If you will, turn back with me
to Isaiah chapter 40. I want to say some things to
you this morning that'll leave you resting in the full sufficiency
of Christ our Savior. If you are here and have an interest
in the salvation of your soul, There is no salvation apart from
what I'm telling you today. I want you to see the full sufficiency
of our Savior. Thou shalt call his name Jesus. How many times have you heard
that in this Christmas season? Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Thou shalt call his name Jesus
for, this is the reason he has this name. and he shall save
his people from their sins. He's not gonna try to save them.
He's not gonna attempt to save them. He's gonna save them. When Paul preached, he wrote
to Timothy and he said this, God hath saved us. Well, he hadn't done all the
work yet. Yeah, it's as good as done. He shall save His people from
their sins. I've been all over the place
with the title. I told Brian to make the title Jerusalem's,
the Jerusalem Center. And in my notes I have my subject
to be Jerusalem's Comfort. But if you're not a Jerusalem
Center, you're not going to have the Comfort spoken to Jerusalem. And he plainly tells us by his
prophet here in Isaiah 40 verse two, look down there. He said,
speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem. To Jerusalem. Well, if he's talking
to Jerusalem, pastor, what does that have to do with me? If he's
talking 2,000 years ago about a city that then was What's that
got to do with me? Well, in Galatians chapter four,
we're told of two Jerusalems. I'll let you read this this afternoon
for your own edification. But the first is the Jerusalem
that now is or was in that day a Jerusalem under bondage, a
Jerusalem under the curse of God. He told Hezekiah, he said,
Everything that your fathers have left you that you got back
there in the treasury, everything in that treasury, everything
in your house is gonna be carried into Babylon. It's gonna be gone
forever. And your children that's not
even begotten yet, God gave him 15 more years to live. And he
said, your children is not even begotten yet. He said, they're
all gonna be carried away into Babylon and they're gonna be
eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. All your children. And Hezekiah turned to Isaiah
who told him them things and he said, the word of the Lord
is good. Could you say that if the Lord told you everything
you got is gone? That your children gonna be born
in bondage and corruption? Well, they are. They are. And yet he said, I'm gonna have
peace in my days. Two Jerusalems, there's a Jerusalem
that is or that was a city in bondage, a city under the typical
view of Hagar. She was the bondwoman by whom
Sarah and Abraham tried to produce a true heir and God wouldn't
have him. He's the child of the bondwoman. And he's not gonna be with the
true heir. In Jerusalem, this Jerusalem
that now is, is inhabited by a people who sought to produce
a righteousness by their own works. By their own works. And their
obedience to God was a mercenary obedience. It was an obedience
threatened by the whip of the law. Some of us have experienced
this in the religion of this world. They're always cracking
the whip, like those soldiers back in Egypt. And the men were
down there Gathering their own straw and making bricks and you
can just picture this guy up here cracking that whip. Cracking
that whip. That's what religion does. It
cracks by fear. Fear's the only way they can
keep you coming. It's the only way they can keep
you giving. Fear, fear, fear. Always threatening them with
hell. Always threatening them with these things. That's the
Jerusalem that he's talking about. This Jerusalem under bondage.
The Jerusalem that he's talking about back here in Isaiah chapter
40 is one that's gonna be under Babylonian rule. But the scriptures talk about
another Jerusalem, the Jerusalem which is above. And this is typical
of God's church, his elect, the true Jew, his covenant people. That Jerusalem is above. Jerusalem,
he said in Galatians 4.26, Jerusalem which is above is free, which
is the mother of us all. As Isaac was produced by Sarah,
a free woman, and produced in an age where she couldn't even
have children. And so her true heir. was given
by God, and he likens that in the scriptures to our election
of God. He tells us about that. And even
so it is with the Jerusalem that is above, this is the church
and kingdom of Christ whose being and standing and ordination is
of God and by his grace is maintained. This is the Jerusalem of which
the prophet is sent to comfort John in Revelation 21 said he
saw that holy city. Now you remember what I told
you Revelation was all about. It's from the birth of Christ
until the end of time. And John said he looked and he
saw that holy city. It's coming down from above.
That new Jerusalem. That's what he called it. That
new Jerusalem. Coming down from God out of heaven,
prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. When did that
church come down? Is that something way off in
the future he's talking about? When did that church come down?
It came down in the person of Christ. That's the new Jerusalem. It's all in him, that Jerusalem
which is above. That Jerusalem which is of God,
his kingdom, his people. God put his people into an eternal
union, a covenant union with his son. And they're one with
him. And when he came down, the whole
church came down. When he lived, the whole church
lived. When he died, the whole church died. And when he raised
from the dead, he raised us up with him, Paul said, and seated
us with him in the heavenlies. That Jerusalem is above. It's in bondage, but it's above. It's above. or being free by covenant union
with the Son of God. Paul said this in Galatians 3.29,
if you be Christ, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according
to the promise. And though I can and do speak
to anybody who's willing to hear me, everything that I have to
say is to Jerusalem. And I don't have anything to
say to that rebel who's resist and who won't obey, who won't
listen. I don't have anything to say
to him. Everything I have to say is to God's elect. It's to
Jerusalem. To Jerusalem. Speak ye comfortably
to Jerusalem. And there are several things
that I want you to see in our text this morning. And the first
of those things is this. If comfort comes, it's going
to have to come from your God. There's no comfort in this world.
Hezekiah learned that. He was about ready to die and
he begged and begged and begged just for a few more years and
God gave him 15 years. But he told him in that 15 years,
everything that you got gonna be taken away. You got nothing
in this life. If I extend it for 50 years,
there's nothing in this life. It's all gone. He said we are
dead and our life is hid with God. We don't have anything in
this world. What do we got? What do you got
in this world that can bring you eternal comfort? What do
you got in this world that in that day, in that moment that
you die and you're carried out to stand before God that's gonna
do you any good? Huh? Nothing. Nothing. Comfort comes from our God, and
I'm talking about spiritual comfort. I ain't talking about your easy
chair you got at the house. That's temporary comfort. It's
not going to do you any good in glory. I'm talking about comfort
for lost sinners, for a soul facing eternity in their sins,
and comfort to a soul who's in the wilderness, and there's nothing
out there to feed him. There's nothing out there that
he can drink. He's in the wilderness. And if
God don't provide for you, you're not going to have anything. Comfort for an ignorant soul
who has no understanding. Years ago, I went down to Yucatan,
Mexico. I wanted to visit with Walter
Gruber, one of our missionaries down there. I just love that
man. I have the utmost respect for all the work that he's done.
And now that he's gone and his son is gone, there's nobody there.
to act as a missionary, but he's established 40 churches or more
down there, and those ministers now are carrying on his work.
But I got to go down there, and Walter's one of these guys who
likes to, I won't say play games, but in
the airport, he likes to hide when new visitors come in. He
wants to see how you're gonna react in a foreign land. and
he'd hide over behind the pillar. You get off the plane, and I'm
telling you, that's the strangest feeling I ever had in my life.
They weren't speaking any English, there was no signs in English,
there were no people there talking English, everything was Spanish.
And I'm listening to them just jabbering away, and I don't even
know where to go get my luggage. I'm just standing there looking
all around, finally, One of the guys from the airport came over
and Walter saw him. He come over and he said, I'll
take care of him. You ever been there with God?
You ever sat there in that pew and the preacher's preaching
to you and he's telling you all these things and you're saying,
I don't get it. I don't understand it. I don't
know what he's talking about. This is a foreign tongue to me. I don't understand what he's
saying. You ever been there? Oh, my soul, what a feeling.
Helpless, ignorant sinners. That's who he's talking about.
He's talking about the Jerusalem sinner. And here he is. He's in bondage. The evil powers
are gonna take everything he's got, they're gonna ruin it, gonna
take all the instruments of worship and all the things out of Jerusalem,
they're gonna carry them up to the palace in Babylon. They're
gonna sit there and drink wine in them holy vessels. Foreign language, ain't it? Until
the Lord opens your eyes. And then the simplest things,
here they are. Things that people look and say,
oh, what a mystery. Ain't mysterious to me now. I
can stand there behind that chief cornerstone and I can look all
the way back into eternity. I can look past the prophets
all the way back into eternity when God gave Christ all his
appointments and saved my soul in a covenant union with him.
And then I can turn this way and I can see all the way into
eternity future. Huh? That's a great mystery to
this world. You start talking to this world
about predestination and oh, that's the deep things. The
deep things belong to God. Well, he told Paul, or John,
when he come to those things that he didn't want folks to
know, he said, put your pen up. Didn't he? He said, put your
pen up. There's things here They don't
need to see. They don't need to hear. But
all those things that he wrote is for us to see and hear. Does that mean predestination? Predestination. That's all God
said. Here are my people. I'm going
to save them. He hath predestinated us, now listen, this is what
it says in Ephesians 1, predestinated us, having predestinated us,
unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will. I can understand that, can you?
I rejoice in it. It's not a deep, dark mystery
to me. I see the love of God in Christ. I see God blessing
his people with all spiritual blessings before the foundation
of the world, and he's blessing them in Christ. How'd they get
in there? He chose them. When? Before the
foundation of the world. Why? That they should be holy.
You thought you had a holiness all by yourself. Uh-uh, you got
no holiness. You know what holiness is? That's
the wholeness of God. You don't have any holiness apart
from Christ. But in Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. I'm holy in Him. He chose me
in Him. And I might be holy. And without
blame, Russell, Satan himself can't bring an accusation against
me at the throne of God. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
is he that condemneth? It's Christ that died. Oh, my soul, these are deep,
dark mysteries to this world, but he opens them up to that
Jerusalem center, and he lets them see it. And even in their
bondage, Ohezekiah said, I'm gonna have peace in my days.
Were your children being carried off to be eunuchs in the palace
of Babylon and all the treasury gone and Israel folded up and
the temple torn down? How you gonna have peace? I'm
gonna have peace in Him. I'm gonna have peace in Christ,
same way we have it. Spiritual comfort. When God first began to work
in me, the more I read, the more I discovered how ignorant I was.
I'd read this to help me understand this, and I just went deeper
in the hole. And it went like that for a long
time. And one day, God guided me up
in his providence to hear a preacher. And man, it was like somebody
opened the door, said, here, John, come over here. I want
you to peek into heaven. I want you to see what God has
for his elect. Just look in here. Oh, my soul. Comfort comes from
the Lord. You speak comfortably to Jerusalem,
saith your God. Until your God says it, you ain't
gonna hear it. All you're gonna hear is words. All you're gonna see is a man.
You ain't gonna receive any comfort. But boy, if God gives you eyes
to see, how beautiful then are the feet of them that preach
the gospel of faith. Makes a difference, don't it?
The second thing I want you to see here that catches my eye
in this text is that God sends comfort to Jerusalem. It'll be
spoken to her by a man of God's choosing. He said to Isaiah,
speak. Isn't that what he said? Speak
to my people. Why didn't God just speak? Because
he pleased him to speak through Isaiah, that's why. Why doesn't
God just speak through anybody? Didn't please him to do it that
way. Please God through the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. Do you believe that? I'll tell
you if you believe that, you'd be following me around like my
dog does. You'd be right on my heels everywhere I go. Maybe
God will say something. Maybe God will speak to me today.
Wouldn't that be something if God spoke? I said, Isaiah, speak. Isaiah didn't have anything to
say until the Lord gave it to him. But boy, when he gave it
to him, he was ready to speak. Isaiah ain't talking to a farmer.
He's talking to the king. He's standing before the king
giving the king this bad news. And the good news. And the good
news. Paul opened the book of Hebrews.
A book written to those Jews. He said, God spake in time past
to our fathers by the prophets. How'd he speak? Through his prophets.
Everything God had to say, he said through his prophets. He
said in his last days, he's spoken to us by his son, whom he's appointed
heir of all things. Jesus Christ was a preacher. And God spoke through him. Who
did he speak to? His people. His people. And then by his apostles, our Lord's words were confirmed
unto us by them that heard him, God also bearing them witness
with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to
his own will. And he spoke to us, he tells
us in Ephesians four, through evangelists, or what my generation
calls missionaries. You ain't gonna find that word
missionary in scripture, you'll find the word evangelist, that's
what they are. Being led of God in places which
have never heard the gospel, like Pawpaw, New Guinea. I never
had urge to go to Pawpaw, New Guinea. I never had urge to go
to Yucatan, Mexico. And if you've ever been there
and out in those jungles, you'd understand why. There's nothing
out there. They're still living in thatched
huts. I'm talking about a country that gets hurricanes. Living
in a thatched hut out in the jungle. Snakes out there almost
from here to the back of the church. Spiders, huge tarantula
spiders. Deadly scorpions. We were staying
in town in the house with the missionary, and he told me, he
said, don't slide them shoes on anymore without shaking them
out. Those things get in everywhere down there. I didn't sleep real
good that night. He speaks to us through evangelists,
but mostly through pastor teachers. Ministers of local churches,
men called to minister to God's elect, which he gathers to himself
in small assemblies here and there. I looked at my internet
map the other day to see some of these churches and where they're
at. The whole center of this country is just a big vacuum.
There's nothing over there. No preaching going on. But there
are a few here and there. And God speaks. And out of these
places, as gospel goes, my soul, in six weeks I drove 9,500 miles
and I'm a nobody. 9,500 miles to minister the gospel
through some 15 or 18 states. Local assembly, God speaks through
pastor teachers. And he gathers them into this
place. He's established a place here, a neutral place to meet.
And people come in here all the time. Some of them go out the
door, some of them stay. Young family came, I don't know,
three or four weeks, and then they walked out the door. Larry
came, went away mad and come back anyway. After three or four
messages, he's sitting there drinking it up. Eating what God puts on the table. If God speaks to you, he's gonna
speak to you through a man of his choosing. Speak ye, that's
what he told Isaiah. Speak ye. And you tell my people, you speak
comfortably to Jerusalem, you comfort my people. Don't you
dare get that whip out and start beating on them. You don't talk mean to them.
You preach to them in love. In love. Same reason God preached
to us in love. Love just gave itself to us.
Love. And you speak comfortably. You
speak things that'll give them peace in the heart. Confidence
in the mind and heart. Comfort before God. Unless God sends comfort to you,
you'll never receive it. And if he's pleased to send it,
this is how it's gonna come. Holy Ghost said how they gonna
hear without a preacher. And then thirdly, this is the
present reality. The present reality of our text
is that everything in the house was gonna be taken away. And
all of his unborn children gonna go into bondage. They're gonna
be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Hezekiah leaned
heavily on the comfort and security of this world. When it came time
to die, he wasn't willing to die. He begged for a few more
years. Give me just a few more years.
Things will change. They ain't gonna change. No one
can change anything. Your life is God. And I tell
you, you'll tremble if you ever come to see it. You shut up to
him. God give him 15 more years. Listen
to this, Isaiah 39, six. He said, behold, the days come
that all that is in thine house and that which thy fathers have
laid up in store until this day shall be carried to Babylon,
nothing gonna be left, and of thy sons that shall issue from
thee his unborn children. which thou shalt beget shall
they take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the
king of Babylon. And the present reality of it
is that we have nothing that's gonna remain, nothing. If you have anything at all,
what have you gotten that you haven't received? If you have
anything at all, God gave it to you. You're not a self-made man. If
you have it, God gave it to you. God gave it to you. And the present
reality is that it's all gonna go. All gonna be taken in under the
bondage of this world. And if God doesn't intervene,
Babylon's gonna reign in all your generations. Scripture said, how shall we
escape? Escape what? Escape that bondage, escape that
curse. How are we gonna escape if we
neglect so great salvation which began to be spoken? Spoken by
the Lord. Our Lord who humbled himself
as a man, he humbled himself under the means that he himself
ordained and become a preacher. Had men sneering at him. Crazy
old man. Daddy was a carpenter. What's
he know about the Bible? A preacher. A preacher. We have no power, no ability,
no security, no comfort in this world except the promises of
God in Christ. That's all we got. And having heard the impending
doom of all these things, Hezekiah turned to God the prophet. And
he said in Isaiah 39.8, good is the word of the Lord, which
thou have spoken. He said, moreover, for there
should be peace and truth in my days. In this 15 years, God
given me, I'm going to have peace. Well, what changed? He saw where
his peace was. He saw where his peace was. His
peace was in the heavenly Christ, in the promised redeemer. That's
where his peace was. And even though Babylon was gonna
take over, he still had peace. I hear people talking about in
our day, you know, the country's gone socialist and blah, blah,
blah, and on and on it goes. Even if it does, I still have
peace. They can't take away my peace. My peace is in heaven.
My inheritance is preserved in heaven. They can't take it away. They can take my house away.
Take my truck away. That'd make me mad. But they
can't take away my peace. I've got peace with God. So the
present reality is that we're shut up to the living God who
alone can speak comfort to the sinner's heart. And who alone
can preserve him in this life and arranged for him to hear
those words of comfort. God didn't extend Hezekiah's
life so he could go on in his sin. He let him live long enough to
hear the word of truth. He let him live long enough to
hear a word of comfort to his soul. Why did God preserve me for all
them years? I should have died a hundred
times. I've been in so close you couldn't see daylight between
me and certain death. And I've been there so many times.
So many times. Why did God let me live? So I
could hear. That's it. He let me live so I could hear.
And he let me live so I could tell you what I heard. Huh? That's it. That's it. And then
fourthly, here's the message. What can I say to a lost man?
What can I say to a man who has nothing, can do nothing, and
no potential of ever having anything? What can I say to him? Same thing
God said to his guy. What can I say to a man who's
under the curse of sin and the curse of a holy law which he's
Countlessly transgressed, what can I say to a man whose whole
posterity has been sentenced to bondage? Isn't ours? Huh? Look back at my text with me.
In Isaiah 40, verse 2, he said, speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished. The war's over. The battle's been fought and
won. Your warfare's been accomplished. And her iniquity is pardoned.
How'd that happen? She hath received of the Lord's
hand double for all her sins. Oh, my son. Tell her God said that her warfare
is accomplished. That battle against the overwhelming
odds of Babylon is over. How is it accomplished? Well,
our Lord came into this flesh, and he battled with Satan one-on-one. And when the battle was over,
he put a chain around his neck, and he said, you can go the length
of that chain and no further. And he holds that chain. I do this, but you got a hedge
built about me. You have to give me permission.
I can't do it. Yep. You got to hold that chain. And he ain't gonna do anything
that the Lord don't allow him to do. He goes about like a roaring
lion. He's ready to devour whoever
the Lord allow him to devour. But he can't go any further than
that chain lets him go. He's God's devil. And you that
know the Lord, you remember that. He's God's devil. Federal head and representative
of all God's elect came and took on Satan one-on-one and took
him into captivity. He told Peter, he said, Satan
hath desired to sift you like wheat. And he did. God allowed him to
sift him like wheat. But he said, Peter, I prayed
for you that your faith fail not. And it didn't. He gave him permission to try
Job, and in some cases commanded even the demons to come out of
men and women. But our warfare is accomplished
the greater than he come upon him, and taken from him all that
armor wherein he trusted. Paul said this, he said, the
weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They're mighty through
God. I can't do anything about your
refuge. But spiritual weapons tear down the hiding place, don't
they? All that old earth over that rock, he just moves it out
of the way so you can see clearly the rock, lay that foundation
on the rock. They're mighty through God to
the tearing down of strongholds and casting down imaginations
and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge
of God. The battle is the Lord's. When
they were ready to go into Canaan, Caleb said, let's go. And they
said, well, there's giants over there. They got walled cities.
They got weapons that we've never seen. Caleb said, it's the Lord's
battle. This is like a tale already told. Let's go. But they didn't. Later on when they did, old Caleb
was an old man. But he still retained his strength,
Russell. And he'd come to that village of them giants. That's
what they said. We can't go in there. There are giants in there.
Caleb said, I want that city, that mine. And he went in and
slew the Anakins, slew the giants, even in his old age. It's a tale
already told. Our warfare is accomplished because
Christ has manifested the truth. He is the truth. He's the word.
He's the life. He's the way. Our Lord took on the law, and
by perfect obedience, exalted that law and made it honorable.
Our warfare is accomplished. Scott used to say, stack your
guns in the corner. The war's over. War's over. And say this to that one without
hope, your iniquities pardoned. Oh, may God give us ears to hear
what I'm saying. Say to Jerusalem, your iniquities
are pardoned. Can you take your place as the
lost sinner? None righteous, none that understandeth,
none that seeketh after God. All gone astray, no fear of God
before your eyes. Can you stand before him being
shut up to sovereign mercy, your mouth being closed, all your
excuses being gone, you just standing there waiting for mercy? Can you take your place as a
guilty sinner who has nothing left to say, no plea? If you
can, I have good news for you. All your iniquities are pardoned. What's that going to mean to
a sinner who's facing eternity? It's going to mean everything.
It's going to mean everything. And I know this is so because
Christ came into this world to save sinners. That's why He came. And if I can find a Jerusalem
sinner, one doomed by Babylonian rule, No hope, not even a future
posterity. Given over to an evil rule. If I can find me a Jerusalem
sinner, I got good news for him. All your iniquities are pardoned. How can that be? How can that
demoniac stand clothed and in his right mind before the Lord?
How can that be? How can that rank self-righteous
pharisee called Saul of Tarsus be made an apostle? How can that
be? How can that dying thief who's
railing on Christ with the rest of the crowd all of a sudden
be received into glory as a child? How can that be? Listen to this. This is back
over in Isaiah chapter 40. For she hath received of the
Lord's hand. Where'd she find it? In the Lord's
hand. Double for all her sins. A perfect, spotless righteousness. When God himself, who can, he
can perceive the thoughts and intents of your heart, Russell.
When he looks on you, you can't hide anything. He sees everything.
And he looks at that Jerusalem sinner, and he can find nothing
in him. He stands before God with those
all-seeing eyes, spotless, unreprovable. Can't even find anything he needs
to do better. It's been done perfectly. I have
a perfect righteousness in Christ. Where'd I find it? Received it
from the Lord's hand. and I have pardoned from sin.
All my sins have been paid for. When Christ died on that cross,
he put away our sin by the sacrifice of himself. They're gone. Oh,
I know you still see them, but he don't. He don't, he put them
behind his back, wherever that is. He threw them in the uttermost
parts of the sea. They're down in that bottomless
abyss somewhere. They're gone. He put away our
sins by the sacrifice of Himself, and we received double in His
hands. And I'm gonna tell you something, if you can't find
comfort in that, I ain't got anything for you. I don't have
anything yet. I was talking to a man this week,
and he was just looking and looking and looking for something, and
I said, I got nothing else to give you. You can't rest in Christ. God
Himself rested in Christ back in the garden. When man fell,
God rested on the seventh day from all his work. He rested. Didn't he know everything was
going to take place? Sure he did. And how could he
rest? He rested in his salvation. And whom you also trusted, Paul
said, after you heard the word of salvation, the gospel of your
salvation. Oh, my soul, may God give us,
every one of us, hearing ears. Thank you.