited
Israel. A flood of false prophets and
false religion, that's verses 19 and 20. A terrible time of
spiritual famine, that's verse 21. And then a time of unparalleled
spiritual trouble and darkness, verse 22. Those are sad times. Right? Those are sad times. But look at the first word of
chapter nine. Nevertheless, that's a word of
hope. That's a word of delight. That's like a ray of sunshine
piercing the dark clouds. Oh, what a word, nevertheless. in the midst of all this judgment
and all of this wrath about the horrors of God's justice and
God's punishment, how delightful, how refreshing it is for God
himself to have Isaiah right. Nevertheless, nevertheless, God's gonna do
something good for people. Nevertheless. Nevertheless means
it's like but or yet. Isaiah says the dimness shall
not be as such was in her vexation. when at first he lightly afflicted
the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and then afterward
did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea beyond
Jordan and Galilee of the nations." Say, Jim, what in the world is
that talking about? Well, if we had time, we'd go back to
the book of 2 Kings. We'll find that the enemies of
Israel, first of all, they surrounded several of the cities in Israel.
and made life difficult for them. And that was the judgment of
God. And then, a little bit later
on, in the land of Naphtali, the enemy came in and afflicted
Israel. In fact, they attacked the capital
of the northern kingdom, Samaria, and they besieged it for three
years. But the Lord says through Isaiah,
nevertheless, it's not gonna be as bad as it was back in those
days. That's what he said. It's not
gonna be as bad as it was. And then he begins to set forth
some good news. Our text is a prophecy of the
blessedness of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hold your
place here and turn to Matthew chapter four. Matthew chapter four. And I'll
tell you, this is fulfilled by our Lord Jesus Christ when he
went into these very areas preaching the gospel. Matthew chapter four. The first 11 verses have to do
with our Lord's being tempted by the devil, then we get to
verse 12. And I'll tell you this, between
verse 11 and verse 12, Matthew is not going chronologically
through our Lord's life, because between verses 11 and 12, at
least a year goes by. And if you want to know what
happened during that year, you're only gonna find out what happened
by going to John chapters one and two. So we're thankful for
the gospel of John because that fills in this blank here if you
wanna know what happened. So between our Lord being tempted
in the wilderness by Satan, and then when he heard that Jesus
heard that John was cast into prison, about a year goes by,
and he departed into Galilee. Watch verse 13, and leaving Nazareth,
he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast in
the borders of Zebulun and Naphthalon. that it might be fulfilled, which
was spoken by Isaiah, or Esaias, the prophet, saying, the land
of Zabulon and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, beyond
Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people which sat in darkness
saw great light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow
of death, light is sprung up. Now, remembering that, go back
to Isaiah chapter nine. And look at verse 2. The people
that walked in darkness have seen the great light. They that
dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the
light shined. Thou hast multiplied the nation
and not increased the joy. They joy before thee according
to the joy of the harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide
the spoil. For thou hast broken the yoke
of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his
oppressor, as in the day of Midian. For every battle of the warrior
is with confused noise, and garments rolled or saturated in blood. But this shall be with burning
and with fuel of fire." In other words, This passage of Scripture
right here is fulfilled in our Lord Jesus. When He goes into
this region of darkness and of spiritual death, and He goes
forth, and as that passage that I read to you back there in Matthew
4 goes on to say, He went preaching. He went preaching. He's the light
who went into that dark place. You see, these judgments that
God's servant predicted at the end of chapter eight, they were
real, they happened. But then he says, nevertheless,
I gave you some good news in these dark days. Good news, light
shall arise in an area that is filled with spiritual darkness.
And that light is Christ himself. And he went in preaching the
gospel himself. Real quick, let me give you three
or four things. Number one, the Lord will give light to those
who sat in darkness, verse two. People who walked in darkness,
people who sat in darkness. Isn't that us? We're in spiritual
darkness. There are people all around,
people in your family, people in my family, in spiritual darkness. They don't see. They don't see
who Christ is. They don't see the necessity
of the work of God, the Spirit, and the heart. They're in the
dark. And our Lord comes to us in our
blindness, and he illuminates our hearts. When I was studying
this, my mind went to blind Bartimaeus. That's the passage that was read
to us earlier from Mark chapter 10. Our Lord went into and passed
through Jericho. He was going to lay down his
life in Jerusalem. He's on the way to the cross.
He's on the way to fulfill his covenant obligation to die for
his people and redeem them back to God. He was on his way to
do something about our sins. He was on his way to bring in
everlasting righteousness. He has Calvary on his mind and
on his heart. He realizes the depths of the
humiliation to which he must sink. He must be humbled unto
death, even the death of the cross. This was the weight upon
him, and yet he went with joy, with joy toward Jerusalem. Well,
somebody had told this blind man, Jesus of Nazareth is gonna
pass by this way. Blessed messenger. who gave him
some good news. Old Blind Bartimaeus, he got
somebody to take him by that roadside and set him down. Somebody said, Jesus is passing
this way, and I sure do need him. And he sat down by that
roadside. The Spirit of God then put a
cry in his heart He heard the rustling of people, people moving
about, people walking by, and he knew they must be led by Jesus
of Nazareth. And he cried out, Jesus, thou
Son of David, have mercy on me. He is in the right place. He found out where Jesus was
going to be passing by. Could I put it to you this way?
The Lord Jesus Christ passes by this way every Sunday morning,
every Sunday night, every Wednesday night, He passes by this way. And people who need Him will
sit down by the roadside waiting for Him to pass by. Bartimaeus said in darkness,
just like these people here, people that walked in darkness,
they've seen in great light. He heard about somebody who could
help him. He heard about the Savior. He
heard about the substitute of sinners. He heard about God's
sacrifice for sin. He heard about the only mediator
between us and our Holy God. He heard and he put himself in
position to where Jesus is gonna pass right in front of him. Well,
when he began to cry out, the people said, hush up, he's going
to Jerusalem. He don't have time for you. But
he cried out all the more, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy
on me. And then something happened. You know, Herod couldn't stop
the Lord Jesus. His own disciples couldn't stop
the Lord Jesus from going to Jerusalem, though they tried. But here's the cry of a poor,
needy beggar. Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy on me! And our Lord Jesus stood still, because he hears the cry of a
beggar. Any spiritual beggars in here?
He'll hear your cry. He always hears the cry of a
needy soul because the true cry from a needy soul, the Holy Spirit
puts it in there. Our Lord Jesus stopped. You see,
it's what happened here. The people that walked in darkness
have seen great light. Suddenly, Bartimaeus, by the
power of the Lord Jesus Christ, receives his sight. Who did he
see? The great light! Christ said,
I am the light of the world. He illuminated that man's darkened
heart. And he believed. It says here
in our text, they that dwell in the land of the shadow of
death, upon them hath the light shined. And our Lord walking
along, he caused light to shine into the heart of a benighted sinner. Immediately he received his sight
and he followed Jesus in the way. in the way of his doctrine,
in the way of his worship. And then look quickly at the
next verse, verse three here in chapter nine. Our Lord, through Isaiah, assures
the people that he's gonna multiply the spiritual nation of Israel.
Thou hast multiplied the nation and not increased the joy. That
is, not increased the joy of the literal nation, but increase
the joy of the spiritual nation, the remnant according to the
election of grace. They joy before him as in the
harvest. I'll tell you, if the seed of
the gospel has been sown in your heart, and the Holy Spirit has
reaped a harvest, brought you to Christ Jesus, you'll rejoice
in him. You'll give thanks for him. And then in the third place,
He'll give liberty to those who are in bondage. Verse four, for
thou has broken the yoke of his burden, the staff of his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. You'll
find out Christ has suffered everything the law of God demanded,
and the law of God doesn't hold anything against you, therefore.
And he breaks the rod of Satan himself. He liberates the captives. gives freedom from bondage. And then finally, in verse five,
he gives victory through the warrior. For every battle of
the warrior is with confused noise and garments rolled in
blood. But this shall be with burning
and fuel of fire. This warrior is our Lord Jesus
Christ. He went to battle for his people.
He battled Satan in the wilderness and whipped him. And then he
battled Satan at the cross and gave him a mortal blow. And he
battled our sins and he carried them away, having defeated them
by his own death. And God says, their sins and
iniquities will I remember no more. And he comes away from
the battle with the enemies confused, but with his own garments rolled,
saturated in blood. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And watch that last statement
of verse five, but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire. You know what fueled What fueled the wrath of God? Divine justice fueled it with
our sins. That's the fuel. But I'll tell
you what happened to the fuel when Christ died. It was exhausted,
and the fire of God's wrath burned itself out. You know what fire
does when there's no more fuel to burn? burns itself out. That's what happened at Calvary.
The fire of God's wrath engulfed his holy soul, but he absorbed
it all till finally there was no fuel left. He had paid for
our sins and justice was satisfied. No more fire. There is therefore
now no condemnation. to them who are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. I know
these are dark days, troublesome days, but I got some good news
for you that'll set everything right, in your own heart at least. The good news is of Christ Jesus
and his sacrifice for sin, for poor sinners, like blind Bartimaeus,
and like this sinner, and like a multitude of sinners, according
to the purpose of God. May the Lord bring you to Christ.
Let's sing a closing song. And we'll turn to 235.