Isaiah chapter 59, and reading
from verse one. Behold, the Lord's hand is not
shortened, that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy, that it
cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated
between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from
you, that he will not hear. For your hands are defiled with
blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken
lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. None calleth for
justice, nor any pleadeth for truth. They trust in vanity,
and speak lies. They conceive mischief, and bring
forth iniquity. they hatch cockatrice eggs, and
weave the spider's web. He that eateth of their eggs
dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Their
webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves
with their works. Their works are works of iniquity,
and the acts of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to
evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts
are thoughts of iniquity, wasting, and destruction are in their
paths. The way of peace they know not,
and there is no judgment in their goings. They have made them crooked
paths. Whosoever goeth therein shall
not know peace. Therefore is judgment far from
us, neither doth justice overtake us. We wait for light and behold
obscurity, for brightness but we walk in darkness. We grope
for the wall like the blind and we grope as if we had no eyes.
We stumble at noonday as in the night. We are in desolate places
as dead men. We roar all like bears and mourn
sore like doves. We look for judgment, but there
is none. For salvation, but it is far
off from us. For our transgressions are multiplied
before thee, and our sins testify against us. For our transgressions
are with us, and as for our iniquities we know them. in transgressing
and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God,
speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from
the heart words of falsehood. And judgment is turned away backward,
and justice standeth afar off, for truth is fallen in the street,
and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth, and he that
departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. And the Lord saw it,
and it displeased him that there was no judgment. And he saw that
there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor.
Therefore his arm brought salvation unto him, and his righteousness,
it sustained him. for he put on righteousness as
a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon his head, and
he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with
zeal as a cloak. According to their deeds, accordingly
he will repay. Fury to his adversaries, recompense
to his enemies, to the islands he will repay, recompense. So shall they fear the name of
the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the
sun. When the enemy shall come in
like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard
against him. And the Redeemer shall come to
Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob,
saith the Lord. As for me, this is my covenant
with them, saith the Lord. My spirit that is upon thee,
and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart
out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out
of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth
and forever. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. The Holy Spirit has graciously
supplied the church with numerous valuable lessons in this chapter
of Scripture. For example, we learn for our
reassurance not to panic in times of trial and trouble because
the Lord's timing differs from ours. Our foolish minds so often run
to thoughts of God being unable to help us, or God being unwilling
to help us, or God being insufficiently aware to know that we need help. as if God's arm is too short
to reach our problem or his knowledge too limited to grasp the urgency
of our case, of our predicament. Isaiah has a word for us today.
Just as he was preparing the remnant people of his own day
to be patient in captivity, How do you do that? How are you patient
in your trouble? How do you manage to be calm
in that place of duress and hardship? But that's exactly what Isaiah
was preparing the remnant people to do. to be patient in captivity,
to be resilient in exile, to be faithful to God's word, even
when they could see no possibility, no possible way that the promises
of God that he had given could come to pass or could prove to
be true. And what Isaiah is doing here
in speaking thus to the people of his own age, at his own time,
in his own place, is he is basically setting in place the fact that
the elect have suffered in this world from the very beginning. From the day that Cain slew Abel. the righteous have suffered at
the hands of the reprobate. The Lord's people, the remnant
people, have suffered at the hands of their enemy. And it
is the case that we shall continue to struggle. And we will continue
to struggle against enemies from without and from within. We will continue to struggle
against those who are enemies of the church and against our
own feebleness and frailty and our own flesh and our own devious
hearts and imaginations. We are weak in our own flesh. And we are tempted to doubt the
Lord whenever we come into trouble. As the remnant was in a day gone
by, so we are today. Whenever trouble besets us, we
are tempted to doubt the goodness of God. We are tempted to doubt
His wisdom. We are tempted to doubt His kindness.
We say, why, why, why? Let us be wise. being confronted with these things
by Isaiah. We must never impugn God's power
when he does not do what we want him to do when we want it done. Who is master here? God is not
to be moulded to your will or to mine. We are being conformed
to the image of Christ, God's Son, not to the likeness of this
world. And we find peace in humbling
ourselves before God, and we find comfort in yielding to his
way, which scripture and experience teaches us is right. Another lesson that we could
draw from this chapter is a warning against the prevailing false
religion of this world. It's true in the days of Isaiah,
It's true in our own day and it has always been. I'm always
amazed at the frequency with which the apostles had to contend
with false doctrine in those first generation and second generation
churches after the time of Christ and it always has been like that. False religion, false doctrine
rising up in the church. And it is so in this age. It
seems clear that Isaiah's prophecy spanned a long period of time. He was looking forward and he
was anticipating what he could see, not only in the time of
the exile, not only for the immediate benefit of the remnant people
to whom he wrote, but for generations yet to come. and it's the followers of false
religion who are separated from the Lord by their sin. I can
only think that these references to hands defiled with blood and
fingers defiled with iniquity and lips speaking lies and tongues
muttering perverseness suggest false preachers who preach a
false gospel to undiscerning men and women. Men and women
who in turn are content to shore up their own self-righteous delusions
with the vain religion that is fed to them week by week in these
God-dishonouring churches. False religion is any form of
idolatry that sets up a god in the image of man and denies the
true god and his unique way of salvation. And if ever there
was an age of idolatry, it is now. Men and women don't have
little wooden gods in their home usually. but they worship a creation
of their own making just the same. And Isaiah is here speaking
of webs that don't become garments and works that don't cover, referring,
I am sure, to efforts by men and women to try to please God
by human works, human energy, human trying. And false religion,
the false religion of our day, the free will religion of the
day, the works righteousness religion of the day is slaying
millions. And much of it goes under the
name and the title of Christianity. And here's another lesson that
we learn from this passage. It is that Christ's church and
God's elect will be harassed and persecuted by false religion. Men and women who have been convicted
of sin and humbled before God are termed enthusiasts. And those who are taught to plead
nothing more than the blood of Jesus Christ for cleansing and
righteousness are deemed to be divisive. Because, as Isaiah
says in verse 11, we look for judgment. We look for judgment
in this Babylon religion of our day. But there is none. We look for salvation. in the
human effort that is proposed and propounded from pulpits,
but it is far off from us. We look for righteousness in
their system of works, but there isn't any. We look for a way
of salvation in their preaching, but it isn't there. And we cannot
bear to follow their ways, so they set themselves against us. And at worse, as in bygone days, it sends true
believers to the lions and martyrs to the fire. And this chapter
tells us that false religion will happily expel you and me
from its presence and from its sight. We should not be surprised
if the things that we believe, the things that we preach, are
increasingly marginalised and criticised as being not true
Christianity. Isaiah tells the people of his
age and ours, this opposition will be the portion of God's
people in every age. And what can the remnant people
do? Well, they can cry to the Lord for help because He is able
to help. Will he hear our cries? Yes,
says Isaiah, the Lord's hand is not shortened that he cannot
save, neither is his ear heavy that it cannot hear. Furthermore,
he is well aware of our need, so much so that he himself will
come as our Redeemer to save. He will deliver and he will bless. I think it's a wonderful thing
that Isaiah is speaking about here when he speaks about at
the end of the passage that we read, verse 20, and the Redeemer
shall come to Zion. Here Isaiah is speaking about
our Redeemer. their Redeemer and our Redeemer. He is speaking about the Lord
Jesus Christ. And I think it's wonderful that
Isaiah is speaking about Christ with this clarity, even with
this terminology. Not in vague, general terms,
because Isaiah knew in whom he believed. He knew in whom he
trusted. He knew because he had met the
Lord and the Lord had revealed himself to him. Let me say to
you, let me tell you, this man Isaiah was a faithful preacher
who preached about our Redeemer. And Isaiah is saying here to
the people of his age, let me give you seven characteristics
of Christ the Redeemer. Let me give you seven particular
identifiers of Christ the Redeemer in his covenant role, who is
coming to deliver his church, who is coming to defend his bride,
and whose coming will comfort God's people in their times of
trouble. And that's what we're going to
do for the rest of the time that I have available to me. We are
going to skip lightly upon these seven characteristics that Isaiah
leaves for the remnant people concerning Christ the Redeemer
in this chapter. Here's the first one. Our Lord
Jesus Christ is a uniquely qualified Redeemer. We read about that
in verse 16. We read the fact that Christ
saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no intercessor. Christ saw that there was no
man and wondered that there was no intercessor. Now, let me just
say, wondered there does not mean surprised, as if the Lord
Jesus Christ was surprised. He expected there to be a Redeemer
amongst men, and he was disappointed that he couldn't find one. That's
not what wondered here means. Rather, what it is saying is
that it is telling the church that there was no other fit person
in the whole world to deliver the church in its time of need. There was no other good enough
to pay the price of sin. There was no other able to satisfy
God's justice and meet his people's needs. So, in the absence of
a worthy man amongst men, the Lord himself took our nature
and became our saviour. He did so to satisfy justice. Christ must be a man to represent
men justly. He did so to be a substitute
sin-bearer because he must be perfect without sin of his own. He did so to redeem. To redeem
he must bear the full weight of the sin of his people. He
must endure the full wrath of the divine God against our sin
in his own soul. He must stand the fierce assault
of the powers of hell to deflect and deter the devil. Only the Lord Jesus Christ, only
the God-Man was qualified to this task. And here Isaiah is
telling the Old Testament people that in the absence of a worthy
Redeemer found amongst men, the coming Messiah would serve that
purpose. The coming Messiah would be God
Himself in the flesh of man. Isaiah knew about the God-Man. And Isaiah would also have believers
know, not only that there was a unique qualification in this
Redeemer, that he was the God-Man, but that the Lord Jesus Christ
was a willing Redeemer. Again in verse 16 we see that
Christ's arm brought salvation unto him and his righteousness
sustained him. When Christ saw man's need and
he knew the lost state of his bride, and he knew that his people
were without a suitable Redeemer, he took to himself the office
of Saviour. He took it willingly. He saw
what was needed. He saw what would be required.
He saw the suffering that lay ahead. He saw all that being
the Redeemer of his people entailed. and he willingly undertook that
role for us. He saw our fallen condition. He saw the corruption and iniquity
of the elect in Adam. He knew what he would have to
bear in his own soul and he knew the judgment that would fall
upon him as a consequence. And he willingly accepted the
covenant role of Redeemer. in order to procure a suitable
righteousness that would be sufficient for his beloved bride, his elect. It is as though in the everlasting
council, the question was asked, who shall I send and who will
go for us? And Christ, rising there in that
eternal dimension, The Eternal Son replies, here am I, send
me. He was uniquely qualified to
come and he was willing to come. And Isaiah understood that too.
And thirdly, Isaiah tells the people of his day, our Lord Jesus
Christ is not only uniquely qualified, is not only willing, but he is
an able Redeemer. The Saviour did not simply come
into the world as an ordinary child. He was fitted for the
role. He was born of a virgin. It is
Isaiah who has clearly stated this in the early chapters of
his prophecy. He possessed a body prepared
for him by his father. He had a breastplate of righteousness,
a perfect sinless soul. He was without corruption. in
his nature because that had not been passed down to him through
Adam. He had a helmet of salvation
because he came into the world with the express purpose to save
his people from their sin. And Isaiah knew that the Messiah
that was coming was an able, prepared saviour. Furthermore,
Isaiah would have believers know forthly that our Lord Jesus Christ
is a fierce Redeemer. Now that might sound a little
bit odd. But Isaiah conveyed this quality
too. Here also, in the writings of
this prophet, is this aspect of Christ's character revealed.
Not only would the Saviour be a suffering servant and a sin-bearer
for His people, He would enact judgment. He would restore justice. He would wreak vengeance with
a fury. Now usually, when we speak about
redemption, we consider Christ's redemptive work as being limited
to the cross, and we do so with good cause, because that is the
focus of our attention. That is what we look to, that
is where the redeeming work was done, essentially. But it's not
always so that it should be limited to the work of Christ on the
cross. The apostle Paul speaks of the
redemption of our body. The apostle also speaks of the
redemption of the purchased possession. So there is going to be a redemption
of the possession that had already been purchased. And there is
a day of redemption which is yet to come, so that the redeeming
work of the Lord Jesus Christ, focused at the cross as it was,
yet also encompasses the whole work of redemption. even to the
point of the gathering in of the church and the judging of
this world. The point is that while the principal
work of redemption took place on the cross, there is a sense
in which the coming judgment and retribution of Christ upon
his enemies and ours is no less an aspect of his full redemptive
work. fulfilling his covenant offices. Christ is prophet, priest and
king and he rules over his kingdom and he fights for his kingdom
with a fury against his foes. Isaiah says, he put on the garments
of vengeance for clothing and was clad with zeal as a cloak. If men and women of this world
knew what lay ahead by way of judgment and punishment and the
wreaking of vengeance and the fury of Christ against them as
a punishment for their sin, they would shake with fear. as do the devils and the demons
who dreaded Christ during his earthly life and trembled in
his presence. If demons fear to be cast into
hell, what is it going to be like for men and women and boys
and girls? Isaiah would have the Lord's
people know that Christ is a fierce Redeemer. Fifthly, he would have
the Lord's people know that the Lord Jesus Christ is a protective
Redeemer. Christ is our shield and our
defender against the enemy that comes in like a flood. Now we may see this in several
ways. He was a deflecting shield when he took our place as our
substitute upon the cross. He bore our griefs and carried
our sorrows as Isaiah has been telling us in Isaiah 53. He became sin for us, bearing
our guilt and our condemnation in his own body on the tree. He took the wrath of God that
duly ought to have been ours. but it doesn't stop there. He
protects us every day in a thousand ways. He protected us in our
mother's womb. He protected us in our infancy
and in our youth. He protects us now from the devil,
from temptation, from sin. He gives His angels charge over
us. He surrounds us with love and
He covers us with His wings so that nothing can touch us except
it be for our spiritual benefit and our eternal good. And that is true of every circumstance
of our lives. It's true for our health. It's
true in our sicknesses. It's true in our feebleness. Even these are for our good. It's true in our troubles, in
our trials. It's true when we fall into sin.
Yes, you heard me right. Even our sins work for our greater
good. Such is the protective care of
our Redeemer that even when the full force of evil comes in against
us as a flood, our foundation stands firm as upon a solid rock
and our house shall not fall down. Not tribulation or distress
or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword," says Paul. For I am
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Such is our Redeemer. He is a protective Redeemer to
his people. and Isaiah would have us know
sixthly that the Saviour is a possessive Redeemer. He tells us that the
Redeemer, verse 20, will come to Zion. He will come to Zion. Now Zion is a Bible title for
the church and Christ the Redeemer, in addition to all the roles
that he fulfills for his people, also institutes and maintains
a personal relationship with his people. He converted us to
himself while we were strangers and enemies. He unites us to
himself and he joins us to his body, the church. He makes each
one of us part of his family. He communes with us. fellowships with us, ministers
to us day by day in so many circumstances and situations. We were speaking
to the young people about how the Lord speaks to us these days.
This is where we are nourished, this is where we are fed, this
is where we are refreshed as we learn the gospel, as we learn
from the scriptures, as we learn about the Lord Jesus Christ.
So he feeds us and the spirit within us brings to our remembrance
the things that we have learned, the things that we have been
taught, so that we are comforted and encouraged and blessed because
our Redeemer has come to Zion in a personal and intimate way.
He walks with us in this world. He talks with us in His Word. He feeds and refreshes and comforts
and consoles. He kisses. He embraces. He manifests every affection. He showers upon us every blessing,
every good and perfect gift that cometh from above. He says, I
have loved you. He says, I have redeemed you.
He says, you are mine. And this leads us on finally
to verse 21, where we are told the Lord Jesus Christ is a providing
Redeemer. Listen to what the Father said
to Christ in the covenant of peace. Listen to what the Father
said to Christ in the covenant of peace. He said, what I give
to you, I will give to your people. When I was putting these seven
items that are characteristic of the Redeemer down and thinking
about them, I felt sure that there was a better word to describe
the Lord here than a providing Redeemer. But I couldn't think
what it is, so providing Redeemer it is. But the Son of God, received from his Father the
Spirit of God without measure. He received all the promises
of God because we're told that in Christ all the promises of
God are yea and amen. He has received every single
one of them. He has received the Spirit of
God without measure. He has received all the promises
of God. They were given to our saviour. And what this verse is telling
us is that they are given to us, his church as well. The father
said to Christ his son, my spirit that is upon thee and my words
shall be upon thy seat from henceforth and forever. Now, if I'm not
mistaken, this promise was given to Christ in the everlasting
covenant, which means that it was given to him from before
the foundation of the world, which means that all of these
promises were ours in Christ from before the foundation of
the world. Sometimes I'm just overwhelmed
at what I read in the Word of God. And I ask myself this question,
do I really believe that? I say I believe it, I testify,
I profess that I believe it, but in myself, I think to myself,
do I really believe that? Because if I did, if I really
did, would I not be a different person for believing these things
to be so? Robert Hawker says, this is as
blessed a promise as any in the Bible. And he goes on, indeed
it forms a comprehension of almost every other. And he's right,
he's right. The riches of God's grace in
our great Redeemer are astounding. Whether we consider him in his
covenant offices, whether we consider him on the cross at
Calvary, whether we consider him in his daily presence with
us, or according to all the future promises that are laid before
us for this life and the world to come. Not only do we relish these truths
today, but Isaiah knew them and saw them and taught them in his
own day. What an amazing prospect and
expectation this faithful prophet laid out before his people in
his age. And how much more blessed are
we to have seen much of this redemptive work completed by
the Lord Jesus Christ and accomplished by him. and yet still be on the
cusp of seeing much more yet to be fulfilled. May the Lord
bless these thoughts to us today. Thank you for your attention.