Let's open our Bibles again to
Isaiah chapter 33. The title of the message is the
king and his beauty. It took the title from verse
17, nine eyes shall see the king and his beauty. Now, who is this
king that we'll see? What is it that makes him so
beautiful? What is his beauty? Everyone here knows that this
king is the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not King Hezekiah. I'm sure
the people thought a great deal of him, but this is not speaking
of Hezekiah. If you and I are going to be
saved, it's Christ the King who we must see. We must see him
and his beauty and his glory. We must see him as our beauty,
as our righteousness. So first, when by God's grace
we see King Christ, We see him as the opposite of us. He's everything
that we're not. Let's look back up at verse seven.
Behold, their valiant ones shall cry without. The ambassadors
of peace shall weep bitterly. The highways lie waste. The wayfaring
man ceaseth. He hath broken the covenant.
He hath despised the cities. He regardeth no man. The earth
mourneth and languisheth. Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down.
Sharon is like a wilderness and Bashan and Carmel shake off their
fruits. Now this is the destruction that
the people of Israel were afraid was coming to them. They were
afraid Sennachrab and his Assyrian army was just going to come and
obliterate the place, just utterly destroy them. There'd be nothing
left when Sennachrab got through with them. That's what they were
afraid of. But the picture here is of the fall of Adam. None
of that came true to Israel. They were afraid of that even
though God promised them it would. None of that was true for Israel's
sake. But this is true of you and me
because of the fall of Adam. When Adam fell, the whole human
race was utterly destroyed. There is nothing left of us when
sin is finished with us. It brings nothing but eternal
death. Death and destruction came on
all men, the whole human race, when Adam fell. Even the best
that man has to offer, the valiant ones Isaiah talks about here
are our heroes. They're the best that man has
to offer. Even they cry in sorrow because of sin. Even the best
man has to offer has been destroyed by sin. The ambassadors of peace,
they weep bitterly because man has no way to make peace with
God. Man has no way to stop this warfare that we've declared on
God. We've got no way to end the destruction that sin brings.
The highways are laid waste. There's no highway man can use
to come back to God. There's no way that man could
come up with to come back to God. We've come up with plenty
of ways, but all the ways of man are ways of death. All men
in Adam are despised by God because we're guilty in Adam. In Adam,
we've broken God's covenant. God gave Adam a covenant. Adam
do and live. And it wasn't all the law of
Moses. It's just one law. Adam don't eat of that tree.
But sure enough, he did. He had to do it. He disobeyed
God's covenant. And because of Adam's sin, the
whole earth mourns. All human race mourns and the
whole earth mourns. Paul told us in Romans 8 that
the whole creation groans and travails together in pain because
it was made subject to vanity. It was made subject to death,
not because of anything it did, but because of what Adam did
when Adam fell. And every son of Adam is cut
down, bears no fruit. These places that he talks about
here, Lebanon and Sharon and Bashan and Carmel were rich,
fruitful places. They're all barren. You imagine
what Adam looked like in the garden. My goodness sakes, this
man was made by the hands of God himself. You imagine what
he looked like. Huh, look at his race now. Completely barren. No spiritual
goodness, no spiritual life in us at all. We've been cut down.
And the only way that we'll ever see this truth about ourselves
is if God enables us to see King Christ first. When we see Christ,
then we realize, oh, I'm undone. When we see Christ, then we realize,
oh, I'm a man of unclean lips, because mine eyes have seen the
King in his beauty, the King in his glory. So first, when
we see King Christ, we see he's the opposite of what we are.
Second, if God in His grace enables us to see King Christ, we'll
see Him exalted as Savior. Look at verse 10. Now will I
rise, saith the Lord, now will I be exalted, now will I lift
up myself. Now as soon as man fell in the
garden, God came in His grace, in His purpose, and made a promise
to Adam. You know why He did that? Because in the purpose
of God, in the grace of God, before Adam fell, there was already
a Savior. Before there was a sinner, there
was a Savior. So God promised Adam and Eve,
a Savior's gonna come and crush the serpent's head. He gave them
a picture of salvation when he covered their nakedness with
the skin of an animal. And all through the Old Testament,
the coming of Christ was pictured, promised, and prophesied of Salvation
provided by God's grace in his son was pictured in Noah's Ark. Outside of that Ark, everything
died. Inside the Ark, everything lived. Christ, the deliverer
of his people, who would deliver his people from bondage to sin
and bondage to the law, was pictured when Moses came and brought the
children of Israel out of Egypt. Christ, the law keeper, who would
be obedient to God's law, was pictured in the giving of the
law. Christ that prophet was pictured by Moses. Christ the
King was pictured in David. We've seen just in this first
half of our study in Isaiah, Isaiah in his gospel so clearly
written of the sufferings of the man Christ Jesus as he would
suffer and put the sins of his people away, promised all throughout
the scriptures. Then one day, the Son of God
rose up and he came to earth. He was formed as an embryo in
Mary's womb. He was born of a virgin in Bethlehem. He finally came. Christ the Savior
has risen Himself up to show Himself in His beauty to His
people. To show to His people, here's
their Savior. He's their King. And how few
people saw Him. How few. But every one of His
people saw Him. Not one of His people missed
Him. As soon as they brought that baby into the temple, what
did Simeon say? I seen him. Now, they brought
that, I mean, just an eight day old baby. I mean, think of that.
He's eight days old. He's a baby. Babies don't look
any different than any other babies to me. I don't know, people
say there's a baby that looks like his daddy. How can you tell?
They all look alike. Simeon knew that baby was no
ordinary baby. This baby is God. This baby's
the Savior. Now let thy servant depart in
peace according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen, I see
your salvation. And everything that that baby
would accomplish as a man, as a representative of his people,
reveals to us King Christ and his beauty. We'll see more of
that in just a minute, what it is that he's done that's so beautiful
and how he's made his people beautiful. But before we see
that, thirdly, When by God's grace we see King Christ, we
see him as the judge. Look at verse 11. Ye shall conceive
chaff, ye shall bring forth stubble, your breath as fire shall devour
you, and the people shall be as the burnings of lime, as thorns
cut up shall they be burned in the fire. Now it strikes fear
into the heart of man to see King Christ come. as judge of
heaven and earth. And you know why that puts fear
in the heart of man? Because we're guilty. Guilty people do
not want to stand before the judge. And verse 11 tells us
we're guilty. All of our works of righteousness,
our religious doings, all the good things that we do, they're
just worthless. All they are is chaff and stubble. They're good for nothing. But
worse than being good for nothing, Our works aren't just good for
nothing. Our works aren't just indifferent to God. Our works
of righteousness are offensive to God. Our good works, the good
righteous things you do, the kind things you do, the acts
of generosity, if we do those things in order to please God,
you know what God says? They're an abomination to me.
It's not just that there's something, you know, it's worthless. Worse
than worthless, they're an abomination to God. They're filthy rags. They're just adding sin to our
sin. And God says these works of your
righteousness, they're good for nothing but kindling the fire,
the fuel of God's wrath and his judgment. This fire is the unquenchable
fires of hell that devour sinners just like those fires would devour
the thorns they threw into it. He talks here about the burnings
of lime. I had no idea what that meant.
I looked that up. The way they made lime is they
took these chalk stones and they would burn them to make lime.
Now, when they got those chalk stones, they were so hard. I
mean, you can't do anything with them. You can't bust them up.
You can't do anything with them, make anything. They're just so
hard. But when they're left in the fire long enough, they become
lime. And that's the sinner's heart.
The sinner's heart is so hard, there's nothing you can do with
it. You can't remodel it. You can't
mold it. You can't change it. But even that hard heart will
feel the suffering of God's wrath and the fire of his wrath. And
that causes every sinner to fear. Nobody wants to go to hell. Nobody
wants to get punished. Look at verse 13. He goes on,
he says, here, ye that are far off, what I've done. And ye that
are near, acknowledge my might. The sinners in Zion are afraid.
Fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall
dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with
everlasting burnings? Now this is a word of warning
to everyone, everyone near and everyone far. Christ the judge
says to you who are far off, you Gentiles, you hear what I've
done. Now you hear. And you who are
near, you Jews, you acknowledge my might. You hear how I have
destroyed every enemy by the power of my might. The whole
world heard how God Jehovah came and destroyed Sennacherib's army
in one night. The whole world heard it near
and far. Now you who are far off, you
hear, you be warned, you listen. And you Jews who are near, now
you acknowledge my might. We've seen this in our study
of Isaiah. Many of these Jews, they wouldn't
listen. God sent his prophet to tell them, now Sennacherib's
coming, don't you worry. He's not coming in this city.
He's not even going to fire an arrow in this city. I'm going
to protect Israel. And they wouldn't trust the Lord.
They just wouldn't trust him. They were trying to find shelter
anywhere else they could find it. They'd gone down to Egypt,
they'd sent all this tribute money down to Egypt, trying to
come up with this ally in Egypt, this mighty Egyptian army. Well,
God came to just exactly what He said He'd do. He destroyed
Sennacherib's army, and all these religious hypocrites were so
worried, they're so full of fear. You mean in one night, God destroyed
that entire Assyrian army? Well, the Egyptian army, nothing,
he can destroy them too. This refuge, this false refuge
we've made, this treaty we've made with them is useless. They're
full of fear because they're religious hypocrites and they
know we're going to be destroyed too. They've seen the fire of
God's wrath. If the Syrian army can't stand
in it, how can we? If the best of men can't stand
in that fire, how are we going to stand in it? Now, the gospel
message to us is this. King Christ is going to judge
every man in righteousness. The Father has committed all
judgment to the Son. He's the judge and He's the standard
by which we will be judged. And unless our righteousness
is absolutely perfect, unless our righteousness is perfect
as the righteousness of Christ, we'll be cast into hell. We'll
be cast into outer darkness. We'll be cast from God's presence
forever. And if the best of men can't
stand, if our heroes can't stand, if the best that man has to offer
can't stand, you can rest assured I'm not going to stand. If the
best man has to offer has been cast out, you can rest assured
I'm going to be cast out. Who can stand? Now we've already
seen that we're fallen. We're fallen in Adam. So everything
we do is sinful. Everything we do is the opposite
of what God requires. Everything we do is the opposite
of righteousness. We've got all these works and you know what
they are? They're chaff and stubble. Chaff and stubble can't withstand
the fire. All chaff and stubble does is fuel the fire. It just
fans the flame of the fires of God's wrath. It's not going to
quench the fire. Now, men and brethren, this is their question.
What are we going to do? Who can be righteous enough to
be accepted? Who can be pure enough and perfect
enough to stand, to be able to withstand the fire of God's wrath
against sin? What are we gonna do? Is there
any? Yes, there's one. Now there's
only one, but there's one. That one is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's King Christ. And when the
situation gets as bad as it can get, When we start to see ourselves
for what we really are, when we start to see the ugliness
of our sin, we start to see how defiled we are by sin, when we
start to see that sin's not something I do, but something that I am.
Then, fourthly, by God's grace, we see Christ, the God-man. We
see King Christ. Look at verse 15. Who can stand?
He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly. He that despiseth
the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding
of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and
shutteth his eyes from seeing evil." Look back at Psalm 24. David asked this very same question,
and he got the very same answer. Who shall stand? In Psalm 24, verse 1. The earth is the Lord's and the
fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. Freeth
founded upon the seas and established it upon the floods. Who shall
ascend into the hill of the Lord or who shall stand in his holy
place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who has not
lifted up his soul into vanity nor sworn deceitfully. He shall
receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the
God of his salvation. Well, now who is this that has
clean hands? No one but King Christ. Our hands aren't clean.
Our hands are defiled by blood. Who is it that has a pure heart?
None of us. Our heart's the heart we got
from Adam. No one but King Christ has a pure heart. Who hasn't
lifted up his soul under vanity? Now come on, who hasn't lifted
up his soul under vanity? Who hasn't sworn deceitfully?
No one except King Christ. Isaiah asked the same question
and he got the same answer in our text. Who is it that has
walked righteously? None of us. Only the Lord Jesus
Christ walked righteously. He walked in righteousness. Everything
he did was righteous. His thoughts were righteous.
His words were righteous. His deeds were righteous. Even
the centurion, that Roman centurion, when he died, said, certainly
this was a righteous man. He walked in righteousness. Look
at 1 Peter 2. He walked in righteousness and
our Lord Jesus Christ spoke uprightly. He spoke uprightly because Christ
is truth. And since he is truth, he only
spoke truth. In 1 Peter 2, verse 22. Peter here speaking of the Savior
who did no sin. Neither was guile found in His
mouth. Our Lord Jesus Christ did no sin. He only did righteousness
because He is righteous and there was no guile in His mouth. He
only spoke truth because He is truth. Now you think of some
of the things that He said. I mean, these are monumental
statements. Christ said, He forgives sin. Now, that's truth. Now, if you're a sinner, that's
truth. You can hang your hat on. Christ
died for sinners, so their sin would be put away, so they'd
never die. That's truth. Christ said, come unto me, all
ye that labor and are heavy laden, I'll give you rest. Now, that's
truth for the weary soul. Are you tired? I'm not talking
about, all of us at this point in the evening are tired, except
you young fellas. The rest of us are tired. I'm
not talking about that. I'm talking about soul tired. Tired of trying to work. Please
God, you can't do it. Tired of trying to keep the law
and you can't do it. Tired of getting beaten up by
the law constantly showing you you're sinful, you're sinful.
It's not good enough. Are you tired? Come unto Christ
and rest. That's the truth. Come to Him
and rest. Christ said if any man thirsts,
let him come unto me and drink. Do you thirst for righteousness? Do you thirst for the forgiveness
of your sins? Do you thirst to be cleansed?
Then come to Christ and drink. This is the truth for the thirsty
sinner. Our Lord said, you notice none
of these, these are profound statements and none of them are
hard. He said, look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the
earth. Just look. Are you dying? Do you need a
savior? Need someone to give you life?
Look, look unto Christ and live. That's the truth for the dying
sinner. Christ said, I'm the bread of life. Whoever eats my
flesh and drinks my blood shall never perish. That's the truth
for the hungry sinner. Come eat, come drink. Christ
said in his word that in him sinners are made righteous. That's
the truth for the unrighteous sinner that we're made to righteousness
of God in him. Come. Only the Lord Jesus Christ, it
says here, who's going to stand? He that despises the gain of
oppressors. That's the gain that you get by dealing deceitfully
with people. Well, I can tell you, that's
no businessman I know. Everybody, you know, they hook
and crook, you know. It's no religious people, are
they? They're out there dealing deceitfully with people all the
time. This can only speak of Christ. Our Lord's harshest words
were not for guilty sinners. He had never had a harsh word
for somebody seeking mercy. His harsh words were always for
the Pharisees who he called hypocrites, religious hypocrites who were
taking from people. Only the Lord Jesus Christ, our
King, would not shake hands and accept bribes. He would pull
his hand back from a bribe every time. Look at Luke chapter four. You think, well, when did somebody
try to bribe our Lord? Satan did. When Satan tempted
the Lord, after he hadn't, in his weakest physical condition,
he hadn't had anything to eat in 40 days, Satan came to tempt
him. And he tempted him with a bribe.
Luke 4, verse 5. And the devil, taking him up
into a high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of
the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him,
all this power will I give thee, and the glory of them, For that's
delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will give it. If thou therefore
wilt worship me, all shall be thine. How many men have fallen
to that bride? How many men have fallen to that
bride? Take the edge off. Just take
the edge off the message. Just leave out this particular
redemption business. You'll get a big crowd. You'll
get a lot of money. You'll get a lot of influence. How many
men have fallen to that bride? I tell you what scares me, every
one of us would, apart from God's grace, apart from Him holding
us up. If you're honest with yourself,
you'd know you'd fall to that bribe, but not our Savior, not
King Christ. Look at verse eight. Jesus answered
and said unto him, get thee behind me, Satan, for it's written,
thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou
serve. I'm so thankful that that's written
and recorded for us. Because if our Lord Jesus had
accepted that bribe, there'd be no hope, no Savior, no hope
of salvation for any sinner. But he wouldn't take the bribe.
Only Christ stopped his ears from hearing of blood. That's
to say, who's gonna stand? He that stoppeth his ears from
hearing of blood. Now we know Christ heard the
cries of the bloodthirsty, murderous men. Our Savior heard the bloodthirsty
cries when those Pharisees, they brought that woman. taken in
a very act of adultery. They wanted to stone her to death,
but the Lord wouldn't hear them. He forgave her sin. Now he heard
their cries, but he wouldn't approve of it. This hearing has
to do with approving of. He wouldn't approve of their
cries. He wouldn't grant their cries. And at the same time,
he wouldn't condone her sin. Instead, he forgave her her sin.
Only Christ could do that. Only Christ shut his eyes from
seeing evil. And just like hearing, the seeing
has to do with approving of. And you know, God's holy. He
never approves of evil. And you know, God doesn't even
see the evil. He doesn't see the sin that's
in his people because it's been blotted out under the blood of
Christ. So only King Christ can stand in the fire of God's wrath
against sin. and he did. He can stand there
and he did stand there as a substitute for his people. All the sin of
God's people, God charged it to his son and he put his son
in the fire. Now, this wasn't, he wasn't in
the fire of God's wrath for his own sin. He did no sin. He knew
no sin. He wasn't even acquainted with
sin, but the sin of his people became his sin and he God put
him into that fire, the fire of his judgment and wrath against
sin. And Christ, our substitute, stayed
in that devouring fire until Christ the sacrifice devoured
the fire. The fire of God's wrath went
out because all that sin charged to Christ was purged by his blood. Now, I don't know a lot about
a fire, but I know this. When the fuel's all burned up,
the fire goes out. Why the fire of God's wrath go
out? The fuel's burned up. The sin that fueled his wrath
was gone. So the fire went out. And now
emerging from that fire, now by God's grace, we see the king
in his beauty. Christ lifted up on the cross
for all to see, lifted up as God's sacrifice for sin, is the
greatest beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's Him putting away
the sin of His people. There's nothing more beautiful
to a sinner than that. What a beautiful man. What a
beautiful Savior. What a beautiful sacrifice. We
see the King and His beauty as a sacrifice for our sins. And
we see the King in His beauty as the risen Savior. Christ died. He died for the sin of His people,
but He rose again because the sin laid on Him is gone. And
He arose as proof. He eternally justified His people
by the blood of His sacrifice. I'm telling you, that's beautiful
to a sinner. Behold the King in His beauty.
Now, not wanting to go to hell, That's not seeing Christ in his
beauty. Not wanting to go to hell is
just self-preservation. There's something wrong with
you if you're not afraid of hell. Not wanting to be punished is
not seeing King Christ in his beauty. Seeing Christ is a whole
lot more than not wanting to be punished or being afraid of
hell. Seeing King Christ in his beauty is seeing who Christ is. It's seeing what he accomplished
as the representative of his people. The real beauty of Christ
is that he accomplished this great work of salvation. He endured
that devouring fire of God's wrath against sin in mercy for
sinners. He wasn't doing something for
good people. He endured that for sinners like you and me. That's too great for us to be
able to comprehend, that He endured that for sinners. That's His
beauty. So that brings me to my last point. When by God's
grace we see King Christ, we see Him in His beauty, we see
Christ as all of our salvation. Look at verse 16 in our text,
Isaiah 33. He shall dwell on high. His place
of defense shall be the munitions of rocks. Bread shall be given
Him, His waters shall be sure." Verse 16 is what God's people
have because of what Christ did for them in verse 15. In Christ,
believers dwell on high. We dwell in high places, in high
spiritual places. Now look over in Ephesians chapter
2. Now the illusion here is people
are safe if you get up into a high mountain, the enemy can't get
to you. Well, how high up do we dwell
in Christ? How high, how secure? You know,
the higher you are, the more secure you are. How high is our
secure, is our dwelling place in Christ? As high as it gets. Ephesians 2, verse 4. But God,
who's rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved
us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together
with Christ. By grace, you're saved, and hath
raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. Now, I'm not as sure for heaven
as if I was already there. I'm sure for heaven because I
am already there right now, seated with Christ, my representative.
That's how high dwelling place we have. That's how secure we
are. And when you see King Christ and his beauty, you see this,
you understand this, your security in him. In Christ, believers
dwell in a place of defense. Isaiah calls it a place of munitions
of rocks. Now, I don't know what all that
means, but I know this. Our defense is Christ the rock, the rock
Christ Jesus. And scripture has a lot to say
about this rock. Hannah said in her great prayer,
neither is there any rock like our God. Christ is that smitten
rock. The rock that Moses smote and
all that water came out is Christ the rock and that we drink all
this water of spiritual life, living water that flows from
Him. Christ is that rock that has the cleft in it where God
put Moses and Moses hid in the cleft of the rock when God in
His glory passed by. Dan told us about it last Friday
from Exodus 33. Look at Deuteronomy 32. Christ
is that rock. Now look this up, Mundine. Many, many verses we can look
at. I want us to look at four different descriptions that Scripture
gives us of Christ, our rock. Christ, our righteousness, is
the rock of righteousness. Deuteronomy 32, verse 4. He is
the rock. His work is perfect, for all
His ways are judgment. A God of truth and without iniquity. Just and right is He. He is the
rock. He's right. He's righteous. And
if Christ is our righteousness, we never have to fear judgment
for sin because in Him we're righteous. Look at Psalm 18. Christ, our rock, is the only
rock. He's the only Savior. Psalm 18,
verse 30. As for God, His way is perfect. The word of the Lord is tried.
He is a buckler to all those that trust in Him. For who is
God? Save the Lord. Or who is a rock? Save our God. Christ is the only
refuge. Our rock is the only Savior.
Look at Psalm 62. Psalm 62, verse six. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not
be moved. Now it's not I shall not be moved
because I'm so determined. It's not I shall not be moved
because I'm so faithful. No, I shall not be moved because
Christ is my rock. If Christ is my savior, I'll
never be moved away from him. In Psalm 95 verse one. Christ, our rock, is our joy. Psalm 95 verse one. Oh, come,
let us sing unto the Lord. Let's make a joyful noise to
the rock of our salvation. Christ is our joy and our singing.
Now look in John chapter six. Isaiah says, in Christ, in this
rock, you'll dwell on high. His place of defense should be
munitions of rocks. Bread should be given him. I
would suppose it doesn't do much good to have a good hiding place
from the enemy. If you don't got any food, you
still starve to death. In Christ, not only are we well
defended, we're well fed. John 6, verse 30. They said therefore
unto him, what sign showest thou then that we may see and believe
thee? What dost thou work? Now here, we're gonna give you
a hint what we want. Our fathers did eat manna in the desert.
As it's written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Why
don't you just give us more free food? Then Jesus said unto them,
verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread
from heaven, but my father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth
life unto the world. They said unto him, then said
they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. Jesus said
unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall
never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. If Christ is our bread of life,
we'll never go hungry, we'll never die. And then Isaiah talks
about what we have because of Christ's work for us, his waters
shall be sure. In Christ, A believer has a well,
a spring of living water springing up in his soul. So we'll never
thirst for righteousness because Christ is the sure water. Now,
when you're thirsty, you get thirsty because your body is
telling you something. Your body's telling you there's
a lack of water in your body. And when a sinner, when God awakens
them, they hunger and thirst for righteousness. The reason
for that is, is don't have any righteousness in them. There's
no righteousness in our nature. We've got to be given a new nature.
And a believer who's in Christ will never thirst for righteousness
because Christ our righteousness is in us. So we never thirst
for righteousness. In Christ, we are righteous. We're the righteousness of God
in him. So we'll never thirst for righteousness. That's the
beauty of King Christ. And every believing eye is gonna
see Christ in His beauty. Verse 17 in our text. Thine eyes
shall see the King in His beauty. They should behold the land that
is very far off. Now you who believe by faith,
you see Christ, don't you? You see Him in His beauty. And there's coming a day there
we're going to see Him as He is. There's coming a day when
faith will be done away with and we'll see Him face to face.
We'll see Him in glory in that place we call heaven. Now, I
don't know where that is. I know it's a long way from here.
It seems like a lane far off, doesn't it? But by His grace,
you who believe, you're going to see the King in all of His
beauty and glory. Now, what are we going to do
till then? What are we going to do till then? A lot of rough roads to go over
between now and then. What are we going to do till then? We're
going to preach Christ. That's what we're going to do.
Until Christ returns, this gospel The gospel of the king and his
beauty is going to be preached in God's church. Wherever it
is you find it, wherever it is you find a group of people meeting
together that are God's sheep, his gospel is going to be preached
there. This message, the message you heard tonight, is the exact
same message the apostle Paul preached 2,000 years ago. The
same message, no different. Look at verse 20. This message
will never change and it'll never be removed. Verse 20. Look upon Zion, this is the church,
the city of our solemnities. Thine eyes shall see Jerusalem,
a quiet habitation. This is God's church, a quiet
habitation. A tabernacle that shall not be
taken down. Not one of the stakes thereof
shall ever be removed. It's staked down well, staked
firm on the rock Christ Jesus. Neither shall any of the cords
thereof be broken. This gospel, as long as it's
Earth is spinning in space is going to be preached in God's
church, wherever you find it. And not one stakes can be, not
one, not one tenant of the foundation of the gospel is ever going to
change. It'll never be removed. And verse
22, in Christ, we have perfect obedience to the law, the beauty
of perfect obedience. For the Lord is our judge. The
Lord is our lawgiver. The Lord is our King. He will
save us. I understand the law, the Lord
will give us his law. He's a lawgiver, but I've already
seen, I don't have any ability to keep the law. How's that good
news to me? How, how then can I be saved? If he's still going
to be the lawgiver, he still demands his law be kept perfectly.
How am I going to be accepted? How am I going to be made righteous?
How am I going to be made obedience? He says here, he will save us. The Lord's going to save his
people. How? King Christ is going to save
his people by keeping the law for all of his subjects. And
his obedience is our obedience. So we have the beauty of perfect
obedience because he gave his people his righteousness. And
last, verse 24, in Christ, we have the beauty of perfect health. And the inhabitant shall not
say, I'm sick. The people that dwell therein
shall be forgiven their iniquity. You know, after I've been sick
for a couple of days, I just soon not see anybody. I don't
look too good. I don't smell too good. This
is not looking good here. In Christ, we have the beauty
of perfect health. In Christ, there is no sickness.
What causes sickness? Sin. In Christ, all our sin is
forgiven. Now, our bodies are still going
to die because they're full of sin, but our soul will live forever
in perfect health because our sin has been forgiven. The sin
of God's people has been forgiven because our sin has been fully
punished in Christ our substitute. Christ bore all the sins. his
people and his body on the tree. He bore all the punishment. He
bore all the sickness. He bore all the shame of that
sin and he bore it away. Put it away under his blood and
gives his people his perfect health by washing them in his
blood. Now, that's beautiful. That's
the king in his beauty. That's beautiful to you if you're
ugly by nature. If you're ugly and defiled by
nature, that's beautiful to you. And the thing that utterly stuns
our soul is this. Christ in his beauty did that
for someone as ugly as me to make me beautiful in him. That's
the king in his beauty. Let's bow in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of your infinite goodness
and mercy and grace, we have so much to be thankful for. But
we do thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for
your mercy that you would reveal the King and his beauty to your
people. Father, I pray that you bless your word as it's been
preached tonight. Blessed for the glory of Christ
our King. Bless it to the hearts of your
people. Enable us to leave here this evening by faith, seeing
the King in His beauty and resting and finding our joy and rejoicing
in all of our salvation in Him and Him alone. It's in His precious
name we pray and give thanks.