Well, back in 1985, on June 3rd, Debbie and I, with
two little boys, took a trip and moved to Albany, Georgia.
If you've never been to Albany, Georgia in June, that was the
hottest day of my life. And then in 2003, on December
7th, or some week before this, December 3rd, actually, I got
you a ring. And on December 3rd, we moved
to Ashland, Kentucky. December 3rd. And that was the
coldest day of my life. Now, before I make this next
comment, I want to assure you, I'm not planning on leaving. I'm not going anywhere. The Lord
willing. But if the Lord were ever to
move me again, I'm going to pray that He'll do it either in the
spring or the fall. He either has to be hot or cold,
but he said that, I would rather you be hot or cold, didn't he?
But anyway, it's been a joy, joyful five years, and we've
had a lot of good times. We've had some hard times too,
haven't we? We've had some trials. But if
you're a child of God, you're going to have those. You can't
avoid them, you're to expect them. This is something that it takes
the Spirit of God to convince us of, but those trials are actually
gifts from God, and we shouldn't count it strange. As Ron said,
as ministers of the gospel, we try to just exalt Christ and
lift Him up. That's what I'm going to try
to do tonight. in this message from Isaiah 60 on the glory of
Zion. I started this last Wednesday
and I did part of this chapter. So this is part two, the glory
of Zion. We're going to continue with
it. And what this chapter is teaching is that the glory of
Zion, what is Zion? Zion is the church. Zion is the
elect of God, the redeemed of the Lord, those redeemed by the
blood of Christ. His sheep, he called them. He's
the shepherd of the sheep. The good shepherd. He laid down
His life for the sheep. And that's Zion. He calls His
sheep into the fold. I had Brother Ron read that Psalm
50 because there's several verses in that that just stayed out
the theme of this message. When he says in Psalm 50, let
me just read this to you. Verse 1, the mighty God, even
the Lord, hath spoken. and called the earth from the
rising of the sun unto the going down thereof." God has a people
out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation, Jew and Gentile. And He's going to speak to them.
God has spoken. And when He speaks, you remember
that old TV commercial when E.F. Hutton speaks? Everybody listen? I don't think everybody's listening
to E.F. Hutton too much anymore these days. But I'll tell you
what, when God speaks, His sheep listen. He gives them an ear
to hear, doesn't He? Gives them eyes to see. He said,
My sheep hear My voice. You heard His voice one day,
didn't you? You may not be able to point to the particular day,
and that's not important, but you hear it now, don't you? And
He speaks. And He's calling His people,
and it says in verse 2, Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God hath shined. That's Psalm 50 and verse 2.
Out of His church, the redeemed of the Lord. The perfection of
beauty. Well, we have no perfection in
ourselves. We have no beauty in ourselves.
Even Daniel, when he saw that great vision of the holiness
of the Lord, he said, my beauty, my comeliness melted into corruption. Peter, when he was confronted
with his own sins, he said, depart from me, Lord. I'm a sinful man. That's the way that Paul said,
O wretched man that I am. We have no beauty of our own.
But what is the perfection of beauty? It's Christ. He's the
perfection of beauty. He is our beauty. We're washed
clean from our sins by His blood. We stand in the radiant glory
and beauty of His righteousness before a holy God, and that'll
never fade. That's like our garments fade. moths eat and they get worn out
and you have to patch them up or throw them away. You'll never
have to do this with the beauty of the Lord. And he says it,
he says, Our God shall come and shall not keep silence. A fire
shall devour before him and it shall be very tempestuous round
about him. He shall call to the heavens
from above and to the earth that he may judge his people. How's
he going to judge his people? He judges his people in Christ.
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God
that judged his people, that justifies his people. Who can
condemn us? It's Christ that died. Yea, rather,
is risen again. Now listen to these two verses
here as I read them. This is important. Now listen
to this. He says, gather my saints together unto me. What is a saint
now? Sanctified one, set apart by
God, set apart before the foundation of the world in divine election,
set apart at the cross at Calvary in redemption, set apart in the
new birth by the Spirit. He says, gather my saints, and
who are they? Now, here's the saint. Here's
the description. Those that have made a covenant
with me by sacrifice. Now, what does that mean? Well,
what sacrifice do you think he's talking about here? He's talking
about the one sacrifice of the Savior on Calvary. That's how
we make a covenant with God. Somebody says, well God, I'm
going to follow you and I'm going to sacrifice a lot. We're not
going to sacrifice anything. You know that? We don't have
anything to sacrifice. But our Savior sacrificed everything
for our salvation. And we make a covenant with God.
What does that mean? That means we believe the gospel.
That's what that means. When you When you were brought
to faith in Christ, you made a covenant with God by sacrifice. You said, Lord, I'm not going
to come to you in any way or any capacity but with the blood
of my Savior. God be merciful to me, the sinner. And he says, and the heaven shall
declare his righteousness for God, his judge himself. Now go
to Isaiah 60. The first two verses, spoke of
the glorious light of Zion. What is our light? Our light
is Christ. He's the light of the world.
The Gospel is our light. We have the light of truth. The
Holy Spirit is our light. He indwells us in the power of
God. And by the Word of God to set
us forth as shining lights in a dark world, we reflect the
glory of Christ. And that's why we want to live
right. That's why we want to act right,
because we want to be reflections of the glory of Christ. Talked
about forgiveness this morning. We want to be reflections of
His forgiveness of us, you see. We're not trying to earn His
favor. We can't do that. This is grace,
you see. And that's what, when it says,
let your light so shine, that's talking about our Savior. That's
talking about our gospel. that men may see your good works
and do what? Glorify your Father which is
in heaven. In the next few verses, verses
3 and 4, we see the far-reaching and all-embracing scope of Zion. Zion is all-inclusive, not of
every one without exception, but of all whom God chose, all
whom Christ redeemed, all whom the Spirit calls by the preaching
of the gospel. Jew and Gentile. That's what
he's teaching in those names. He says in verse 3, the Gentiles
shall come to thy life. It's not going to be just a Jewish
thing. It's not going to be a national thing. It's not going to be a
racial thing. It's not going to be a social thing. It's going
to be a grace thing. It's going to be God's grace
saving the most unlikely people, the most undeserving people.
And then in the next verses, verses 5 through 9, we saw a
description of the great riches of Zion. That is something that we really
can't describe. The prophet here is inspired
by the Spirit in these verses, used language that the people
back then would understand that described the riches of the world
that they could not attain. I mean, you just think about
things now. It's almost like us thinking about winning the
lottery today. I mean, you say, well, I've got
a chance. You've got a pretty poor chance.
That's pretty much unattainable. But you think about it. I was
preaching up in New Bedford, Massachusetts, of all things.
I remember that just like it was yesterday, because it was
the night that Kentucky played Duke. in 1992 and Kentucky got
beat. I remember that. And I thought,
well, I'm not going to worry about missing that game because
I knew Kentucky was going to get beat, you see. But I was
preaching in an old warehouse in New Bedford, Massachusetts
that night. And then in my stay there, we
went over to Newport, Rhode Island and went to a place, to different
places where they called America's Castles. The Vanderbilts had
a summer home over there. People like that. There was a
West Virginia coal baron that had a castle there. We toured
those places. They were talking about how they
brought in this fireplace from France. That came out of a castle
in France. Then they go to the chairs that
were there. This came from some royal palace. You know, and they said, here's
what the man says, he says, you can't even put a dollar value
on these things today. It's totally unattainable. If
somebody would come in and say, I want to buy that, you can forget
it. And that's the way Isaiah's doing here with these people.
He's describing the riches of Zion by showing them things,
physical things, that people would say, well that's, I couldn't
even imagine having enough money to buy something like that. And
yet all these things put together don't even compare to the riches
of the glory of God's grace that we have in Christ, eternal riches
that will never pass away, that will never lose their value whatsoever. We are blessed with all spiritual
blessings and heavenly places in Christ. And though we might
be the poorest of men on earth, we are the richest of men in
glory in Christ. That's what he's trying to set
forth here. Well, look at verse 10 now. Let's
pick up there. Here's the fourth thing. Here
he's going to talk about the building and the establishment
of Zion. He says in verse 10, "...and
the sons of strangers..." Now when you see the word strangers
in the Old Testament as pertaining to Israel, that's talking about
someone who's not a national Israelite, a foreigner. And he
says, "...and the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and
their kings shall minister unto thee, for in my wrath I smote
thee, but in my favor have I had mercy on thee." He says in verse
11, Therefore thy gates shall be opened continually, they shall
not be shut day or night, that men may bring unto thee the forces
of the Gentiles, or the wealth of the Gentiles, the richest,
and that their kings may be brought, for the nation and kingdom that
will not serve thee shall perish, yea, those nations shall be utterly
wasted." What he's talking about is how God builds His church.
Now, you know, Christ is the builder of the church. It's built
upon Him. He said, upon this rock, well,
I build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against
it. That rock is Christ. He's the foundation. of the church. He's the chief cornerstone of
the church. He's the builder of the church.
He builds it by bringing his sheep into the fold. They're
called in one passage in the book of 2 Peter, they're called
living stones, or 1 Peter, that make up the walls of the building.
chosen by God, justified in Christ, redeemed by His blood, regenerated
by the Spirit, and soon to be glorified in Him, and they're
all put in place as God wants them. That's how He built His
church. You see, you don't have your
place in the church upon your own volition and your own will.
It's where God puts you. Wherever God puts you. And that's
what it is to learn to be content. Be content wherever God puts
you. The walls are made up of God's elect among Jews and Gentiles. There are strangers here that
are going to build up the church. God's going to call a people
out of the foreign lands, out of the isles, out of the nations,
and he's going to build his church. There will be kings there, but
there will also be servants, for he is the Savior of all sorts
of men, Paul wrote to Timothy. These foreigners build the walls
not as slaves who are unwilling and force labor, But they build
the walls as willing workers and servants and citizens, made
willing by the grace of God, showed to His people in Christ.
And then what God does to His people, He makes us willing in
the day of His power. And He says here, He was a little
while angry. And this is something here. Look
at this again. Back over there in verse 10. At the end of it,
He says, For in my wrath I smote thee. Israel, the nation, had
been through many times of God's anger and wrath. Later on, in
the prophecy of Isaiah, they're going to be conquered and taken
to Babylon, and they're going to be chastised by the Lord. Just like we as individual members
of the body of Christ, we go through the chastisement of God
quite often. And somebody says, well, it may
be for a specific sin. That's wisdom of God that we
can't even enter into. But here's what he's saying here.
For a while, my wrath I smote thee, but in my favor have I
had mercy on thee." Mercy to his people. You know, that God
should be angry and punish us for our sin, that's understandable.
I can understand that, can't you? You think about it. You
say, well, somebody may say, well, I don't. Well, think about
your children. You love your children. And you have to discipline
your children. You have to punish them when
it's needed. So we can understand that. Sometimes we get angry
with our children. Sometimes we get angry with each
other. And we can understand this. But here it says, He had
mercy and compassion on us who have been so sinful. Now that's amazing. That's why
Newton wrote that hymn, Amazing Grace. I can understand God's
judgment against sin. But grace and mercy to the undeserving? Now that's amazing. Don't ever
get over being amazed by the grace of God. God has treated
us well, and we didn't deserve even any of it. Why has God treated
us well? Look back at Isaiah 59 and verse
21. Here he tells us why, or verse
20, here's why God treats His people well. It's not because
they deserve it, it's not because they've earned it, it's not because
there's something in them that appeals to God. Here's why, verse
20, and the Redeemer shall come to Zion. And unto them that turn
from the transgression of Jacob, saith the Lord, ask for me, this
is my covenant with them, saith the Lord, my spirit that is upon
them, my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart
out of thy mouth. nor out of the mouth of thy seed,
nor out of the mouth of thy seed seed, saith the Lord from henceforth
and forever." Two reasons there. His covenant and the Redeemer.
God's purpose, put them together, God's purpose to save His people
in Christ. God's purpose to glorify Himself
in Christ. Now that's amazing. And it's
what God uses to get our attention so that we seek the Lord's mercy.
Before that, He didn't have our attention. We're just so consumed
with ourselves, aren't we? We understand well vengeance,
but not grace. And listen to this, with so much
wealth coming, these gates are never closed. Did you notice
that? He said the gates will never be closed. Verse 11, thy
gates shall be opened continually. This is a 24-7 thing. You see,
the gates are never closed. What does that mean? It means
we're to preach the gospel and welcome all who come in and never
shut the gates against anybody. We're never to put a stumbling
block before anyone who wants to come and plead for mercy,
who wants to come and worship the Lord. Open the gates. You remember the Lord talked
about the Pharisees, how they shut up the kingdom of God. How
did they do it? By preaching their works-oriented
religion. If you tell a sinner that he
cannot get into heaven apart from doing good works or living
a pure life, you know what you've done? You've just shut the gates
of heaven to him. Because that's an impossibility. I told you last week about the
fellow I heard on radio. He kept talking about grace,
but he never would define it. And then all of a sudden, he
just stopped and he said, I'm going to tell you right now,
folks. He says, you're not going to get into heaven unless you
live a pure life. That's what he said. He just
destroyed anything he knew of grace. He just shut the kingdom
of heaven. But see, these gates are going
to be open continually for sinners who come for mercy. Sinners who
need grace. You know, only Christ can shut
the gate. Someday He will. But any nation,
he says here in verse 12, any nation who will not serve Israel
will be destroyed. That is, serve the glory of God
through the church, through Zion. Coming and bowing to them means
they honor Christ, you see. Refusal to serve is a rejection
of the Lord who chose to reside among his people. You cannot
submit to God and reject his anointed Savior. Now look at
the next one. Here's the fifth thing. Here's
the exaltation of Zion. Look at verse 13. He says, The
glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine
tree, and the box, that is the pine tree again, together to
beautify the place of my sanctuary, and I will make the place of
my feet glorious. What he's saying here, that's
his footstool. You know the highest glory that we can attain is to
sit and bow at the feet of Christ, is to be His footstool. And he
says in verse 14, he says, "...the sons also of them that afflicted
thee shall come bending unto thee." When I read that verse,
you know who I thought of? I thought of Saul of Tarsus.
He said, listen to it, "...the sons also of them that afflicted
thee shall come bending unto thee." That's the way Saul, when
God stopped him on the Damascus road, he says, "...and all they
that despise thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet,
and they shall call thee the City of the Lord, the Zion of
the Holy One of Israel." Isn't that something? You know, there
are people who worship the church, or what they see as the church.
Catholicism is like that. There are others. There are some
Baptists who worship the Church. The Church is all to them. The
Church is their authority. And I recognize that the Church
has authority from God, as we're ambassadors of Christ, but they
take it too far. There are some people who worship
a denomination. But now let me tell you about
Zion and its glory. It's made up of those who worship
the Lord. This is the Lord's Church. The exaltation of Zion is in
the conversion of those who were once enemies of God and His church. When God the Holy Spirit brings
them in, not to worship the church, not to just be part of a denomination,
but to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth, to hear the glory
of Christ and live in the light of that glory. You know, when
God saves a sinner, He makes his house the place of His feet,
His footstool, glorious in the eyes of that sinner. Where else
would we want to be? You say, well, that's not my
social status there. There's people there that don't
have personality. It has nothing to do with it.
It is all about the Savior. Now that's what it's about. And
if that's not what it's about, then you've got problems. So many people who are so much
more concerned with their own things than they are with the
glory of God. Isn't that right? Listen, he says here, those who
once despised and afflicted God's church, just like Saul of Tarsus,
they bowed down and joined themselves to the people of God, saying,
this is the city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.
Think about Saul on the road to Damascus. He said, You remember
when he mentioned that, he described that in Philippians chapter 3
in his former life, you know, as an unconverted man. He said,
as to zeal, persecuting the church. What that means is that he was
zealous, he was on fire to destroy that which he looked upon as
heresy and idolatry. But now when God the Holy Spirit
converted him, when Christ put him in the dust, on the road
to Damascus, now that which he persecuted because he thought
it was ungodly and idolatry, now he says it is the city of
the Lord. It is the Zion of the Holy One
of Israel. It is the Zion of Christ. Wait
on the Lord and keep His way and He shall exalt thee to inherit
the land when the wicked are cut off and thou shalt see it,
the psalmist said. God is going to have His people. And I will tell you what, He's
going to have us. He's going to save us. He's going
to keep us. And He's going to bring us to
glory in spite of ourselves. And if He doesn't, we're in trouble.
I'm talking about from here on back. If He doesn't, we're in
trouble. Here's the sixth thing. Look
at verse 15. Here's the eternal excellence
of Zion. Look at verse 15. He says, Whereas
thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee,
I was. In other words, They were so
forsaken and hated that people would go out of their way to
get away from them. He says, I will make thee an eternal excellency,
a joy of many generations. Thou shalt also suck the milk
of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings, and thou
shalt know that I, the Lord, am thy Savior and thy Redeemer,
the Mighty One of Jacob, even thy Savior. Whereas before they
were forsaken of God, now they're the excellence of God. He's the
Redeemer, and He redeemed them. Now, before they were the hated
and despised of the earth, but God holds them in the palm of
His hand. His church is His peculiar treasure
in the esteem of God in Christ, the jewels of God, the jewels
of His grace, having the excellent graces of the Spirit, having
the excellent robe of Christ's righteousness on Him, having
the excellent knowledge of divine and spiritual things, the gospel
of God's glory in Christ, having the excellent spirit of love
and unity, isn't that right? And an excellent order and discipline
maintained among God by His Word, by His Spirit, all of these things,
the joy of many generations, the joy of God in Christ. of
the saints of the whole world, age after age, for a long period
of time, until he comes again. The psalmist wrote in Psalm 48
and verse 1, he says, Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised
in the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness, beautiful
for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion. On the sides of the north, the
city of the great king, God is known in her palaces for a refuge. In other words, it's like he's
saying that the glory of Zion is the fact that we can tell
people honestly, come here and rest. Come here and know the
assurance of salvation in Christ. It's like Moses said, come with
us and we'll do you good. We'll lead you to Christ. That's
what that means. We'll point you to Him. Here in verse 17,
he says, Look at this, verse 17, he says,
For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver,
and for wood, brass, and for stones, iron, I will also make
thy officers peace and thine exactors righteousness. He's
going to make the officers of his church peacemakers. That's
what he means. He's going to preach the gospel
of peace. They're going to tell sinners how God is reconciled
to sinners by the cross of Christ and how sinners are to be reconciled
to God on that same ground. Christ said, come unto me, all
you that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.
He's going to make His pastors, His bishops, His rulers of the
people in righteousness, for they're going to preach the gospel
of righteousness. As the gospel is the gospel of
peace, it's also the gospel of righteousness. We're going to
show you from the Word of God how righteousness and peace can
kiss each other, how they can coexist in an eternal way, never
to be broken again. You know, that's a strange thing
to this world. Man's religion knows nothing about that. You
know, that's just another way of talking about how God is just
to justify the ungodly. God is a righteous God. That
means He's just. He does what's right. He's never
going to do what's wrong. And if He's going to save a sinner,
He's going to do it in a way that He stays righteous. He stays
just. He's going to do what's right.
And being a just God, He must punish sin. And how many times
have we been confronted with this question, this question
of all questions. How can a man born of Adam, a
sinner, be just with God? How can God be both a righteous
judge and a loving Father? Well, God's going to populate
His church with pastors and leaders and teachers and elders who can
preach the gospel of peace and the gospel of righteousness.
That's the same gospel. God's going to be just when He
justifies. Be ungodly. And how's He going
to do that? Through Christ and Him crucified.
That's how. For God made Him to be sin, Christ
who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. Look at verse 18. He says, violence
shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction
within thy borders, but thou shalt call thy walls salvation
and thy gates praise. Now, this is spoken, I believe,
of Christ's true church as compared to the nation Israel. You know,
listen to these words again. Violence shall no more be heard
in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders. Now, national
Israel was continually plagued with trouble, violence, and waste. In fact, it was probably about
100, 120 years from this point here in time, that Jerusalem was totally
destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Empire, the army,
and taken away in three waves out of their land into captivity.
They came back. They rebuilt the city, although
they had to be almost whipped into it. They rebuilt the temple. And then later on, here comes
another conqueror, and then another until 70 A.D. or A.D. 70 when
the whole city was destroyed again by the Romans. Now how
could that verse there pertain to national Israel? Today, if
people would apply it to today, could you say violence shall
no more be heard in that land over there? Huh? Could you say that wasting or
destruction within her borders? How could that apply to national?
It doesn't. It applies to the church. That's
what it's taught. Now, it's not applying, you know,
as the church. Now, there's going to be problems.
There's going to be trouble. The church is going to be attacked.
The church is going to be attacked with Satan, without, outside. And then there's going to be
problems within, because we're going to attack each other. We're
going to attack ourselves. We have the warfare in the flesh
and the spirit. We have to We have to fight that
warfare. There's problems. What's he talking
about? He's talking about our peace
with God in Christ. Now, that's it. Because if it's
talking about anything else, I'm going to tell you something.
There's not a true church here on this earth. Now, that's just
the way it is. You say, well, that's sad. Well,
there's a lot of sadness on this earth. Man is a few days and
full of trouble, Job said. Our hope is not in this world. Our hope is in the Lord. Our
peace, our assurance, and the only, listen to it, the only
glory that we have in our existence, even as redeemed sinners, is
the glory of Christ, our perfection, the beauty of our holiness. And
that's why he says, thy walls are called salvation, and thy
gates praise. Our hope is in our salvation.
It's not in ourselves. It's in our salvation and salvations
of the Lord. Salvations in Christ. Well, let
me close here. Look at verse 19. Now, here's
the last thing, the seventh thing. The everlasting light and glory
of Zion. Listen to this. Here's the crowning
glories of Zion described in these verses. And I tell you
what, it really runs parallel with the description that John
gives of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21. You might want
to read that with it. But listen to what he says. First
of all, verse 19, it's an everlasting glory. It will never fade. Verse
19, the sun shall be no more thy light by day. Neither for
brightness shall the moon give light unto thee, but the Lord
shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. I like that. You know, man finds
a lot of things to glory in, doesn't he? The strong man, he
glories in his might. But if he lives long enough,
what happens to his glory? Goes down. I think about Brother
James Thompson. He's one of the strongest 81-year-old
men I know. But James, you're not as strong
as you used to be, are you? That's not your glory, is it?
The wise man, the worldly wise man, he glories in his wisdom,
but as time goes on, if he lives long enough, what's going to
happen? He'll probably lose his mind. He'll probably forget where
he laid his false teeth. Then where's his wisdom? See,
that glory is not going to last. The person who is in religion,
his glory is in his works, what he's given. The plaque on the
wall. Such and such memorial, you know. But one day it's all going to
be wasted. Where is His glory then? But
here is Zion's everlasting glory and life. God is our glory. Christ is our glory. And that
will never fade. And one day we'll be like Him.
In body and in spirit. will have a new body. So it's
an everlasting glory. Verse 20 says it's an everlasting
happiness. Thy sun shall no more go down,
neither shall thy moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be
thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall
be ended. Now, you know, I don't know these
guys on TV. I don't know. They just baffle
me. They must be taking some kind
of a pill. I mean, you know, I think about
life in general, and you don't know this, especially some of
you older folks. You've been through it, and you
can think of times of joy, can't you? But think about it overall. And I'm not just wanting to be
a downer, you know, or anything like that, but, you know, life's
tough. Living with each other is tough. I saw that t-shirt the other
day. It says, getting old is not for
sissies. And it is tough. The tragedies,
think about it now, that we go through in this life. A lot of
it we bring on ourselves. A lot of it. And there's times
of mourning. And we get to a point in our
lives and we look back and it seems like the times of mourning
outweigh the times of joy in this world now. But my friend,
here's an everlasting happiness and joy. The days of thy mourning
shall be ended. The sun won't go down on your
joy anymore. The moon won't withdraw itself
to where you're just in total darkness. Christ will be the
light of your joy forever and forever and forever. And then
verse 21, he says there's everlasting righteousness. This is the basis
of the whole thing right here. Thy people also shall be all
righteous, not just some, not just some of the people will
be righteous, but all the people will be righteous. And also they
will be all righteous. They won't be part righteous
and part not. Now, let me tell you something
that is right now. That's not future. We are right
now righteous in Christ. But listen to what he says in
the rest of this verse. They shall inherit the land forever.
Now that's not talking about an earthly piece of real estate
over there in Palestine. First of all, even if they had
lived there all this time, it still wouldn't be forever, but
they haven't lived there all this time. It's talking about
our eternal dwelling place, the new heavens and the new earth.
He says, the branch of my planning, the work of my hands, this is
the work of God's hands, that God may be glorified. Everlasting
righteousness. We're going to inhabit a new
heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, all made
so by Christ. And then here's the conclusion,
it's just simply this, this little verse, verse 22, I'll tell you
what it just says, it says simply that salvation is of the Lord.
Everything that he says here about Zion's glory is of the
Lord. He doesn't put any of it on you
or on me, and thank God he doesn't, because that would be the failing
point, wouldn't it? If he put it on me or put it
on, conditioned it on me or you, that would be the point of failure.
But see, it's not. He says in verse 22, a little
one shall become a thousand. I think about Abraham. Abraham
and his wife Sarah, they didn't have but the one child, Isaac,
in old age. And he said, I'm going to make
of you many nations. I think about the 12 apostles
that he started, those 12 insignificant, uninfluential men God used to
turn the world upside down. and got the gospel throughout
the world. So he's going, a little one shall become a thousand.
Well, the only way a little one's going to become a thousand is
by the power of God. And he says, and a small one,
a strong nation, the only one, a small, weak, pitiful nation
can become a strong nation is by the power of God. And this
is what he says, I, the Lord, will hasten it in his time. It'll come about and it'll come
about quickly. Now, we may not think it's so
quick, but to God it's quick. And it's in his time. And that
ought to be good enough for us. It's in his time. All right.
We're closing.