If you would, let's open our
Bibles again to Isaiah chapter 22. The title of the message is A Nail
in a Sure Place. And Lord willing, what I'd like
for us to see in this message this evening is two gospel promises. The gospel promises death because
of sin. And the gospel promises salvation
in Christ because Christ put away the sin of His people with
His sacrifice. So let's begin in verse 1 of
Isaiah 22. The burden of the valley of vision.
What aileth thee now that thou art wholly gone up to the housetops?
Now this vision that the Lord has given Isaiah is for Judah. Judah lies in a valley surrounded
by mountains. And over the course of its history,
it had been the valley of vision. It had been the place where God
had made himself known to his people through his prophets and
through his word. I think it's safe to say that
you could call Ashland, Kentucky a valley of wisdom, a valley
of vision. In this valley, God's been pleased
to make himself known over the course of years through his sovereign
grace, the preaching of his word. We might take note of this vision
to Judah. Maybe we can avoid some of their
mistakes, some of their mistakes of attitude and carelessness.
Because what happened to Judah? Why is this vision coming to
Judah? It had been the valley of vision,
but Israel quit listening to God's word. They quit giving
heed to his prophets and God's going to deal with them over
that. God has been warning Judah and all Israel through Isaiah,
but they haven't been listening. I know they didn't believe him.
They didn't listen. They didn't believe him. They
certainly had not repented of their sins and turned to look
to Christ alone. And after being warned for such
a long time, this is a vision of what's to come. It hasn't
happened yet, but it's what's to come. And when this finally
takes place, the people are going to become afraid, not because
Isaiah warned them and they listened to what Isaiah said, but because
they finally hear that Assyrian army coming. And when that happens,
the Lord is going to ask them, what's wrong now? Why are you
so frightened now? Why have you suddenly become
afraid and quit trusting in your own strength and trusting in
your allies? That's what you trust. The end of my prophet
was warning you. Why have you suddenly become afraid and run
up to your housetops? And that's what the people did
it that day. They went to their housetops
to mourn. Nobody could see them up there.
Maybe they went up to their housetops to pray. I don't know if they're
praying to their idols or they're praying to the Lord, but that's
where they would go to pray. And in the city, you go up, you
know, the walled city, you go up to the rooftop of your house
to watch over the wall, see what's coming. Is trouble coming? Is
help coming from our allies? Could they be coming to help
us? You know, what's going on? They're up there mourning and
full of fear and watching to see what's going to happen. Verse
two, thou that art full of stirs, a tumultuous city, a joyous city,
thy slain men are not slain with the sword or dead in battle.
The Lord says, you were a joyous city, full of business and trade.
That's what the stirs mean. It means full of business and
trade. You know how the downtown is.
You don't have that anymore, but how it used to be. Janet
tells me her mom would take her down there in dollar days. Boy,
all the towns, all the shops there in Ashland would be full
of people, people bustling in and out and talking to one another
and they're happy because they're buying stuff. That's the way
this city used to be, but not anymore. Now the Lord asks, why
are your streets all empty? Why are your shops all closed?
And you're up on the roof instead of down on the streets. And our
Lord tells them, when this day comes, you'll be watching for
those armies. You'll see them come and surround
the city. But it won't be the armies that kill you with the
sword. They're going to surround you and starve you out. People
are going to die. They'll be starved to death.
Death will come slowly, but it surely will come. In verse 3,
All thy rulers are fled together. They're bound by the archers.
All that are found in thee are bound together, which have fled
from far. Your rulers in all the cities
in Judah, around Jerusalem, they're going to fail you. Those leaders
should have stayed in those cities and defended those cities and
kept that army from coming through, but they didn't. They ran off
as cowards and left the cities and defenseless, and they came
to hide in Jerusalem. They were cowards. They weren't
leaders. Now, here's the picture. You see if this isn't true. Men
are warned of God, of death and judgment for sin. But men tune
it out. As long as they think they've
got plenty of time, they tune it out. Death may come slowly,
but it will come for all men eventually. And when they think
the time of death is drawn near, then suddenly they become afraid.
Suddenly they start looking. Almost never do they look for
mercy. Maybe they look for signs of trouble. Maybe they look for
signs of help. Maybe they look in themselves
for signs of goodness that they think God might be pleased with.
They look for the signs of the times. You know, is the earth
ending? Everything they look for grips them with fear. And
they find out Their religious leaders failed them. The men
who are supposed to be their leaders, who are supposed to
be their under-shepherds, leading the sheep into green pastures
and protecting the sheep from wolves, they're cowards. They ran away the moment that
they couldn't profit off the sheep anymore because the danger
was getting to be too great. That's the picture. Now verse
4. Now this is Isaiah speaking. Therefore said I, look away from
me, I will weep bitterly. labor not to comfort me, don't
put any effort into comforting me, it won't work, because of
the spoiling of the daughter of my people. For it is a day
of trouble and of treading down and of perplexity by the Lord
God of hosts and the valley of vision, breaking down the walls
and of crying to the mountains." Now Isaiah has been preaching
the message that God gave him, the same message God gives all
of his servants. It's a message of death in Adam.
It's a message of death in man's way, man's wisdom, and man's
strength. And Isaiah's also been preaching
salvation and safety in Christ. But no one's listened. They didn't
believe Isaiah. As a matter of fact, they ridiculed
him and made fun of him. And Isaiah sees destruction coming
to Israel for their unbelief because they won't believe the
message that God gave him. Now, how does the prophet respond
to that? Does it make him happy? Does
it make him think, well, I'm glad they're going to finally
get their just desserts. No, it makes him weep. He's broken
hearted to see this happen to his country. A mark of God's
servant is he weeps. He weeps over the damnation,
not of his friends, but even of his enemies. Look in Philippians
chapter three. Our Lord Jesus himself, he wept
over the unbelief of Israel. He stood there looking over Jerusalem
and wept at their unbelief. And here in Philippians chapter
3, the Apostle Paul does the same thing. In Philippians 3
verse 18, For many walk, of whom I have
told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are
the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose
God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who
mind earthly things, They're the enemies of the cross of Christ.
They're the enemies. That makes them my enemies, the
enemies of my message. And their end is destruction.
And I tell you that weeping. Paul found no joy in it. And
we ought to weep for people who don't believe the gospel because
we know what will happen to them. I know it's easy to make fun
of them. It's easy to pick at them. But we ought to weep for
them because unless God grants repentance. He's going to damn
them. And that's our enemies. Those,
you know, there are enemies. We should weep for them. Because
you know what they're doing? They're opposing themselves.
And we ought to weep for them. Isaiah did. And here's what's
going to happen back in our text in verse 6. Here's what's going
to happen to Jerusalem. And Eliam bared the quiver with
chariots of men and horsemen. And Kur uncovered the shield.
And it shall come to pass that thy choice's valley shall be
full of chariots. And the horsemen shall set themselves
in a ray at the gate. Now, Elam here is the Persians,
and Kur is the Medes. The Medes and Persians are coming
to lay siege, and they're going to take whatever they want. They're going to uncover the
land, they're going to strip it, take everything they want
from the land. And their armies are going to be so large, they're
going to cover those valleys. You know, those valleys used
to be covered with sheep grazing, peacefully. Now there's no peace. Now instead of sheep, they're
covered with soldiers and chariots and all the instruments of war.
In verse 8, and he discovered the covering of Judah. And now
just look in that day to the armor of the house of the force.
Now these armies are going to uncover and they're going to
destroy all the defenses that Israel had set up. All those
cities that the rulers were cowards and fled to Jerusalem. That was
part of their defense system. You know, you're supposed to
have to fight your way through all these cities. There are no defenses. They all ran as cowards. The
land is uncovered. But what this is a picture of,
and you see this in these coming verses, is how the hypocrisy
of men, it's uncovered and it's revealed. Israel always acted
religious. But they really didn't trust
in the Lord. And here when the Assyrian army starts coming,
they get afraid and they start acting religious. But they're
not trusting in the Lord. They're trusting in themselves.
And they did several things which show their religious hypocrisy
being uncovered. First, they checked their armory.
That's what this, they checked their stores of weapons. It says
here in the, you know, you just look in the, in that nature,
the armor of the house of the forest. That's their armory.
The armory that Solomon built. Now, he may have built it out
in a forest, but most people think he built it out of cedar
logs so it may have looked kind of like a forest. That's where
their armory was. And they checked their armory
to see, do I got enough weapons and do I got enough ammo for
the enemy that's coming? Second, they tried to patch up
the walls. They tried to patch up what sin had done to them.
Look at verse 9. And you've seen also the breaches of the city
of David, that there are many. And you gather together the waters
of the lower pool. And you've numbered the houses
of Jerusalem. And the houses have you broken down to fortify
the wall. Now they'd seen these breaches
in the wall before. They watched over the years.
They're out working and walking around. They could see parts
of that wall fall and disrepair and there are breaches in the
wall. Because nobody's taken care of it. They really didn't
think they needed to. There was no enemy at the gate.
They just didn't care because they didn't feel like they were
under danger. But now that they know the enemy's coming, they're
scurrying around trying to patch everything up. And they're tearing
down houses to get materials to go patch the wall. They're
tearing down one thing to try to patch up something else. And
that's exactly what men do. We see the effects of sin eroding
our bodies, but we don't pay much attention to it because
we think we've got plenty of time. But when death seems to be drawing
near, And they fear judgments coming. Suddenly, they want to
patch everything up. We get concerned about what sin
has done to us, and we want to patch stuff up. But the only
materials we have are our own sinful materials. And those things
never give us any defense. They can't give us any covering
against God's judgment. But they went around trying to
patch up what sin had done to them. And thirdly, they saw they
didn't have any water, so they tried to hoard it up. They didn't
have any water of life, so they tried to get them some. That's
what he says here in verse 9, that you gather together the
waters of the lower pool. That was a stream that flowed
out of the city. So what they did is they dammed
that up. So they keep that water for themselves. It wouldn't flow
out to the enemy who would surround them, and they'd keep that water
in there for themselves because you can't live without water.
They tried to hoard up some water. And fourthly, they knew their
defenses weren't good enough, so they tried to shore them up,
verse 11. You made also a ditch between the two walls, for the
water of the old pool. But you have not looked under
the maker thereof, neither had respect unto him that fashioned
it long ago." What they did is they made a moat around the city
by filling up that area between the outer wall and the inner
wall with water, making a moat to try to protect them from the
enemy. Now, there's nothing wrong with doing any of that stuff.
Nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with making
sure you've got plenty of weapons and ammunition before you go
to war. Probably that's why you have to do that. There's nothing
wrong with making sure your defenses are sound and secure when you
know the enemy's coming. They should have done those things.
But they should have done those things looking to the Lord and
trusting him to provide for them and trusting him to protect them. The Lord says here at the end
of verse 11, you've done all this, but you've not looked under
the maker thereof. Neither have respect unto him
that fashioned it long ago. You hoarded up your weapons,
but you didn't look to the one who made the wood for the bows.
You made sure you had plenty of ammunition, but you didn't
look to the one that made the iron for the arrowhead in the
first place. You didn't look to the one who
said no weapon formed against you shall prosper. You didn't
do that. You just looked to your own strength. You hoarded up
water, but you didn't look to him that made the water to provide
for you. And what they've done is they've
revealed their religious hypocrisy by showing who they were really
trusting, and their actions showed they were really trusting in
themselves and not the Lord. Now, how does this apply to us?
You know, we have to be wise. You have to be wise and take
care of the responsibilities that you've got in the present
day, right in front of you. You've got to take care of your
job and your house and your family. You've got to do those things.
And we've got to be wise and plan for the future. It's going
to be here. You better plan for it. The best
example I can think of is this. Look both ways before you cross
the street. Don't be a fool. Look both ways
before you cross the street. Use the mind God gave you. But
pray to the Lord every day to keep you safe. Does that make
sense? Do wise things. But don't trust
in those things that you do. Trust in the Lord. When you get
sick, go to the doctor. Absolutely go to the doctor.
He gives you a prescription, get it filled and take it like
he says to take it. Go to the doctor, trusting the
Lord, the great physician to heal you using that doctor's
means. Stay for retirement. That day's
coming. Stay for retirement, but be sure
to give first because you're trusting the Lord to provide.
You're not trusting your own savings. Don't just go through
the motions. This is something that's a great
fear of mine. Don't just go through the motions.
You know, coming here Sundays and Wednesdays and sitting down
and singing the Psalms and turning to the Scriptures and listening
and go home and forget what you heard. Don't just go through
the motions. Come seeking a word from God. Come seeking a blessing from
the Lord. Come seeking instruction from Him. Don't just go through
the motions. Lean on Christ. Look to Him in
full faith. If we do those things, we won't
be a religious hypocrite. And here in verse 12, this is
the height of their religious hypocrisy. They acted religious,
but they would not repent. They wouldn't repent of their
sins. They wouldn't repent of their own righteousness. They
wouldn't. Look at verse 12. And that day did the Lord God
of hosts call to weeping and to mourning and to baldness The
girding was sackcloth. He galled for a day of mourning
because of sin. And behold, joy and gladness,
slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine. Let us eat and drink for tomorrow
we shall die. Instead of repenting of your
sin, instead of repenting of your righteousness, most of us
think logically, yeah, we need to repent of our sin. We need
to repent of our righteousness, too. We need to repent of our
good works, too. Instead of repenting of those
things, You held a feast. And it's not just a party. This
is a religious feast celebrating, not the sacrifice that God has
provided, but celebrating everything you've done. And they're making
fun of God's prophet as they have this big feast. They say,
Isaiah says, we're going to die. Well, we better eat, drink, have
a big party before we do, you know. We're not going to die. They said, look how prosperous,
look how great everything is. God's not mocked. Look at verse
14. And it was revealed in mine ears
by the Lord of hosts. Surely this iniquity shall not
be purged from you till you die, saith the Lord God of hosts.
God will not forgive sin outside of Christ, even after the second
death. And that's the death that's being
referred to. It's not the first death. It's the second death.
Even at that time, through the eternity of our suffering, God
won't forgive one sin because of our suffering. If you mock
the only sacrifice that God's provided for sin, you can expect
God to damn you with no forgiveness. Now, this shows us the absolute
necessity of Christ. Why do we always preach Christ?
Why is our message Christ? Is our thoughts focused on Him?
Is every message focused on Christ? Because we need Him. We must
have Him. We must have Him as our sacrifice.
We must have Christ to be our righteousness. We must have His
blood applied to our hearts. We must have His death as our
substitute. If not, our sin can never be
forgiven. Sin will never be purged by religious
ceremonies. Sin is not going to be purged
by us coming to church any more than sin was purged by them going
to the tabernacle, going to the feast and the sacrifices. Sin
is only purged by the blood of Christ. Sinners like you and
me must have Christ or else we will die. Now the rest of this
chapter there are two men mentioned and they illustrate the message
Isaiah has been preaching. The first man is Shebna. He represents
death in Adam. He represents the certainty of
death through man's way, man's hypocrisy and our self. The second man is Eliakim and
he represents Christ. Eliakim represents life in Christ
that is sure and certain. Now verse 15, Thus saith the
Lord God of hosts, Go get thee unto this treasurer, even unto
Shebna, which is over the house. And you can, well, we'll go to
verse 16 next. But Shebna means vigor. His name means vigor. And he
represents the vigor, the strength of human life. He represents
the man who's always trying to work to obtain righteousness
through his own doing. And I have no doubt Shedna was
a vigorous man, an ambitious man. Not only was he the treasurer,
he's also over the king's house. He's like the chief of staff.
The man's got two full-time jobs. They both pay real well. I'm
sure that's why he was interested in them. He's a vigorous, ambitious
man. But Shedna was in it for himself. Shedna was working as a double
agent. All the time he's in the king's house. He's the chief
of staff. He knows everything's going on.
He's an advisor to the king. He's over the treasury. He's
got his thumb on every dime in the country. While that's going
on, he's over here telling the Assyrians everything Israel's
doing. He's giving them the key to the
city. He's drawing them a map to the city. He's being a double
agent. So verse 16, God says, you say this to him. What hast
thou here? And whom hast thou here? that
thou hast hewed thee out of sepulchre here, as he that heweth him out
of sepulchre on high, and that graveth inhabitation for himself
in a rock." Now Shaddan had built himself a big house on top of
the hill, and up there by his big house on top of the hill
he built him a tomb, carved it in rock, he put a big monument
on it. You know what he was doing? Up there on that hill he was
building a monument to himself so everybody could see, you know,
everything he'd done, how great he was. Shevna was planning on
being a very famous man. He was planning on being very
influential. Whoever it was, was in power,
whether it was the Jews or whether it was Assyrians. You know, he
had his hand in both pots and he was going to be wealthy and
in power and large and in charge, no matter who sat on the throne.
But that's not what happened. Look at verse 17. Behold, the
Lord will carry thee away with a mighty captivity and will surely
cover thee. He will surely violently turn
and toss thee like a ball into a large country. There shall
thou die, and there the chariots of thy glory shall be the shame
of thy Lord's house." The message from the Lord is the Lord's going
to carry you away. He's going to wad you up like
a paper ball and throw you away in the trash like we do yesterday's
news. And what you thought was going
to be your glory is going to be to your shame. Everybody's
going to see you for what you are. And we don't know this for
sure, but many people think the Assyrians captured Shetland.
They carried him away to captivity because he either quit being
a double agent or he quit being very profitable to them, and
they carried him away. They were the Lord's tool to
wad him up and throw him away to another country. And here's
the picture. It's death and Adam. Now, if
you know yourself very well, you know we're ambitious by nature. I mean, just give us a job, buddy.
We're ambitious by nature. And that applies to spiritual
things, too. We're ambitious. I've got to be righteous. I'll
set out to earn it. There's a law. Oh, let me set
out to keep it. We're ambitious. We're ambitious
enough to think we can please God ourselves. But when we do
that, you know what we're doing? We're trying to make a name for
ourselves instead of glorifying the name of the Lord. We're making
a name for ourselves rather than trusting in the name of Christ
and exalting his name. Maybe we put our hope in being
around the people of God. But we never trust Christ ourselves. And the message of God is, from
God is, He'll thrust us out of His presence. He'll wad us up
and throw us away. Unless we're in Christ. Unless
we have faith in Christ. That's the certainty of death
in man's way. Well, this has been pretty bleak,
isn't it? I mean, you're talking about armies come and surround
the cities All of our preparations being for nought, this is pretty
dreary. Is there any hope? Yeah, there's
hope. There is hope of salvation in
Christ. And that's what Eliakim pictures.
Look at verse 20. Well, verse 19, I didn't read
that, but it goes on. This is what's going to happen
to Shadmah. I'll drive thee from thy station and from thy state
shall I pull thee down. In verse 20, it shall come to
pass in that day that I will call my servant Eliakim, the
son of Hilkiah. Now, Eliakim, his name means
God raises up. So right off the bat, we see
Eliakim as a picture of Christ. Christ was called by the Father
and chosen by the Father to be the Savior. He prepared a body
for His Son and raised Him up to be the Savior of His people.
God was chosen by the Father To be a servant. A servant who
would come and who would please the Father. The righteousness
of Christ. His righteous, holy character
pleased the Father's holy nature. He kept the law and established
the righteousness that God required for His people. So the Father
would be pleased with them in Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ,
our Savior, did it all. He did everything the Father
sent Him to do. He is the Savior that sinners
can depend upon. Verse 21, this is what we see.
Now this is our Savior. And I'll clothe him with thy
robe. Now there was a specific robe
that must have identified the man as the treasurer, as the
chief of staff. Like the robe the high priest
wore. That robe identified that man as the high priest. It was
very distinctive. That's the robe our Savior wears.
He has the robe. of the high priest. He bears
the robe of the king. He has the robe of the treasurer.
He is robed with honor and majesty. He's got it all. Whatever robe
there is that signifies any station whatsoever, Christ wears it.
He has all glory and all majesty. And when we see him in that robe,
we say, what a Savior. What a Savior. When I see Christ,
I want him to be my Lord and Savior. That's why I try to always
preach Christ in the most clear, simple terms. I want us to see
Christ and say, that's who I want to be my Savior. That's who I
want to be my Lord. Not only is he the Lord, I want
him to be my Lord. Then he says, I'll strengthen
him with thy girdle. The Lord would strengthen Eliakim
to do the job, that he would put him in this place. I don't
know anything about his background, if he had any education or training,
but the Lord's going to strengthen him, enable him to do this job
that he's going to put him in. Now, a girdle is a symbol of
service. Our Lord Jesus girded himself
before he washed the disciples' feet. It's a symbol of service.
The Father will strengthen his son to serve. to accomplish the
job that the Father sent him to do, which is the salvation
of his people. Then he says, I'll strengthen
him with thy girl, and I'll commit thy government into his hand. Now, Eliakim would be given the
power of government, and he would use that power for the good of
the people. Now, Shabna used it for himself.
Eliakim is going to use it for the good of the people. This
is a picture of Christ. gave the power of government
of the whole world to His Son. We saw this in our study in John
17. The Father gave the Son power over all flesh. He gave Him the
government over all flesh. He gave Him the government over
His elect. He gave the Son the power to give eternal life, which
means the Father gave Him. Now I'll tell you what that means.
The government is given to the Lord Jesus Christ. That means
our salvation. depends entirely on Him. The
government of my life is in the hand of Christ. The government
of my physical life is in the hand of Christ. If I get in a
car wreck and die on my way home this evening, it wasn't no accident. The government of my life, the
number of days in my life is in His hands. The quality of
those days, the government of that is in His hands. If I get
sick tomorrow, The government's in his hands.
The government is his hands of where I live, how long I live,
and who I live with. I'll live with Janet as long
as the government of Christ has given me. It's all in his hands.
And the government of spiritual life, it's all in his hands. Aaron, it's not mine to decide
to accept. It's in his hand to give. Now, the government of
eternal life is in his hands. And if you and I are going to
have eternal life, I tell you, He's going to give it to us.
Christ must. He must give it to us. And if
He doesn't give us eternal life, we'll never have it because all
the government is in His hand. Wouldn't it be wise to bow to
Him? Wouldn't it be wise? The government's all in. And
I'll tell you, here's a good reason to bow to Him. The government's
in His hand and He should be a father to the inhabitants of
Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Eliakim will rule well. He'll rule Israel like he's their
father. There's a big difference between
a man ruling as a dictator and ruling as a father. What's a
father supposed to do? The father's the head of the
home. The government of the home is given to the father. Now that
doesn't mean that the dad comes in and orders everybody around
and everybody's his slave. No, he's the father. He takes
care of the family. He provides for the family. He
gives wisdom to the family. When the children need to know
what's what, he tells them. He gives them wisdom and guidance
and love. He's a good ruler because he
loves his family. This is how the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father has given him all government. And this is how he
rules. He rules his church as a father. Why wouldn't we bow to a loving
father? Christ is the father of his people. He's our older brother, but he's
also our father. Christ, the Son of God, is our
father in this way, because he gave us life. My father gave
me life, physical life. Christ, my Savior, is my father.
He gave me spiritual life. And when he gave me spiritual
life, how did he do it? He gave me his nature. I have
the nature of Frank Tate Sr. because I was born from his seed.
A believer has the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ because
we're born from his seed. That's how we're made partakers
of the divine nature. Christ is our Father because
he rules over the household of God. And Christ is our Father
because he has fatherly love and care for his people. That's
how Eliakim is going to rule. Now, verse 22. And the key of
the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder. So he shall
open and none shall shut, and he shall shut and none shall
open. Now, from what I read, rulers at this time wore sometimes
a key on their shoulders, a symbol of their power. It may have been
an actual key. Maybe it was the actual key to
the king's house, you know, tied on his shoulder somehow, or maybe
it was embroidered on there. I don't know. But this is the
picture. When the father gave the son
all power, he gave him the government. the whole universe was placed
upon his shoulder. Now this means that the rule
of Christ, look over in Revelation chapter 3, this means that the
rule of Christ is absolute. What he says goes and nobody
can change it. Look at Revelation 3 verse 7. And to the angel of the church
in Philadelphia writes, These things sayeth he that is holy,
he that is true, he that hath the key of David. This is what
this is referring to back over in Isaiah. He that hath the key
of David. This is who he is. He opens and
no man shuts, and shutteth and no man openeth. I know thy works. Behold, I have set before thee
an open door, and no man can shut it. For thou hast a little
strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.
Now, all this relates to the salvation of God's elect. When
God opens a door, nobody can shut it. When God opens a door
to preach, you go through it and preach. Now, I know we're
not all preachers, but it may be to testify. It may be to tell
someone about Christ. If God opens a door, you go through
it. God's people are going to hear.
I promise you they will, because God opened the door. And when
God shuts the door, We can't force it open either. We may
try, but we can't force it open either. And when God shuts the
door, sometimes he's doing it to shut his people in. He's shutting
them in to Christ. And when he does that, nobody
can open. Nobody can go in there and get
them out of his hand either, because he shut the door. Christ
has opened the door of heaven for his people. His death at
Calvary opened the door and none can shut it. Nobody can shut
that door to his elect. They shall be saved. Look in
Matthew chapter 16. Christ has opened the door to
heaven. And through the preaching of
the gospel, all those people that he died for are going to
be brought to faith in Christ. And ultimately, they're going
to be brought to be with him forever because he opened the
door. Matthew 16, verse 19. Make sure I've got the right
place here. Yeah, Matthew 16, verse 19. I will give unto thee
the keys of the kingdom of heaven. This is right after, let's go
back up and read verse 16. Simon Peter answered and said,
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus
answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for
flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which
is in heaven. And I say also unto thee that
thou art Peter, And upon this rock, not upon you, but upon
this one you just confessed, Christ our rock, I will build
my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven."
What's that? It's the message of Christ. Those
who believe on him, heaven's open to them. I will give unto
thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou
shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever
thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Everyone
that Christ died for, they're going to be saved. Christ opened
the door and none can shut it. Christ is the door and he's the
key to the door. And the flip side of that is
this. Christ shuts the gate of hell and no one can open. No one can escape out of it.
The government's in his hand to open and to close the door.
Now, back in our text, Isaiah 22, verse 23. And I will fasten him as a nail
in a sure place, and he shall be for a glorious throne to his
Father's house." Now, this is our Savior, a nail in a sure
place. Well, how sure is He? This nail
is the mighty God. I reckon He's sure. He's the
mighty God. Everything about Him is eternal. That nail is going to be there
eternally. Everything about Him is eternal. is established forever. His dominion is an everlasting
dominion. His priesthood is eternal. His
priesthood is so effectual, He only had to offer one sacrifice
and sin was put away forever. He's able to save His people
and He will keep them saved and eternally secure. Everything
about Him is eternal. And it's a good thing that our
Savior is the sure, unmovable One because all of salvation
hangs upon him, hangs upon this nail, verse 24, and they shall
hang upon him all the glory of his Father's house, the offspring
and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from vessels
of cups even to all the vessels of flagons. God's elect here
are called the vessels of God's house. He calls His vessels offspring. These are His children born in
the new birth. He's got all kinds of vessels.
Some of them are small vessels, they're cups and saucers and
maybe some even smaller. And then there's large vessels,
the big flagons of wine. Now all those vessels, it doesn't
matter whether they're large or small or what they're made
of, they all have their own use. And the security of the vessel
is not how big it is. The security of the vessel is
not what it's used for. The security of the vessel is
the nail on which it's hanging. If that nail ever moves, All
those vessels are going to fall, whether they're a cup or whether
they're a flagon. They're all going to fall. Their
security is the nail. Christ, our Savior, is so strong
and so sure His hand is mighty enough to hold those large vessels
at the same hand. At the same time, that hand is
tender enough to hold a small, weak vessel like me and not crush
me. That's his hand. He keeps both
of them safe. And here's how he does it, verse
25. In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall the nail that
is fastened in the sure place be removed, and be cut down,
and fall, and the burden that was upon it shall be cut off,
for the Lord hath spoken it. Now we're just looking at how
believers are eternally secure in Christ. So what's this talking
about? About the nail that's fastened
in a sure place be cut down and fall? Does that mean that there's
a chance someone who Christ died for could perish? Absolutely
not. This is talking about how our
redemption is accomplished and why a believer is eternally secure
in Christ. Shebna is going to fall and everything
hanging on him is going to fall. Shebna is a picture of Adam.
All mankind are fallen to eternal loss in Adam. But the Lord is
going to raise up Eliakim, and he'll not fall. Israel will be
safe when Eliakim is the treasurer, while Eliakim is the chief of
staff. That's a picture of Christ. When he rules, his people are
safe. God's elect will never be removed.
His elect will never fall down because of Christ, the nail fastened
in a sure place. But that nail, fastened in a
sure place, it never fell down. But there came a day it was cut
down, wasn't it? He was cut down for his people.
Christ, our substitute, was cut down by God's justice, so God's
justice would never cut down his people. Christ, our substitute,
was cut off from the Father, so his people would never be
cut off from God. Daniel said the Messiah, he'll
be cut off, but not for himself. for the sins of his people. And
that's how his people will be saved. When Christ was cut off
as our substitute, the burden of our sin fell away forever.
Never to be seen again. Now, how secure is a believer
in Christ? I can't stress this strongly
enough. In my notes, it's in all caps.
Secure. Sure. Safe. Sennacherib's army,
the one that the Lord's going to use to come cause all this
havoc. His army never entered into Jerusalem. His army never
even shot an arrow into the city. That's how much the Lord blessed
Eliakim. And that's how secure a believer
is in Christ. God's justice can't touch you. God's justice can't even fire
an arrow at you if Christ was cut off for you. Because He satisfied
justice for you. God will not allow anyone for
whom Christ died to perish. How important is that to the
Father? How important is it that He see everyone that Christ died
for come to glory? His very glory depends upon it. God hung His own glory upon the
success of His Son, our Savior. He's a nail. fastened by God
in a sure place. God's glory is not going to fall.
And no one that Christ died for will be. Oh, I hope the Lord
will bless that too. And you men, if you would, after
we sing a closing song, remember those tables and carry them down
if you would. Let's bow in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for a sure, secure salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ. I would
thank you that all of your glory hangs upon him, the nail fastened
in a secure place, that in Christ we can never fall because of
who he is. Not because of who we are or
what we've done, but because of who he is and what he's accomplished
as our Savior, as your servant. And Father, I pray that you'd
open the hearts of your people here this evening Life is in
your hand to give. All of the government of life
has been given into the hands of your Son. Father, would you
in mercy open the hearts of your people tonight? Give life and
faith and give us rest and trust and confidence in our Lord Jesus
Christ. He is worthy of all of our trust,
all of our praise and all glory. It's in His name we pray and
for the sake of His name we pray.