Tonight is beauty and glory. Last week's message was ashes
and beauty. This week's message is beauty
and glory. The first verse of chapter 4 actually belongs to
chapter 3. But I think the interpreters
set it in this order to show a distinction made between verse
1 and what follows in verses 2 through 6 in this chapter.
We saw last week this verse 1 of chapter 4. And in that day, seven
women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our
own bread, we will wear our own apparel, only let us be called
by thy name to take away our reproach. We know that spoke
in the natural sense. or in the contemporary sense
of God destroying the men of Jerusalem in war and sickness
and the young men in war. And so women were left without
a husband. And so they would, in the time of captivity, latch
upon one man, and they would say, look, you don't have to
take care of us, but we don't want to bear the reproach of
not being married, so let us take your name. That was the
contemporary of what was going on at the time of the captivity
into Babylon. However, it's a picture, as we
know all things in the Old Testament speak of Christ, speak of what
He came to do, also speaks of the conditions that were in place
when He came, and the conditions that will be in place when He
comes again. All these things are set forth. in the Old Testament
as pictures and types and shadows of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
this particular verse here represents and is a picture of free will
religion which desires a means of escaping judgment. I don't
want reproach. Help me from reproach. Let me
have your name so I can not be reproached. And it wants to use
the name of Christ while providing all it needs for itself. That's
what these women said. We don't have to take care of
us. Just let us bear your name and we'll take care of ourselves
and we'll wear on our peril. We don't need that robe of righteousness.
We have our own robe of righteousness. Of course, Isaiah will say later
on in chapter 64 that that righteousness is as filthy rags. They say,
we will provide for ourselves, and that is basically what religion
does today. They say, you take the first
step, you accept Jesus, and you know we're in scriptures, that
language employed, but people say it all the time now. You
accept Jesus and then you start on your way and it's by your
power and your will and your strength that you reach a state
of holiness or a higher state of sanctification and so forth,
become a righteous person through works of your own. This is exactly
what these women are saying. and they are representative of
religion without the Lord Jesus Christ. It pictures religion,
self-sufficient religion, for whom the name of Christ opens
the door, but the journey to glory is by their merit rather
than the merit of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we live in that day. And also when you see Isaiah's
reference to, in that day, it will refer to two things. It
will refer basically to one thing, but it will refer to the beginning
or the end of what is called the Gospel Age, which is the
age that we're living in now. from the time Christ came to
this world until he will come again and retrieve his own children
unto himself. We live in that day. That day
is called the gospel age. In another place it is called
the thousand year or thousands of years reign, the millennium.
That's what we're in right now, this millennium. We're in that
age of peace where God's people, not the world, but God's people
have beat their swords into plowshares, where the lamb lays down beside
the lion and so forth, and there's peace among the children of God.
There's not peace in the world. There's never going to be peace
in the world. Not as long as human nature exists. And even
there is no peace with us and the world. The peace is within
the family of God, the church of the living God. Were it not
for the promise of the gospel, as we look around us, were it
not for the promise of the gospel and the assurance of salvation
of the elect, just observing what was going on around us,
in religion would lead to despair. It would lead to despair. But
verses 2 through 6 is the distinction that he makes from verse 1, and
he declares in no uncertain terms that the promise that he gave
for the righteous, it shall be well with thee, is a sure foundation. And this is why it shall be well
for the righteous. For in the midst of all this
religion, in the midst of Babylon, as she says, I am not a widow,
I sit as a queen. I'm not a widow. She has claimed
the name. Babylon's not operating on the
name Babylon. It's operating on the name of
Christ. It's doing iniquity in the name of Christ. in the name
of Christ. It's called Christian. It's called
Christian. Babylon believes that she's safe
until Christ comes and destroys all that false religion in that
day. When you read that in that day,
don't put it off out yonder. Don't put it back to some other
time. Look at it as this is what is going on in the world today
with Christ and His church and the people who are outside that
great assembly. And it says, ìIn that day, as
opposed to verse 1, ìIn that day the branch of the Lord shall
be beauty and glory.î Verse 2, ìIn that day shall the branch
of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the
earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped
of Israel. First of all, it talks about
the branch. That's not a foreign term to Scripture. That's a term
that applies to the Lord Jesus Christ and pictures Him throughout
Scripture. Let's look at a few Scriptures
and I want you to use your Bibles tonight. So open up your Bibles,
put them on your laps and let's thumb through them and see what
we've got. Isaiah chapter 11 and verse 1, it says, And there
shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse. And we know
that was David's father. Jesse and a branch shall grow
out of his roots. In Isaiah 53, you don't have
to turn there, you know this. It says Christ is the root out
of dry ground. If you look over Jeremiah 23,
where the Lord sets forth Christ being our righteousness and our
only righteousness, in Jeremiah chapter 3 and verse 25, or excuse
me, back to chapter 23 and verse 5, it says this, Behold, the
days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous
branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute
judgment and justice in the earth. That's talking about the Lord
Jesus Christ. And it says in that days, Judas shall be saved
and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is the name whereby
he shall be called the Lord, our righteousness. Then if you
turn over to the prophet Zechariah. Zechariah in chapter 3, that
again speaks of Christ as the branch. In verse 8, Hear now, O Joshua,
Joshua is the Old Testament term for deliverer, Jesus is the Greek
meaning of the name Joshua. Hear now, O Joshua, the high
priest, thou and thy fellows that sit before thee, for they
are men wondered at. For behold, I will bring forth
my servant, the branch, my servant, Then over in chapter 6 of the
same book, in verse 12, it says this, And speak unto him, saying,
Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose
name is the branch. He shall grow up out of his place,
and he shall build the temple of the Lord. Who builds the temple
of the Lord? What did Christ say to those Pharisees? He says,
you tear down this temple, I'll build it back up in three days.
And of course, He was talking about the spiritual temple, His
body, the church of the living God. Even He shall build the
temple of the Lord, and shall bear the glory. He's going to
get the glory for it. And shall sit and rule upon His
throne, where He sits right now at the right hand of the Father.
And he shall be a priest upon his throne. And there's an interesting
thing. Here is a king and a priest. That applies only to one person
in all of Scripture. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the counsel of peace shall be between them both. The counsel
of peace shall be between them both. Our Lord is called the
Prince of Peace. So when he's talking about this branch coming
forth immediately in opposition to all the false religion that's
going around where men are naming the name of Christ but carrying
nothing for Him. Naming the name of Christ but
having no interest in Him. Here we have Don't worry about
it. I'm sending forth my branch.
I'm sending forth the Lord Jesus Christ. The beauty and the glory
is the complete success of the salvation that He has accomplished.
The fruit of the earth also refers to our Lord who is the root out
of dry ground, the root of David, the fruitful branch, and that
is spoken over in Deuteronomy 33. If you want to turn there, Deuteronomy 33. verse 13 through 16, and of Joseph,
which is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, perhaps one of
the most prolific in the Old Testament. There are over 120
types attributed to Joseph concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. And to
Joseph he said, blessed be the Lord, blessed of the Lord be
his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew and for
the deep that cometh beneath, and for the precious fruits brought
forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by
the moon, and for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and
for the precious things of lasting hills, and for the precious things
of the earth and the fullness thereof, and for the goodwill
of him that dwelleth in the bush. And we know that's God. him that
dwelleth in the bush. Let the blessing come upon the
head of Joseph and upon the top of the head of him that was separated
from his brethren. All that pictures and speaks
of the Lord Jesus Christ. All that speaks of the Lord Jesus
Christ. So He is that One who will bring forth His fruitfulness.
Now with part of that fruitfulness, He set forth as being full of
grace and full of truth. And we have received of Him graceful
grace. He has given us all things in
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's held nothing back. The children
of God are the owners of all that exists in the universe.
And those that are escaped here, it means those who are delivered
or saved or redeemed, they are said to be excellent and comely
as a result of His mighty person and His mighty work. Excellent
and comely, those are not adjectives that we would necessarily apply
to ourselves if we look at ourselves and we know what we are we would
never say I'm beautiful and I'm excellent we would say just probably
the opposite I am nothing and there's no hope within me and
myself but here he says the result of that great work of the Lord
Jesus Christ is that these people are going to be comely and they're
going to be they're going to be excellent let's look at a
few verses of scripture look over to Ezekiel Ezekiel chapter
16, where does this comeliness come from? Is it because we have
tried real hard and done our best and tried to act right and
live right? Well, you can try all you want
to, it ain't gonna work. You won't live right, you won't act right.
You hopefully will do better than you were before, but that's
not even a sure case in any case. But listen to what it says. Now
here's a picture in Ezekiel 16 of the elect of God. and how the world feels about
them. We know the Lord said, Marvel not that the world hates
you, it hated me first. It's pictured by a little girl. And you have to understand the
times. Israel is traveling. And a little child is born during
their journey. And it's a woman child. And back
in those days, women were considered property. considered property
and they weren't considered those that could really fight in a
war or produce out of the field and so forth and so on. And so
this, rather than the burden of taking this child and trying
to raise it while they were on the hardship of a journey, they
cast the child out. The child is not even separated
from the umbilical cord. It's all one package. They just
throw the child out in the field to die. And that's a picture
of the elect. It says of them that they was
neither washed, nor salted, nor swaddled at all. Nobody pitied
her. To do those things, too, are
to cast out to the loathing of thy person. But God steps in. As far as the world's concerned,
the children of God have no value. They're only troublesome, they're
weight to be carried, they're considered weak and bothersome,
and so they're thrown aside. They're of no value. But to God,
they're of extreme value. He calls them His jewels. It
says, And when I passed by thee, I saw thee polluted in thy blood.
That's natural sin brought forth by imputation from our father
Adam and said unto thee, When thou wast in my blood, when you
were yet an ungodly sinner, Christ died for you. When thou was in
thy blood, yea, I said live. Now when God says for something
to live, something lives. And you and I can say it, and
it don't really matter. But when God says it, I said, live, live. Yea, I said unto thee, when thou
wast in thy blood, live. I have caused thee to multiply
as the bud of the field. Thou hast increased and waxen
great. Thou art come to excellent ornaments. Thy breasts are fashioned, thy
hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. You had nothing.
Now you become beautiful. And when I passed by thee and
looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love. of
love. So I spread my skirt over you,
possession, and covered thy nakedness. Yea, I swear unto thee and entered
into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest
mine, thou becamest mine. Then I washed thee with water.
Yea, I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee. and I anointed
thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broidered
work, and shod thee with badger skin, and I girded thee about
with fine linen, and covered thee with silk. I decked thee
with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain upon
thy neck, and I put a jewel in thy forehead, and earrings in
thy ears, and a beautiful crown upon thy head. Thus was thou
decked with gold and silver, and thy raiment was of fine linen
and silk and brooded work. Thou didst eat fine flour and
honey and oil. Thou was exceedingly beautiful. Thou didst prosper into a kingdom,
and thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty. Why? For it was perfect through my
comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord." They're
beautiful. They're comely. Why? Because
God put His comeliness upon them. He robed them in the pristine
and perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ in that
blessed and beautiful wedding garment. They are comely. And Isaiah 54
says, "...thy righteousness is of me." In Hosea chapter 14 verse
6 it says, thy fruit is from me, from me. And our Lord says
in Isaiah 61, I'll give them beauty for ashes. That's what we are, we're ashes.
There might have been a fire there once now, but it's dead
and it's nothing but something to be thrown away. In that day, it says back in
our text in verse 3, And in that day it shall come
to pass that he that is left in Zion and he that remaineth
in Jerusalem shall be called holy, even every one that is
written among the living in Jerusalem in that day, in this day, what
is left in Zion and what remains in Jerusalem. What's he talking
about? He's used that kind of language, almost the same kind
of language in verse chapter 1. It's that very small remnant
left for them, that remnant according to the election of grace. And
it says of them, they shall be called holy. They shall be called
holy. And again, this is not an attribute
that we would necessarily apply to ourselves only in the sense
that we are in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is the Church
of the Living God, Zion and Jerusalem, those chosen in eternity and
redeemed in time, and holy before God by virtue of the connection
with the Lord Jesus Christ. You're not on a road to holiness.
I'll guarantee you, I'll guarantee you, when you get old, you'll
not be closer to God than you are right now. You'll be a rocking
chair rebel and the only thing you'll lack to do what you'd
like to do is the energy to do it. But if you had the energy,
you'd do it yet. Old people are sometimes considered
to be just, you know, they've arrived, they've overcome. No,
they just can't do what they really want to do. You know where
the greatest area of STDs in the United States is per capita
of people? Retirement homes. National statistic. Them old
rebels, they ain't quit nothing, have they? Our holiness is a state of being
because of a connection, a vital connection to the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is said in that vein, God has made Christ to be unto
us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, which is holiness, and wisdom. Christ has made all of that to
us. None of that is ours in ourself. Christ is made to be that to
us. We just read in Jeremiah 23, 5. His name by which He shall
be called is the Lord, our righteousness. The Lord, our righteousness.
Peter talked about the children of God in 1 Peter 1 and verse
2 and he said they are elect according to the foreknowledge
of God through sanctification. of the Spirit. Sanctification
of the Spirit. Sanctus, Latin, holy. And you're as holy as you're
ever going to be. Right now, as you live on this
earth. The only difference will be, and I've said this so many
times, I guess you're tired of hearing it. The only difference
will be is when you get the glory, you'll leave behind all the sin.
and you'll realize what it is to be truly holy. But right now
before God, because God has made Christ to be unto you holiness,
you are holy before God if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the believer is not on some progressive journey to
holiness. He is holy before God because
his high priest is holiness before the Lord. Our high priest is
holiness unto God according to the Old Testament throughout.
And these blessed ones are described in a very specific way. Look
again at verse 3 at the last phrase. They shall be called
holy even everyone that is written among the living. That is written
among the living. The literal words are this. Those
that are written to life. Written to life. Our Lord gave
this as a reason why the elect believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Acts chapter 13 and verse 48, He uses the word prografo,
which is the Greek word which means written to, written to
beforehand. And He says this, as many as
were written to life, there He uses the word ordained, but it's
actually prografo. As many as were ordained, as
many as were written to life, believed. How many are going
to believe? Those that are written to life. Written. Written. Remember our Lord said in Isaiah
in another place, I have inscribed you in the palm of my hand. I'll
never forget you. I've inscribed you in the palm
of my hand. And this our Lord said was a reason to rejoice
when the disciples came back in Luke chapter 10 rejoicing
that they had power over devils to cast devils out of men. He
said, don't rejoice that you have power over spirits. Rejoice
in this, that your names are written in heaven. There's something
to rejoice in, that your names are written in heaven, and they
are called the church of the living God. In Hebrews chapter
12, verse 23, when he talks about the general assemblies of God,
whose names are written in heaven. And where and when were they
written? They were written in heaven before the world began.
When I was a young boy, I used to go to revival meetings in
our church and some preacher would inadvertently get up and
say, when you come down front and you shake the preacher's
hand and you confess Jesus down front, then the angel flies from
glory and dips his wing in the blood of the Lamb and writes
your name in the Book of Life. Well, there's two things wrong
with that. First of all, it's not true. The second thing is
angels don't have wings. That's a man's invention. Cherubs
do and seraphim do, it seems to say. But those are pictures
and types, perhaps even symbolic. Pictures and types of the preachers
of God. For they have six wings. Two, they cover their eyes. With
two, they cover them with hands or their feet. And with two,
they do fly. And that pictures the preachers of the gospel.
When were your names written in heaven? Before the world began. Let's look at that. Revelation
chapter 13. Revelation chapter 13 when it
talks about Jesus Christ and those who don't believe in the
Lamb of God In verse 8 it says and all that dwell upon the earth
shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of
life They're going to worship Satan. They're going to worship
the beast whose names are not written in the book of life of
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world and When did you
receive or when did you actually have what you have now? You had
it before you even knew you had it. 2 Timothy 1 and verse 9 says,
God has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according
to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which
God has given us in Jesus Christ before the world began. Now look over Revelation 20.
Revelation 20, here we approach the great white throne, which
many men use in the pulpit to scare the heck out of Christians.
I'm not scared of it, and neither is any other child of God. In
Revelation chapter 20, verse 12, it says this, And I saw the
dead, small and great, stand before God. And the books were
opened, and another book was opened. You have books, and you
have a book. The book is the book of life, the same one. The
same one to whom men are written before the foundation of the
world. And the dead were judged out of those things that were
written in the books. The dead don't have anything to do with
the book of life. They're judged out of things written in the
book, and they're judged according to their works. They're judged according
to their works. And the sea gave up the dead
which were in it, and the death and hell delivered up the dead
which were in them, and they were judged every man according
to their works. And death and hell were cast into a lake of
fire. This is the second death from which, if you're written
in the Lamb's book of life, you're not in, the second death don't
involve you. And whosoever was not found written in the book
of life was cast into a lake of fire. The book of life is
a rule book. It has all the names of whom
God chose before the foundation of the world and wrote their
name in, in His last willing testament. And when Jesus Christ
died on the cross and shed His blood, it ratified that testament
and all things are yours. Why? A long, long ago, before
the world began, God wrote your name down in His book. in his book. That's the description
of this. In this day, when everything seems to be going haywire, when
the world seems to be falling apart, when religion is rampant
without Christ, having no interest in Christ, but always interested
in what man can do, what man must do, and how he must help
himself, we have the truth. God says, My branch is going
to come forth. My branch is going to come forth.
And all whom He saves are going to be beautiful and comely. Beautiful
and comely. And everybody that is left in
Zion shall be called holy, every one of them, whose names were
written in the Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of
the world. And they are blessed because
of what Christ has done for them. Verse 4, When the Lord shall
have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall
have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the
spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning." This speaks of Christ's
work on the cross when He redeemed His people, those whom He chose. By the substitutionary sacrifice
in Christ's Word, He died in our room instead. He washed away
the filth of the daughters of Zion. Filth! You know what that means. I mean,
that's a word that has a, you know, it's almost, it's kind
of like mud. You just know what it means when you hear it. Filth.
That's what we're described as filthy. It said in Psalm 14,
14.1 that the Lord God looked down from heaven upon the sons
of men and they were all together become filthy. They become filthy. But you have been washed in pure
water. and clothed in the righteousness
of Christ, which we just read in Ezekiel chapter 16. And we've
been purged. What does that mean? Purged means
to put away. Put away. We've purged the blood,
and that means the blood guiltiness. We're all guilty of blood. We're
all murderers at heart. The blood guilty is Jerusalem,
which represents His people. It says, when He had purged our
sins in Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 3, when He had purged our
sins, when He had purged our sins, past tense, He sat down
on the right hand of the Father. There living to make intercession
for His people. How did He do that? He did it
in two ways. He did it by judgment and by
fire. That's what it says. He'll do
it with the spirit of judgment and the spirit of fire. What
does that mean? Christ was judged before his people's sins. when
Jesus Christ received the imputed sins of His people, when they
were charged to His account, when they were made to meet upon
Him, when they rode from time forward and time past, all to
meet on the Lord Jesus Christ, God judged His Son for our sins. He judged our sins. He laid stripes
to our transgressions. He bore our transgressions. And
with His stripes we are healed, saith the Scripture. He did it
by judgment. He bore the judgment. What is
judgment? Hell is judgment. Never-ending judgment. Eternal
judgment. Why is it eternal? It is eternal
because God can never get from a natural human being what is
due His justice. What is due for sin. God can
never get that. That's why it goes on forever
and ever and ever. But in three hours of darkness,
when God shut down the mighty sun, when God covered the sun,
when God shrouded the sun, when God hid the sun in darkness,
Jesus Christ bore in those three hours the full equivalent of
our hell. and eternity. Why? How could
He do that? He is the Son of God. He was
the spotless Lamb of God who was without sin and knew no sin,
but was made to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. So great the punishment that
God shut down light, so none but He and His Son were privy
to this, when He drew the sword of justice and plunged it in
the bosom of His fellow. And it was accomplished by fire.
What is fire? Fire is consumption. Fire is
destruction. Fire is annihilation. That consumption
was our Lord's death. When He, by His own volition
and by His own power, the only man who's ever done this, ceased
to live by His own will. He didn't commit suicide. He
just said, I'm going to stop living now. I'm going to die.
Why? Because that's the payment for sin. the soul that sinneth,
it shall die." And in that moment, our sin was consumed by Him. Our sin was consumed. He drank
the cup of God's wrath dry. When He ceased to live by His
own will, when He accomplished that death in Jerusalem, He put
away our sins by the sacrifice of Himself. Now we know that
we're sinners saved by grace, and we feel and mourn and grieve
over our own wretchedness every day. But in the eyes of Almighty
God, in the eyes of Him whose eyes are too pure to behold evil,
before whom the sun, moon, and stars are not pure in His sight,
before God's eyes His people have no sin. It says that in Jeremiah 50,
the sins of Judah shall be looked for, and there shall be none.
And of Jerusalem, and they shall not be found. For God shall pardon
whom He has reserved. He shall pardon whom He has reserved.
He put away our sin. How far put away? He uses language
that we might be able to get some grasp of. Our sins are gone. You remember the two goats, the
one that was slain and the scapegoat in the Old Testament ceremony,
the sin was symbolically laid upon the scapegoat and he was
sent out into the desert till the sins were
gone, till the sins were gone. And then a mighty man led him
back. That mighty man was the Lord Jesus Christ and so was
the scapegoat in both of those scenarios. put away our sin. How does it describe that? He
says, our sins are behind God's back. All things are before God,
aren't they? All things are in God. All things
are in God. My people like to say that the
Hindu idea and some of the other religions is that God is in all
things. And so they'll have respect for
this piece of wood, or respect for a bug, or a fly, or something
like that. They'll have respect for it and
say it's life. God ain't in everything. Everything's in God. And if your
sins are cast behind His back, where are they? That simply means
they're not there. They're nowhere. He says, as
far as the east is from the west. You can start on a trip east
and you'll always be going east. Because east and west never meet.
They never meet. So how far is the east from the
west? Well, they're just not there. He's buried them at the bottom of
the sea. Where's the bottom of the sea? Nobody's ever seen the
bottom of the sea. The Morianas Trench is seven miles deep and
nobody's ever seen the bottom of that. What does it mean? Our sins are gone. Think about that. Roll that over
in your old noggin for a few minutes if you're a child of
God and think about it. Our sins are gone. They're clean gone. They're purged. They're purged.
By judgment and by burning. And in that day there shall be
divine protection for all of God's people. This day. The Lord will create, in verse
5, upon every dwelling, and upon every dwelling place in Mount
Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud of smoke by day, and
a shining and a flaming fire by night. For upon all the glory
shall be a defense, divine protection over all these assemblies of
saints. People look at natural occurrences where things happen
that they can't explain, they get all upset, A child dies and
they say, how can a good God allow something like that to
happen? How can God who is good allow some nut to pick up a gun
and go into a school and kill numbers of children? How can
God allow that? You're talking about a natural thing. Believers and unbelievers both
go through the natural judgments that are in this world. Noah
did not escape the judgment. He wrote it out in a wooden box. But the judgment was upon Him.
He was safe in that box because that's a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Ark. That Ark was pitched within and
without with pitch. And that word pitch is the first
word, the word atonement is used in Scripture. They were covered
by God. They were covered by God. But
when calamities happen, natural calamities happen to all people.
What our Lord is talking about here Nothing will touch God's people
that is not for their good and for the glory of God. No weapon,
he says, shall be formed against you. No weapon formed against
you shall stand. No weapon shall prosper. No charge can be laid
against you. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. There
is therefore now no condemnation. God's children are not now, nor
shall they ever be condemned, because Christ has died. And
yea, rather has risen again, and even sits at the right hand
of the Father, ever living to make intercession for us. They
will be covered from any wrath by the cloud that blotted out
their transgressions, and will be illuminated in the light by
Christ, the light of the world. And their defense will always
be this, the glory of God. That's my defense. And God has
glorified Himself in the salvation of the elect by the substitutionary
work of Jesus Christ. I don't have any self-defense.
I can't defend my actions. I can't defend myself when I
sin. I can't do that. There's no defense for it, is
there? There's no excuse for it and
no defense for it. It's just what I am and it's
something I have to live with. With my mind, I serve the law
of God. With my flesh, I serve the law of sin and death and
that never changes. What's my defense? God's glory. It's sitting at
the right hand of the Father. That's my defense. Christ died
in my room instead. Christ died in my room instead.
That's my defense. It'll always be the glory of
God. I remember a story one time where a man, I think he asked
John Jasper, He said, what if you go to heaven?
What if you get up to the pearly gates and God rejects you? After having confessed Christ,
God rejects you. John Jasper said, well, he'll
lose more than I will. I'll just lose my soul. He'll
lose his glory. Because he said to everyone who trusts in the
Lord Jesus Christ, I'll save you. I'll save you. My defense is God's glory. And
it sits at the right hand of the Father. There is my righteousness
and my peace and all that I am. Their defense will always be
God's glory and that is the blessed salvation that He and His Son
accomplish. And it defends them against all enemies. Charge me
if you will with any sin, it will not stand. Condemn me if
you will. Accuse me if you will, it will
not stand. Every ground upon which I can be accused of anything
is taken care of and put away. And He makes sure that no sin
will ever be imputed to me. That's what He says in Romans
4. To those who trust Christ, He will not charge with sin. Ever. Never charge you with sin. God is our shield and our defense.
That's the way it's said throughout the psalm. God is our shield
and our defense. And in that day there shall be
a tabernacle, a dwelling. Last verse, verse six, there
shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day, in the daytime from
the heat and for a place of refuge and for a covert from the storm
and from the rain, a dwelling. That's Jesus Christ. He is our
tabernacle. He tabernacled among us. That's
what the word means in John 14 when it says, "...and the word
was made flesh and dwelt among us." The word in the original
is tabernacle. Christ is our tabernacle. And He dwells in
the midst of His people. He is their covert, their city
of refuge. And the heed of the accusations
of the law cannot touch them. And the storms and the rain that
are the trials and tribulations and temptations and persecutions
that are to end the life of the believer shall not hurt them,
but will help them, because they are in the tabernacle. Christ
is our refuge. A couple of verses and then we'll
quit. Isaiah chapter 25, verse 4. For thou hast been a strength
to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge
from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the
terrible ones is as a storm against the wall. Look at chapter 26
of Isaiah, chapter 26, verse 20 and 21. Come my people, Enter thou into thy chambers,
and shut the doors about thee. Hide thyself, as it were, for
a little moment, until the indignation is overpassed. For behold, the
Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of
the earth for their iniquity. The earth also shall disclose
her blood, and shall no more cover her slain." Go on inside
and close the doors. God take care of you. God take
care of you. Then in chapter 32 of Isaiah,
verses 1 through 4, Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness,
we know who that is, the Lord Jesus Christ. And princes shall
rule in judgment, for he has made us to be kings and priests
unto God. And a man shall be as a hiding
place, a man, the man Christ Jesus, who is both God and man.
The man shall be a hiding place from the wind and a covert from
the tempest. As the rivers of water in a dry
place is the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, and the
eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them
that hear shall hearken, and the heart also of the rash shall
understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall
be ready to speak plainly. In that day shall the branch
of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the
earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped
of Israel. And it shall come to pass that
he that is left in Zion and he that remaineth in Jerusalem shall
be called holy, even every one that is written among the living
in Jerusalem. when the Lord shall have washed
away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged
the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by spirit of judgment,
and spirit of burning. And the Lord will create upon
every dwelling place of the mount Zion, and upon her assemblies
a cloud of smoke by day, and a shining of flaming fire by
night. For upon all the glory shall be a defense. And there
shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat,
and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from
rain. Father, give us grace and faith
to believe. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. All right.