So we're coming to Isaiah chapter
61 this morning, Isaiah 61. In John's Gospel, chapter 5,
in verse 39, I've reminded you many times, the Lord Jesus speaking
to the Pharisees, He says to them, you search the Scriptures,
the Old Testament Scriptures, these Scriptures that we have
in front of us this morning. He says, you search them because
in them you think that you have eternal life, and that's right,
you do. You don't find it anywhere else, you don't find it in any
other book. Eternal life is here in the Word of God. He said,
these scriptures are the scriptures that speak of me. The Old Testament
scriptures testify of Christ. The Hebrew for Christ, Messiah,
the Messiah. They speak of the Messiah. Turn
with me, I know I've just turned you to Isaiah 61, but please
turn to Luke chapter four. Luke chapter four and verse 16. Luke chapter 4 verse 16. This
is at the start, early on in the ministry, the earthly ministry
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's about 30 years old and he's
gathered his disciples. And in verse 16, we read that
he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up. And as his
custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day
and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto
him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book,
he found the place where it was written, Isaiah chapter 61. Listen, verse 18, the Spirit
of the Lord is upon me. Verse 1 of chapter 61 of Isaiah,
the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. So what does he say?
He reads in the synagogue in Nazareth, amongst those that
he'd been brought up amongst, when he's about 30 years old,
at the start of his ministry, he read, the Spirit of the Lord
is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the
poor. He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight
to the blind. to set at liberty them that are
bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed
the book, and he gave it again to the minister and sat down,
and the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened
on him. And he began to say to them, this day is this scripture
fulfilled in your ears. And all bear him witness and
wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.
And they said, is not this Joseph's son? We know him. He's the lad
that grew up here. What gracious words, where did
he get them from? How come? He's read this scripture and
he said, today it is fulfilled in your hearing. These words,
the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. How is it fulfilled? Because in Isaiah 59, as we saw
a week or two ago, verse 20, the Redeemer shall come to Zion. The Redeemer shall come into
this world to gather His people out of this world, to make disciples
of His people, to bring them to eternal glory, eventually,
by what He would do in His life and in His death on the cross,
in His shed blood. redeemer shall come to Zion.
He came. Now, in what power did he come,
and with what purpose did he come? In what authority, with
what authority, with what seal of commission upon him did he
come, and with what purpose? The answer is, the Lord hath
anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He was anointed
to preach. Anointed? Do you know what anointed
means? It was symbolical in that a sort
of a holy oil was poured on the head of somebody. You know, you
might not fancy having some oil poured on your head, but in those
dry countries where skin was dry, oil was a precious thing.
And he will anoint, as it says in Psalm 23, anoint my head with
oil, my cup runneth over. sets you out for a purpose, and
he was anointed, set out by God, the Lord hath anointed me, God
himself, God in heaven. had commissioned him to do what? To preach, to preach. This is
what he came to do, to preach, to preach, to declare, to announce. Mark 1 verse 38, Gospel of Mark
chapter 1 verse 38. Jesus said unto them, his disciples,
let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also. For therefore, for this reason,
to preach, For to preach is the reason I came forth. This is
what I was sent for. He is anointed to preach, to
declare, to announce, to proclaim. You say, preaching is not popular
in our day. An awful lot of preaching is
most definitely not popular in our day. An awful lot of preaching
is religious delusion and deception, and it doesn't feed the soul
of anybody, and that's why it's not popular. But to those who
know the truth, preaching which is unpopular to so many, why
are there so few of us here today? Well, there are so few of us
here today because preaching is not popular. Nobody wants
to hear the message of truth. but to the soul that loves the
Lord Jesus Christ and the gospel of His grace, the proclamation
of that gospel is soul food. It is so satisfying. It is so
comforting. It is so strengthening. With
God's power on a truly God-anointed preacher, endowed with divine
power, the people of God hearing it, it's their soul food. It's
that manner which came down from heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ,
because to preach other than Christ is to completely miss
the point of what the gospel is all about. It's the voice
of God from heaven. How does the voice of God come
from heaven today? It comes via those he has anointed
to preach. And here, Jesus himself says
this scripture was about him when he came. When he was in
the synagogue in Nazareth, he has anointed me to preach the
gospel, to preach Gospel means good tidings, good news. Tidings
is news, good news. To preach good tidings, to proclaim,
verse 2, the acceptable year of the Lord. The acceptable year
of the Lord is the year of Jubilee. The year of Jubilee was given
in Leviticus chapter 25. They were to count You know,
seven was the days of the week, and then there was the Sabbath
day. And then they were to count years, Sabbaths of years, sevens
of years. They were to count 7 years, and
they were to count 7 times 7, which is 49. If you know your
tables, 7 x 7 is 49. And then the next year, the 50th
year, was to be the year of Jubilee. The 50th year in the Israelite
Old Testament regime was the year of Jubilee. And why was
it a good year? Why was it an acceptable year?
Because in that year, you listening? In that year, every debt was
cancelled. And all the slaves were given
their freedom. And everyone who had had his
birthright inheritance of his land taken off him, it was restored
to him in the year of Jubilee. No wonder it was the acceptable
year. The trumpet would sound at the
start of the year, as we were singing in that hymn, you know,
the gospel brings tidings. Where was it? Oh, it was the
first one, wasn't it? Blow ye the trumpet blow, the gladly
solemn sound, because it's, The year of Jubilee, the year of
good news, it's the announcement of freedom, of the restoration
of things which had been lost. To whom is this announcement
made? This is God saying to His Son, who is God in flesh, go
into this world and proclaim good tidings. Good tidings to
the meek, to the broken-hearted, to the captives, to those that
mourn. Go to them. Who are these people? Who are these people to whom
He is sent, to whom He goes? To whom does He go? The meek. the broken-hearted, the captives,
the prisoners, the mourners. You say there are plenty of those
in mankind, aren't there? There are some terribly sad cases
around. Is that who this message is sent
to? Well, if you ask religion in
general, and Christian religion in general, they'd say, yes,
of course, this is the message. No, it isn't. Sorry, it's not
what this book says. It is not for mankind in general. So who are they that it's for,
this message? Who are they? These mourners,
these meek people, these broken-hearted, these captives, who are they?
Who are they? What has put them in this condition? They're mourners in Zion. They're mourners in Zion, not
the world in general. This is not comfort for the world
in its difficulties, which are all of its own making because
of sin. No, they're for mourners in Zion. What is a mourner in
Zion? You can only be a mourner in
Zion if you are a partaker of the grace of God. If God has
been gracious and opened your eyes, if you have been regenerated
by the Spirit of God, this is exactly why Jesus said to Nicodemus,
except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Except a man be born again, you're not going to be a mourner in
Zion. You must be born again. That's
why I said to you, you must be born again. Why? Because you
must have the spiritual discernment, which alone comes from God. For
the natural man does not see, does not receive the things of
the Spirit of God, of the Kingdom of God. They're foolishness to
him. Neither can he know them, because they're spiritually discerned.
Except the Holy Spirit give you that spiritual discernment from
on high, which we call the new birth, You can't see the things
of the Spirit of God. And you cannot be a mourner in
Zion. Because you see, it's not those
who are born of blood, as John tells us in his Gospel, chapter
1, verse 13, born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but of God. People don't like that,
do they? They don't like the fact that
it is God and God alone who is sovereign over all these things.
They think it's grossly unfair. They shake their fist at God.
They want nothing to do with a God who is like that. But that
is the God of Scripture. That is the God who is true.
That is the God who accomplishes all of his purposes. That is
the God we seek to worship. We say, let God be true and every
man a liar. This is the God we worship. the
one who in sovereign grace chooses to whom he will be gracious,
to whom he will have mercy. This is, as it says in verse
9 of our chapter, in verse 9 it says, "...their seed shall be
known among the Gentiles and their offspring among the people.
All that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed
which the Lord hath blessed." Those who mourn in Zion are the
seed which the Lord has blessed. And what have they been given?
Because you see, all these things are gifts from God. They've been
granted repentance for sin. That's not something that the
world in general, people in the world, possess. They may possess
remorse over the things they've done, but they don't possess
repentance for sin, because that's a spiritual gift. The apostles,
when they came back from preaching to the Gentiles and had seen
true conversion and the work of the Spirit amongst them, they
said, well, praise God, for He has granted repentance unto the
Gentiles. He's given the gift of repentance.
It's a gift that God gives, along with faith, faith and repentance
of sin. Repentance for sins that you
do, that you commit, but not just that. That's too narrow. Repentance for the sinful nature,
the sinful being that you are. And where did you get that tendency
from? Like all of us, you got it from Adam, from our first
parents, when they fell in the Garden of Eden, and ever since.
Sinful nature has been passed on to every one of their offspring,
down all the generations, sin. Even through Noah, when the world
was destroyed and just eight souls were saved, nevertheless,
that sin was still there, and it continued, and it prospered,
and it flourished. And sin is that which God, the
one true God, truly hates. Because sin is utterly incompatible
with the nature of God. Sin is the transgression of the
law. Sin is that which is utterly
in opposition to the nature and being of God. If you want to
know how much God hates sin, if you want to know that, then
look how that sin burdened the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Garden
of Gethsemane, it says of Him that Because of the sin that
was being laid upon him, the prospect of it, he sweat, as
it were, great drops of blood. what it did to Him, the Son of
God. When God, in His strict justice,
when He loaded His darling Son with the sins of His people,
look what it did on the cross of Calvary, as we will remember
in the bread and wine soon. It broke His body and it shed
His lifeblood. That's what sin was, and that's
what sin did. that God the Father should pour
out His just wrath on His Son who had taken on Him the sins
of His people. That's how serious it is. And
mourning is the condition in this life of regenerated sinners,
those given that new nature from God Even though we continue to
live in fallen flesh, mourning over the sin that we know is
still in us, for if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves
and the truth is not in us. Mourning over it is the condition
in which we live. What do we mourn over? as true
believers. What do we mourn over regarding
sin? You know, look at it, look at
it in the text, to a point unto them that mourn in Zion. We're
not talking about mourning for a relative or a friend who has
died, that's not the mourning that's talked about. What are
we talking about? We're talking about mourning
over sin. We're talking about mourning
over the lusts of the flesh, for we know that in our flesh
As Paul said, there dwells no good thing other than in the
flesh a tendency to do evil. We mourn over the tendency in
our flesh to disbelieve God, do we not? We mourn over it,
we mourn over the tendency in our flesh to unbelief. We mourn
over the failures of our flesh, in our practice, in the things
that we do, the things that we think, the things that we say,
our failures of temper, all of these things, we mourn over what
we are by nature, as sinners in the flesh. We mourn that though
God is gracious, and loving, and so kind, and leads us, and
guides us, and gives us wisdom from on high, as our wisdom from
God, and sanctification, and redemption, and righteousness,
and all of these things, we backslide from Him constantly in this flesh.
We so often find it easier to read the newspaper or to read
something on Facebook or something like that than we do to read
the Word of God. Our tendency to backslide from God. We mourn
because we complain against Him. The circumstances that in His
providence have occurred to us. The fact that it's raining when
we don't want it to. The fact that it's too hot and
dry when we don't want it to be. The fact that we need to
go and get some food when we don't want to. All of these things,
all of these things are our complaints against Him, multiplied by 10,000
times 10,000 through our life. So that our testimony is what
Paul said in Romans 7, 19. Romans chapter 7, the experience
of the believer. Two natures. Two natures. The old nature of the flesh and
the new nature of the new birth from God. And he says in Romans
7, 19, the good that I would, the good that I want to do, I
don't do it. I don't do it, but the evil that
I don't want to do, that's what I do. This is what we mourn over. It's this condition of sinfulness. And the consciousness of sin
brings self down off the throne. You know, how people like, do
you know a word that I really don't like? I am proud to such
and such a thing. No, don't be proud. Don't be
proud. Now, think about what you truly
are. The consciousness of sin brings
self down off the throne. I once heard it said of a man
that was a minister of a church, he's a very proud man and I thought,
do you know something, to my mind that fundamentally disqualifies
him for his role. How on earth can you be one called
to preach the gospel of grace and yet be counted a very proud
man in the eyes of others? That wasn't his own assessment,
that was the assessment of others. A proud man, no. consciousness
of sin, those who are mourners in Zion, it brings self down
off the throne. And what does it make them? It
makes them meek. That's the word, meek. I am meek
and lowly of heart, said the Lord Jesus Christ, meek and lowly
of heart, not proud, not puffed up, not puffed up with self,
though he had all the qualifications to sit above everybody. Indeed,
He's the Lord, but nevertheless, He came and put all that aside
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
He became meek. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thine be done. Take this cup from me, this cup
that I must drink if I am to save my people from their sins.
Please, if it be possible, take it from me. Nevertheless, not
my will, meek, you see, meek and lowly, meek. The consciousness
of sin brings self down off the throne and makes the child of
God a meek person. It breaks the heart made tender
by the Spirit. Bind up the broken-hearted. Broken-hearted
for what? For what I am. in the sight of
God, in my sinful nature in the flesh, and made tender by the
Spirit of God, it breaks my heart as to what my sin is in the reckoning
of God. It shows up my captivity to sin,
that as much as I want to be free of it in this flesh, I cannot
be free of it. Because as John says, as it says
in John 8, 34, whosoever commiteth sin, anybody here don't commit
sin? No, we all do, don't we? All
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Whosoever committeth
sin is the servant of sin, is the slave of sin, is the captive
of sin. Can't do what they want when
they want because they have somebody ruling over them, and that's
sin, that principle within. Flesh thinks it is free, but
consciousness of sin points out its enslaving power. People think
they're free. The Jews, when they spoke to
Jesus, they said, we're Abraham's children, we're free. And he
told them, no you're not, you're the slaves of sin. Those spiritually
quickened, made alive, sensing something of the holy majesty
of God, Those, and those alone, mourn over sin. They are mourners
in Zion, and they're in Zion because they've been made alive
by the Spirit of God. Their demeanor, look, to give
them beauty for ashes. Their demeanor, their style of attitude that they portray
is covered with ashes. What are ashes? When you have
a bonfire, or a fire in the great, you end up the next day with
the burnt black remains of what once was bright and colourful.
You get some brightly coloured paper, and you burn it in the
fire, and it goes to a black ash, covered with ashes. See, that which was in the flesh,
in the world, in delighting and rejoicing, in the sight of God's
truth, God's holiness, the recognition of our sin, it is ashes, burnt
black remnant of what was once bright and beautiful. And Job
knew this. Job had many things that were
bright and beautiful in his existence with his family and his riches
and his wealth and all the things that went on and he was a good
man as men count others good. But in chapter 42 and verse 6
he said to God, now mine eye seeth thee. when I've seen God. I've seen others, and I've seen
that I'm pretty good compared with others, but now my eye sees
you. Wherefore, because of this, I
abhor myself, I hate myself, and repent in dust and ashes. Everything that I had is just
a burnt black remnant on top of me. Is there in your soul
a longing for peace and communion with God? Well, there should
be. Eternity is coming. The end of
life is coming sooner or later. Is there a longing for peace
and communion with God? Are you conscious of a burden
weighing you down? Look in verse 3. The garment
of praise for the spirit of heaviness. These days we go and we buy these
incredibly well insulating lightweight coats and you hardly know you've
got them on but those of us that are of my sort of age and older
will remember, I remember in the 1950s when we didn't have
enough covers to keep us warm in bed in an unheated house,
and old overcoats, grandad's old overcoat was put on the bed.
I'm not kidding, you nearly had the air squashed out of you,
it was so heavy, was that garment, it was such a heavy coat, I remember
one particular black heavy coat, and as a little boy I could hardly
pick it up, never mind wear it, it was so heavy. This is the
idea, a spirit of heaviness, but he's going to give a garment
of praise for a spirit of heaviness. Have you got that spirit of heaviness? That I'm not right with God?
That I need to be? Do you feel unable to escape
the imprisoning dominion of sin, which will justly condemn you
to hell? You know, God won't be unjust.
God is who He is, perfect in righteousness, and we are what
we are, sinful, and everything that is opposed to His nature.
He will be completely just in condemning us to hell. Do we
have a feeling that we're unable to escape the imprisoning dominion
of sin, which will justly condemn us to hell? Well, rejoice. Rejoice! Be glad, the Messiah,
the Christ, was anointed by God to bring you good news. Look,
The Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek. He
sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,
the opening of the prison to them that are bound. This is
what he was sent for, to proclaim the year of jubilee, the year
of release, the year of restoration, the day of vengeance of our God.
I'll say what that means in a moment. To comfort all who mourn. to comfort them, to provide comfort
from God, divine comfort for a sorrow that is divinely imparted
to make you aware of what we are. To appoint unto them that
mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for
mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
These are the good tidings, the healing of the broken heart.
The jubilee, liberty and comfort. The beauty for the ashes. The
oil of joy. Mourning is not a happy state
to be in. Truly broken heart, but the oil of joy. The garment
of praise for that spirit of heaviness. Righteousness. Trees
of righteousness. Sin that must be balanced with
a just divine penalty has caused all these woes. That's what causes
all the woes, it's sin, which must be balanced. God cannot
remain God if he doesn't balance sin with its just payment. But how should a man be just
with God? Verse 2, look, the day of vengeance
of our God. What's this day? This is part
of the good news. to proclaim the acceptable year
of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God. How is that good
news that we announce that God is going to take his vengeance
out on something? What is the good news there? What is this day? I'll tell you. It's the day when Christ was
crucified. That's the day. The day of vengeance
of our God. When Christ did what, do you
remember Isaiah 53 a few weeks ago? You know, he who was like
as a lamb before his shearers is dumb, he who poured out His
lifeblood, that He might pay the price for the sins of His
people, that He might pay the penalty for the transgressions
of My people, was He stricken? Isaiah 53 said that the Christ,
the Messiah, would come and die as the Lamb in the place of His
people, the Lamb of God. When Christ did that, the day
of vengeance of our God was carried out, and the balancing of the
payment with the debt. You know, if a debt's to be cleared,
you must balance the debt with the exact payment. This is what
it's about. The day of vengeance of our God
is the exact balancing of the justice of God against the sins
of the people for whom Christ died. In the garden, Jesus said
in his prayer, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from
me. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thine be done.' And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly,
and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling
down to the ground. Why? Because he who knew no sin
was made sin for his people, in the place of, a substitute
for his people, that his people might be made the righteousness
of God in him. that though they are sinners,
they might be made the righteousness of God in him. What happened
to the sins of his people? Peter tells us, 1 Peter chapter
2 verse 24, Christ, who his own self bear our sins in his own
body on the tree. Whose sins? The sins of his people. The sins of those that the father
loved from before the beginning of time. The sins of the multitude
that no man can number from every tribe and tongue and kindred.
the elect of God, in other words, the mourners in Zion. Galatians
3 verse 13, Christ has redeemed, has paid the price to buy back.
Christ has paid the price to buy us back from the curse of
the law, the debt of the law, the debt of sin. How has He done
it? By Himself being made a curse for us. When the Redeemer paid
redemption's price for his people's liberty from the just curse of
the law, this was when that day of vengeance was carried out.
This was it. The balancing was done, the balancing
of the justice of God against the sin of the people, when God
meted out just vengeance for the sins of his elect. Verse
7, it says, For your shame ye shall have double What does it
mean, double shame? No, it means the exact mirror
image balancing payment. The shame is your shame for being
found sinners, for being found guilty, for being found to be
in debt, for being found unable to pay, and you shall have double.
What's the double? It's the exact replica that is
required, the mirror image that is required to pay for the sins
of his elect, so that they might go free from just condemnation. So what does Paul say in Romans
8 verse 1? There is therefore now no condemnation to those
who are in Christ Jesus who walk not according to the flesh but
according to the spirit. How the world and Satan and the
flesh delights to hate this good news. They do. I'm not being
extreme. They do. But what a delight it
is to those who hear it for their own case. What a liberating thing
it is. I remember when I was about 15,
I went on an expedition in the Lake District and when I was
15 there was none of this lightweight camping gear and such like. Your
boots weighed, it felt like your boots weighed a kilogram each
on the end of your legs and we took tents with us because we
were going to camp out, me and two other friends, on the top
of Helvellyn in the Lake District by a tarn right near the very
top and it's a fair old climb, it's a really tough walk. And we had these very heavy packs
on our backs with these heavy tents because the poles were
all steel, not aluminium, not lightweight nylon. It was all
steel. It was heavy, very heavy. And
I remember us staggering all day long. all day long, middle
of summer, all the way to the top of the mountain, with this
pack on the back. And I remember, I remember it
vividly, taking the pack off my back, and it was like walking
on the moon. It was like we were, we took
the packs off and it was, we'd been so used to so many kilograms
weighing us down, we were bounding around on the moss next to this
tarn on the top of a mountain. It's that kind of feeling, that
sensation of liberty, if that in any way conveys, this is what
it is, as a child of God, to understand what has been done,
the transaction that has been done. The acceptable year of
the Lord, what the Messiah has accomplished. He's accomplished
everlasting joy for sinners. Look at the end of verse 7. Everlasting
joy shall be unto them. Why such eternal joy? Why such
eternal joy? Have you seen somebody on the
steps of the Old Bailey when they've been, you know, the charge
has been thrown out, not guilty, no charge to answer. And you
say, what joy they've got, because they've been released from this
burden that's been hanging over them for so long. Why such eternal
joy? Because in the court of heaven,
the people of God are pronounced not guilty. Release the defendant,
says the judge. Crown him, the one who was there
as a sinner and condemned, crown him as Israel. You know Jacob,
the sinner, you will be called Israel, which is prince with
God. Crown him, prince with God. Clothe
him with righteousness. I will greatly rejoice in the
Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for he has clothed
me with the garments of salvation. He's covered me with the robe
of righteousness as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments
and a bride adorns herself with jewels. You know, verse 10, really,
Who's speaking? The Spirit of the Lord God is
upon me. Who's me? It's Christ. He said. It's Him.
It's Him. I will greatly rejoice. Who will
greatly rejoice? Christ will greatly rejoice.
My soul, His soul, shall be joyful in God. Christ the man, doing
His mission as Messiah, will greatly rejoice in God. Why?
Because God the Father has clothed Him, the Son, with the garments
of salvation, and has covered Him with the robe of righteousness,
because He's the bridegroom of His people. But do you know,
the people of God are united with the Son of God from all
eternity, and therefore, whatever He is, We are. Whatever he is
in this world, we are. We are. His people are. He's
clothed his people with the garments of salvation because of Christ.
Does this not ring bells of the prodigal son? I think we sang
it in that second hymn, didn't we? In the second hymn. The robe
is provided. The ring denotes his unchangeable
love. It's alluding to the prodigal
son. I will go back to my father.
And when he saw him a way off, The father came and ran and fell
on his neck and kissed him and said, get the best robe, the
robe of righteousness, get the best robe and put a ring on his
finger. In Revelation 19 verse 8 we read about the marriage
supper of the Lamb. And there is Christ as the bridegroom,
and there is the church, his people, as the bride. And it
says to her, his church, his bride, was granted that she should
be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. For the fine linen
is the righteousness of the saints. What is the righteousness of
the saints? He made Him, who knew no sin, to be made sin for
us, His saints, His church, that His church, His saints, might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. That's the righteousness
of the saints. Don't think for one minute it's
any righteousness that you earn, for all our righteousnesses in
the flesh are as filthy rags if judged strictly against the
law of God. But in Christ, our works are accepted. You see,
this is to qualify his people for heaven. Set him, verse 6,
you shall be named the priests of the Lord. Men shall call you
the ministers of our God. You shall eat the riches of the
Gentiles and in their glory shall you boast. All of this is metaphorical
language speaking about the restoration of all things. It's not talking
about the restoration of Israel. A lot of people read this and
they say, look, it's happening in Jerusalem in the Middle East
today. Nothing of the sort. We know how to interpret this.
Look at Acts 15, the council of Jerusalem, the apostles, a
similar passage in Amos chapter 9, talking about ruins being
rebuilt and David being re-established. He said, is that not speaking
about the church and Gentiles coming into the church? That's
how we interpret it. It's all about the church. Verse
6, set him as priest and minister in God's kingdom. Do you know
what Peter said? 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 9, speaking. To those who are mourners in
Zion, the Church of God, you are a chosen generation. You
are a royal priesthood. There it is. You'll be priests,
a holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the
praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His
marvellous light, which in time past were not a people, but are
now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now
have obtained mercy. What great salvation, accomplished
because the Messiah, the Christ, came into time. When the fullness
of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman,
made under the law to redeem those who are under the law,
that they might receive the adoption of sons, whereby we cry, Abba,
Father. And He saved His people. Jesus, He shall save His people
from their sins. If you know this, your experience
Not just in your head, in your experience. If you know this,
you will, as Philippians 3 verse 3 says, you will worship God
in the spirit, truly worship Him. Not just when you gather
together in a place of worship, you will truly worship Him in
your spirit all of the time. You will rejoice in Christ Jesus. You will have no confidence in
the flesh. Verse 11, righteousness and praise
will spring forth at the end of that verse, but It's only
for those who mourn. It's only for those who say,
I don't mourn enough. Let me ask you this. Do you mourn
that you don't mourn enough when you read a passage like this?
Yes, I do. Do you mourn that you don't feel
heaviness like you feel this passage is telling you you should?
Yes, yes, I think so. Well, all the more reason to
come to Christ. Remember what that man said?
Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief. In the flesh we constantly
battle with unbelief. The gates of Zion are open now. Look at chapter 60 and verse
11. Therefore thy gates, Zion, shall be open continually. They
shall not be shut day or night. The gates of Zion are open now. Come to Him, come, by, without
money, without price, come to the Lord Jesus Christ, in faith,
believing, looking to Him, because as Hebrews 2 verse 3 says, how
shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? May God bless
these thoughts to us.