Let's begin reading and we'll
see how far we can go. We'll just begin in verse 1 and
make some comments on these passages. Isaiah chapter 52. Here's what
the Lord often calls upon His church to do. Zion is the church. New Jerusalem, the holy city.
But the Lord often has to send His prophets to the church. And I hope this doesn't offend
you. It does offend me. I own this
in myself. And I'm not here to offend you
in this either. But doesn't he often have to
send these words to his people? Awake, awake, O Zion. He has to say that to us, doesn't
he? When he told us the Lord Jesus told us about those virgins
that slept, he told us about the foolish virgin. But he told
us about the wise. And he said, they all slumber
and sleep. And in Romans chapter 13, I've
got this wrote down. Let me tell you what the Apostle
Paul, and he did this in different places. Here's what he said in
Romans 13 in verse 11. That knowing the time, that now
it is high time, it's past time, it's high time to awake out of
sleep For now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day
is at hand. Let us, therefore, cast off the
works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the
day, not in rioting or drunkenness, not in chamberland, that is,
Fornication, not in wantonness, in lust, not in strife or envy. Awake! Awake! And often we go
to sleep, we slumber, and somebody has to come, hopefully the Spirit
comes and says, Awake! Awake! Paul mentions this again
in 1 Corinthians 15. Awake to righteousness and sin
not. In Ephesians 5, awake thou that
sleepeth, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life. The night is for spent. We live
in a world of darkness, don't we? And Paul said they that sleep,
they sleep in the night. You don't want the characteristics
of a sleeping man. And this is why it's so dangerous.
Usually sleep is a good thing. You go to bed and you're tired,
you sleep. But you know, spiritual sleep is always a dangerous thing. Because one of the characteristics
of a sleeping man, he's unaware of what's going on around him.
If he's in a deep sleep, a thief can break into your house and
steal your valuables. A criminal can break into your
house and molest your family. Your house can be on fire, burning
around you. So it's not good to sleep. So
the Lord sends this message here, awake, awake, awake. Sometimes the church is so sound
asleep, He has to double it, like He did here in verse 1,
awake, awake. Isn't this a dark world, brothers
and sisters, we live in? And the older you get, don't
you see more and more of it? There's no wonder that the Scripture
calls the children of this world the children of night. It's because
they're sleeping. In the face of the coming judgment,
they're sleeping. So what does Paul tell us? He
tells us to prove that we're children of the day. Therefore,
awake. Awake. What does the church do
when she awakes? Look at what he said in verse
1 of chapter 52. Awake. Awake, put on thy strength,
O Zion. Put on thy beautiful garments,
O Jerusalem, thy holy city. He awakens us and tells us to
awake that we may put on our strength and our beautiful garments. Now, what in the world is this
great prophet you're talking about? What is your strength? Awake and put on your strength.
Jesus Christ. is your strength. Awake and put
you on Jesus Christ. In Romans 13, when the Apostle
made that statement, awake, out of your sleep, then he turns
right around and when he says awake, he says, put you on the
Lord Jesus Christ. He is our strength. In Philippians chapter 4, verse
13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And David said, the Lord is my
strength and He's also become my salvation. How do we believe
the promises of God? Is it not through the strength
that He gives us? Some of us are here this afternoon and we
found great joy in serving the Lord. Some of you have served
Him ten years, some of you twenty years, forty years, fifty years. What has kept you hoping? What's
kept you repenting? What's kept you believing? Most
things we have in our life get old, and we want to trade them
in. You've never wanted to trade the Lord in at it. You've enjoyed
Him for fifty years. You've followed Him. You've worshipped
Him. You've gave of your substance,
your time, your energy. How have you found strength to
do that? He is your strength. I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me. We can walk humbly with Him.
We can walk tenderly before one another. We can forgive one another. Did you ever find somebody to
do something to you and you just couldn't forgive them? You could
say it in your heart, but you couldn't do it. You were still
harboring ill will against them until the Lord give you strength
and then you forgive them. We're amazed at ourselves sometimes.
I'm amazed at myself. knowing what I am, that I have
been enabled to do what I've done these 38 or 39 years. And it all comes back to this.
I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me. Awake,
O Zion. Awake, church. Awake, believers. And put on your strength. And who is your strength? It's
Christ. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. Very familiar Scripture in II
Corinthians. Corinthians chapter 12, you remember this. Paul had
been afflicted with this messenger of Satan to buffet him. And it
just got him down. He said, Lord, I feel like I
can't put one more foot in front of another. Three times he said,
Lord, deliver me. Take this messenger of Satan
from me. And here's what the Lord told
him. My grace is sufficient for you. My strength, that's it ain't
it? My strength is made perfect in
your weakness. So what did Paul say? Most gladly,
therefore, will I rejoice in my infirmities that the power
of Christ may rest upon me. We don't do anything in our own
strength. But I tell you, we can do all things through Him
who strengthens us. And he said it's ours, didn't
he? Put on thy strength. He gives it to us. And he says
it's now, it's yours. Christ works in us to enable
us to do it. But all glory belongs to Him.
We're strong in Him. I love what Job said in Job chapter
23. You remember the awful trial
and struggle Job was going through. And Job said, I've searched for
Him and I can't find Him. If I knew where I could find
Him, I'd go and I'd fall down before Him and I'd plead my cause
before Him. And he said, what would happen?
Would he plead against me with his great power? Job said he
wouldn't do that. Here's what he would do. He would
put strength in me. That's what he would do. Remember
that message Don preached the other night about Jacob wrestling
with the Lord? The Lord wrestling with Jacob?
Old Bunyan used to say the Lord wrestled against Jacob with his
left hand, but he wrestled in Jacob with his right hand. And
he said the Lord's right hand is stronger than his left hand.
And anything you and I do, we do it, we are able to do it,
because these are strength. Awake, O Zion, put on thy strength. And I love this next thing he
says. You are not only put on thy strength, but he says, awake
and put on thy beautiful garments. What is this? What is this? Beautiful garments. Well, let
me begin by saying this. All the garments you and I have
are filthy. Everything that you and I manufacture
looks awful. And you wouldn't wear it if you
could help it. Everything we have is filthy.
If we have anything that's beautiful, it's a work that was woven by
somebody else and given to us. But here's the amazing thing,
it's called ours. Put on thy beautiful garments."
Let me say three or four things about this, and let me say it
the only way I know how to say it. Without the blood of Christ
upon your conscience, what kind of a conscience do you have?
Is it not filthy? Does the Scripture not teach
us that our conscience is defiled by sin? It's really ugly, is
it not? But when the blood of Christ
is put upon your conscience, What kind of a conscience is
it then? Well, it's clean. It's white. Whiter than the snow. Listen to Revelation chapter
7. They have washed their robes. Is that not the conscience? Whatever
else that includes, is that not the conscience of a man? They
have washed their consciences and made them white in the blood
of the Lamb. Put on the blood of Christ. Put
it on your conscience. That's a beautiful garment. And
this, consider this, when you see your own disobedience, when
you see sin mixed with every last thing that you do, and when
you've tried your best, if anybody ever did, to be perfectly obedient,
and you realize you don't have any perfect obedience. What do you put on then? There's
a beautiful garment you and I can put on then. And what is it?
It's the perfect obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. Put you
on the Lord Jesus Christ. That means put on His perfect
obedience. By one man's obedience shall
many be made righteous. Isn't that a beautiful garment?
I've never seen a garment like that before. Have you? Have you
ever seen anybody that come forth from his mother's womb that was
holy? that their first breath was God honoring? When he was
a little 12-year-old child, he said, I must be about my father's
business. And everything he thought, everything
he said, everything he did, the Father in Heaven looked upon
him and He said, My son, you honored me. You glorified me. I just love you to death. You're
like no man living today. Oh, perfect obedience. And what
does our text say? Awake, awake, O believer, and
put on these beautiful garments, the obedience of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Listen to how the Scripture says
it. Let us be glad and rejoice and
give honor to Him. For the marriage of the Lamb
is come, and His wife has made herself ready. How does she make
herself ready? How are you made ready to stand
before the holy God and before His throne? This is the way she
did it. To her was granted that she should
be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen
is the righteousness of saints. Linen, clean and white, pure,
no spot in it. Where do you get such a garment?
It's not anything that you've woven, is it? But He said, put
on your beautiful garments. How can it be said to be ours?
Because we got it on. I'm dressed in it. And I intend
to stand before the throne of God in it. And I intend to deny
everything about my own garments and to say, right, here's mine.
Look, look at me. It's mine. I didn't work it out. I didn't establish it. I didn't
perform it. But I tell you, Him that did
do it is mine. And if He's yours, everything
He has and everything He's done is yours. If He has a perfect
obedience, it's yours if He's yours. I am my Beloved's and
my Beloved is mine. And if He gives it to you and
He says, now go ahead and call it yours, you'll call it yours,
won't you? The Lord our righteousness. You know who that was talking
to? That was talking to the church. Awake, O church, and put on these
beautiful garments. And what is that? That's the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's His blood. That's His
perfect obedience. And think thirdly about this.
Put on the death of the Lord Jesus Christ as the garments
of protection from the wrath and curse of God. You know, sometimes
when we put on clothes, garments, we don't just do it for beauty.
Sometimes we do it for protection, to protect ourselves from the
elements. And this is what the death of
Jesus Christ does. It protects us from the wrath
of God. You say, Bruce, how do you mean that? Well, think about
this. The Apostle Paul tells us in Galatians 3.13 that Christ
Jesus died under the curse of the law. He was made a curse
for us. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone who hangeth on a tree." That's Galatians chapter 3 and
verse 13. What can harm Jesus Christ again? Can He be cursed again? Why not? How so? He's already
died under the curse. Who was that glory? They dug
up his bones. Was that Tyndale? They dug up
one of the old... They burn him? With Cliff. With Cliff. Bless his heart.
They burned him at the stake. And after they buried him, they
weren't satisfied. And they said, we won't add him
again. So they dug up his bones and burned his bones. You think
that second time hurt him? No. You can only kill a man one
time. Jesus Christ was cursed one time
in his death. And you know something? He'll
never be cursed again. He'll never die again. Death
is not subject to him anymore. He died under the wrath of God
one time, and he can never die again. None of these evil things
can ever harm him again. Listen to this. Christ died unto
sin once, and he being raised from the dead, he dieth no more. Sin hath no more dominion over
him. No more dominion. The curse?
No more dominion. The wrath of God? No more dominion. Death, no more dominion. I am
He that was dead, and I've alive forevermore. And what does the
prophet tell us? Arise and put on this beautiful
garment. Look at Christ's death and say,
this death is now my death. It's mine. Law, you can't curse
me. I'm dead with Christ. Wrath of
God, you have nothing to do with me. I'm dead with the Lord Jesus
Christ. Listen to how Paul says it in
Romans chapter 6. For in that he died, he died
unto sin once. Once. But in that he liveth,
he liveth unto God. Now listen to what he says in
the very next verse. Reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed
unto sin, but alive unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Look at his death and say, that's mine. I'm dead. I'm dead. What a garment of protection
as well as beauty. And do this. Put on the life
of Christ as your life. Is Christ alive never to die
again? Then say, that's my life. His life is my life. Is Christ
alive to God? Does He live in the presence
and favor of His Father? Then say this, that's my life.
Christ's life is my life. Put this on by faith. This is
the way the Apostle Paul said it. The life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by faith of the Son of God. who loved
me and gave himself for me. The only way to put this life
on is by faith, is by faith. This is what he says. I am crucified
with Christ. I am alive because he is my life. I am in heaven because my life
is in heaven. Christ is our life. You are dead
and your life is hid with Christ in God. when Christ who is our
life. You know how the Master could
say, He that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall
he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never
die. You know how He could say that? Because your life is not
yours. Your life is Christ. And He's
died and He's risen again and you'll never die. You'll never
die. Ain't that wonderful news? Ain't
that a beautiful garment to put on? Arise, arise, O Zion, awake,
awake, and put on your beautiful garments. Look what he says here
in the latter part of verse 2 in our text. Or in the first part of verse
2, look here. Shake thyself from the dust. First of all, he says
this, awake, awake. Put on your beautiful garments.
Then he tells you, you're going to have to do something else.
Shake thyself from the dust, arise and sit down, O Jerusalem. Loose thyself from the bands
of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. Shake thyself from the
dust, arise. In other words, if you're going
to put on your strength, if you're going to put on your beautiful
garments, you're going to have to do You've got to wait. You've got
to wait. You're not going to put on Christ.
You're not going to put on these beautiful garments while you're
sleeping. You're just not going to do that. If you're going to
put on these beautiful garments, you're going to put on your strength.
You're going to have to rise and shake yourself from the dust. What in the world is that? The
dust of human reasoning. The dust of natural thinking.
The dust of self-salvation. That's what that is. What does
dust mean? Everything we are by nature.
Everything we can do by nature. From dust you are. And into dust
you shall return. I tell you, flesh has nothing
to do with this, does it? The flesh profiteth nothing.
Nothing. It can't do anything. We're barned
again. Not of corruptible seed, that's
dust, but of the incorruptible. As many as received Him, to them
gave He power to become the sons of God. Even to them that believe
on His name, listen, which were born, not of blood, not of natural
regeneration, not of the will of man, not of the will of the
flesh. What's that? That's dust, isn't
it? But those who are born of God. Shake yourself. Shake yourself. from this old natural ability,
self-salvation, carnal reasoning, the wisdom of the flesh, shake
this stuff loose. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ
and walk in Him and live in Him. And doing so is not of the power
of the flesh. It is not human intellect. It
is not by carnal reasoning, but it is by a diligent faith. in Christ and in the Word of
Christ and it can only be done through the power of the Holy
Spirit. When I say put on the Lord Jesus
Christ as we've been talking about it, you and I cannot do
it. It's impossible to do it. The
lost man don't even know what we're talking about and the believer
can't even do it, except he does it in the power of the Holy Spirit.
I can tell you that. I can tell myself to put on Christ
as we've been talking about it. But you know something? If the
Holy Spirit don't strengthen us, it goes right back to verse
1. Awaken, put on thy strength,
O Zion. The Lord told His apostles that
had been with Him for three years. He said, What I'm telling you
now, you don't even know. You can't even understand. You
can't even believe what I'm telling you right now. But He said, When
the Holy Spirit is come, He will guide you unto these truths. He will take those things that's
mine. What's His? Strength. These beautiful
garments. He's going to take the things
that's mine, and He's going to show it unto you. And you know
something? You're going to believe it too.
You're going to understand it, and you're going to believe it.
You're going to put on your strength, and you're going to say, Christ
is my strength. You're going to put me on in your heart. You're
going to put me on in your conscience. You're going to put me on in
your memory. You're going to put me on. You're going to know
how to do it, and you will do it. But it can't be accomplished
until we shake ourselves, can it? We're always shaking ourselves,
aren't we? Paul Martin Luther, he lamented
the time that he got mixed up in Catholicism because he had
so much of that old dust on him, he never could shake it. He spent
all his life trying to shake some of that nonsense. And he
said, to this day, this junk still hangs on to me. And he
says, it hinders me. What does it hinder you from
doing? Resting in Christ. It hinders me from putting on
Christ. But you've found the same thing, haven't you? I've
got things I was taught when I was a kid about religion, and
I can't shake it to this day. And I hate it, and I hate myself
for it. Dust. Arise and shake yourself from
the dust. And he makes this statement,
only the Bible makes statements like this. Arise and sit down. Ain't that something? No other
book talks like this. Arise. Well, why get up if you
want me to sit back down? I remember Tim James, to make
a point one time, he got up to preach and he said, he said,
would everybody stand? And everybody stood up. A whole,
in a conference, a whole house full of people had chairs. Everybody
stood up. He said, you can sit back down
now. He said, I just want to know what that felt like to have
everybody stand up when I said stand up. But here the Lord does
the same thing. Arise. Now you can sit down.
There are some things we need to arise and shake off. And there's a place to sit down.
There's some places you don't want to be sitting. There's a
good place to sit down and rest. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, I'll give you rest. That's a good place
to find rest there. And then he said, learn of me,
and you shall find rest for your soul. That's a good place to
sit down. That's a good place to rest.
Look what he says here in the latter part of verse 2. Loose
thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. So we've got this. We've got
awake, awake, wake up. And then we've got rise and shake
yourself carnal, fleshly, religion, self-trust, self-salvation. Whatever has got to do with the
flesh in this world and its religion, might as well go ahead and shake
it off. It ain't going up ahead of Kirchey. And then he says this, Loose
thyself from the bands of thy neck. Now, this is what I thought
about when I read this. I want you to look over here
in Acts chapter 15. This is what I thought about when I read this
passage this past week. It's found over here in Acts
chapter 15. Loose yourself from the bands of thy neck. You've
got restraints that's on your neck. And all this is doing is
impeding your rest, impeding you of putting on these beautiful
garments and your strength. Here's what I thought about when
I thought about this yoke around their neck. Look in Acts chapter
15. Look here in verse 1. And certain
men, which came down from Judea, down from Jerusalem, taught the
brethren and said, Except you be circumcised after the manner
of Moses, you cannot be saved." Oh, what's the matter with that?
Ain't that good? That's moral teaching? That we
believe in the moral teaching? My goodness! That's great, ain't
it? Be circumcised and keep the law
of Moses. Who would preach contrary to
that? But they had a debate about this. And all the believers from
Jerusalem were gathered together, and the apostles there at Jerusalem,
the first grace conference we ever told about in the Scriptures.
And here's what they said. Peter said it over in verse 10.
Look in verse 10. He's talking to these fellows.
Well, let's look in verse 5. That's where we want to go. Look
in verse 5. There rose up certain to the
set of the Pharisees which believed, saying that it was needful, that
word is necessary, to circumcise them and command them to keep
the law of Moses. And the apostles and elders came
together for consider of this matter. And that's what they
did. And down in verse 10, Peter rose up and he says this to these
Pharisees, Now therefore, why tempt you God to put a yoke upon
the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were
able to bear. But we believe through the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved." They said, except
you be circumcised, keep the law of Moses, you can't be saved.
And what did Peter say that was? A yoke around your neck. That's
a band that has bound you, restrained you from resting in Christ. from putting on your beautiful
garments, from putting on your strength. Would you have thought
the law of Moses? Would you have thought that somebody's
trying to obey the law? It would be a band around their
neck to keep them from trusting Christ. But it does. What is the law? Self-salvation. Works for salvation. Legal convictions. I spent my teenage years in legal
convictions. Well, I got to do better. Oh,
I'd lie, and man, I'd be so convicted about it. Had nothing to do with
Christ. I went back and confessed things
and made restitution. But all the time, that's where
my mind was. I've got to do more. I've got
to do this, and I've got to do that. And all that did was keep
me from looking to Christ to be saved. What is keeping you
from Christ? Is anybody here that's not come
to Christ? You're trying to do better. You're trying to get
your act together. What's keeping you from Christ? Oh, man's commandments and traditions. That's bands, isn't it? That's
bands. The Lord Jesus said they bind
heavy burdens, grievous to be borne, and they put them on your
shoulders. And it disgusts you. When I was
growing up a kid, they used to be so cruel to animals. We had
mules and horses they used to log woods with back in Tennessee
and they'd log those big logs and some of them wouldn't even
use pads underneath those shoulders on the mules and horses. And
they'd come in and take those collars off and all the hair
would be gone and the raw hide. And those poor horses would just
be a trembling. Looked like they were almost
in shock. And you wonder, why would you treat your animal that
way? Gaul in their neck. Gaul in their shoulder. That's
what Peter said. You fellows are wanting to gaul
our necks. You want to put all these bands
around us to bind us. To keep us from resting in Christ. To keep us from Jesus Christ
and His grace. Brothers and sisters, anything
that keeps you from putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, get yourself
loose from it. Tear the bands loose. There is
freedom in Christ. We had a fellow in his family
come here one time. He said he had no place to go
hear the gospel. He stayed here for a few months, him and his
wife and three kids. He came up to me one time and
said, Aren't you Baptist? And I said, Well, not in name. Probably are in doctrine, but
it depends on what kind of Baptist you're talking about. Free will,
separate, southern, united, missionary. And you know what he said? Basically,
if you don't change the name to Baptist, we're leaving. And I said, you've been here
a long time now. You heard me preach the gospel.
Do I preach the gospel of the grace of Christ? Yeah. I said,
you believe there's some people here saved? He said, well, they
may be saved. I said, are we going to heaven? He said, yeah,
but you'll be on the outer band. You won't be in the inner circle.
And you know what he said? We need to put up the name of
the Baptist on our building. And we need to search and find
out if we're a branch of the Baptist. If we weren't started
from the Baptist, we're not a true church. And then, when you go there for
the next step, and Brother Larry will bear witness to this, the
next step is you've got to trace your lineage all the way back
to John the Baptist. Boy, that would be a burden,
wouldn't it? Ain't that a yoke? Can you imagine the time it takes
your poor pastor to go through all of this? I was the one who
put that sign up, Sovereign Grace Church. Now I've got to take
part of it down and put Sovereign Grace Baptist Church? Then I've
got to try to find out where we sprang off of? And then I've got to try my best
to figure out, if we came from John the Baptist, what a burden
to be borne on my soul. You know what I do when these
fellows try to bind me? I flee to my Savior. He's all
I need, brothers and sisters. I flee to His grace. Lord Jesus
saved me to be of grace. The only thing I've sprung for
is my first father, a sinner. And I'm a sinner. You know where
we spring off of spiritually? We're sons of Christ. We're children
of promise. That's our hope. We go back farther
than the Baptists, don't we? We go back before the foundation.
We can trace it back that far. And I'm satisfied with Christ
and His grace, aren't you? Shake yourself loose. Tear these
bands loose. I'm like the dear man said, I
cannot believe. Once you've found this liberty
in Jesus Christ, Liberty from the law of Moses,
liberty from man's commandments, liberty from ceremonies. I cannot
believe that you'd go out and live a life that would be dishonoring
to the Son of God. I don't believe you will. Oh, the grace of the Lord Jesus,
it's enough. Stand fast in the liberty for
which Christ has made you free. Let's quit here, okay? Let's
quit. Oh, Father, Father, our wise
Father, our merciful Father, oh, we bless you for the beautiful
garments. Bless you for grace and strength
and faith to put them on and call them ours. Oh, we boldly,
we confidently call them ours, the strength that we've endeared
this day the strength we have taken hold of, the strength outside
of ourselves that has become ours. You have given us grace
to do it. And we boldly declare the Lord
is our strength. And the gates of hell shall not
prevail against poor weak us to overcome us. Oh, Father, Your
ways, great God in heaven, Your ways are so wise. We are astounded
just to think of it. We pray for this, dear people.
May you bless them the remainder of this Lord's Day. Keep them
as they go home. Keep them at home. Watch over
them next week. Lord, I pray that you will open
doors for them to speak of your glory. When they are confronted,
when they are asked to give a reason of the hope that is in them,
clear their thoughts. Give them utterance to speak
clearly and boldly. Those today that may be here
and they are in doubt, O Lord, You are able to remove every
doubt. Where guilt is upon the conscience, Your blood is more
than able to purge it away. Watch over this congregation.
Save Your people in this place. We ask nothing more than Your
blessed will be done. In Christ Jesus, our Lord's name,
amen.