Isaiah chapter 44, and we'll
read from verse one. Yet now hear, O Jacob, my servant,
and Israel, whom I have chosen. Thus saith the Lord that made
thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee. Fear not, O Jacob, my servant,
and thou, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen, For I will pour water
upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. I
will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine
offspring. And they shall spring up as among
the grass, as willows by the water courses. One shall say,
I am the Lord's, and another shall call himself by the name
of Jacob, and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord,
and surname himself by the name of Israel. Thus saith the Lord,
the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I am the first,
and I am the last, and beside me there is no God, And who,
as I, shall call and shall declare it, and set it in order for me,
since I appointed the ancient people? And the things that are
coming, and shall come, let them show unto them. Fear ye not,
neither be afraid. Have not I told thee from that
time, and have declared it? Ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? Yea,
there is no God, I know not any. They that make a graven image
are all of them vanity, and their delectable things shall not profit,
and they are their own witnesses. They see not, nor know, that
they may be ashamed. Who hath formed a God, or molten
a graven image, that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his
fellows shall be ashamed, and the workmen they are of men.
Let them all be gathered together, let them stand up. Yet they shall
fear, and they shall be ashamed together. The smith with the
tongs both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers,
and worketh it with the strength of his arms. Yea, he is hungry,
and his strength faileth. He drinketh no water, and is
faint. The carpenter stretcheth out
his rule, he marketh it out with a line, he fitteth it with planes,
he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure
of a man, according to the beauty of a man, that it may remain
in the house. He heweth him down cedars, and
taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for himself
among the trees of the forest. He planteth an ash, and the rain
doth nourish it. Then shall it be for a man to
burn, for he will take it thereof, and warm himself. Yea, he kindleth
it, and baketh bread. Yea, he maketh a god, and worshipeth
it. He maketh it a graven image,
and falleth down thereto. He burneth part thereof in the
fire, with part thereof he eateth flesh, he roasteth roast, and
is satisfied. Yea, he warmeth himself, and
saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire. And the residue
thereof he maketh a God, even his graven image. He falleth
down unto it, and worshipeth it, and prayeth unto it, and
saith, Deliver me, for thou art my God. they have not known nor
understood, for he hath shut their eyes that they cannot see,
and their hearts that they cannot understand. And none considereth
in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to
say, I have burned part of it in the fire. Yea, also I have
baked bread upon the coals thereof. I have roasted flesh and eaten
it. And shall I make the residue
thereof an abomination? Shall I fall down to the stalk
of a tree? He feedeth on ashes. A deceived
heart hath turned him aside that he cannot deliver his soul, nor
say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? Remember these, O
Jacob and Israel, for thou art my servant, I have formed thee. Thou art my servant, O Israel,
thou shalt not be forgotten of me. I have blotted out as a thick
cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins. Return unto
me, for I have redeemed thee. Sing, O ye heavens, for the Lord
hath done it. Shout, ye lower parts of the
earth. Break forth into singing, ye
mountains, O forest and every tree therein. For the Lord hath
redeemed Jacob and glorified himself in Israel. Thus saith
the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb.
I am the Lord that maketh all things, that stretcheth forth
the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the ear by myself, that
frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad,
that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish,
that confirmeth the word of his servant, And performeth the counsel
of his messengers, that saith to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited,
and to the cities of Judah ye shall be built, and I will raise
up the decayed places thereof. that saith to the deep, be dry,
and I will dry up thy rivers, that saith of Cyrus, he is my
shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem,
thou shalt be built, and to the temple thy foundation shall be
laid. Amen, may the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. These verses that we have read
today in chapter 44, these verses contain many promises made by
God to his people. And we remind ourselves that
Isaiah is writing them to a specific generation. What is it we've
said? Something like 700 years before the coming of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Here is Isaiah writing specific
promises to his generation in order to comfort and encourage
them in anticipation of all the hard and difficult, indeed terrible
things that are yet to happen to the land of Judah. Perhaps for some of these people
to whom Isaiah wrote, there would indeed be opportunity to see
the evidences of God's grace and goodness and the fulfillment
of these promises granted in some practical experiential way. But in truth, It is the spiritual
meaning behind these promises that we seek today. These events
happened, transpired hundreds, thousands of years ago. But yet
there is an ongoing power in these words to teach us about
the Saviour. That was true for men and women
of faith in Isaiah's day and it is true for us today. It is the Saviour that we are
looking for in these verses. It is the Saviour, the Messiah,
the Christ that always people of faith discerned in Isaiah's
writings. Now it is my opinion, at the
prompting of Dr Robert Hawker, that our greatest good in coming
to these promises that we read together here concerning the
gospel days of which Isaiah wrote. It is my thinking that in coming
to these promises our greatest good will be had in reading them
as first made to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ himself
in his mediatorial capacity. So that it is, as it were, the
father speaking to the son in his role as mediator. So that these promises are first
given to Christ. And then, secondly, to take these
same promises given to Christ and apply them to all the seed
of Christ. Now let me explain that, if I
may, a little bit. We read in 2 Corinthians chapter
one and verse 20, for all the promises of God, and that's what
we've got here. These are the promises of God.
These are gospel promises for believing men and women of every
age, there are promises of God, both to Christ and to his people. And Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians
chapter 1 verse 20, all the promises of God in him, that is in Christ,
are yea, and in him, amen. unto the glory of God by us. So that what Paul is telling
us here, what he is saying is that all of God's promises, wherever
we read them, and today our reading is in Isaiah 44. But all the
promises of God, wherever we read them in scripture, come
to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. God's promises of grace
and glory belong to the church only in the Lord Jesus Christ
and only because he is our head and because he is our representative
and our surety. There is no grace outside of
Christ. There is not a promise that we
can claim or hope for outside of Christ. The promises of God are all in
Christ and only in Christ. Until I have Christ, I've no
claim to a single promise. Indeed, we might say, legitimately
that the Lord Jesus Christ himself is the first promise and that
promise came in the fall of man. where we read in Genesis chapter
3 verse 13, the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. Now that's a promise from God.
The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. What is that
talking about? Rather, who is that talking about?
It is talking about the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus Christ
would come, we've read in Luke chapter 1 about the angels promised
to Mary that indeed the Lord Jesus Christ was coming. This
is what Isaiah's age looked forward to and what we are looking back
to as we preach the Gospel. We are looking to the promises
of God in Christ and all the subsequent Gospel promises arise
out of that first promise that the seed of the woman will bruise
the serpent's head. So that for this reason, we can
say all the promises of God in him, in Christ, are yes, are
affirmed, and in him are amen, which means certain and sure. The promises of God are in Jesus
Christ. Now taking these promises in
this way. The names that are quoted in
these opening verses about Jacob and Israel or Jacob and Jeshurun,
they apply first of all to the Lord Jesus Christ. Taking the
promises in this way, We see that not only is the Lord's elect
the heirs of these promises, but primarily Christ himself. And we can hear the Father's
promise to his son and his servant in his mediator office. Fear not, O Jacob, my servant,
and thou, Jeshroon, whom I have chosen. The Lord Jesus was God's
servant in the covenant of grace because he undertook to obey
God's commands. He undertook to do God's will
in the covenant of grace. And Jeshurun, it means the beloved,
precious, and upright one. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
greatest picture of Jeshurun. He is the Beloved, Precious and
Upright One. He is so in God's sight and for
this reason there's no cause for any to have been chosen by
God or any who have been chosen of God to be afraid because what
Christ is to his Father, Beloved, Precious and Upright we are in
Him. God's elect are in Christ, beloved,
precious and upright in the sight of God. And Isaiah is blessing
the faithful in his generation with these encouragements concerning
the Messiah who was yet to come. And he was allowing them to claim
the promises that come from God to his Son to the elect, whether
it's in the Old Testament or in the New. God goes on to speak
about what these promises comprise of. He speaks in these opening
verses about the outpouring of God's goodness and favour and
grace, the outpouring of his spirit upon the seed of Christ
and that is what is being promised so that Christ in his covenant
role is being given promises from God that as Christ fulfilled
his part of the covenant so God would fulfill his part of the
covenant. He is having his father's commitments
to what Christ would gain, what Christ would win, what Christ
would accomplish upon the performance of his redemptive work. Here we see that the Spirit of
the Lord would be poured out so that a seed would be brought. God's grace is yea and amen for
all that are chosen in Christ. And the Spirit of God, by quickening
power, would gather God's elect as Christ's possession, as Christ's
seed and the promise is that they will spring up. Christ's work will be successful. His gospel will go forth in the
power of the Spirit and all for whom he travails in body and
in soul on the cross will be saved. It is speaking about a
definite work. It is speaking about the fact
that Christ's redemptive work, his atoning work, would most
surely accomplish the end for which it was performed. They
will be saved and they will be gathered in. These are the promises
from God whose word cannot be broken, whose power and faithfulness,
first of all to his son in the covenant, is assured, and thereafter
to everyone for whom Christ died, that they will be brought by
the power of the Holy Spirit. And I am sure that these promises
comforted Christ, the God-man, in his own experiences in this
world and they comfort us in him. Verses like these show the
shallowness of doctrine that makes salvation dependent on
man's free will and undermines the certainty and the efficacy
of the divine promises by making them, imagine, making God's divine
promises to his son within the covenant of grace conditional
and provisional on man's free will, because that is what the
Arminian doctrine is tantamount to saying. As if the covenant
promises of God to his son depends on man's free will. Let me say
it another way. If you believe man's free will
is the enabling cause of salvation, Then the Lord Jesus Christ went
to the cross with God's promises that I will pour my spirit upon
thy seed and my blessing upon thine offspring and yet he had
no certain confidence that even one sinner would be saved. so
that God had done everything, God had promised everything,
the Holy Spirit committed everything, Christ had done everything, the
Father had chosen, and yet there was no certainty until and unless
individual fallen sinners decided that they would agree. Free will
makes the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ one big gamble, if it
is true. And it's a horrible, God-dishonouring
doctrine because it makes the word and the will of God, the
Creator, dependent on the whim of man, the fallen creature. Let us never give that doctrine
a moment's credibility. Isaiah believed that the Messiah
would possess a gathered people whom the Spirit of God would
be poured out upon. The Old Testament remnant people
of his age believed that the Messiah would have a people redeemed
from their sins and made holy. The Lord Jesus Christ himself
believed that his Father would satisfy or would be satisfied
with the sacrifice that he made and he would secure his everlasting
inheritance. And we believe it too. We believe
that this is an accomplished work. We believe that it is a
successful work. and we believe that we can be
confident in this very thing, that he which hath begun a good
work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. I want
to take three quick lessons from this passage today, and here
they are. One, Christ will have his inheritance. Two, his inheritance are an ancient
appointed people. And thirdly, the sins of that
people shall be blotted out and they will joyfully sing God's
praise. So this is what Isaiah tells
his age and these are spiritual truths and spiritual promises
yet to comfort and encourage the Lord's people today. So here
is our first thought then with respect to Christ's work on the
cross. He will have his inheritance. Now, we've seen how every divine
promise rests first upon the Lord Jesus before afterwards
settling upon his people. God promised his son in his covenant
duties that the great purpose for which he came into the world
would be successful and would be fruitful. So he says to Christ,
fear not, I chose thee, I called thee, I formed thee in the womb. You are mine. You are beloved
of me. You are precious to me. I shall
give you your people for whom you died. I will gather your
church for whom you suffered. I will bring your people to you
whose debts you paid with your own life's blood. Don't be concerned
about that. Don't be anxious about that.
There is no doubt that these things will happen. These are
the promises that are being made to Christ in the covenant. Christ
will have his inheritance. The Lord Jehovah declares, I
will pour water upon him that is thirsty, floods upon the dry
ground. And when the scriptures speak
of water like this, it is speaking of grace. It is speaking of the
grace that is needed for the souls, or in the souls of thirsty
men and women. So it was that when the Gospel
Age began, first under Christ's own ministry and then the apostles,
the grace of God flowed, was poured out more and more liberally
than ever before. there was an outpouring of mercy
as the Gospel was carried from Jerusalem and from Antioch into
Asia Minor, into Europe, into Africa and beyond. These thirsty
lands, these dry grounds and all the hungry and thirsty for
grace that lived therein that were the chosen of God They found
that refreshing grace under the preaching of Jesus Christ crucified
from the apostles and from the preachers and pastors that were
sent out with the word of truth. Christ will have his inheritance. I will pour my spirit upon thy
seed, my blessing upon thine offspring. When the Spirit of
God was poured out at Pentecost, thousands were converted. Now
these were primarily Jews and Jewish converts, men of many
different nations and cities. And this is what they said, they
heard the wonderful works of God and they were all amazed. Acts chapter 2 verse 11. You
see, Christ will have his inheritance and Isaiah likens these converts
to willows growing up by watercourses. where they grow plentifully and
they spread easily so that wherever the gospel was preached the Lord
opened hearts and the Holy Spirit flowed in to the saving of many
souls. The Lord says, the Lord Jesus
Christ says in his own ministry, the water that I shall give him
shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting
life. The promises of God were fulfilled. The Lord Jesus Christ will have
his bride. She shall be joined to him, perfect,
complete, pure and holy. Not a member of Christ's church
will be lost and not one will creep in who has not been chosen
in Christ and given to him by the Father. Redemption by the
blood, sanctification by the Holy Spirit is an a work that
is successful and accomplished. It is the glorious work of which
Isaiah here prophesies. It's the gospel, and God's word
shall not return to him void. But note something else here.
These people, this inheritance that Christ shall have, these
people upon whom the Spirit shall be poured, They are described
in a very interesting way. This is my second point. They
are an ancient appointed people. Now this is not the Jewish nation
that is being spoken of here. For although they were indeed
an ancient people in the history of the world, This people who
are being spoken about are expressly appointed by God and are more
ancient still. This is the people of God, the
church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven in
the Lamb's book of life from the foundation of the world and
are as the words may be said, the people of eternity. They're an ancient people, they're
the people of eternity. Now, I know that lots of people
get prickly about speaking in such a way as this, and they
say, how can creatures be given blessings from God when they
don't even exist yet? Well, my reply to that is that
God existed, and from all eternity, The blessing of this ancient
people was laid upon Christ and laid up in Christ who represented
that people as their federal head. He is the head of the body
and what was laid up as blessing for this people in Christ flows
to them from eternity to their persons in time. They were chosen in Christ before
the foundation of the world. And, says Paul, had grace given
to them before the world began. So there is no problem, there
is no confusion, there is no doubt that these things are not
so. If the Lord says it is so, and
the Lord is the eternal God, then who are men and women to
become prickly about such a concept as this. These are God's elect,
chosen and sanctified people, having been taken into covenant
by him from everlasting, such that as soon as the covenant
of grace was made with Christ for their salvation, this people
were in ancient times justified in the sight of God, adopted
into the family of God, betrothed to Christ as his bride, and dwelt
early in the thoughts of God, in the heart of God, in the affections
of God, being loved by him with an everlasting love. and hence
their names are written from ancient time in Christ's book
of life. And he who appointed these people
is the Lord Jesus, our blessed Saviour, who rightly calls himself,
who takes and appropriates the name, the Lord, the King of Israel. and his Redeemer, the Lord of
hosts, who says of himself, I am the first and I am the last,
and beside me there is no God. This is no other than the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the
first and the last, And it is the Lord Jesus Christ
who challenges every idolater to answer, is there a God beside
me? And then gives the answer, yea,
there is no God, I know not any. So the Lord Jesus Christ will
have his inheritance. That inheritance are an ancient
people chosen, called and set apart in the covenant of grace
and in Christ himself from before the foundation of the world.
And here's a third point. And this is, I think, sure evidence
that the matters in view in this chapter are not national and
physical and temporal, not for Isaiah's age or the ages thereafter,
but are rather spiritual and eternal. It's an eternal redemption,
securing spiritual atonement and bringing forgiveness from
heaven to a people on earth that is being spoken about here. An
eternal redemption by the hand of a unique mediator. who says,
point three, their sins shall be blotted out and they shall
sing the song of the redeemed. Isaiah writes, and Jehovah declares
in verse 22, I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions
and as a cloud thy sins. Return unto me, for I have redeemed
thee I live on the west coast of England
in a place called Cumbria, which is this country's wettest county. So we know a thing or two about
thick clouds. and our sins are well described
as thick cloud. Just as thick cloud hides the
sun, so our sins hide the sun of righteousness, and our sins
hide all knowledge of the Prince of Peace from us. We are blinded
We have a deceiving heart. We cannot, because of sins, see
Christ at all and have any knowledge of God or his will or his ways. See, Isaiah knew about what we
call total depravity. He understood that our sins have
separated between us and our God. We are by nature children
of wrath, even as others. We are like the idolater of whom
it is said in verse 20, he feedeth on ashes. A deceived heart hath
turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, is
there not a lie in my right hand? That's a powerful verse that,
verse 20. It speaks of a spiritual ignorance and an inability. It
speaks of a deception of heart that prevents us from knowing
Christ and disables us from doing any good and disguises the lies
that we tell ourselves. Without Christ, men and women
are going to hell with a lie in their right hand. That's what Isaiah is saying.
That's what the Lord is saying. Yet here the Lord Jesus Christ
is declaring that He has done for us what we cannot do for
ourselves. He has blotted out our sins. He has cleansed and made us whole. He has carried away all our iniquities
and borne them as His own. Christ has done this. He has
blotted out our sins. He has blotted out our transgressions.
He has taken them away. Isaiah, in the coming chapters,
is going to speak more on this subject. And it's beautiful.
We're getting into some delightful chapters here in the next few. But Isaiah is going to speak
more about this redemptive work, this atoning work. He's going
to say, for example, in chapter 53, verse 4, he hath borne our
griefs and carried our sorrows, and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. That substitutionary work was
what was required to redeem our souls. This blood atonement was
necessary to blot out our sins. and the Lord Jesus Christ did
it all. Isaiah is also going to say in
chapter 51 in verse 11, the redeemed of the Lord shall return and
come with singing unto Zion. Zion's a picture of the church.
The redeemed of the Lord shall return. There's no question,
there's no doubt, there's no... question or uncertainty as to
whether or not the free will of the individual will acquiesce
to this offer when it's presented to them. The redeemed of the
Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion and everlasting
joy shall be upon their head. They shall obtain gladness and
joy and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. Christ will have his
people. They are an ancient people and
here we see that their sins are blotted out and they have the
joy of the Lord. These are passages for another
day, but we note the call for praise that attaches to the redeemed
of the Lord. The Lord's people have a reason,
a right to shout and sing. Brothers and sisters, friends,
do you know your sins are forgiven? Do you know your sins are forgiven?
Have you known the cleansing power of Christ's blood in your
heart, in your mind, in your conscience? Have you a good hope
of peace with God? If you can answer yes to these
questions, you have grounds to praise God and you have a reason
to sing. For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob
and glorified himself in Israel. You know, we can make that a
little bit more personal. The Lord has redeemed you and
glorified himself in his elect. But if you can't answer yes to
such questions about knowing the cleansing power of Christ's
blood and knowing that your sins are forgiven, then you don't
know forgiveness of sins and you don't know peace with God. And you must still yet be a stranger
to the joy of the Lord. To you I say this, Seek Christ
in his gospel, for he has promised, many shall see it and fear and
shall trust in the Lord. If many shall, and it's a promise
that God has made, why not you? May the Lord give us all grace
to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and may he give us joy in our
heart at the knowledge of sins forgiven. Amen.