Isaiah chapter 61, and reading
from verse one. The Spirit of the Lord God is
upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings
unto the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening
of the prison to them that are bound. to proclaim the acceptable
year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort
all that mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give
unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the
garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might
be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that
he might be glorified. And they shall build the old
wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they
shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations. And strangers shall stand and
feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your ploughmen
and your vinedressers. But ye shall be named the priests
of the Lord, and men shall call you the ministers of our God. Ye shall eat the riches of the
Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. For
your shame ye shall have double, and for confusion they shall
rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they
shall possess the double. Everlasting joy shall be unto
them. For I the Lord love judgment,
I hate robbery for burnt offering, and I will direct their work
in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
And their seat shall be known among the Gentiles, and their
offspring among the people. All that see them shall acknowledge
them, that they are the seat which the Lord hath blessed.
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful
in my God, for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation.
He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom
decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself
with her jewels. For as the earth bringeth forth
her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it
to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness
and praise to spring forth before all the nations. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this
reading from his word. We often mention when we're speaking
together, the attractiveness of the saviour's character. The attractiveness of his character
and his temperament in his dealings with men and women. I often remark upon the qualities
of his character that distinguished him from others around about
him. Qualities such as his kindness,
his gentleness, his empathy with those who suffered and grieved,
his meekness, his attentiveness to the needs of the people around
about him, his humility, his quietness. We don't just attribute these
virtues to the Lord because we feel as though they would suit
him. These were qualities foretold
by the prophets and verified by the Lord's contemporaries,
by the people that he lived with and with whom he spoke and with
whom he interacted. There was a calmness, there was
a carefulness, there was a meekness on the part of the Lord that
people liked, that people admired, that people took notice of. And
here in the opening remarks of this chapter is a record of some
of those attractive qualities of the Lord Jesus that Isaiah
was inspired to share with his own generation so that these
people were not only privy to the things that the Lord would
do when he would come, with respect to his death, with respect to
his sufferings, with respect to the cross, but they were aware of the kind
of man that he would be, of his ministry, of his service, of
his attitudes, of his character. They had a good awareness of
what the Messiah would be like. For example, we learn from this
chapter and I remarked yesterday in the little leaflet that I
sent out of the close relationship between this chapter and Luke
chapter four so that we can say with certainty that this is the
Lord Jesus Christ that is being spoken about in this chapter
because the Lord himself took this chapter as his own and told
the people of his own age that these things were fulfilled in
him. But we read, In Isaiah, the first
few verses concerning the anointing of the Lord Jesus to fulfil his
mediatorial role, his covenant responsibilities, that he was
a preacher of good tidings. Now good tidings are good news
and the good news is the gospel. So here is the gospel being preached
by the Lord Jesus Christ. Mark tells us that the Lord Jesus
Christ came preaching the gospel. Christ was a preacher of good
tidings. Remember what Paul says, and
indeed Isaiah, how lovely in the mountains are the feet of
them that bring good news. There was a loveliness about
Christ in his preaching of good news. There was a meekness in
the way in which he conveyed this message to the men and women
of his age. And Isaiah's readers understood
this. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
heal the brokenhearted. He came alongside those who grieved. He comforted those who mourned. Now we can take that spiritually,
and we might think that he comforted those that mourned for sin, and
yes he does, and we are going to be thinking about some of
that spiritual comfort that he gives a little later, but he
comforted those who mourned in their losses. Mary and Martha,
the widow of Nain, Jairus, these were people who were comforted
by the Lord. He drew alongside them, and he
was sympathetic and empathetic with them in their needs. Such
is our Lord. He was anointed to proclaim liberty
and freedom from the captivity of Satan. Again, a lovely thing
to hear the good news of our release and our liberty. He was
called to give hope and encouragement to all who are grieved, either by loss, their circumstances,
their hopelessness. And in all of these roles, they
reveal the Lord Jesus Christ not only dealt with the problem
of our sin on the cross but he sympathises with our feelings,
he understands our weaknesses and our fears and In the experience
of our sin with its guilt and condemnation, the Lord Jesus
Christ is able to draw close to us and comfort and help and
minister to us even in those experiences. And this is part
of the message that I want to leave with you. The need of the
Lord's elect, the need of the Lord's elect is close to his
heart. He calls us those who mourn in
Zion and I think that this is a lovely title. I think that
it is a telling title. It shows that the Lord is aware
of our state in this world and it suggests to us the special
care and provision that he makes for his little ones. Those who mourn the loss of a
loved one feel the emptiness that their absence brings and
the sadness that lasts in every activity in which they're engaged. Recently a friend told me about
his return home and how he returned home to an empty house and he
felt all over again the loss of his loved one. Those who mourn
in Zion feel the loss of friendship and fellowship with the Lord
because of our sin. and there's a longing to be loosed
from the weariness brought about by the flesh and by life and
by living in this fallen world. We long to be closer to the Lord,
we long to be in the Lord's presence. We live with a mix of good hope
in Christ, and a sense of failure and hurt and weariness and condemnation
in this world of sin. We long for better. We long to
be better. We long for a taste of the Lord in a
new and fresh way. and the Lord knows and understands
and ministers to us in our trials and in our troubles. So that
this sympathy is a blessed characteristic of our Saviour. Our salvation
and please don't take this the wrong way, but our salvation
is not merely a formal, legal, forensic transaction between
God the Father and God the Son. It's a personal, intimate, sustaining
union between the Lord and His people. He saves and he loves,
he delivers and he blesses, he keeps and he cares for us. And this care of the Lord for
his people is born out of Christ's union with our flesh and exemplifies
the highest human relationship conceivable in this world. Christ's relationship with his
church, Christ's union with us in our flesh is higher than that
relationship of husband and wife. Even although that is described
in scripture as the two become one flesh, the relationship that
Christ has in union with his people transcends that. Indeed
the closeness of the marriage relationship is linked to the
example of the Lord Jesus Christ because it is as Christ loves
the church that marriage should aspire. It's greater than the
relationship between a parent and a child. As intense as that
is, that union, that child is part of our own body and yet
even that relationship pales into the shadows when we consider
the relationship that Christ has with His church. The Lord
is kind and gracious to us. Our faith is fixed. upon our
Redeemer who is our friend, who not only saves but lovingly applies
the benefits of our salvation because he knows how weak we
are and he knows how prone we are to doubt, to worry, to fret. David, he puts it like this,
he says, Isaiah is colouring in this picture of the Messiah
for the men and women of his age, he's giving it He's giving it depth, he's giving
it significance, he's giving it meaning as he speaks of the
Lord in this way. And he shows what the remnant
people, the Church of God, will possess and experience and own
in that day when the Lord Jesus Christ would be revealed. And
here are four comforting messages, four thoughts that I've drawn
from this little passage with respect to the way in which the
Lord's provision is granted to those who mourn in Zion. And the first one is this, the
Lord tells us, or Isaiah tells us, of course the Lord spoke
these words again in Luke 4, but Isaiah tells us that the
Lord will give beauty for ashes. The Lord will give beauty for
ashes. So this is number one, one of
four. We're gonna move through them promptly. In Isaiah's day,
and in eastern countries perhaps, to distinguish them from other
places, sadness and mourning was often publicly demonstrated
by rending one's garment, tearing one's clothes, or dressing in
sackcloth, dark coloured garments, or sprinkling ash on our head,
or removing jewellery and ornaments. And here the prophet tells the
remnant, the remnant people of his day, the people that had
still to experience so much hardship, hardship of persecution, the
hardship of defeat, the hardship of exile, the hardship of servitude
and all that that would entail. He was telling those people that
there would come a time when all of these things the ashes
and the sackcloth and the grey clothes and the dressing down
and the removal of jewellery and ornaments would be replaced
with a joy that would be everlasting when the Lord would give beauty
for ashes. He tells them that the Lord will
take away their sadness and replace it with joy and it would be an
everlasting joy. He would give grace and peace
and mercy and spiritual prosperity would replace the sadness and
emptiness that they were experiencing in their life in this world.
so that when the Lord Jesus Christ came preaching the gospel, or
indeed we can apply that to all time, because he's speaking about
everlasting experiences here, when the Lord Jesus Christ comes
in the preaching of the gospel, when the Lord Jesus Christ is
lifted up before us in the preaching of the gospel, when he announces the acceptable
year of the Lord, when he announces the time of acceptance by the
Lord, of reconciliation and redemption. Then he says, sadness and mourning
is replaced. The Lord gives beauty for ashes. He gives the oil of joy for mourning. He gives the garment of praise
for the spirit of heaviness. Spiritual blessings, the spiritual
blessings of conversion. I mentioned yesterday in my little
note, That doesn't mean that there will be no trouble in a
believer's life. It doesn't mean that we will
not endure tribulation or trial or persecution. But it does mean
that all our sadness and loss and trial has a context, has
a meaning, even has a profitable purpose. Because we are a spiritual
people, because we are a born again people, because we are
a transformed people, whose God is the Lord, the sovereign God,
we face our tribulation knowing and believing that all things
work together for our good. These ashes, they were meant
to discolour and disfigure, the face and the body of the people
who wore them but the Lord gives beauty of spirit instead so that
we look beyond the ashes of the flesh to see the beauty of the
soul. Mourners, mourners wept and wailed
but Christ replaces hopelessness. He replaces weeping. Remember when he went into the
room where Jairus's daughter was and the people were wailing
and weeping outside? And he raised that girl from
the dead and restored her to her parents. He replaces weeping
with joy, the joy of the Lord. He replaces dark thoughts and
dark experiences that weigh heavy on our souls with the spirit
of his grace and goodness. He gives praise where sorrow
once prevailed. And these descriptions convey
the converting power of God's grace in the life of his people
and the changes brought in by the Lord Jesus Christ in this
gospel age. The light of truth dispels the
darkness of sin. This beauty of soul replaces
the evil that disfigures. And a covering of praise hides
the shame of our nakedness. And a robe of righteousness reveals
our acceptance with God. It's our marriage garment that
brings us a welcome in the presence of the King. Isaiah is telling
his readers that when the Messiah comes he will bring in a new
age of spiritual understanding, awareness and experience which
Christ confirmed when he read this portion from Isaiah at the
synagogue in Nazareth. This day is this scripture fulfilled
in your ears. So the Lord gives these graces,
he gives these blessings, he transforms and converts and this
is a spiritual work that the Lord performs amongst his people
and Isaiah was telling the people so that they might look forward
to this coming Christ. Here is number two, here is the
second source of comfort that Isaiah gives his own generation. and it is a reference to them
being joined with the Gentiles. This is speaking about the union
and we're basically just working down through the verses of this
chapter. This speaks of the union between Jew and Gentile. It's prefigured in Isaiah's reference
to strangers tending the flocks of the Jews and the sons of aliens. ploughing and dressing their
vines. You see the language of scripture,
the sons of aliens. If I had put that as the title
of this hymn, I'd probably have, the title of this sermon, I'd
probably have got a whole load of extra views on YouTube. But we didn't do that. They call that clickbait. Well,
we're not going there. But here's what the Lord promises
his people. These are New Testament blessings
described in Old Testament language and imagery. And it showed that
there would be, by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, a merging
and union of the remnant people from amongst the Jews with the
Gentile believers who would be converted through the ministry
of the apostles and later gospel preachers. Now let me just take
the time, I want to do this, I don't often do this but I want
to do it today, to read a little passage from Ephesians chapter
2 which just puts this all together in a beautiful passage from the
apostle Paul. It's Ephesians chapter 2 verse
11. This is what Isaiah is talking about. He says, wherefore, Paul
is speaking now, wherefore remember that ye being in time past Gentiles
in the flesh who are called on circumcision by that which is
called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands. So he's
speaking about the Gentiles and the Jews. that at this time ye
were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel
and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and
without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, ye
who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath
made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition
between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even
the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in
himself of twain one new man. so making peace, and that he
might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having
slain the enmity thereby, and came and preached peace to you
which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. Same gospel to
Jew and Gentile, for through him we both have access by one
spirit unto the Father. Now therefore, ye are no more
strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints
and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation
of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the
chief cornerstone Here the apostle Paul is writing to the Gentiles
telling them what Isaiah was telling the Jews of his own day. That there was this great comfort,
great hope of these two different groups being merged together,
joined together in a union of peoples. But, and this is lovely
too, this union is not simply the merging of the Old Testament
and the New Testament peoples. It's our union as the body of
Christ with Christ as our head. We are the church of Jesus Christ. It's not that we're, as it were,
looking at one another in this new merging as a husband and
a wife, but rather we are looking to Christ, our head. and he draws
us to himself. The Church of Jesus Christ in
all ages is the whole number of the elect of God. The distinct
and separated people chosen by God the Father, redeemed by God
the Son, and called to faith by God the Holy Spirit in the
gospel preaching. Yes, that gospel was preached
typically through the sacrifices, through the rites and the rituals
and the cleansings and the symbolism of the Old Testament. And of
course through the preaching of the gospel by the prophets
as they looked towards the Messiah. It was preached more clearly,
more explicitly in the time of Christ himself and by the apostles
and by the preachers thereafter. But it's the same gospel. And
let me make a little application here, if I may. We should be
careful, you and I, in these days in which we live, in 2024,
in our countries, in our homes, in our communities, we should
be careful not, as we talk to one another, as we commune in
fellowship with one another, not to belittle this work, the
Lord's converting work. which Isaiah was pointing to,
which he was encouraging the Old Testament saints to contemplate. Let us not belittle it by grumbling
about it not being great enough or not being grand enough or
not being quick enough. The Lord is gathering his people
according to his time and purpose. Every last one of God's elect
will be saved and it is not for us to specify how or when. I speak to my own heart. I'm too quick to lament the lack
of apparent success of the gospel in our own days. The Lord is
doing it exactly as he will, and it is a perfect work. It
is my lack of understanding and appreciation that ought to be
criticised, not the work of the Gospel or the work of our God. These days in which we live,
with their untold advantages, in contrast to the days in which
Isaiah lived and the days in which the remnant lived, These
are the days that this Old Testament remnant people looked forward
to eagerly and longingly. They would have loved to have
lived in these days in which we live. And the prophets of
God themselves longed to see these events that we have seen.
Isaiah told his age, ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles
in their glory and ye shall boast yourselves. So that these Old
Testament people were boasting of the glory that would yet come
amongst the Gentiles, that's us. Now our glory is the Lord
and These Old Testament believers gloried in the Lord who was yet
to come as we glory in the Lord whom we have seen. The whole
body rejoices in the Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ Jesus, ye who
sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. Right, moving on, here's our
third point. Another source of encouragement
for these remnant believers in Isaiah's days was this comment
that was made in verse 8. I will direct their work in truth
and make an everlasting covenant with them. I don't want to miss
an opportunity to mention the everlasting covenant. And verse
8 tells us that the Lord loves judgement and hates robbery. He loves truth and he hates lies. He loves righteousness and he
hates disobedience. And he loves all those who are
in Christ and he hates all workers of iniquity. Given these expressed statements
by the Lord, we might wonder how any are loved by God at all. For all have sinned and come
short of his glory. Yes, that's true. But do you
see what the Lord is promising in this verse? He says, I will
direct their work in truth. and make an everlasting covenant
with them. I will direct their work. God's everlasting covenant is
God's pledge to freely bestow righteousness to chosen sinners
upon the accomplishment of Christ's sacrifice of atonement. God gives
us righteous works. God gives us his very own righteousness. It is his promise that where
there is a covering of precious blood, no sin will be imputed. Where there is faith, nothing
but righteousness will be imputed. These are the terms of God's
everlasting covenant. This is the promise of grace.
And hence, we conclude from that, that as the Lord directs our
work in truth, there is nothing of sin, there is nothing of falsehood,
there is nothing of rebellion in us, but only righteousness. only righteousness, since all
our sin is laid upon Christ, and all Christ's righteousness
is laid upon us. God sees no sin in his people. And Paul tells the Ephesians,
for we are his workmanship, that's what that means, we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus unto good works, and only good works. only good works because the Lord
is directing our work in truth on the basis of this everlasting
covenant. We are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained
in the everlasting covenant that we should walk in them. What
am I saying? Am I saying believers don't sin?
Oh yes, we sin. We sin. Actually, sinning is
all we can do because we confess that all righteousness that we
have comes from the Lord. Therefore, all we have apart
from that righteousness is sin. Nevertheless, not one of those
many sins is charged to us. because it's all charged to Christ
under the terms of the everlasting covenant and God's righteousness
is imputed to us. Here's my fourth point and then
we're done. We will be, we are joyful in the Lord. When God's
people hear the truth, of their righteousness in Christ. When
they hear of their forgiveness, when they hear of God's grace
and mercy and peace with him and reconciliation, and they
receive it by faith, it fills our hearts with joy. It is the
joy of the Lord. Believers rejoice in the promises
and in the privileges and in the liberties of the everlasting
covenant of grace. And these gospel truths bless
us with good hope and a joy that transcends the trials and the
troubles of our flesh and of our life in this world. There
is not one of you out there listening to me right now who don't have
a whole list of trials and troubles and problems and fears and fretting. And yet the joy of the Lord,
if you are one of his people, transcends all of that because
we know that God is faithful and God has promised. It does
not remove our troubles from us, but it makes them bearable. And furthermore, the Lord tells
us, Isaiah tells us, and the Lord told him and he tells us,
these are enduring blessings because they are enjoyed by generation
after generation of the Lord's people. Every generation of the
Lord's people come to God by the self-same way and means. They come upon the self-same
offering and the same sacrifice. God's elect are blessed with
all spiritual blessings. And we have God's faithful promises
as our assurance of grace and mercy and love and peace because
they are built upon the sacrifice of Christ and God's promises
in the everlasting covenant. To endless generations until
all the elect be gathered in. So in that sense, we can join
with the Old Testament saints who look forward and saw the
day of our conversion. We can look forward with them
to the days of the conversions of those yet to come until all
the Lord's people be gathered and the Lord takes us home as
his bride to glory. All the blessings of the church
come to us through the Lord Jesus and God's promises to us are
yea and in him amen. They were given to Christ and
because we are in Christ they are our possession. We are really
and actually clothed with garments of salvation. We are really actually
covered with the robe of Christ's righteousness. This is a blessed
truth. This is a reality. We're not
waiting for our justification. We're not waiting for these blessings
when we get to heaven or when some change is made in the future. We who are the Lord's possess
these things. We are right now righteous and
holy and unblameable in God's sight and that will never change. We are all beautiful in Christ. And it's God's sovereign will
and good pleasure to bestow this righteousness on the people of
His choice unconditionally. Out of love for His church, He
has accomplished everything necessary for our cleansing. He sent Christ
to the cross. He shed His blood. Christ bore
our sin. Redemption and glory is ours. The simple fact of the matter
is, under the terms of the everlasting covenant, we who are in Christ
Jesus lack no good thing. And we should not be discouraged.
We should not be distressed. We have beauty for ashes. We have the oil of joy for mourning. We have the garment of praise
for the spirit of heaviness. We have the garments of salvation.
We have the robe of righteousness. We have the ornaments and jewels
fit for a bride adorned for the marriage, her marriage to a king. God's blessing to us, His planted,
well-watered garden will continue to spring forth to the end of
time. These promises are always to
reassure and comfort God's people. Neither God nor His Church will
ever be ashamed or defeated, for the Lord God will cause righteousness
and praise to spring forth before all nations. Amen.