Isaiah 61 is our text this evening. Let's read verse 1. Isaiah 61
verse 1. Now this is a prophecy concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ as we just read in Luke chapter 4. He read
this scripture and said, this day this is fulfilled in your
ears. Now we've got to remember this
is written 700 years before the Lord Jesus Christ came in the
flesh. And the book of Isaiah was, the
spirit of the Lord God is upon me. That is the God man mediator,
the Lord Jesus. Because the Lord Jehovah hath
anointed me to preach. The Lord Jesus Christ came preaching
the gospel of the kingdom of God. To preach good tidings,
that's good news. The good news of the gospel is
that our God is a just God and Savior. He came to save His people
and He got the job done. He got the job done to preach
good tiding. It wouldn't be good news if He
came to try to save somebody. It wouldn't be good news if He
tried to do something and failed. That wouldn't be good news. But
the good news is our God can't fail. I love what it says in
Isaiah 42 verse 4. He shall not fail. He cannot
fail because of who He is. So the Lord is the preacher of
good tidings. He's anointed by the Spirit of
God. Preach good tidings unto sinners, the meek, the poor,
the lowly, the downtrodden, the cast out. He has sent me, that
is the Lord God, Jehovah, sent me. The Lord Jesus Christ is
the sent Savior. the anointed Savior, the appointed
Savior, He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to heal them.
He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, to those who
were held captive by sin and Satan, and the opening of the
prison to them that are bound to the Lord Jesus Christ came
to proclaim liberty, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all them that
mourn. Now there's a whole lot right
there, and we'll mainly look at verse 1 and 2 and touch on
verse 3. From reading the account in Luke
chapter 4, we see the Lord Jesus Christ is indeed the Messiah. and that's what the Christ of
God means. He's the anointed of God sent
to accomplish all our salvation. He came being sent of God with
the work that God gave him to do, and he said of that work,
remember, I finished the work you gave me to do. We trust the
Lord Jesus Christ who finished the work of redemption for us.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the complete and perfect fulfillment
of all Old Testament types and pictures and promises and prophecy. Remember in the book of Acts,
we study to Him, give all the prophets witness, all the prophets,
Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, those prophets all bear witness to
the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus
Christ was no unsent Savior. He says there in the text, He
has sent me. He has sent me. He's no unsent
Savior. He's no amateur Savior. He's
no rookie Savior. He's the Redeemer, Son of God.
He's the very Redeemer that we need. He's the very Savior that
we need. We need someone who can save
us from our sins. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ accomplished for us. He was sent of God to accomplish
for His covenant people a particular people, those people given to
Him in that covenant of grace. He came to complete their eternal
salvation as a surety. He's a guarantee. What guarantees
our salvation? Certainly not anything we do,
anything we perform. What guarantees our salvation?
Christ is our surety. He's the guarantee of our salvation.
Don't you like things that are guaranteed? He's the guaranteed
Savior. He cannot fail. This covenant
of grace is ordered in all things and is sure. He is the blood
of the everlasting covenant. His atonement. He is the blood
of everlasting covenant. He obtained for us eternal redemption
with His own blood. When the Lord Jesus Christ began
His public ministry, one of the first messages He preached was
in His hometown of Nazareth, as we read there in Luke chapter
4. He came to His hometown, and as His custom was, because honoring
the law of God on a Sabbath day, He went to the synagogue. And
he was doing that to honor the law of God, but as his manner
was and as his custom was honoring the law of God, he went to the
Sabbath. He went to the synagogue on a
Sabbath day to worship the true and living God. And the Lord
opened the door for him to have the roll of scriptures given
to his hand, and he unrolled that scroll of scripture, and
he found where he had written Isaiah 61, and he read it and
said, now this scripture's been fulfilled. You know, that had
to be a shock to those people. He was in his hometown. They watched this young man grow
up in a carpenter shop. with Joseph. Remember what they said, is not
this Joseph's son? They knew who he was. This was
his hometown. They watched him grow up. Now
here he comes in the full bloom of his public ministry, accomplishing
salvation for his people. After he ministered to the multitudes
in Galilee, he came preaching the gospel and healing many It
says in Matthew chapter 4 that his fame went throughout all
Syria, not only in Judea, but all Syria. He became a well-known
prophet of God, demonstrated by all the healings that he has
performed. There was no doubt this is the
Messiah. You remember the Pharisee said
to him one time, if you're the Messiah, tell us plainly. Remember
John chapter 10? I told you, you don't believe
me. Oh, if you were my sheep, you
would, but you believe not because you're not of my sheep. As I
said to you, my sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow,
follow me. The Lord Jesus Christ read from
Isaiah 61. He sat down and said this day,
Is this scripture fulfilled in your ears? And at first it says
there, don't turn, but let me just read it to you again. At
first they said, all bear him witness and wondered at the gracious
words which proceeded out of his mouth. But then when the
Lord Jesus Christ began to make application of that scripture
to God saving sovereignly whom he will, in the widow woman,
who was a Gentile, in Naaman, who was a Syrian captain, a Gentile,
a leper, and he healed him and provided for the widow, they
got mad. They didn't think that they deserved
mercy or should have received mercy. And then it says there
in the text, all day in the synagogue, Let
me read it to you, Luke 4, 28. Don't turn, let me just read
it to you. All day in the synagogue, when
they heard these things of God having mercy on whom He will
have mercy, they were all filled with wrath. Now you think they
would say, well, thank God for His mercy. Thank God He's going
to save some sinners. But because they were Gentiles,
these old Jewish people said, no, God's not going to save those
Gentiles. We are the ones that deserve mercy, not them. And
they got so, so angry that they tried to throw him off the hill and kill him. Don't tell me men
are not depraved. We're not one whit different.
It's only the grace of God that has made us to differ. We have
the same exact human nature that they had left to ourselves, left
to our religious bondage and religious customs. We do the
same thing. What did they cry out when Pilate
said, behold your king? They said, kill him. We don't
want him. Crucify him. We don't want him. We have no king but Caesar. That's
all human nature's estimation of the Lord Jesus Christ. When
he declared plainly that salvation is of the Lord, that God will
have mercy on whom he will, he'll save sinners by his choice. Boy,
they got mad. They got fighting mad. They got
killing mad, didn't they? That leads me to make this conclusion.
Human nature's not changed. It's still fallen and sinful.
Let us not be surprised when the self-righteous religious
people hate the gospel that we preach. We should expect it because
the carnal mind is enmity, the natural man will not receive
the things of the Spirit of God. Our Lord said to his apostles
at that day, his disciples, If the world hates you, you know
it hated me before it hated you. Don't get upset or don't be surprised
when people hate you for the gospel of God's sovereign saving
grace. It's one thing. These people
are all religious. They're all going through the
religious motions. But when he stood up and declared
the sovereignty of God in salvation, they got fighting mad. They got
fighting mad. Now, let's take a look at verse
1 and 2, and if time permits, we'll look at verse 3. The Spirit
of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to
preach good news, the good news of the Gospel. The Spirit of
the Lord God was upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Even the Savior's
mission and ministry was dependent upon the Spirit of God. Yes,
He was God Almighty manifest in the flesh, but yes, He was
a real man dependent upon God the Holy Spirit. to enable him
and empower him to accomplish God's purpose. You remember John
the Baptist said of him that the Father loved the Son, had
given all things into His hand, and then he said the Spirit of
God was upon the Lord Jesus Christ without any measure. He had all
the power of God the Holy Spirit to enable him to conduct his
ministry in such a powerful and profound way. Now, we all as
believers have the Holy Spirit, indwelt with the Holy Spirit,
but in measure. He had the Holy Spirit upon his
ministry as the God-man mediator, unlimited, unlimited power. unlimited. The Father ordained
and anointed the God-man, Jesus Christ, to be our charity, substitute,
and sin offering, and Savior. God, the Lord God, gave Him the
Holy Spirit without measure. He came from the Father on behalf
of His elect to accomplish the Father's will, to speak His Word,
to perform His work, to honor His law, in which He did. It
says in Isaiah 42, that he will magnify the law and make it honorable,
and to satisfy God's justice for us. Thank God the Spirit
of God was upon him to accomplish our salvation. By all which he
performed, he performed for us perfectly without fail. Isaiah,
or rather Psalm 57 says he performed all things for us. He performed
all things in salvation. He honored the law of God for
us, His obedience unto the Father in every jot and tittle of God's
law. He honored and satisfied not
only the precepts of the law, but the penalty of the law under
the judgment of God. So let's look at verse 1 again,
the next part of that. Because the Lord has anointed
me to preach good news unto the meek. Who is the gospel good news to? Centered in need. The gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ is not good news to a man that's full
of self-righteousness. He'll be like Saul of Tarsus.
Remember what Saul of Tarsus tried to do about the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ before he met the Savior? He tried to
stamp out the name of Jesus Christ. He went everywhere and called
and arrested, called upon and arrested everyone who was calling
upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, put them in jail. He
hated the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ wasn't good news to him, not at first, after he met the
Savior. after he was made a new creature
in Christ. Remember, he said, this is a faithful saying, worthy
of all acceptation, that the Lord Jesus Christ came to save
sinners. He said, I'm the chief one. I'm
the chief of sinners. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ
didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. If
I could find a sinner, bona fide, genuine sinner, who knows himself
to be guilty before God, The gospel is good news. The Lord
Jesus Christ came to save sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ died for
the ungodly. He lived the prince of preachers. He died as a theme of all preaching. He arose as a Lord of all, and
he preached good tidings of grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness.
To poor, wretched, miserable sinners. Those who were poor
in spirit. The meek here it says. Over in
Luke it says those who are poor in spirit. Poor in spirit. Our Lord said this in Matthew
5, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of
God. These are those who are sensible of their sin, convicted
by God the Holy Spirit, convinced that they are sinners. We really
don't believe in total depravity. unless we believe that we are
totally depraved. I'm a totally depraved sinner.
These are those who are convicted of their sin and humbled because
of them. These poor sinners disown any
righteousness of their own before God and stand naked and condemned
before God. These poor sinners have nothing,
know nothing, can do nothing acceptable unto God. They're
in a desperate need of all things, and ascribe all that they have
to the sovereign grace of God." Old Saul of Tarsus. was made a trophy of God's grace,
an object of his love, and later on he said this, I am what I
am by the grace of God. What a transformation in that
man, Saul of Tarsus, the self-righteous religious man, the one who was
broken in the dust. and knowing that everything that
God gave him was by his grace and his grace alone. Now, here's
the second thing he said, not only to preach good tidings to
the poor, to preach good news, the good news of the gospel,
there's grace for the guilty, there's mercy for the miserable,
there's salvation for the lost. He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted. To bind up the brokenhearted. Over here in Luke 4, it says,
He sent me to heal. To heal the brokenhearted. To
heal the brokenhearted. That's exactly what the Lord
does when He saves a sinner. He heals us. He heals our brokenness. To heal, to bind up the brokenhearted. When something is broken, it
doesn't work. It's of no value. Only the Lord
can fix that which is broken. And He does such a good job fixing
it. Was that old rock and roll song,
How Can You Mend a Broken Heart? I tell you who can. He can. He came to heal the broken hearted. Broken because of sin. We need
the Lord to operate on our heart with the Word of His truth and
cut it open and give us a new heart, a new nature, a new spirit. God who begins to work in you,
He will Finish it. He neither am I of a broken heart,
and save us such as be of a contrite spirit. You know, it's a good
thing to be broken hearted over sin and guilt before God. Knowing like David said, against
thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight.
If you sent me to hell, that's exactly what I deserve. That's
what I deserve. The wages of sin is death. But
God have mercy upon me, thee sinner. So the Lord Jesus Christ
is the anointed Savior by the Spirit of God. He came preaching
good news. He came to bind the brokenhearted,
not to try to or attempt to, not to make it a possibility
if we meet certain conditions. No, He came to seek and to save
the lost. And He saved every one of them,
every one of His people, all of His children. And then He
says here, to proclaim liberty. to proclaim liberty to those
who are in bondage. Now, who needs liberty? Those
who are in bondage to sin. Those who are in bondage to guilt.
To proclaim liberty, which is deliverance. Deliverance to those
who are captive. The law of God's got a claim
on us. The law of God says guilty. The guilty must die. And the
Lord Jesus Christ came to set us free. He came to deliver us,
to redeem us, We were taken captive by our sin and crushed by our
sin. We were, by His grace, fully
and totally redeemed and delivered by His precious blood. What set
us free? The Lord Jesus Christ put away
our sin by the sacrifice of Himself. He redeemed us. And that word
redeemed has a sense of deliverance. In whom we have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of sin according to the riches of
His grace. He set us free by His blood atonement. You see,
at Calvary, He took all of our guilt The guilt of God's people,
the guilt of God's elect, the sin of God's people laid upon
Him, and God punished our substitute in our room and in our stead,
and because He paid the full price, He set us free. Boy, that's
good news, is it not? Our debt is all paid. God's law
has a claim upon us. He said, guilty, guilty, guilty.
Now the law of God says, justified, justified in Christ Jesus. were
freely justified by His grace through the redemption that is
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have all that because
the Lord Jesus Christ paid our sin debt. He became captive to
the law and to sin. And what did the law demand?
Death. Why did He die? Because He was guilty of our
sin. And because He fully made atonement for the sin of God's
people, He sets us free. Free, free from the law. We're
going to sing in a minute our closing song. Free from the law.
Oh, happy condition. Jesus has bled and there is,
there is remission. And the second part, the last
part of verse 1, kind of along that same line, in the opening
of the prison to them that are bound. He opened up the prison
door and he let all the prisoners out. You know why He lets them
out? Because they're justified. They're
not guilty. Set them free. He sets us free. Believers who have been bound
by sin and in the bondage of the flesh are set at liberty. You remember we studied in Galatians
chapter 5. Remember verse 1. Stand fast therefore in the liberty
wherewith Christ hath set us free. Free! Free indeed. Free indeed. Whom the Son set free, He's free
indeed. You shall know the truth, and
the truth shall set you free. Now, look at verse 2. Isaiah
61 verse 2. To proclaim the acceptable year
of the Lord. You remember Ephesians 1 verse
6 says we are accepted in the Beloved? A lot of people going
around in religious circles saying, have you accepted the Lord? That's
not the issue. The issue is, have we been accepted
in the Beloved? And we have in Christ. We are
accepted in the Beloved, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn. Now, you notice a marginal reference
on the acceptable year of the Lord. The marginal reference
there is to Leviticus 25 verse 9. And that goes back to the
year of Jubilee. Every 7th year, when they plowed
the land for those 7 years, on the 7th year, the land was to
rest. No planting. No planting. And
every 7 years, they would do that. Every 7 years. And then,
when 7 of those 7 years came around, that'd be 49 years. That
was a year of jubilee. That was That was the acceptable
year of the Lord. And what happened on that 50th
year, every man thrown into slavery was set free. All property that
had been taken was returned to the original family. All debts
were discharged. This is back under the law. This
is what the law of God demanded on that 50th year of Jubilee. A year of rest was proclaimed
on the Day of Atonement, and that's when it took place. And
we know the Scriptures teach us that Christ is our Kinsman
Redeemer, has done all of this for us, and much more. Our souls have been set free,
our inheritance. We lost a whole lot in Adam. Adam lost everything, didn't
he? He lost the way, the truth, the life. In the Lord Jesus Christ,
we have all things restored and much more. He is the way. He
is the truth. He is the life. He is our inheritance. This is the year of jubilee being
accepted in the beloved. All of our debts have been paid.
In Christ, he put away our sin by the sacrifice of himself,
and we have entered into eternal rest forever. We rest in him. We rest in him. And he says here,
and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all that mourn. Now, two things there in the
last part of verse 2. What happened at Calvary Street?
It was a day of vengeance, wasn't it? The day of vengeance. You remember Lamentation 112?
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by, to hold and see,
if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto
me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger?
That's the Lord Jesus Christ talking about how He was smitten
and afflicted of God for our sin. That was the day of vengeance
of God against our sin. And because of that, we have
comfort. To comfort all that mourns. Remember, let me read it to you.
Comfort, comfort, comfort you, my people. See if I can find
it. Don't tell me, just read it to
you. Isaiah 40. Comfort you, comfort you, my
people. Sayeth your God, speaking comfortably to Jerusalem, crying
to her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned,
For she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her
sin." Double payment. Overpayment. Complete payment
for all our sin to comfort us. Now, a few minutes left. Look at verse 3. To a point. Boy, I love that word. God has
not appointed us to condemnation, but He has appointed us to salvation. To appoint unto them. To appoint
unto them. Everything we have is by His
appointment. Sovereign appointment. Sovereign
ordination. Sovereign predestination. He's
appointed unto them that morning Zion to give them, they don't
earn this, He gives them He gives them His beauty for their ugliness. Now, what would you rather stand
before God with? The ugliness of your sin or the
beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ? You see, in the Lord Jesus Christ,
He presents us unto the Father, holy, spotless, unblameable in
His sight. That beauty, we are by nature
ashes. Ashes is all that's left when
the fire is burned out. Ashes. That's what they say when
some people in religious circles, when they commit the body to
the ground, ashes to ashes. Ashes back to ashes. He gives
us His beauty. His righteousness. And then it says here, the oil
of joy instead of mourning. We have joy in our God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. Joy. Instead of mourning over
our sin, we have the joy rejoicing in the Lord and having no confidence
in the flesh. And then he says the garment
of praise, that's the garment of worship. Instead of the spirit
of heaviness, we have the garment of worship unto the Lord. That, to this end, they might
be called trees of righteousness. He is, in Isaiah and other places,
the Lord Jesus Christ is called the Lord our righteousness. He's
the Lord our righteousness. That's how we stand before God.
We don't stand in our righteousness, do we? Blessed is the man to
whom the Lord would impute righteousness without works. We stand in the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are trees of His choice. We are trees of His planting.
It says in Isaiah 60 verse 21, The branch of my planting and
the work of my hand that I may be glorified. Trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord. He's the true vine. We are the
branches in Him. And what's true of the head is
true of the body. What's true of the vine is true
of the branches. That, to this end, He might be glorified. That He might be glorified. Remember
how we concluded our study in the book of Galatians? Galatians
6.14, God forbid I should glory save in the Lord Jesus Christ.
You see, that's the bottom line, and that's the distinguishing
feature, if I can put it that way, the distinguishing fact
and aspect of the gospel of God's grace is that everything He does,
He gets all the glory. The creatures shut out. The creature
can't pat himself on the back and say, boy, look what I've
done. You remember in Matthew 7, they said, Lord, we have preached
in your name. Lord, we've done many wonderful
works in your name. We've even cast out demons in
your name. We've done all these things.
Remember what the Lord said? Depart from me, you workers of
iniquity. I don't know you. I don't recognize
what you've done. But because we're trees of righteousness,
we're trees of His choice, people of His choice, sheep of His pasture,
that He might be glorified. God forbid, I see glory saved
in the cross. The Bible, the Word of Jesus.