You can be opening your Bibles
to the 52nd chapter of the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 52. I will repeat the thanks I gave
last night. Thank you so much for having
me here. And if you ever come through Iowa in January, you
will know why I'm so thankful you asked me here. And aside from all the other
things, though, it has been a real joy to be with you and not only
to preach to you, but get the opportunity to talk with you
over in the fellowship hall and wherever we manage to bump into
each other. And I hope that in time to come, we'll have more
opportunities for that. And Bonnie and I came here last
Monday. We're staying till Friday. because
we figured the plane tickets didn't cost any more to stay
a little longer, so we went ahead and just booked in. We're going
to look at a few things before we go home. But we have had a
truly enjoyable time. I've enjoyed being able to preach
to you, and I'm glad, at least from your testimony, that the
Lord was pleased to bring you some blessing by the word that
was preached. And yes, great is the Lord's faithfulness.
That was a text of scripture that I used early on in my preaching,
the prophet's hope, from the book of Lamentations. And you
read the book of Lamentations and you would think that it is
all about lamenting, and indeed there's a lot of lamenting that
goes on in it, but God uses all that lamenting as a sort of black
backdrop on which the prophet was able to drop some gems of
hope in the Lord's goodness. And they shine all the more clearly
because of the backdrop of that lamentation. And I think of that,
you know, the greatest life faithfulness. And then morning by morning,
new mercies I see. And the Prophet said, thy mercies,
they're new every morning. This morning, they're new. If
the Lord enables me to preach, I won't be doing it on last night's
mercies or Friday night's mercies that He gave to us. But that
doesn't mean that I'm in despair, for there's new mercies every
day. to cover our new sins, to make up for our new lacking and
failure, to provide for all those things we cannot provide for
ourselves, and that means simply to provide all things, because
we can't provide anything for ourselves. I want to preach this morning
on this subject, what makes the gospel to be good news. We know that in the Greek New
Testament, The word that is regularly translated gospel is from a Greek
word that simply means good news, a good message, good tidings. In fact, when the angel said,
I bring you good tidings of great joy, the word good tidings is
the word normally translated gospel. And the prophet says
here, of course this was originally written in Hebrew, I don't know
a whole lot about Greek and even less about Hebrew, but he says
here in verse 7 of Isaiah 52, how beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth
peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation. that saith unto Zion, thy God
reigneth." Now, Paul quotes this scripture in Romans chapter 10,
and if you'll turn over there, we'll just make a few comments
from that scripture, and then return to Isaiah 52. Romans chapter
10. We read here in verse 9 that
Paul says, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
or that could read, confess with thy mouth Jesus to be Lord, and
shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from
the dead, thou shalt be saved. Now, in the free will sort of
religion that I came out of, that I was raised up in, and
probably many of you were also, They would take a scripture like
this, and they would try to use this to promote the idea that
God is doing all He can to save everybody, and He has made the
salvation of all men possible, but it has been left up to us
to make it real. Now, that's because God's just
waiting. He's waiting on you. to make
this confession, to exhibit this faith, and then you're saved. But as we'll see, that's not
what he means by this at all. I don't want to take away from
the openness of the promise. And I do say to you on the authority
of Scriptures, if you do honestly, with your mouth, confess Jesus
to be Lord, And if you honestly, from your heart, believe that
God has raised him from the dead, understanding what that means,
that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved. No question about that. It says,
with the heart, verse 10, man believes unto righteousness,
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the
Scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed."
Now this does not mean that all believers or that no believer
ever feels any sense of embarrassment about professing the name of
Christ. Regrettably, we do. Depending
on our personality and how easily we can be shamed, After all,
Peter, who was probably just as bold a man as there was, certainly
as brash a man as there ever was, he got ashamed in front of a
12-year-old girl, and called down oaths, and denied that he
knew Christ. And when it says, he that believes
shall not be ashamed, does not mean that sometimes in the presence
of many enemies of Christ, we kind of shrink back a little
bit because we're afraid of being perceived as backward and unsophisticated. Sadly, to our shame, that kind
of thing can happen. What it does mean is this. that
he whose hope is in the Lord, in that day, when everything
is called into account, they will not be put to shame. Everybody
that stood against them will. I'll give you an example of what
the Scriptures mean here when it says they will not be ashamed.
You go through the store, you pick up all the stuff you want,
You get in line at the cash register, you come up there and they put
all that stuff through. There's a number, you reach in
your wallet and you pull out that card. You hand it to them
and she goes... And everybody's standing there
and there's this line. She looks up and says, it's been denied.
That's what it means by ashamed. And brethren, if your hope is
in the Lord, When it comes time and you stand before the Lord,
you will not be told, it's been denied. Now everyone in the world right
now is going to try to embarrass you about it. A lot of people
in the world, they think, you know, that's just silliness.
And don't be surprised because it is silliness to them. Just
like it was silliness to us, foolishness to us at one time. But it won't look silly then.
And all those who put their hope
in something other than the Lord shall be put to shame. But not
anyone who put their hope in the Lord. For there is no difference between
the Jew and Greek. This is verse 12. For the same
Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now, in verse 14, it says, How
then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? One thing is clear for what Paul
is saying here. He's talking about the gospel,
isn't he? All of this is about the gospel of eternal salvation. And then he says, How shall they preach, except
they be sent? As it is written, How beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace. and bring glad tidings of good
things. Now, I went through that to make
this point, to prove this point. Paul's talking about the gospel.
So is Isaiah. Paul quotes Isaiah and applies
it to gospel preachers. How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace. Now, many
years ago, they didn't have email, they didn't have post office,
didn't have a telegraph. If you wanted to get news from
one place to another, you had to send a messenger. You'd write it down, you'd roll
it up, you'd get out some wax, seal it up, and send it away. And depending
on the importance of the news, they would run. Particularly,
this happened when it came to warfare. Because once the kings
got a certain age that they didn't make very good warriors, they
sent their generals out to do it. But the king wanted to know
news, how goes the battle? They know that so many miles
away, a battle's going on. It's really important to them
which way it goes. And so, they look, you know, they're looking
for that messenger to come with news. And when he arrives, and
they open it up, and it says that we have the victory. Well,
how beautiful were the feet that brought the news of the victory. And that's the image that he's
using here. And he applies this to preachers. But there are even
more beautiful feet than this who have brought good news. Brother
Don and I have done what we can and will do what we can to bring
you good news. But there is one whose feet are
much more beautiful than ours. And they were nailed to a tree
on the mountain of Calvary. And how beautiful upon the mountain.
were those feet that brought the good news of peace, the good
news of salvation. No wonder Mary sat at those feet. No wonder that woman washed them.
They bore up Him who not only brought good news, but is the
good news. When we read in the scriptures,
that they preached unto them Jesus. I like it that the scriptures
put it that way. It doesn't even say, and they
preached to them the doctrines of grace. Not that I have any
problem with the preaching of the doctrines of grace. But that's
not how the scriptures describe the preaching of the gospel.
They set forth Jesus Christ. For while the gospel, yes, it's
got doctrine. I don't deny that. Yet, this
doctrine is all to be assembled to make a picture, a representation
of Christ Jesus. I can talk to you about justification
and never preach Christ. And that won't be the gospel. But fellows like Don and me,
and anyone else that's being called to preach, it is their
duty to take all the doctrines, all the truths of scripture,
and by the grace of God, assemble them like so many puzzle pieces,
and in the end, there is the picture of Christ. We preach
to you Christ. He is the gospel. He is the good
news. Now there are many good words
in the gospel, many good things. We can go back to Isaiah 52. How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of Him that bring good tidings, that publisheth
peace. Being justified by faith, we
have peace with God. He hath made peace. He is our
peace. People, one of the common phrases
that folks use for so-called faith is this, have you made
your peace with God? There's a couple of problems
with that. Man started the war. And he's
still at war. And he won't make peace with
God. Secondly, he can't. Because when he declared war
on God, he aroused one of such power that he is unstoppable. He aroused one of such holiness,
he's unapproachable. He aroused one of such righteousness
that he cannot be satisfied. Man declared war on God and once
he did, there were no terms. under which God could declare
peace. And if I have stirred up an enemy that powerful, how good it is to find out that
he has declared peace. And here's another word. Salvation. Who publishes salvation. Not he who offers it. You know, not even us preachers
offer salvation. We don't offer it because we
don't have the right to. But we don't offer it because it's
not an offer. Every time salvation has been
offered, it's been refused. People say, well, I believe in
the free offer of the gospel. Okay. You offer it freely, and
it will be rejected out of hand. Because that's the nature of
man. Well, behold, I stand at the
door and knock. Well, if you take that image and try to apply
it as though the Lord there is saying that He knocks on the
door of the heart of unbelieving men, asking the entrance. If
you want to apply it that way, and that's not at all the way
it's applied there in the book of Revelation, but if you want
to apply it that way, I'll tell you what's going to happen. He's
going to knock, and He's going to knock, and He's going to knock,
and the one inside is going to be saying, leave me alone, get
away, I don't want you. And if we're going to use that
image, the only way there's ever going to be salvation is if he
who knocks quits knocking and just tears the door down. That's
the only way it ever happens, if you want to use that imagery.
Offers from God are never accepted. And so God does an offering.
He publishes His salvation. He declares it. When the Holy Spirit, if indeed
you have been saved, when the Holy Spirit came to you, He did
not come and say, would you like to be saved? Because you wouldn't have liked
to. He already knew the answer to that. He came and He said
through the preaching of the gospel into your heart, I have
saved you. I have redeemed you. You are
mine." And when he said that, we said, thank God. Thank God. We, humans, we've made a virtue out
of getting saved. Got saved yet? Now I don't know
your background. Don and I come from similar backgrounds
in that we come from the southeast and the kind of free willism
that dominates there. And I'll give you an example
here. This was when I was a senior
in high school and I went to my cousin's church. They had
this spring revival. And there were two boys, and
you could tell that they were mama boys from the beginning.
But they were good little church boys, too. And they, I'm not
lying to you, they got up like on Monday or Tuesday, and they
said, we're going to get saved on Friday. Now, at that point,
I'd never heard a word about sovereign grace, but that scared
me to hear somebody say that. I mean, what an affront to God
to tell him, you know, You gotta wait, you know. And the reason
was that they were going to let those boys leave the service
on Friday. They were going to leave the singing. And sure enough,
come Friday, and I had to go see this. And I went back on
Friday, and there they were. They led the singing, two of
their twin boys. And they led the singing. And after we sang
a few songs, they said, we're going to get saved now. And they went
down front, and a bunch of men from the church gathered around
them. And they laid hands on everybody, started praying out
loud. And that went on for a while. Folks threw their hands up. They
were saved. And everybody thought they were
good boys, because they just got saved. Let me ask you something. You know, salvation, the word
actually means rescue. That's a good word for it. Bonnie
and I were on our way to visit our parents one time, and we
went by a church that said Mount Sinai Baptist. And the other
church said, I don't think I want to go there. I think it was named
that, not because of their doctrine, at least I hope not. I think
that actually the hillside of their church was almost called
Mount Sinai, but I still would have come up with a different
name. But I tell you, rescue Baptists, I want to go there.
I want to go to a place that knows something about rescue.
But men perceive this business of getting saved as though it
was a virtue, and that would be like if a man were drowning,
and he cries out, somebody help me! And the lifeguard jumps in,
pulls him to the side, you know, and squeezes him from behind,
gets all the water out and everything else, and the man's fine. And they give him a medal. Not
the lifeguard. The guy that was about to drown.
We treat people, or folks think that getting saved is some kind
of virtuous thing to do. And becoming a Christian. somehow elevates you above other
people. Salvation's a rescue. And I'll tell you, the idea of
a rescue is really good to those who are in trouble. People try
to climb Mount Everest, and I suppose the view's nice from up there.
But I'm not interested in climbing, and I understand it's pretty
hard. And it's misery all the way up and all the way down.
Some of them don't make it back. It's that dangerous. And some
of them, they get hurt or get trapped or whatever, and they
don't have the means to get themselves back down. Maybe they got a radio
and they got the word out, I need help. And I tell you, when they heard
that rescue team coming, whether they heard the blades of a chopper,
or whatever it is they use to get to those people. Can you
imagine how wonderful that sounds? Salvation, rescue has arrived. There's some good words in the
Gospel. These words are good and beautiful,
but they are not in themselves or by themselves good news. Because we can talk about peace,
and it's a wonderful idea. But a peace that doesn't exist,
just isn't any good. Man may be in warfare. He may
be down in a foxhole, bullets flying over him, bombs going
around, and he may dream of peace. But it's just a dream. Because there is no peace. And
a man may be in trouble. He may be on the side of Mount
Everest, freezing to death. And he may imagine a rescue team,
but the imagination of it won't save him. Do you know what makes all the
good things of the gospel to be good news? And what really
amounts to the essential message of the gospel? How beautiful
upon the mountains are the feet of him that brings good tidings,
that publishes peace, that brings good tidings of good, that publishes
salvation, that saith undesired, Thy God reigns. That's the gospel. Well, can
you preach the gospel without preaching the sovereignty of
God? If you preach the gospel without preaching the sovereignty
of God, you preach the gospel that can't happen. You've preached
a peace that doesn't exist. You've preached a salvation that
will never come to pass. Now, if you're trying to preach
up a message where men make their peace with God, I can see why
they aren't concerned about the sovereignty of God, because they're
looking for a peace... If you're preaching a salvation
whereby a man extracts himself by an act of his own will and
his own determination, extracts himself from the mess he got
himself in, then you don't need the sovereignty of God because
God's not doing anything, the man is. But when you recognize that in
your heart you are enmity with God, that you are at war, With not just the concept of
God, but with God Himself. I'll say this, I think this would
be pretty good generalization, if not an absolute truth. If
you've never been mad at God, it's because you've never met
Him. If you've never been upset with
God, it's because you haven't met Him. He said, my ways aren't your
ways. And I know this, when I run into somebody whose ways aren't
my ways, I don't like it. My thoughts aren't your thoughts.
When people don't think the way I think, I think there's something
wrong with them. And depending on how big they
are, I might tell them. We're at war with him. And we're
in a mess we can't get out of. Here's what makes the prospect
of salvation and peace good news. The sovereign God is the one
who declares peace and who works salvation. The prophet did not say how beautiful
upon the mountains are him who says God loves you and has a
wonderful plan for your life. Isaiah the prophet was speaking
to those whom God was going to send into captivity. That doesn't
sound like a very wonderful plan. Certainly not a plan they would
have chosen. In fact, they wouldn't believe it. They thought they
were good enough that it wasn't going to happen. God's never
going to destroy Jerusalem. Come on now. That's where the
temple is and we're keeping it up, you know. We got the sacrifices
going. Every day, the morning and evening
sacrifice, we got a high priest. And all the men are showing up
as often as they're supposed to there. But God's not going
to destroy Jerusalem. God says, I'm telling you through
my prophet, I'm going to destroy this place. I'm going to send
you away. The prophet did not write how
beautiful upon the mountain. For those who say God's done
all He can, the rest is up to you. I think the worst news that
you and I could ever hear would be that God has done all He can
to save us. Because if He's done all He can,
and we're still not saved, it ain't gonna happen. He said, here's the good news,
God reigns. He can send you into captivity
and save you anyway. He can destroy your city and
save you anyway. He can bring in a nation by His
sovereignty to tear up your hope. And their hope was in that city.
And that took me. I can bring it all down and save
you anyway. I can send you into captivity,
and when it is time, I can bring you back out. I, the Lord, reign. The popular gospel says that
Jesus wants to save you. And that's no gospel at all.
It is not good news to find out that God wants to do anything.
I heard that. I can't hardly stand to listen
to religious broadcasts. Maybe you're the same way as
I am on that, because the things they say are revolting. Now,
they weren't revolting to me a long time ago, but they are
now. When they talk about God wants to, God doesn't want to
do anything. God does things. He doesn't want.
Want means to need something and not have it. Now, that describes
you and me. without the grace of God. We're
the ones that want. We may not desire, but we certainly
want. God doesn't want to save anybody. He saves whom He wills to save. The Scriptures say, The Lord
is my shepherd, I shall not want. Why do the sheep not want? Because
the shepherd doesn't. He has need of nothing. There
is no unfulfilled desire in his heart. He shall not come to the
banister of heaven and say, Oh, I tried. I did all I could. And then just kind of slump down
on his throne. Oh, I died for billions and I'm
only going to get a thousand or so. It's not the way it works. Thank God, because he wouldn't
have got to a thousand or so. Oh, we don't understand what
rebels we are if we think for a minute that this business of
salvation could have happened in any other way than this, that
God exercised absolute control over everything to bring it to
pass. Here's the good news. God reigns.
And without that news, there is no good news. There is no
salvation until the Savior rules over everything that stands in
opposition to the sinner's salvation. So, yeah, He's got to rule over
the devil. He's got to rule over providence. Well, that may be
true, but I'll tell you, neither the devil nor the events of this
world are nearly so much an obstacle to your salvation as you are.
And that means that if the Lord's going to save you, He's going
to have to rule over you. See, people talk about God's sovereignty,
and what they mean by that is He's controlling everything but
me. That's what they mean. Oh, yeah,
I believe God's sovereign. The other day, I was sick, and
God healed me. He controls the germs. Yes, He
does. He's the one that sent the germs to make you sick, and
He's the one that takes them away to make you well. They don't
like the part about He's the one that sent them to make you
sick, but that's His truth. You know, when the Lord calmed
Waves saying, peace be still. That's not the first time those
waves heard His voice. It was He that stirred them up,
and He that put them down. He's in control of me, and if
He's not, I'm lost. How does God reign? He reigns
over the preachers that he sends. Verse 8, Thy watchmen shall lift
up the voice. With the voice together shall
they sing, for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall
bring again Zion. Now you've, by the end of this
service, if you've been here for everyone, you will have heard
the gospel preached seven times. And you will not have heard the
gospel preached seven times because some years ago the Lord looked
down and said, I need some faithful men to preach the gospel. Let's
see if I can find some good guys. I've heard people say things
like that. You know, he'd be good for the church if he'd just get
saved. God found three scoundrels. Each a scoundrel in his own way. And he laid hold of them, and
he said, go preach. And they did. Brothers Gene and Don and me
would never have preached this gospel if the Lord hadn't made
it happen. We might be preaching, but we
wouldn't be preaching this. I was preaching something else.
I was going to school to learn something else. And in the school
that teaches freewillism, I found out about the sovereignty of
God, believe it or not. God went right into that place
of error and heresy. And He overruled a man that didn't
even believe in the sovereignty of God and taught me about it. God is sovereign over His preachers. He is sovereign to make His Word
known. And He is sovereign in His power
to save. Verse 9, break forth into joy,
sing together ye waste places of Jerusalem, for the Lord hath
comforted His people and hath redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord
hath made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our
God. Now the interesting thing is, this was written This word
of salvation was written before they were ever sent away. He
declares He will deliver them and bring them back before He
ever sends them away. And how will He do it? Will He
go there to the gates of Babylon and have some angels with Him? And say, all right, start singing,
Just As I Am. And open the gates and say, now
all you Jews that wish to come back, I sure wish you would.
Look, we've got a nice city down here. Good. Now won't you come? And nobody comes on the first
verse. But we're going to sing a second verse. And a third. Oh, here comes one. I see that hand is there enough.
Did the Lord do that? No. Notice this. He gives a command. It's a really
good command, but He gives it anyway as a command. Break forth
into joy. You can give Him a choice about
it. He said, do it. Break forth into joy. Sing together. Ye waste places. For the Lord
hath comforted His people. He didn't offer them comfort.
He just did it. He didn't offer them redemption. He said, He
hath redeemed Jerusalem. Before they're gone, before the
city is destroyed, He redeems it. And He makes bare His holy arm. And we know that when He made
barren His holy arm, what does He mean by that? He sent His
Son. Because that is God's holy arm. And all the nations have seen
it. They don't believe it. They won't acknowledge it. They
will. They will. And He is sovereign
so that when He calls, People come. Verse 11. Depart
ye, depart, go out. Touch no unclean thing. Go out
of the midst of her, be ye clean that bear the vessels of the
Lord. Now once again, I point out to you, this happened before
they were, this was said before they were sent into captivity.
And He's not telling them to leave Jerusalem. He's telling
them to leave Babylon. And they did. And they touched
no unclean thing. What's the unclean thing? We
have all become as an unclean thing in our righteousnesses
as filthy rags. As when God calls us to salvation,
He says, don't have anything to do with yourself. Don't have
anything to do... Don't touch your righteousness.
It's filthy. Come out from all of that. And
we do. He says, go out of Babylon. He's
sovereign to make them leave. And here's something amazing.
He is sovereign over the enemies of God's people to let them go. He says here, verse 12, maybe
you don't believe in dancing, but this will make you want to
dance. For you shall not go out with
haste, nor by flight, for the Lord God will go before you,
and the God of Israel will be your rear guard. Here's what
God says. When I bring you out of Babylon,
They'll open the gates for you. You won't sneak out. You won't
run. It won't be a retreat. And not
only will you leave, you'll leave in pomp and dignity. For I will
go before you, and I will go behind you. And just as Israel
spoiled the Egyptians, the Egyptians gave them stuff to leave. So
did Babylon. Give them back all the vessels
of the temple and money to rebuild. And if you want to get an idea
of what that was like, imagine if the nation of Israel, as it
now stands, had been taken captive by Iraq under Saddam Hussein. And then a day came when Saddam
Hussein handed them back everything he took. gave them some more
money and paved the road for them to go back and occupy Jerusalem. You say, that would have been
something else indeed. It would be nothing compared
to what God does in the hearts of men when He delivers them
from their enemies and brings them full salvation
and releases them from themselves and from all their sins. And then God is sovereign over
the work of His Son. When our Lord Jesus Christ came,
now He didn't have to be forced to do anything. But everything
He did, He did in submission to His Father. He said, I've
come to do the will of Him that sent me. Christ was fully willing
to do it. I'm not denying that. But it
says here, Behold, verse 13, my servant shall deal prudently. What does that mean? He'll do
it right. He'll do it right. He shall be
exalted and extolled and be very high. As many as were astonished
at thee, his visage was so marred more than any man in his form,
more than the sons of men. So shall he sprinkle many nations. And kings shall what? Shut their
mouths because of him or at him. For that which had not been told
them, they shall see. And that which they had not heard,
shall they consider. When our Lord Jesus Christ came
as God's servant, He came under orders. He did not come to find
out what could be done. He came down here to do what
God sent Him to do. And He did it with determination.
And when He did it, He suffered in ways that are unimaginable
to you and me. God made it the most horrible
kind of physical death that can be imagined, so that we who don't
understand anything but the physical might get some kind of clue of
the sufferings our Lord endured. But it was the suffering of his
soul that was being illustrated in the suffering of his body.
Romans whipped the flesh off of his back. God whipped the
flesh off his soul. Romans nailed him to a cursed
tree. God made him a curse for us. Romans nailed a sign up there. That
was the custom. You go by a cross, there's a
man hanging on. What did he do? It's written
right up there. Romans put up there, King of
the Jews. That was their way to mock Him. God took the whole handwriting
of ordinances that was against us. The whole law with all its
demands. Demands for righteousness that
we could not perform and demands for a death that we dare not
die. and nailed them to the cross
of Christ. And He died. And men were astonished. And He rose again. And they were
so astonished they wouldn't believe that. But some did. Who hath
believed our report, says Isaiah, next? The ones to whom the arm of the
Lord has been revealed. That's who believed it. Those who do not believe that
God is sovereign in the disposition of His grace do not believe the
gospel of the scriptures. They have bad news, not good
news. It's not good news until it's in God's hands. And thank
God it is. The Lord be with you.