Okay, let's look at Isaiah chapter
50. I've entitled the message this
evening, Our Determined Redeemer. Our Determined Redeemer. And
I took that title from verse 7, where we see a clear prophecy
of the Lord Jesus Christ and His work on earth to redeem His
people from their sins, from our sins. when he says, therefore
have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be
ashamed. He set his face like a flint
to do the work that the Father sent him to do. Now, of course,
as we've seen, as we've studied the book of Isaiah, these words
are prophetic words that Isaiah the prophet is preaching in his
day concerning the people of Judah and Jerusalem, many, many
years afterward who would be in captivity, the Babylonian
captivity. And in that captivity, they would
feel that God had forsaken them and had forgotten them, even
divorced them and put them away. So in this passage, which is
a passage of encouragement for God's people, a passage that
is meant to comfort them in these times of trouble that would come
in the future, and even in Isaiah's day, in times of trouble, and
even in our day, in times of trouble, in times of pain and
sorrow, when we, in our sinful doubt and misgivings, begin to
think that the Lord has forgotten us, that the Lord has even divorced
us and put us away, that He's even sold us into slavery, as
they complain here at the first of it. These are words of comfort
that can only be found in the grace of God through the promised
Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Because whatever we go through
in this life, whether it's a captivity to a foreign nation, whether
it's the personal sorrows and pains and displeasures and grievances
that we go through in this life, we know that our end is secure
because of what God has accomplished through His Son on Calvary. And
that's what this is all about. That's what Isaiah 50 is all
about. It carries on all the way through Isaiah 51. And then
we come to that great passage in Isaiah 53, which actually,
the actual passage, prophecy, begins in the last few verses
of Isaiah 52, where we see the suffering substitute, the suffering
servant, the Lamb of God, suffering for His people and accomplishing
what he set out to do. Well, here in Isaiah 50, it says,
he set his face like a flint to do it. But let's look at each
verse here. Now, the first thing that we
are confronted with in this passage is a question posed and answered. And it opens with questions to
doubting Zion. Now, it's God who's asking these
questions. Zion, you remember, which is
an emblem of the church. the true church, believers, those
whom God chose, those whom God justifies through His Son, those
whom God redeemed at the cross and who He regenerates and calls
into the kingdom. And here's what's happening.
The people of Israel, in their exile, in their submission, in
their captivity, are comparing themselves to a divorced wife,
forgotten and forsaken and just left destitute. And the Lord
interrupts that kind of thinking here, and He breaks it into a
challenge to His people. And here's what He says in verse
1, Thus saith the Lord, Where is the bill of your mother's
divorcement, whom I have put away? Where is the certificate
of your mother's divorce? Back then, and I'm not going
to get into the right or wrong of this, it was basically wrong
because You know how we abuse things and how we have a tendency
to act in selfishness and not according to the Word of God.
But whenever a man wanted to divorce a woman, he'd just give
her a bill of divorcement, just give her a paper. And they said,
well, that was okay. And the Lord is using that analogy
to prove that this is not what's happened between Him and His
people. So He's saying this, where is
the certificate of your divorcement? of your mother's divorcement.
You say, I don't care about you anymore. You say, I've divorced
you and left you destitute. And what God is saying, well,
now let's see you produce the proof of that. Prove that that's
happened. What proof do you have that God
has divorced your mother and set you out destitute? What proof
do you have that God doesn't care about you? that He doesn't
concern Himself with your well-being and your welfare. Produce the
document and the proof that shows that. And there is none, you
see. There is no document, there is
no proof, and I'll tell you why. Because God had not divorced
them. God had not discarded them. God had not sent them out and
just totally put them destitute. You know, God, even in Israel's
captivity, And this is not the only captivity that they went
through. They went through the captivity
of Babylon. Later on, they went through the
captivity of the Medo-Persian Empire, even though they were
free to worship the way God commanded them to worship during that time.
They were still a conquered nation. And then they'd be conquered
by the Greeks, Alexander the Great. And then later on, they'd
be conquered by the Romans. So they were a conquered people.
They were under Gentile oppression. and submission all that time.
But in all of their problems, in all of their captivities,
God was still not finished with that nation. God had a purpose
for that nation. And He's going to tell them to
go back later on, He's going to tell them in chapter 51, to
go back and remember my promise that I made to Abraham. Now we
know the ultimate fulfillment, that the promise that He made
to Abraham was to have that nation and keep them together for a
particular period of time, but the ultimate promise that was
given to Abraham was the promise of Christ, the promise of the
Messiah. God wasn't finished with this
nation until the Messiah would come. So he had not failed, here's
the point, God had not failed to do for them what he promised.
He joined himself to this nation for a particular time, for a
particular purpose, and he had not gone back on his promise,
He had not failed to do what he said he would do. And later
on, look here in verse 1, he says, he goes on, he says, of
which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? In other
words, you're acting as if God owed somebody something and he
couldn't pay it, so he sold you into slavery under the law in
order to pay it. And he's saying, well, which
of my creditors have I sold you out to? Well, first of all, God
doesn't owe anyone anything. God owes Himself everything. That's why when God swears an
oath, He swears by Himself because He can swear by none greater.
God cannot go against His nature. God cannot do anything that is
contrary to Himself. He can never go back on a promise,
but He doesn't owe anybody anything. So He's saying, well, which of
my creditors have I sold you out to in slavery? Well, none.
None. So what's the problem? Why is
Israel, why is Judah and Jerusalem in captivity? Well, here's the
answer, verse 1. Behold, for your iniquities have
you sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother
put away. Here's what God's saying. He's
saying, I'm not the problem, Israel, you are. I'm not the
culprit here, you are. I'm not the guilty party, you
are, you see. Israel had failed. It's for your
iniquities that you've sold yourself. It's your own fault and it's
no one else's fault. Look over at Isaiah chapter 59. You see, now man by nature, everybody
wants to blame either God or the devil or society for their
problems. They want to blame, we want to
blame everybody but the one we should blame, numero uno, ourselves. Isn't that right? We want to
blame God. Well, if God had just done this
for me, or if God had just kept this from happening. We want
to blame the devil. The devil made me do that. Now,
I know the devil's an evil being, and I know he can do a lot of
things. He's a powerful being. But my
friend, our sins, we can't blame the devil for our sins. We've
got to blame ourselves. And then we want to blame society.
Well, you don't know what they did, or what this group did,
or what they didn't do. But look here in verse 1 of Isaiah
59. He says, Behold, the Lord's hand
is not shortened, that he cannot save, neither his ear heavy,
that he cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated
between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from
you, that he will not hear. For your hands are defiled with
blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken
lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness, and none calleth
for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth. They trust in vanity
and speak lies. They conceive mischief and bring
forth iniquity." And you can just keep going on and on. Turn
to Romans chapter 3 with me. Now my friend, this is the issue
of man relationship with God as we consider man in himself
by nature as born of Adam. We're the problem. If God would
put us all in hell, now listen to me, I know people don't like
to hear this, but it's so. If God would put us all in hell,
you know what he'd be doing? He'd be giving us exactly what
we deserve. and exactly what we earn. That's
so. And I'll tell you what, you'll
never come to see the glory of God in grace. You'll never come
to see the beauty of Christ and Him crucified, the Lamb of God
slain for the sins of His people, until you come to an understanding,
a real confrontation with yourself. in this issue of sin and what
I deserve and what I've earned. Because when I come to see God's
grace, I come to see true grace. Not just God helping those who
help themselves, as men say, but God reaching down on the
dung heap of sin and lifting a beggar off the dung heap, as
Hannah prayed. That's right. Look here at Romans
chapter 3, verse 19. And he had already described
all under sin here, and that's both Jew and Gentile, religious
and irreligious. And he says there's none good,
no, not one. That is, in God's sight, according
to God's standard. There's no fear of God before
their eyes, he says here. Verse 19, now we know that what
thinksoever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the
law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may
become guilty. before God. Guilty. If you ever see what you are
by nature, if any of us ever see that, we'll stop blaming
God, and blaming the devil, and blaming society, and we'll put
the blame right where it belongs, right here on me. Right there
on you. And so this leaves us in a bad
situation when it comes to our works. It says in verse 20, therefore
by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified,
be declared not guilty. How can a sinner be justly declared
not guilty in the sight of a holy God? Well, not by deeds of law. To be justified is to be cleared
of all guilt. Do you realize that? To be justified
is to be declared not guilty, it's to be declared righteous
before God. How in the world can that happen
to a sinner like me and like you? God who looks on the heart. God who knows our frame. God
who knows our thoughts. You don't know my thoughts except
as I express them to you. But God knows my thoughts, that
fleeting thought that you have no control over that shoots through
your mind at the most inopportune time. Think about it. God knows. And yet He justifies
the ungodly, the Scripture says. He tells these people back here,
He said, I haven't divorced you, I haven't put you away, I haven't
sold you into slavery because I owed somebody something I couldn't
pay. He says, you're in the mess you're in because of your own
sin. And this is what he says, therefore
by deeds of law shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for
by the law is the knowledge of sin. Turn to John chapter 1 with
me. You know, when sinners do not
believe the gospel, And let me tell you something, I know and
you know by God's testimony that it takes a work of God's sovereign
grace to bring a sinner to believe the gospel, doesn't it? A believer
is a miracle of grace. He's not one, now listen to me,
a believer is not a person who can stand up on the pedestal
of his own free will and boast that he made a choice and he's
better than everybody else. A believer is one whom God has
brought to saving faith in Christ. Faith is the gift of God. He's
one whom God has brought to... But let me tell you something.
When sinners refuse to believe the gospel, when they refuse
to run to Christ for all salvation, for all righteousness and eternal
life, it is not God who has failed. It is us. It's the sinner who's
failed. Look at John chapter 1, look
at verse 11. It says here, that he came unto
his own, and his own received him not. That's talking about
the Lord. But as many as received him, to them gave he power, that's
the right or the privilege, the entitlement, to become the sons
of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born
not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man,
but born of God. And then look over at Romans
chapter 11. Now, Paul is dealing with, in this book of Romans,
but also in this chapter here, he quotes quite a bit from the
book of Isaiah concerning Israel. And he makes a statement here
in Romans 11 that all Israel shall be saved. Now he's speaking
of spiritual Israel. God has a people out of every
tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation. We're to go into all the world
and preach the gospel to every creature. He said the gospel
must be preached in all nations before he comes again. That's
his plan. That's his purpose. He knows
exactly when that is. God knows how to get the gospel
to his people. Christ will go and find his sheep.
He even walked through Samaria one day and found one, didn't
he? He's going to find them. But you see, He sent all Israel. Well, the majority of the nation,
Israel, rejected Him. Well, did God fail? Did God cast
them off? Did He divorce them? Did He sell
them out into slavery? Well, look at verse 1 of Romans
11. He says, I say then, hath God cast away His people? God
forbid. I tell you, that's one of the
most comforting God forbids in the Scripture. God forbid that
he would cast away his people whom he chose and gave to Christ.
He says, for I also am an Israelite. Paul was an Israelite. God didn't
cast him away. And let me tell you something,
when God saved Saul of Tarsus, He wasn't giving Saul what Saul
deserved and what Saul earned, was He? That man was on his way
to arrest Christians. He had in his heart in that moment,
not to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but to wipe the name
of Jesus of Nazareth off the face of the earth." That's what
he was doing that day that the Lord put him in the dust, wasn't
he, Ron? That was his agenda, to wipe the name of Jesus of
Nazareth off the face of the earth, and yet God stopped him.
Our Savior stopped him. So he says, for I also am an
Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God
hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew, and you could
just as well say, which he foreloved. Watch ye not, or know ye not,
what the scripture saith of Elijah? How he maketh intercession of
God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed the prophets,
and dig down thine altars, and I am left alone, and they seek
my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? He says, I have
reserved to myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee
to the image of Baal. Now, were these seven thousand,
were they better than everybody else? Did they deserve God's salvation more than the
others? Well, look at the next verse,
verse 5, "...even so then at this present time." Now, the
even so reaches back to Elijah's time, and he says, now, in the
same way as in Elijah's day, even now at this present time,
he's saying, also there is a remnant, a small piece, According to what? The election of grace. Grace. And you know who needs
grace? Sinners. Sinners. Go back to Isaiah 50 now. Why
are we in this mess? Because of our sins. What do we need? Grace. Has God
cast away His people? Absolutely not. The Bible says,
no man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me
drawing, that I will raise it up again at the last day. But
Christ said this. He said in John 6, 37, all that
the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to
me I will in no wise cast out. He went on to say, this is the
Father's will that hath sent me, that of all which he hath
given me I should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the
last day. It's grace. In these next verses, Isaiah
50 now, seeing that Zion's troubles come from their own disobedience
and sin, where is the man who is going to stand up for Israel? Who will contend their case before
God? Look at it, verse 2. Wherefore,
when I came, there was no man. Where is the man? When I called,
was there none to answer? Is there anybody who will stand
up and speak for Israel? That's what he's saying. Is there
anybody who will stand for the people? And then he says in his
answer here, now listen to this, is there any way out of this?
That's where it's coming down to here. We're in a mess because
of our sin. We have nobody to blame but ourselves. Is there any way out? Is there
anyone who will contend for us? Is there anyone who will speak
for us? Well, listen to God's answer in verse 2. Is my hand
shortened at all that it cannot redeem? You think God's hand
is long enough to reach down to the dung heap and lift the
beggar up? Or is it too short? You think
God's salvation can't reach you? You know, people say, oh, I'm
just too sinful to be saved. You know, let me tell you something,
that is not humility. That's unbelief. You're saying
that you're too far gone for God to reach that far. And God's
answer to you is, is my hand shortened at all? that it cannot
redeem, it cannot buy you back and pay the ransom price. Is
there anybody too sinful to be saved? And the answer is no. And you know why? Because we
have a great Savior. Hallelujah, what a Savior. He
says, or have I no power to deliver? Now listen, He begins to remind
them of His unlimited power and in the past, He says, He says,
behold, at my rebuke I dried up the sea. Now you know what
he's referring to there, the Red Sea. Here's Moses and the
children of Israel standing on the shore of the Red Sea, Pharaoh's
army coming up from behind. And the people murmuring and
complaining, we're in a mess, God's forsaken us, let's go back
to Egypt, to the flesh pots. That's us by nature, isn't it?
That's a good description of me and you now, by nature. And God lets us go our own way.
And then God speaks to His prophet Moses and He says, stand still
and see the salvation of the Lord which He will show you this
day. And the Egyptians which follow after you, you'll see
them now no more forever. And He opened up the Red Sea
and they walked across on dry land. They didn't walk across
in mud. They weren't slipping and sliding. They walked across
on dry land, didn't they? God says here, at my rebuke,
I drive to sin. He says, I make the rivers a
wilderness, their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and
dieth for thirst. I believe He's referring when
He turned the Nile River into blood, and they couldn't drink. What He's talking about, He said,
I clothe the heavens, verse 3, with blackness, and I make sackcloth
their covering. I believe it's in Exodus, I can't
remember which chapter, but I think it's Exodus 10. He speaks that
it got so dark that they felt it. You ever been in a place
that's so dark you can feel it? That's dark. That's how dark
it was. What God is doing here, He's
reminding them of His mighty works of old to deliver them
from Egypt. God is able. He has power to
save His people from their sin. to deliver us from the bondage
of spiritual evil. That's why Paul the Apostle wrote
in 1 Corinthians, he said, but we preach Christ crucified unto
the Jews a stumbling block, unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto
them which are called, called by the power of God, the invincible
call of the Spirit, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power
of God and Christ the wisdom of God. He is able to deliver
you. He is able to save to the uttermost
them that come unto the Father, but by Him." Now, beginning at
verse 4, this is real interesting here. What happens here is the
Redeemer Himself begins to describe Himself. And listen to what He
says. This is the Savior describing
Himself. And it's very similar to what
is said of God's people in Romans chapter 8. And I want to show
you that. In fact, you can turn to Romans
8. We'll be going there in just a moment. And I want to show
you the parallels there, but think of it this way. God's ability to save is not
the question here. God is able. There shouldn't
even be any debate over God's ability. And let me say this,
there shouldn't be any debate on God's willingness either.
He's able and He's willing. The only debate is what goes
on within the heart of a sinner. What are you going to do? Where
are you going to run? Where are you going to hide?
Where are you going to find your strength, your salvation? Where
are you going to find your righteousness? That's the issue. Where are you
going to find redemption? We're talking about a Redeemer
here. Where are you going to find deliverance? Well, think
about this. Now, here's what he says. Look
at verse 4. He says, The Lord God hath given me the tongue
of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season
to him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning,
he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. The Lord God
hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned
away back. Now, one thing we know here,
he's not talking about Israel. You know, a lot of the old Jewish
commentators will go here and they say, well, he's talking
about Israel here. Well, Listen, they were rebellious. They did
turn away back. That's why they were in captivity.
Who's speaking here? This is the Messiah. This is
the Lord Jesus Christ. This is speaking of His perfect
obedience to the Father's will and the Father's Word. That's
right. He's not talking about any ordinary
man here. He's certainly not talking about
any man born of Adam. But we cannot say we have done
obedience perfectly, or that we have followed the will, the
revealed will and Word of God perfectly. We're sinners. But,
he says, the Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned.
Now, how can it be said that the Lord Jesus Christ has been
given the tongue of the learned? Or that He learned, because isn't
He God? And the answer is yes, He is God. And as God, now listen
to me, as God, He cannot learn anything. As God, He cannot learn it, and
it's not because He has a learning disability. It's because He doesn't
need to learn anything. He knows everything. He's omniscient. God cannot learn. God is perfect. He's perfect knowledge, perfect
wisdom. God cannot change. Learning is
changing, isn't it? When I learn something, it changes
me, if I really learn it. The best example of that is learning
the gospel. Doesn't that change you? When
God implanted the gospel in your mind and in your heart, in your
will, So as God, He cannot learn anything, He is omniscient. But
as God-man, He is both God and man in one person. As our Savior,
as our Redeemer, as our Mediator, the book of Luke describes Him
this way, in Luke chapter 2 and verse 52, it says, He increased
in wisdom and stature. So it can be said, as attributed
to His perfect humanity, that the Lord has given Him the tongue
of the learned. He learned by experience. The
Bible says He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.
What does that mean? That means that the God-man,
the Lord Jesus Christ, experienced in His suffering things that
He had never experienced before. As God-man, when our sins were
laid upon Him, credited to Him, accounted to Him, He went through
things that He Himself had never experienced before. and then
He perfected the work. And He Himself was perfected
in that He completed the work and finished the work. And then
it says here that He should speak a word in season. Christ is Himself
the Word of God, the Logos. In the beginning was the Word.
But as our Savior, in submission to His Father, He spoke that
which was given Him. In the book of John chapter 14
and verse 10, let me read this to you. He said, Believest thou
not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? He said,
The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, but the
Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. And then in
the book of John, chapter 17 and verse 8, when he was praying
for his disciples, He said this, He said, For I have given unto
them the words which thou gavest Me, and they have received them,
and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have
believed thou, that thou didst send Me." The words that the
Father gave Him. What is that speaking of? That's
speaking of His official submission to the Father as the Son of God
incarnate for what purpose? To save His people from their
sin. He said He speaks a word in season to him that is weary.
The gospel comes from Christ, our great prophet, our great
counselor. He says here, He awakens me morning
by morning. The Messiah prophetically speaks
here of His daily fellowship with the Father. Every moment
that He's been here on earth, He was in perfect, uninterrupted
fellowship with His Father. He says, the Lord God has opened
my ear, and I was not rebellious. He was always willing to do the
will of His Father perfectly. He never argued, He never rebelled,
He says. You see, we're rebellious. And
even now, as saved sinners, we still have a rebellious nature,
don't we? We still have a warfare of the flesh and the Spirit,
which our Lord did not have. He suffered the infirmities of
the flesh, the weaknesses of the flesh as man, but he never
had to argue in himself and war within himself over as to whether
or not to do the will of the Father. He was always perfectly
submissive to the will of the Father. And that, when he says,
he opened mine ear, that's like the bond slave. You remember
the law of bond slavery back in Exodus, what is it? Chapter
25, I believe. It's either 21 or 25. I don't
want to steer you wrong here. But you remember what happened
there. The man who was in debt or the woman who was in debt
had to serve for six years. And at the end of the six years,
the law was satisfied and they were set free. But that person
could willingly pledged his allegiance and service to his master, not
because of a debt of law, but because of love. Isn't that right? And when he did that, they took
him and they put his ear against the door and they bored a hole
in his ear with an awl. And they say he wore a ring through
that so that when people could see the difference, they could
see the difference between one who was a forced slave under
law and one who was a willing, loving bond-slave of his master."
And what he's saying here is that Christ, the Son of God incarnate,
is the perfect bond-slave of his Father. Everything he did,
he did because of the love of his Father. He loved his Father
perfectly. He said this, and how far did
he take this? Well, look at verse 6. He says,
"...I gave my back to the smiters, You know that's a prophecy there.
That was fulfilled in Christ. They've scourged Him, whipped
Him, beat Him. You see, He gave His back to
the smiters. He said, my cheeks to them that
plucked off the hair. They plucked out His beard. He
said, I hid not my face from shame and spitting. He didn't
avoid it. He didn't try to avoid it. And
let me tell you something, He didn't justify Himself in this.
He didn't open His mouth. He was led like a sheep, like
a dumb sheep to the slaughter. and he openeth not his mouth."
Why? Because he was there to do a
task. And he was determined to do it. And he didn't back up one inch.
He didn't back up one inch. Now, some say that he did in
the Garden of Gethsemane, but that's not what was going on
there, folks. He didn't have misgivings and doubts and sin
in the Garden of Gethsemane. Don't believe that for a minute.
Don't you believe it for a minute. All that was going on there,
and I'm going to tell you something, we really cannot understand the
depths of what was going through our Redeemer's mind. But I'll
tell you this much, what He was suffering there were the things
that He'd never felt before because of our sin credited and charged
and imputed to Him, being burdened down with the agony, the weakness,
and the sorrow of the flesh. Some say that he thought, well,
maybe he would die before he got to the cross. I don't think
that's so. Listen to me. God had a particular
appointed time for him to die. And he knew that. But I know
this. He was obedient unto death. Even the death of the cross.
And that's what he's saying here. All of this, he says, look at
verse 7, he says, for the Lord God will help me, therefore shall
I not be confounded or confused. Therefore have I set my face
like a flint, a determined redeemer. He told him, he said, this is
the reason I came into the world, to die. He said, what shall I
do? Say, Father, deliver me from
this hour? He said, that's why I came. He set his face like
a flint, determined to go to the cross. And you notice back
up there when he said, I gave my back, notice he said, I gave
it. He said, they didn't take it.
He said, no man takes my life from me. He said, I'll lay it
down to myself. He told Pilate he could call an army from heaven
to deliver, but he did it willingly. He set his face like a flint.
And the Lord God will help him, he said, in the midst of all
this suffering and humiliation and pain, Christ had an unshakable
confidence in the help of the Lord God. And he was crucified
through weakness, the weakness of the flesh, and that's what
was going on in the Garden of Gethsemane. But listen to me,
his faith was perfect throughout. His faithfulness was unshaken.
That's why the Scriptures speak of our salvation. being secured
not by our faithfulness to Him, not by our hold upon Him, but
upon His faithfulness to us and to His Father and His hold upon
us. So he says, therefore I have
set my face like a flint. Despite knowing the agony that
he was going to go through, Christ had a steadfast determination
to obey the Lord God and follow His way and save us from our
sins. His face was set as hard as a
flint. Nothing can turn Him aside. Look
over at the book of Luke chapter 9. And we'll get to Romans here
in just a moment. But look at Luke chapter 9. Look at verse 51. He says in Luke 9, 51, And it
came to pass when the time was come, Now, he knew the time.
You remember, he kept telling his disciples, my time has not
yet come, my time is not yet here. The time was come that
he should be received up. He steadfastly set his face to
go to Jerusalem and sent messengers before his face. He set his face
to go to a determined Redeemer. Now, let me tell you something.
His disciples couldn't stop him. Satan couldn't stop Him. The
Roman Empire couldn't stop Him. The Jewish religionists couldn't
stop Him. No one could stop Him. That's how determined He was.
He said that for the joy that was set before Him, He went to
the cross. One man said that there are two
kinds of courage. There's the courage of the moment,
which requires no previous thought. It just happens. And then there's
a planned courage, which sees the difficulty ahead and steadfastly
marches on toward it. And that's the kind of courage
our Savior has. That's the kind of determination
He had. Our determined Redeemer. He could
see the cross in the horizon, but He still set His face like
a flint. that go to Jerusalem. You remember,
I think it was Thomas said, well, if he's determined to go there,
let's all go, we'll die with him. Well, in this matter, our Savior
is the one who went and did the dying. Isn't that right? And
that was for our salvation to the glory of God. He said, I
know I shall not be ashamed. Look back at Isaiah 50, look
at verse 8. Now listen to this, he says,
He is near that justifies me. Who will contend with me? Let
us stand together. Isaiah 15, verse 8, Let us stand
together. Who is mine adversary? Let him
come near to me. Behold, the Lord God will help
me. Who is he that shall condemn me? Lo, they all shall wax old
or grow old as a garment. The moth shall eat them up. Now look over at Romans chapter
8. Now here's our determined Savior,
our determined Redeemer, going to the cross to die for His sheep. And here's what the Bible says.
Christ and His people are one in the view of God's law. And
He says in verse 31 of Romans 8, What shall we then say to
these things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? God was for His Son. And He's
for all His people. He hasn't sent us a bill of divorcement
or put us away or sold us into slavery. He sent His Son to die. And look what He says in verse
32, "...He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up
for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us
all things?" If Christ died on that cross and He was buried
and rose again the third day and ascended unto the heavenly,
seated at the right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession
for us, Let me tell you what His people are going to get.
They're going to get all things, and they're going to get all
things blessed, and all things eternal, and all things good,
and they're going to get them freely. Now, it cost Him a lot. It cost Him His Son, His death,
His blood, but it cost us nothing. That is to attain or maintain
salvation. There's a cost of discipleship,
but that's not to be saved, or even to be kept saved. That's
because we already are saved. And then he says in verse 33,
"...who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It
is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even
at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us." Now go back to Isaiah 50, and let me close with these last
two verses. Now here's what's happening here.
So our determined Redeemer, will do His great work of making an
end of sin and establishing righteousness for His people. God is just to
justify the ungodly based upon the sovereign, successful, powerful,
loving work of our determined Redeemer, who set His face like
a flint to save His people from their sins, to the praise of
the glory of God's grace. Now, here's what's happening
in the last two verses here. Here's a call and a command. to trust in the Lord. And here's
what happens. Christ is speaking to his people
here. He says, Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that is,
trust him and worship him, that obeyeth the voice of his servant,
the voice of Christ, come unto me, all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I'll give you rest, that walketh in darkness
and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of
the Lord and stay upon his God. Your salvation. Rest your hope
upon God who sent this determined Redeemer. You see, He's saying
He's commanding us to trust in the Lord just as He did. He trusted
in the Father, you trust in Him. Trust in Christ. Submit to the
Lord as He did. Rest in Him. Stay upon His God. He's our hope. He's our stay.
And then verse 11, here's the flip side now, here's the negative. He says, Behold all ye that kindle
a fire. Now these are people who are
not stayed upon God, who are not trusting in His service.
That compass yourself about with sparks. Walk in the light of
your fire, and in the sparks that you have kindled, and this
shall you have of mine hand, and that right justly you shall
lie down in sorrow. You know what he's talking about
there? Think about it. You know, man's religion gives
off a lot of sparks, but not much light. And it never lasts. It's like those shooting stars,
those fireworks. They're pretty for a little while,
but they don't last. Man's works can shine for a while
in the eyes of men, but not for long. Their fire, it warms for
a little while, but it'll go out. Men and women spend a lot
of time looking for and chasing these sparks and trying to make
more sparks, but not seeking the light of God's Word and the
gospel of God's grace in Christ. What's he saying here? Turn to
the light of the world. Turn to Christ. He's determined
to save all His people from their sins.