Turn in your Bibles with me to
the book of Isaiah chapter 1. Isaiah chapter 1. The title of
this message is a follow-up to last week's taken from verse
27 of Isaiah chapter 1. Zion shall be redeemed. Now last week I read through
these last few verses of the book of Isaiah chapter one and
just made some comments on it and this morning I simply want
to dwell on two main points for our understanding and in the
context of the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And the two main points I want
to deal in is this. What, number one, what or who
is Zion? You know, we hear that word Zion
or the term Zionist thrown around quite a bit sometimes in our
news media, especially with the turmoil that's in the Middle
East with Israel and the Arab countries. And a lot of the Arab
countries, the Muslims, they accuse the United States of being
Zionist. And what that means to them is
a political thing. It's a political term saying
that Israel wants to rule that area, that whole area, even them.
And they say Zion or Zionism. But that's not what Isaiah had
in mind. And that's not what we should
have in mind when we hear that term Zion. What is Zion? Or who
is Zion? That might be a better way of
asking it. And then the second question I want to deal with
is how is Zion redeemed? Now whoever or whatever Zion
is, he says here in verse 27, look at it, Zion shall be redeemed. You know what redemption is,
that's being bought back out of the slave market, out of bondage,
out of jail, somebody who pays the price, whatever that price
is, to set you free. That's what redemption is. And
of course, as you well know, if you're familiar with, if you
know the gospel, you know this very well. If you're familiar
with the scriptures, you know that redemption is the theme
of the Bible. It's redemption by the Lord Jesus
Christ. So who is Zion or what is Zion
and how is Zion redeemed? Well, what does this term Zion
mean? What is it talking about? Well, you know, back up in verse
21. of Isaiah when he says, how is the faithful city becoming
harlot? Now that faithful city is Zion. That's what he's talking about.
He identifies it as Zion here in verse 27. He says they become
a harlot. That's a fall. That's what he's
talking about. And he says it was full of judgment
and righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers. Now, spiritually
speaking, what he's talking about is that the gospels, anytime
in the Old Testament, you hear the terms judgment and justice
mentioned concerning the way God views people and a relationship
with God. You know what he's talking about?
He's talking about the gospel there. And I showed you that
last week over in Isaiah 9 when it's talking about the coming
of Christ into the world, his incarnation. God made flesh,
that's who Jesus Christ is, he's Emmanuel. God with us, he's the
God-man, that's his person. And in Isaiah 9 it said that
unto us a child is born, a son is given, the child meaning his
humanity, the son meaning his deity is a second person of the
Trinity. And why did he come? It says
to exercise judgment and justice, that's by his death on the cross
for the sins of his people, God's elect. He exercised it. And so what he's saying is in
this faithful city, the gospel was there, but it's fallen away.
And now they're murderers. He's talking about soul murder
there. You know what a soul murderer is? He's a preacher that tells
somebody a lie about how God saves sinners. That's a soul
murderer. Did you know that? I used to
be a soul murderer because I used to preach a false gospel. I used
to promote men and women, and myself, and I was deceived now.
I was just as deceived as then, that's the way it was. I used
to promote men and women on the broad road that led to destruction,
preaching in some way salvation conditioned on sinners, and not
on Christ and him alone. So what he's talking about is
fallen people. We fell in Adam, the scripture
says. We fell into sin and death, Romans chapter 5 and verse 12,
for by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.
Death passed upon all men, for all have sinned. That's what
the scripture teaches. So whatever this Zion is, it started out
as a city of fallen people. And it is a city, the faithful
city. Now, it does have an application to Jerusalem in Isaiah's day
But it's symbolizing not only the natural state of all by nature,
but also of God's chosen people. They fell into spiritual highlitery. Verse 22, thy silver has become
dross, thy wine mixed with water. Silver is a symbol of redemption. What he's saying there is you
have corrupted the preaching of the gospel of the redemptive
work of Christ. What did Jesus Christ actually
accomplish on the cross? Wine mixed with water. That's
the word of God. They watered the word of God down. They watered
it down to where it has no power. They watered it down to where
it's nothing. It just blends in with the rest of the world. That's what it does. We could
go on with that, but I want to get to this Zion. The Bible tells
us that Zion is the city of God. The city of God. The place that
God loves. Mount Zion. Now, the actual physical
Mount Zion was a high hill on the southeast side of Jerusalem
where David, King David, built a fortress. And that term Zion,
it's used about 150 times in the scripture. The word actually
means fortification. It's a fortified city. And it's
the idea of being raised up as a monument. The first time that
it's used is over in the book of 2 Samuel where Jerusalem actually
became part of Israel when David took it away from the Jebusites
and that term Zion, that's where David built his royal palace.
And then Jerusalem, Zion became the seed of the power of Israel
and it's described both as the city of David and the city of
God. Zion's used for Jerusalem, it's used for Judah, it's used
for Israel. And as the Bible progresses, as the history progresses
through, the word Zion expands and takes on a different meaning,
a spiritual meaning. When Solomon built the temple
in Jerusalem, the meaning of Zion expanded further to include
the temple area. Psalm chapter 2 and verse 6,
listen to it. You yet have I set my king upon
my holy hill of Zion. That's what he's talking about.
Psalm 48 verse two, beautiful for situation. The joy of the
whole earth is Mount Zion on the sides of the North, the city
of the great King. Psalm 132 and verse 13, for the
Lord hath chosen Zion. He hath desired it for his habitation. You know what Zion is? It's the
spiritual kingdom of almighty God. That's what it is. It's his church. That's what
Zion is. We read it last week. Turn over
to Hebrews chapter 12 again. Look at this passage of Scripture.
Learn to interpret Scripture with Scripture. That's what we
do. That's the only way we'll know
the meaning of the Scripture. Don't interpret Scripture based
upon the evening news or people's opinion. Look at Scripture. Interpret
Scripture with Scripture. What the writer of Hebrews is
talking about here is this. When a sinner is brought by the
Holy Spirit to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that sinner
does not turn to the law. The law here in Hebrews 12 is
indicated by Mount Sinai, the law of Moses, the Ten Commandments,
the ceremonial law. In other words, when a sinner
is brought to salvation, and to find righteousness in the
Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't go to Mount Sinai.
He doesn't go to the law. That means this. It means he
doesn't turn to his own works or his own will to find salvation. If you do that, you won't find
it. Brother Mark read that in Romans 9. Israel sought after
righteousness, but they didn't find it. They didn't achieve
it. They didn't attain it. And why? Because they sought
it not by faith. Now what is it to seek righteousness
by faith? It's to seek righteousness in
the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, that passage is not
saying that faith is a replacement or substitute for righteousness,
no. Faith is no substitute or replacement for righteousness.
Faith looks to Jesus Christ for righteousness, that's the difference.
And I'm afraid in our day, many, many people who call themselves
Christian have replaced Christ with their faith. Their salvation
is not in Christ, but it's in their faith. And you say, well,
you're splitting hairs. I don't believe so. They tell you in a heartbeat,
God loves everybody. Christ died for everybody. He
made you savable. Now you make the difference.
That's not what the gospel teaches. Christ is all. He's all my forgiveness, He's
all my righteousness, He's all my wisdom, He's all my holiness,
He's all my redemption. Everything that God requires
of me for salvation is found complete and perfect in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Not in me, but in Him. And that's
what faith believes. That's what God-given faith believes.
So he's saying here in Hebrews 12, you didn't come to that mountain
that Moses was up on getting the law where there was thunderings
and lightnings and death, condemnation. When you came to Christ, if you
truly came to Christ now, you didn't go to the law. Here's
what happened. Look at verse 22 of Hebrews 12.
Now listen to this. But you are come unto Mount Sion. Now that's the same as the word
Z, Zion. You came to Mount Sion. And unto
the city of the living God. That's what Zion is. It's coming
to Christ. That's what he's talking about.
It's coming to the cross. submitting as Romans 10 said,
submitting to him as the Lord our righteousness. What is my
righteousness before God? What is your righteousness before?
You know, to appear before God and be accepted, you have to
have righteousness. That means perfection. I was writing on an article for
a future bulletin. And when we use these terms,
goodness, holiness, righteousness. We have to make a distinction
between what men and women naturally think, and we all know what that
is because that's what we thought, and what God thinks. You look
at a person and you say, well, he or she is a responsible person,
a moral person. He loves his wife and is faithful
to her. She loves her husband and is faithful to him. They
take care of their children. They raise them right. They pay
their taxes. They all go on and on and on.
Pillars of the community. And so we would, according to
our view of things, we'd say, well, that's a good person. And
yet, when the rich young man came to the Lord Jesus Christ,
in Matthew chapter 19, The rich young man, not believing that
Jesus Christ is God in human flesh, he made this statement.
He said, he said, good master. And then he asked the question,
what good thing must I do to have eternal life? What good
thing? And you remember what Christ said to him? He said,
why do you call me good? There's none good, but God. What a statement. There's none
good, but God. And what was Christ saying? Was
he denying his deity? No. He knew the young man's heart. He knows everybody's heart. He's
omniscient. But he knew that man did not
believe him to be God in human flesh. So he's making the point
that if you're going to measure goodness in order to attain salvation,
you must measure it by God's standard and not man's. You see that? In other words,
if you're going to say, well, I'm going to get to heaven because
I've been so good, you better know the right standard by which
to judge. And what the Bible teaches us
is this, that according to God's standard of goodness and of righteousness,
no person that has ever lived or ever will live can meet up
to his standard of goodness and righteousness. Now, somebody
might respond and say, well, why is that? Why does God set
the standard so high? Is He just being mean? Is He
just being unreasonable? You know why God sets the standard
so high? I'll tell you exactly why. Because
He's God. He can require no less. That's
His nature as God. For Him to accept less would
be to fail to be who He is. It's His glory. But it's not
God being mean, it's not God being unreasonable, because God
has provided a way of meeting that standard. But it's not in
you, it's not in me, it's not by your works, it's not by my
works, it's not by your will or my will, it's by Christ. Mark
read it in Romans 10, verse 4. Christ is the end of the law. That word end means the fulfillment,
the completion, the perfection of the law for righteousness
to who? To everybody? No. To everyone
who believes. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ? So the writer of Hebrews here
says when you come to Christ, you don't come to the law, you
come to Mount Sinai. You come to Christ. You come
to God's grace. The city of the living God. That's
what Zion is back here in Isaiah chapter 1. Zion is his church. Zion is always connected with
the Messiah. Turn back to Psalm 50 that I
read in the opening of our service. In verse 2. Now listen to this.
Psalm 50 in verse 2. And he said, we'll look at verse
1, the mighty God. Even the Lord hath spoken, and
called the earth from the rising of the sun, and the going down
there." This is God's message to the world. And here it is,
verse 2, out of Zion. Notice what he calls Zion, the
perfection of beauty. God hath shined. Now when he
speaks of Zion being the perfection of beauty, he's not talking about
us and our works. He's talking about His church
as we stand in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our perfection. I don't have any perfection in
me. I don't. I have the Holy Spirit Himself.
He indwells His people and He's perfect but that's not me. My
thoughts, my motives, I'm in a warfare. As I stand before
you right now, I can tell you I'm in a warfare with myself. You know, we talk about being
in a war with the devil, and that's true, but we can't win
that war. Christ has to step in as our
advocate. We talk about being at war with
the world. You know, the greatest warfare that a believer has,
a sinner saved by grace, is himself or herself. We war against the
flesh. It's a spiritual warfare. Paul
described it in Romans 7, 14 through 25. And you know what
his conclusion was? He said, I want to serve God
with a pure heart and a pure mind. But he says, I can't. He even said this. He said, I
don't even know how to. I have not experienced absolute
perfection in myself. I'm a sinner. And he concluded
that discussion in Romans 7 with this, O wretched man that I am. And I love that because it doesn't
stop there. He didn't say, O wretched man
that I was. He said, O wretched man that
I am. Who shall deliver me from this body of death? And then
he said, I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord. And there's
a chapter division there that I think is, it shouldn't be.
But that's okay, understand when you read the Bible, it wasn't
written in chapters and verses. It goes right on, Romans 8.1.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
That's our hope. He's our hope. But out of Zion,
look at verse three of Psalm 50. Our God shall come and shall
not keep silence. A fire shall devour before him
and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. This is a powerful
message. That's what he's talking about.
Verse four, he shall call to the heavens from above and to
the earth that he may judge his people. God's going to judge
his people. Well, let me tell you something.
His people, his chosen ones, his elect, have already been
judged. David was talking of the future
here. How have they been judged? Look
at verse 5. Gather my saints together unto me. Now what is
a saint? You know what a saint is? A saint is a sinner saved
by the grace of God. That's what a saint is. The word
saint means set apart, sanctified one. He says gather my saints
together. That's Zion, his saints. those
that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice." Now what is
it to make a covenant with God by sacrifice? It's to believe
in the death of Christ as our only sacrifice. It's to believe
in what He accomplished to establish righteousness. It's to rest in
Him as the Lord our righteousness. You think about it, that's the
judgment of God against His people on the cross of Calvary. Look back at Isaiah 1. We are all born into this world
naturally as a sinful people. That's what the Bible teaches.
Many people say, well, I don't agree with that. Well, that doesn't
matter. That's what the Bible teaches. And your argument, if you don't
agree, if your argument is not with me, it's with this word.
We're born into this world as a sinful people. We are. We don't have spiritual life.
The Bible talks about born dead in trespasses and sins. And so whenever we hear or read
in the Bible concerning the nature of man, we have to include ourselves
in whatever station we are in. We can look at the immoral segment
of society, the criminal segment, the perverted segment, and we
can all thank God that we haven't gone to such depths. We can. But here's the point. The fact
that we have not gone to such depths in immorality or perversion
means nothing as far as establishing a righteousness before God. And that brings me to the second
question. How is Zion redeemed? Look back at verse 27 of Isaiah 1. Who is Zion? It's the church of the living
God. It's the city of the living God. It's made up of the saints
of God, the chosen of God, the redeemed of the Lord, the regenerated,
the called believers. He says, Zion shall be redeemed
with judgment. and her converts with righteousness.
Where's that judgment coming from? Where is that righteousness?
Look back up at verse 25. First of all, it all begins with
God. Doesn't begin with you. Doesn't
begin with me. You know, I think one of the
main deceptions of religion that comes in the name of Christ today,
but denies the doctrine of Christ, is that it's all man-centered.
It's all about us. It's all about man. What are
you going to do? How are you going to do it? What
are you going to think? What's your attitude? Psychology, moral
pep talks. That's what it's all about, isn't
it? It's all about man. People stand up and give their
testimony. It's all about them. Well, this all begins with God.
Look at verse 25. I will turn my hand upon thee. Now the turning of the hand here
is the turning of his hand of mercy upon his people. It's the
turning of God's grace. Do you remember back in Noah's
day? How the Lord saw that all the people were in sin and depravity,
evil. And then on verse 8, you come
to a man named Noah. You remember what it says in
Genesis chapter 6 and verse 8? Here he's talking about a corrupt,
fallen, dead world. that God's gonna judge. And then
in Genesis 6 and verse 8 it says, but Noah was a better man than
the rest of them. Is that what it says? No. Doesn't say that at all, does
it? Oh, Noah, he rose up above the mass of humanity and decided
to accept God. That's not what it says, does
it? It says, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. That's
what it says. Now, let me tell you who needs grace. Sinners
who don't deserve it and cannot earn it. That's who needs grace. If you can deserve it or earn
it, you don't need grace. And if you deserve it or earn
it, whatever is given to you, it's not grace. It's what you've
earned. It's what you deserve. If God
ever at any time gave me or you or any of us what we've earned
or deserved, it would be eternal death. The wages of sin. But God has a remnant. Back in
Isaiah 1, he talked about a remnant. Zion is that remnant. A small
part. God said, I will turn my hand
upon thee. How do you know it's his hand
of grace and mercy? Look at verse 25. I will turn my hand upon
thee and purely purge away thy dross. In your concordance, it
might say this, according to pureness purge away thy dross. What is that dross? That's the
impurity, the sin of our lives. God says, I'm going to purge
it away. I'm going to cleanse it. He says, I'm going to take
away thy tin. That word tin is an emblem for
self-righteousness. Tin was a mixture. In other words,
it wasn't a pure metal. It was a mixture. And in this
salvation that God provides by His grace, there's no mixture
of man's works and Christ's work. There's no mixture of man's will
and God's will. It's all God in Christ. It's
His pure blood. Remember I told you about the
preacher I heard on TV, he was talking about forgiveness. And
he asked this question, he said, what is the cost of forgiveness?
And his answer was this, your repentance. And I said, oh no. The cost of forgiveness is the
pure, incorruptible blood of Jesus Christ. What can wash away
my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
You really mean that when you're saying that? Nothing but the
blood? Oh, but what about my tears of repentance? They can't
wash away sin. Brother Tony's gonna confess
Christ in baptism. You know, the waters of baptism will not
wash away one sin. You know that, don't you, Tony?
Won't wash away any sin. He's confessing in believers'
baptism that his sins have already been washed away by the pure,
incorruptible blood of Jesus Christ. That's how God purges
away, that's how Zion is redeemed, by the blood of the Lamb. It's
not His blood plus your decision or His blood plus your repentance,
His blood plus your, it's His blood, period. Leave it there. And He's going to take away all
thy tin, all thy self-righteousness. How's He going to do that? He's
going to show you That the only way that a sinner can be justified,
not guilty and righteous before God, is by the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ imputed by God. Charged to you, accounted
to you. It's his merits alone, not his
plus mine. Look at verse 26. He says, and
I will restore thy judges as at the first and thy counselors
as at the beginning. He's talking about gospel witnesses
there. Preaching the gospel of judgment.
All of you who come to Christ, you've already been judged at
the cross. He did it as your representative,
your substitute, your satisfaction. He put away your sin. And afterward
thou shalt be called the city of righteousness. Zion, the faithful
city, righteous in Christ, by his righteousness imputed and
brought to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit who gives
life and brings a sinner to believe in Christ and rest in him. And so he says, Zion shall be
redeemed with judgment. Where did that judgment take
place for Zion? On the cross. When Christ had our sins charged,
accounted, imputed to him, and he as our substitute drank damnation
dry, and brought in a perfect, spotless righteousness that was
imputed to all of God's people. We stand in Him. And then he
says, her converts with right. Those who are converted to Christ,
they're converted with righteousness. Not righteousness that they work
up, not righteousness imparted within them, but by the righteousness
of Christ imputed to them which brings life. All to whom Christ's
righteousness has been charged shall be given life to come to
him and believe in him." That's how Zion's redeemed. That's who
Zion is. If you're a believer this morning,
you're a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. You're a citizen of
the spiritual city of Zion. Now, if you go out and you talk
to a lot of people about this, about Zion being the church and
all that, you might be confronted with this term. They call it
Replacement Theology. Well, let me tell you how to
answer that. It is not Replacement Theology. It's Fulfillment Theology. Christ and His church fulfills
the title. Their kind of reasoning would
go something like this. In the Bible, in the Old Testament,
they slew lambs, didn't they? In Israel? Those lambs were a
type of Christ, the Lamb of God. Now, we don't slay lambs today.
Why? Because Christ the Lamb has replaced
all those other lambs? No. He fulfilled it. He's the
fulfillment of it. In Zion, in the church, Christ
and His... that's the fulfillment of the
type. Now let it go and look to Christ. And live your life
by the power of the Holy Spirit, looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith.