Isaiah 51 and reading verse 11. So the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away. over the last two or three months we've been looking at various aspects of the Christian life. And we've used the story of the Christian life that a great writer of a previous century left for us, John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. We normally use those two words, but the book actually had a longer title originally, the pilgrim's progress from this world to that which is to come. Doesn't that sum up the Christian life? There are many illustrations of it in the Bible. We think of the Old Testament, for example, Abram and his family travelling on, having left where they were before, travelling on to the land promised them, People of Israel gathering several times a year to the worship of God in Jerusalem, going up to Mount Zion, as they said. When we think of the Christian life in this way, we realize it implies certain things. It implies first that we depart from where we had been. There has to be a beginning. There has to be a repentance, a turning to the Lord, a new faith in Christ Jesus. It implies making progress. We don't stay as we are any more than a child stays as it is as the years go by. The Christian is therefore in a state of transition. Circumstances are changing, the person is also changing. But it implies something else. It implies that the journey will end. The Christian will reach his or her goal. And that is what it's all about. Now, people like to believe that there is a place called Heaven. that don't always like to think about getting there. And that's a mistake. We get there only through faith in our Lord Jesus. The actual arrival is only through his second coming or our own death and then later a resurrection. And if we don't think about these things, we're making a great mistake. From many points of view, even just in this way, shutting out such thoughts tends to produce fear. We don't think about these things because we don't think about these things. Why don't we like to think about these things? Well, I don't need to tell you why we don't like to think about these things. We all know, don't we? But there's not why. And the most respected Christians of all ages have given us the example of thinking and speaking and writing a great deal about that. John Bunyan, for example, devotes page after page of the Pilgrim's Progress to the Christians, one after another, crossing the river, as he puts it. and ascending the hill up to the celestial city. And we ought to think about these things. Some of the old saints used to call the day of the Christian's death the Saints' Coronation Day. And if we know anything of Scripture, we can understand why. One of Christ's great achievements was to transform death. We read it there in the prophecy of Hosea. The Apostle Paul quotes it in 1 Corinthians 15. He says, O death, I will be your plagues. O grave, I will be your destruction. And we read of the New Testament saints that they are asleep in Jesus. And that is one of the many reasons why we should be filled with gratitude to the Lord. So, we look at this text here in Isaiah 51. The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness sorrow and sighing shall flee away." And when it was first written, people might have thought, well, this is a reference to God's people being brought back to their own land after spending 70 years in exile in a foreign country. Yes, indeed, but there is far more than that. For this whole book is a prophecy of the coming Messiah and the wonderful salvation that he would bring Zion itself, the centre of the life of God's people. It's a picture of the Church of Christ, gathered before God. It's a picture of Heaven. And so, in the text, we see the gathering together of God's people, either through death and resurrection, or living when He comes again, gathering together to Him. We have a description of the people of God here. And as we read this description and think about the death of the saints, various questions come to our mind, and we ought to address them. Here's the description, first of all. The ransom of the Lord. Those who belong to the Lord and those whom the Lord has ransomed. Heaven's human inhabitants, apart from the Lord Jesus himself, have all been ransomed. And in a sense he was too, by his own blood. We were prisoners. We could not have reached heaven unless we had been ransomed. Prisoners under the verdict of God's law that says the soul that sins shall die. Prisoners of our own sinful character, for nothing that defiles shall enter there. sinners of the sin of our own heart, our unbelief, even when we were presented with the Saviour. Did we believe in Him straight away? Well, yes, in many cases we did. But in some cases there was a resistance to Him. But the emphasis of this text is not on the imprisonment. the early imprisonment. The emphasis rather is on the reality, the glorious reality of the freedom that this ransom has brought. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And two thoughts arise here. One is, how much he pitied us. What a wonderful thought that is. He came in His pity. He saw what we were like. He saw our doom. He saw and foresaw our suffering. It moved Him to compassion. He came in His pity to save us. But there's another thought here. In a sense, it's even more wonderful. His love is more than His pity. His love is His deep, deep attachment to His people. That's more than pity. You can pity a person you don't know. You can pity a person you have no affection for. You can pity a person you're never going to meet again. The love of Christ is far more than that. And so, in His pity, and in His love, He bore the consequences of our sin and the penalty of it in his own body on the tree. That was the ransom and he paid it. Does the prisoner go free as soon as the ransom has been paid? Not necessarily. There may be a lapse in time and so it is with us. The ransom was paid 2,000 years ago. There's the story of the two men, I've probably told this before, forgive me if I have, the two men who were discussing their Christian experience and their salvation, and one of them was saying, not surprisingly, that, you know, he, the change in him was a gradual thing, as it is with many, He couldn't put his finger on the day exactly when he became a new creature in Christ. He thought that was everyone's experience. He was surprised then when his friend said, oh I can tell you exactly when I was saved. Really? Can you? Oh yes. I was saved at 3 o'clock. What? Yes, 3 o'clock. On a Friday afternoon. 2000 years ago. That's when the ransom was paid. But it doesn't necessarily take effect immediately. We may be able to remember the day when it took effect. Maybe we can't. Maybe it is still to take effect. The ransom paid It must take effect. It will. It cannot but take effect. It leads to freedom. Freedom from condemnation. The conscience has no right to condemn if we are forgiven through Christ. Neither has Satan, nor the world. The law of God does not. Freedom from the control of sin may be very active, but no longer in control. The freedom of the children of God, Abba, Father. And the day is coming when the last stage in that freedom will be accomplished. Freedom from death and from the grave. The glorious liberty of the children of God. Here then are the children of God, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, and the Christian life is then returning to their heavenly home. So the question is, what's involved in this returning, and how do we recognise it? There are new things in life, The person returning to God, to Christ, and returning to Heaven therefore, has for one thing a new hope. A hope that they could never have before. A hope that is not just a wish, but a hope in a much deeper sense of persuasion. lies ahead. Have you seen it? No. But I know it's there. It's the hope to be like Him. And it's the hope to be with Him. It's the hope to be free of this world that is hostile to Him. And what remains in our own heart that's in sympathy with the world. And that hope is kindled by the love of Christ. It's kindled by our understanding of what He has done on the cross. It's kindled by the example of Christ. It's kindled by the promise of Christ. A new hope. And with that new hope comes a new longing. One well-known Christian pastor and teacher of another century expressed the thought that Christianity is very largely a matter of holy desires. That's worth thinking about. New longings. And of course, when we long for something, we begin to move towards it. We start to make moves towards the thing that we long for. That's true in any area of life. And so, we begin to seek His face. Where is He? Where can I meet with Him? Where can I hear from my Lord, my Saviour? How can I be reassured of His saving love for me? What is He saying to me? Do we recognise that? A new hope. A new longing. And where a new hope triggers a new longing, that in turn triggers new living. Now we begin to live to please Him. And to do that, we come under the authority of His words. Teach me your laws, I pray. This new living prioritises the things of heaven, the things of God's kingdom, rather than our own desires. As Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. For your treasure is, there will your heart be also. A new hope, a new longing, new living and also a new Lord. In the past, other things had the mastery of us. We served them, we wanted other things, they had a grip on us. It varies from person to person. It can be pleasure, it can be money, it can be status, it can be power, it can be all sorts of things. These things we had to have. But now, we have a new master. The love of Christ constrains us. Sometimes though, a person who is reasoned to believe they have been ransomed by the blood of Christ, they have this new hope, they have this new longing. have, to some extent, this new living. They acknowledge a new Lord. Sometimes, though, they might wonder, will I make it to Heaven? Do I have the right to be there? And all sorts of things give rise to that thought. It might be sin in our conscience that we have not confessed. and felt forgiveness of. It might be the temptations of Satan. It might be nothing other than physical and emotional exhaustion. But this is a question that we ought to address. Yes, this is the will of God for you. Believer in Christ. You have God's authority to go there. To take up that journey. To pursue it. And to arrive at the goal. What is the Gospel? Information, yes. But more than information, it's a call. It is God calling. The Gospel calls us to join ourselves to Christ. And if we are united to Christ, we share with Christ. We share His innocence, His righteousness. We share His victory. We share His Spirit. And we will share His glory. This is God's call. Not only so, but it is God who has set this goal ahead of us. He has set it ahead of us in His words. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And He has set this goal in our heart as well. Why would we long for this if He had not put that longing there? It is He who gave us repentance. It is He who gave us faith, just as it is He who gives perseverance. It's He who gives this new living and allegiance to this new Lord. The call of God. But we see it's His will in another way as well. We are purchased by Christ. One of the epistles says, you are not your own, you are bought with a price. The ransomed of the Lord are those who have been ransomed by the Lord and because they have been ransomed they now belong to the Lord. Is he going to lose what belongs to him? It is unthinkable. They shall be mine, says the Lord, in that day that I make up my jewels. Our security is in Him. Yes, it is the will of God for He calls us in the Gospel. It is the will of God, we see that in the fact that He has purchased us with the precious blood of Christ. It is the will of God because our Lord Jesus prays for it. We read that in John chapter 17. Father, I will, that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory. That is his prayer. The Father answers his prayer. He prays for what he knows is his Father's will. There is therefore no doubt about the outcome. Thine they were Thou gavest them to me." We have His authority. He prays on the basis of His Father's will. He prays on the basis of His fulfillment of the Father's will. I have glorified You on the earth. Reaching the goal is Christ's desire long before It was ours. So, they will arrive. Believer, you will be there. The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. What is that joy? Maybe we taste a little of it here. How much more there? The arrival is not our doing. It will be His doing. According to His purpose. In His time. According to His circumstances. John Bunyan portrays a huge variety of passings from this world to that which is to come. Faithful was burned at the stake in Vanity Fair. Christian and hopeful crossed the river together. Christiana, his widow, received a summons. An arrow touched her heart. And as Bunyan said, the point was sharpened with love. So, we have this wonderful promise of Scripture, guaranteed by Christ himself. The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy in their heads, They shall obtain joy and gladness. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Long ago, one of God's people spoke to his father-in-law. At that time, he and his people were not in the easiest of circumstances, but they were going to the place where God had promised And so Moses said to his father-in-law, come with us, we will do you good, for the Lord has promised good concerning Israel. And so the people of God this evening say to any and to all who are not yet on that pilgrimage, come with us, we will do you good, for the Lord has spoken good concerning Israel. Can we finish with the words of a song? A song of a Christian looking forward to his or her last day in this world. Looking forward to crossing the river. I've told all my troubles goodbye. Goodbye to each tear and each sigh. This world where I roam cannot be my home, I'm bound for that home in the sky. I walk and I talk with my lord, I feast every day on his word, heaven is near, and I can't stay here. Goodbye world, goodbye. I won't of the blues anymore when I step across to that shore, and I'll never pine, for I leave behind my heartaches and cares evermore. A day, maybe two, Then, goodbye, goodbye to each sorrow and sigh. Heaven is near, and I can't stay here. Goodbye world, goodbye. Now, don't you weep for me when I'm gone, for I won't have to leave here alone. And when I hear that last trumpet sound, my feet won't stay on the ground. I'm gonna rise with a shout. Gonna fly, gonna rise with my Lord in the sky. Heaven is near, but I can't stay here. Goodbye, world. Goodbye. Let us pray.