We're going to Isaiah chapter
52, and we will read from verse one. Awake, awake, put on thy strength,
O Zion, put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy
city, for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised
and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust,
arise and sit down, O Jerusalem, loose thyself from the bands
of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For thus saith the Lord,
ye have sold yourselves for naught, and ye shall be redeemed without
money. For thus saith the Lord God,
my people went down a fourth time into Egypt to sojourn there,
and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. Now therefore,
what have I here, saith the Lord, that my people is taken away
for naught? They that rule over them make
them to howl, saith the Lord, and my name continually every
day is blasphemed. Therefore my people shall know
my name. Therefore they shall know in
that day that I am he that doth speak. Behold, it is I. How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth
peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation,
that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth. Thy watchmen shall
lift up the voice, with the voice together shall they sing, for
they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring again Zion. Break forth into joy, sing together
ye waste places of Jerusalem, for the Lord hath comforted his
people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord hath made bare his holy
arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth
shall see the salvation of our God. Depart ye, depart ye, go
ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing, go ye out of the
midst of her. Be ye clean that bear the vessels
of the Lord, for ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by
flight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel
will be your reward. Behold, my servant shall deal
prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled and be very high,
as many were astonied at thee. His visage was so marred more
than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. So shall
he sprinkle many nations. The kings shall shut their mouths
at him. For that which had not been told
them shall they see, and that which they had not heard shall
they consider. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. I want us to remember, I want
us to note this first thing that I'm about to say here particularly. It's a little phrase that I discovered
a number of years ago and it has been very illuminating and
very helpful to me and I trust it will be so for you as well. It takes a lot of reflecting
upon and a lot of considering as we read the scriptures, but
if you remember this, I think you will find the scriptures
open up to a degree, especially some of Paul's writings, to a
degree that will bless your heart. Here is the little phrase, it's
this. The Lord's commands are his enablings. The Lord's commands are his enablings. And the meaning of that, I believe,
is that in the spiritual realm, the Lord does not require anything
from his people without first bestowing and enabling and equipping
his people to comply with his request. so that the Lord does not require
anything of us without first bestowing, enabling or equipping
his people to comply with his request, either personally or
rather in the person of our saviour and surety. Because the Lord
knows who we are and he knows what we are. And he doesn't seek
anything from weak, bankrupt, spiritually dead sinners that
he does not first freely give to us and generously provide
for us. If the Lord requires faith from
us, he first gives us spiritual life. If he requires obedience,
he first makes us willing to obey. If he calls for worship,
he begins by putting praise in our heart and a new song upon
our lip. If he calls us to make a sacrifice,
it is only after first gifting to us the very thing he asks
from us. The Lord says, I will be your
God, and ye shall be my people. I will cause breath to enter
into you, and ye shall live. And ye shall be holy unto me,
for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people,
that ye should be mine. The Lord told a curious lawyer
that the greatest commandment is, thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all
thy mind. And this we do by his grace. We love him, but only, Mark you,
because he first loved us. Sometimes preachers will say,
well this is what you've got to do, you've got to love God,
or you've got to serve God, or you've got to dedicate yourself
to God, you've got to conform yourself to the Lord's way, you've
got to live perfectly for him. These things we cannot do. until
and unless the Lord enables, until and unless the Lord equips
us to do by faith what we never can do of ourselves. Paul says, I live, yet not I,
but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. who loved
me and gave himself for me. The Lord seeks nothing from us
which he does not first give to us. Even faith, even our faith. We are not the Lord's people
because we believe in him. We believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ because we are his people and he has made us so. Lord once
asked a question about whether he would find faith on earth
upon his return. And the answer is yes, he will.
But it will only be the faith that he has first planted and
nurtured and that he brings to fruition. By Christ's gift of
faith, the Lord's people discover and learn who Christ really is
and what he has accomplished for us. By Christ's gift of faith,
they learn who they really are and what mercy they have been
shown and what good they have been given and how to experience
the joy and all the good blessings that the Lord has provided and
eternally purposed to bestow upon them. In our chapter today, in chapter
52 of Isaiah, the Lord, by his prophet Isaiah, seeks four things
from his people and commands four things of his church. I guess if you want to be pedantic
you could probably find more than four but I have chosen four.
I've highlighted four that I think are predominant in this little
passage that the Lord seeks and calls for his people to do. He calls us to awake and put
on our strength, our beautiful garments. He calls us secondly
to break forth into joy and sing together. He calls us thirdly
to depart. Go ye out from fence. And finally,
he calls us to behold my servant. So what I'm going to do today
is take these four headings, very quickly just draw a few
thoughts from each of them to show us what the Lord expects
from his people in complying with these instructions. Remembering,
that the Lord asks nothing of his people that he has not already
supplied to us, nor commands what he has not provided, nor
seeks what he has not enabled. And we shall look today at these
four instructions of God to his beloved church. So the first
one is this. Awake, put on your strength,
and your beautiful garments." The Lord was speaking through
Isaiah to the people of Isaiah's day and he speaks to us the same
word. This is a living word, this is
an eternal word, this is a word that is as relevant today to
you and me as it was to those believers, that ransomed people,
that remnant people, the elect of God in the day of Isaiah and
subsequently. Awake, awake, put on your strength
and your beautiful garments. What a delightful picture that
is, even in purely natural terms. It's a lovely picture that Isaiah
sets before his readers here. waking up from a restful sleep,
refreshed and strengthened for the day that lies ahead and all
the promise that it holds, and dressing in anticipation in our
finest clothes. But what an immeasurably finer
picture. These words evoke when we realise
that it is a spiritual call that is in view. It is a spiritual
call to the Lord's people to awake, put on your strength and
your beautiful garments. And what a privilege to realise
that the Lord has both energised and enabled us to do all that
he asks of us. It is the Lord who first awakens
the soul that sleeps the sleep of death. It is the Lord who
rouses those who slumber due to weakness of the flesh. It is God the Holy Spirit who
quickens the dead and brings spiritual life where none existed
before. It is the Lord who sends his
spirit to convict of sin, to teach his word. It is the Lord
who sends preachers to point us to Christ. It is the Lord
who calls his sheep by name and leads us in the way that we should
go. And this is what is happening
here in this passage. The Old Testament church, those
to whom Isaiah was writing, those to whom the Lord had instructed
Isaiah, comfort ye, comfort ye my people. The Old Testament
church was hard pressed and wearied by the troubles of the nation
and the trials of their time. but the Lord and Isaiah calls
that people, calls that church, calls his remnant people to rally
and to arise. It's inappropriate that a people
with The privileges of God's elect and the promises that they
possess. It is inappropriate that they
merely lie down under the weight of their troubles. And Isaiah
is reminding them that they were not a forgotten people. Though
they were hard-pressed, though they were in difficult times,
though we are hard-pressed, though we are in difficult times, though
we are challenged with the weaknesses of our flesh, with the illnesses
of our body, with the tiredness that comes upon us as we engage
with this world and the sinfulness that we find in it and indeed
in our own souls. They nor we are a forgotten people. In fact, all that is happening
in the world is focused upon the church. Everything that is
happening in this world, everything that happens in our lives, whether
it is the great ebbs and flows of empires like the Egyptian
and the Assyrian and the Babylonian, or whether it is the little things
in our daily experience that irk and provoke and try us. It
is all amazingly, almost unbelievably, all conducive to our greater
good and the leading of the Lord's people to glory. And though these
people in their days seemed but few, a little remnant, just the
edge, just the cut off of the edge, Although they appeared
feeble and frail, their salvation was at hand. This is what Isaiah
is telling them. Arise, your salvation is at hand. The Messiah was coming. The great
kingdom of his promise and his glory was near. And the remnant
of Isaiah's day was just like a little flame. a little flame
on a stormy night, a single candle in a dark world. But soon the light of the whole
world would arise from amongst that remnant, and the day star
would appear, and the Son of Righteousness would rise when
Jesus, the Messiah, came. And Isaiah continues telling
the people, put on your beautiful garments. Beautiful garments
are for kings and priests. These people were prisoners and
slaves. But what a delightful picture
this is of our conversion. By nature we are slaves to sin
and captive to Satan. But the Lord has redeemed us. He has released us. He has elevated
us to the position of kings and priests in the kingdom of his
Father. And he has made us righteous
in his sight. Not figuratively righteous. Not symbolically righteous. He has made us actually and really
righteous in the sight of God. He has made us pure in spirit. He has made us righteous in his
sight, holy and blameless before him in love. Christ's Church,
men and women, boys and girls of faith have beautiful garments,
wedding garments, spotless, clean and suitable for all our needs. And these we put on when we put
on Christ, trusting in his sufficiency to meet every demand of God and
every requirement of holiness, of law and of justice. So that's our first thought today. The Lord Jesus Christ, or God,
commands his people to awake and put on strength and your
beautiful garments. And these are pictures of what
the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us that we may put him on
by faith. Here's the second instruction
that the Lord gives to his people via Isaiah. He says, Then the
Lord calls us to break forth into joy and sing together. Break forth into joy and sing
together. I doubt very much, I doubt very
much that the remnant people felt much joy in captivity or
reason to sing the Lord's song in a strange land. But when the messengers brought
news to the captives of Judah that their exile was over, that
their redemption was secured, and that they could go back home
and return to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls, as they did in the time of Ezra
and Nehemiah, how they received that word with joy. How beautiful
upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings. These were the good tidings that
came to the people of Israel, the people of Judah. But this
is the very verse that the Apostle Paul uses to speak not only of
some historical event and the news concerning it, but about
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ coming to sinful men and
women. How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth
peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation,
that saith unto Zion, the people of God, thy God reigneth. And so too, when the good news
of the gospel of deliverance and salvation and glory is pronounced
to sinners like you and me, and they are given faith to believe
it, then who can keep the redeemed of the Lord from singing and
praising His name? When God sends the gospel of
free grace into a sinner's soul, who can silence the heart that
has left its chains behind and is ascending home in the company
of Christ? Christ before, that's what rearie
word means, Christ is at the rear of his people to defend
them, and Christ ahead, leading them as the advanced guard, leading
and protecting, surrounding his people. The Lord says, lo, I
am with you always. And the psalmist says, he hath
put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. Many shall see it and fear and
shall trust in the Lord. And he goes on to say here in
this same section, this is our second one that we're still on
about singing. He goes on to say, the watchmen
shall sing. The watchmen are the Lord's apostles,
the Lord's evangelists, his pastors for his people, the preachers
that he sends to his church. The watchmen shall sing. They will sing in unison. They
will sing together like a great choir. The Lord Jesus Christ
himself, the conductor of that choir. They sing together when
they declare the gospel of God's grace, when they preach Jesus
Christ crucified. They see eye to eye with a unified
message. You see, the gospel isn't a mixed
message. It isn't a yay and nay message. It isn't sometimes this and sometimes
that. It isn't Calvinist one day and
Arminian the next. It isn't God's sovereignty and
man's free will. Oh, I can see and understand
them both. Oh, can you? Double-minded men. It isn't something that differs
depending on the audience or indeed the age in which it is
preached. Paul preached at Corinth, he
preached at Rome and he said, I determined not to know anything
among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. I am not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth. Friends, Be careful not to compromise
on hearing the gospel of grace. You've been taught the gospel
of free grace. Be careful that you keep listening
to that gospel and you don't get distracted to listen to another
gospel, which isn't another. The Lord hath made bare his holy
arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth
shall see the salvation of our God. That's verse 10. I don't
think there's a better Sovereign Grace verse in the whole of the
Bible. The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all
the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation
of our God. No? Maybe shall see it. The gospel
of free grace is the only gospel that suits your need and mine
and we should be as resolute to hear nothing other than Jesus
Christ crucified as Paul was determined to preach nothing
less. And I connect this, this point
about the watchman singing in unison with our third point,
which is that we are to depart and go ye out thence. This is the third thing that
Isaiah tells the people from the Lord in this chapter. Depart,
depart ye and go out thence. The Lord's people are a separated
people. We are in the world, but we are
not of the world. Now this does not mean that we
are to act in a peculiar way in order to purposefully distinguish
ourselves from the people around about us. It's not about incidentals
like clothes or food or even lifestyle. but that's a subject
for another day. My point is this, we are a separated
people. Not because we make a difference
in the things that we do, but because the Lord has separated
us. He has caused that difference. He has separated his people. It is the Lord who has made the
difference. We are a called out people, a
called apart people, set apart, in so many ways, set apart in
the covenant of grace, set apart in God's elective purpose, set
apart in Jesus Christ, set apart in our conversion, set apart
in God's kingdom, set apart under his care and his protection,
recipients of his distinguishing love. Christ's particular redemption,
the Holy Spirit's quickening enlivenment. When Paul speaks
to the Corinthians and he says, who maketh thee to differ from
another, he's not only stressing sovereign grace, he's emphasising
distinguishing grace, because we have been distinguished from
the rest of the people of this world. We are called to spiritual
life by the power of God and we are called to spiritual life
for the glory of God. Here's a question. How do we glorify God in our
bodies? How do we glorify God in our
lives? How do we glorify God in our
service and in our worship? Not by trying to purify our bodies
and perfecting this flesh. That will never work. But by approaching God on the
sole basis of Christ's righteousness and his cleansing blood. That's
how it's done. When the Lord tells the church
to touch no unclean thing, go ye out from the midst of her,
be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord. He's not instructing
us to do what we never can do in this flesh. Our very flesh
is unclean. rather he is telling us to have
nothing to do with any doctrine that detracts from Christ's sufficiency
in salvation. Any gospel that mixes faith and
works, any preacher who doesn't know the difference between law
and grace, and any ground of merit when approaching God other
than the perfect person and work of Jesus Christ. We shall never
be clean in this flesh until the Lord transforms our bodies
and gives us a body like unto the Lord's own body, raised in
glory and spiritual. Nevertheless, we are clean in
soul, spirit and heart when we look to Christ alone for acceptance
with God and fix our faith upon the blood and righteousness of
Jesus Christ. The Jews were called out of ancient
Babylon and we are called to come out from mystical Babylon,
that is, the false religion of this world. This is what it means
to depart, depart, and touch no unclean thing. And finally, the prophet once
again points his hearers to the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah, Isaiah
was a fine preacher. He was never far from lifting
up the Saviour. And here, once again, is the
Saviour, the salvation of the Lord set before us. And in verse
13, 14, and 15, this is a beautiful conclusion to this chapter and
introduction to the next chapter because here, Isaiah lifts up
Christ. He says, God says, behold my
servant. Behold my servant. Listen. We
cannot behold Christ, we cannot understand Christ, we cannot
appreciate Christ, we cannot understand the work of Christ
in our carnal nature. We cannot see who he is or what
he has done until our eyes are opened, until our ears are opened
to hear the word of truth. And so when the Lord God says,
behold my servant, he enables us to behold the one of whom
he speaks. And the prophet grants the believers
of his own age a fresh glimpse of the coming Messiah, the servant
of the Lord. And he says, the servant of the
Lord shall be exalted, he shall be extolled, he shall be very
highly esteemed. and yet he will be more marred
in body and suffer more in soul than any man before him or after. Who is he talking about? Who
is he talking about but our Lord Jesus Christ? And he goes on
to say that by his suffering, This servant will amaze and silence
and curtail the powers of this world. He is the stronger man
who has spoiled the strongman's house. By the power of his death,
our Lord Jesus Christ has won the victory. And kings and the
kingdoms of this world cannot resist the power of Christ's
gospel or the effectual workings of the Holy Spirit. Satan can't
stop the work of God going on in the life of his people, nor
can any man or ruler or regime in this world. God's grace is
irresistible and Neither Satan nor man's supposed free will
can hinder or oppose the work of the gospel in gathering Christ's
sheep and securing his flock. I mentioned this yesterday in
my little note, let me say it again. The church of Jesus Christ
has always been one church of one faith in one Lord. And here again, as we read Isaiah's
prophecy, so many hundreds of years ago, here again, we have
seen how the faithful remnant of Isaiah's generation was supplied
with views of Christ. And how this gospel in Isaiah's
prophecy informed their knowledge and inspired their trust. so that in the midst of their
own troubled times, the instability, the warmongering, the breaking
down of society, the transportation of them into exile, the persecution
of them into oppressed service and them being taken away from
their own land and all the troubles that that brought, The certainty
of the Messiah's coming and the assured success of God's suffering
servant was confirmed to their hearts and believed by faith. In every age, God's elect receive
God's promises through the preached word and through the revelation
of scripture. They receive it and they believe
it. for the comfort of their souls.
Whatever, let me bring this up to date, let me apply it to you
and me, whatever the burden is that lies upon your soul today,
know this, God is your refuge and your strength, a very present
help in trouble. He is your beautiful garment. He is your strength. Break forth
into joy, sing together ye waste places of Jerusalem, for the
Lord hath comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. Amen. May the Lord bless these
thoughts to us today.