Isaiah chapter 10, and we'll
read from verse 1. Woe unto them that decree unrighteous
decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed. To
turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from
the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they
may rob the fatherless. And what will ye do in the day
of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? To
whom will ye flee for help, and where will ye leave your glory? Without me they shall bow down
under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For
all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched
out still. O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger
and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. I will send
him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my
wrath will I give him a charge to take the spoil, and to take
the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither
doth his heart think so, but it is in his heart to destroy
and cut off nations, not a few. For he saith, Are not my princes
altogether kings? Is not Calno and Carchemish? Is not Hamath as Arpid? Is not Samaria as Damascus? As my hand hath found the kingdoms
of the idols, and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem
and of Samaria, shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and
her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols? Wherefore, It
shall come to pass that when the Lord hath performed his whole
work upon Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the
stout heart of the king of Assyria and the glory of his high looks. For he saith, By the strength
of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am prudent,
and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed
their treasures, and have put down the inhabitants like a valiant
man. And my hand hath found as a nest
the riches of the people, and as one gathereth eggs that are
left, have I gathered all the earth. And there was none that
moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped. Shall the axe
boast itself against him that heweth therewith? Or shall the
saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? As if the rod
should shake itself against them that lift it up? Or as if the
staff should lift up itself as if it were no wood? Therefore
shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness,
and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burning
of a fire. And the light of Israel shall
be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame, and it shall burn
and devour his thorns and his briars in one day. and shall
consume the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field, both
soul and body, and they shall be as when a standard bearer
fainteth. And the rest of the trees of
his forest shall be few that a child may write them. And it
shall come to pass in that day that the remnant of Israel and
such as are escaped of the house of Jacob shall no more again
stay upon him that smote them, but shall stay upon the Lord,
the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant shall return, even
the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God. For though thy people
Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall
return, the consummation decreed shall overflow with righteousness. For the Lord God of I said consummation
there, I meant consumption. Let me read verse 22 again. That
word means promise. Therefore, thus saith the Lord
God of hosts, O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid
of the Assyrian. He shall smite thee with a rod,
and shall lift up his staff against thee after the manner of Egypt. For yet a little while, a very
little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in
their destruction. and the Lord of hosts shall stir
up a scourge for him according to the slaughter of Midian at
the rock Oreb, and as his rod was upon the sea, so shall he
lift it up after the manor of Egypt. and it shall come to pass
in that day that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder,
and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed
because of the anointing. He is come to Eath, he is passed
to Migran, at Mishmash he hath laid up his carriages, they have
gone over the passage, they have taken up their lodging at Giba,
Rama is afraid, Gebea of Saul is fled. Lift up thy voice, O
daughter of Galem, cause it to be heard unto Lashish, O poor
Anathoth. Madmena is removed, the inhabitants
of Geben gather themselves to flee. As yet shall he remain
at Nob that day. He shall shake his hand against
the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem. Behold, the Lord, the Lord of
hosts, shall lock the bow with terror, and the high ones of
stature shall be hewn down, and the haughty shall be humbled,
and he shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and
Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one. Amen. May the Lord bless
to us this reading from his word. Our Lord Jesus Christ told his
disciples that he would send his Holy Spirit to them when
he was returning back to heaven. And he told them that his Holy
Spirit would lead them or guide them into all truth. And this is what we seek today. We want to know the truth. Perhaps someone might wonder
why it is that I don't preach more about sins or about moral
issues, for example, which are really just immoral issues. Why don't we tell people how
they should live what's right and what's wrong and decry all
the false teaching that is going on around about us. Many churches today are actually
defined by their position on such moral issues. You can find
strict churches and you can find liberal churches all-inclusive
and accommodating of all views and practices churches. There are happy churches. There
are solemn and sombre churches. There are strongly conservative
and exclusive churches where any hint of flakiness on the
key issues of the day will get you expelled or excommunicated. There are churches of all kinds.
but we want to know Christ. Like those who came to the disciples,
we say as it were, we would see Jesus. And that's our great burden
today, that we might get a glimpse of the Lord Jesus Christ, that
in these words that Isaiah spoke, that these words that he recorded
and wrote down, that the prophecies that were given for the comfort
of the people of his days might still point us to the Lord Jesus
Christ. and that God the Holy Spirit
would guide us into all truth. Knowing the truth is not the
same as knowing the right ethical position on the latest moral
abuse. It is knowing the one who is
the truth. It is knowing Jesus Christ personally
in our lives, in our daily experience, in the sharing of a relationship
with Him. It is knowing that our consciences
are clear of the guilt of our sin by the application of His
blood. It is knowing that our hearts
are joyful for the blessedness of His grace freely gifted to
us. The Lord told his followers,
ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. If the Son therefore shall make
you free, ye shall be free indeed. And a believer's joy is found
in trusting Christ, trusting him for complete cleansing, and
full forgiveness of sin. And Christian freedom is the
Lord's easy yoke by which all we do and all we say and all
we think is brought to the touchstone of God's love for us in Christ. And our love for Him who first
loved us. So that coming to this chapter
10 in Isaiah, we notice once again the repeated phrase of
the Lord's antipathy, his opposition towards sin. He says in verse
four, for all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand
is stretched out still. And we're reminded in these passages
as the Lord brings his judgment upon Israel and his judgment
upon Judah and as the Lord promises that he will bring his wrath
against Assyria and its nation for its pride and its haughtiness
we are reminded of God's hatred of sin and the promised judgment
of human wickedness that he will meet out against the men and
women of this world. It will be thorough and it will
be absolute. The everlasting duration of hell
together with the infinite suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ teach
us that God's wrath against sin is awful and terrible. So let no one ever think that
sin is a light matter. God judges it mercilessly. And that is the picture that
we have in these chapters in Isaiah that we are studying together. These Old Testament times, God
is displaying here the nature and extent of his holiness, his
aggression towards sin, and thereby the necessity of a saviour. And what we discover from these
passages is that blow after blow is struck against sin by whatever
tool God chooses to use. Sometimes he brings plague upon
a nation. Sometimes it's famine. Sometimes
it's a foreign enemy. Sometimes it is economic instability. Sometimes it's earthquakes. And so it was with Assyria. Assyria was a tool in the hand
of the Lord to bring punishment upon the wickedness of Israel
and Judah. but from the worm that turneth
not and eats at a man's conscience, to the raging fires of hell itself,
let us mark and know that no sin goes unseen and none shall
go unpunished. In one of our Lord's parables,
the parable of the marriage feast, He speaks of a man who had come
unprepared into the presence of a king. And he was unfit for
the presence of a king because of his dress, because of his
condition. And the king said to his servants,
bind him hand and foot, take him away and cast him into outer
darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth. Without holiness, we are unfit
for the presence of King Jesus. And without faith, it is impossible
to please God. But here we have a message from
God's faithful prophet. Hear Isaiah. does not leave the
Lord's people comfortless in the face of this destruction,
under the rod of the Assyrian army and king, with all of the
devastation that that brought into the land, there is a message
that is given, that is granted to the Lord's people amongst
Judah and Israel. He brings a message of hope for
the people to hold on to and a promise to trust. He says, in that day when all
around is darkness, in that day when men and women for fear weep
and wail and gnash their teeth, when the wicked perish without
hope of any deliverer, in that day the remnant of Israel and
such as are escaped of the house of Jacob shall stay upon the
Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. Let me read that verse
again. In that day, the remnant of Israel
and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob shall stay upon
the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. Here, the Lord and
Isaiah, his prophet, is speaking about God's elect people, not
only amongst the Jews of that age, but the remnant of Israel
and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob is a picture of
God's elect in all ages worldwide, okay? The word the elect or the
churches is much smaller and easier to remember. But this
is exactly what the Lord is saying. The remnant of Israel and such
as are escaped of the house of Jacob is a name given to the
church of God. And it is also true that Isaiah
was speaking of events many years before the Lord Jesus Christ
came into this world. But the way of salvation is the
same for all men and women who are saved. And when Paul tells
us in Romans chapter 9, a remnant shall be saved, he is speaking
about spiritual and eternal salvation. He is speaking about the church.
He is speaking about the Lord's little flock. He is speaking
about the elect of God, the remnant and those who are saved from
the house of Jacob. And that is why this passage
is much more than just a history lesson. Our God chose a people
in eternal election and decreed their salvation. He set them
apart from the rest of humanity by sanctifying them. He foreordained
them to glory by justifying them in his sight upon the merits
of his son Jesus Christ. He committed them into Christ's
care for their redemption and for the reconciling of their
souls. And Christ, the Son of God, delivered
them out of Satan's grasp when he gained his victory on the
cross. And here, that same people are
called the remnant of Israel and the escaped of the house
of Judah. They're God's elect. Paul says
they were loved by God. They were foreknown of God. They
were predestinated by Him to be conformed to the image of
His Son. They were to be called in Holy
Spirit quickening, according to God's sovereign grace, justified
with divine righteousness, cleansed from their sins by the blood
of Jesus Christ, and they shall most assuredly be glorified according
to God's good purpose and to sovereign will and mercy. So that it is to these blessed
people at the Lord's behest that Isaiah's words are directed,
for a source of comfort to his children. And though Isaiah speaks,
as it were, to kings and judges and nations and individuals and
even historical characters as he does so in this passage to
Jacob, to the patriarch Jacob calling him Israel, It is in
such ways that the Holy Spirit leads God's people into all truth. And it is by such knowledge of
the truth, or expressly the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, that
we are made free indeed. That was true for Isaiah and
for the saints in Isaiah's day and it is true for the Lord's
people of every age and every nation. It is by knowledge of
the truth, it is by knowledge of Jesus Christ that we are made
free indeed. The prophet Isaiah gives us three
features of this elect remnant that help us to identify them
and to identify the path of salvation upon which they are walking. And what I'm going to do for
the rest of our time is just look briefly at these three. The first one is slightly fuller
than the second two. So don't be concerned when I
seem to take a while over point one and then say point two. That
doesn't mean I've forgotten my watch or my time. I'm aware of
the time. But here are three ways in which
this remnant are described. And I think I think there's some
lovely thoughts here from Isaiah today. The first one is this.
The remnant shall stay. That means to lean upon the Lord,
the Holy One of Israel, in truth. That's what we read together
in verse 20. And here Isaiah is telling us
one of the characteristics of the Lord's elect people. They
shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. Now, this staying, it's perhaps
an older, a more archaic meaning of the word stay. A few weeks
ago I was looking at some pictures of the way in which ships were
built in a bygone era and they had stays that were put up at
the sides of the ship as it was being built to hold it in place. And they were called stays. And
that's the old meaning of the word to stay. It means to lean
upon, so that the structure could lean upon these reinforcements. Well, that's the same meaning
of the word stay. And the remnant stay upon the
Lord. We lean upon the Lord. Now, the contrast that we have
here is that this is what the nation of Judah was doing with
Assyria. They thought they were in danger.
They thought they were going to be overwhelmed by their aggressive
neighbours. So they went to the king of Assyria
and they said, let us lean upon you. Let us be strengthened by
you. Judah, rejected God and sought
instead support and protection and deliverance from Sennacherib,
an idle worshipping tyrant. They were staying themselves
on Assyria, they were leaning on the power of man, they were
depending on the strength of his army and they were reasoning
in their hearts and in their minds that Sennacherib was a
more trustworthy helper than was God. What fleshy thinking
that was. And yet it is exactly the thinking
of the natural man. We imagine we are smart enough,
able enough, good enough to work things out for ourselves. And
the natural man stays himself on the works of the flesh and
thinks he has no need of Jesus Christ. But either salvation is all of
God, or it is not of God at all. God doesn't share his glory with
men and women. He does not say, you do your
bit and I'll do mine. Such theology is damnable. It will lead men and women to
eternal destruction. This is why Judah was being persecuted. Now this is why Judah was being
judged by God, because this was where they were placing their
hope. They were placing their hope
on the actions of men, on the strength of men, on the will
of men. That was the heart of their hope
and their confidence. And when a sinner stays rather
on Christ, he leans on Him. He lays himself on Christ like
Christ laid the lost sheep on his shoulder in the parable of
the good shepherd and carried him home. Staying on Christ speaks
of complete reliance, complete trust and dependence. so that
a characteristic of the remnant of the elect is that they trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ and that completely for all their
salvation, for all their fitness, for the presence of God, for
all their righteousness, for all that they need. before God. That is a characteristic of the
elect of God. We're not trying to bring our
good works to the party, we're not trying to make our contribution,
we're not looking for God to make up the bit that's missing
from our efforts. We are relying utterly and completely
upon the righteousness of God, the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ and the cleansing power of His blood. And we are
saying we are nothing, we bring nothing, we can do nothing, but
we stand wholly and completely, we stay ourselves on Christ. Whatever God requires of me must
come from Christ alone, for I have nothing in myself to offer, nothing
to give that isn't tainted, spotted and stained with sin. But there's more here to be said
even than that. were told by Isaiah they are
stayed upon the Lord of hosts in truth. Isaiah adds this fact
that they stay upon the Lord in truth for the help of the
people. He reminds us that it is good
for us to hear the gospel. He reminds us that it is good
for us to know the gospel and thus to learn Christ. There is in this truth a knowledge
that enters into our hearts, into our souls, into our minds. Brothers and sisters, ours is
not a blind faith or faith that is built on ignorance of what
Christ has done. Rather, ours is faith that is
built and based upon revealed truth. And we take it as being
important that we learn Christ, we learn the truth, we know the
gospel. Isaiah says, still to come to
it, it's in chapter 26 in verse 3, so it's a few weeks away yet
if we continue on our pattern, but Isaiah says, thou wilt keep
him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee. There's that
word again. Thou wilt keep him in perfect
peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in
thee. And it is as our minds, in truth,
are stayed on Christ and his work, that we find peace in our
souls. Our comfort, our peace in our
Christian walk, in our Christian experience is founded on having
our mind stayed on Christ and his work. It is trusting him. because we have been led into
the truth by God the Holy Spirit. We are at peace, we are at liberty
with God because Christ has mediated our peace. He has reconciled
us to God. He has done so. That is, according
to the Scriptures, according to the Gospel, according to the
promises of God, an unalterable and unconditional fact. Our minds are stayed on the Lord
of hosts in truth. But as we are tried in this life
and as we are tested in this world and as we are troubled
by the problems and the persecutions and the opposition that we face
as the world and the flesh and the devil test our confidence
and try our faith and we discover that our peace is shaken then we find When that happens,
that those who are stayed on Christ, go back to his accomplishments,
meditate on his blood, consider his faithfulness, dwell on his
love, ponder what heaven will be like, and reflect on his full
and free salvation to comfort and support us and give us peace
in times of trouble. You see what Isaiah is saying?
Those who are stayed upon the Lord are stayed upon the Lord
in truth. It is his gospel, it is what
he has done that brings us peace and comfort in our life. So that
is the first characteristic that Isaiah here shows concerning
those who are the elect of God. They are stayed upon him. Second thing he shows us is that
this people, this elect, this remnant shall return to the Lord. So here is another mark of the
Lord's elect. They return to the Lord. Now I'm going to suggest to you
that this is not primarily our first turning to Christ in conversion,
but a returning to the Lord throughout the days of our Christian experience. When we're first converted, in
those first rays of spiritual light, as they enter our soul
and illuminate our understanding, there may be a feeling of joy,
a change in outlook, a sense of relief and closeness to Christ. But what every believer finds
is that that initial flush of enthusiasm and pleasure and joy,
it doesn't last. And we soon find the Christian
life to be hard and we begin to have doubts. We encounter sin where we never
knew it existed before. We develop a growing sense of
unworthiness, an awareness that in temptation we are weak. And that weakness fosters a sense
of fear, of stumbling in the way, and of falling and of failing. despite our desire to honour
and serve our Master. That is the experience of the
Lord's people. It has been since the days of
Isaiah, it has been in the history of the Church, and it is today
for the Lord's elect, for people, believers like you and like me. So what do the elect do? they
return to the Lord. The remnant return to the Lord
and they stay on Him. They go back to the blood, they
go back to the cross, they go back to imputed righteousness,
they go back to free unconditional grace. The gospel of Christ sustains
us in the dark paths. in the path which no fowl knoweth,
and which the vulture's eye hath not seen. And we look again for
the Saviour, and we listen for Him at the door, and we seek
Him where He is to be found, and we return to Him again and
again. and it is in such a situation
that we find the true sense of the great welcoming texts of
scriptures. Like when Isaiah writes, Ho,
every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that
hath no money, come ye, buy and eat, yea, come buy wine and milk
without money and without price. It is at such times as we return
to the Lord that we find these beautiful truths, these beautiful
verses to have their greatest meaning and effect. Or when the
Lord says, Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Or when he says in Revelation
chapter 3, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man
hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and I will
sup with him and he with me. You see, these verses are not
for a narrow segment of individuals at one particular moment in time. They are our inheritance. They are the comfort of the Lord's
people every day of our life as we return to Him in the midst
of our trials and in the midst of our problems, our faults and
our failures and our falls. And then Isaiah gives us a third
characteristic of this remnant elect people. He says, let me
tell you what the remnant do. The remnant prove God's faithfulness. they prove his faithfulness. And I was trying to work out
a good way of explaining or emphasising what I mean here by the word
prove. It means that we vindicate what
God has said. It means that we exhibit and
demonstrate in our lives what God has promised. We prove God's
faithfulness. we fulfil God's promise to Jacob. Isaiah addresses Israel directly
here in this chapter. He says, and I think it's a blessed
thought, He says, look, God promised Adam a son would be born to bruise
the serpent's head. He promised Abraham that a nation
numerous as the sand of the sea would be given to him as an heritage. He promised Jacob that Shiloh,
that is Christ, would come. And all those promises are fulfilled
in Christ and in his bride. And that's the important part
here. They're fulfilled as Christ wins
and takes and gathers his people to himself. They are fulfilled
as Christ brings his elect and they stay on him and return to
him. We do not trust God because we
see the promises fulfilled. Rather, by trusting God, by God's
irresistible grace, we are the promises fulfilled. We're not
standing independent watching God at work here. We are seeing
God's handiwork in ourselves. in our hearts, in our lives,
in our experiences, in the experiences of our brothers and sisters,
in the church, in the gathering of his people, in the deliverance
of the remnant and his elect. In John chapter 6, the Jews taunted
Jesus. They said, show us a sign and
we will believe. See, they were standing outside,
looking in and saying to the Lord Jesus Christ, prove yourself
worthy of our faith. If you show us a sign, we'll
believe. That's what the world says, is
it not, today? And what did Jesus say to them?
In John 6, 29, Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the
work of God. This is the sign, if you like. You're asking for a sign. This
is the sign, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. They said unto him, What sign
showest thou then, that we may see and believe thee? What dost
thou work? That's what the world is still
saying today. They are saying to the church.
They are saying to God. They are saying to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Prove it. Prove what you are
saying is true. Show us a sign. Give us an evidence. And we shall believe and we shall
have faith. As if faith was an easy thing.
Show us a sign and we'll believe. And the Lord says, nah, nah,
nah. He says, that's not, that's not
how it works. The Lord says, blessed are they
that have not seen and yet have believed. And in Romans chapter
four, verse seven, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven
and whose sins are covered. So that finally, here, Isaiah
gives us, gives the elect remnant a little
gem, as it were, to admire, to hold and to cherish all through
the years and the decades and the centuries of waiting and
anticipating the coming Messiah. Isaiah gives them a little gem.
to hold and to have while they are waiting. And I think, and
I suggest to you that it is the foundation of every believer's
confidence and comfort in the Lord. Isaiah tells the people,
the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing. The yoke shall
be destroyed because of the anointing. What was the yoke that he was
speaking about? He was speaking about Sennacherib. He was speaking
about Assyria. But not merely the yoke of Assyria
or Babylon which was to come after. But the yoke of sin and
death. Because Isaiah is speaking here
of Christ who was anointed for the destruction of our enemies. He is speaking of the one of
whom he has already spoken in chapter 9 verse 6, where he said,
Christ was anointed. to accomplish our deliverance
and bring in our salvation. And this is what he is telling
the people. This is pure gospel in Isaiah. Our Lord Jesus was
anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows, anointed with
the Holy Ghost and with power to save and to heal the souls
of chosen sinners according to God's sovereign mercy and promised
grace. The salvation of all the elect
of God of every age is fixed in God's covenant purpose, which
Jesus of Nazareth was appointed and anointed to fulfil. Brothers and sisters, we who
are the elect of God stay on the Lord. We return to the Lord
and we prove the Lord to be faithful in all his ways. We don't seek
a miracle, we don't look for a sign because we are ourselves
the miracle and we are the sign. and Christ has been anointed
for the blessing of our souls. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us today. Amen.