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 today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles with the message today, I'll be preaching from
the book of Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, chapter 32. Isaiah
chapter 32, and my main text is verse 17 of that chapter. which speaks of the work of righteousness. And that's the title of today's
message, The Work of Righteousness. Let me just read these verses
here in the last few verses of this chapter. It says in verse
17 of Isaiah 32, and the work of righteousness shall be peace
and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever. And verse 18 says, and my people
shall dwell in a peaceable habitation. Sounds really fantastic, doesn't
it? And in sure dwellings and in
quiet resting places. Now, verse 17 is my text, the
work of righteousness. And you know, one of the things
about the Old Testament is that if you know the truth of the
gospel, the truth of Jesus Christ crucified, risen from the dead,
ascended to the Father to make intercession for His people.
If you really know it, you can preach Christ just as well from
the Old Testament as you can the New Testament. You can see
the glory of Christ because the Old Testament is a document different
books of the Bible written over a period of time by different
men used of God, written by God using different men, that'd be
the better way to say it. And it's pointing to the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's pointing to His coming into
the world, His keeping of the law, His obedience unto death
for the sins of His people, and His establishment of righteousness
by which God justifies His people, forgives their sins, declares
them righteous in His sight, sets them right with Him, and
from which they have life from the dead in the new birth. And
that's what the Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi is about. And in the Old Testament we see
Christ in type, and picture, foreshadowings. There are Hebrew
types. One of the main types is the
sacrificial lamb, for example. God commanded His people, not
just Israel in the Old Covenant, but even before then. He commanded
Adam and Eve after the fall. The Bible speaks of the fall
of man in Adam. We all fell into sin and death.
We were ruined by the fall. And as a result, we're born dead,
spiritually dead in trespasses and sins. We have physical life,
emotional life, you might say. We have mental life, we have
mental capacities. But by nature, as we are naturally
born, we don't have any spiritual life. And that is seen in the
fact that we have no spiritual bent toward the things that glorify
God. And that's why we must be born
again. But the Old Testament, look at Christ in type, the sacrificial
lamb, and what God was teaching there, that in order for a sinner
to be saved, the penalty of sin must be satisfied, justice must
be satisfied by one who is able, willing to do that for his people. And he pictured that. He illustrated
that. He typified that by the sacrificial
lamb. And of course, all of the lambs
that were slain from Genesis on up through the coming of Christ,
they were pictures of Christ. They were types of Christ. Christ
is THE Lamb who was slain for the sins of His people all over
this world. His elect, His sheep, the Good
Shepherd gives His life for the sheep. In Revelation 5, we see
that glorious scene where no man is worthy or able to open
the book of God's purpose and God's providence and God's goal. But then comes the Lamb. Worthy
is the Lamb that was slain. So there we see Christ in time.
And then in the Old Testament we see Christ in prophecy. That is a prophecy. And a lot
of times the prophecies come out of scriptures that have two
applications. My pastor used to say the scripture
is bifocal. You can look at it this way and
you can look at it this way. And this prophecy of Isaiah is
a prophecy of Christ, but there are some physical applications
to a king named Hezekiah. Look at verse one of Isaiah 32. It says, behold, a king shall
reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. Now,
there is an application to King Hezekiah, who was king in Judah,
in Jerusalem, and his just rule. He was one of the godly kings.
He wasn't perfect, you see, but he would come and reign in justice.
That's what righteousness is, it's justice. But the full, complete,
perfect application of these verses here has to do with the
Lord Jesus Christ, who truly is a King, King of Kings, Lord
of Lords, who truly will reign in righteousness, the perfection
of His obedience unto death, And his princes shall rule in
judgment. Who are his princes? They are
preachers of the gospel. And how do they rule in judgment?
They preach the gospel. Whenever Isaiah says that God
will bring judgment to the Gentiles, he means the gospel. Because
in the gospel, we see God's judgment against the sins of his people
as they have been imputed to Christ, charged to Christ. Christ
went under the judgment of God, satisfied justice by his obedience
unto death, and brought forth righteousness by which God is
just to justify the ungodly. And then verse two, listen to
this. It says, and a man or that man, the man, shall be as a hiding
place from the wind, the wind of God's wrath, and a covert
from the tempest, shielding us from the wrath of God, as rivers
of water in a dry place. Christ said, I am the water of
life, you remember. All of this applies to him spiritually
and eternally. As the shadow of a great rock,
or a heavy rock, a big rock, in a weary land. You remember
he told Peter, he said, upon this rock I will build my church.
That's talking about himself. Wasn't talking about Peter. Now
throughout this whole chapter, and I don't have time in this
message to read it all, but he's talking about the judgment of
God coming upon the people of Judah because of their idolatry,
because of their sin. Now Hezekiah, he himself was
a godly king, and he ruled in judgment, justice, but the people,
listen to what he says. in some of these verses. He talks
about verse seven, the instruments also of the churl are evil. He devises wicked devices to
destroy the poor, lying words, even when the needy speaketh
right. That's just one of the many descriptions
of Israel in their rebellion. Or Judah, the southern kingdom
in their rebellion and their sin. And my friend, that's a
picture of you and me in our natural state. We have all sinned
and come short of the glory of God. And God's judgment will
come. What does it take to put away
our sins? What does it take for God to
forgive me of my sins? What does it take for God to
set me right with Him? And the answer is, it takes righteousness. But you and I don't have that.
And you and I cannot work it by our best efforts to be righteous. What is righteousness? It's perfect
satisfaction to God's justice. I cannot do that. You cannot
do that. For we have all sinned and come
short of the glory of God. And what that means is that even
our best efforts to work that righteousness fall short of what
God requires. So where are we gonna find righteousness? We're gonna find it in Christ.
in Him alone. And so when verse 17 speaks of
the work of righteousness, here's what you need to see. You need
to see that that's the work of Christ. That's not your work. That's not my work. Our efforts
to make ourselves righteous before God in order to be saved, in
order to be blessed, in order to be accepted, are the evil
deeds that the gospel exposes. Evil not because we're insincere,
not because they're immoral in men's eyes, but evil because
they do not glorify and honor God as a just God and a Savior. They don't honor His justice,
they don't honor His truth, His righteousness, they do not honor
His love or His mercy or His grace. The only one who can honor
God's justice and truth and righteousness and mercy and love and grace
is Christ as the surety. and the substitute and the redeemer
of his people who works righteousness for them. And what he's saying
here in verse 17 in speaking of a, and this is a prophecy
of Christ, that king that shall reign in righteousness who's
spoken of in verse one, points there, what the prophet Isaiah
is doing by the Spirit of God is pointing the people of Judah
who are under the old covenant, pointing them to the future of
the coming promised Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he
says in verse 17, now listen to this, and the work of righteousness,
the work of Christ, not the work of Hezekiah, not the work of
the people, not our work, salvation's not by works, it's by grace. If righteousness come by the
law, Paul wrote, Christ died in vain. Christ came to die in
order to establish and work this righteousness. And how did he
work it? By his obedience unto death as
the surety, the substitute and redeemer of his people. The gospel
is the revelation of the righteousness of God. Well, that's the entire
value, merit, worth of Christ's obedience unto death. And He
is the King of Kings. He's God manifest in the flesh. Who is Jesus Christ? These are
gospel issues. These are issues of life and
death. If you deny the glorious person of Christ, the constitution
or nature of His person, you don't know Christ. You don't
know the gospel. He is God. manifest, made known
in human flesh, a human body and so without sin. And as God,
man, God-man, he walked this earth and kept the law, went
to the cross, suffered unto death for his people. Not for everybody,
but for his people. Because here's the work of righteousness.
Now listen to this. He says, and the work of righteousness
shall be peace. There's not one sinner for whom
Christ died who will not be at peace with God. And this speaks
of peace both ways. God is at peace with his people. Based upon what basis? Well,
somebody might say, well, based on his love. Well, his love is
involved. God loves his own. But love without
justice is an empty love. That's why he says, he doesn't
say the work of love shall be at peace, it was a work of love. But the main issue that has to
be settled in order for God to be glorified is his justice. And so he says the work of righteousness
shall be peace. Well, how is love involved there?
How is mercy and grace? Well, think about 1 John chapter
four and verse 10. which says this, it says, herein
is love, not that we love God. In other words, God loving me
was not conditioned on or based upon my loving him. His love
toward me was unconditional. So herein is love, not that we
loved him, but that he loved us, he loved his people, not
everybody without exception, but he loved his people. and
sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Now that word propitiation
means satisfaction. Satisfaction of what? The justice
of God against me. My sins were charged, the debt,
you might say it this way, the debt of my sins was charged to
Christ, laid to His account, put upon Him. He was made sin,
2 Corinthians 5, 21 says. That means the sins of His people
were imputed, charged, accounted to Him. And He died in my place,
taking the wrath of God that I earned and that I deserved
upon Himself. And in His death, He drank damnation
dry There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ because
he drank the cup of God's wrath, the cup of damnation, completely
dry, every drop. And as my substitute, he did
that through his death on the cross, and he established by
his redemptive work, he paid for my sins, paid for me, bought
me lock, stock, and barrel. He redeemed me with his blood.
And in that, he brought forth this righteousness. And out of
that righteousness comes peace between God and His people. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians
chapter five and verse 19 that God was in Christ reconciling,
that means bringing at peace, the world unto Himself. That's
not everybody in the world. That's every one of God's own
in that world. His elect, Jew and Gentile. whom he chose before the foundation
of the world and gave to Christ. And so he was in, God was in
Christ with having in mind to satisfy the justice of God in
their place. So God alone does this work in
Christ. God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself, not imputing, not charging their sins unto
them. And so, if we're in Christ, if
this work of righteousness has established peace between God
and myself, it means this, it means my sins cannot be charged
to me. It means I cannot be condemned.
It means I'm going, it means at some point in time, God will
bring me to life and faith and obedience. Not to be saved, but
because I already am. Well, look back at Isaiah 32,
17. It says, the work of righteousness
shall be peace. That's peace between God and
sinners based upon the righteousness of Christ. And it says the effect
of righteousness. Here's the effect of it. Quietness,
calmness, and assurance forever. Now that tells us that all for
whom Christ died shall be saved, they'll be at peace with God,
God's reconciled to them, they'll be reconciled to God through
the preaching of the gospel when the Holy Spirit gives them life
in the new birth and brings them to faith, that faith which is
the gift of God. And as far as salvation is concerned,
As far as a right relationship with God is concerned, there'll
be quietness and assurance forever. They cannot be lost. You folks
who claim to believe in Christ, but you say that a person can
be saved and then lost, my friend, that is totally, totally anti-biblical. It's anti-gospel. It's salvation
conditioned on you, the sinner, rather than the gospel work of
salvation conditioned totally, completely, perfectly on Jesus
Christ who fulfilled all those conditions. The Bible says, for
by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified,
those who are set apart in Him. That's Hebrews 10, 14. but his righteousness imputed
to his people from which they have life from the dead, born
again and brought to faith in Christ, when it comes to my relationship
with God, that'll bring quietness, calmness, and assurance forever,
assurance of salvation. Now I have troubles in this world,
we all do. Every believer, while we walk
in the darkness and the wilderness of this world, still here on
earth, we're gonna have times that are unsettling and hurtful,
sorrowful, but when we look to Christ, and my friend, make no
mistake about this, he's the one who keeps us looking to him.
looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. When
I come to God in prayer, in worship, in praise, in obedience, I have
a calmness and a peace and assurance, not because of my circumstances. I may be in trouble. Not because
of my situation. I may be crying my eyes out,
sorrowful. But as I look to Christ, there's
a quietness, a calmness and an assurance forever. And you know
what that tells us? Do you have assurance of salvation? Now think about this. This would
be a good point of self-examination for you. Do you claim to be sure
for heaven as if you were already there? That's what some preachers
say. This assurance. Do you believe that you have
assurance of salvation? Now some of you may not. But
if you do, ask yourself this question, upon what do I base
that assurance? Upon what? And there could be
a lot of different answers. There's only one right answer,
okay? But upon what do you base your
assurance? And let me tell you this, what this verse teaches
and what the whole Bible teaches us is this. that whatever gives
me a quietness and calmness and an assurance of salvation, it
must equal the perfection of righteousness. Because if whatever
gives me assurance of salvation falls short, then what is it? It's sin. Now it may appear righteous. It may appear moral. and you
may be sincere in it, but if it does not equal the perfection
of righteousness, the work of righteousness, it's a false hope. It's a false assurance. I'm afraid
you're living in a refuge of lies. Because you see, the assurance
that he's talking about here, it's based upon the work of righteousness.
It's based upon Christ. What is the ground of my assurance?
It's the work of righteousness that Christ accomplished in my
hand. It's Christ. It's Christ, who he is. My assurance
isn't based upon who I am. I try to be a good person. But
my assurance cannot be based upon that because all of my best
efforts fall short of the perfection of righteousness that can only
be found in Christ. I try to do right. And we ought
to try to do right. But my assurance of salvation
is not based on that. My assurance of salvation is,
as Hebrews 12, two puts it, looking unto Jesus. my salvation, the
author and the finisher of my faith. You say, well, why must
what I have assurance on or what I'm saved upon equal righteousness? Because God is holy. God is just. And he cannot, he cannot say,
bless, or commune with anything less than perfection of righteousness. That's why he sent Christ into
the world. to save His people from their
sins. That's why it's all wrapped up in Christ. Colossians 2.9
says, for in Christ, in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily, and you are complete in Him. My completeness, my perfection,
and my assurance is all in Christ. In Acts 17 31, I quoted on this
program all the time that God has commanded all men everywhere
to repent because he has appointed a day in which he will judge
the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained
in that he has given assurance unto all men in that he raised
him from the dead. Are you in any doubt that when
you stand before God at judgment, that the issue is, are you in
Christ? washed in His blood, clothed
in His righteousness, or do you stand there in your own merits?
If you have any doubt about that, I'm gonna tell you something.
Christ is risen from the dead. He's seated at the right hand
of the Father, ever living to make intercession for His people.
So whatever gives you assurance of salvation, if it's anything
less than the perfection of righteousness that can only be found in Christ,
it's a false hope. the work of righteousness, the
effect of righteousness. Look at verse 18 of Isaiah 32.
And because of all this, because of what Christ will do for them,
my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation. What is that peaceable
habitation? That's the kingdom of Christ.
That's the salvation and all of its blessings and ensure dwellings,
dwellings that cannot be destroyed. Dwellings that cannot cannot
go away dwellings that we cannot be kicked out of and in quiet
resting places We rest in Christ We rest in his finished work
The gospel is the proclamation of a work finished not a work
to be done And he says in verse 19. He says when it shall hail
Coming down on the forest and the city shall be low in a low
place in other words He says, when the wrath of God comes through,
verse 20, blessed are ye that sow beside all waters. Now, what
is it to sow beside all waters? It's to cling to, rest in Christ,
the living water. He's the living water. He told
the woman at the well, John 4, that if you only knew who was
speaking to you, you would ask him and he'd give you water.
that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass. What that means is that the people
of God, who naturally are different and apart, they'll work together.
They'll all drink from the same brook, the brook of Christ. They'll
all stand before God in the same righteousness, the righteousness
of Christ. over in the Old Testament that's
stated clearly. Well, 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
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today, and may the Lord be with you.