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. I'd like to welcome you to our
program today. I'm glad you could join us. And if you'd like to
follow along in your Bibles, I'll be preaching from Isaiah,
the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament, Isaiah the prophet,
chapter 32, Isaiah chapter 32. And the title of the message
is The Work of Righteousness, The Work of Righteousness. And
of course, what I'll be talking about is the work of Christ.
as the surety, the substitute and redeemer of his people in
bringing forth in his obedience unto death by the cross, by his
blood, a righteousness that enables God to justify sinners like us. And remember what it means to
be justified, if you don't know. It means to be forgiven of all
our sins on a just ground. Not just forgiven, somebody says,
well, I'll just forgive you. No, God does forgive, but he
must do so on a just ground. And then justified means to be
made right with God, righteous before God, stand before God,
not guilty, and righteous in his sight. And so we're gonna
talk about the work of righteousness. But here in Isaiah 32, the prophet
Isaiah was inspired by God the Holy Spirit to write of the prophecy,
the future coming of the Messiah, to make all things right for
his people, and his people, which are God's elect out of every
tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation, known as they are brought by
God to faith in Christ. And this was to be an encouragement
for Israel the nation Israel, which was so rebellious. You
see, Israel, the history of Israel is a history of disobedience
and rebellion. But understand this about Israel.
You know, and I think some people just have a problem here. The
history of Israel and its disobedience and its rebellion and idolatry,
sinfulness and depravity, is a microcosmic picture of the
whole human race as fallen in Adam and born dead in trespasses
and sins. I think a lot of people when
they read the Old Testament, they act as if they would have
done better under the Old Covenant than the nation Israel did. And
my friend, that's just self-righteousness. The Old Covenant, the law of
Moses, the law that was given on Mount Sinai, was not a covenant
of salvation. It was a covenant of conviction.
It was a covenant that was given, a law given, to show them their
sinfulness, their depravity, and their need to totally depend
upon God and Him alone for all salvation. Well, that's us too. You see, the Bible says there's
none righteous, no not one. There's none that doeth good,
no not one, in God's sight. If any of us are going to be
saved, whether we're Jew or Gentile, it's going to be by grace, through
the righteousness, the work of righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what Isaiah is telling
them. You see, he starts off. prophesying of a king. Look at
verse one of Isaiah 32. Now, we won't be able to go through
all these verses verbatim, but I'm gonna go through the first
part and the last part, and I'll fill in just with a summary,
the middle, because, and you read the whole chapter. I'm not
taking it out of context. But look at verse one of Isaiah
32. He says, behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes
shall rule in judgment. Now, who's he talking about?
Who is this king? After Israel was conquered by
the Babylonians, which was a few hundred years later than Isaiah,
or about a hundred years maybe, some say, they never had a king
that had sovereign rule in Israel or Judah, because they were always
under captivity. But the king here shall reign
in righteousness. He's talking about Christ, the
king of kings. And he will reign in righteousness. His reign will be a just reign. Now, we have to understand that
at the forefront of the gospel of salvation is this word righteousness,
which is justice. God's justice. If you were to
ask most people today, what is the leading attribute of God
that comes through in the gospel, they would say love. Well, my
friend, God's love does come through in the true gospel, but
that's not the leading attribute. The leading attribute is God's
justice, his righteousness. What I'm saying is this, the
gospel tells us that God must be just when He saves sinners. He cannot save me, forgive me,
He cannot love me, or He cannot have mercy upon me or be gracious
to me, except on a just ground. He must be just when He justifies. So God is a loving Father, but
He also must be a righteous judge. God is a gracious forgiver, but
he must be righteous in himself. He cannot do one without the
other. So this King who's coming, who is Christ the Lord, he'll
reign in righteousness, and it says, and princes shall rule
in judgment. Now, who are they? I'll tell
you exactly who they are. He's talking about gospel preachers. You see, we rule in judgment
as we preach Christ, the savior of his people. We preach the
love of God, not to all without exception. That's an unjust love. You say, if I just look at you
and say, well, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for
your life. I'm not ruling in judgment there.
I'm telling you a lie. God does love his people, but
not outside of Christ. Bible says God hates all workers
of iniquity. Now God's hatred is not a temper
tantrum. It's not a selfish sinful hatred.
It's his righteous indignation, his righteous judgment and wrath
upon sinners where sin is imputed. And here's what I'm telling you.
Listen to me very carefully. If you want to experience the
love of God, look to Christ. There is no love from God to
sinners outside of Christ. If you die without Christ, without
being washed in His blood and clothed in His righteousness,
you'll die under the hatred of God, the just hatred of God. You'll get exactly what you deserve.
You say, well, I don't deserve that. Well, you don't know yourself
and you don't believe the Bible. If God ever were to give me what
I deserve and what I've earned, it would be hatred, it would
be wrath, it would be hell. But God loves his people in Christ. He told Jeremiah, I've loved
you with an everlasting love. Well, how could he do that? Jeremiah
was a sinner in Christ. In 1 John 4 10, here in his love,
not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave his son
to be the propitiation, the sin bearing sacrifice who brought
justice through his blood. who brought in righteousness,
a propitiation for our sins. That's love. For God so loved
the world. That's not everybody in the world.
That's the world of His people that He gave His only begotten
Son on a just ground, you see, that whosoever believeth might
have everlasting life. Believe in Him, believe in the
one who justifies the ungodly. Well, look at verse two of Isaiah
32. It says, and a man, now that could be translated the man,
shall be as a hiding place from the wind. Who is this man? This
is the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he'll be a hiding
place from the wind. He'll hide us in the cleft of
the rock, hide his people in the cleft of the rock, which
is Christ, from the wind, the wind of God's wrath, and a cover
from the tempest, cover us from the storm. Christ is the hiding
place of His people. In Christ, the storm of God's
just wrath cannot touch God's people, because who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Who can condemn us? It's Christ
that died. Yea, rather, is risen again,
seated at the right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession
for us. And he says in verse two, he
says, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great
rock in a weary land. Christ is the water of life,
rivers of water, the fountain of living waters, welling up
inside of his people through his word and his spirit, quenching
their thirst with the word of God. In a dry place, that's what
we are. in this world, in ourselves. We're in a dry place, but He's
the water of life, and He's a great rock. Remember the rock that
followed the children of Israel through the wilderness, and Moses
struck it, and water came from the rock? That's Christ. Verse three it says, Listen to
this, it said, and the eyes of them that see shall not be dim
and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. That is those
who see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and who
hear and heed the word of God. Now remember what Christ said
in John chapter three, talking to Nicodemus. He said, you must
be born again or you cannot see the kingdom of God, kingdom of
heaven. He says, you must be born again or you cannot enter.
Remember he told his disciples, blessed are your eyes for they
see, blessed are your ears for they hear. What he's talking
about is spiritual life. You have physical eyes to see,
physical ears to hear, but do you have spiritual eyes to see
the value, the glory, the worth, the importance, the life and
death issues of the Word of God and hear them. It means to obey
them, to heed them. We ought to give the more earnest
heed, the writer of Hebrews said, to the things which we've heard.
This is life and death, you see. This is not just religion. Religion
on the whole is sickening. This is not just human morality
and efforts. This is not the dignity of man.
This is salvation. by the King of righteousness,
the Lord of glory, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says in verse
four, the heart also of the rash, that means those who act too
quickly, shall understand knowledge and the tongue of the stammerer
shall be ready to speak plainly. Preaching the gospel, the heart,
the new heart, that God gives in the new birth. Now, from verse
five down to verse around 14, what he's talking about is the
desolation of Israel, the sin of Israel, and how that Israel
is a sinful nation, a sinful nation. That's how Isaiah started
out his prophecy, in talking about the sinfulness and the
depravity of Israel. But as I said earlier, Don't
get the impression that that lets us off the hook, because
the Bible teaches that what Israel was as a nation under the old
covenant, which was rebellious, sinful, stout-hearted, stiff-necked,
all of that, unbending, that's a picture of you and I, all of
us, by nature. Some, as I said, some people
think they could have done better. You know, I've heard people say,
well, I wish I could have been born back in the days of Moses.
Are you kidding me? That law being burdened down
upon Israel and they broke it? Jeremiah prophesied of that.
He said the new covenant's not gonna be like that, that covenant
that they broke. And the reason the new covenant's
not like that is the new covenant is salvation conditioned on Christ
and not on me or not on you or not on the Israelites. So they
were rebellious, but look at what's happening here. Isaiah
points them to Christ. Look at verse 15 of Isaiah 32. He said, until the Spirit be
poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful
field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. That's images, symbols of God
bringing in the fruit of the harvest, his people, Jew and
Gentile, into the kingdom. We see a picture of that, you
might say an inauguration of it at Pentecost in Acts chapter
two, when Peter stood and preached the gospel. And I think of 3,000
were converted, and then later on 5,000. And then the gospel
was shot out all over the world, mainly through the apostle Paul,
but through others. And God began to raise up people
out of the Gentiles. And that's the fruitful field.
Christ spoke of that in John chapter 12 when he talked about
his death. He said, except a seed of wheat
fall into the ground and die, it won't bear fruit, but if it
die, it'll bring forth much fruit. And that's the fruit of his death,
the fruit of his righteousness, which is the salvation of his
people, God's elect all over the world. That's the fruit of
the harvest. And he says here in verse 16,
Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness and righteousness
remain in the fruitful field. There's the preaching of the
gospel. Judgment shall dwell there. Right judgment, righteousness. Now, to whom is that addressed? It's to the people whom God loves. It's to the people whom God has
shown mercy. It's to the people to whom God
has been gracious. And he says in that love and
that mercy and that grace, there will be judgment and righteousness,
and it'll remain in the fruitful field. Now listen, remember the
gospel, what the Bible says about the gospel. It's not just love,
love, love, and you love everybody. And God loves everybody and wants
to do this for you and wants to do that for you. If you'll
do this, oh, just please accept it. That's not the gospel. Romans
1, 16 and 17. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and the Greek also
or the Gentile. Verse 17, for therein in that
gospel is the righteousness of God revealed. From faith to faith,
as it is written, the justified, that's who the saved are, the
justified shall live by faith, shall live by looking to Christ
as their righteousness. And that's what he says in verse
17. Look at it. And the work of righteousness
shall be peace. Now there's the work of righteousness.
Now what is this work of righteousness? It's the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ as the surety, the substitute, and the redeemer of his people.
Remember those three things. It's the work of Christ as our
surety, the surety of his people. Now who is, what is a surety?
A surety is one who takes responsibility for the debt of another. And
in the everlasting covenant of grace, all the sins of God's
elect were accounted to Christ. He was made surety of a better
covenant. His righteousness was imputed
to them. And in order for him to make
that good and to set that in motion, he had to come and substitute
himself. That's the second word, surety,
substitute. He had to take our place. He
was bruised for our transgressions. Bruised for our iniquities. All
the iniquities of His sheep were laid upon Him. He stood in the
place. He suffered the just for the
unjust. He died for his people. He died
for sinners. And so he substituted. And in
order to, as a substitute, he had to shed his blood. He had
to die because the wages of sin is death. Sin imputed to him
brought death, and that satisfied the justice of God, redeeming
his people. He bought us back, bought his
people back. That's the work of righteousness.
In doing that, he brought forth an everlasting righteousness
that enables God to be just and yet show mercy, to be just and
be gracious, to be just and to be a loving God. And whose work
is it? Well, it's the work of Christ. It's not your work for Christ.
It's not what I do for him. It's all what he did for me.
The Bible says in Hebrews 10 and verse 14, for by one offering,
he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. It's the
work of Christ. By his one sacrifice for sin,
he put away all the sins of his people. And what is the effect
of it? The effect of righteousness,
that work of righteousness, the effect of Christ, quietness and
assurance forever. What is that quietness? That's
the peace that only God can give through His Son that passes all
understanding. It's peace with God by the blood
of the cross of Christ. He made peace. He is the prince
of peace. He is the one who reconciled
God to us and us to God. It's on that ground. You see,
God's been reconciled to his people through the blood of his
son. Now the command of the gospel
is be ye reconciled to God. See, we're born dead in trespasses
and sins. We're born as enemies of God. And the gospel command for us
is be ye reconciled to God on the same ground upon which God
is reconciled to us. And what is that ground? It's
the imputed righteousness of Christ. Second Corinthians 5.21,
for God made Christ to be sin, Christ who knew no sin, for us,
that God, that he might be made the righteousness of God, that
we might be made, rather, the righteousness of God in him. That's the ground. And that peace
comes on the ground of what Christ accomplished in His death on
the cross. And assurance forever. The assurance comes from His
being our surety. We have an assurance of salvation
because it's not conditioned on ourselves. It's conditioned
on Christ, who is my surety. And I know this. He died, He
was buried, He arose again, He ascended unto the Father, He's
seated at the right hand of the Father. And I know He is able
to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day, because
He ever lives to make intercession for me. Now, what have I committed
unto Him? I'll tell you exactly what I've
committed unto Him. My whole salvation is committed
to Christ. None of it's committed to me.
If any of it were committed to me, there'd be no assurance,
no real godly assurance. There'd be self-righteousness,
but no assurance. But because of the work of righteousness,
there's peace. And the effect of righteousness,
quietness and assurance forever. And look at verse 18. He says,
and my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation and in
sure dwellings and in quiet resting places. That's the state of God's
people when they look to Christ as the author and finisher of
their faith. And he says in verse 19, when it shall hail, coming
down on the forest and the city shall be low in a low place.
We're still going to be in that peaceable habitation, those sure
dwellings and in quiet resting places. That's the work of righteousness. Verse 20, blessed are you that
sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the
ox and the ass." In other words, as you go on about your daily
life, this is the work of righteousness that brings that peace, that
quietness, that assurance forever and ever. And whatever we face,
I mean, this is true. You know, the Lord said to His
disciples, He said, in the world you shall have tribulation, but
be of good cheer for I have overcome the world. That's real truth. It's not just some kind of a
false claim or some kind of a goal to be reached. No, what he's
saying is that when we look at Jesus Christ, who is the same
today, yesterday, today, and forever, and rest in Him. That's what the Sabbath is all
about. It's not about a day. The Sabbath is about Christ resting
in Him who did and finished all the work, the work of righteousness. Hebrews chapter four teaches
that. The Christian Sabbath is not a day. We meet on Sunday,
the Lord's Day, the first day of the week, as it is our time
to meet together to worship. But Sunday's not our Sabbath.
Christ is our Sabbath. Because Christ performed, accomplished,
and finished the work of righteousness. And that word finished is the
key word. John 19 30, Christ said, it is finished. In Romans
10, 4, it says, Christ is the end, that's the same word, finishing,
the finish of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. So
that if you believe the gospel and you rest in Christ, you see
that he is all the righteousness that you need in order to attain
or maintain salvation, in order to be right with God. It's his
righteousness imputed. And that's the work of righteousness. That's the only thing that'll
save people from their sins and give them the godly assurance
and peace, quietness, rest that God has for his people in Christ. Nothing else will do it. Nothing
else will accomplish it. Even when it shall hail. See,
all these are pictures. These are symbols. When it hails,
coming down on the forest, the city shall be low or withered
away in a low place. All the things of this earth,
they're passing away. They're going away. Death, physical
death, the body says, or the book of Romans says, in Romans
8, 10, that this body, this human body that we inhabit, is dead
because of sin. But the Holy Spirit is life because
of righteousness. Who is righteousness? Christ,
the King who shall reign in righteousness. Christ who did the work of righteousness. So eternal life. The Bible says,
Romans 5.21, as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace
reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our 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 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia 3-1-7-0-7. Contact us
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today and may the Lord be with you. you