We worked primarily last Sunday,
if I remember correctly now, on the 11th and 12th verses of
Chapter 62 and on the first three words of Chapter 63. Who is this? This morning I want to deal with
the answer to that question. It is at the end of Chapter 63
and verse 1, who is this that comes from Edom with dyed garments
from Basra, this that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in
the greatness of his strength? Our Lord Jesus Himself is the
one speaking the answer. Who is He? Who is this described
in these verses? I that speak in righteousness,
mighty to save." Mighty to save. So the last three words of that
verse, mighty to save, is our title this morning. So let's
back up now to chapter 62 and verse 1 and begin our reading. I'll try not to take as long
in reading it so we'll have more time to spend on that mighty
to save. By the way, To be perfectly honest,
the Lord Jesus is not just mighty to save, He is almighty to save. All right, verse 1, chapter 62.
For Zion's sake, just one reminder, Zion, Israel, Judah, Jerusalem,
and so forth, If you'll look at these words in their spiritual
application, which is to the children of God of every generation,
from the first generation right to the present hour and right
on to the end of time, it will help you greatly. If you try
to reserve these remarks for those people across the ocean
over there at the other end of the Mediterranean, you might
as well give up about Lord have mercy, 50% of your Bible at least.
That costs too much to do that. There's no reason to do that.
What God does near the end of time with the nation of Israel,
nobody knows what's going to take place. There are a few statements
in our Bible that indicate that God will then begin a work of
grace among the Jewish nation. not necessarily in one place
on the earth, but perhaps all over the world. All he has to
do is purpose to do it, and it's done. The reason things are in the
state of affairs that they are now is because men do not want
God budding into their lives. But I'm telling you, if God has
chosen you in the Lord Jesus Christ to salvation, He'll find
you and He'll save you. You may not like it, at least
to begin with, but you'll soon declare yourself to love it and
love Him for doing so. So anyway, we're going to use
these words having to do with the Lord's children of whatever
generation it happens to be. For Zion's sake, for the church's
sake, the real church, will I not hold my peace And for Jerusalem's
sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth
as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burns. And the Gentiles shall see your
righteousness, and all kings your glory." Where do Gentiles
see this righteousness and this glory except in Christ, the Messiah,
the Redeemer? Verse 3, you shall also be a
crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem
in the hand of your God. Speaking now of the church, Old
and New Testament, you shall no more be termed forsaken, neither
shall your land any more be termed desolate, but you shall be called
Hephzibah which means the Lord delights
in you, and your land will be called Beulah, because your land
shall be married. For as a young man marries a
virgin, so shall your sons marry you. And as the bridegroom rejoices
over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you." What a
statement. I have set watchmen upon your
walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace, day nor
night. You that make mention of the
Lord, you that declare Him to others, keep not silence. Give Him no rest till He establish,
until He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth. Let us give God no rest until
He does that in this place. The Lord is sworn by His right
hand and by the arm of His strength. Surely I will no more give your
corn to be food for your enemies, and the sons of the stranger
shall not drink your wine for the which you have labored, but
they that have gathered it. And we're not going to start
a drunken orgy or any such thing as that. This wine is our precious
Lord Jesus Christ. He is the joy of our soul if
we know Him. Where did I stop? Let's go to
verse 9. But they that have gathered it
shall eat it and praise the Lord, and they that have brought it
together shall drink it in the courts of my holiness. Go through,
go through the gates, prepare you the way of the people. Cast
up, cast up the highway and gather out the stones. Lift up a standard
for the people. Behold, the Lord has proclaimed
unto the end of the world, that may be geographically speaking,
but it is also spiritually speaking, the end of the world. not just
a literal measurement, but it is a declaration that until this
world comes to an appointed end, the Lord has proclaimed unto
the end of the world, say you to the daughter of Zion, behold,
your salvation comes. His reward is with Him and His
work before Him. And they shall call them the
holy people. Now here is a definition of Zion,
Jerusalem, Israel, Judah, whatever you want to call all of those
names. Here is a definition. They are the people whom God
in Christ has made holy. Christ is their Redeemer, therefore
they are redeemed of the Lord. and every last single one of
them in whatever generation they happen to live, you shall be
called sought out. Simply meaning, God found us
and then we find Him as a result of Him finding me. You think
man initiates anything, it ain't but one thing and that's sin
and rebellion. Yes, we're the author of that.
We didn't need any help with that, though we had some. You shall be called sought out, just like the shepherd in Luke
15 went looking for that lost sheep, and the woman went looking
for the lost coin, and in the prodigal son, If we read our
Bibles correctly, we will see as plain as day that that lost
prodigal was found before he ever had one single desire to
return to his father's house. That's how it is with us. Sought
out and then not forsaken. Not forsaken. God does not ever
forsake His people. We cannot be good enough to attract
Him to take us in the first place, and you can't be bad enough for
Him to divorce Himself from you. We might lose all the joy. We
might lose a great many things, the comfort, the peace, all the
things that go with being a child of God and knowing it and living
in the enjoyment of it. We may lose all the enjoyment.
You can't lose being His. You didn't make yourself His.
He did. And if He did, it'd last forever. All right, verse 1, chapter 63. Who is this? What a question. After reading the 62nd chapter,
who is this that comes from Edom? Edom being the descendants of
Esau, as we said last week, and this Basra is one of the major
cities of Edom. Who is this that comes from Edom
with dyed garments from Basra? Garments dyed with blood. It
is none other than the Lord Jesus returning from the cross and
the grave. This that is glorious in His
apparel. even His clothes, declare Him
to be God. And on that journey to the cross,
you remember that hymn in our hymn book, page 109, ride on,
ride on in majesty. Here is how the Savior rides,
traveling in the greatness of His strength. And nowhere is
that more true than when he went to Calvary's tree, traveling in the greatness of
his strength. Who is this? Here it is. I that
speak in righteousness, mighty, yea, almighty, to save. At the very least, at the very
least, for the Lord Jesus to declare Himself mighty to save. He saves whom He will, when He
will, how He will. I mean, we don't have a clue as to how
God works in grace. Just like it's appointed us To die, it's appointed us to be made
alive in Christ. When that time comes, you'll know it. Let's go back to Isaiah 63, verse
1. Who is this God-man? who speaks
in righteousness, mighty to save." I've got three simple questions.
What do the words to save mean? They don't mean the same thing
to everybody. What do they mean, to save? How can we prove at least to
our satisfaction that the Lord Jesus indeed does save and mightily,
all mightily? And the third question, why is
Christ described, why does the Bible by divine inspiration use
this expression? concerning the Lord Jesus, the
only Savior of sinners, mighty to save." Why didn't it use some
other description? This book is full of descriptions
of Christ. Way back over 700 years before
He came in the flesh, God purposed to announce to the whole world
this declaration. His Son comes speaking in righteousness,
mighty to save." That's a glorious statement. Let's pray together. Dear Lord Jesus, these words on your very tongue are too big for me. Who can describe mighty to save? words more wonderful, and we
shall know it in all eternity. The glorious, almighty, victorious
Son of God, Savior of sinners, the Lord Jesus. What can we say to these words? Lord, we live in a time when
most people don't give you the time of day, let alone all the
honor and all the praise and all the glory. Churches on every hand are completely
confused, don't know which end is up. Talk about everybody but Christ,
praise everybody but Christ, and then if we can squeeze in
maybe five or ten minutes at the end of the service, we might
get around to mentioning your name and having to say something
about yourself. Oh, Lord, deliver us from ourselves. It is a priceless privilege that
human beings walking this earth can use this human tongue that
is so often out of tune to speak the praises of our blessed
Savior. Lord, help us this day. If it pleases you, would you
show us what these words mean? Mighty to save. We understand a little bit that
these words are infinitely larger than our capacity to understand. Lord, your grace, like your Son,
is all-powerful. Your Spirit, like our Savior,
is all-powerful. You yourself, you are all-powerful. You can do whatever you're pleased
to do. Lord, if it pleases you, have mercy on our soul. Speak with that voice that wakes
the dead and make your people hear. Help us,
we pray, for Christ's sake. Amen. All right, the first issue that
I would like to address your attention to this morning has
to do with a definition of to save, which is completely and altogether
erroneous. Most people believe, I hope you're
not among them. If you are, I hope God will speak
to your heart with that power that wakes the dead, and you
won't think that very long. Most people think that when Christ
went to the cross, he went there representing every human being
in all of Adam's race from start to finish, and that what he accomplished
is simply this. His death puts every man and
woman into a savable condition, but it does not save them and
it does not redeem them, which requires, if the death
of Christ only puts us in a good prospect of being saved, obviously
something else must be done. And that's where you come in.
You have to provide the rest so that by an act of our will,
we hold the Lord Jesus hostage in contempt. We have the power
to say whether His death is any good or not any good. And that's
pure tommyrot, hogwash. There's not an ounce of truth
in that. None whatsoever. The truth is that if the Lord
Jesus is mighty to save, then in that salvation, our Lord, in going to the tree,
purchased, paid a sin debt for a specific number of persons
whom God gave to Christ in old eternity in the covenant of grace. And when he said, it is finished,
John 19 verse 30, it means salvation's work was done. And then he bowed
his head and allowed himself to die. And they laid him in
a grave. And three days later he rose
from the dead. Forty days later he ascended
to heaven. where he is this very moment.
Now that's the difference between the two. There was an old Puritan
in England back in the 1600s by the name of John Owen. Some
of you have seen some of his works. We did some kind of little
pamphlet years ago and a book. The title of that book that he
put out on the death of Christ is The Death of Death and the
Death of Christ. If you think about that a little
bit, the death of death and the death of Christ. Anyway, Owens wrote a little
tract during his time on this earth with three simple points
having to do with what did Christ accomplish on the tree. What
does it really mean to save? The first one is, If Christ died
for all the sins of all men, that's the widely held opinion
of our generation. If Christ died for all the sins
of all men, then every last single person of the human race must
be in heaven. Whereas the Bible explicitly
teaches us that there are some people in hell. There was a group
in the book of Numbers that went to hell with their clothes on.
Let's see, what was their name? Nope, that's a different one. I had it on my mind about 5 o'clock
this morning, but it's not there anymore. But anyway, where's
Judas? Where are the people who died
in the flood at Noah's day? You know, the Bible does speak. of eternal punishment in hell. Why speak of it if nobody's going
to be there? Second thing John Owen said, the first one was,
and this is true, if Christ died for all the sins of all men,
all men must be saved. Secondly, he said, if Christ
died for all the sins of some people, then those some people
must be saved. And that, my friend, is the truth.
And then there's one other view of the death of Christ. Or there
might be several others, but I'm only going to deal with these
three. If Christ died, as many, many people believe now, if Christ
died for some of the sins of all men, nobody will be saved. When he died on the tree, If
He did not put all my sins away, then I must ultimately perish,
because He's not coming back to go to the cross again. He died for my sins in the past,
my sins in the present, and my sins in the future. But listen,
when He died, I was still in the future, and so were you. We weren't walking this earth
at that day, so it's foolish for us to try to use past, present,
and future tenses when we talk about divine things. These are
eternal things. They are forever and ever and
ever. Praise His name. Christ died
for all the sins of His elect whom God gave Him in the covenant
of grace. If that bothers you, it will
just have to bother you. Second question, how do we prove that
the Lord Jesus is mighty to save? If this statement in Isaiah 63.1
is not enough for me, where can I go to receive more information? Here's how you prove Christ is
mighty to save. Because when He walked this earth,
He did so. Christ is mighty to save because
He has revealed Himself in this light, in this capacity. Every miracle in the four Gospels,
and even in the book of Acts, every last single one of those
miracles is a picture of what Christ does for the soul spiritually. We're blind, we're deaf, we're
dumb, we're dead. He's our life. How about turning to, I'm trying
to limit myself this morning because I get in trouble when
I have too many scripture verses to ask you to turn to, but if
you'll turn to Hebrews chapter 7, Oh, and if you'd come to Bible
class every Sunday morning, you'd get a virtual sword drill. I mean, you know, it's just we
learn where things are in our Bibles this way, but we don't have enough time. Hebrews
7. How can we prove that Christ
is mighty to save? Right now we're going to prove
it like this. declares Him to be so. In Isaiah 63, 1, prophetically
speaking, those are His words. God, through the prophet, putting
those words on the tongue of His Son. All right, verse 25,
Hebrews 7. Wherefore, He, the Lord Jesus,
is able also to save to the uttermost. I'll get back to uttermost in
a moment. Christ is able to save to the uttermost who? Them that
come to God by Him. Don't ever let me, let you, let
nobody ever come to God without this mediator, there's only one
mediator between God and man, it's the man Christ Jesus. And
then it says, Hebrews 7.25, seeing His ability to do this,
seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them, for the
people that He saves, He prays for them. You know what he told
Peter in Luke 22? He said, Peter, before the rooster
crows in the morning, you'll deny me three times. And Peter
said, ah, these other fellows might, but I never would. He
said, Peter, the devil has asked permission to have you, and I'm
going to let him have you for a little while. But he said,
I've prayed for you that your faith not fail. That, my friend,
is still taking place. something, a relic of the past.
This is the state of affairs in this world when believers
live in a world that's not a friend to grace to help us on our way
to God. The prayers of Christ have a lot to do with mighty
to save, mighty to save. You could go to Luke chapter
8 and talk to the maniac of Gadara, the man that lived in the graveyard,
and cut himself. Just too wild could not be tamed. Our Lord Jesus stepped out of
that boat. He encountered this man who had
a whole legion of devils in himself, enough to inhabit 2,000 head
of hogs. And when he was finished, the
man was sitting at the feet of Christ, in his right mind and
clothed. And that, my friend, is a perfect
description of what he does for a sinner in grace when he comes
in. He doesn't need our help. We're
fighting tooth and nail. We don't want him to come in until he comes in. We could talk about the thief
on the cross, the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 8. This man had
been to Jerusalem. He was the eunuch of Candace,
queen of Ethiopia in Africa, ridden a chariot all the way
to Jerusalem to worship. And all he did was worship God
in a now defunct, dead religion. Once the Lord Jesus bowed His
head on the cross That sacrificial system, that ceremonial system
was gone. Why do you think the veil in
the middle of the temple was split from top to bottom and
it was several inches thick? Because the way into God's presence
is now open for poor, helpless sinners. Men no longer worship
God in types and figures and shadows. We come to Him in our
Lord Jesus Christ or else we don't come to Him at all. We could even come to the present
hour. I could use some names this morning and talk about a
time when God visited this place in a special way. I went to a graduation last night
and it was A cross between a circus and
a zoo. It was awful. You couldn't pay
me enough money to go back to another one. I wouldn't go. I remember when some kids were
in high school that are no longer in high school. They own those back views, ladies
and gentlemen. When I first came here, we locked
horns over who's going to control this thing. Before I came, the only time
they had to pay attention was during the invitation so they
could let Jesus save them. Many of them were already church
members, just like all the rest of us still lost. And without realizing what was
happening, it took months, maybe a year for this to even begin,
maybe longer than that, I can't remember. Dates just don't stick
with me like they used to. God begin to give mercy to these
teenagers and the people who were dead against me. by His grace became my dearest
friends. This could never have been if the Lord Jesus is not mighty
to save. If it's just the preacher and
the people in the pew, we've got to get a different horse
than this one The only person who can ride
this horse is mighty to save it. Ride on, ride on in majesty. And he's still riding. He will
to the last day this world stands. All right, we've got one more
question to answer. Why does God pick these words
to describe His Son as mighty to save? I've got four reasons. His name, His power, His blood,
and we've already covered His intercession. His name. Matthew 121. You shall call His
name Jesus. Why? Because He shall save His
people from their sins. And He's mighty to do it. His
very name, Jesus, literally means Jehovah is Salvation. It's the very same as the Old
Testament word Joshua. And in the book of Hebrews, where
they use the word Joshua, it's really referring to Christ. I
forget what chapter that is, but His very name, the name the
angel told Joseph, you must call Him by this name, Jesus. Secondly, His power. makes Him mighty and almighty
to save. John 17, verse 2, You, Father,
have given to me power over all flesh, that I might give eternal
life to as many as You've given to me. These are the words of
our Savior Himself, praying to His Father in heaven And he's
declaring that God has given him all power, not only in this
world, but over all men for one specific, plain purpose, because
he's mighty to save, that he might save every last one that
God gave to him. The blood of Christ is why he's
almighty to save. If you want to talk about the
value of Christ's blood, the power of His blood, one drop
could save a thousand worlds like the one we live in. But our debt on the tree was
paid in full. Without the shedding of blood,
Hebrews says, there's no remission of sins, no forgiveness, no putting
away of sins. Ah, but it's not just blood that
He shed. According to Acts chapter 20,
it is the blood of God that was shed on Calvary's tree. And then finally, Hebrews 7.25,
the powerful intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ declares
Him mighty to save. Now, has He saved you? And has
he saved me? What if he hasn't? Well, since
he's so powerful to save, I'm just going to wait for him. Well, he's not even close if
that's the case. But why don't we start by asking
him to save us? See if the Lord will just give
you the desire to be saved. It's born of Him. If He doesn't save us, we will perish. All right, let's do, let's see. Hey, let's change this song.