Good news in days of darkness. Good news in days of darkness. Everybody likes good news. Good
news makes the heart happy and I remember when Nancy went to the
doctor and several years ago he said he came out He said,
I got good news for you. You're expecting a child. That's
good news. Good news. Then the second time
we got the good news. First time Davey was born, second
time Susanna was born. Good news. Everybody likes good
news. Like a cup of cold water to a
thirsty man, so is good news from a far country. Well, God
gives us in Isaiah chapter 51, He gives us good news. Good news
in days of darkness. And these are days of darkness
as you look around you. Well, first of all, as you look
within you. Do you see anything within you
encourage you and make you feel good about yourself. I know how
modern-day psychologists are. They say, you need to feel good
about yourself. Well, I don't know how a man
can feel good about himself when he's full of sin, full of iniquity,
full of wickedness. When the Scripture says every,
every imagination of his heart is only evil continually, how
can you feel good about yourself? When the Scripture says of these
hearts of ours that it's desperately wicked. It's deceitful and desperately
wicked. Desperately wicked. You know
what desperately means, don't you? You know, a doctor comes
out. I remember when my dad got He
was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer back in 1975. I still remember the surgeon
coming back after he did what they called exploratory surgery. It was supposed to be a lengthy
surgery, and he came back. It wasn't long at all, and he
sat down on the bed. He was a very short, bald-headed
man. I never will forgive him. He sat down on the bed. Well,
Mr. Burr is desperately ill. I read that passage in the book
of Jeremiah and studied it. That means absolutely without
hope. Absolutely without, there's no
hope. He's without hope. Thirty days
later he died. You're talking about being in
darkness. There's no hope for us and ourselves. I'm going to paint, as best I
can, a gloomy picture before I give you the good news. Because
you see, really, if you don't get this part of the news, there
won't be good news for you. It's only as you understand our
dilemma, it's only as you understand our disease, that you appreciate
what the remedy's got to be. that you appreciate how God's
got to cure us. The disease is awful. Darkness within. You can say,
well, the world's in bad shape. I'm in bad shape. You're in bad
shape. You can talk about the world
from now to the day you die, The world is not going to stand
for you before the judgment of God. You've got to face God.
In fact, you face God right now. You're in God's presence right
now. And whatever else is going on in the world, and whatever
else condition is that of everybody else in the world, and whatever
is the condition of everybody else in this building right now,
what about me? And I'm just not sorry about
saying this. I'm concerned about myself. Because
by nature, I'm in darkness. I have spiritual darkness. There's
blackness. Darkness in the Bible. The absence
of light in the Bible. That's error. That's what we
all love by nature. Error. Darkness is sin. Darkness is wickedness. God is
light. In God is no darkness at all.
We are in the dark though and our minds are in the dark regarding
God, our darkness. And then there is the darkness
that's in the world. There is the darkness that's
all around us. And then for believers, and we
know the light of the gospel has shined in. God has illuminated
our minds. And toward spiritual things,
we're not in the dark any longer. We know a little something about
God. We've been brought to fear Him.
In fact, back up in chapter 50 in verse number 10, who is among
you that feareth the Lord? We've been brought to fear the
Lord. We're not in the dark as to God's identity. We're not
in the dark as far as God's perfections are concerned. We're not in the
dark as to His attributes. We've been shown a little bit
of who God is to our understanding. God has illuminated our minds. and brought us to respect God
and fear God and see in God all beauties. And we've been brought
to understand that God is a God of justice. God is a God of judgment. And yes, God is gracious and
God is merciful, but we've been enlightened to see that God cannot
show mercy at the expense of His stern justice. That is an
impossibility. Our minds have been enlightened,
our hearts have been enlightened to that. And once we've been
made aware of who God is, at least to some extent, we'll never
know the vastness of God. We'll never know the infinity
of God. His ways are past finding out. And if His ways are past finding
out, then certainly all of God is past finding out. But what
little bit we do know puts us in fear of Him. And having been shown something
of our darkness, we know there is a vast distance between us
and God. We say, Oh Lord, how can You
have anything to do with me? I've just got a little inkling
of what I'm like. And I'm just kind of scratching
the surface as to who you are. Lord, what little bit I do know
and what little bit I do understand, I just... Can you ever forgive
me? Can you ever show mercy to me? And that's when the good news
comes in. When God shows you your darkness,
Then the gospel will be good news to you. The good news of
reconciliation, the good news of redemption, the good news
of substitution, the good news of satisfaction. And many of
us here today, we've been brought to embrace, we've been brought
to love the good news of the gospel. And yet sometimes we
still walk in darkness. Like back in chapter 15 verse
number 10, as we talked about last week, sometimes we still
walk in darkness. The darkness of fear of the circumstances. The darkness of just not understanding. The mysterious ways of God. And you want to understand, but
then you see evil. There's the mystery of evil that's
at work in the world. The mystery of vileness. So I know God's on the throne,
but I see all of this. Preacher, I'm very much perplexed. I'm very much confused. Well,
listen, you don't have to figure all this out. It's good you don't
have to figure things out. Just know this, God's on the
throne and God rules all things. And in these days of darkness,
and maybe I'm speaking to a child of God, you're in times of darkness
now. You're weary. It may be family
issues. It may be sickness. It may be
just as you survey the world in which we live, and you just
sort of, you get down. These are dismal times. Well, I want to give you some
good news, good news in days of darkness, that our God reigns. Now let me give you the setting,
at least on the surface, the historical setting. Israel had been taken in captivity
by the Babylonians. And God is giving to them His
Word that He will deliver them from their bondage. Now, their
spirits were low. Their spirits were low. They
were very discouraged. And as they surveyed their circumstances. In bondage and captivity to the
Babylonians, they came to this conclusion, our escape or any
sort of liberation from this captivity is an impossibility. And in those days of darkness,
they actually thought God had forgotten them. That God had
forgotten them. That, like a man who had divorced
his wife, that God had divorced them. But back in chapter 50
and verse 1. And knowing God, of course, knowing
that this was their attitude in chapter 50 and verse 1, thus
said the Lord, where is the bill of your mother's divorcement
whom I put away? If you think I've divorced you,
if you think I've forgotten you, show me the bill of divorcement.
Do you have any evidence? This is what God is saying. Do
you have any evidence that I've forsaken you? Well, we're walking
in darkness. Well, does that mean God has
forsaken you? That's not what it means. God
says, show me a bill of divorcement. Show me that I have written you
off forever. Now, He's talking to the nation,
and there was within the nation a remnant according to the election
of grace. That remnant, of course, was
God's people, but the nation as a whole, in some ways, in
some ways, not in every way, but in some ways, they're typical
of God's church, God's true Israel. See, there's the nation of Israel,
and then like the Apostle Paul says at the end of Galatians
chapter 6, there's the Israel of God. There's spiritual Israel. And God's people, they thought,
God has clean forgotten us. He's just divorced us. God says,
show me a bill of divorce that I've written you off. And do
you ever go through, as people of God, do you ever go through
these spells in life? That's what I
call it, a spell. When you feel like the Lord's
forgotten you. This is how these people felt.
Go back to chapter 49. Chapter 49. Look at what he says here. And
in the midst of their afflictions, when their spirits were low,
all hope seemed to be gone, God would send them messages of encouragement. He would send them good news.
And in light of all that God was going to do for them, in
fact, and we may go back at in the not-too-distant future and
preach from some of these chapters of Isaiah. The Lord has in Isaiah
chapter 49, in the first part of the chapter, He's talked about
the absolute certainty of God drawing His elect unto Himself. So He says in chapter 49 in verse
12, Behold, these shall come from far. Be encouraged. God is going to bring His people
out of captivity. Now, certainly He would bring
Israel out of their natural captivity, but this is to be understood
in a spiritual way. God is going to bring all of
His elect out of their spiritual captivity. Satan holds us captive
at His will. But our God has broken that captivity
by the blood of the Lord Jesus. The Savior, the mighty Savior
has crushed the head of the oppressor. He has broken His hold over us. A stronger man has entered into
His castle and released the prisoners. That's our Lord Jesus. And these
shall come. They shall come to Christ. Listen,
God's got a people. He gave them to the Lord Jesus.
He redeemed them. He paid their debt. They're debt
free to God. They're reconciled to God. And
sometime during their lifetime, the Spirit of God will send to
them the gospel of His free grace. And that gospel of free grace
will sure enough become good news to them in their days of
darkness. These shall come. Don't be discouraged. Oh, well, we don't have very
many. Don't be discouraged. God's got His people. He's going
to draw them in. He's got an elect. The shepherd
died for the sheep. He's bringing the sheep in. So
He says, Behold, these shall come from the north, from the
west, and these from the land of Sinai. He says in verse 13,
See no heaven, be joyful. Be joyful, O earth! Break forth
into singing, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted His
people." How has He comforted His people? By telling His people,
your sins which are many are all forgiven. They are all washed
away. And He will have mercy upon the
afflicted. And I love that language. He
will have mercy. You know, we talk about sovereign
mercy. The Lord said, I will have mercy on whom I will have
mercy. That's the sovereignty of it,
but it's also the certainty of it. I will have mercy. I will
have mercy. He's going to show mercy to somebody.
Of that you can be sure. He will have mercy upon his afflicted. But look at verse 14. But Zion
saith, Here she is redeemed. Let's put
this on a national scale for Israel. He redeemed them out
of the bondage of Egypt. Of Egyptian bondage. By the blood
of the Passover land. He drew them out by His power.
And He freed them. He liberated them. They got to
the Red Sea. They got down in the dumps again.
God made the way through the Red Sea. They get out in the
wilderness, no food, God provided food. No water, God provided
water. God gave them a land. Then they forsook the Lord. They entered into days of darkness. And Zion said, the Lord has forgotten
me. My Lord, He's forsaken me and
He's forgotten me. And I wonder, maybe here this morning, maybe
these words that the Lord gave us are for you. And you rejoice to know your
sins are forgiven, that you have a justifying righteousness in
the Lord Jesus. But your circumstances, the darkness
that right now surrounds you, makes you have what is a very
unhealthy attitude and really a sinful attitude. I know we
all get in this kind of shape, but it's not the good shape to
be in. Doubt and fear is not in good shape. Not having assurance
of our salvation with God and not being assured that God does
all things well, that's not a good position to be in now. But let's
speak in realities. We are sometimes in those positions,
right? There's no excuse for them. No
excuse for them. That's a sinful position to be
in because it's a lack of faith. We're not believing God. But
we get down in the dumps sometimes. That's our own depravity. It's
our fault. No question about it. And we
say, the Lord has forsaken me. My Lord has forgotten me. Now
listen to what He says. Can a woman forget her sucking
child? That she should not have compassion
on the son of her womb? Yea? They may forget, yet I will not forget thee. Is
some light coming in your darkness right now? Huh? That's a ray of light, isn't
it? Now every once in a while, you'll read in the newspaper
how that someone has had a baby, mom's had a baby, she abandons
her child. You say, how in the world could
they ever do that? Put a baby in a trash can. Or maybe, hopefully, take it
to a fire department and leave the baby. How can a mother do
that? God says, that might happen. And it does happen. But He said,
I'm not going to forget you. He's not going to drop you off
and forget about you. Hey, He hadn't brought you this
far just to abandon you. In old eternity He picked you
out. Before you had done anything
either good or evil that the purpose of God according to election
might stand. God's purpose of election stands. He chose you to be His own as
evidenced by the fact that you believe Him. And because He chose
you out to be His own in everlasting grace, He sent His Son, your
surety, your everlasting Savior, He sent Him into this world for
you. For you. To stand in your stead. To bear your debt. to drink the dregs of God's wrath
for you. There's an empty cup for you.
There are no dregs of God's wrath or judgment, nothing like that.
No cup of wrath for you to drink. The cup of wrath is empty for
you. Christ Jesus drank it all. He paid you dead in full. In
the books of God, there is no debt registered against you,
only positive righteousness. The righteousness of the very
Son of God, spotless, without blemish or any such thing. That
is what God has done for you. The Spirit of God comes and He
shows you what Christ did for you. He did that, didn't He? He awakened you, using your sleep
of death. Somebody invited you, maybe to
come here to this building, or maybe you heard preachers somewhere
else, but God crossed your path with the Gospel. That's a good
possibility that when you first heard it, you said, I think I'll
take my Bible and prove that guy wrong. That's what a fellow
told me one time. He said, I just proved the preacher
wrong. I got my Bible out and I started
following him and lo and behold, the Bible proved him to be right.
He said, then the Word of God became a living Word to me. God crosses your path with the
Gospel. You mean to tell me He's done
all that for you? He chose you? He redeemed you? He regenerated you. He called
you. Just to now drop you? Just to
forget you? Well, you know that can't be.
That can't be. He says, can a woman forget her
sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son
of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will
I not forget. Look at verse 16, chapter 49. Behold, I've graven thee upon
the palms of my hands. She sang that in the song. That's
what Top Lady wrote about. My name from the palms of His
hands, eternity will not erase. All of eternity won't erase our
names from the palm of His hands. They are written in indelible
grace. You know what indelible ink is,
don't you? I've had... My Sunday school
class this morning found out I really like ink pens. I'm a
collector of ink pens and we were assigned We were signing
cards with this ink pen, and I wanted my ink pen back, because
I collect ink pens. I had an ink pen. It had indelible
ink. I had it in my shirt pocket,
and it was a big old black spot right there. It had leaked. That's indelible ink. That's
not coming out. Not coming out. Our names are
written indelibly upon the palms of the Savior's hands. He'll
never forget us. He'll never forsake us. Behold,
I've graven thee upon the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually
before me. Is there somebody here in darkness
this morning? Oh, may these beams of light
shine through. May God bring light back into
your heart again with some good news. And in chapter 51, He is
giving good news to people who are in darkness. Go back to chapter
51. Look at this just a little bit.
In these times of darkness, in these times of trouble, in these
times of fear when we think God has forgotten us, when it seems
like God has cast us off? In these dark days when it appears
our enemies have the triumph over us? We have only one course
of action like it says back in chapter 50 and verse 10. Trust
the Lord and stay upon your God. And listen to what He says in
chapter 51. He says, Hearken to Me, ye that follow
after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord." Now these people
of the Lord who have been set forth in chapter 50 and verse
10, these people of the Lord who walk in darkness, of these
two things there is no question. These people do these two things.
They follow after righteousness and they seek the Lord. They
are in pursuit of the Lord. And they seek the Lord because
the Lord sought them. They pursue their after righteousness. Not their own righteousness.
But they hunger and thirst after righteousness. God has put a
thirst within their hearts for righteousness. And that righteousness
is only found in the Lord, our righteousness, Jehovah Sidkenu,
the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And we thirst for that righteousness.
We detest our righteousness. Because we understand, as Isaiah
says in another passage in this prophecy, that all of our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags, and we do all fade as a leaf. And our iniquities
like the wind have carried us away. Our righteousness is awful,
it's filthy, it's stinking, it's dirty, nasty rags. I've got to
have a greater righteousness, and I want that righteousness.
I want that purity. And it's found in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And how did He establish this
righteousness? By His death. By His death. For He hath made Him, God hath
made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him. And I'm in pursuit of
that righteousness in people who are serious with God. people
to whom God has enlightened their hearts and their minds to the
gospel. They are in pursuit of this righteousness. They don't want to hear about
any other kind of righteousness. They are not interested in self-righteousness. They are not interested in man's
righteousness. They are interested in the Lord
Jesus Christ who is our righteousness. I am justified by His righteousness. He is the righteous one. And then he says, ye that seek
the Lord. Do you seek the Lord? I mean
earnestly. I mean from your heart. Seek ye the Lord while he may
be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his ways. Do you seek the Lord? Well, yeah,
I'm seeking the Lord, preacher. How come I don't see you very
often? I've had people tell me, well,
I'm seeking the Lord. And I say, well, it's strange
to me. I never see you under the sound of preaching of the
Word. If you're seeking the Lord, I tell you, let me give you a
little hint on this. Maybe this will help you. Seek
the Lord where He is. Well, where is He? He's among
His people. He's where the Gospel goes forth.
Don't tell me you seek the Lord, oh, I'm serious about the things
of God, and you don't bother to come out and hear the Word
of God preached. Don't tell me, oh, I pray that God will save
my soul, when you don't come out to listen to the message
that can make you whole with God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Are you a seeker? And the thing about seeking the
Lord, it isn't a one-time thing, and it isn't that, well, once
we find the Lord, if I could use that kind of phraseology,
once we find Him, then we're done with it. No, we continue
in pursuit of Him. See, it's like faith. Faith is
not an isolated act. It's persuasion of the heart.
That's what it is. And whenever you hear somebody
say, well, I made my decision for Jesus 25 years ago, it's, You don't want to hear talk like
that. Faith is we keep on coming to
Christ, isn't it? We keep on looking to Christ.
We keep on calling out to Him. We are seeking the Lord. Where
are you going to find the Lord? You are going to find Him in
your word, in His word, in His word. He said, well, I just don't have
time to read my Bible. My goodness, you're too busy.
You need to eliminate some stuff in your life. Because this is
His Word. I'm seeking the Lord. I'll tell
you where the Lord is. He's on His throne. That's where
He is. He's on His throne. The earth is the Lord's and the
fullness thereof. He owns it all. Whereas He said,
on His throne, He said, the heaven is My throne, the earth is My
footstool. And if you're looking for God
to be a beggar, you're looking in the wrong place. Look up,
look up, look to the throne, look to the heavens and see the
majesty of the great God as He rules over all. Seek the Lord
on His throne. He's not a God to be felt sorry
for. The God of Arminianism, the God
of free willism, and who was it this week was telling me,
heard some preacher say this old stuff about God's got no
eyes but your eyes, and no hands but your hands, and no feet but
your feet. I'd say poor God. That's a mighty
poor God. If that's your God, He's a poor
God. He's bad off. He doesn't need anything. He
said, if I was hungry, I wouldn't even ask you for anything to
eat. I own cattle on a thousand hills. If I was thirsty, I wouldn't
ask you for a cup of water. All the rivers in the world are
mine. God's not needy. We're needy. We're needy. Seek Him where He may be found.
Seek Him on His throne. Seek Him among God's people.
Seek Him in His Word. Seek Him in Christ Jesus. Seek Him in Christ Jesus. He's
the tabernacle of God. God dwelt in a body. Where is God? You read in the
Old Testament in pictures and typology and prophecy, but you
read in the New Testament, the man Jesus of Nazareth who walked
on this earth. He's God Almighty. Seek God in
Jesus Christ. Because I'll tell you this, you
can't know Him apart from Jesus Christ. There is no knowledge
of God apart from Christ. You say, well, what about the
Jewish people or what about the Muslims or what about... You
name anybody. I don't care who you name. They
can't know God apart from Jesus Christ the Lord. That's a hard
and true fact. Isn't it? That's a law. And there are no exceptions to
the rule. I know some of the preachers in the world that say,
well, God by whatever you want to call Him, or Jesus by whatever
you want to call Him. I'll tell you who God's people
call Him. Call Him the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we call Him.
We call Him the Son of God. We call Him God incarnate, God
in the flesh. That's who He is. Where would
we seek the Lord? We seek Him amongst His people.
Seek Him in His Word. Seek Him on the throne. Seek
Him in Christ Jesus. We seek Him from the heart. From
the heart. He shall seek me and find me
when you search for me with all your heart. That's what the Lord
said. Isn't that what He said? All your heart. Brother Scott Richardson, years
ago, he said to me, Tim James and I were preaching for him.
We did. At his Bible conference at Easter,
we preached up there for several years. He called it the Jimmy
and Timmy Show. And he was talking to us one
day, and he put his bony finger into my chest and Tim's chest.
He said, now listen, boys, we're in the heart business. Win the
heart of it. Seek God from your heart. Those people who are God's people,
they are absolutely earnest about following after righteousness
and seeking the Lord. And we look at the rest of verse
51. Look to the rock from which you
are hewn and to the hole of the pit from which you was dug."
We remember where God brought us from. We remember. I tell you, He brought
us out of a horrible pit. He dug us out of a rock. He dug
us out of a rock and put us on a rock. How do you like that?
He dug us out. He hewn us out. We were not going
to get out ourselves. But the mighty arm of the Lord
freed us. And He dug us out of the hole
of the pit. The pit of corruption. The pit
of iniquity. The pit of wickedness. A pit
from which we could not extract ourselves. In fact, it was a
pit from which we did not even realize we needed extracting.
And He pulled us up. He pulled us up out of the mire
and clay. He washed us in the blood of
Christ Jesus. He robed us in His righteousness.
He established our goings. He put our feet on a rock. Christ
Jesus, we've been looking to the Savior ever since. Ever since. Well, but it's just a few of
us. Well, wait a minute. Look at verse 2. Look unto Abraham
your father. Unto Sarah that bare you. I called
him alone and blessed him and increased him. That's a little
beginning. There's Abraham and Sarah. Abraham is called father of the
faithful. Just a few folks. Yeah, but wait. Wait. That small number begins to grow. begins to increase. Before long, God's made out of
them a great nation. God's church. You go back to
the book of Acts, there's a little over a hundred people, a hundred
and twenty I guess it was, there in Acts chapter 1, meeting together. You say, well, out of all the
thousands and thousands and thousands of people in Jerusalem, you got
a hundred and twenty believers? Well, that's nobody. In the whole
scheme of things, that's nothing. Amongst all the mega-churches,
that's a little nothing. There's not even a blip on the
radar. Just wait. Just wait. And before long, thousands
are saved by God's grace. And I'll tell you in the end,
it's going to be a multitude which no man can number. Just
wait. And watch this, verse 3. I'll
give you this and I'll quit. For the Lord shall comfort Zion. He will comfort all her waste
places. In fact, He's going to make her
wilderness to be like Eden. And her desert, like the garden
of the Lord, joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving
and the voice of melody." You think about Eden and all
of its beauties, how it blossomed forth. I tell you, God's church, it's
growing. God's bringing more into His
kingdoms. Those elect ones, those redeemed
ones, He's calling them in. And before long, these waste
places are going to be as beautiful as the Garden of Eden. They're
going to bear fruit called the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit
of the Spirit. It's going to be beautiful. And
amongst the people of God, there's going to be joy and gladness,
thanksgiving and the voice of melody. So get out of your doldrums. You walk in the darkness. Come
on now. And perk up. Look to the Lord. Seek the Lord. The Lord you seek. Seek Him again.
Seek Him again. Rejoice in Him. Rejoice in the
Gospel. That will put some spunk into
you. That will put some life into
you. Even if you are in a dungeon down in Babylon, to know that
God is your God, Christ Jesus is your Savior, you are going
home to glory one day. My goodness gracious. It is just
thrilling. That is good news. That is good
news. In days of darkness. the days
of darkness. Got good news. God give us ears
to hear the good news. Alright, let's sing a song. Number
186, the church is one, foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord. Number 186, let's stand together. A church's one foundation is
Jesus Christ her Lord. She is his new creation by water
and the Word. From heaven he came and sought
her to be his holy bride. With his own blood he bought
her, and for her life he died. elect from every nation, yet
one of the earth. Her charter of salvation, one
Lord, one faith, one birth. One holy name she blesses, partakes,
one holy And to one hope she presses With
every grace endued Mid toil and tribulation And tumult of her
war She waits the consummation Of peaceful rest vision glorious, her longing
eyes are blessed, and the great church victorious shall be the
church at rest. On earth path union with God
the three in one, And mystic sweet communion with those whose
rest is won. Oh, happy ones and holy, Lord
give us grace that we, like them, the meek and lowly, on high may
dwell with thee. Be seated, please.