We're going to Isaiah chapter
56, and we'll read the whole chapter. Thus saith the Lord, keep ye
judgment and do justice, for my salvation is near to come,
and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth
this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it, that keepeth
the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing
any evil. Neither let the son of the stranger
that hath joined himself to the Lord speak, saying, The Lord
hath utterly separated me from his people. Neither let the eunuch
say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the Lord unto
the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths and choose the things that please
me and take hold of my covenant. Even unto them will I give in
mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than
of sons and of daughters. I will give them an everlasting
name that shall not be cut off. also the sons of the stranger
that join themselves to the Lord to serve him and to love the
name of the Lord, to be his servants. Every one that keepeth the Sabbath
from polluting it and taketh hold of my covenant, even them
will I bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house
of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their
sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar. for mine house
shall be called an house of prayer for all people. The Lord God
which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, yet will I gather
others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him. All ye
beasts of the field, come to devour, yea, all ye beasts in
the forest. His watchmen are blind, they
are all ignorant. They are all dumb dogs, they
cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea,
they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are
shepherds that cannot understand. They all look to their own way,
every one for his gain from his quarter. Come ye, say they, I
will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink,
and tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. May we never fail to notice the
bare fact that God speaks to sinners about salvation. May
we never fail to notice the bare fact that God speaks to sinners
about deliverance from sin. He does not do so to taunt us
He does so to inform us. He does so because he is telling
us that there is salvation with the Lord. That there is such
a possibility as salvation. That there is such a mercy in
the divine mind. as salvation with God and forgiveness
for sinners like us. It is a wonderful truth. And let us pay attention particularly
when God tells fallen creatures that his salvation is near. as
he does in these opening verses. We shall live but a few short
years in this world. Our bodies will wear out and
give up, but our souls go on to dwell everlastingly beyond
the grave. And whether we dwell with Christ
in heaven or with the damned in hell depends on whether we
obtain the salvation of which the Lord here speaks. And I hope that each person who
hears my voice will inquire where you stand. and ask the Lord for
that salvation of which he speaks and without which our souls are
rightly and justly fated to everlasting death. When we read and hear The Lord
say, as he does here by the prophet Isaiah, my salvation is near
to come and my righteousness to be revealed. Let us determine
to seek that salvation. Let us determine to discover
that righteousness, to search for the door that opens the way
that leads to life. And may the Lord so burden our
hearts that we do not rest until we find it. Last week, we read the verse
in Isaiah 55, verse six. Seek ye the Lord while he may
be found. Call ye upon him while he is
near. May the Lord enable us to do
so. Isaiah is writing, but it is
Jehovah who is speaking. And Jehovah calls on us all. He calls on us all to be wise and to do right. Keep judgment, he says, and do
justice. Keep judgment, be wise, and do
what is right. Wisdom in spiritual matters is
not attained by trying to please God through our own works or
our own efforts. Doing right is not accomplished
by obedience to God's law, no matter how careful and meticulous
we try to be. And God knows there have been
people down through the history of the world who have tried,
who have tried to be as perfect as possible. and everyone has
fallen short of the glory of God. It is an impossibility. It is an impossibility to keep
judgment and do justice before God. But in this verse, these opening
couple of verses of this chapter, Isaiah is pointing us to the
coming Christ who was not far away. It was still several hundred
years to come but it was in the grand scheme of things not far
at all. And he was telling the people
of his age, the people of his day and those that came after,
anticipate, anticipate Christ is coming, the Messiah is coming. He's telling his generation that
the Messiah is on his way. The Son of Righteousness was
rising with healing for sinners in his wings. And he was telling
us all that God's righteousness, the only righteousness that justifies,
is discoverable in Christ Jesus. For salvation is of the Lord. And this is the message of the
Old Testament and the message of the New Testament. It is what
Isaiah was telling his generation and it is what the apostles said
in theirs. Peter in Acts chapter four, verse
12 says, neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none
other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be
saved. The Lord here is telling us that
there is salvation near at hand, there is righteousness to be
revealed. How is that near at hand? In
the Messiah who is coming. How is righteousness to be revealed?
In the Messiah that is coming. And this is the principle, this
is the lesson by which we understand those things which are written
for our understanding, for our help, and for our direction. Here are four things that I want
to leave with us today. Four short points that I trust
the Lord will use to bless our understanding of this chapter
before us today. Chapter 56 of Isaiah. The first one is this. The blessedness
of the man who is blessed in Christ. The blessedness of the
man who is blessed in Christ. Number two. the blessedness of
the union we have in Christ. Number three, the blessedness
of the worship we enjoy in Christ. And finally, the blessedness
of Christ's protective care. So, to take it from the top,
Number one, the blessedness of the man who is blessed in Christ. This opening couple of verses
speaks of blessed is the man. Blessed is the man. The opening
of the chapter speaks of blessedness. Now, blessed is the man. the Bible word for happy or joyful
or peaceful. It has different meanings depending
on who is blessing whom. If we are blessing God, it means
to honour or to worship or to revere God. Bless the Lord, O
my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. It's a form of worship to God. When God blesses us, It signifies
God bestowing his loving kindness, his grace, and his favour upon
us. Now that may be temporal, it
may be spiritual, it may be eternal happiness that he is giving to
us. But when he blesses us, it is
his loving kindness and his goodness towards us. And when one person
blesses another person, it means wishing God's good upon that
person. The blessedness that is spoken
of here in the beginning of this chapter is from God to man. And it is a reference to God's
loving kindness and his goodness and his favour upon the man who
keeps judgment and does justice. That is, the man who always does
what is right and proper in the sight of God, who keeps himself
from polluting the Sabbath, which means perfectly keeping the whole
of the law because the Sabbath keeping is put for all the commandments
and not even just the 10 commandments but all the commandments that
God has given. It's a reference principally
to the comprehensiveness of true worship. And finally, not only does he
keep himself doing everything that is right and not polluting
the Sabbath, but he keeps his hand from doing any evil. Such
a man, says the Lord, is blessed. Now I think you'll agree with
me that that's a pretty high bar. And I don't think that anyone
here today will claim to always do what is right and proper in
God's sight, to always keep the whole law perfectly and never
do anything evil. Furthermore, I doubt that any
of God's Old Testament remnant people would claim that either. and yet this is what is required
to be blessed by God and to gain God's love and his favour. A superficial reading of these
opening verses would be very depressing. But here again we
see the Lord Jesus Christ foreshadowed in Isaiah's prophecy. Because Isaiah is not pointing
men and women to the law. as a yoke, as a heavy burden
to crush them and to leave them feeling hopeless and lost. These
Old Testament believers were not being told to go and look
to their own works, but they are being pointed forward to
the One who is near at hand, to the righteousness that is
coming. They're being pointed forward to the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is the Lord Jesus Christ who is the blessed man. It is the
Lord Jesus Christ who is the Son of Man that is referred to
here in these opening verses. It is the Lord Jesus Christ of
whom Jehovah speaks when he says, my salvation is near to come. and my righteousness to be revealed. Because God's salvation is a
man. God's righteousness is a man. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Lord our righteousness. The Lord is our salvation. And all blessedness and every
blessing is in Christ. If we have Christ, we have all
God's blessings. If we don't have Christ, then
nothing in this world is truly blessed to us, and nothing in
eternity will be blessed to us. David. The Psalmist David, King
David, the David that we've been speaking about already. David
said, men shall be blessed in him. Psalm 72, verse 17. Men and women shall be blessed
in him. We are blessed in Christ. So
that far from being depressing, Do you see how comforting these
words of Isaiah were for Isaiah's age? Do you see how they were
being directed to look not to their own works of obedience
and Sabbath-keeping, but to Christ the Messiah, in whom all the
blessedness of God is found. It is by faith, by trusting in
Christ, that the blessedness of God's love and grace and kindness
and care are enjoyed and experienced. God's people are blessed in Christ. In Christ we have every blessing. Outside of Christ we have nothing.
The world's goods, the world's offerings, attractive as they
are made to appear, are a mere vanity if we don't have Christ. But if we have Christ, we have
everything. So this is my first point. The
blessedness of the man who is blessed in Christ. Second thing
I want us to realise from this chapter is the blessedness of
the union that we have in Christ. Because the lovely thing about
the gospel, the lovely thing about the way of grace is that
the Lord has made us into a body. The Lord has made us into a church,
a people. Yes, we come to the Lord individually. Yes, we come as a man or a woman
or a boy or a girl to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and no
one can have faith on our behalf. But when we come, we come to
a great congregation. We come to the union of the body
of Christ. And there is a blessedness of
union taught and expressed in these verses as well. These Old
Testament saints were Jews who understood their relationship
with God in terms of the Old Testament dispensation. Now dispensation,
I use that word and I realised I used it last week and I ought
to explain it. A dispensation is just a period of time. There
are those who call themselves dispensationalists and they break
up the scriptures into lots of different ways and times of looking
at things. That's not what I mean when I
use the word dispensation. A dispensation is just a period
of time. So there was the Old Testament
dispensation and the New Testament dispensation. But these Jews
understood the gospel in the dispensation in which they lived.
They understood it in terms of the altar and the sacrifices,
the temple and the priesthood, the washings and the rituals
of the Old Testament law. By faith, the same faith that
we've got, they used all these types and symbols to trace the
person and the work of the Messiah in God's plan of salvation. But now, the Lord would have
them know through this prophecy from Isaiah, now the Lord would
have them know that not only will these shadowy practices
be replaced by the coming Lord Jesus, so too the eligibility for the
family of God would be greatly expanded in the Gospel age. And this is the reference to
the eunuchs and to the sons of the strangers. Previously, Gentiles
were excluded from the congregation of the Lord. Previously, eunuchs
were barred from serving or worshipping in the temple. Now, however,
in the gospel age that is being looked forward to by Isaiah,
when he writes the Lord's words that my salvation is near to
come, my righteousness to be revealed, Isaiah is telling the
people of his age that in the gospel age, the sons of strangers
and eunuchs of the Gentiles of all the nations to the ends of
the earth would be welcomed and accepted into the family of God. For which, brothers and sisters,
you and I should be very grateful and very pleased, for he is talking
about us. We are the sons of the strangers,
we are the eunuchs, we are the corrupted, the broken, the hurt,
the shamed, and it is us that he is speaking
about. And he is telling these Old Testament people that from
all nations to the ends of the earth there would be a welcome
granted of acceptance into the family of God by faith in Jesus
Christ. So that Paul, writing to the
Ephesians again, to non-Jews, to Gentile people as part of
his ministry to the Gentiles, He writes in Ephesians chapter
2 and verse 13, but now in Christ Jesus, 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, there's that union, 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, to make in himself of twain one new man,
so making peace. Somewhere else he tells the Galatians,
there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free,
there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ
Jesus. And this is a blessed principle.
This isn't just a New Testament principle. Isaiah understood
this and he wrote of it to those to whom his prophecy went all
those centuries before the coming of Christ. It's a blessed principle. We have union with God and with
every believer by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are united
in the Lord Jesus Christ. You and me, right here, right
now. If we have faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, we are united to Christ and we are united to each
other. We are all accepted, equal in Christ, and no one is more
or less loved. or more or less blessed, or worth
more than another. We are all one in Christ Jesus. We are heirs of God and joint
heirs with Christ. We share equally in the common
salvation and in the common wealth of grace and in the blessings
of heaven. And you who are young, and maybe
don't think you matter too much, or you who are old and maybe
don't think you matter too much, and you who are worn out and
tired and don't think you can do very much, you are no less
precious to your Saviour than your brothers and sisters. And
nor will you be more or less rewarded in glory, for we all
shall have Christ, and Christ is everything. We shall, in union
with Christ, have an everlasting name. We shall have everlasting
honour. We shall have everlasting love
and goodness from our Father's hand and our name, our name shall
endure as long as does our Saviour's. Psalm 72 verse 17 says, his name
shall endure forever. His name shall be continued as
long as the sun and men shall be blessed in him. All nations
shall call him blessed. And I suspect this everlasting
name that the Lord here promises to the Gentiles I suspect that
this everlasting name is connected with the new name written on
the white stone that is given to those in revelation, to those
who overcome. A name identifies an individual
and a family. And often, as we've been saying
in the Bible, it describes a feature of the person who bears it. And
this name will endure as long as Christ's name endures. And it identifies those who have
faith as members of his family and joined to him with their
brothers and sisters. So here is another thing that
Isaiah was able to teach the people of his age and to teach
us all. The blessedness of the union
that we have together in Christ. The third thing that I want to
mention to you is the blessedness of the worship that we enjoy
in Christ. The Lord says in this chapter,
he says, he will gather the outcasts of Israel, by which we understand
the elect among the Jews, the remnant people amongst the Jews.
He will gather the outcasts of Israel together with others who
will be gathered. Let me just make a little aside
here for a moment as well because I don't like to pass these opportunities
by when they present themselves as they do with this verse here
that we have. Verse eight it is. The Lord God
which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, yet will I gather
others to him beside those that are gathered unto him. Now this
is a promise. The Lord God is telling Isaiah
by the Holy Spirit who is telling the people of his own age in
this prophecy, I will gather the outcasts of Israel and I
will gather others also beside them that are gathered unto him.
Now This is just incidental, but it reconfirms the folly of
free will teaching. Isaiah tells us that God says,
yet will I gather others to him beside those that are gathered
unto him. How could the Lord give Isaiah
this prophecy if coming to Christ is man's choice and not God's
choice? How could God say that he was
going to bring others if that was totally up to the individual
to choose whether he would come or not? How could God know that?
How could God say that? But the Lord does not say, I
will try to gather others. I will endeavour, I will do my
best, I will try to convince to the best that I can. He says,
I will, I will and he shall. but back to the blessed worship
because that's really what I'm trying to speak about here. The Lord promises joy. He promises joy to his people
in worship. He says, in my house of prayer
there shall be joy and there will be acceptance of burnt offerings
and sacrifices upon mine altar. Now, Once again, we're not talking
here that the church is going to continue the practice of the
Old Testament types. But the altar, as we are told
in the book of Hebrews, is Christ. We have an altar. Christ is our
altar. And these offerings and sacrifices
are spiritual sacrifices that are offered by faith. as we look
to the sufficiency of the Saviour's sacrifice for our peace with
God. We don't have a physical altar
anymore and we don't bring animals anymore and we don't slay them
on the altar because by faith we look to Christ who was the
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, who was
our kinsman redeemer. Isaiah explains that reconciliation
of the New Testament Gentiles He explains it by a picture that
his Old Testament Jewish readers could understand in the context
of the altar and the sacrifice. Their joy would not be in slaying
animals, but their joy would be in Christ's blood to take
away their sin and bring peace with God. because richer blood
has flowed from nobler veins to purge the soul from guilt
and cleanse the reddest stains. Christian worship is founded
upon thanksgiving for what Christ has done. Christian worship is
the joy that the Lord gives in understanding the position that
we have as the redeemed of the Lord, of what it means to be
brought into his family, of adopted into his family, and to be given
his grace and mercy. Our worship is gratitude. the finished work of our salvation. There's nothing left outstanding. There's nothing left undone.
We have joy because we view in Christ a successful saviour. We view and accomplish a completed
salvation. What joy could there be in almost
saved? What joy could there be in almost
saved? He was almost saved from drowning. He was almost saved from the
fire. He was almost saved from hell.
What joy is there in almost saved? What rest is there in a work
not quite finished? What confidence can there be
in nearly there, but to fall short? But the Lord says he will
bring his redeemed people to worship in his house, to gather
to Christ in the temple of the building of his people. Christ's
church isn't a place, it's a people called by grace and gathered
by the Holy Spirit under the preaching of the gospel. And here's my fourth point and
with this we're done. There is a blessedness of Christ's protective
care. And I want to just put a little
bit of a disclaimer here because you might well wonder and you
might question that I describe the final few verses of this
chapter as in any way a blessing, when actually they are quite
awful and they are fearful. But here's why we find a blessing
even in these awful, fearful verses. God's elect will be converted
and brought into the church. God has already promised that
that will be the case. And those first three points
that we've spoken about, about the blessedness that we have
in Christ, the blessedness that we have in union, and the blessedness
that we have in the worship that we will share, these are our
realities. God is bringing his people through
the preaching of the gospel into the church and he is converting
his people, Jews and Gentiles, and uniting us together in Christ. That is God's work and it is
happening all the time. He promised it, Isaiah prophesied
it, it was the experience of the apostles, they saw it happening. 3,000 in the day of Pentecost,
the Apostle Paul's missionary journeys witnessed the gathering
of the Lord's Church and it has continued apace ever since and
it continues yet to this day. And yet in time, Isaiah tells
his readers, false professors will infiltrate the communities
of the Lord's people. like tears amongst the wheat,
to use the Lord's analogy. False teachers that will rise
up. Jude calls it ungodly men who
creep in unawares. And Isaiah saw this happening
too, and he wrote about it. So that the church of God will
be attacked from within and without. Isaiah speaks of blind watchmen
and he describes them as dumb and greedy, lazy dogs. These watchmen are a long way
from Zion's true watchmen, who are faithful gospel preachers
caring for the Lord's people. These watchmen, these dumb dogs,
were dumb concerning true religion, true doctrine. They did not preach
Christ. They do not preach Christ. They
were lazy with regards to the spiritual well-being of the saints. They call the beasts of the field
and the forest to spoil and corrupt God's flock by bringing the world
into the church of Jesus Christ. And that is what we see going
on around about us today. And it's not just today. It's
always been the case and it always will be because those tears will
be amongst the wheat and we will not be able to distinguish them. But the Lord knows, the Lord
knows them that are His. Isaiah achieved two things by
telling us this. He showed his own age how the
church would always be troubled. Always beset with trouble. That's just the reality. We speak
about the church as the body of Christ. We speak about the
church as a holy nation. We speak about the church as
a great congregation. But in this world, The church
militant, the outward manifestation of the body of Christ will always
be beset with trouble because there will always be infiltrators,
there will always be fifth columnists, there will always be those who
come in amongst us and try to harm the Lord's people. It's
the work of Satan amongst the people of God. No generation
will have an easy passage in this world. Isaiah warned his own people,
his own age, he told, he informed his own age about this but he
also warned believers then and now to be wary and alert against
any who deny the Lord and corrupt his gospel and harm his people. The apostles had to contend with
troublemakers in their own age, whether it was Peter or Paul
or John or Jude. They all wrote and spoke against
these troublemakers. We're pleased they did because
we have their epistles and they continue the warning that Isaiah
began in his prophecy. and we too shall find these troublemakers
amongst us. The foregoing promises that we've
read about, the first three points that I left with you today, these
promises, the promises of this passage, they shall not be jeopardised
by these final verses. All who are in Christ shall be
blessed in him with all temporal, spiritual and eternal blessings
as we have need. and all who are united to Christ
shall be preserved and protected and given an everlasting name.
And all who worship him will do so with joy and peace and
spiritual prosperity, even when the road we travel is beset with
beasts and greedy dogs, because the Lord will help us. Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou
art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort
me. Thou preparest a table before
me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over. Surely,
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and
I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.