Isaiah chapter 29, reading from
verse one. Woe to Ariel, to Ariel the city
where David dwelt. Add ye year to year, let them
kill sacrifices. Yet I will distress Ariel, and
there shall be heaviness and sorrow, and it shall be unto
me as Ariel. and I will camp against thee
round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and
I will raise forts against thee. And thou shalt be brought down,
and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out
of the dust, and thy voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar
spirit out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out
of the dust. Moreover, the multitude of thy
strangers shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the
terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away. Yea, it shall
be at an instant suddenly. Thou shalt be visited of the
Lord of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise,
with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire. and
the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even
all that fight against her and her munition, and that distress
her, shall be as a dream of a night vision. It shall even be as when
an hungry man dreameth, and behold he eateth, but he awaketh and
his soul is empty. Or as when a thirsty man dreameth,
and behold he drinketh, but he awaketh, and behold he is faint,
and his soul hath appetite. So shall the multitude of all
the nations be that fight against Mount Zion. Stay yourselves,
and wonder, cry ye out, and cry. They are drunken, but not with
wine, they stagger, but not with strong drink. For the Lord hath
poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed
your eyes, the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered. And the vision of all is become
unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver
to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee. And he
saith, I cannot, for it is sealed. And the book is delivered to
him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee. And he
saith, I am not learned. Wherefore the Lord saith, Forasmuch
as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips
do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and
their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men, Therefore,
behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this
people, even a marvellous work and a wonder. For the wisdom
of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their
prudent men shall be hid. Woe unto them that seek deep
to hide their counsel from the Lord, and their works are in
the dark, and they say, Who seeth us, and who knoweth us? Surely
your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the
potter's clay. For shall the work say of him
that made it, he made me not? Or shall the thing framed say
of him that framed it, he had no understanding? Is it not yet
a very little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful
field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest? And in that day shall the deaf
hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see
out of obscurity and out of darkness. The meek also shall increase
their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice
in the Holy One of Israel. For the terrible one is brought
to naught, and the scorner is consumed, and all that watch
for iniquity are cut off, that make a man an offender for a
word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and
turn aside the just for a thing of naught. Therefore thus saith
the Lord who redeemed Abraham concerning the house of Jacob,
Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax
pale. But when he seeth his children,
the work of mine hands in the midst of him, they shall sanctify
my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear
the God of Israel. And they also that erred in spirit
shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall
learn doctrine. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. It is not my desire to frighten
anyone. On the contrary, I consider it
my chief calling to be a comfort to the Lord's people and an encourager
of the saints. And yet, let us all be willing
to examine our own hearts and to test our motives in coming
to the Lord with our worship. We have encountered Isaiah making
exactly this point previously. In chapter 1 verse 12, Isaiah quotes the Lord asking
those who present themselves before him. When ye come to appear
before me, who hath required this at your hand to tread my
courts? Now we're going to be making
some comments about some of the things that Isaiah says in this
chapter today. But before we criticise others,
before we make reference to the woe of Ariel bringing insincere
sacrifices to the Lord, and before we judge those of whom the Lord
says with their lips, do honour me, but have removed their heart
far from me, we should do as Paul encourages
us to do, and we should examine ourselves and examine our own
reasons by the light of God's word for coming to worship him. Let us come, brothers and sisters,
let us come because we love the Lord. We love him because he first
loved us. Let us come because we love his
gospel truth. Psalm 25 verse 5 says, Lead me
in thy truth and teach me, for thou art the God of my salvation. On thee do I wait all the day. Let us come to worship the Lord
because we love the brethren and we long to be with the Lord's
people. By this says the Lord Jesus Christ,
shall all men know that you are my disciples if you love one
another and we come together to mutually encourage one another
and to stand with one another in the presence of our God. And while we come, let us remember
that God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship
him in spirit and in truth. And let us remember that without
faith, it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God
must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them
that diligently seek him. And in all this, let us come
upon the footing of the cross. Let us come upon the testimony
of the one who declared, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. It is to the Lord Jesus Christ
that we look as we bring our worship before the Lord. And this was the problem that
Isaiah identified in Jerusalem in his own day. The Jews in the
days of Isaiah and afterwards had transformed their divine
privileges into mere religious rituals. They had forsaken spiritual
wisdom for worldly reason and worldly gain. They became preoccupied with
the act of coming to God rather than the glory and the beauty
of the one to whom they came. Let me say that again. they became
preoccupied with the act of coming to God rather than the glory
and the beauty of the one to whom they came. And we can see that progressing
even into the experience of the Jews at the time of Christ. These
men had the scriptures. They had the law, they had the
prophets, they had the history, they had the heritage, they had
the oracles and every evidence of God's goodness that had been
revealed to the people in the promises and in the experiences
of the children of Israel down through the centuries. They had
every encouragement to faith in Christ by our Saviour's words
and works and his character. But when the Lord Jesus Christ
came to them, they did not even recognise him. And I fear today
that there are many of whom the Lord speaks when he says, they
draw near me with their mouth and with their lips do honour
me. but have removed their heart
far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of
men. There are those who go to church
because they like the company. There are those who go to church
because it is the practice that they have been raised into. There are some who go because
they like the music, because they like the entertainment,
because they like the particular wisdom and insights of the preacher
that comes before them. But let us remember that it is
no value in coming into the presence of the Lord with our mouth and
with our lips honouring Him if our hearts are far from Him. And it is only as we come before
Him in faith with an eye to the Lord Jesus Christ that we find
the true acceptance, the reconciliation and the union that we desire
in the Lord. I have got four reasons from
this chapter that I want to set before you today, four lessons
from this passage by which Isaiah encourages us, the Lord's people,
with views of the Saviour, so that despite the widespread empty
religious activity that was present in Isaiah's day, was present
in the Lord's day, and has afflicted the Lord's people down through
the ages of the church, despite that widespread empty religious
activity. true spiritual understanding
is not lost. Here are four things that Isaiah
teaches us in this chapter by which we may lay hold on the
blessedness of our spiritual union with God in the Lord Jesus
Christ. The first one that we are going
to think about is that our sovereign Lord is gathering his people
today. Isaiah, as we have seen throughout
this prophetic book, is constantly turning the eyes of God's remnant
people to the promises of their omnipotent God. He frequently
comes back to this little phrase, in that day, in that day. Why
does he do that? Because he is by repetition emphasizing
that the Lord has not forgotten his promises. Isaiah mentions
Ariel. That's a kind of poetic word
for Jerusalem. We know that expressly because
he goes on to say that it is the place where David lived. Now David had made Jerusalem
his royal capital and so Ariel is a reference to Jerusalem. But the very fact of drawing
upon David's name in connection with Jerusalem reminded the faithful
few among the people, the remnant people, the elect people of God,
reminded them of the glory days of David. When the nation of
Israel was blessed of God, when its borders were increased, when
its wealth and its riches were increased, and when they had
at their head a man who was beloved of God and who wrote and he was
no perfect man by any means and his testimony in scripture attests
that but he was a man after God's own heart and Israel was blessed
under David's leadership. But here we see a backslidden
nation now. Here we see a nation that had
forgotten their God, who still went through the ritual, still
followed the patterns, but their heart was no longer in it. Israel had become a backslidden
heifer. But Isaiah is reminding the people
that David's God is still on his throne even although David's
throne has been usurped and the glory of the nation and the glory
of the temple had been lost to infidels and foreigners. Now I dare say that The Lord's
elect have always been a tried and a tested and a persecuted,
even a questioning and fearful people. But in the decades and in the
centuries that followed Isaiah's prophecy, Many must have wondered
as they saw these great nations, the Assyrians, the Babylonians,
ultimately the Romans, coming against Jerusalem. Many of the
Lord's faithful people must have wondered if their hopes of the
Messiah were misplaced and misconstrued. Did we get this wrong? And it was to these mourners
in Zion, these hard-pressed, faithful, remnant people that
Isaiah is writing when he says in verse 17, Lebanon shall be
turned into a fruitful field. Lebanon. Lebanon was a forest. It was the last thing that you
would think of in comparing it to a cultivated garden. It was wild, it was uncultivated
land. This was no fruitful vineyard. That's true, says Isaiah, but
it will be, and it will be the Lord's doing. Isaiah was not
talking about planting crops and husbandry. He was talking
about the fact that the Lord would make Lebanon and the borders
beyond Lebanon a fruitful place for the gospel of Jesus Christ. It would become a fruitful field
inasmuch as Jerusalem had become an unfruitful field. that the
Lord would gather his people, that he would build his church,
but it would be Gentiles that would largely populate his courts. And when the Jews rejected the
Messiah, the Gentiles embraced the gospel. Isaiah tells the people, the
blind would see, Not physically. Not the physically blind. Though
it is true Christ healed the blind to demonstrate the point
that Isaiah was making. But the spiritually blind would
see with spiritual sight. The deaf would hear. Not the
physically deaf. Though again the Lord Jesus Christ
healed the deaf to demonstrate the point. But the spiritually
deaf. would hear and believe the gospel
when it was preached. When the apostles took this message
to the ends of the earth, the Lord made Lebanon a fruitful
garden. The meek and the poor would rejoice
in the Lord. The Lord that Israel had forgotten
And these are the blessed meek and the blessed poor of whom
the Lord speaks in Matthew chapter 5 in the Sermon on the Mount,
who would inherit the earth and possess the kingdom of God. The
Lord Jesus Christ was demonstrating to the remnant people of his
day what the remnant people of Isaiah's day had heard from the
lips of the prophet and had believed and had trusted. It was as if
Isaiah was saying to the people of the Old Testament dispensation,
let not your heart be troubled. Despite what it looks like, our
sovereign Lord is gathering his people. And that's something
that we should remember today as well. Here is the second thing
that Isaiah tells to these folk. He says, empty religion shall
be destroyed. Legalism, empty facade, superficial
religion and faith. Self-righteousness will not prevail
over true heart and soul faith. The elect in Isaiah's day and
afterwards must have wondered if the candle of true faith would
ultimately fail. It seemed to flicker, it seemed
to sputter. Christ said, I am the light of
the world, but the Pharisees, they sought to extinguish the
light of grace. under the yoke of rules and instructions
and man-made laws. And things haven't changed much.
Christ brings liberty, but there are plenty of religious groups
that demand codes of conduct and rules of association and
evident marks of obedience. And Isaiah describes these self-righteous
religionists in verse 21 as they that watch for iniquity. They watch for iniquity. That
is, not in their own lives, but in the lives of others. They
look, they examine one another's lives to see whether or not they're
falling short of the standards that they should be keeping to.
He goes on, that they make a man an offender for a word. They
lay a snare for him. So the person that tries to serve
the Lord, they lay snares for him to catch him out. They turn aside, that is they
condemn. the just for a thing of naught. They condemn the Lord's little
ones, the Lord's justified people for nothing and they marginalise
them and they cast them off and they bring their recriminations
against them. I wonder if you can in any way
associate with that form of religion. You know, just because it's,
I don't know, a foreign religion or just because it's a different
denomination doesn't mean to say that there is not an emptiness
about it. There are plenty of professing
Christian churches that have at their heart the rules of men
and not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it must always
be our desire to come before the Lord on the footing of the
cross of Jesus Christ. Did you notice that it was the
just whom these legalists attack? Who is it that makes these people
just? Who makes them righteous? Because
that's what justified means. To be justified is to be righteous
before God. It is to be accounted righteous
by God. That's what it means to be justified. Who makes these people righteous? Well, it is the Lord who makes
them righteous. There may even be some validity
in the allegations that these legalists make. against the just,
against the Lord's little ones. But remember this, brothers and
sisters, God justifies the ungodly. He doesn't justify the godly.
He justifies the ungodly. Romans chapter 4 verse 5. Remember
this, brothers and sisters, Christ died for the ungodly. Romans 5 verse 6. The Lord Jesus
Christ did not die for the godly. The essence of our hope as believers
is not that we live without sin, but that God has taken our sin
away and God has made us righteous. He has justified us in Christ. And if God has justified his
elect, there isn't anyone can lay anything to our charge. Paul says in Romans 8 verse 1,
There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. If we walk
in Christ by faith, we walk after the Spirit. And the blood of
Jesus Christ God's Son cleanseth us from all sin. The empty religion
of legalism has no fear, for the justified whose whole righteousness
is in Jesus Christ. That's the second point. Here's
another thing that Isaiah says in order to encourage the Lord's
remnant people. Redemption accomplished means
true spiritual worship recovered. Redemption accomplished means
true spiritual worship recovered. Isaiah tells us in verse 22 that
Abraham was redeemed by the Lord. So let there be no misunderstanding
about this. Abraham is in heaven today because
he was redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ. All his sins were washed
away in Christ's blood on the cross. Now it is true, it is
true that the Lord brought Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees. But
that's not his redemption. It's also true that the Lord
freed him from idolatry and superstition, but that isn't redemption either.
The Lord delivered him from many evils and many dangers, but that's
not redemption. The Lord saved Abraham with an
everlasting salvation in and by the Messiah on the cross,
by his blood, according to his purpose, in grace and in mercy. Thus Isaiah preached using the
example of Abraham, the gospel of blood redemption and effectual
substitutionary atonement. Isaiah preached the gospel to
his generation and he encouraged them with promises of the coming
Messiah that just as Abraham had been redeemed predicated
upon the death of the Messiah, so their hope should be in Christ. And like Abraham, the people
of Isaiah's day, the remnant people, the elect of God, believed
God, and God counted it to them for righteousness. Not their
faith, not their believing, but he counted the blood of Christ
to them for righteousness. He counted Christ's righteous
obedience unto death to them for righteousness. He imputed
righteousness to them. They were righteous in his sight
because they trusted in the efficacious work of Jesus Christ. The great
Redeemer He sprung from Abraham. He took the nature of the seat
of Abraham. He represented men and women. He suffered for them. He died
and he cleansed them from all sin. And Isaiah's hearers heard
this gospel about blood redemption and they believed God's word.
And in this way, Through blood redemption Christ tells us, in
John chapter 4 verse 23, the hour cometh and now is when the
true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth,
for the Father seeketh such to worship him. How do we come before
the Lord? How is it that we enter into
the Lord's presence? How is it possible that we can
be reconciled and acceptable in his sight? Because we are
righteous in the righteousness of Christ. Because we have the
righteousness of God granted to us. So true worship is a function
of the redemption of Jesus Christ. And here's the last point, and
with this, we're done. All God's people, says Isaiah,
shall be taught of the Lord. They also that erred in spirit,
it's the very last verse of our chapter. They also that erred
in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall
learn doctrine. All God's people shall be taught
of the Lord. You here today, you who come
and take part in this service, this little group, you are a
constant encouragement to me. You have shown your appetite
for the gospel. You have shown by your presence
here that you are eager and willing to learn doctrine. And why not? These truths are only the history
of our beloved Saviour's dealings with His wayward people. We have erred in spirit. We have rebelled in our actions,
in our words, in our thoughts. We can look back in our lives
and we can say, Oh Lord, How did it get like that? Isaiah
says it like this. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his
own way. But we have been bought by such
a price. For the Lord hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all. We have been secured under such
a contract that we now delight to hear the terms of that contract
over and over and over again. We love to rehearse the particulars. We love to discover the details
that are in the small print because that's our doctrine. I began by saying that I don't
want to scare anyone. But what it is that most comforts
the Lord's elect, what it is that brings peace to our hearts
in this old, sinful, fallen world, is simply the gospel of free
and sovereign grace in Jesus Christ. That's it. That's what gives us peace. That's
what comforts our souls. Listen to what God the Father
promised God the Son under the terms of the everlasting covenant.
He says in Isaiah 54 verse 13, All thy children shall be taught
of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children. True peace in this life and in
the next is to be had by hearing, believing and obeying the Gospel
of God. May the Lord teach us these truths
and bless our hearts in them. Amen.