Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program. I'm glad
you could join us this morning. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching in the book of Isaiah,
Isaiah chapter 46, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. I've been preaching
several messages just surveying the book of Isaiah, and the title
of the message today is God's Sovereign Purpose. God's sovereign
purpose. I'm going to begin in verse 9
of Isaiah 46. Now let me say this before I
begin. I love preaching from the book
of Isaiah because it is that this book, the prophecy of Isaiah
is given to him by God through the Holy Spirit, giving the word
to Isaiah for his generation, but spanning all generations. It's so full of Christ. In the
book of Isaiah, we see at the forefront of his prophecy, not
just things about national Israel or Judah, the southern kingdom,
but we see prophecies of the gospel of how God saves sinners
by his grace in the glorious person and the finished work
of the Lord Jesus Christ, who would come about 700 years later
that Isaiah lived. Isaiah prophesied about 700 years
prior to the first coming, the first advent of the Savior, of
the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the people of Israel throughout
their history under the Old Covenant The Bible's very clear. If you
read the history books of 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and
1 and 2 Chronicles, and the prophets, the majority of the time, the
nation Israel, and even when they split into two kingdoms,
Israel to the north, Judah to the south, they were a rebellious,
idolatrous, unbelieving people. They did not follow the Lord's
commandments as given on Mount Sinai through Moses, including
the Ten Commandments, the ceremonial law. They constantly rebelled. They constantly disobeyed. And
what we see there in Israel is not just something that we should
look at and say, well, those rotten people, you know, those
sinful people, you know, as if we would have done any better.
Israel is a picture of all of us by nature as fallen in Adam
into a state of sin and spiritual death and depravity. And that's
why we need salvation from our sins And salvation must be by
the grace of God through the righteousness, the obedience
unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the prophets spoke
judgment, God's judgment against the people for their sins, but
they always spoke of a hope of salvation. And that salvation
was not in their works or their attempts to keep the law, which
by the, as I said, there are many times they didn't even attempt
to keep it. But that salvation was not gonna be a physical,
temporal, ceremonial thing like under the old covenant. The blood
of bulls and goats could never take away sin. But that salvation,
that God would freely provide for His people who are known
as the elect and they're made up of God's elect out of every
tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation, not just Israel, not just the
Jews, but Jew and Gentile, that salvation would be accomplished
and ensured by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in the
fullness of the time. Galatians Chapter four speaks
of this in the fullness of the time God sent forth his son made
of a woman made under the law to redeem them that were under
the law and so Isaiah's message to the people to whom he preached
is yes. God is bringing judgment against
us for our sins but the hope of salvation eternally and spiritually
is in the promised Messiah and the promised anointed one, the
Lord Jesus Christ, and in the gospel of God's grace. And that's
something that people need to understand today, that God did
not save people in the Old Testament in a different way than He saves
people in the New Testament. It was never by works of the
law. The law was given to show them their sinfulness and depravity,
the impossibility salvation and accomplishing righteousness by
their works and their need of salvation from the Lord through
the Messiah, through Christ as the surety, the substitute, and
the Redeemer of His people. And of course this passage here
beginning Isaiah 46 verse 9 shows us that. But it talks about the salvation
that God provides, especially in the last two verses that we're
gonna look at, verses 12 and 13. But before it gets to that,
it is bolstered or held up by the sovereign purpose of God. God's sovereign purpose. And
let me just say at the outset, what is God's sovereign purpose? Well, sovereign means that God
is over and above all, and He's in control. That's the God of
this Bible now. The God of the Bible is not a
reactionary. He doesn't move and stop at the
whims or the wills of men. He works his sovereign purpose. Ephesians chapter one and verse
11 speaks of the God who works all things after the counsel
of his own will. And we're gonna see that here.
And so before Isaiah in this passage, particular one, before
he presents the gospel of God's righteousness in Christ for his
people, and that's all who believe in him, by God-given faith, he
supports it and gives the assurance of it by speaking of the sovereignty
of God. And listen to what he says in
verse nine. of Isaiah chapter 46. He starts
off, he says, remember the former things of old. Now, what are
the former things of old? Well, that's their history. Think
about the past. That would include God's dealings
with their father Abraham, their physical father Abraham. It would
include, even before that, the flood of Noah. Noah's flood,
God brought the flood on the world and destroyed the whole
world except for eight souls and saved them on the ark. The
ark was a picture of Christ bringing them up to Abraham and God made
a covenant with Abraham and it was a covenant of promise. It
was not a conditional covenant. God promised to give them the
land, but the main promise to Abraham was the promise of the
coming Messiah through Abraham's physical seed, and that refers
to the humanity of Christ, who would be the savior of God's
people, Jew and Gentile. Think about them when they were
in Egypt, in captivity, the former things of old. and how God delivered
them out of Egypt through Moses, parted the Red Sea, remember
all the plagues, and then He parted the Red Sea, brought them
to Sinai, gave them the law, and then all the things in the
wilderness, Joshua, the battle of Jericho, all of that. Remember
these things. Now, what these things tell us
is not the power or the goodness, the wisdom, or the plans and
schemes of men, Because if those things had anything to do with
what happened, they would have been destroyed. Israel would
have been destroyed. The Hebrew people would have
been destroyed and they would have never taken possession of
the land that God promised them through Abraham. But what was
the message of these former things of old? The message is that God
is in control. God is sovereign. God works all
things after the counsel of his own will. And everything that
happened to Israel, the Hebrew people, they didn't become Israel
until after Jacob, but to Israel and the Hebrew people, everything
that happened to them to preserve them and bring them into that
land was a sovereign, providential, powerful work of God. And there's
several places in the scripture where God reminds them of this.
For example, he tells them, he said, I'm gonna give you houses
you didn't build. I'm gonna give you things you
didn't work for. And that's a picture of salvation.
If you're saved by the grace of God, you're the possessor
of blessings that you didn't earn and don't deserve. Do you
understand that? That's so important. That's what
grace is all about. What I have as a sinner saved
by grace is the treasure chest of salvation and blessings and
benefits, none of which I deserve and none of which I've earned.
That's the key. That's why it's salvation by
grace. You know, people today, they think they do earn it or
they do deserve it. A lot of people think they deserve
it just because God created them, but that's a lie. We're sinners
and we don't deserve anything but judgment and justice and
help from God. A lot of people think they earn
it by their decision-making. They make a decision for Jesus
and then God's obligated to save them. That is not what the Bible
teaches. Now God's people will decide
for him. But their decision doesn't come
from their natural will, or as people call their free will,
which is a myth. It comes from the will of God.
It is God's will. He says in Romans chapter nine,
he said, it's not of him that runneth, nor of him that willeth,
but of God that showeth mercy. God's people are made willing
in the day of His power. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them. They
are spiritually discerned. Man by nature will turn it away,
will not receive Him, will not decide for Christ. And even the
faith that we believe and receive Christ with is a gift from God. It's not of works, lest any man
should boast. Even that's not of yourselves,
not of works. So remember the former things of old. Remember
how God worked. Remember history from God's viewpoint. And look at chapter 46, verse
nine. He says, for I am God and there
is none else. I am God and there's none like
me. That's what history teaches us. There's one God, and He is
unique. He's holy, separate from all,
everything. And there's none like Him. There's
none else, there's no other gods. And I don't care what men say,
and I don't care how popular other religions are, there's
only one God, the true and living God, and every other supposed
God is an idol. All religions except the true
religion of the true and living God through the Lord Jesus Christ
is idolatry. Mark it down. Christ said in
John 14, six, I am the way, the truth, the life. No man cometh
under the father, but by me. There's one God. Now I know people
argue and fuss about the Trinity, the Holy Trinity. And other religions,
such as Islam, accuse us of believing in three gods. But we don't. And I know the Trinity is a hard
concept to understand. Our little finite minds cannot
grasp it. But we don't believe in three
gods. We believe in one God who subsists
in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now how that
works out, I can't tell you and you can't tell me. Don't use
any earthly illustrations for that because they're inadequate. They don't tell us the whole
picture. But he says, I am God, there's
none else. I am God, there's none like me.
Now look at how he identifies himself as the one and only true
unique God. Verse 10 of Isaiah 46. He says, declaring the end from
the beginning. The end from the beginning. Now
let me give you an illustration of that to put it in perspective. You and I cannot declare the
end from the beginning. We know how this day started
because the seconds and the minutes and the hours are moving. And
I can look back and I can tell you how this day started, but
I don't know how it's going to end up. I don't know if the end
of the day, whether I'll be sick, well, alive, dead, Whatever. But God knows the end from the
beginning. He declares it. And when I say
he knows it, be careful there. I'm not saying that God looks
down through some kind of a telescope or crystal ball, as some people
say. I was listening to a preacher
the other day who made that statement. He talking about Jacob and Esau
in Romans chapter nine. And the Bible says, God says,
Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. And that's what it says. And somebody said, well, it seems
to me, this is what this preacher said. He said, it seems to me
the reason God loved Jacob is he knew beforehand that Jacob
would respond positively to his commands and Esau wouldn't. That
is a lie. That's not the God of this Bible.
The Bible says that before those two did any good or evil, God
loved Jacob and hated Esau. And you say, well, I don't like
that. Well, that's your problem. But that's the God with whom
you have to deal and you will face him in judgment. Understand
that. Read Romans 9 and people, Paul,
by the power of the Holy Spirit, he anticipated people's objections. to the sovereignty of God. But
God says here, He declares the end from the beginning. God's
out in front of everything. God is the determiner of all
things. All things bad and all things
good. And I know people go crazy about this stuff, but God is
so high above us. We cannot put him in our little
niche or our little box and make sense out of him. God is the
all-wise God, and he says he declares the end from the beginning,
and then he uses an example in history, well, an example in
the future, actually. He says, and from ancient times,
the things that are not yet done, In other words, God, He's declared
the things that are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand. God's counsel. Now what that
tells you is this, it's not God looking down through the telescope
of time and learning anything. Because God is omniscient, He's
all knowing. He didn't look down through and
find out something and then change, He's immutable. But it's all
His counsel. It's the result of his infinite
wisdom, his mind. And he determined it and he said,
my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. I'll do everything
I wanna do. Now you can't say that and I
can't say that. I can't say my counsel shall
stand and I'm gonna do all my pleasure, everything I wanna
do, everything that pleases me. But God can and God did. And
then he uses this example in verse 11, calling a ravenous
bird from the East, the man that executed my counsel from a far
country. Now that's a reference to a man
named Cyrus, who was the emperor or the king of Persia, who was
set up by God. And this man was an idolater
now, he wasn't a believer. but he was used by God to come
down and deliver the people of Judah out of their Babylonian
captivity. And God said, that's already
set. God was gonna bring them into captivity for their sins.
They were gonna stay there 70 years. And then according to
his counsel and his desire, he brought them back out of that
captivity and brought them back to their homeland, even though
they didn't possess it because they were always under foreign
governments from then on. But God had determined already
to keep the tribe of Judah together because it was through Judah
that the humanity of Christ would come into the world. Christ is
God manifest in the flesh and according to the flesh He was
made of the seed of David, the tribe of Judah. And God said
back in Genesis chapter 49, I think it is, when Jacob was on his
deathbed blessing his sons, and he said, when he came to Judah,
he said, the scepter will not depart from Judah until Shiloh
comes, Shiloh meaning peace, and that peace is in Christ,
peace between God and sinners, not peace in the world. Well,
now, He says, I have purposed it, I will also do it. Nothing's
gonna stop it. Daniel said that, or actually
Nebuchadnezzar said that, when God brought him down and put
him out in the field acting like an animal, and he lost his senses,
and when he came back to his senses in Daniel four, he said
that this God is so big and so powerful and so, none can stay
his hand, or none can say, what doest thou? In other words, none
can even question him. That's how powerful God is. the
sovereign God, God's sovereign purpose. Well, it all comes down
to this. Now, people will look at these
truths as they're revealed in the Bible, and they'll reason
so sinfully, fleshly, I did it before God saved me. And they'll
say, well, if that's the case, it doesn't matter what I do.
I don't have to seek the Lord. I don't have to try to do right.
I'll just, you know, just throw caution to the wind. Que sera,
sera, whatever will be, will be. But you see, you are not
God. And I am not God. As one old guy said, there is
a God and I ain't him. We're accountable and responsible
for the things God reveals to us. Somebody told me one time,
they said, well, you believe in the elect, why don't you just
preach to the elect? Well, who are they? God commands
me to preach to anybody who'll listen. Everyone that I get an
opportunity to preach to. He also tells me to some, it
will be the saver of death unto death. They'll walk away unaffected
and will not believe. To others, it's the savor of
life and the life. How does God reveal His chosen
people, His sheep? Through the preaching of the
gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit. So that if you're hearing
what I'm saying and you come to faith in Christ and repentance
of dead works, what's happened to you? Well, God has sent his
spirit to give you life from the dead in the new birth and
give you faith to believe it and receive it, faith and repentance
and perseverance. And so listen to what he says
in verse 12. Now this God who declares the
end from the beginning, whose sovereign purpose will be done
without fail, he says this, here's the command, verse 12, he says,
hearken unto me, hear me, You stout-hearted, what is it to
be stout-hearted? It's to be proud. Be proud. You proud people, unbelieving,
proud, pride of sin, the sin of pride, rather, that are far
from righteousness. Oh, how far we are from righteousness. This is man in his natural state. He's far from righteousness.
He may be religious. He may be sincere. He may be
charitable. He may be a pillar of the community
and outwardly appear righteous to men, but in God's sight, by
nature, and by our works, we are all far from righteousness. The Bible says in Romans 3 and
verse 10, there's none righteous, no, not one. There's none good,
no, not one. There's none that seeketh after
God, no, not one. You see, if I can claim any righteousness
at all before God, it cannot be by my works or my efforts
or my decision. So where am I going to find?
The Bible tells us that God, in the salvation of sinners,
He requires righteousness. That's the perfection of the
law. And if we could determine in
our minds today never to sin again, we still have to deal
with past sins, but realizing that even if we did determine
in our minds never to sin again, we would fail because we are
sinful people. So what has to happen? Well,
God has to provide for his people the righteousness he requires.
And so listen to verse 13. I bring near my righteousness,
God's righteousness, the righteousness of God, and it shall not be far
off. You see, in false religion, righteousness
is something men and women try to attain, reach for, and it's
far off. But God says His righteousness
will not be far off, And he says, and my salvation shall not tarry. In false religion, salvation
is something that men wait for. They try to attain it. Some even
will make the statement, say, well, we'll see in the end. God
says, my salvation will not tarry, will not wait. And here's how
he'll do it. He says, I will place salvation
in Zion for Israel, my glory. Now, who is God's salvation? Well, think about this. When
Mary was with child, the Christ child, before she formally was
wed to Joseph, the angel came to Joseph and told him not to
put Mary away because the child conceived in her womb was conceived
by the Holy Ghost. And the angel said, his name
shall be called Jesus. for he shall save his people
from their sins. Who is God's salvation? Jesus
Christ. Who is the righteousness of God?
Jesus Christ in the glory of his person and in the power of
his finished work on the cross as the surety, the substitute,
and the redeemer of his people. And God's going to give this
salvation to all of his elect. He purposed it He counseled it
in his wisdom before the foundation. He purposed it and he will do
it. They shall be saved in the Lord. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2-3. Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia
31707. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.