Isaiah 59. Isaiah 59. Isaiah 59, verse one. It says, behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear. The Lord's hand is mighty to save, is open to any sinner that comes to him begging mercy, to enter any sinner that comes to him to be saved God's way, depending on God to do all the saving.

But men want to accuse God of not being able to save because not everybody believes and because there's so many, so much sin and rebellion in the world. But this verse tells us clearly the sin and rebellion is entirely due to us as sinners. It's not God's fault. Verse two, he says, but your iniquities, your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear.

Now we're gonna see first of all here what every sinner is by nature. This is so of everybody. Paul used this chapter in Romans 3 to declare this is so of Jew and Gentile. That takes in everybody. And this is what we all are right here. And he begins here and he says, oh, and I want to point out to you, this takes in our hands, our fingers, our lips, our eyes, our mind, our thoughts, our nature, everything about us, our feet, everything.

He says in verse three, your hands are defiled with blood, murderers, your fingers with iniquity. Iniquity doesn't equal God's righteousness. It's good works that are not good before God because they fall short of God's glory. He says, verse three, your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness, none calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth. They trust in vanity and speak lies. They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity. Now this is so with false preachers. Everything that a false preacher's preaching is lies and perverseness. It's not justice to say Christ died for everybody and leaves it up to the sinner and yet some perish for whom he died. That's not judgment at all. That's injustice. That's ascribing God to be unjust.

This is so of government rulers, courts of law. Did you see this week where they found out that the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico has a whole host of federal judges in their pocket? They've been sending them tailor-made suits money and all kinds of perks and they let them know whenever there's a warrant out for an arrest or, you know, try to hold up court proceedings, what have you. Unjust. It goes for every sinner in everyday life. This is so of all of us.

Next, he says, verse five, they hatch cockatrice eggs and weave the spiders well. He that eateth of their eggs dieth. and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Their whips shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hand. So no sinner can make himself a covering whereby he can cover himself and his sins. It's all work of iniquity, he said. He says their feet run to evil, They make haste to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Out of the heart the mouth speaks. Thoughts, that's your nature, everything about us. Wasting and destruction are in their paths.

The way of peace they know not. That's Christ, he's the way, he's peace for his people with God, but we don't know him by nature. There's no judgment in their goings, they've made them crooked paths, whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. Therefore is judgment far from us, neither does justice overtake us. There's no discernment of spiritual thing, no judgment, and therefore there's none in the world if left to ourselves.

We wait for light, but behold obscurity, for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes. We stumble at noonday as in the night. We are in desolate places as dead men. And there's the problem, dead by nature, spiritually dead. We roar all like bears and mourn sore like doves. We look for judgment, but there is none, for salvation, but it's far off from us.

Now, Isaiah's gonna speak here and confess his sin and the sin of the children of Israel. And he only knows this because the Lord revealed it to him, same way we do. He says, for our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us. For our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them. in transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood, and judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off, for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter, yet truth faileth, and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. Now that's our story. fell in Adam, and because we're born of corruption, that's our nature. That's all we can produce.

Now, since this is so of us, for God to save anybody, it has to be by grace. It has to be for God to have chosen to save anybody. That being us, that being all mankind, for God to save anybody, to choose to save somebody, That has to be by grace. Because we see there, we don't merit anything. We cannot. Now the false message says that God foresaw we would believe, and that's why he chose us. But that's glorifying the sinner. That's putting merit in the sinner. God reacting to a sinner. He saw what the sinner would do, so he chose him. But look what the text says.

At the end of verse 15, The Lord saw, and it displeased him that there was no judgment. It means it was evil in his eyes. And he saw that there was no man, and wondered, it means to be appalled, that there was no intercessor. That's what God saw, that there was none. There was no sinner that could save himself or anybody else. That's what he saw. Just like in Noah's day, Genesis 6, 5 says, God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. That's what God saw.

So if he saves somebody, if he chooses to save somebody, it's gonna have to be by grace. And that's what he did. Before he made the world, He chose to save whom he would, and he did it just because he would. He did it by grace, free, unmerited, sovereign to do what he would.

And the best illustration of this is Jacob and Esau, because here you have twins conceived at the same time of the same father, of the same mother. They had not done anything good or evil. And God said in Romans 9, he said that the purpose of God according to election might stand. And he declares it so plainly that salvation is of God that calleth. It's of God that calleth. It's not of works. It's not of works. It's of God that calleth.

Jacob have I loved, but he so have I hated. We see clearly why God could hate Esau. We just see it, we just saw it. But the only reason he loved Jacob, he told the children of Israel, I didn't love you because you were something great, because you were a mighty people, or you were the fewest of all people.

But because he would, because he loved his people. That's why he chose us. Because he'd keep his promise. His covenant that he made with his son and that he made with Abraham. That's why he brought you out with a mighty hand. He redeemed you out simply because of his grace. That's why.

Now, when the Lord saw there was no man, no intercessor, his arm brought salvation to him. See verse 16, it says, therefore his arm brought salvation unto him and his righteousness, it sustained him. Well, let's go back to Isaiah 53 and let's see who God's arm is. That's the title of the message, God's arm. Here's God's arm. Here's God's righteousness that he provided. Who hath believed our report? Who's believed our gospel? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? The only way we're gonna know the arm of the Lord is by divine revelation.

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. God is not gonna save using anything attractive to the outward eye. Not even our Savior had any form or comeliness that would make anybody desire him. He uses what the world calls foolishness, preaching, and he uses people that aren't appealing to preach.

That's what he does. Takes a sinner who's nothing and nobody, fills him with his treasure, and uses him to preach the gospel so that it's all of God, and we know it's by his power alone. He said, He is despised and rejected of men. Notice he didn't say he was, he is. He wasn't in Isaiah's day, he was when he walked this earth and he is today.

A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was bearing the sin of his people. natural state, we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. That's what we all thought by nature, is that he was an imposter, he was just a man, and that cross was because God was giving him what he deserved. That's what we thought by nature. But he was wounded for our transgressions. That's substitution. He took the place of every elect child of God. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes, we're healed. He healed all his people.

That's what the Lord Jesus did, and that's why he did it. Now, once in the end of the world, as he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, that's what he accomplished. God saw no man, he saw no man, no sinner in this world, all he saw was sinners, no man that could intercede, and God sent his only son. He sent his only son, and his righteousness, it sustained him.

Christ is the righteousness of God, and he's the righteousness we have to have. His righteousness sustained him. Look back at Isaiah 42. This is the chapter that it begins, declaring that Christ is God's elect, and it goes down here to verse 21, and he says, the Lord is well pleased for his righteousness sake. He will magnify the law and make it honorable, and that's what Christ did for his people. He did it for God, first of all, so that God's just to be merciful to us, and he did that for his people. He made his people the righteousness of God in him, and he is salvation.

We have to have Christ. We have to have Christ. He came to destroy his enemies and ours. He said in verse 17, Isaiah 59, 17, he put on breastplate, he put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation upon his head, and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing and was clad with zeal as a cloak. He said, according to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies, to the islands he will repay a recompense.

Now is the judgment of this world. That's what Christ said when he was going to the cross. He said, now is the judgment of this world. Now will the prince of this world be cast out. And when our Lord went to that cross, what you see on that cross is him bearing the curse that all his people would have had to bear, but he bore it for us. But anybody who tries to come to God by their will, by their works, by some merit in them, by something they've done, they are going to experience what Christ experienced on the cross. They're gonna be cast out into hell. It's gonna be justice, it's gonna be judgment, because nobody's gonna be able to stand before him. But for you that know him, for his people, judgment was settled at Calvary. He settled it for his people. He put away our sin, he crushed the devil's head.

Colossians 2 says, he blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us. He took it out of the way, he nailed it to the cross. It was all contrary to us, we couldn't keep the law. And he took it out of the way. Not just casting it aside, he fulfilled it. God at every eye crossed every teeth. And when he did that, it says he spoiled principalities and powers and made a show of them openly. That's what he did.

And any sinner that rejects him, think of the insanity of not believing Christ. Think of the, we were just talking about this earlier. Somebody that Christian knows was telling him about some new thing that's come down the pike, and I was saying how that sinners will believe any new thing that comes along from any source whatsoever, and yet we have the word of God that's been preserved for thousands of years, And if you read it, I mean, it is so clearly the word of God because you see how the nations are divided. You go back to Noah and look at Noah's children, and you can see how everybody that came from Noah make up the population of this world now. And you can see who each of them are, where they ended up going, what parts of the world. This book is true. Everything in the history of it is true. Everything about it is true.

And yet men will believe some new thing by an unreliable source and will not believe God when we have his word as clear as can be. That's depravity. That's a clear evidence, brethren, that we are totally dead in sin by nature, that men cannot believe.

Now lastly, let's go here and look at verse 19. When the Lord sends his preacher, preaching Christ and his finished work, Christ is the standard, he's the flag, he's the banner that's raised up before us. He said here, verse 19, so shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun, because Christ accomplished justice and he settled judgment for his people. It's not that God's just sitting back waiting if somebody will claim it. He said, they shall fear me. From the east to the west, they shall fear me. How they gonna do it?

When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. A standard means a flag, a banner, an ensign. So, when the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.

This is what the psalmist wrote, Psalm 60. He said, thou has given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Our banner is Jehovah Nissi, the Lord, the Lord our banner. A banner, the Lord is saying he does here for us using Christ through the preaching of the gospel, Christ is lifted up like a flag is lifted up.

Now, there used to be a time when soldiers relied on a flag. A flag was very important. The first reason was in the confusion of war, when they would be on the battlefield, and they lose their bearings, they don't know where they are, they could look back and see that flag and they knew where they were. It gave them their bearings.

That's what Christ is to us. We know where we are and who we are because of Christ. Look into Christ. All right? When the soldiers were in that battlefield and it got time to rally together, that flag was what they rallied to. they went to that flag. And that's when the Lord sends the gospel, and we're preaching Christ and Him crucified by the Spirit of the Lord, your nature is the enemy, our sin nature. And it's coming in like a flood, it's trying to keep you from believing. But the Spirit of the Lord raises Christ in your heart, in your new man, and makes you behold Him. And we rally to Him. We gather to him. To him shall the gathering of the people be, the Lord said.

And the banner instilled fear in the enemy. As long as that flag was flying, the enemy knew the other soldiers were still in the fight. And as long as Christ is exalted, Satan knows that Christ has to rule over him. He's already bruised his head. He's put away the sin of his people.

He can try to accuse us to God, but it won't do any good. And when our enemies hear Christ exalted, it instills fear in them. You know, we think of it this way. We don't like to see sinners come in and they hear the gospel and they depart. That hurts you in a way because you'd want to see sinners saved, but that's a mercy at the same time.

The Lord's gonna keep the enemy that would harm his people away from his people. And seeing the flag encouraged and strengthened the soldiers. You remember when Moses, as soon as they came out of Egypt, Amalek came up behind him and he attacked the weakest. And as soon as the Lord calls you to faith, that's when the enemy's gonna start attacking. You're gonna have your sin nature to deal with, you're gonna have family and friends and falsehood of every kind.

Well, as long as Moses held up the rod, that's like holding up the banner, holding up Christ, preaching Christ, as long as he held up the rod, Israel prevailed. But when his hands, his arms got heavy and he let the rod down, Amalek prevailed. People say, why do y'all just preach Christ and Him crucified? Because as long as Christ is exalted, and as long as the Spirit's exalting Him in our hearts, the enemy will be defeated. The Lord's not gonna let your sin nature rule over you, and He's not gonna let any other enemy rule over you. And He does it by exalting Christ in our heart.

So Aaron and Herb, they set Moses on a rock. The preacher has to be sitting on Christ the rock. and they stayed up his arms, one on each side, so he held that rod up. And the Lord provides brethren to encourage you to keep preaching and keep preaching Christ, keep preaching the gospel. And long as that rod was exalted, Israel prevailed.

That was the day the Lord Moses said, Jehovah-nesi, the Lord our banner. That's where we get it from. So that's the picture here, that's what he's saying. And then at last, they raised the flag to declare victory. Victory was accomplished. And that's what we preach. Your warfare is accomplished.

The Lord's rewarded us double for all our sins. He has restored to his people that which he did not take away. Our sin separators, but he came, took our place, and restored us in righteousness and holiness, more than we lost in Adam, because now we can never be lost again. He's gonna keep us.

That's what he's doing through the preaching of the gospel. That's why we preach Christ and him crucified. That's why we pray the Lord, send the Spirit. That's why we wait on him, because he's the only one that can accomplish this. Now, here's the last thing.

This is because all of God's covenant promises that he's promised in this book, that he's promised to Abraham, that he promised to Christ, all of them are fulfilled in Christ by his blood. He says there in verse 20, and the Redeemer shall come to Zion. His church is Zion and his people make it up. So the Redeemer, our Lord's gonna come to his people. That's what he's saying.

And unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord. As for me, now listen, this is the Lord speaking. As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord. My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed seed, saith the Lord from henceforth and forever.

Somebody'll ask you, they'll say, do you believe in once saved, always saved? It entirely depends upon who did the saving. If a sinner contributed anything, no way. He's not saved to begin with, so he won't continue to be saved. But if the Lord did it, and he fulfilled all the covenant promises, for his people and he comes and he does that work in the heart, the Lord is saying, my spirit and my word's not gonna depart out of your mouth, it's not gonna depart out of the mouth of them that are saved through our witness, nor out of the mouth of your great-grandchildren that are saved through my preaching. That's what the Lord is saying. That means he's gonna keep them that are his and saved by the Lord They'll never be lost again. No man will plug them out of my hand, he said.

So that's the gospel, brethren. That's all our hope right there. That's why we preach Christ. That's why we preach Christ. He is all in salvation. Let's go to him. Our Father, our God, Lord, what a blessing that we can call you ours. that you've made us children by your grace, and that you've sent your son, what an unspeakable gift that you sent your son to lay down his life for us and redeemed us from us, saved us from us, and that you continue, that you sent us the gospel and made us believe you, put your word in our mouth and your spirit in our heart, made us to believe, and that you Promise you'll never leave us, you'll never forsake us, you're gonna keep us. Lord, we have so much to praise you for, so much to thank you for. Everything we have came of your hand, and it's all by your grace freely. Keep us remembering this, Lord, as you promised you would.

Keep us looking nowhere but to the Lord Jesus. And Lord, when we try to look elsewhere and we try to look to our flesh or our works or whether we're getting encouraged by something we've done or we're getting discouraged due to our sin, Lord, keep us knowing that Christ is our righteousness. He alone is our acceptance. Keep us knowing that so we don't get puffed up because we did something we should have done and that we don't get cast down when we did something we shouldn't have. Keep us, Lord, looking and knowing we're right there at your right hand in your precious son. Thank you for these blessings, Lord. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen.