Delight in the LORD

Seeking for the help of the Lord, I direct your prayerful attention to the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 58, and reading from our text, verses 13 and 14, the last two verses in that chapter. Isaiah 58, verses 13 and 14. If thou turn away thy foot from this Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call this Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable, and shall honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father. For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Isaiah 58 verses 13 and 14. in the Lord.

We can do right things, but not actually be delighting in those things. We could show someone kindness, we could give someone help, but do it out of duty, out of really a sense of constraint, but not having any delight in it. And that can apply as well to our worship and the things of God.

This is what God through Isaiah is saying to his people here. In the beginning of this chapter, the prophet is charged to cry aloud, and to show the house of Jacob their sins. And yet the Lord says, they seek me daily and delight to know my ways as a nation that did righteousness and forsook not the ordinance of their God. They ask of me the ordinances of justice, they take delight in approaching to God.

Now it comes very very close, twice in that verse 2 we have a people that is delighting to know God's ways and delighting to approach to God and yet their worship is not acceptable that in life is not a delight really in the Lord at all, because what they are doing, they are looking for some reward.

They are saying in verse 3, Wherefore have we fasted? Say thou and thou seest not. Wherefore have we afflicted our soul? Thou takest no knowledge. They are looking for that which is from the Lord. and he charges them, he fasts for strife and debate, to smite with the fist of wickedness, he shall not fast as he do this day. An outward form of worship that those that are conducting it, they think that God should be pleased with what they are doing and how they are acting, but God is not.

He sets forth later on in this chapter the fast that he has chosen. It's very practical things for the people of God. It mirrors very much what James is saying in his epistles that if one says that they have faith but then there is those that have nothing to eat and they say go eat or be warmed but do not give the things that they need Where is the evidence of that faith? He sets forth showing our faith by our works. Now I know in this passage here is one of those that Mr. Popham used to try and keep in mind when he preached. In verse 10, if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise in obscurity, thy darkness be as the noon day. And that's what he tried to do in his ministry, to reach out for the poor and the needy, those that were poor in a spiritual way. and to feed the people of God and to strengthen the people of God.

And it's in that way, not just in a natural for our bodies, that is needful, but especially in a spiritual way, not just from the pulpit, but amongst the brethren as well, to come alongside the tempted and the tried and the afflicted ones and those that need that help in their souls. And so the Lord here has this controversy with his people, and yet in our text he comes back to this idea of delighting in him. Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord. And notice those previous ways, it was delighting to know my ways, and a delight in approaching to God, but here the emphasis is a delight thyself in the Lord, in himself, for himself.

There's a big difference, of course, we might have someone that is coming and they are giving us some gifts and things that we might receive, we might have a delight, a liking of what is being given, but what a difference when we see that thing, and quite apart from what that is, it's who has given it?

Who has given it? No doubt there's some of us in our homes, we've got things, insignificant things in our homes. Some of them they might be 50, 60 years old. And yet we look at it and we don't see what other people see in that thing. We see who gave it to us. And our thoughts, our affections go to them.

They may have passed away, but we remember them. not for the thing that they've given, but the thing that given draws our minds, our thoughts and attentions to them. And that's where our delight is, not in the actual thing. Our hearts are very deceitful and we can easily be deceived in thinking that, like those here, that we are delighting in the Lord and his ways when in fact We're really just pleasing ourselves in a form of religion. And the very one that we should be delighting in is being ignored and our thoughts aren't towards him at all.

So I want to look this evening at three points. Firstly, the preparation for delight in the Lord. In verse 13, that preparation is a delighting in His holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight. And then secondly, the delight in the Lord that we have here Then, in verse 14, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord. After that preparation, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord. And then thirdly, the additional blessing that is following. Verse 14, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. So firstly the preparation that is set before us here.

I was thinking in meditating upon this word, if there's ever something that marks out the day in which we live. It is the desecration of the Lord's day. And even in many places of worship, you'll find they have a morning service, that is all. And the people are not delighted in spending a whole day with the Lord in His house and thinking upon Him. Their minds are filled with this world and the things of it.

Now I know there are some, there are some in Cranbrook that say well in this New Testament every day is the Sabbath day, every day is the Lord's day. You don't have to have a set day anymore. The end result is no day. is the Lord's Day and the assembling of the people together is not possible. But we don't have to reason in that way because the scripture set forth that the holy day that is spoken of here, the Sabbath, is a creation, ordinance.

It is that which was then confirmed in the Ten Commandments. And it was then upheld by our Lord when He came upon the earth and when He rose again from the dead. We need to remember this. We remember that the children of Israel, when they were going through the wilderness, this was renewed to them, the command to keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations for a perpetual covenant.

The Lord said, it is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. One would think, well, if we take away the Sabbath, If we say in the New Testament that we do not have one day in seven, then why is it that one of the Ten Commandments now ceases? Our Lord was very clear that He as the Son of Man was also Lord of the Sabbath day. And He said that the Sabbath was made for man. and not man for Sabbath, it made for man so that he may worship God and come nigh unto his God.

We think of, if you were to turn back to Isaiah 56 and often think of this chapter because if you remember the eunuch when he was returning from worship He was reading what is to us, Isaiah 53, and Philip was directed to him, he begins at the same scripture, All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers is dumb. So he openeth not his mouth, and the eunuch he did not know. When he was asked, Understandest thou what thou readest? He says, How can I except some man guide me? Whom speaketh the prophet this, of himself, or some other man?

Desired Philip to come into the chariot, and he began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. When they came to the water, what doth hinder me to be baptized? If thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. And he was baptized and he went on his way rejoicing. I don't think for one moment he would have stopped reading where he was reading. He would have continued reading and he would have got to Isaiah 56. And then he would have read this, Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it, that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil.

Neither let the son of the stranger that adjoined himself to the Lord speak, saying, The Lord hath utterly separated me from his people. Neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant. Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

Can you imagine the joy of that when he came to that. He was already rejoicing and to come to this and to find his very condition mentioned and set forth in these additional blessings. What an encouragement for us when we're blessed in one part to continue reading and to look and see that we might be further blessed just a little bit further along. What of that Sabbath? Again, the blessing is pronounced on that.

Our Lord in the wilderness with the children of Israel, He worked the miracles that they had manna fresh every day, but on the sixth day twice as much so they could rest on their seventh day. And they did not need to gather there. The example of Nehemiah. when after the Babylonian captivity and he comes and he finds that all these traders are coming in on the Sabbath and he finds that the people are desecrating it, he orders the gates to be locked, he tells them to go away and he reinstitutes the Sabbath again. And of course our Lord's rising from the dead.

It was on the first day of the week. The Lord is the Lord of the Sabbath. So what happened then? with the Church of God. We find that the Church of God on the first day of the week they are meeting. Thomas was not with the disciples that first time when the Lord met. The Lord didn't meet at any other time. Thomas had to wait eight days or one week as the Jews do it with the eight days from the first to the next verse. And Then the Lord met with them again, reinforcing the meeting on that day that He rose from the dead.

There are two great events in Scripture, the creation and redemption, and each one is marked by a Sabbath, by a rest, by a day given to the Lord. And so Paul emphasizes this when he writes to the Corinthians and he tells them that they should make a collection for the saints, he says, upon the first day of the week, every one, so that there's not collections when he came, making the practice like we do in our churches, the collecting boxes on the first day of the week, when we meet together, we have the collections taken up as well. Then we have in the Revelation John saying that he was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. The Lord's Day, what day is that? The first day of the week, the day the Lord rose from the dead and a day when the Lord appears to his people. We have a solemn warning in Timothy in the last days that men shall be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Sometimes it's so painful to sit and behold it.

You know, we have our Bible boxes at Cranbrook. We've had over 900 taken from just the chapel one and 450 taken from our home box. But only one family have ever come in and not stayed. So many have taken that word and yet we've had functions on the Lord's Day. I think the One remarkable one was at Christmas when they have a tractor parade going through several of our villages and goes through Cranbrook and is supposed to finish just before, half an hour before our service. Well, it was a bit late the other last time and we came down just to see the last tractor going through with all its lights and the crowds were completely thronging each side of the street of Cranbrook. And when we got to the chapel, we went in the chapel, and the footpath outside the chapel was crammed for doom. Just a wave of people going up to the houses behind the chapel.

And you think all of these people, they're all walking past the chapel, they've all been following their pleasure on the Lord's Day, and none desire the Lord's house. None have any delight or any inclination to worship whatsoever.

And if ever there is a day then in which there is a falling away, a lack of acknowledging God at all, or desiring to meet with his people, or to hear his word, we are exhorted that we are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, Hebrews 10, and we are to consider each other to provoke unto love and to good works, exhorting one another so much the more as you see the day approaching. And it is in gathering together, it is in as we are able, have health and strength to do so, to hear the word of God. you know, it's a real test of where our heart really is. And I find it very searching, even in my own home, you know, we can find time to even preparing for the ministry or doing religious things, and yet the close communion with the Lord, the fellowship with the Lord, in reading for our own personal delight, And prayer and communion with the Lord is the thing that you gain the most opposition from your own evil heart and from Satan and from the telephone that will ring just when you are having devotions with the Lord. And it is that real heart worship that is under attack. And you see it even with the two sisters, Mary and Martha, both the Lord's people, both the Lord loved them both, and yet you find Mary, she was able to sit at the feet of the Lord and hear his word, delighting in the Lord, whereas dear Martha, cumbered about with much serving. The Lord was there, she was serving, she was helping, and we can, we can be so busy with the building, the fabric, the services, the order of the services, all sorts of things to do with the things of God, but not be actually delighting in the Lord Himself.

And so the preparation here, and I believe it is real rightly set before us here, is that Sabbath where there's a conscious laying aside of the things of this world.

One day we will have to leave it all. It'll mean nothing. We shall leave it all. And what a test. Are you prepared to leave it one day in Sabbath? Are you prepared then to spend that time with the Lord? Or do you delight so much in the things of this world that you cannot spend it? in the Lord's house. I know of myself personally, since the time when the Lord first blessed my soul, I have backslidden from what I was then. It's lovely in some ways to remember what we delighted in, and in my case the Lord gave me a providential thing that is a real reminder to me how I felt at that time.

Because we had in our deployment, as I was an engineer, they changed our hours from 40 hours a week to 37 and a half hours a week. And they said, instead of just adjusting each week, we'll give you a day off a month. And they said, your day off will be a Monday. I said, I don't want a Monday, because I have night school on a Monday, and I was training for the engineering at that time, it was just 22, 23, and I said, my day off, I've got to drive up past the work and I've got to drive up to Melbourne to do this night school, can't I have Friday? No, you've got to have Monday.

Well, the times that I had, a second Saturday, The Lord blessed me on the Lord's Day, I thought, good, I don't need to go into work. And yes, in the evening I went to night school, but I'd had a day with the Lord, a second day, and that was a real delight to me.

And I love to think, I remember, on the circumstances that made that day available, months and months and what made it precious to me. So in the end I saw the Lord's overruling of that providence, that what they insisted on was really for my blessing and for the good of my soul and so that I could delight in the Lord.

But that's lovely to remember when our hearts were so full of the Word of God and so full of the love of God that we We didn't want to return to the world. We didn't want to return to our secondary callings. We wanted to be with the Lord and his people and his ways. And so I believe the preparation here is a very important one. It's a real test of our hearts. And also it is bringing us into those very situations in that we will delight. in the Lord. And so I want to look at this in our second point.

Delight in the Lord. Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord. Immediately following after the observing of the Sabbath, calling it delight, calling it holy of the Lord Honourable honouring the Lord, not doing our own ways, not finding our own pleasure, not speaking our own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord. So how is it that we shall delight ourselves in the Lord?

I don't look at it in several ways or perhaps headings. And the first one is regarding the Lord's house. Often think of how the Lord has described the things in his house. He's called it the house of God or the Lord's house. So when we're going there, our attention is drawn not just to chapel or to a house, but the Lord whose house it is. And so when we come to the Lord's house, then we have the Lord's table, the table of the Lord, the communion table. Again, it is drawing our attention as to whose table it is. You think of the church itself, that is the Lord's church, it is his body.

I remember years ago one of our members when she joined us and she said concerning the original church that she joined when she first became a Christian, and she said this, she says, I knew that there was trouble in the church, but I was joining the Lord's church. And she could look past the trouble and past poor fallen men and she saw it was the Lord's church. And it's a good thing for that. There's so many that will stumble at this mistake or this person and that person and things that are done wrong. The church of God is not perfect. It's sinners, it's joined together as sinners. But to be able to look past to see the Lord.

I've often thought of this with Hannah, the mother of Samuel. She came up to worship at Shiloh. But who was there? Eli and his two sons that were lying with the women who assembled at the door. There was a corrupt place. But she came up and she prayed and she worshipped and she got the answer to prayer and she left her young son there. Not in the protection of those two wicked men. But in the Lord's protection I have lent Him to the Lord." And the Lord watched over him.

And it is a real lesson to us to look beyond man and to see this is the Lord's institution, this is the Lord's house, the Lord's people, sin as though they are. And so we have in Psalm 16 verse 3, considering the Lord's people, that they are His people. Psalm 119, right the way through it, is speaking about the Lord's testimonies and the Lord's law. All the time when we're in the house, we are being reminded of these things that are the Lord's. It is a good preparation for our delight to be in the Lord when all the time we're reminded, this is the Lord's, this is the Lord's, these are the Lord's things.

His presence is to be known as His promise, where the people of God gather together. And God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, to be had in reverence of all them that are about Him. Through worship is a realising that we are coming into the very presence of God. Unto Him shall the gathering of the people be, and where two or three are gathered together in my name, in the midst.

But then we go, we're from the Lord's house and we think of the Lord himself, his own perfection and what he is, his power, his omnipotence. We think of his omnipresence that is everywhere. You think that he is all-knowing, omniscient. You think of his holiness in heaven, holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty. You think of his wisdom and you think of his love, his grace, his mercy. All of these things, they belong intrinsically to him.

If we are going to delight ourselves in someone who is a wife or a husband or a child, we're thinking about that person and especially what sets them apart from all other. And those attributes of our Lord, incommunicable, they belong to Him. And surely it is something that we, in delighting in Him, will think of these things.

We'll delight ourselves in the Lord. And so again, our delight will be in thinking upon His name. We think of those that were mentioned in the last of the prophets before we come to the New Testament. It was what the Church of God was left with before 400 years of silence. And we should always remember this. We are waiting for His second coming. They were waiting for His first coming. How were they to spend their time waiting?

Well, we are told what the Lord would do for them in Malachi 3 verse 16. Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another. And the Lord hearkened and heard it. And a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon his name. They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts in that day, when I make up my jewels and I'll spare them, as a man spareth his own son. that serveth him." Beautiful words to those that think on his name, that delight in him, that speak one to another.

How are we going to do that if we're not assembling and joining together or communicating one with another if we haven't got that ability to assemble? And so we think and meditate upon him, those things that he has done. His works that He has done, His creation we see all around us and most solemnly so many do not see it or do not acknowledge the Creator in it even if they see it. And His salvation, His works of redemption, we mentioned of those two occasions where the Sabbath is especially remembered, when God, the works of creation, when you work the works of redemption. And our thoughts, our delight in the Lord in doing these things, in performing these things. His righteousness, that righteousness not only what belongs to Him as God, but what He gives to poor sinners.

And to delight in this, this is the name wherewith He shall be called the Lord our righteousness. And this is the name wherewith she shall be called the Lord our Righteousness. It is so that when a bride marries her husband she actually delights in that she has changed her name. She shares the name of her husband. And we think of that with the disciples following the Lord. Those at Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. They took the name of the Lord. Well in Jeremiah The name is the Lord our righteousness.

It is also in the providences of God, the works of the Lord, who so is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. and is looking past them to see the Lord's hand. The world will say, well that was luck, and that was chance, and I've even had those who have made profession in the Church of God, rehearsing remarkable things and ascribing it to luck and chance, I've said that's not that at all. That's God's work, that's God's hand, and they couldn't see it. No delight in Him at all, just a wondering at what had actually happened. but him they saw not. What a solemn thing to so many. How can we delight in one that we don't actually see or discern his going before us and in his works. And then there's a delighting in him, in his promises. All the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. And again it's leading to the Lord, really every blessing that comes from Him for a poor sinner, leads that sinner back to God.

Those that are His people, what a distinction there was when the Lord healed those ten lepers. Where are the nine? Nine, they took the healing, they took the blessing, but they had no delight in the One that blessed them. They didn't turn, they didn't give glory to God at all.

And so delighting in the Lord is a very specific going from His blessings and going directly to Him and thinking, meditating upon Him with delight. And I hope it is so for me and for you from this evening to make this your prayer and desire that when you come into the house of God And when we have our private devotions, when we come to the Lord's day, that we have this as our aim, to delight in the Lord.

And whatever we are doing, does it lead us to delight in the Lord? Or are we just doing it as a door upon its hinges? Or are we doing it to gain some favour with the Lord, putting Him in our debt, so to speak? Or is it that we really do love to be with Him, love to be with His people and on His day?

For this is one reason why we read the other reading in Psalm 37, verse 4, Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Verse 11, But the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. But there's the direction to consciously delight ourselves in the Lord, to desire to do so and to make that our prayer and make that our aim. That we then follow on from gathering together in the Lord's house to delighting in the Lord of that house. Well then we have lastly an additional blessing that is to follow.

And I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father. One of the greatest blessings a poor sinner can have is to be lifted up above this poor dying world, to have our affection set on things above, to have our hope to be there. I mention many times in preaching the effect it had on me in speaking at the Pilgrim Home when one of the Lord's dear people, I didn't know him at that time, He'd just come into the home, he was listening to me, and his face was shining as I preached the Gospel. I said to him afterwards, I said, have you come in for just respite or permanent stay? No, permanent stay, he said.

And then his face beamed, and great delight, and he looked up and he said, but my home is above. That's where I'm going. And immediately it lifted him above. being in a nursing home and leaving his own home and all his life and everything, he was on his way. And within three months the Lord took him home. But he was half there. It is just the realisation that's where his eternal home was. And it filled him with joy.

And this is to be, to ride upon the high places of the earth is to rise above our frailty, our pains, our afflictions, our present circumstances, manning all that they are saying and all that they are doing and have our conversation which is above or our citizenship which is above. And our conversation is in heaven.

And to enjoy spiritual things and to delight in spiritual things and to feed upon those spiritual things, feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father." And he doesn't say Israel, he doesn't say Abraham or Isaac, but Jacob. He wrestled with the angel, he prevailed, his name was changed from Jacob to Israel, the blessings that he had. And of course from him come the twelve tribes of Israel. Those blessings, wrestling with the angels, wrestled with God and with man, and has prevailed.

If Jacob ever saw the Lord, it was there. And that passage is a precious passage to me too. It's one of the first times that in reading the Word of God, I saw the Lord. And I wasn't, I was just reading in my reading meditation, when I was just seeking the Lord, and there wrestled a man with him to the breaking of the day. And the Lord stopped me there, and that man was the Lord Jesus before he came to this world. Thou hast wrestled with God and with man, and hast prevailed."

That's Christ. And those are sacred times when we see Him. The two on the way to Emmaus, I believe the Lord took them right through the Scriptures, and they saw one after another. And it's no wonder their heart burned within them. while he taught with them by the way, because it was Christ in all the scriptures.

There's no higher place or blessing that a poor sinner can go, here below, than to be brought to view the Lord, and to delight in Him, and to have those pleasures begun here, that shall reach their full potential in heaven. When we shall see Him face by face, Here below it is by faith, but there we shall see Him and shall delight in Him. And may the word this evening be one that does reset us in a way to true purpose of worship, to have our Lord set before us again if we have lost sight of Him. And as Paul says, let us run the race. that is set before us looking unto Jesus and delighting in Him in the way that we have had set before us this evening. And may it be especially a renewed delight in the times that we can gather in the house of God and gather with the Lord and His people. May the Lord at His blessing. Amen.

Delight in the LORD

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Delight in the LORD

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About Rowland Wheatley

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