Okay, and that one. Right, well we read John chapter
five, or a significant part of it earlier on, and my text nominally
is verse 24 of John chapter five, but we're not going to spend
our time there, we're going back to the book of Isaiah. But the
text is John 5, 24, which is ever so simple. Verily, verily,
I say unto you, that, this is Jesus speaking, Jesus, the man,
clothed in human flesh, but yet God, the Son of God. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth
on him that sent me, hath, has, has everlasting life, and shall
not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. That's very, very simple words. but how utterly profound. You
know, when you think of your life and its progress and its
end and the way everybody goes, you know, we all are on a road
towards death and you see people, you see hearses every single
day. To know this, that on the authority of the Son of God,
He that hears my word and believes on Him that sent me has everlasting
life. Oh, what blessing. to have everlasting
life, and the confident assurance, the promise of God, that you
shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from a state of
death to a state of life. If you're one that hears Christ's
and believes. You are one who is most gloriously
blessed of God. But often as believers, if I'm
speaking primarily to believers this morning, we're often not
aware of it because of the busyness and the pressures of everyday
life. Because of the things that take
our eyes from looking up to where Christ is to down to the things
of the earth. You know like Peter walked on
the waves and as he looked at Christ he walked on the waves
and when he took his eyes off Christ and looked at the waves
that were going to drown him, he started to sink. And we often
in life, we take our eyes off those things. So what I want
to do this morning is to ask you to turn to Isaiah chapter
35 and to illustrate that text, to illustrate how, believing
the truth of God, we are most gloriously blessed. So let's
read Isaiah chapter 35. It's only 10 verses long, so
we'll read that first of all. So Isaiah chapter 35, beginning
at verse one. The wilderness and the solitary
place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice
and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly and
rejoice, even with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be
given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon. They shall
see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our God. Strengthen
ye the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them
that are of a fearful heart, be strong, fear not. Behold,
your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense. He
will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall
be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then
shall the lame man leap as an heart, and the tongue of the
dumb shall sing. For in the wilderness shall waters
break out, and streams in the desert, and the parched ground
shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. In the habitation of dragons,
where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. and an
highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way
of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over
it, but it shall be for those the wayfaring men, though fools
shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any
ravenous beast shall go up thereon. It shall not be found there,
but the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord
shall return and come to Zion. with songs and everlasting joy
upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Well, just ten short
verses, but absolutely rich, dripping with blessings pronounced
from God. The context of it the background
to it. Isaiah 34 is all about judgment. You read the book of Isaiah,
and it's the Gospel according to Isaiah, but there's an awful
lot of judgment on nations. There's a lot of judgment on
the nations that rejected God and that rejected His rule. And
in chapter 34 there's judgment on Eden, which was such a prosperous
country in those days. It was fruitful It was, they
had everything going for them apart from the knowledge of God.
And in judgement God comes and it was stripped bare because
of sin. It was stripped bare. You know
God does judge. God acts in the history of mankind. He does come and he judges. And
there's one, you read of others. And then In Isaiah 36, you've
got the account, it becomes rather less than prophecy, more an historical
account, of King Hezekiah, who was basically a good king, compared
with the others that had gone before him and some that came
after him. He was a good king, but despite his goodness, the
Assyrians came, that mighty empire of Assyria came, and Sennacherib,
king of Assyria, came and they besieged Jerusalem. And there's
great concern and alarm. And you know, this isn't fictitious.
Just go a couple of miles up the road to the British Museum
and you can walk around, you can see all the artefacts of
the Assyrian Empire and the reign of Sennacherib. It's real stuff,
this isn't fairy tales, this is true. So that's what comes
next, is the promise that Sennacherib is there and he's coming to besiege
the city of Jerusalem and put them in great difficulties, and
Hezekiah prays, and God miraculously takes Sennacherib and the Assyrians
away in a night, without a blow being exchanged, without an arrow
being shot, He takes him away. So this chapter 35 is sandwiched
between those two things, these ten verses. and it's a promise
of great blessing. A promise of great blessing. It's a promise of great blessing.
Look at verses one and two. The wilderness and the solitary
place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice
and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly and
rejoice even with joy and sing. The glory of Lebanon shall be
given unto it, and the excellency of Carmel and Sharon. They shall
see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of God. What is
it referring to? What is this chapter referring
to? Well, basically it's referring to three things. Number one,
in the historical context, it's referring to the recovery that
will come after the Assyrian invasion. And that's very interesting
for us from a historical perspective, but I doubt whether it's going
to affect the way you think about getting up tomorrow morning.
You know, we know it has a significance in its historical location. There was going to be a restoration
after the Assyrian invasion. Oh, then look further forward
from this date, a few hundred years. It talks of a promise
of grace, a promise of grace. You'll see the glory of the Lord
and the excellency of God. And surely it's referring to
the promise of grace when the Messiah, when Christ, shall come,
ending years of spiritual darkness. Do you know, when you get to
the prophecy of Malachi, then there's 400 years of silence.
400 years when there was no word from God. The word of God, as
they said in the days of the judges, was very rare in those
days. And being very rare, it was very
precious. When you got it, it was very, very precious. But
here is a promise that when Messiah comes, that drought, that silence
will be ended. Those years of spiritual darkness
will be ended. And then thirdly, it's the promise
of glory when Christ comes to take his people out of this world
of sin. We're in a world of sin, we live
in a world of sin, and there's that promise of glory, and we
see it particularly in the last verse, the ransom of the Lord
shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy
upon their heads. But what I want to do is, rather
than standing on the sidelines observing what these things might
be that it's referring to, let's apply it personally. Let's get
in there personally. Is this not, these first two
verses, the experience of every hell-deserving sinner who is
awakened by God's grace? You know when Jesus said those
words, when he said, he that hears my word and believes on
him that sent me has everlasting suddenly has everlasting life.
There's an awakening. There's a coming to life. There's
a coming to spiritual life. Is this not the experience of
every hell-deserving sinner awakened by God's grace? Because you see,
think of yourself, and I'll think of myself. What are we like by
nature in our flesh in relation to the God who has made all things
and who upholds all things? Are we not spiritually a wilderness
by nature? Verse one, a wilderness. We're
a solitary place. There's no sense of the being
and the spirit of God there. It's a desert place. The desert
is in there. In ourselves, in our flesh, in
our nature, there is none of the life of God. You know, as
there was before the fall, we read in the first two chapters
of Genesis of Adam walking in the Garden of Eden with God.
It's poetic language, so we cannot envisage physically exactly what
it must have been like. But there was no sin. There was
perfect communion between Adam, the created being, and his wife,
and God, who made them. And they're walking in perfect
spiritual unity and communion and bound together in bonds of
love and goodness, and they haven't known sin. Now, ever since the
fall, there is none of that. That is gone. That's what the
fall brought in, was a separation. After the fall, Adam was driven
out of Eden. That immediate felt fellowship
was lost. He was driven out. Occasionally,
God gave grace to those who saw the truth, and Enoch walked with
God, and was not, for he was taken, because he walked with
God. It was as a witness to the world all around that those who
are in fellowship with God are taken to his eternal paradise. So what we see here is a picture
of what we're like by nature, devoid of any spiritual life. In effect blaspheming God, this
is the natural man, blaspheming God because we have no knowledge
of God. We have no knowledge of what
he's like, of his person. You know, you listen to the radio,
and I often listen to the six o'clock news on Radio 4, and
then it follows on that there's a comedy program. And the amount
of blasphemy that there is in these days, it's just becoming
worse and worse, where comedians think they're clever and smart,
not just to be funny, but to blaspheme the living God. And
why do they do it? Because they have no knowledge
of the living God. Or if they had knowledge of the
living God, they wouldn't readily blaspheme Him. They would think. They would think before they
take His name in vain. They would think before they
pour scorn on His word. They would stop, they would halt.
But because they have no knowledge of God, because spiritually they're
a wilderness and a solitary place, they're a desert, there's no
knowledge of God there. They're unable to know God. They're
unable to praise Him, to serve Him, to pray to Him. You know,
what can we do? Let's all pray together. No,
you can't. You know this idea that whatever differences we've
got in a religious way, we can all pray together, so let's have
multi-faith prayer meetings. No, you can't. Who are you praying
to? You can't pray to him. You can't pray to a God you do
not know. They can't hear his voice when they read his word. and they read it blindly like
the Pharisees did, to whom Jesus was speaking in John 5. He said,
you search the scriptures daily, because in them you think you
have everlasting life. And that's true, you do, in the
scriptures. If you want to know about everlasting life, the scriptures
is where you must come to. But he said, these are they that
speak of me. And if you don't know me, you
don't know God, and you don't know the truth of God. Because
we all, by nature, as Ephesians 2 tells us, are dead. in trespasses
and sins. We're not just sick, we're not
just ill, it's not just that, oh, a little bit of polishing
up and we'll get better. No, dead in trespasses and sins. When Ezekiel saw his valley of
dry bones in Ezekiel 37, they were very dry. I've used this
illustration before but, you know, I don't know if you see
them nowadays, it's years since I've seen one. or whether it
was just where I lived that was not far from an abattoir. But
I used to regularly see lorries, open lorries with bones going
to the, or coming from the abattoir probably. And these were fresh
killed. These were fresh killed. These were butchered bones. You
could almost get a good vet and he might do something for them.
But the bones that Ezekiel saw were dead. They were dry. They
were long dead. That's what we're like by nature.
But here's the promise of grace. This is it, look, here's the
promise of grace. The wilderness and the solitary
place shall be glad for them. The desert shall rejoice and
blossom as the rose. When the grace of Christ comes
and you hear the word of God and the spirit applies it and
you believe, as he said, he who hears my voice and believes on
him whom he sent, when he comes and applies that word, there's
rejoicing. there's gladness, there's rejoicing.
That which was dead shall live. That which was dead, with no
knowledge of God, without the life of God, without any communion
with God, shall live in relation to God. When God in Christ appears,
revealed in the heart by the Holy Spirit, lifted up to that
conscience that's made tender to know what it is to be a sinner
before a holy God, to know what it is, you know, not just, oh,
I've decided to become a friend of God. No, you haven't. You
need to realize what you are before God by nature, a sinner,
a sinner who his holy nature must condemn, must judge and
condemn. And then you see the lamb, the
Lamb of God. Behold, said John the Baptist
to those that were with him, behold the Lamb of God who takes
away the sins of the world. When we see that Lamb lifted
up, we see everything that would separate us from God dealt with
by Him in grace. He's accomplished the salvation
of sinners. This is it. We declare salvation
accomplished. The desert soul The dry, parched,
lifeless desert soul in respect of God blossoms as the rose,
blossoms abundantly. I love this time of year. I know
we all do, don't we? But I'm a keen gardener. Just
everything that even three weeks ago looked so dead. You know,
I've got some old, some dahlia tubers from last year that I
dug up and they were dry and old. Honestly, you would throw
them in the bin. You would think there was nothing
in them. And I put them in damp soil in pots in the garden frame
three or four weeks ago. And now, green shoots. Wonderful. Lovely. It really is such a nice
thing to see. And this is it. That dead, dry,
parched soul, with no life for God, with no feeling for God,
with no desire for God, shall blossom as the rose. You wait
and see. I should have taken a picture,
shouldn't I, of these dried up old daily tubers, and then show
you a picture towards the end of June, when there are these
great big magnificent flowers. That's what it's talking about,
and the picture is one of spiritual life that comes into that dry,
dead soul that has no knowledge of God and in grace. He who hears
my word and believes on him who sent me has everlasting life
and shall not come into condemnation. What richness, what blessing,
what fruitfulness to God. And there's rejoicing and singing.
Look in verse two. It shall blossom abundantly,
not just the odd flower, abundantly. and rejoice, not just a Sunday
flower, not just a Sunday morning flower, but all the time. It
blossoms abundantly and rejoices with joy and singing. Rejoicing. Why? Why rejoicing? Why? Because
of what's happened, because of what's, because that which was,
you know, a baby is born. A baby is born and there's great
rejoicing that the baby has been born. A new soul has been born,
a new life, a new spiritual life has been born by believing in
the one who sent the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's new life,
rejoicing and singing. And it's speaking of heartfelt
gladness, for forgiveness. Glad for forgiveness. Oh, the
My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin, is
that not a cause for rejoicing? My sin, oh, the bliss of this
glorious thought, my sin not in part, but the whole is nailed
to his cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise
the Lord, you know, people go, oh, praise the Lord, and you
say, sorry, hold on, you know, calm down and tell me why you're
praising, right? I'll tell you why I'm praising.
because He's taken away my sin, and I bear it no more. He's nailed
it to His cross, and I know bold shall I stand in that great day,
and who ought to my charge shall lay, because I'm in Him, and
He has cleansed me from all my sin, and He has borne the justice
of God and the wrath of God in my place for me, that I might
be made, not counted as if, made the righteousness of God in Him. What a glorious, blessed thing
to come to know. This is life. And he talks in
here about the glory of Lebanon and the excellency of Carmel.
And you can get really quite confused with this and you need
help from commentators that you can trust. And I trust John Gill. His writings are always very
good. And he says that Lebanon doesn't mean the country, but
that there was a mount in Judea with Lebanon's cedars. And Lebanon's
cedars? Do you remember when Solomon
built the temple? Where he got the wood for the
temple, they came from the cedars of Lebanon. And the cedars of
Lebanon, therefore, there's an allusion to the temple. And what's the temple a picture
of? The body of Christ. And what's the body of Christ
expressed as in the earth? The church, his people. The glory
of his church is what we could read that as. They shall see
the glory of the Lord. Carmel and Sharon, these are
areas that were known in Judea for being extremely fertile. You know, they were very verdant,
very fruitful. This is speaking of the church.
This is speaking of the people of God, knowing him and being
blessed by him, seeing God's glory. He said, look, they shall
see the glory of the Lord. The people of God shall see the
glory. Where do you see the glory of
the Lord? Where do you see it? Where do
you see it? You see it in the face of Jesus
Christ, in Him. Second Corinthians, chapter four,
verse six, God, who shined light in the darkness, who said, let
there be light in Genesis, has shined in our hearts to give
us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. Where? In
the face of Jesus Christ. Would you see the glory of God?
Would you know truly the glory of God? Oh yes, you can see all
about God in creation all around us, in the universe all around
us. But if you would truly see the glory of God, where do you
see it? In the face of Jesus Christ.
Why is it seen there above all other places? Remember Exodus
33, 18, Moses is speaking to God on Mount Sinai, that place
of fear and of trembling and of law. And he says to God, show
me your glory, show me your glory, please show me your glory. And
God says to him, you can't look upon my face for no man shall
see me and live, but this is my glory. I will be gracious
to whom I will be gracious and I will have compassion on whom
I will have compassion. He's a God of grace and mercy. And how does he do it? How does
he accomplish all these things in the hearts of his people,
of his sinful people, of his dead in trespasses and sins people?
How does he do it? Verses 3 and 4, it's by preaching. This is why preaching is so important.
It's by gospel preaching. Verses 3 and 4 is a direction
to preachers. To preach what? To preach grace. Look at it. Strengthen ye the
weak hands. and confirm the feeble knees.
Say to them that are of a fearful heart, be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with
vengeance, even God with a recompense. He will come and save you. He will come and save you. There's
a similarity there to a few chapters further on, four or five chapters
further on. Isaiah chapter 40 and the first
couple of verses are instructions to preachers. And there, God
says via the prophet, to his preachers, he says this, you
know, I don't know what they teach them in theological colleges
about how to preach to people, I really haven't got a clue,
but a lot of what I've heard in the past is not very good. It certainly isn't comforting,
because God says when you're preaching to sinners, comfort
ye, comfort ye my people. Comfort the people. Comfort the
people of God. Who says it? God says it. Speak
comfortably to Jerusalem. Picture of His people. Cry to
her that her warfare is accomplished. But it's over. The enmity between
God and them is accomplished. Her iniquity is pardoned. She
hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. What
does that mean? Double? You know when you look
in the mirror, you see you're double, don't you? You see a
reflection, a mirror reflection. Every sin, every sin, he has
dealt with. He has paid for it. It was loaded
onto him. I don't know how, I don't understand
how, but the word of God assures us, he bore his people's sins
in his own body, on the tree, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. And therefore, preachers are
commissioned, comfort my people, comfort them. Don't go snapping
at their heels and telling them what they've done. Comfort my
people, is what God says. Comfort my, oh yes, we proclaim
against sin. We proclaim, not God loves you
and has a wonderful plan for your life. This is the message
to the population in general. God is angry with the wicked
every day. That's what the scriptures say. But in Christ, comfort ye. Comfort ye, my people. Strengthen
ye the weak hands. Confirm the feeble knees. Comfort them. Strengthen those
hands of flesh that are weak. They can't approach God in prayer. They can't even come to him.
Encourage them on God's authority. Pronounce God's acceptance of
sinners who approach him. Confirm the feeble knees that
they can walk and come to God. Confirm to them. Say to them,
as Jesus said, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. And whoever comes, I will in
no wise cast out. He said, This is the Father's
will that sent me. Of all that the Father has given me, for
the Father gave to the Son before the beginning of time, a people
out of all humanity, a people, his church, his bride, who he
will take to be with him at the end of time. And he says, Whoever
comes, I will in no wise cast out. Oh, what if I'm not amongst
them? You come, you will find that you're among them. He will
in no wise cast you out. Confirm to them, assure them,
assure them, assure the feeble knees, the unable to walk, that
they will receive strength to come and walk with God. How? How? Tell them this. that redemption
is accomplished. That's what God declares to his
people. He assures his people that redemption is accomplished. He says, I will come and save
you. He says that. I will come and
save you. Assure them of that. Give them reason. God will come. God has come in Christ with vengeance. Who's he got vengeance against?
Satan. because it is the objective of
Satan to destroy all that God will take to himself. Satan's
purpose is to destroy. You read Revelation, you can
see again and again how his purpose is to persecute the church. He
persecutes the woman in Revelation 13, which is a picture of the
church. He persecutes, but God comes
with vengeance against Satan. He comes, God comes. with the
payment for sin, accomplishing salvation. Not just calling God's
elect out from their dead state, but feeding those who have already
believed. Feeding them, strengthening the
weak hands. When did you believe Christ?
Oh, years ago. You still need to be told, comfort, comfort.
Strengthen the weak hands, confirm the feeble knees, say to them
of a fearful heart, be strong, fear not. Why? Because your strength
is not the basis, your own strength is not your basis of your confidence
in coming to God, but that which he has promised and that which
he has accomplished. How different this is from so
much of what passes for gospel preaching, which as I've said,
it's so much in so many cases, like sheepdogs, snapping at the
heels of the sheep. They try and train the sheep
dogs up in Wales in the Lake District, they try and train
them not to run and bite the heels of the sheep, to round
them up but not to do that. Oh, so many so-called gospel
preachers seem to be in the business of biting at the heels. But then
we see in the next few verses, grace performed to those who
hear. The eyes of the blind shall be
opened, the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped, Any of you
that know Handel's Messiah have probably got the tune going through
your head when you read those words. I certainly have. I won't
sing it to you now, don't worry about that. Blind, deaf, lame,
and dumb, were these not all things that Jesus the man did
when he walked this earth? Was it not all proof? When Messiah
comes, he'll do all these things. Was it not proof that Jesus of
Nazareth was Christ, the promised Messiah, come in the flesh, When
John the Baptist in Matthew 11 sent disciples, he was in prison
and he sent disciples and he said, go to Jesus and ask him. Why he did it, I'm not sure,
he might have had doubts himself. It was probably more likely that
he was telling his doubting disciples to go to Jesus to see, because
he was saying, I'm not the one, I only point to the one. And
he said, go to him, go to him and ask him, are you the one?
Are you the Christ? Are you the, which Christ? The
one that the Old Testament promises. Are you that one? Or do we look
for another? Are we looking in the wrong place?
And Jesus said to him, you go and tell John. So he got them
to stay with him for a while, and he performed miracles. And
he said, you go and tell John. The blind see, the deaf hear,
the lame walk, the dumb speak, The poor have got the gospel
preached to them, and blessed is he who is not offended because
of me." It was proof that Jesus would come. These wonders, though,
worked on the bodies of men and women when Jesus walked this
earth. were but proofs of his person and his word. And they
pictured that which is in reality spiritual for you and me today,
spiritual healing through gospel grace. Verily, verily, I say
unto you, said Jesus to his disciples, he that believeth on me, the
works that I do shall he do also, as the apostles did in the Acts
of the Apostles in the early church as works of authentication,
but What greater works than these shall he do? Because I go to
my Father. What are the greater works? Strengthening
the weak hands, confirming the feeble knees. By the foolishness
of preaching, it pleased God to save those who were His elect,
to call them out in that way. Has Christ come into your soul? Has He? If He has, you will see
Him with the eye of faith. You will hear him with the ear
of faith. Jesus said, he that has eyes
to see, let him see. He that has ears to hear, let
him hear. You will praise him. We are the
circumcision, said Paul to the Philippians. We worship God in
the spirit. We rejoice in Christ Jesus. And we have no confidence in
the flesh. Nothing that we do. We don't
have confidence in our faith even. We have confidence in Christ. We testify of him. We rejoice
in Him. Where there was nothing but spiritual
drought, there will be living waters. Look what it says down
here, the thirsty land. Springs of water. There will
be living waters. Holy Spirit-indwelling waters
of eternal life. As Jesus said to the woman at
the well in John chapter four, fountains of living waters welling
up inside in John 7. in that great feast. He stood on the last day of that
great feast and he said, in the last day, that great day of the
feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, if any man thirsts, let
him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the
scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water. That's Holy Spirit indwelling
of the person. Do you ever feel spiritually
dried up? Do you hear Christ calling you
to commune with him. Have you ever found him unfaithful? Believer, I'm asking you, have
you ever found him unfaithful to his promise of an endless
supply of living water? I know we go through dry periods,
but if you come to him, you will find refreshing spiritual water,
grace assuring your soul of salvation accomplished. In verses eight
and nine, verses eight and nine, a highway shall be there. and
a way and it shall be called the way of holiness. You see
we don't like being lost, have you ever been genuine, can you
remember the last time you were genuinely lost? In the car I
must say I haven't been genuinely lost since I got a sat-nav, though
I have heard of some people going up blind alleys and having an
awkward moment trying to get back out of it again. But generally
speaking, I don't get lost like I used to do. But I remember
when I did used to get lost, it's a horrible feeling, isn't
it? It's such a frustrating feeling. You're on the wrong road. But
there's such a comfort when you know that you're on the right
way. Well, spiritually, is it not like that? A highway shall
be there. A way, the way of holiness. The
spirit assures us we're on the right road, spiritually. In our
natural state, we're lost. We're on the broadway that leads
to destruction. We're blindly following the crowd.
But when Christ comes, when we hear his voice, when we believe
his word, when we trust him, when he gives us that spiritual
life that he promised, when we apprehend it by faith, blind
eyes are opened and the narrow way is found. And the narrow
way that so few go along, that way leads to life. It's the way,
the way, the way of holiness. Jesus said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father, but
by me. You know, all religions are not
the same. They're most definitely not.
This is very distinctive. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man comes to the Father, but by me. Not by the
Jesus of religion, but by the Jesus of the scriptures, of the
truth. This is the King's highway. walking
in that way. Strengthen the feeble knees,
walking in the King's highway. The way of righteousness it's
called in Matthew chapter 21. The way of peace it's called
in Luke chapter 1. The way of salvation in Acts
chapter 16. The way of truth in 2 Peter chapter
2. Sorry, that was very quick, wasn't
it, when you're trying to take notes. But it's also Do you know
what they called it in the Acts of the Apostles, in Acts 4, verse
14, when they were trying to stop the apostles from preaching?
They called it the way of heresy. And the way of the truth of the
gospel, to those who are merely religious, is always the way
of heresy, the way of heresy. It's the good old way, good old
way. Jeremiah 6, 16, thus saith the
Lord, stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths. Where is the good way? And walk
therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls." You see, it's
not just the odd New Testament verse, it's throughout the Scriptures.
It's the way of holiness, of separateness from the world.
Do you know the wilderness into which God puts his people in
Revelation 12? That wilderness is not a desert
place. What it is, it's a separation
from the things of the world, the attitudes of the world, the
principles of the world, the delights of the world. It's a
wilderness, it's a separateness. You see the world enjoying the
things that it does and you think, that's not for me, I don't like
that. We noticed when one of our sons
many years ago came home from having gone away and he He said, could he come home?
We said, yes, of course you can. And he started going out with
all of his old friends and he came to know Christ. He came
to know the truth. And it was a month or maybe two
later, he gradually, we didn't say a word, no preacher said
a word to him, but gradually he stopped going out to those
places with those mates because he just, the new nature that
he'd been given didn't like those places anymore. It wasn't an
environment he was comfortable in anymore. He didn't relish
the company of those places and the things of those places. He
was being put by God into a wilderness separation, which we all are,
into a separateness from the world. That's the way of holiness,
the way in which the redeemed of God walk. Look, verse nine,
the redeemed shall walk then. The redeemed, the redeemed, those
who've had the price paid, the penalty price for their sin,
They walk there in a safe way. It's a safe way. No lion there,
no ravenous beast. It's a safe way. Though we walk
through the valley of the shadow of death with, as it were, roaring
lions on all sides, as it's pictured in Pilgrim's Progress, God has
all of those things on a chain of the length of his decision,
of his making. and you walk down that straight
path and they won't touch you. It's a way of confident assurance,
is it not? Can each believer truly, yes
you can, each true believer can say with Paul, I know, not I
hope, not I suspect, not I think, I know whom I have believed and
I'm persuaded, I'm convinced. that He is able to keep that
which I've committed unto Him against them. What have I committed
unto Him? My eternal soul. My eternal soul, as I am in the
flesh, I've committed it unto Him on the basis of the promise
of His Word. I believe Him. I trust Him. I
know I shall not enter into condemnation. Do you have that same confidence
in God? And then finally, very, very
quickly, verse 10, the objective What's it all for? Why is God
gracious to the people He chose in Christ before the foundation
of the world? It's for this reason. At the
very end, the ransom of the Lord shall return and come to Zion
with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. In this verse,
when it talks of Zion, it means heaven. It means the eternal
state. They shall obtain joy and gladness
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. In a sense, we experience
some of it now, as we meet together, as we enjoy His Word, as we relish
fellowship together in the things of Christ. But this is it, when
we're in that state without sin. The ransomed of the Lord shall
return and come to Zion, as we all will. He will gather us all
together. He will take us all to be with
Him. This is the end of the king's highway. It's the entrance into
heaven. And only those who are ransomed
by Christ's redeeming blood, ransomed by his redeeming blood,
they are the ones who will be there. There'll be everlasting
joy. There'll be no more sin. Don
Faulkner wrote about this. He said this, when Christ comes
to a sinner, he does not come to offer grace. Remember, it's
very profound. That's why I don't often quote
people, but this I thought was worth quoting. When Christ comes
to a sinner, He does not come to offer grace, but to perform
it. This chapter is the performance
of grace. Not to show you the way, but
to put you in the way. That's what he does. He does
not come to tell you what to do for him, but to do for you
what you cannot do for yourself. In these days of such small things,
may He be pleased to reveal the blessings of His grace in your
soul, in my soul, and of the others that He has yet to call
before He takes us home.