Righteousness of the Redeemed

TRANSCRIPT

It’s very good to be with all of you this evening and to bring you the word of the Lord.  If you turn with me again to Isaiah chapter 54, the text which we read just now is from verse 11 to verse 17.  This second half of the book of Isaiah, from chapter 40 onwards is sometimes called the book of comfort. In these chapters, God’s people are exalted to find comfort, not in man but in God. The point is that man is unworthy, man is sinful, man is judged by God.  When we look within ourselves, we see no comfort, no source of comfort. But these pronouncements of judgments, these warnings against sins that we find especially in the first half of Isaiah and also in the second half, are meant to turn us away from ourselves so that we don’t look to ourselves for comfort but look to the Lord.  That’s the theme of this chapter as well.

The first part of Isaiah chapter 54, there is a promise of restoration and transformation, the picture there that is given in verse 1 and onwards is the picture of a barren woman who is now fruitful.  A woman who has been rejected, who has now reconciled, who now bears children again. It’s a picture of blessing and abundance and enlargement.  This picture was mostly external. But as we come to our text from verse 11 onwards, we see a promise here that the transformation with God will work in his people is not just external, it’s not just an external circumstance of blessing and renewal, but is an inward transformation, a transformation from a state of rebellion to a state of righteousness.  That’s the focus of our text this evening.

First of all, we see a promise of righteousness from verse 11 to verse 13 and then we see the protection of righteousness from verse 14 to verse 17.  First of all this promise of righteousness, the promise comes to those who are afflicted, “O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted” (verse 11) – those who are burdened and grieved by sin and its consequences, those who are tossed with no peace.  Remember again, the historical context here in Isaiah, Isaiah is speaking of the time of the exile, when Israel as a nation was chastened by the Lord, the cup of God’s wrath was poured out upon them.  You turn a few pages to Isaiah chapter 51, you’ll see how the prophets speaks of this. Isaiah chapter 51 and verse 17, “Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.”  Because of their sin and inequity, they were judged by God, they were chastised very grievously and sorely.  Because of their wickedness, they found no peace. In chapter 57 and verse 20, the prophet said “the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.  There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”  And this is what all of us need to recognise, this is what God’s people, especially need to keep in mind.  This is the consequence of sin - because of sin, there is no peace, because of sin, there is no comfort.  Sin can be very alluring, the allures says with the promise of pleasure, the promise of joy, or happiness but these are false promises.  In the end, sin leads us to have no peace but only trouble. There is no peace but only trouble to the wicked.  Yet God is gracious. God offers comfort to those who will turn from their wickedness and repent and go to him, and so the promise of righteousness comes to those who are afflicted.

Again, in chapter 54, verse 11, “O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold” – that word behold is significant.  We will see it a few more times in our text, it’s a word that calls us to turn away from ourselves and to look to God.  It is a word that brings before our eyes the promise and the grace of God - “behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires.” They are to turn away from their present, sorry condition and fix their eyes on what God will do. That also is a lesson for us. Very often, we are troubled by the things that we encounter in this life, we are tossed about, we feel very troubled and afraid, and worried, and anxious.  But we also need to pay attention to this word, ‘behold’.  Just as Peter, you remember, in the gospels, when he was walking on the water to go to Jesus, how he was troubled and anxious, and afraid when he saw the wind and the waves.  He took his eyes off his eyes off the Lord, and the Lord’s command and the Lord’s promise.  Jesus had said to him, ‘come.’ Peter forgot that word because he was looking at the wind and the waves. This is a lesson for us, ‘behold the promise and the purpose and the gracious plan of God.’ If we will look to him, then the turmoil of sin and trouble can be replaced with peace and righteousness. If we will repent and return to him, trusting in his mercy. This is what God promises he will do for His people.

There is a promise here of restoration not beauty.  ‘I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires’ (xxx) . The picture here is a radiant and glittering city.  A secure and stable city, there is a foundation, there is an establishment, there is also great beauty, all the precious stones that re mentioned here.  This is what God can do, He can accomplish such as reversal as this.  He can take someone who is ragged and desolate and make them glorious.  He can take a people that were afflicted and tossed with tempest, and he can establish them and lay their foundations with sapphires.  That’s God’s work, no one else can do it but God alone.  This is what the Lord Jesus has secured for us, by his atoning death and glorious resurrection. He has secured this promise for us.  And so, these words here bring us all the way to the book of Revelation, if you turn to Revelation chapter 21, you see a picture there of new Jerusalem.  You can see the similarity in the way new Jerusalem is described, the precious stones, the foundations, and so on. Revelation 21, verse 10, “And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.” Verse 19, “And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald” and so on.  This is what the prophet is speaking of as well. This is what the Lord Jesus, the suffering servant in Isaiah Chapter 53, has accomplished for us.  This is God’s promise.

But this promise of blessing, again, is not just external, not just an external glory but an inward glory. Look at verse 13 of Isaiah chapter 54, here we read that “thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children”. The righteousness of God’s people is in view here, as they are taught of the Lord, God himself teaches them his ways and they walk in His ways.  If you turn to John chapter 6, we can see how the Lord Jesus himself relates this promise to the work of the Holy Spirit.  John chapter 6, look at verse 42, here we read how the people were not happy with the Lord Jesus, they murmured and complained against him, they despised him.  John 6, verse 42, “they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.  It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.“ This is the work of the Lord through his Spirit, drawing us to His promise, drawing us to His grace, drawing us to the Saviour.  This is the promise of the new covenant where God says He will write this word in the hearts of His people, this is Jeremiah chapter 31.  Jeremiah chapter 31, verse 33, let’s read from verse 31 actually.  Jeremiah 31, verse 31, “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:

But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.  And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”   Now, this is the Lord’s promise to Israel, His people.  But remember that we are grafted into the covenant. Now in the New Testament, in the age f the church, the Gentiles are brought in and grafted in. We are partakers of these covenant blessings in Christ, and this is the true blessedness we enjoy in Christ, a state where God’s law is no longer discarded but now written in our very hearts. It said to look at the world and see a widespread contempt for the law of God. The law of God is dismissed and disregarded, it is called out-dated, it is even called immoral. But our true blessedness comes when this law is written in our hearts, even then, only then rather, only then, can we have this peace.  No peace for the wicked, who disobey and disregard God’s law, but peace, great peace for those who love the law of God.

This is what the psalmist speaks of in Psalm 119. Psalm 119 and verse 165, “Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.”  I can testify to the truth of this in my own life.  For many years, I was searching for peace and not able to find it, I had walked away from the Lord, I had walked away from His Law, I was living in disobedience and all the pleasures of the world could offer only very fleeting satisfaction. The peace and the joy that the world promised vapourised as soon as I reached out to grab it. There was no peace anywhere to be found. And so many have this experience as well. You grow restless and weary through life, looking for peace and finding none, until we come to the Lord Jesus.  Until we surrender and return to the Lord, like the prodigal son, we waste all the gifts, all the things that God has given to us, and we are left with nothing.  Until we humble ourselves and repent, and come back to the Lord, and trust in His promise, then he reminds us ‘yes, you have nothing yourself, but in me, you have righteousness, and peace.’  That’s the promise of righteousness for God’s people and with this righteousness come great peace, and this peace is not an absence of threat, not an absence of trouble, but it is peace in spite of these things.  We may call this the protection of righteousness. This is what the prophet turns to now in verse 14 of Isaiah 54, “In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near thee."

They were afflicted, they were tossed by tempers, they were reaping the consequences of their sins, but now they will be established in righteousness, and with this foundation, they will be free from fear, from threat, from terror, from oppression. They will be far from these things, far from being destroyed and overwhelmed by all these things. And again, it is not that there will be no oppression or no opposition, because we are told specifically that they will gather together against God’s people.  Verse 15, “Behold, they shall surely gather together” – God says – “but not by me: whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake.”  Again, it is not that we face no opposition, there will be.  Inf act, there will be great opposition.  Remember back in the Garden what the Lord said to the serpent, ‘I will put enmity between Thee and the woman, between Thy seed her seed.  The true children of God will face opposition from the world.  And yet, in the midst of all this, they will have God’s favour and God’s blessing and those who oppose them will be without that favour and without that blessing.  Those who oppose them will ultimately fail, they shall ‘fall for Thy sake.’  That’s the promise of God.

They will be forced to acknowledge God’s people.  They will be forced to acknowledge that this God is the one true and living God.  They will be forced to acknowledge that the God that they despised and turned away from is the true and living God. For example in Isaiah chapter 45, Isaiah chapter 45 and verse 14, “The labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine: they shall come after thee; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee; and there is none else, there is no God” – no other God but the God of Israel.

Likewise in Isaiah chapter 60, Isaiah chapter 60, verse 11 - again, the picture of the city established in righteousness - “Therefore thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night; that men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought. For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.  The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious.   The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come be bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee, The city of the LORD, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.”

This promise is repeated in the New Testament to the church.  In Revelation chapter 3 and verse 9 - this is the Lord’s promise to the church - “Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.” This is the the protection of righteousness, there is no vindictiveness here, no vindictive desire for hurt or harm upon those who oppose us, but there is vindication.  The Lord will make it known that we are truly his children, we belong to Him.  This is the promise of those who obey and submit to the law of God, who trust in the righteousness that comes through the gospel and through the Lord Jesus Christ.  All the world that rushes after wickedness and trusts in oppression, they will come to nought. Only those who trust in the lord and walk in His way will be vindicated. God assures us of this, by reference to his own sovereignty and omnipotence, verse 16 of Isaiah 54, “Behold” – again that word -  “Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy.”  Again we are drawn to ‘behold with the eyes of faith’, something that is hidden to the eyes of the flesh.  Those who make and form and fashion weapons to use against God’s people are themselves made by God.  Think about the enemies of the church today, the enemies of true religion, the enemies of the cross.  How they plot and plan and purpose to tear down the faith. How they toil at their craft, heedless of the fact that God made them.  God overrules all their actions and designs.  God is not the author of sin; God is not culpable for what these wicked people do. They are responsible for their actions and yet God’s sovereign counsel overrules. Even the wasted, God says, ‘I have created the waster to destroy’.  He destroys as God ordains, we are reminded of this also in the Provers, Provers chapter 16, verse 4, “The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.”  There’s no better illustration than the cross itself.  Again, in Isaiah chapter 53, the previous chapter, the prophet Isaiah has also ready given us the picture of the suffering servant, how he was despised and rejected, how he was killed.  The cross is the best example of how God has ordained all things for His glory and for the good of His sovereign purpose.  In the cross, we see the great wickedness of mankind, we see the very height of blasphemy, and hatred of God.  God’s son - rejected and crucified - and yet God has ordained that and he has ordained to bring the greatest good out of the greatest evil that was ever done in the world. Our Salvation rests on the cross in that light, in the light of the cross, we can be sure that God has purpose to work through all the evil of man for good. God can bring good out of it all and so because of God’s sovereignty, because of God’s purpose, because of God’s promise, God’s people can have this assurance.

Verse 17, “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.”  No weapon formed against God’s people can achieve its aim of destroying them.  The Lord gives this promise to the church also, explicitly, he said to Peter, ‘Upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’  That’s our assurance as we go about the work of the Lord. God has promised, He will bring it to pass. No matter what opposition, no matter what difficulty, this is the heritage, the inheritance of God’s people, promised to them by God.  And this is what we have to look forward to in this life. Opposition, the assembly of enemies, many attempts to destroy, but all will be unsuccessful.  At the end God’s people, God’s true church will be established in righteousness.  Remember what the psalmist says ‘many are the afflictions of the righteous, the Lord delivereth them out of them all’.  Afflictions and persecutions will come, but through it all, there is this promise of eternal security.  Because the righteousness that we long for and the righteousness that we receive, the righteousness in which we stand is not from ourselves, it is from God. It is God’s free gift, their righteousness is of me and can be found only in the Lord Jesus Christ because He has secured it for us.  And so, all this promise, all of this assurance, comes back to Christ.  And in all the difficulties that we face in the afflictions and the tempests, we are drawn to fix our eyes on the cross and to look to the Lord Jesus, the one true whom we have all the promises, the great and precious promises of God.  I think this is an important lesson for us.  We live in times that are increasingly full of upheaval, there are tempests everywhere, literal tempests, also other kinds of afflictions, and distresses.  The world is in a turmoil and many people are unsure what is happening, what is going to happen. But God’s people have this calling, God’s people bear witness to the fact that our assurance comes from Him.  And in the midst of all these tempests, sometimes the Lord allows these afflictions and difficulties. Sometimes, to chasten us for our sins, to cause us to turn to His promise and to trust in Him, to show us the emptiness of all the false and vain promises of the world.  To cause us to see that there is no peace and no comfort and no true joy in any of these things.  But there is eternal and great peace, great comfort, fullness of joy in Him.  Behold, the Lord says to us, ‘behold, turn away from all these things and turn to me, God says, ‘turn to my promise, turn to my righteousness, turn to my law, trust in my sovereign purpose, trust in what I have said in my word.’  That’s where we find our true comfort. May the Lord help us to lay hold on this promise, that we may go through this life not tossed about, not in despair, not in doubt, but with great assurance and great peace. Let us pray.

Our Father in Heave, indeed you know our situation and our condition, you know the things that trouble our hearts, you know the afflictions and the tempests that we face.  We are called in your word to turn our eyes upon you and to trust in your promise and to seek your righteousness.  We pray that you will grant us this comfort and assurance. Help us to remember that no weapon formed against your people can prosper because you are the God who sovereignly overrules everything.  We pray that you will bless us and use us as your people to bear witness to this truth, that those who are tempests, tossed and afflicted may see in out testimony that there is great peace to be had, but only in the Lord Jesus Christ.  We pray that you will use us and the glory of your name in the furtherance of your kingdom.  In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

SERMON OUTLINE

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH

The Man Of Sorrow

The Man Of Sorrow

Isaiah 53:1-12

Man of Sorrows

Man of Sorrows

Isaiah 53:1-12

Righteousness of the Redeemed

Righteousness of the Redeemed

Isaiah 54:11-17