All right, if you would, open
your Bibles with me to Isaiah chapter 12. Isaiah chapter 12. I just want
to remember Novi Sparks in prayer. They're in Cincinnati still today. They went up Monday. I think
they're coming home maybe tomorrow, finishing all the paperwork that's
necessary to get her on the kidney transplant list. and put a port
in so they can start doing dialysis and the time is near. They need to
get this surgery done as soon as possible. And they're, they're
finishing that up now. So let's remember them in prayer. All right. Isaiah chapter 12. And in that day thou shalt say,
Oh Lord, I will praise thee. Though thou was angry with me,
thine anger is turned away. and thou comfortest me. Behold,
God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid,
for Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song. He also has become
my salvation. Therefore, with joy, shall you
draw water out of the wells of salvation. And in that day shall
ye say, praise the Lord. Call upon his name. Declare his
doings among the people. Make mention that his name is
exalted. Sing unto the Lord, for he hath
done excellent things. This is known in all the earth.
Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, for great is the holy
one of Israel in the midst of thee. All right, Sean. Okay,
if you would turn to song 100. O come, all ye faithful. you O come, all ye faithful, joyful
and triumphant, come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem. Come and behold Him, born the
King of angels. O come, let us adore O come,
let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord. Choir of angels, sing in exultation,
Sing, all ye Bridegrooms of heaven above. Glory to God, all ? Glory
in the highest ? O come, let us adore him ? O come, let us
adore him ? O come, let us adore him ? Christ the Lord ? Yea,
Lord, we greet thee ? Born this happy Jesus, to Thee be all glory given. Word of the Father, now in flesh
appearing, O come, let us adore Him. ? O come let us adore him
? ? O come let us adore him ? ? Christ the Lord ? Okay, if you would, now turn
to song number 477, At Calvary. And on the third verse, I have
a change made in my hymnal where it says, now I owe to Jesus everything. So we'll sing it that way. Years I spent in vanity and pride,
Caring not my Lord was crucified, Knowing not it was for me He
died on Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace
was free. Pardon there was multiplied to
me. There my burdened soul found
liberty at Calvary. By God's word at last my sin
I learned, Then I trembled at the law I'd spurned, Till my
guilty soul in glory turned to Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace
was free. Pardon there was multiplied to
me. There my burdened soul found
liberty at Calvary. Now I owe to Jesus everything. Now I gladly own Him as my King. Now my raptured soul can only
sing of Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace
was free. Pardon there was multiplied to
me. There my burdened soul found
liberty at Calvary. O the love that drew salvation's
plan, O the grace that brought it down to man, O the mighty
gulf that God did span at Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace
was free. Pardon there was multiplied to
me. There my burdened soul found
liberty at Calvary. If you wouldn't open your Bibles
with me to Luke chapter 2. Luke, the second chapter. We'll begin our reading in verse
21, Luke chapter two. And when eight days were accomplished
for the circumcision of the child, his name was called Jesus, which
was so named by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
And with the days of her purification according to the law of Moses
were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him
to the Lord. As it's written in the law of
the Lord, every male that openeth the womb should be called holy
to the Lord and offer a sacrifice according to that which is said
in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young
pigeons. And behold, there was a man in
Jerusalem whose name was Simeon and the same man was just and
devout. waiting for the consolation of
Israel, and the Holy Ghost was upon him. And it was revealed
unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before
he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came by the Spirit into
the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to
do for him after the custom of the law, then took he him up
in his arms and blessed God, and said, Lord, now let us thy
servant depart in peace according to thy word, For mine eyes have
seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face
of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of
thy people, Israel. And Joseph and his mother marveled
at those things which were spoken of him. And Simeon blessed them
and said unto Mary, his mother, behold, this child is set for
the fall and rising again of many in Israel and for a sign
which shall be spoken against. Yea, a sword, shall pierce through
thine own soul also, and the thoughts of many hearts may be
revealed." We'll end our reading there. Let's bow together in
prayer. Our Father, Lord, we've gathered
here this evening desiring to hear word from Thee, desiring
to see the glory of Christ our Savior. And oh, how we long to
see thy face, how we long to, by faith, to be able to see the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. How we long to be able
to hear and believe and revel in and be comforted by the message
of Christ our Savior, the good news of the gospel. Father, I
pray that you would give us the heart and the spirit of worship
tonight. Father, I beg of thee that you
would be with me in this hour, You would enable me to rightly
divide the word of truth, to preach the gospel as a sinful
man to sinful people, to be enabled by thy spirit to preach thy darling
son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, I pray you give your
people a hearing ear and a believing heart, how desperately we need
to hear from thee. And Father, that you would enable
us, each one, to leave here tonight rejoicing in Christ our Savior.
Let him be preeminent in all things we pray. Father, I thank
you for this place. I thank you for a place that
you've provided where we can meet together and worship in
peace and unity. Father, I thank you and beg of
you that you would give us the wisdom and the grace and the
attitude to earnestly protect what you've given us, to earnestly
protect the unity of the brethren, earnestly contend for the gospel,
to not compromise, that your name might be glorified. And
this would be a place where your people could come and be fed
and instructed in the things of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
don't leave us alone. We thank you for the years and
years and years of blessing that you've given us, but don't leave
us alone, or we'll ruin it in a heartbeat. Father, we pray
for your people, those who are in times of great difficulty,
heartache, sickness, and sorrow. We thank you for the good report
that you've given on so many. Father, we're thankful for those
that still need you in a special way. We always need you. But
those who are in a particular time of trouble, we pray you'd
meet their need, that you'd heal, comfort, and lead, and guide,
and direct. We pray especially for Novi, Father, that you'd
undertake on her behalf and use these means to give her health
and make her feel better again. All these things we ask in that
name which is above every name, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
amen. All right, now if you would begin,
open your Bibles with me to Genesis chapter three. In a manner of speaking, I'm
gonna take a little bit of a break from our study in Genesis. We're
gonna begin in Genesis, but take a little bit different view of
our study here this evening, because something else has just
got a hold of me. that I couldn't get away from
it. I just have to preach it. I mentioned
this Sunday morning how the songs of our Lord's birth, when we
think about the Lord's birth, those songs should be sung with
excitement. I remember our daughter Holly
was in a number of years in a Christmas play down at ACC. And I still
remember the man's name, Max. Max was the musical director
of those plays. And they had songs they were
singing, they're practicing, and the kids are doing what kids
do. You're just going through the motions, you know, and he stopped
them. They're singing these songs of the hymns of the Lord's birth,
what we sing. And he just laid into him, said,
you gotta be happy about this. This is joyful. This is exciting. The Lord's come, the Lord's come. These things, and he's right.
These should be exciting to us. How excited? the people 2,000
years ago should have been to hear that Christ is born, the
Christ child's born. He's come. We've waited for him
for 4,000 years, and now suddenly he's come. It's so exciting. Nobody should be able to contain
themselves with it. And I know most of the world
was not looking for the Savior to come at that moment. Most
of the world missed him. Most of the world never saw him.
They never saw him by faith. But those who did see him Those
who did know who he was and what he was come to do, they were
excited. We just read Simeon. Simeon was
excited, wasn't he? Oh, he was excited. But you know
what? I'm not preaching to people 2,000
years ago. I'm preaching to people here
in 2021. In our day, the same sinful flesh
fills the world that did on the day that our Savior was born.
The darkness of ignorance and unbelief covers the world just
as much today as it did then. There's a general sense of hopelessness
that people are railing on the government, the economy, and
today, just like they were 2,000 years ago. People are still going
through the motions of religion today, just like they did then,
and without worshiping the Lord, without worshiping Him at all.
Today, there's a few. There's a few like Simeon, a
few like Anna. Looking for the Lord's second
coming. Just like there is a few looking for his first coming.
There's some that are longing for it, aren't we? Longing for
his coming. He said he'd come quickly, and
what do we cry? Even so come, Lord Jesus. Nothing
make me happier than if he'd come right now. Right now. And I'll tell you another thing
that hasn't changed. We should be genuinely excited. genuinely
excited to come to the house of the Lord to hear the gospel
preached. This is where we see Christ.
This is where he reveals himself. We should be excited to be here.
The Savior promised he'd be here. He's in our midst right now.
I'm confident of the people that are here. There's at least two
or three gathered together in his name to worship him. He said
he'd be here. How exciting is that? The Lord of glory is here. I
mean, I just can't believe it. And I know many of us have heard
the gospel 10,000 times. I know we have. But the good
news of Christ should never become old hat, should it? It should
never become old hat. It shouldn't be preached that
way and it shouldn't be heard that way. We should be excited
to hear of who Christ is. How exciting is it to hear? God
Almighty loves sinners, loves me. That's amazing. How excited should sinful men
and women like we are, how excited should we be to hear, you know
what? God saves sinners. If you're a sinner, Christ came
to save you. He appeared to save you. He appeared to make you
righteous and holy. And he's not going to leave his
people alone. He's going to keep them. and preserve them, and
nothing can cause them to be taken out of his hand. Because
the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. David said, let the earth rejoice.
Well, I'd be excited about that. Our God reigns. These nut jobs
ruling in puppet governments all over the world, they're not
in charge. Our God reigneth. Let the earth
rejoice. Well, tonight I want to look
at four prophecies. of the Savior. I want us to see
what is it that He did when He came. And maybe we can get excited
about it. Maybe we can get excited about
this glorious blessing that Almighty God will reveal His Son to us. And I firmly believe this. If
we'll listen to the gospel as needy sinners, we'll be blessed. That's who is blessed when they
hear the gospel, is needy sinners. hear who he is and what he's
accomplished. So here is the first thing. The
Savior has come to undo everything that Adam did to us. Genesis
3, verse 14. This is, you know, the story.
We'll look at it in more detail here in a week or so, but verse
14, the Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou hast done
this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast
of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou go,
And thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. I will put
enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed.
It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Now,
here when Adam fell, seems like the Lord cursed everything, didn't
he? All mankind, all the earth, everything in the earth was all
cursed because of Adam's sin. The curse of death and separation
came upon all men. came on the world. But in giving
that curse and pronouncing that curse of sin, God gave us a precious
promise. The Lord Jesus Christ, the seed
of woman. He's not going to take part in
Adam's. He's not going to come from Adam's sinful seed. He's
not taking part in Adam's sin because Adam's not his representative.
He's the seed of woman, not the seed of Adam. And he's coming.
He's coming to undo that curse for his people. All this curse,
Christ is coming to undo it, and how excited we should be
about this. I don't know, as God's pronouncing
this curse, how excited Adam and Eve were necessarily, but
from that time that God told them to see the woman's coming,
they were looking for him. They were looking for him to
come. They sure wanted him to come. You know, part of this
curse of sin is nakedness and shame, and not just physical
nakedness and shame, but spiritual. Look up at verse seven. This
is right after, as soon as Adam ate that fruit, as soon as he
bit into it, the eyes of both of them were open, and they knew
they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together
and made themselves apron. Now, Adam and Eve had always
been naked. Suddenly, they didn't just realize they were naked,
suddenly they were ashamed of it. They were just full of shame. Immediately, this is immediately
after Adam sinned. And so what they did is they
tried to cover their shame. They got these fig leaves and
they made themselves aprons trying to cover their shame, but it
didn't work. Now it covered their body enough
that maybe they wouldn't have been ashamed physically, but
it didn't cover the shame of their soul. It didn't cover their
nakedness, their naked of righteousness in their soul. It didn't cover
where the real shame was in their soul. And those fig leaves are
pictures of man's works. All of our Religious works that
we do, trying to keep the law and trying to do all these religious
ceremonies and things, they don't take away our shame before God.
They always leave us naked and ashamed before God because they
can't deal with the real problem of sin. But Christ came to take
that nakedness and that shame away from his people by covering
them with himself, by covering them with his righteousness.
You know when the Savior was crucified, you know one of the
things they did to him? They stripped him naked and mocked
him and made fun of him, bearing the shame of our sin. But he
came to cover his people. Look at verse 21, here's a picture
of it. Unto Adam also and his wife did the Lord God make coats
of skin and clothed them. Now I don't know what kind of
animal that was, but that animal had to die so its skin could
be used to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve And when God
covered them, they weren't physically ashamed anymore. And that animal
is a picture of Christ. In order for Christ to cover
his people, to take away their nakedness, he had to die. He
had to die as a sacrifice for the sin of his people and take
that sin away. And when he died, when his blood
covered that sin and blotted it out, God's elect are not ashamed
anymore. They have nothing to be ashamed
of. In Christ, they had nothing to be ashamed of because they're
well-dressed, aren't they? They're well-dressed in Christ's
righteousness. Then another part of that curse
is death, both spiritual and physical death. And this is what
God promised Adam. Look back at chapter two. This
is what God promised Adam would happen. In chapter two of Genesis,
verse 16. And the Lord God commanded the
man, saying, of every tree of the garden, thou mayest freely
eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt
not eat of it. For in the day, not if you do,
God knew he was gonna do this, in the day that thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die. And literally translated, what
God said to Adam is, dying thou shalt die. When you eat that
fruit, Adam, you'll begin dying physically. Sin, when it's finished,
bring forth death. Sin's ultimately gonna kill the
body of this flesh. But Adam, you're gonna instantly
die spiritually. And that's just exactly what
happened. Look back over again in chapter
three, verse eight. I'll show you how you see it.
It's obvious, Adam's dead. Verse eight. And they heard the
voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of
the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence
of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God
called unto Adam and said unto him, where art thou? And he said,
I heard thy voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was
naked And I hid myself. And he said, who told thee that
thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded
thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, the woman
whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and
I did eat. Now you read that and it's obvious,
Adam has died spiritually, hasn't he? I mean, how dead do you gotta
be to think you can hide in the bushes from the all-seeing eye
of God? He actually thought he'd get
away with that. He thought, I'll give that a shot. I think that'll work.
Why did he think that? He's dead. Now, there's no worship
of God in Adam. There's no fear of God. There's
no reverence of God. There's no love for God in Adam.
Instead of begging for mercy, which would have been worship.
You know, that's worship. Begging God for mercy. That's worship.
The leper came begging him. Worshipped. That's what Matthew
called him. Worshipped him. Instead of begging for mercy,
instead of worshiping God, what does Adam do? Adam blames God
for his sin. He's dead. He's dead. Adam is
suddenly hateful. He hates God. He hates Eve. And
he resents them both. He resents God and Eve. I wouldn't
be in this mess if it wasn't for the two of you. He got a
victim mentality. What happened? He was ruling
the world just earlier that day. What happened? Adam died. He died spiritually just like
God said he would. But the Lord Jesus Christ, he
came to undo that curse. He came to give life for his
people. He came to give them eternal
life. They can never mess up and they can never lose because
it's not dependent on them. It's dependent on him. Christ
gives life to his people by dying the death that they deserve.
He took their sin and died the death that they deserve and gave
them the life that he earned as a man. Eternal life so they
can never die. Now I'm telling you, that ought
to get us excited. I mean, that ought to get us
excited. What can be better than being given the life of Christ?
I mean, you think of that, the life of Christ. The end part
of the curse of sin is sorrow. Look at verse 16. Under the woman,
he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception
and sorrow should not bring forth children and thy desire should
be to thy husband and he should rule over thee. Now this world
is full of sorrow. All of us know about sorrow. And you women especially know
what this verse is talking about, a particular sorrow, childbirth. After Adam's sin, sorrow just
covered the earth like a plague. But Christ came to undo that,
to take that curse of sorrow away from his people. And I'll
tell you how he did it. He took the sin, that causes
their sorrow, He took it away from them and He made it His. And He suffered and He died for
it, He bore it Himself. Isaiah 53 verse 8, surely He
hath borne our griefs and He's carried our sorrows. He's carried
them, so His people don't carry them anymore. There's no sorrow,
there's no grief in Christ. He took that away from His people.
And I know we still suffer it, don't we? In the flesh, in the
world, sorrow. But who's your comforter? Who's
the one that can comfort you? The one who bore your griefs
and your sorrows. He comforts his people. Then thorns and thistles
are part of the curse of sin. Verse 17. And unto Adam he said,
because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast
eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not
eat of it, Cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt
thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles
shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of
the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till
thou return unto the ground. For out of it was thou taken.
For dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. Now all of
us are not farmers, but I tell you, working people know a whole
lot about thorns and thistles. You ever wonder, when you go
to work, why is everything so hard? Why is it hard to get everything
done? Why is it hard to get along with
people? You got one goal at work. Why
is everybody pulling in different directions, making it just almost
impossible to get anything done? I mean, people just want to spend
their time fussing and fighting. If they spent that much energy
on working, man, when you get this thing done, it'd be such
a great place to work. But it's not that way, is it?
Hard to get things done. Why is it machines are constantly
breaking down? You got to work those big old
shutdowns, because everything's breaking down all the time. It's just
so hard to turn a profit. I mean, businesses just have
such a hard time turning a profit. What is going on? That's the
thorns and the thistles of sin. It just makes everything difficult.
It's like it makes it difficult to grow beans. It makes it difficult
to get your work done. That's the curse of sin. But
Christ came. Here, the Lord told him he's
coming. Our message is he's come. He
has come. And he has taken away the curse
of sin for his people by bearing their sin himself. When he is
crucified, we have a picture of it. What did he wear on his
head? A crown of thorns. What did they nail him to? The
cursed tree. The cursed tree. He did that.
He wore that crown of thorns. They didn't cut his head off.
They used a guillotine to cut his head off. They didn't make
him lay his head down on a block and chop his head off. They crucified
him because cursed is everyone that dieth upon a tree, that
hangeth upon a tree. He died bearing the curse of
sin for his people, so they never will. Paul told the church at
Galatia, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of law, being
made a curse for us. He delivered us from that curse
by being made a curse for us. And in his life, in his death,
his burial, his resurrection, in everything that he accomplished,
he completely undid the curse that Adam put on us. That's what
he came to do. Now here's the question. That's
what he came to do. Did he do it? That's a fair question. That's what he came to do. That's
what they said he's going to do. Did he do it? Yes, he did. Yes, he did. The curse of sin
begins in the very opening pages of the Bible. In my Bible, the
curse of sin begins on page four of the Bible. I don't know how
many pages in it, but page four is pretty early. That's where
the curse of sin begins. Well, after the Lord finishes
with all his purpose for the first creation, And he wraps
this thing up and he creates new heaven and new earth wherein
dwells righteousness. The very last pages of the Bible
tell us about what happened. Revelation 22 verse three says
this, there shall be no more curse. Oh, there's going to be no more
curse because the Lord Jesus Christ bore it all away for his
people. I'm telling you, the thought
of that excites me. I'm excited. Oh, what he's done
for his people. Isaac Watts penned these great
words. No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground.
He comes to make his blessings flow. Far as the curse is found. How far did the curse reach?
That's how far his blessings flow. How far did the curse reach? Oh, where sin abounded. Grace
did much more abound. completely removed the curse
for his people. Now that's joyful news. Right
now look at Isaiah chapter 11. Christ came, he undid the curse
of sin for his people. Isaiah 11 tells us that Christ
came to bring peace to his people. Isaiah 11 verse 1. And there should come forth a
rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch should grow out
of his roots, and the Spirit of the Lord should rest upon
him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of
counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear
of the Lord, and shall make him of quick understanding in the
fear of the Lord. He should not judge after the
sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears,
but with righteousness shall he judge the poor. and reproved
with equity for the meek of the earth. And he shall smite the
earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips
shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the
girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. Now
you know who that is, that can't be anybody but Christ, see he's
coming. And here's what's gonna happen when he does, verse six.
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall
lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the
fat one together And a little child shall lead them. And the
cow and the bear shall feed. Their young ones shall lie down
together. And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the
sucking child shall play in the hole of the asp. And the weaned
child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den. They shall
not hurt nor destroy in all my mountain. For the earth shall
be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the
sea. And in that day, there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall
stand for an ensign of the people, And it, the Gentiles shall seek
and his rest shall be glorious. Now in Christ, there's peace. This is what he come to bring
to his people, peace. Natural born enemies, the wolf
and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, natural born enemies
are at peace, are at peace. Natural born enemies are at peace,
Jew and Gentile. whatever enemies you want to
describe. They're natural-born enemies, but they're at peace
in Christ. You know why? God's given them
a new nature, a peaceable nature. I mean, just imagine a world
where a wolf and a lamb and a cow and a bear can just be friends
and lie down together, you know? The lion's eating straw and not
eating the kid, not eating the flesh. Imagine a world where
a small child plays with poisonous snakes and doesn't get hurt.
All that's given to us is a picture. There's peace in Christ. His
people have peace. They have peace with each other.
They have a new nature. And I know that that peace is
not perfect now. I know it ought to be. It ought
to be. I know it's not. There's been
squabbles going on from the time of the early church. You know,
it shouldn't surprise us that they're still going on now. That
peace is not perfect. But there will be someday, maybe
we might just wanna be careful how we treat one another and
talk about one another right now. There gonna be peace someday,
perfect peace, perfect peace. And I tell you what, if we're
at peace, if this congregation, Hurricane Road Grace Church is
at peace with one another right now, tell you we got to thank
for it, our Savior. The Lord did that. That's exactly
right. He makes His people have peace. But I'll tell you a greater
miracle. The greater miracle is that Christ
came and He made peace with God. The blood of Christ took away
the sin that made God angry. And He's at peace. God has no
reason to be angry with His people anymore. Their sin's gone. He's
at peace. And when the blood of Christ is applied to our hearts,
we're given a new nature and we're at peace. God applies, the Holy Spirit
applies the blood of Christ to our hearts. Suddenly, we willingly
bow. Suddenly, we surrender. We submit
ourselves to the righteousness of Christ and we quit trying
to make up. We quit trying to make our own
righteousness by our sinful deeds and we submit. We submit to the
righteousness of Christ. We surrender on God's terms.
God's given the terms of surrender. It's bow to Christ. Christ is
all. That's the terms of surrender.
It's simple. It's simple to understand. Christ
is all. Bow to Him. Beg Him for mercy. It's simple.
It's simple to understand, but we'll never do it until God makes
us bow. He's got to give us a new nature,
and when He does, I'll tell you what, we'll surrender. And then there's peace of heart.
Then we surrender. And I'll tell you, in a body
filled with the opposite of peace, turmoil, anxiety and animosity
in a world filled with animosity and fussing and fighting. I tell
you, I long for peace. I mean, I long for it. Aren't
you excited to hear Christ came to make peace for his people?
Peace. Even in this world gone crazy
around us, we can have peace of heart. I'm excited about that,
aren't you? That's what Christ came to bring
his people. All right, thirdly, look at Isaiah chapter 40. Christ
has come to bring comfort to his people. Part of that curse,
remember, is sorrow. Christ has come to bring comfort
to his people. And he does it through the preaching
of the gospel, through the preaching of him. Look what he says here
in Isaiah 40, verse 1. This is his commandment to God's
preacher. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Now, we don't cry, peace, peace,
where there is no peace. We don't try to comfort God's
people by putting this goofy smile on our face and talking
to them in just a real soothing voice and telling them, oh, it's
everything and everything wonderful and it's great. Look at the candles, look at
the smoke, look at the ceremony, look at, no, there's no peace
there. God's preacher cries comfort
to God's people for a specific reason. Christ has come. Now you look to him, look at
what he's done for his people. There's comfort in the very first
words of this message that God gives Isaiah, Isaiah, comfort
ye, comfort ye, my people, my people saith your God. These
people are God's people. They belong to God. They belong
to him. He has taken responsibility for
them. They're not their own. He bought
them with the price and he's taken responsibility for them,
both body and soul. And since they're his, you know
what? They're going to be preserved. They're going to be protected
and they're going to be brought to glory. They belong to God. He's going to have them. There's
peace for God's people because Christ The captain of our salvation
has put an end to the war. Verse two, speak ye comfortably
to Jerusalem. Crying to her, her warfare's
accomplished. Her iniquity is pardoned. For she hath received
of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. Now I'm telling
you, there's peace because the war's over. The war is over for
the bride of Christ. Her war with death is over because
Christ died for her. So she could never die the second
Christ died as her substitute. She can't die. And the very worst
thing that could happen to her body is this. Her body dies,
and she goes to be with the Lord. I fail to find the negative in
that, don't you? That's victory. That's victory. Because the war's over. I think
about that often. We go to the funeral home, and
I look at the body One I'm confident is a believer, lying there in
that casket. They're not there. Oftentimes
the body doesn't really look like him exactly anymore, does
it? Because the spirit of that body's gone. And there that body
lays, an empty shell. And we're sad. That's a loved
one that we enjoyed spending time with and we enjoyed talking
to. We enjoyed it. And they're gone. And we're sad
for that. We'll miss that. But I can't help but think, this
is the victory. This is not defeat, this is the
victory. This is not the end, this is
the beginning of endless joy, endless victory. Christ won the
victory for his people, the war's over. Her war with death is over,
because there's no more sting left in it for her. Christ took
the sting, took it away from his people. Her war with sin
is over. Because Christ bore her sin away.
Now I know all we do is sin. We still live with the effects
of sin. We still live with committing sin. Sin we didn't wish we committed. You fight and fight and fight
and you can't stop sinning. We're not done with sinning that
way. But we're done with sinning this way. We're done with the
power of it. We're done with the damning power of it. We're
done with the controlling power of it. You know what the controlling
power of sin is? It's not that you can't quit
sinning. The controlling power of sin is this. It stops you
from believing Christ. It stops you from trusting Christ.
Do you trust Christ? You heard the gospel. Do you
believe it? Do you trust Him? God's delivered you from the
power of sin so that you believe. We're done with the condemning
power of sin. He's given her the double cure,
double for all her sin. And I'll tell you what that's
talking about. It's talking about the blood,
in the water that came from our Savior's side when that soldier
pierced his side with that spear. He washed her in the blood, his
own blood, the blood that came from his body, and that blood
took away her sin, made her righteous so that she has no more sin.
But he didn't stop there. He also washed her in the water,
and he made her pure. That's the new birth. He gave
her a new nature that would never sin again. That's the double
cure. Blood to justify. Water to sanctify,
make holy. Christ took the sin of His people
away, but then He made it where they can't sin and can't rack
up another sin debt again. The double cure. God's people
are done with the power of sin. And the Lord comforts His people
with a message of Him. Look here at verse 6 of Isaiah
40. The voice said, cry. And He said, what shall I cry?
Here's what you cry. Here's our message. All flesh
is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is the flower of the
field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the spirit
of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. The
grass withereth and the flower fadeth, but the word of our God
shall stand forever. Now this is the message of the
gospel, all flesh is grass. All flesh is good for nothing.
Your flesh and my flesh, we're good for nothing. Our flesh is
dead and dying because of the sin that's in us, and all it
can produce is more sin. And we just aren't going to last
long. It's not going to last long, because we can't produce
anything righteous. We can't produce anything that'll
last. And try as you might, look as hard as you want into your
flesh, you'll never find any hope. We're dead. When Adam died,
we did too. We're dead grass. And if you
think that you're less grass, you think you're flowering grass,
it won't last long. It won't last long. We were out
with our family last weekend. The kids took a picture of us.
Jan and I looked at the picture they took of us. Who are them
two old people? They took these pictures. Yeah, that's us. It was us. It
was us. It don't last. It don't last. But I'm telling you, there's
comfort. There's comfort for God's people. The Word of our God shall stand
forever. The written Word shall stand forever. As long as this
world endures, as long as this flesh, my flesh, endures, I'm
telling you what, the Word of our God's going to stand. It's
as true today as it was the first time I ever heard it. It's as
true today as the time Isaiah wrote it. It's as true today
as the time Moses wrote it. This Word shall stand forever,
and this will be our message. God is our helper. This will
be our message. The Word of our God stands forever.
And the incarnate Word, He stands forever. Yes, He died. He rose again, and He rules forever. Our God's on the throne. His
purposes shall come to pass. His will shall be done. And His will is the salvation
of His people. Then what are we worried about?
Huh? Let's get excited. Our God reigns. Oh, that's comforting. And even
though all we are is flesh, By God's grace, he's gonna show
his people the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And
best I, the Lord will ever able me to do it, I'm gonna keep preaching
it, because somebody's gonna see. And here's how I know it,
verse five. The glory of the Lord shall be
revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth
of the Lord has spoken it. See, that's why I'm so sure the
mouth of the Lord has spoken it. His word shall endure forever. I'm telling you, that comforts
my soul. I hope it does you, that comforts
my soul. All right, here's the fourth thing. Look at Isaiah
chapter 61. Christ is coming. He's gonna give them freedom
and make them enjoy it. Isaiah chapter 61, verse one. The spirit of the Lord God is
upon me. Because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings
unto the meek. And this is Christ speaking.
He has sent me to preach good tidings to the meek. And I tell
you who the meek are. They're spiritually meek. The
word means poor. They're poor in spirit. They're
so poor they're bankrupt. Spiritually bankrupt. They don't
have any goodness in them. They don't have any righteousness.
They have no obedience. There's absolutely nothing that's
in them that could commend them to God. And Christ the Savior
has come with good tidings for those poor meek people. Here's his message to them. Here's
his comfort to them. He's everything we need. He's
everything. He's our righteousness. He's
our goodness. He's our wisdom. He's our sanctification.
He's our redemption. He's everything that we need
and we're accepted in him. All the riches of God's mercy
are ours in him. That's his good tidings to the
meek. Next he says, he sent me to bind up the broken hearted.
And the people here, they're not just sad. Their heart is
broken over their sin. And I tell you how God binds
up their broken heart. It's not by fixing up the heart
of the flesh or the nature of the flesh. It's not just by telling
them everything's going to be okay. He binds up the broken
hearted by giving them a new heart, a perfect sinless heart
that can't be broken anymore. Ezekiel 36 verse 26 says, a new
heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within
you, and I'll take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and
I'll give you a heart of flesh. That's how our hearts comfort.
When he gives us a new heart, a heart that believes Christ,
that trusts Christ, that rests in, you want comfort for your
heart? Rest in Christ. That's the heart God gives his
people. Then he's come to give freedom to the captives. He sent
me to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the
prison to them that are bound. Now these captives are those
who are taken captive by sin. It's like I talked about earlier.
They're captives in this way. They can't stop sinning. They
can, they're, they're a slave to sin. Now, if you're a slave,
you have to do what your master says, don't you? Well, we're
slaves to sin. And the proof of it, we have
to do what sin says. We keep sinning and we can't
quit sinning. We're guilty and we can't make
ourselves not guilty. But Christ came to proclaim liberty
to those guilty captives. He didn't come just talking about
freedom. He brought freedom. He came to his people and he
made them free. He opened the prison door and
told them, go out. Go out free. And it wasn't a
jailbreak. It wasn't a jailbreak. He didn't
just tell guilty people to leave. No, he made them innocent. Christ
took their place in the prison house. And he suffered everything
that their sin deserves. And he made them free in justice. So nobody can ever come back
and put them in prison again. Justice is satisfied by the death
of our Savior. Now to think that the Son of
God would take my place so I could go free. How can we not be excited about
that? God help us that that never becomes old hat. Salvation by
substitution. All right, here's the last thing,
verse two. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day
of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourns. Now what Isaiah
is talking about here is the year of jubilee. It came around
every 50 years. It's interesting, the year of
jubilee is given in the law of God, but historians can't find
one time that it was ever observed. Not one time ever. I can tell
you one time it was observed in Christ our Savior. He's our
jubilee. And the year of jubilee, this
is what was supposed to happen. Everybody who'd been sold into
slavery because they had a debt set free. All property had been
lost. If you had a debt and you lost
property to pay that debt, family property somehow, that property
was restored back to its original owner. Every debt was marked,
paid in full. Nobody had any more debts. And
a year of rest was proclaimed for the land and everybody in
the land. They didn't plant. They didn't do it. A year of
rest. They never observed it. People who were creditors didn't
want to write off that bad debt. People who weren't slaves didn't
want to let them go free. But I tell you, when that year of
Jubilee was observed, Christ our Savior and what He accomplished
for His people. In Adam, we were made slaves
to sin. Christ made His people free, putting their sin away
by His precious blood. In Adam, we were sold into slavery
to the law, a law we cannot keep, a law we can never work our way
out from under, But Christ came and set his people free from
that by keeping the law for us. And Adam, we received a huge
sin debt, so huge an eternity in hell will not pay for even
one of those sins. Christ came and paid the debt.
He paid all the debt I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain.
He washed it white as snow. And in Christ, a believer has
eternal rest. I'm thankful. I don't have to
get up here every week and give you a pep talk. Work, work, work,
work, work. Do, do, do, do, do. And try to
get everybody revved up because you've got to do more for God.
We've got to do all this stuff. That's the only way anybody can
be saved. I just would feel like a complete
failure. Because I would be. I would be. But what a message
God's given us to His people. You rest in Christ. You rest. You know why you rest? He left
you no more work to do. Just rest in Him. I see myself
sold under sin. I see myself as a hopeless case
in myself. But hearing of Christ our Jubilee,
that's exciting stuff. You and I cannot imagine spending
a lifetime as a slave, and somebody come and tell you you're free.
I mean, we can't imagine. I mean, just, we can't imagine. But I'm telling you, that's exciting
stuff. I read about the slaves in the
United States at the end of the Civil War. I can understand them
celebrating. They called that Jubilee. They're
finally, I mean, how exciting. That pales in comparison to what
Christ has set his people free from. I hear that, and you know
what? Tell me more of that. Tell me
more about him. I'm thankful he came, aren't
you? You know what else? I'm thankful he's coming again.
And that just gets me excited. Kind of standing on my toes,
just excited. He's coming. And when he does,
we're going to be done with all of this. I hope it's before I
get home tonight, don't you? All right, let's bow together.
Our Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for such
a clear revelation of Christ our Savior, everything he's accomplished
for his people. Father, I pray you to apply your
word to our hearts that we just not go through the motions of
religion, but that we live thankfully and excited and what our God,
what our Savior has accomplished for us. It's in His precious
name. For His glory, we pray. Amen. All right, Sean. Okay, if you
would, turn to song number 466 and stand as we sing. Christ liveth in me. Once far from God and dead in
sin No light my heart could see But in God's Word the light I
found Now Christ liveth in me Christ liveth in me Christ liveth
in me So what a salvation is, that
Christ liveth in me. As rays of light from yonder
sun, the flowers of earth set free. So life and light and love
came forth from Christ living in me. Christ liveth in me. Christ liveth in me. Oh, what a salvation this, that
Christ liveth in me. As lives the flower within the
seed, As in the cone the tree. So praise the God of truth and
grace, His Spirit dwelleth in me. Christ liveth in me. Christ liveth in me. Oh, what a salvation this, that
Christ liveth in me! With longing all my heart is
filled, that like Him I may be. As on the wondrous thought I
dwell, that Christ liveth in me. Christ liveth in me. Christ liveth in me. Oh, what a salvation this, that
Christ liveth in me.