Isaiah chapter 62, and we'll
read a few verses into chapter 63. Isaiah 62, verses 1 through
12. Chapter 63, verses 1 through
about 4, if we can make it that far. Our text this morning will come
out of verses 11 and 12 in chapter 62, but primarily in chapter
63, verse 1, we'll simply call this message, borrowing these
words that begin chapter 63, who is this? Who is this? All right? Chapter 62, verse
1. For Zion's sake, Zion, looking
at this through New Testament eyes, which we must do, we cannot
ignore the gospel, we cannot ignore the new covenant revelation
in the New Testament. So this Zion is the Lord's people,
Christ's people, Christ's church, Curtis. his bride, as we read
about this morning in various places, especially in the Song
of Solomon. For Zion's sake, for the sake
of God's children whom he gave to Christ in the covenant of
grace in old eternity, will I not hold my peace? And for Jerusalem's
sake, here again I urge you to read that word, looking at it
through gospel glasses, it is spiritual Jerusalem. You may disagree with me, that's
fine if you want to, but there is nothing holy about that city
over there in the Middle East, nothing whatsoever. Its day has
come and gone. God's glory is nowhere except
in Christ. That's the only place. This place
is not holy. This is a building. It's a room.
Now, when God comes down in this place in the presence of His
Spirit and through His gospel, it becomes a precious place.
But we must not ever worship this place, this platform which
is not an altar. Christ is our altar. Christ is
our sanctuary. We have no other but Him. For
Zion's sake 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, and
you shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the
Lord shall name. You shall also be a crown of
glory in the hand of the Lord, the Lord Jesus, and a royal diadem
in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed forsaken,
though all of us by nature are, spiritually speaking, forsaken.
Neither shall your land any more be termed desolate, but you shall
be called Hephzibah, and our text will define that word in
just a moment, and your land Beulah. Here's the definition
of Hephzibah, for the Lord delights in you. Does he now? Why? If you've been joined by a saving
union of God's mercy and grace to the Lord Jesus, God delights
in you. But to tell anybody walking down the street,
God delights in you. is to prostitute, and I mean
to use that word, it is to prostitute the precious gospel of God's
grace in Christ. You can't give every man a hope
who does not have any knowledge or understanding, nor any faith,
nor any grace in his soul through the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't
do that. It's not right to pilfer and
steal out of this book what doesn't belong to us. If it belongs to
me and you, it is ours only by grace. We have not deserved it,
nor merited it, nor done anything to receive it. It's all God's
doing in Christ. But these are precious words.
Hephzibah, the Lord delights in you. How come? Because He delights in my Savior. And the word Beulah, your land
shall be married." Look around you. We ain't much and we ain't
many in more ways than one. I'll guarantee
you this. As long as this world stands,
Christ will never be without a people. And every person whom
he saves while we're living in this world No matter what generation
of time or geographical location, all these persons will be with
Him in eternity. And there, the marriage of the
Lamb will take place. Right now, the church is but
betrothed or engaged to Him. But then, she shall see Him face
to face and be His forever and ever and ever. All right. 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. I have
set watchmen upon your walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never
hold their peace. day nor night, you that make
mention, you watchmen, you people who teach and preach and bear
witness to the gospel of Christ, you that make mention of the
Lord, keep not silence. Give him no rest, till He establish,
give God no rest now by our petitions, our pleadings, even this very
place for that matter, till He make Jerusalem a praise in the
earth. The Lord is sworn by His right
hand and by the arm of His strength. Here's what He swore, surely
I will no more give your corn to be food, for your enemies,
and the sons of the strangers shall not drink your wine, for
the which you have labored." Because this corn and this wine
is simply types and pictures of the Lord Jesus. Christ is
made unto us the bread of life and the water of life. And if
wine is said, and it certainly is, to bring joy to those that
drink it, there's no joy like that that believers have in Christ. All right? 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. A good verse to compare with
these two verses would be Ecclesiastes 9 and 7. We'll not go there now.
Go through, verse 10, go through the gates. Prepare you the way
of the people. Cast up, cast up the highway. Gather out the stones. Lift up
a standard, that standard being Christ for the people. Not but
one thing to preach, not but one thing to teach, and that
is our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Now if you'll look carefully
at verses 11 and 12 and the opening statements in chapter 63. Behold, the Lord has proclaimed
unto the end of the world. Wherever you can find it, where
is the end of the world? It's just endless. Say you to the daughter of Zion,
We started out with Zion. Behold, your salvation comes! Behold, His reward is with Him
and His work before Him. Verse 12, And they shall call
them, holy people. Now, there was no such religion
called the holiness religion until somewhere about the 1930s,
and if I remember right, it was started in North Carolina. That
sounds appropriate to me. But to call yourself a holiness
has nothing to do with whether or not you're holy. just about
assures you that you aren't. But I won't pick on another denomination
for the sake of picking. But I know this, holiness is
given, placed in the believer at the moment of the new birth.
And it is Christ's righteousness that gives us this sanctification
and this holiness. And if you're a believer, you
can't help but be holy. You can't make yourself holy
and you can't unmake yourself holy. Remember that. It's worth remembering. This person referred to as Zion
and Zion's daughter in verse 11 They'll be called the holy
people. Secondly, the redeemed of the
Lord. That's how they became holy.
Christ redeemed us. And thirdly, you shall be called
sought out, a city not forsaken. Now to this verse, chapter 63
and verse 1. Who is this that comes from Edom? Who are the Edomites? They are the descendants of Esau who despised God's precious provision
in his son, the Lord Jesus, and sold his birthright for just
a bowl of pottage. And the Edomites are his descendants,
situated just across the Jordan River on the west side. Who is
this that comes from Edom? Now this whole statement, verse
1, chapter 63, every single part of it has to do with Christ. What is he doing in Edom? Not just that. There's something
about His clothing with dyed garments from Basra. Our Lord has taken upon Himself
in the covenant in eternity to stand in the room and place instead
of His people. He is engaged in their behalf
in His incarnation in this world. to defeat all our foes. Sin, Satan, whatever else there
must be, our Lord Jesus has engaged on their behalf to defeat all
their foes. Death and hell have been defeated. Who is this that comes from Edom
with dyed garments from Basra. This that is glorious in his
apparel. Glorious. Traveling. Traveling in the greatness of
his strength. What's he doing? His clothes are dyed with blood.
He's on the cross, and here's what He's doing. He's traveling in the greatness
of His strength. We must never, ever speak of
the precious substitutionary death of our Lord Jesus Christ
in any kind of way whatsoever to anybody. that would to any
degree lower, denigrate, just cast aspersions upon the work
of the Son of God on the cross of Calvary. To speak of His death
as not being quite enough is utter and absolute heresy. and the worst kind of ignorance
that a man can be possessed of. We must not use any uncertain,
unclear term when we talk about the Savior's death. Why? Because when He went to the tree,
He was traveling in the greatness of His strength. Now just how
much strength does the Lord Jesus possess? there is. He is as much God as
if He were not a man, and as much a man as if He were not
a God. So His power, like His Father
and His Spirit, is infinite. He cannot fail. He must prevail. He can't do anything else. Traveling in the greatness of
His strength. Now, the prophet is no longer
speaking. The Savior Himself wishes to
answer the question, who is this? Our Lord Jesus answers the last
part of verse 1, I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save,
mighty to save. Don't you ever dare think that
anyone is too difficult for the Lord Jesus to save. He saves
all that he intends to save, all that he died for on the tree,
and to teach any other doctrine is just utterly to possess a
Christless religion. And I'd urge you to go ahead
and read verses 2 and 3 and 4 at least, but we must move on. So we'll come back to our text
and work on that statement in just a bit. Back to Isaiah chapter 62 and
3. Let's read that statement in
the 63rd chapter in the first verse. All of this is the same
question. that brings us down to just one
phrase or sentence that is left, which is the answer to the question.
So we want to look carefully at this question this morning,
and it's simply this. Who is this that comes from Edom, the avowed, professed enemies
of God and His children, Who is this that comes with dyed
garments from Basra? Who is this that is glorious
in His clothing? Who is this that travels in the greatness
of His strength. He responds. The Lord Jesus is
quoted. Scriptures do this in a number
of places in the Old Testament. My goodness, you can't read hardly
a few Psalms without running into some of these statements.
Not the least of which is the one Curtis referred to this morning
in verse 12, but back in the earlier verses. I think there's
four stanzas in Psalm 2. The first stanza is God the Father,
and the second stanza is the Lord Jesus Himself speaking.
No, there are three stanzas, and the third stanza is the Spirit
of God, which gave us that wonderful advice in that twelfth verse.
But you know and I know it takes a whole lot more advice to bring a sinner to Christ. Kiss the son lest he be angry
and you perish from the way when his wrath is kindled just a little
bit. Who is this traveling in the
greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness Now, with statements that plain
in our Bibles, how could a normal man or woman, son and daughter
of Adam, live so many years in this world, claim to be a student and a reader
of this book, and never find out? that the
Savior of sinners is mighty to save. Do you know that? How long did
it take you to find that out? I know the answer until that
appointed time that God purposed in forever past to reveal Himself
to you. You can't know the God of this
book, whether Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, without that occurring. Mighty to save. Not because he
saved John Newton or not because he saved the Apostle Paul, but
how much power does it take to save a sinner like me? That's
the question. Ephesians 1 verse 19 says it
takes the same power that it took to raise Christ from the
dead and to send Him into eternal glory. That's what it takes to
save a sinner. I think that means it takes God,
don't you? Salvation is of the Lord. That
statement is repeated three times in our Bible. Alright, we better
get to this. We won't even break the introduction. We don't. I want to back up, if I may,
into 11 and 12 in the previous chapter because they have such
a connection to the statement that is before us in verse 1
of chapter 63. So, the message that the prophet
is given by the Lord to speak to the Lord's children And I believe I'm right when
I say that many of the persons who write commentaries on the
scriptures, or should I just say the ones that I read because
I don't bother to read them all, and the ones that I find helpful,
those are the ones I go back and read the next time. So, you
know, you go to a set of books a certain number of times and
you come up with, you didn't catch a thing, you know, the
hook's still empty. You just sort of leave that one
on the shelf and go to something else. The prophet is speaking to the
children of Israel who are about to return from Babylonian captivity,
where God has sent them for 70 years. And so he's speaking to
them, but by virtue of speaking to them, he is speaking to every
New Testament believer, every believer that trusts in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Say you to the daughter, the
middle part of verse 11, say you to the daughter of Zion,
behold, your salvation comes. Now if this statement is prophesied
by Isaiah, let's just use a round figure and say 700 years before
the coming of Christ. If Isaiah preached these words
seven centuries before God would take on human flesh, What does this mean? Your salvation
comes. It comes in a person. Salvation is not a plan. It's
a person. Please understand that. I know,
Lord, we should by now. We've heard it so many times.
And yet it is so against the grain of our nature. We're born
believing that there's something I can do to win the favor of
God. And I'll tell you, anything you
can come up with can be nothing short of an absolute Antichrist. Because God has found the way
by which ungodly sinners like you and me can find peace with
Himself. And that's only in His Son. There
is no other way. Why would the Lord Jesus say,
I am the way, the truth, and the life if there's more than
one way? Ah, but preacher, the Lord Jesus
didn't do it all. God left something for us to
do. Yeah, you do the sinning and He'll do the catching, and
that's it. Anything we touch is sin. I'm telling you, it's polluted.
It's unacceptable. Our best work is not acceptable. God can receive nothing less
than He Himself is. Therefore, all that He requires
of us, He must in grace and mercy in Christ give us or we won't
ever have it. And then we can give it back
to Him. We'll say, Lord, of Your own have we given You. We're
only giving You back what You've given us. Now, we live in a day
when people are drenched into utter drunkenness on man being
able to help himself. All right, in this verse, verses
11 and 12, we have a proclamation. First of all, we read it here
in verse 11, Behold, your salvation comes. Salvation comes from outside
ourselves. It does not come from ourselves.
It comes from God in Christ. Secondly, salvation comes through
a person. A person. You have to look this
up later. I don't have time to look at
it, but I'm going to quote it. Matthew, if I can, I'm going to quote
it. Matthew 1.21. Joseph finds out that the woman
that he's engaged to is pregnant. And he's searching for a way
to put her away privately without any embarrassment to her, at
least the very least that could be possible. And the angel came
to him and said, Joseph, don't you be alarmed about this
woman carrying this baby. Here's what you're to know. When
he's born, you take him to the temple, to the priest. You tell
him that they shall call his name Jesus, and in our King James
Bibles it's all capital J-E-S-U-S. Call his name Jesus because King
James uses the word for, which is often the same as saying because. Because he shall save his people
from their sin. from their sins. I mean, His
very name means Jehovah is salvation. God is salvation in our Lord
Jesus Christ. Your salvation comes. The second point here in verse
11 is, Behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before
Him. that blessed work that the Savior
has come to do. Now look at verse 12 quickly.
And they shall call them, for starters, God calls them
by these names. People who know God call these
people by these names. Here they are. First of all,
they are called the holy people. Because Christ is our holiness,
and to have Him is to have holiness. To be in Him is to be holy. I
didn't say you'd quit being a sinner. Oh no, in your sight you'll be
a worse one your last day in this world than you were the
day you were saved. This salvation gives and produces
holiness and nothing else can and nothing else will. If you will ever be holy, it
will be wrapped in the spotless righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It won't be our puny efforts,
resolutions and promises Thirdly, not only the holy people, but the redeemed of the Lord. The word redeemed in our Bibles
means to buy back. Because of our sins, we are fallen. We're dead spiritually in trespasses
and sins. We're the slaves of Satan, every
last single son and daughter of Adam. Oh, no, not me, preacher. I was raised to be good. Religious
works are as bad and in many cases worse than immorality. It gives a man a false sense
of himself. It makes him think that he has
some goodness in himself and whatever he lacks when he stands
before God on judgment day, the Lord Jesus can make up that part.
Thank you very much. That ain't how it works. That's
totally false. It's 100% wrong. It just simply
is not true. Number five, at the end of verse
12, you shall be called God's children, Christ's people, His
church, the members of His body shall be called by two names, sought out and not forsaken. And what that means is, at the
beginning and at the end, it's all His doing. The only reason we find Him is
because He finds us first, because our name is sought out. Bless
your name. If He's ever found you, He never
loses you. You might lose the joy and comfort
of knowing Him. You might lose the friendship
and fellowship with other believers. But I'm telling you, well, I'll
just read it to you right out of the book. Maybe you ought
to turn to this one. I'll let this be done. Curtis,
this is a record. One time, 2 Timothy chapter 2. I'll be there before you get
there. If you'll find 2 Timothy chapter 2, I want to read you
a statement now out of your Bibles I'm not just whistling Dixie
when I say that one of the terms that describes the Lord's people
is not only this statement having to do with the beginning sought
out that God seeks me and as a result of His seeking me, I
seek Him, but it has to do with not being forsaken. Why would
God forsake His children? Because things are not working
out as He anticipated they should? Oh my goodness, that's an awful
insult on God. He knew who and what we were
when He chose us in old eternity and gave us to Christ. The Lord
Jesus knew who and what we were when He paid for our sins on
Calvary's tree. God the Holy Spirit knows who
and what we are when He brings us by His grace to trust and
rest in the Lord Jesus. I know one thing. I don't know
a whole lot, but I do know a few things. And I know this. If God
begins something, He finishes it. Now that's simple, but that's
so. It's just that easy. Whatever
God does, Ecclesiastes 3.14, He does forever. Forever. Why? Because everything God does
has to be a reflection of Himself. And if he starts something and
can't finish it and has to abandon it, that's what we do. That ain't how God works. All
right, here's the verse, 2 Timothy chapter 2. Let's see, let me start at verse
11. 2 Timothy 2.11, it is a faithful
saying, for if we be dead with him, We shall also live with
Him. If we suffer, we shall also reign."
Wonderful statements indeed. If we deny Him, He will deny
us. Uh-oh. You're going to use this text
to illustrate what you just said about God never giving up on
His people? So I'm just going to read you
one more statement, that's all. Verse 13, we believe not, yet he abides
faithful. Why? Now listen carefully. God cannot deny God. God the Father cannot deny God
the Son. God the Son cannot deny God the
Holy Spirit. And you can reverse that and
go the other way, and it's still true. He cannot deny himself. Here's what it would mean if
God could deny us and forsake us. When this statement said not
forsaken, it ain't just talking about some believers. It's talking
about the whole bride and body of Christ. Here's what it would
mean if God could desert one of his children. Assuming that
the Lord Jesus paid their sin debt on the tree, it would mean
that the death of Christ is not enough. And that, my friend,
is nothing short of heresy, nothing short of heresy. Well, let's see, we've got an
hour to go, right? I think you all do something to the clock.
I don't know how you do it, but I ain't crazy about it. Okay,
I guess tonight sometime, chapter 63 and verse 1, let me
read it to you again just so you'll remind. I want you to
tie these two statements together now, the ones in The last part
of chapter 62 and the first part of chapter 63. Who is this? Who is this man? The Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's
the question of all questions. And this statement answers that
question. Who is this that comes from Edom
with dyed garments from Basra? Who is this that is glorious
in His apparel? Even His clothes declare His
deity." You remember when the disciples
were on the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John, and the
Lord Jesus was transformed right in front of them. entire clothing
just brighter than the human eye could tolerate, so bright,
so white, glorious in his apparel, traveling
in the greatness of his strength. If you want to see a definition
of Christ traveling in the greatness of His strength. Pick any one
of the four Gospels, or all four of them for that matter, and
you will have a beautiful display of Christ traveling in the greatness
of His strength. Here He is in human flesh, God
in human flesh, walking this earth. And wherever He went,
He's traveling in the greatness of His But there's one place
above all others where he did so in an unbelievably imminent
degree. I'm not even talking about when
he stood outside Lazarus' tomb in John 11. Lazarus had been
dead four days and had already begun to decay. His sister says,
by now he stinks. The Lord Jesus said, roll the
stone away. He said, Lazarus, come forth. Lazarus got up from the dead
and came forth. But my friend, the greatest display
of all is when he hung on Calvary's tree. In those hours of darkness, the
atonement was made. Redemption was accomplished. Every person God gave the Lord
Jesus in the covenant in eternity is now saved. Here we are over
2,000 years later just now living on the face of this earth and
just finding out that we have an interest in the Savior's blood. And can it be that I should gain
an interest in the Savior's blood? Died he for me who caused his
pain? for me who Him to death pursued? Amazing love! How can it be that
God would send Christ to die for a sinner like me?" All right, let's take the back
cover.