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
as always, when I preach the gospel on this program, it's
my prayer that the Lord will bless you first and foremost
with his great salvation by his grace and with growth in grace
and in knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as we see more and
more of Christ in the scriptures. And with that in mind, today
we're gonna go back to the Old Testament in the book of Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah chapter 46. Isaiah 46. And the title of the
message today is The Near Righteousness of God. The near, N-E-A-R, The
Near Righteousness of God. And that title is taken from
verse 13. of Isaiah 46 which says where
God says, I bring near my righteousness. It shall not be far off and my
salvation shall not tarry or wait or delay and I will place
salvation in Zion for Israel my glory. Now I've mentioned
on this program before about how The Old Testament and the
New Testament both are volumes that set forth the glory of God
in the salvation of sinners through one person, the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Messiah, the Anointed One. In the Old Testament, He's the
one whom God promised, prophesied, pictured, and the one whom God
would send in the future. to establish the salvation of
his people, not just the Jews, physical Jews, but God's people,
God's elect out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation,
Jew and Gentile. And of course, in the New Testament,
except for the first four books, which are the Gospels, those
books say that Christ is here, present, and of course, you know
what happened. that death on the cross for His
people to redeem His people from their sins. And He ascended to
the Father, but He's coming back again. So Christ has come and
done that great work, finished the work. What is that work?
The summation of that work can be summarized in the word righteousness. And that's why I preach so much.
People ask me why I preach so much on righteousness, because
Christ is righteousness. Christ is my righteousness. The
gospel is the revelation of the righteousness of God. It's the
revelation of Christ as the savior of his people who satisfied the
justice of God and ensured their salvation. And so he's coming
again. So this is Christ in the Old
Testament. Now here, Isaiah, he prophesied
somewhere around 700 years before the actual coming of Christ in
time. And so he prophesied of Christ.
You can think about the great passages in Isaiah. The one that
comes to mind foremost, maybe in people's mind, is Isaiah 53. The man of sorrow is acquainted
with grief. The Lord hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all. That's a prophecy of Christ,
the suffering servant. And throughout Isaiah's prophecy,
he also prophesied of the future captivity of the nation of Judah,
the southern kingdom of Judah, Jerusalem being the capital.
Isaiah prophesied in the city of Jerusalem, and he prophesied
that God in the future was going to punish Israel, Judah, by sending
them into captivity. But now God wouldn't leave them
there, because God had a plan, a purpose, to bring the Messiah
through that nation. And it's amazing, but God providentially
and powerfully kept that nation together, even in their captivity. The tribe of Judah especially,
because that's the tribe that Christ was to be born of according
to his flesh. Born of the seed of David according
to the flesh. That was prophesied way back
in the book of Genesis, I think chapter 49, when Jacob was blessing
his children before his death, and he said, Judah, the lion's
whelp, he said, the scepter shall not depart from Judah till Shiloh
come. The scepter meaning the king,
the authority. Shiloh meaning peace. That's
Christ. That's what he's talking about. And he said, surely his
salvation, the word salvation, is a word that can be translated
and evolved into the name of Christ. His name shall be called
Jesus. What does that mean in the New
Testament? It means He shall save His people from their sins. That's what it means. When Moses
took the children of Israel out of Egypt and brought them to
the brink of the Red Sea, and they murmured and complained
in unbelief, and he says, stand still and see the salvation of
the Lord. That's the second time that that
term is used in the Bible. But it's all through because
it's Christ and salvation by the grace of God in Christ. Well,
Isaiah was God's prophet And God's prophets and preachers
always tell the good news. But what good news could there
come from Isaiah telling these people that they're gonna be
in captivity later on, Jeremiah tells them, for 70 years, and
then God'll bring them back, but they'll still be in captivity,
and they'll remain as a nation until the Messiah comes, and
then they would be obliterated as a nation. Well, what hope
is there then? Well, the hope that sinners have,
even the nation Israel, is not in physical nations. Our hope
is not in a physical nation. I tell people all the time, listen,
I am an avid patriot. I love my country, the United
States of America. and I would defend my country
and I don't want to see my country go on a downhill slide like some
of us think it's going on today. But my salvation is not the United
States of America. My salvation is the Lord Jesus
Christ, the grace of God. And in Israel, their salvation
was not in that earthly land or that earthly nation. It is
in the coming of Christ. And that's what Isaiah is telling
them here. The very reason that Israel even
existed as a nation was because God chose them to bring His salvation
through them according to the flesh. Christ, the God-man, would
come through that nation. And so we're to look to Christ,
not to that nation. They were to look forward to
Christ, the promise of God, and not to the nation. And that's
what he's saying. I want you to look at verse nine
of Isaiah 46. Listen to what he says here.
He says, remember the former things of old, for I am God and
there is none else. I am God and there is none like
me. Now, What he's telling them is
remember the former things of old is remember your history.
Look at what God had done for you in the past. Especially you
can go back to their captivity in Egypt and how God sovereignly,
powerfully, invincibly brought them out by a strong hand and
established them. So he's talking about their history,
but history from the viewpoint of God. Years ago, I was preaching
on this passage and some similar passages and talking about history,
human history. They say that if we don't know
history, we're doomed to repeat it, things like that. And I was
trying to make a point and I used a quote. And you may have heard this quote.
that history is just one damn thing after another. And a lady
in our congregation got offended because I said the word damn.
Well, the word damn is in the scriptures, folks. It's not a
curse word. God is the one who damns people
for their sins. He saves people for the grace
of God by the blood of Christ. So understand that. And I don't
know where the quote come from. Some say it was the famous historian
Arnold Toynbee, and he got it from another quotation which
says, life is just one damn thing after another. The way I heard
it, it was Henry Ford. A reporter was asking Henry Ford,
the Ford Motor Company, A reporter was asking Henry Ford how he
thought he would like to be remembered in history. And Ford answered
him, he said, history is just one damn thing after another.
So I don't know if that's true or if Ford was just quoting somebody. But here's my point. If we view
history just from the human point of view, my friend, that's all
it is, one damn thing after another. That's what the book of Ecclesiastes
is about. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. But here's the thing. Here's
my point. If we view history from God's
point of view, oh how glorious it is. Even the bad things. Romans
8, 28, all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to His purpose. It becomes an
entirely different thing, see. You look at the history of Israel.
It is a history that is laden with sin, selfishness, pride,
unbelief, idolatry, division. That's the history of man, not
just Israel. But listen to this, look at verse
nine again. Remember the former things of
old, for I'm God, there's none else. I'm God, there's none like
me. That's God's holiness, his uniqueness, his separateness. Verse 10, declaring the end from
the beginning. Now would you be amazed to hear
me say that you know what that's talking about? That's talking
about a term that people don't like today. Predestination. God declares the end from the
beginning. He declares it. He doesn't just
see it. He's not looking down through a telescope of time.
Now I can't declare the end from the beginning and you can't either.
Here's what I'm saying. I can tell you how this day started. That's the beginning. Because
it's past now. But I cannot tell you how it's
going to end. I don't know. I may find out
something this afternoon that will totally devastate me. I
may find out something this afternoon that will make me happy and joyous
and kick up my heels. I don't know. You know what? God does because He's declared
it. He knows the future because He's
declared the future. You say, well, I don't understand
all that. I didn't ask you to understand it. I don't understand
it, but it's true. Don't deny the providence and
the sovereignty of God because you don't understand it. Should
you understand? Let me tell you something. If
you understood that, you'd be God. We'd be worshiping you.
It's not subject to our understanding. His ways are so high above our
ways. His thoughts, that's what Isaiah
said. Who are we to reply, argue, debate
with God? Verse 10, he says, declaring
the end from the beginning, from ancient times of things that
are not yet done, saying, now listen to this, my counsel, that
is what God has purposed and determined, shall stand, and
I will do all my pleasure. Ephesians 111, God works all
things after the counsel of his own will. He's never taken by
surprise. There is no plan B because God's
one plan, plan A always works according to his sovereign will.
He even overrules evil to do good. This salvation and a relationship
with God is not a cosmic chess game where God makes his move
and we make our counter moves and then he figures out what
to do. No, no. But here's the point of it all.
Why is God revealing his predestinating purpose? His sovereignty in history,
providence, God's government. Here it is, look at verse 12.
Hearken unto me, now you hear me, God says. Heed what I say. Who? You who are stout-hearted
that are far from righteousness. That's a good description of
all of us by nature, stout-hearted. That means proud. That means
we think more highly of ourselves than we are. For example, I'll
give you a very popular example there. Wherever you are going
to church, okay? They may call themselves Christian
or whatever, I don't know. But if they teach salvation is
conditioned on you, my friend, they're promoting stout-heartedness. That's right. Salvation is not
conditioned on me. It's conditioned on Christ. And
those who are stout-hearted are far from righteousness. What
are they trying to attain? Well, somebody says, well, I
want to try to be good enough to go to heaven. Oh, you're far
from righteousness. Bible says there's none righteous,
no, not one. The Bible says by deeds of law
shall no flesh be justified, be made righteous. You're far
from righteousness. You see, in most churches, even
most churches that call themselves Christian today, and I know this
from experience, righteousness and salvation is something to
be attained. Something that's down the road
to be attained. Now, some people say, well, you
attain it by your works. Most people are more subtle than
that. No, you just believe. But you gotta keep on believing.
It is always in some way, at some time, in some degree, at
some point, it's something to be attained. Well, let me tell
you something. If salvation, forgiveness, righteousness,
blessings, and glory are something to be attained by your efforts,
You are far from righteousness, far from being right with God,
far from salvation, far from just being justified, being forgiven. And the more you try, the farther
you'll get. That's right. Hearken and so
listen to God. You say, well, I'm gonna go ask
my aunt or my grandma or my mama or my dad. No, listen to God. And if your aunt or grandma or
daddy or mama tells you something, check it out with God's word.
And here's what he says, look at verse 13. I bring near my
righteousness, God's righteousness, the near righteousness of God. Well, what is that exactly? Well,
it shall not be far off. It's not gonna be something that
you have to reach for and attain by your efforts, your will, or
your works. And my salvation. Now that word
salvation is the same word that we talked about. That is, when
you translate it out, it's Yeshua, Jesus, Joshua, Jesus. He's talking
about Christ here. Who is the near righteousness
of God? the righteousness that I cannot
work for and do not have, but the righteousness that comes
near by the grace of God." It's Christ. I bring near my righteousness. It shall not be far off. And
my salvation shall not tarry. You don't have to wait in the
future till you achieve certain things or do certain things or
jump through certain hoops, depending upon your denomination. He says,
I will place salvation, Christ, in Zion for Israel my glory. Now Zion there is a picture,
a type of the church. And Israel is the spiritual nation
of God's people. It's the Israel of God. And who
is the Zion and the Israel? The church is made up of all
who have been brought by God. Listen, it's God's elect, chosen
before the foundation of the world, based on God's sovereign
choice, nothing in us. It is those who have been redeemed
by the blood of Christ, those for whom he died. Christ didn't
die for everyone without exception. He died for Israel. Not just
the physical nation of Israel, but God's people who are regenerated
by the Spirit, born again by the Spirit, who are brought by
God to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Israel, the name Israel
means to prevail with God. How do I prevail? I'm a sinner.
If I were to argue with God or to plead my cause, I could not
answer him one of a thousand. He'd have a thousand and an innumerable
number of charges against me and I couldn't answer even one
of them. So how can I prevail with God? There's not but one
way. My friend, submit to the Christ of God, the near righteousness
of God. Now I wanna show you that over
in the book of Romans in chapter nine. And you'll see exactly,
this is a great application of this passage. God bringing near
his righteousness. And he's talking about how sinners
are justified, how they're saved. And he talked about the sovereignty
of God up there, and he says in verse 30, now this is Romans
nine, verse 30, he quoted Isaiah in verse 29, let's read verse
28. Well, I'll go back to verse 27.
Pretty soon we'll get to the whole chapter, won't we? But
no, let's read verse 27, Romans 9. Isaiah, that's Isaiah. He also cried concerning Israel. And here's what Isaiah said.
Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the
sea. Now that's the nation here. As the number be as the sand
of the sea. A remnant, not the whole nation now, but a remnant
shall be saved. God's elect out of that nation,
just like God's elect out of the Gentiles. And he says, verse
28, he will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness,
that's the finished work of Christ, because a short work will the
Lord make upon the earth. Christ came to this world and
lived 33 and a half years. And in all that time, what did
he do? As culminated by his death, he
took away the sins of his people, Jew and Gentile. he established
righteousness. Very short work he made of it.
He finished it in righteousness. In verse 29, and as Isaiah said
before, except the Lord of Sabaoth, that's the Lord of a great army,
it means he's invincible, hath left us a seed, Israel, we had
been a Sodom and been made like a Gomorrah. If it weren't for
God's small remnant out of that nation who were brought to faith
in Christ, God's elect, the nation would have been like Sodom and
Gomorrah. In other words, they'd have been completely obliterated, every
Jew. So verse 30, what shall we say
then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness,
have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which
is of faith. The Gentiles didn't have the law of Moses. The Jews
did. Now the Gentiles had law, but
they didn't follow after righteousness in the law of Moses. But God's
people out of the Gentiles, the elect among the Gentiles, they
found righteousness. But which righteousness? Not
of the law, not of works, of faith. Now what is the righteousness
of faith? It's not the righteousness of
your choice. In other words, you choose and
that makes you righteous. No, it's Christ. Christ is the righteousness
of faith. They trusted Him. So look in
verse 31. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness,
hath not attained to the law of righteousness." They didn't
attain it, they reached for it, but they didn't make it. They
couldn't grab hold on it, they couldn't have it. Verse 32, wherefore
or why? Because they sought it not by
faith. What is it to seek righteousness by faith? It's to seek it in
Christ and find it in Christ. but as it were by the works of
the law. That's why they didn't attain
it. They were trying to work their way there. It was conditioned
on them. See? And so he says, for they
stumbled at that stumbling stone. The stumbling stone there is
Christ. Verse 33, as it is written, behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling
stone and a rock of offense. That's Christ. You see, they
stumbled over it because Christ would not allow them. He wouldn't
speak peace to them based upon their efforts. And whosoever
believeth on him shall not be ashamed. If you believe in Christ,
if you have his righteousness imputed to you, received by faith,
you won't be ashamed. You won't be found naked in the
eyes of God's justice. And look at chapter 10, verse
one. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel
is that they might be saved. Verse two, for I bear them record.
that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
They're religious, they're dedicated, they're sincere, they're diligent,
but ignorantly. What are they ignorant of? Verse
three, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going
about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God. They refuse the righteousness
of God. They refuse the near righteousness
of God, of which Isaiah prophesied, of whom Isaiah prophesied. Well,
who is the near righteousness of God? Look at verse four of
Romans 10. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. That word end,
there's an interesting word. It means the finishing of the
law, the completion. the perfection, the fulfillment
of the law. It's the exact same word that
Christ used on the cross in John 19, 30, when he said, it is finished. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believeth. And so going
back to our text, listen to it again. You see, God's in control.
He's working all things after the counsel of his own will.
Now you can use that truth to be a fatalist if you want to.
You know, I've had people tell me that. Well, if I believed
that, I wouldn't, I'd just go out here and sin as much as I
want to. I won't seek the Lord. Well, here's what God says in
verse 12 of Isaiah 46. You hearken unto me. You see, what God does in his
sovereign providence, in his predestinating purpose, really,
that's none of your business. That's the secret things that
belong to God. And whenever sinners try to operate
in that realm or make their choices in that realm, you know what
you're all doing? You're trying to play God. And
you're not big enough for that. I'm not big enough for that.
So you hearken unto him, you stout-hearted that are far from
righteousness. I bring near my righteousness. It shall not be far off, and
my salvation shall not tarry, and I will place salvation in
Zion for Israel. My glory. The near righteousness
of God. 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 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.TheLetterRofGrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.