I want you to understand today an old-fashioned idea, and it's the idea of the champion. Maybe the most famous Bible passage that we have that corresponds to the idea of a champion is the story of David and Goliath. Back in Old Testament days, there were two different ways that battle could be decided. The battle could be decided by two different armies that literally did battle with one another, or it could be decided by a champion. One side would bring forth a champion and issue a challenge, and that's exactly what Goliath does. He comes down into the flat between the two armies, this giant of a man who would make me look small, and he issues the challenge and he says, who will fight me? Send out your champion and fight me, and if you defeat me, me and all those who serve me, all the Philistines, we will serve you, but if we defeat you, then you and all that belongs to you become ours. If I defeat you, I will rule over you. And this is the idea of a champion deciding battle by a champion. This was a common thing in the Old Testament days. And this story we have here, this little piece from Isaiah, speaks of a champion. Move down here to the last part of verse 9. Old-fashioned words. The word behold. Behold Your God. Here is the message that is to be proclaimed. Behold your God. Behold the Lord. God comes with might in his arm rules for him. Behold, his reward is with him in his recompense before him. What does it mean to behold something? means to look upon something, to perceive something, to see something, but it's more than just seeing, it's more than just looking, it is beholding. It has to do with seeing in detail, seeing in depth, seeing in technicolor. I don't know how many colors we're up to now, 500 and something on your computer screen, but beholding has to do with seeing in all detail. It was not too many weeks ago I was down in Ohio and a young man named Alexander Cooner came up and said to me, what makes you believe in God? I mean, how do you know he's really out there? What would you say to that question? I mean, it's one of those questions that makes you pause a little bit. You know, I'm used to answering certain more detailed questions. How do you know that God is good? How do you know that Jesus is the Son of God? How do you know that the Bible is true? But how do you know that God exists? I said, wait a minute, Alex. I have to think about this for a moment. Why? Because it is so deeply ingrained in me. It's like asking the question, how do you know that the air here is good to breathe? Well, I never thought about it before. I just breathe it. How do you know that the water here is good to drink? Well, it tastes good. I drink it. Let me talk to you a few minutes about this question. How do you know that God even exists? How do you know that he's out there? Let me tell you, there is not a sort of definitive proof that you can stand on and say, there, it's undebatable. If it was, nobody would debate it. There's a faith element to this. And I can't prove it by logic. If you're the person that sits there and says, prove to me logically that there is a God. Basically you're saying, I don't want to believe in Him. I don't choose to believe in Him. Now you make me believe in Him. Only God will be able to turn your mind. But for those of you who say, what's the answer? Let me suggest a few things. See that transparent liquid in there? Fills Lake Erie. Fills the Lynn River, not quite as clear as this. Fills most of the bodies of water in our world, although some of it is made of salt. But had there been one more oxygen molecule added to this, so instead of H2O, you kids know this, right? This is H2O in here. Do you know what H2O2 is? One more oxygen molecule? You probably have a whole bottle of it sitting underneath your sink in the bathroom. Hydrogen peroxide. One more oxygen molecule and our lakes and rivers would have been filled with hydrogen peroxide. Good for whitening your teeth, not so good for your belly. We cannot go for more than a few minutes without oxygen. We can't go more than three days without water, and yet what are the two things that are most abundant anywhere in the planet? Oxygen and water, the very things that are needed to keep me alive. And not only that, but the trees that grow all around me in these bush lots scrub that air. They suck up the carbon dioxide I can't breathe, and they breathe out the oxygen that I need. Does it prove that there is a God? No. It doesn't prove that there is a God, but it points us towards a designer. points us towards a Creator, says it seems that everything here has a purpose. We could talk about ecosystems and all of a sudden all of our high school kids and junior high kids go, oh boy, it sounds like we're back in school. But look, ecosystems all fit together. Every single species in there plays a part and does it prove that there's a God? No, but it points us towards a Creator. Have you ever noticed that when you see a sunset or a sunrise or some beautiful Moonrise maybe and then you pull out your your smartphone super smartphone And you point it there and you click it and you go home to share it on Facebook. Just doesn't look the same Just can't seem to get it in there And if you want to get a picture of what the world looks like that looks like the world you've got to pay Thousands and thousands of dollars for some high-end camera the whole bunch of computer components and great big huge lenses and all kinds of stuff Why? Because that's what it takes to capture that image. But think about this. We've only had that technology for the last 20 or 30 years. The camera itself has only been around since, well, since your great-grandparents were around. And then they had to sit still for a long, long time to get a grainy black and white sort of image. The guy with a big beard sort of like this, you know. I don't know if they had big beards. I think they just jiggled a little bit and you got this fuzzy image down there. But think about this for a minute. For all of recorded history, as long as human beings have existed and that we have known them, they've had an eye just like my eye. The eye has received no improvement. I mean, you can get a contact lens to stick on to your eye, or lenses to put in front of your eye if your eyes are defective, but even your optometrist will tell you that the contact lens or the glasses can't make a superior eye. The eye is an incredible instrument. able to take in the images, to process them through the brain, things that we can't even do with a camera today, and for thousands of years we've had these eyes. Does this prove that there is a God? No. But it points us towards a designer. And how do we know anything about this God? Well, let me talk to you for a moment about morality. In the animal kingdom, do we see morality? When one dog gets hold of a piece of meat, and starts eating it, do all the other dogs say, well, it's his property. That piece of meat belongs... We don't see that. It's survival of the fittest. One dog will take from another dog and it's not like the rest of the dogs stand back and say, you shouldn't have done that. You really are out of line here. You need to behave yourself and get into line. We see animals and when there's a runt in the litter, we feel bad about it. Little blonde-haired girls go find the runts and they bottle-feed them so that they grow up. But if it wasn't for little blonde-haired girls, high-tabs, feeding little runts, they'd starve to death. Why? It's the law of the animal kingdom. The mother animal doesn't look and say, well, that poor runt's not going to get enough. It's survival of the fittest. But consider this for a moment. Consider morality. We don't need a whole bunch of laws to tell us that something is right or wrong. We naturally know that if this belongs to somebody, my pulpit, if at the end of the service, I see you hauling my pulpit off in the back of your pickup truck, say, wait, wait, that's wrong. You can't take that. Say, why not? I'm bigger than you. Well, you're not bigger than me, but if you were bigger, if we're way back in the days of Alex Thompson, you know, you say, I can take it from Alex Thompson. He's just a little tiny preacher man. It's survival of the fittest. I can take whatever I want. Look out there and say, that guy Micah there, he's pretty scrawny. I don't know if we have to feed him. But we know, without Allah telling us, that this would be immoral, that it would be wrong. Does the morality of human beings prove that God exists? No, but they point us towards the fact that there is something bigger, something higher, something more powerful at work. How do I behold God? You can only behold Him by faith. Faith moves me beyond what my senses can hear, or smell, or see, or touch, or taste. But faith causes me to believe that there is something there. All of these evidences that are left in the world point me towards something greater. But the Bible says this, that even with all of this evidence, there is no way that I can know God unless God reveals Himself to me. What's the result of looking around? If I do not have any sort of revelation, I will make the sun into my God, the moon into my God, the water into my God. I will make some part of myself into God. There is a part of me that cries out and says, there is something bigger, greater, something that I need, and I'm going to worship it. We are made to worship. But without revelation, we have no way of knowing who God is. And so God reveals himself. piece by piece. He speaks to Moses from a burning bush and he begins to talk to Moses about holy ground, about something consecrated, about something set apart, about something wholly different. And he says, Moses, bring out the people of Israel. And he brings them out to Mount Sinai and he gives to them the Ten Commandments. And he says, this is who I am. This is what I expect. And I'm going to make a covenant with you. I'm going to reveal myself to you. And we could go through the whole of Old Testament history. Might be a very long sermon, probably a good sermon. But we finally come here to Isaiah, and the people are going away into captivity, and they say, has God failed us? And Isaiah says, get you up on a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news. Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news. Lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Judah, behold your God. God is about to reveal Himself in a way that you have never seen before. God is about to show you the intimate, intricate details of who He really is. You have seen His holiness. You have seen His separation. You have seen the glory of God come down on the tabernacle. You've heard of His power, and now you're going to see His love. Behold your God. Says this, behold the Lord God comes with strength and his arm rules for him. You remember the story of Jabesh Gilead? Everybody nods their head like this. You know, Jabesh Gilead, 2 Samuel chapter 11, little tiny city of people in the tribe of Manasseh, a bunch of ne'er-do-wells. Nobody liked the people in Jabesh Gilead. There is a reason for that. There was a time when all of Israel, before the time of the kings, all of Israel was called out to do battle and Jabesh Gilead stayed home. That's not the story I want to tell you. It's not that Jabesh Gilead story. It's the next one. You remember that? No. right after Saul has been made king. Ringing any bells yet? Right after Saul has become king, the Ammonites come. And the Ammonites are a nasty, stinking, filthy group of people who are enslavers. And they show up at Jabesh Gilead, this little mountain enclave, and there's nobody around. And they lay siege to the city and they cut off all of its food and all of its trade until the people are starving. And the people call out and ask for terms. They said, please let us have some food. We will serve you. We'll be your slaves. We'll be your water boys. We'll be whatever you want. Just let us have some food. And you know what the Ammonites said to him? We got a deal for you. Here's the deal, so we know that you're serious. We will make you our slaves. All you have to do in exchange is let us gouge out the right eye of every man in the city. How's that for a deal? So the people of Jabesh Gilead, who are not especially popular with the rest of Israel because they're a bunch of ne'er-do-wells who don't come when the trumpets sound, say, listen, give us seven days. Give us seven days to think about this and let us send out messengers to see if there's a champion who will come and relieve us of the terms you've offered. So the Ammonites say, okay, seven days, send out your messengers. And the message goes far and wide throughout Israel, Jabesh, Gilead, the Ne'er-do-wells, who don't show up for battle, have been surrounded by the Ammonites, and the Ammonites are going to make them slaves with only one eye. Unless a champion will come and fight for them. And you know, most of Israel kind of shuffles their feet a little bit. They say, it's terrible, it's awful, glad it's not happening to us. And Saul, who has just become king, actually probably the only good thing that we have a record of Saul doing, says, this cannot happen in Israel while I'm king. I will champion this cause. And so it is that Saul, he actually takes a bull and cuts the bull in pieces and sends the pieces of the bull all throughout Israel and says, so will be done to anyone who doesn't answer the trumpet when I blow. Come out and fight. And he sends message to Jabesh Gilead and the message gets there the day before the deadline is up. And the message is, by the heat of the day tomorrow, I will be there. And I will deliver you. And so the people of Jabesh Gilead say to the stinking, nasty, vile Ammonites who want to make them one-eyed slaves, listen, give us until the heat of the day tomorrow. And then, if nobody relieves us, we're yours. The Ammonites start sharpening up their gougers and start rubbing their hands together. They're all going to have a bunch of slaves. The Bible tells us in 2 Samuel chapter 11, if you want to read this story later, that as the sun is rising, Saul arrives with 300,000 Israelites. And he smashes to pieces the Ammonites. And he saves Jabesh Gilead. Jabesh Gilead, a lot of people probably thought, didn't deserve to get saved. But Saul, their champion, brings them victory. Throughout the history of the world, we have stories like this of one person or a group of people freeing another group of people. We could go back just a little ways in history to the Second World War when the low countries of Holland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, the places like France and Poland are enslaved by a maniacal dictator and the free countries of the world come together and say, we will champion this cause. We will suffer greatly, but we will push back this evil. When we come to this story, it says, behold, our God comes in might and His arm rules for Him. And the picture here is not of an army that is coming, not that God has raised up some group of people that will deliver, but that God Himself will come and that He is powerful enough that He can defeat, that He can free. What's the victory that's promised? What is the victory that is needed? He's talking about people who have been enslaved, not by a physical power, but by a spiritual power. They are enslaved to sin. They're in bondage to death. Preacher named Martin Lloyd-Jones, once preached on this very passage, pointed out four different forces that hold each one of us in bondage. The first one will surprise you. It's the law of God. You cannot overcome it. The law of God condemns you. Some people have said before, I don't think it's fair that a person should be condemned because they reject the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible doesn't say that a person will be condemned for rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says you're already condemned. That would be like saying, I don't think it's fair that a person should die because they refuse to take penicillin when they have pneumonia. You say it's not the refusal of penicillin that has killed the person, it's the pneumonia that's killed the person. It's the penicillin that can save the person. And if you're foolish enough to look at the cure and say, I don't want it, how can you later on claim, it's not fair that I perish because I don't want the medicine. Here's what the law of God says. The law of God condemns us. Sin is declared and we are declared guilty of sin. And the Lord Jesus Christ comes and He says, I come with might to defeat this. Not to defeat the law, but to satisfy the law. And you say, I don't want you. I'll do it myself. And then you say, it's not fair. Why should God condemn me because I don't want Jesus? God's already condemned you because you've broken His law. It doesn't stop there. The first force that stands against you is God's law. Just as if you had been arrested for breaking this law here in Canada, you're guilty. How can you get around it? Somehow that law must be satisfied. The penalty declared against you must be paid. The second thing is our very sin nature, which makes us by inclination rebels against God. How do we know this? Because we start hearing what God requires of us and we say, man, it doesn't seem fair. God, you're just trying to spoil all my fun. That's a sin nature that's rearing its head. It says, listen, God has filled the air with oxygen, filled the rivers with water. He's made things beautiful. God could have made one kind of tree, stuck it all over the place. Here you go, poison sumac. It'll scrub the air for you. It doesn't look like much. It doesn't change colors. Well, it does. It turns red. One kind of tree doesn't do that. God fills the earth with variety. He could have made one kind of food. Here you go, zucchini. Didn't do that. Filled the earth with good things to eat. Could have made one kind of weather. Could have made some sort of drizzly mess that would allow things to grow. Didn't do that. Gave us the sun, the blue sky. Gave us snow and rain and wind and all these things. Made a beautiful world for us to live in. And you say, I don't owe you anything, God. In fact, I think that you're in my debt and I find myself somehow angry when bad things happen to me as if God has somehow slighted me. It's a sin nature. The law of God condemns me. The sin nature makes me a rebel against God. The devil works, he's the third, in every way he can to feed that sin nature. He's a tempter and a deceiver. He loves to put things out and say, hey, doesn't this look good? Don't you think you'd like a little bit of this? Don't you think you could embezzle a little tiny bit and nobody would notice and that would give you a little bit extra to buy a bigger motor for your boat this summer? And you say, wow, it's tempting. I don't think anybody will notice. And then you do it and whether you get caught or not, he's got you because he says, look how wicked and wretched and terrible you are. We have an adversary, he's called the devil. And finally, we have an enemy and it's called death. You won't escape any one of these. All four of these things stand opposed to you. Wake up to the reality of the world that you live in. You need to deliver good news. Behold, the Lord God comes with might and His arm rules for Him. And the Lord Jesus Christ, when He comes to the cross, is going to satisfy the law. Not only that, He is going to break the power of the sin nature so that those who come to Him have a choice. You no longer have to be a rebel to God. You can now be obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ and to seek to follow after Him. And the devil is no longer going to have hold on you. And finally, here's the good news. There is no more final death. Yes, you are going to die and I am going to die, but there is coming a time when just like the Lord Jesus Christ was resurrected the first fruits from amongst the dead, so I too will be resurrected and so will all those who have placed faith in Him. Behold, the Lord God comes with might and His arm rules for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him and His recompense before Him. This is interesting. Isaiah is saying, hey a champion is coming and the champion who is coming is none other than God himself. God is coming and God is going to fight for us and we see it happen. We see the Lord Jesus Christ born of a virgin, born amongst men. We see Him grow up. He is tempted and tested in every way, yet is without sin. He brings Himself and offers Himself a willing sacrifice to satisfy what God's law demands. He is killed on the cross, but He rises again on the third day. And Isaiah, he pulls it all together in one sentence. Behold, His arm rules for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him. His recompense is before Him. It is a done deed. Isaiah looks forward and says it's all done, it's satisfied, set in stone. Here's the question every person had to ask. If a champion was going to fight for you, would that champion be successful? Because if the champion isn't, you're in trouble. Remember David and Goliath? Goliath came out for weeks. Who will fight me? Nobody wanted to fight him. Why not? Well, nobody wants to fight nine foot tall men who have got spears with beams like weaver's beams on them. That's kind of scary. But beyond that, what if I lose? If I lose, he gets all of Israel. The stakes are huge. And so when David comes forth, we'll let Micah be our David for right now. Yeah, Micah says, why me? You know, and here's a guy about the size of Micah who hears him, who will fight me? And he's looking around and saying, who will fight him? Where is God's champion? People said, David, shut up. Shut up. Somebody's going to hear you, David. I'll fight him. King Saul hears there's a man in the camp willing to fight Goliath. So they calls him up. He looks at him. He says, what do you weigh? 65 pounds or so. Put the armor on the boy. Put 65 pounds of armor on the boy. He's dragging himself around in circles. I can't wear this. It's not my armor. It doesn't fit me. What will you go with? Well, he says, I got a sling and five smooth stones. You can't beat a giant with a sling and five smooth stones. I don't have to beat a giant. God will beat the giant. I'm just going because I believe that God will be victorious. And so David walks out there, but there's this great fear in Israel. If he fails, we lose. Here's what Isaiah says, Behold, the Lord God comes. He says, Behold your God. Behold, the Lord comes with strength in His arm, rules for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him. His recompense is before Him. He cannot lose. He cannot lose. Though all the powers of the world be arrayed before Him, though the devil be opposed to Him, and we have had struggles with the devil, and we have seen evidence of the devil, and I'll tell you, when you look at the things that men like Hitler and Stalin did, men whose names we don't know because we don't follow that news, you recognize there's a wickedness and an evil in this world. There's a power at work in this world, and you say, who can beat Him? God says, I am infinite and I am eternal. I come with might and I will defeat them. Not only that, it's a done deal. My reward is with me, my recompense before me. Bear with me for just a couple more minutes. Here's two different sides of the same coin, the coin of salvation. On one side is imprinted the words mercy. It's how mercy works. that the law has condemned me, I have been arrested, and I'm chained and shackled, being held for trial, and all of a sudden, the door is open, and my chains are knocked off, and I am brought out and told, listen, although you deserve the penalty, the penalty is satisfied, you're free to go, that's mercy. I did not receive what I deserved, I have been shown mercy, you're free to go, but it doesn't stop there, there's another side to this coin, it's called grace. And this is where reward and recompense comes in. Not only has he fought for me, not only has he been my champion who has freed me, he brings a reward and recompense and I become heir of God. I become son of God, child of God. And all that belongs to Him is given to me. And most of us don't even know the richness of it, because most of us only get as far as the mercy, say, oh, thank goodness I'm saved, and never press on further. And God says, come up here. It's what the Apostle Paul says. He says, forgetting what is behind and pressing on towards what is ahead, I press on towards to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus has taken hold of me. Mercy and grace. Conclusion time. After Jesus rose from the dead, he met his disciples in the Mount of Olives and he said to them some words we know well. He says this, all authority, all authority in heaven and earth is given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything that I have told you. And lo, I'm with you always to the end of the age. Those are the final words of Jesus to his disciples. These very words are echoed by Isaiah when he says this, get you up on a high mountain. O Zion, herald of good news, lift up your voice with strength. O Jerusalem, herald of good news, lift it up. Fear not. What is there to fear? For some it's the fear of failure. No one's going to listen to me. Nobody's going to believe me. I don't have a pulpit. I could steal it in my pickup truck, but that preacher is bigger than I am. But even if I had a pulpit, nobody would listen to me. You don't know the friends I have and the family I live in. You don't know the kind of person I've been. Who will believe me when I say to them, God is for us and has sent a champion to fight for us? Who will believe me when I say to them, the Lord Jesus Christ has saved me and I'm a new creation? And we fear that we might fail. God doesn't tell us to concern yourself with whether or not anybody is going to listen to you. He says, tell them. Lift up your voice. Some fear that they'll look foolish. I mean, this is a technological age. Who will believe the message that God sent his own son to be born as a human, of a virgin, to live without sin, to die on a cross, and then to be raised up on the third day? Nobody's going to believe that. It's the 21st century. Guess what? In the first century, people were smart enough to know virgins didn't give birth, and dead people didn't rise. God is the one that must change the heart. But here's the thing, he needs those who will proclaim the message, who will simply tell the truth, regardless of whether they look foolish or not. Finally, there's always been the fear of persecution, either active physical persecution, when a person is literally beaten or broken because of what they've said, or emotional psychological persecution that we run into more often when the person is ridiculed or mocked or just excluded because of what they believe. But Isaiah says, lift your voice up and fear not. Not because you won't be persecuted, not because nobody will ridicule you or laugh at you, not because you won't ever be excluded. Lift up your voice and speak because this is truth. Because this is reality and it is writ large upon the words of Scripture that God is coming, that His reward is with Him and His recompense before Him. And listen, that reward and recompense goes both ways. To those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is a reward. To those who reject Him, there is still something coming. And they need to know that God has come. That God has acted in this world and that God offers salvation. And you will find that there are one of two responses. People will either repent or rebel. They will either humble themselves or they will harden themselves. But any response to the Gospel is a response. And people need to hear that gospel proclaimed. And so here is the message, two-fold message to you. If you're not certain that you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, here is the message that God has acted. Behold your God. He comes with strength and His arm rules for Him. His reward is with Him and His recompense before Him. And He is calling out today, Come. Come. Trust in Me. Believe in Me. Accept. the work that has been done on your behalf. And to those of you who have done that, the message gets you up on a high mountain. Lift up your voice with strength. Say to the cities of Judah, behold your God. Let's pray. Father, thank You today. Thank You for this message, Lord. Thank You that 500 or so years before the Lord Jesus ever set foot on this earth, Lord, You sent to Isaiah the message that he proclaims here And Lord, we see it fulfilled. Lord, they lived with hopeful anticipation that you would act. Lord, we live in the faith and the belief that you have acted. Lord, that this is the greatest reality in our world. Lord, that we are living. Lord, living for the glory of God, living for the day when you will call us home. Father, we pray that you might be at work in each heart. Lord, Without you opening eyes, Lord, who will see? And so, Father, open the eyes of our parents and our children, of our husbands and wives, Lord, of our brothers and sisters and our neighbours, Lord. We pray for them, Lord. We pray that you might do a mighty work. And we pray, Father, that you might work in our own hearts, Lord, to give us strength and confidence, Lord, to give us words Lord, to help us to bear that witness and that testimony even in places where we think it will not be accepted or heard. And Lord, we commit this entire congregation, Lord, now to you in Jesus' name. Amen.