Grace be unto you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins. It's a joy to be gathered with you all in this place, beloved, especially since today we have spread before us a most glorious feast for our souls, that which Christ our Savior has instituted for us to nourish, to strengthen us with the benefits of his gospel. Every Sabbath, Christ promises to meet with us in a special way through his ordinary means of grace, but in Holy Communion, He draws even more closely and intimately to our hearts and even more powerfully since we get Him, Christ, in both the Word and in the Sacrament, which raises our spiritual senses double, as it were. The same Christ is held out to us delightfully in the preached word, as in the visible word, as the Puritan Robert Bruce once said it so well. He said this, we do not get a different or better Christ in the sacraments than we do in the word, but we get the same Christ better with a firmer grasp of his grace through seeing, touching, feeling, and tasting as well. hearing. And so my so here friends we have a spiritual meal provided for us in the gospel that preaches and ministers to all of our senses to the ones who come to it by a living with a living faith we are assured of the sure and and everlasting reality of the redemption that has that we have found in Christ by a personal union with his very person that whatsoever that whosoever has fed upon Christ by saving faith, they are true possessors of eternal life now and forever. So let us therefore, friends, take these things into heart, and especially these words of our Savior in the public witnessing of and the partaking of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper this day. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate the man and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever. Our Lord, because he knows how prone we are to doubt that and how low and how weak our faith often is in him, he has given us this gospel ordinance to bolster our faith in the promises of the gospel. And all of us, my friends, are in need of this. today. So let us pray fervently that our God and Father would do this mightily and powerfully by his spirit that we would all here have a deeper grasp and sense of Christ's everlasting love for sinners who he chose to redeem by his amazing grace. So with that as a good and much needed reminder of the purpose of the benefits of our soul dining with Christ by faith this day let's now come to our Lord with a word of prayer, asking that he would bless his word unto us. Gracious God and Heavenly Father, we are truly in awe that as holy of a God as you are, that you are so pleased to fellowship with us filthy, perverse sinners. And you do so in the person of your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, by your Spirit. Who are we that you have given us such a seat around your table to feast in peace, to be reconciled to you, to delight in all that you have provided for us in the gospel, which the sacraments commemorate and celebrate. And so, Lord, we can come to no other conclusion than you have been pleased to do this and for your own glory. And so magnify your name in this place, O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for your sovereign work in saving sinners to yourself. And Lord, as we open up your word this morning once again and seek to have our hearts be readied and prepared to come and to feast around your table where we ask that you would soften our hearts, that we would receive your word with all meekness and in a way that would raise our thoughts and our affections for Christ, where he is seated at the right hand of the Father. And so, Lord, grant to us, O Lord, a spiritual hunger and thirst for the eternal truce of your word, the bread which you provide for us in and through Christ Jesus. Quicken us, revive us, refresh us with the wonderful beauties and the mysteries of your glorious gospel. Empower even now your servant to preach with an eye to the glory of God and the good of your people. Fill him with your spirit and all who would hear in this hour. For that is the only way that we will be changed by the work of your spirit. And Lord, we ask all of these things in that glorious name, the Lord Jesus Christ, our savior, amen. Well, friends, at this time, I'd invite you all to take up your copy of God's word and turn with me in them, if you would, to the book of Isaiah, the book of Isaiah, and specifically to chapter 25. This morning, brothers and sisters, I desire to draw from this chapter of scripture to set forth to you and to impress upon you and myself how glorious of a feast we have been invited to partake of today around Christ's gospel table. And here in Isaiah chapter 25 verse 6 in particular, it's what we'll be looking at mainly, we have one of the most beautiful, we have the richest depictions of the feasts that God has made for his people in his son, which is the true scope of these words as we shall see as we open them up. This is a very fitting text for us to meditate upon, friends, because today, we as the believing people of God and Christ, we get to partake of this very feast today as guests of honor, of the King, if we have hearts that are so inclined and determined to come unto it worthily. by grace so our theme then this morning is to explore with the help of God's spirit the various glorious facets of the gospel's bountiful banquet and all that it has to offer and in such a way that it will incite us to come cheerfully to it here shortly those who are able to do so, that our souls might truly feast in spiritual delight, where we are the most filled up and where Christ is the most glorified by our dining with him and with one another as well. So whilst verse 6 is where the gospel feast is prophetically spoken of by Isaiah and what we'll be zooming in particularly on for the sake of context we'll read the entire chapter in which it lies as clearly chapter 25 is to be taken together. So if you haven't already turned there in your copy of God's word you can find Isaiah chapter 25 on page 624 in the pew Bibles underneath your seed page 624. So congregation here now as I read for all of us the very words of the living God. Divinely breathed out by him for our everlasting good and grace. From Isaiah chapter 25, beginning in verse one, reading all the way to the end of the chapter. Oh Lord, you are my God. I will exalt you. I will praise your name for you have done wonderful things. Your counsels of old are faithfulness. For you have made a city a ruin, a fortified city a ruin, a palace of foreigners to be a city no more. It will never be rebuilt. Therefore the strong people will glorify you. The city of the terrible nations will fear you. For you have been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat for the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall. You will reduce the noise of aliens as heat in a dry place, as heat in the shadow of a cloud. The song of the terrible ones will be diminished. And in this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all people A feast of choice pieces, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of well-refined wines on the lees. And He will destroy on this mountain the surface of the covering cast over all people and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces. The rebuke of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. And it will be said in that day, behold, this is our God. We have waited for him and he will save us. This is the Lord, we have waited for him. We will be glad and rejoice in his salvation. For on this mountain the hand of the Lord will rest. And Moab shall be trampled down under him as straw is trampled down for the refuse heap. And he will spread out his hands in their midst as a swimmer reaches out to swim. And he will bring down their pride together with the trickery of their hands. The fortress of the high fort of your walls, he will bring down, lay low and bring to the ground down to the dust. Amen. So ends the reading of God's inerrant, never changing and ever abiding word. And may he be pleased to write these words. on each of our hearts and upon our minds as we consider them together in the preaching of the word. Allow me to direct your attention back to our text, verse 6 of this inspired prophecy here. The Holy Spirit through Isaiah the prophet gives unto God's covenant people a very refreshing promise, the gracious provision of a lavish banquet, one that is spiritual in nature, being conveyed by earthly, familiar symbols as many of the prophecies of scripture are. Hence, it is expressed under these words, and in this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of choice pieces. A feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of well-refined wines on the lees. To understand these words as they were intended to be understood, we need to, at the outset, recognize, like I said, that these words are prophetical. They are the foretelling of what God will do for his church at a future time. When Isaiah wrote this, And much of the prophecies in the book of Isaiah, you should know, find their ultimate fulfillment in the time of the gospel, either in the first coming of the Messiah or later in the gospel age when the blessings of his gospel will progressively take a greater hold on the world in a powerful way. This is why some biblical commentators have referred to the book of Isaiah as the fifth gospel. because it speaks so frequently about the person and the work of Christ and the gospel of free grace in very great detail. Other than the Psalms, the book of Isaiah is the most commonly quoted book by the writers of the New Testament. So as we come to this chapter, we need to ask ourselves, is there any part of this chapter that looks well beyond 700 BC and speaks to what shall come to pass in these days of the gospel in which we find ourselves in? Answer to that question is certainly whether Isaiah is building his praise and thankfulness on a particular deliverance that the Lord granted to his church, like when God wiped out the entire army of King Sennacherib of Assyria in one night, or if he's just more generally praising Jehovah for all the deliverances that he has wrought for them, and even looking forward to how he will do it in the future. Regardless, verse six, friends, to the very end, it is very clear that Isaiah is setting forth what will take place, what will come to pass, specifically in the days of the gospel, and he even, for a quick second as it were, speaks of the eternal state as well. So let me show you definitively that verse 6, where this feast is spoken of, is in fact the gospel feast that Isaiah is referring to, which will be very important in our interpreting of it and applying it as such. First, in verse 6 itself, the future tense is employed. The Lord of hosts will make a feast, etc. And clearly this is not a Jewish feast referred to under the ceremonial law because this feast is explicitly said in the text, as you can see, it is a feast made for all people. meaning for both Jew and Gentile alike. Neither can it be speaking of some grand celebration of the Passover, such as it was under Hezekiah's or Josiah's reign, because this feast is referred to as a feast of what? A feast of fat things, which is the literal translation of the Hebrew for a feast of choice pieces, as we have it in the New Testament. King James. The fat of animals was never to be eaten by the people according to the law. So this itself places this prophecy past the time of the law, past Moses, past the Old Testament period, and into the times of the gospel. Secondly, verse 7. which immediately follows our text, speaks of God's destroying the veil of ignorance, that spiritual blindness that has been spread over the nations of the world. The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter two, sorry, chapter three, verse 16, that this veil is taken away when a soul is turned and won to the Lord by transforming gospel grace. And that takes place when? right now in what are called these last days in scripture, in the reign of the gospel. In verse eight as well, Isaiah speaks of death being swallowed up in victory, which speaks of the complete victory over death that all of God's children will experience because of the death and because of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was yet to come as of this text. Thirdly, Christ our Lord even picks up on this text, doesn't he? And thus he speaks of a very great feast as one of his kingdom parables. In Matthew chapter 22, providentially, we just read that in our New Testament scripture reading, which should only seal the deal all the more to us that the feast of Isaiah 25 verse 6 is none other than the feast of the gospel provided and centered upon Christ the Son. See, I have prepared my dinner, says God the King via this inspired parable. My oxen and fatted cattle are killed and all things are ready. Now only come to the wedding. Matthew chapter 22, verse four. And as the parable goes on, there is even an invitation to all kinds of people who were not originally invited, showing that this feast for the king's son is truly a feast which all are invited to come and to experience the joys of granted of course you come clothed in the right and only acceptable attire and we know that is the righteousness of christ that we must be clothed in And so for all of those reasons and more that we could add if time permitted all that we are looking at today in Isaiah chapter 25 verse 6 is into the feast of the gospel itself that God would have all people come to and sit down at and be satisfied eternally by in its gracious provision of Christ along with his redemptive benefits, which are here presented to our hearts in grandiose language of a bountiful banquet that trumps all the other banquets that you can attend in this world. And so in order that we might see this, friends, and we need to see this with the eye of faith and have this be our own experience today in our own souls as we gather around this extravagant spiritual feast. Let us now look into the special facets of it that make it such a banquet of banquets for the soul. As you look at the text, there are at least three of them. We could look at more, but we'll look at three immediately noteworthy ones, all of which are intended to motivate us to take up our seat. around it and feast till our hearts are full, full of Christ, filled to the brim with his gracious benefits applied to our hearts by faith. First, friends, what makes this spiritual meal a banquet of banquets for our souls to dine in is the special location of the gospel's bountiful banquet, the special location of the gospel's bountiful banquet. Where is this royal and heavenly supper? served according to Isaiah. Look at the text, Isaiah states it under these words, and in this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast, et cetera. In this mountain, by this designation, the prophet undoubtedly means God's church, the place where his hand will rest, verse 10, as it says. This is God's church, which is a very common title that God gives to his church throughout the scriptures for both its visibility and how immovable she is in the world. In an earlier prophecy in chapter two, God gave Isaiah a vision wherein he saw a great mountain, a firmly established and towering over all others around it. And the nations were streaming, were flowing up to it. And we don't have to guess what that mountain is. Isaiah tells us exactly what it is. Now it shall come to pass that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills and all nations shall flow unto it. Many people shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways and we shall walk in his paths. And so as we come to Isaiah 25 verse 6, it is clear that Jehovah's house is here meant, represented under the spiritual image of a mountain. Richard Sibbes, in his first sermon on Isaiah 25 verse 6, said it well. This mountain is the place where this feast is made. even Mount Zion, which is a type, which is a figure of the church called in scripture the holy mountain. For as mountains are raised high above the earth, so the church of God is raised in excellency and dignity above all sorts of mankind. Therefore, we see that the fixed place, the permanent glorious venue for the feast that God makes for his people in his church, it is his church and only in his church. You cannot come to partake of the spiritual delicacies of this bountiful banquet unless you come personally into the church of Jesus Christ, which is called Mount Zion. When we have joined ourselves to Christ and to his church by covenant, the writer of Hebrews tells us that we have come to a glorious mountain. Hebrews 12, verses 22 through 24. But you have come to what? To Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly, church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks of better things than that of Abel. Friend, if you wish to be fed by God himself today, and I hope that is your deepest desire, you have come to the right place. But to actually partake of to receive the richest of his refreshing and savoring graces in Christ, you need to join yourself personally to God's mountain, which is to Christ's visible church on the earth, here in the house of Christ, the spiritual Mount Zion. is the place he has desired to dwell. Psalm 132 verse 13, and in it, he has prepared a banqueting hall of graces for all of his redeemed people to eat, to drink abundantly by faith. And yet, will you not come to it? You who profess to know and to love Christ, will you not come to this banquet that the Lord of hosts has made in this mountain? Will your not coming not greatly displease and anger your master who desires to commune with your heart this day, believer? The heart which he bought by his own body and blood on the cross of Calvary. How long will you go without feasting with your Lord and with his people? Do you think light of this gracious provision that God has made for you in the gospel? of his son to willingly keep yourself believer from this gospel banquet in Mount Zion in the Church of Christ. No matter what excuse you might make is to make light. Of it to think it is unnecessary. To think that I can go without it and I will be just fine. Not so my friend Christ through his gospel ministers declares commands calls come to the Great Supper. In the kingdom all for all things are now ready. Luke 14 verse 17. This is a command. Friends and you need to press this upon your heart from your King. Dear Saint, there are no excuses that could you could ever make that will give you a free pass from your obligation to be here. Partaking of what he has provided for the good of your soul in Christ for your sanctification. You have no access to the benefits of this feast, to the choice pieces, to the feast of wines on the lees, to the fat things full of marrow, to well-refined wines on the lees, unless you join yourself as a communicating member to any of Christ's holy mountains in the world. A church of a true church of his, which preaches the gospel from the pulpit, which exhibits the gospel sacramentally through the right administration of the signs and seals of it. And it doesn't have to be here at Grace. As much as we would love for that to be the case, what's far more important is that you and your family are members of a church built upon Christ, built upon his word, where you can have full access to the spiritual benefits that can be gleaned from this table. The church, my friends, is the only place in the world where you can partake of this royal banquet of God's making. Yes, there is a great supper of the Lamb to come in glory, but why would you ever want to dine with Christ and his saints in heaven if you have no desire to do so here on earth? Have you a heart within you at all My friends, for spiritual things, for spiritual communion with a living God in Christ. Then you should not be able to in your soul to keep yourself from this feast of fat things, which can only be tasted, which can only be digested by faith by those who make up the Lord's mountain. And in this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make a feast for all people. I shall not belabor this point with you any longer except to say this is a way of application. Let none of us here foolishly think that we know better than God. He has permanently established his church to be the place to dine with Christ for the further sanctifying for the further enriching of our souls and grace. Therefore, let us be found around it every time it is offered and think and not think that it is something that we can do without. Now, having acquainted ourselves with the special location of the gospel's bountiful banquet to compel us the more to draw near to be fed by our God with his heavenly provisions for us in Christ, let us also consider a second facet of this gospel banquet, and it's this, the special host of the gospel's bountiful banquet, the special host. of the gospel's bountiful banquet. Let us not lose sight of this glorious reality that is so easy for us to just gloss over or to take it for granted. It is God Almighty, El Shaddai, the one who inhabits all eternity, the great I am that I am, the high and holy one who is hosting this magnificent feast. This is wondrously astounding to read. in the scriptures that the Lord of hosts will make a feast for all people. He who is altogether majestic, who is other in terms of his greatness and grandeur as the alone sovereign and supreme holy being who has no beginning and no end. He is the maker of this elegant spiritual feast. And in these words, we see that this is something that he has desired to do out of the sheer good pleasure of his own will. To condescend so low to us sinners, or as Charles Spurgeon says, to us little nothings, by willing to dine with them at the same table. No one forced God to spread out a feast for sinful man in the gospel. He has done this of his own desires. In fact, he desires to feast with his people infinitely more than we, as his people, desire to feast with him. This is something that makes God so beautifully glorious, does it not? Brothers and sisters, when you think that this is the very God who knows my deepest of darkest sins and yours as well, knows perfectly my utter unworthiness and wretchedness, who knows better than even I do that no good dwells, no good thing dwells in my flesh, sees my daily failings and stumblings, my often backslidings in heart from him, and yet he says here as it were in his divine mercy in the gospel, I am hosting a full and holy banquet for you, dear child, so that I may dine with you. that I might have joyful fellowship and intimate communion with you. Not because of your sins, I've taken care of those, but because you are one of my redeemed ones through my covenant of salvation that I've made with you in my grace. The Lord who has under his command the whole heavenly host as his army to do his every bidding, he is the true host today. It's not me. Nor is it your elders. It is God himself through the spirit of Christ hosting the meal that will be administered in this service. Though we are great sinners worthy of only eternal damnation for the sins we have served up to the Lord. Even those sins that we've fallen into this week, what divine encouragement there is in this verse, as it assures us that God has founded this feast in the gospel where he intimately desires to dine with sinners who have spurned his grace time and time again. And yet he doesn't pull it back from us. The feast he is throwing us as the host is to remind you and I, Christian, that all our sins have been dealt with and forever forgiven once and for all by the merits of Christ's death in our place. And to graciously impart to your repentant heart the graces that you are in desperate need of to slay those sins the next time they come knocking at your door. Repented of sins shouldn't ever be what keeps you from the gospel banquet, only unconfessed ones. For God only dwells and dines with men and women who are contrite and humble in their heart, Isaiah 57, verse 15. God the Father gives his special graces in Christ only to the humble. never to those who come to him with proud hearts that will not acknowledge nor let go of their sins. James chapter four verse six, God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble. Let us then be mindful today as we come to God's feast on his terms that we might reciprocate a delight to him in response to his desiring and loving us first. He is the host and he tells us to come examining ourselves and in sorrow for our sin, to come with a heart of faith, remembering distinctly the sufferings of Christ that purchase forgiveness of all of our sins, and to eat and drink deeply of his love that is brought so near to our hearts by the sacramental bread and cup of Christ. Christ who is the crucified and bloodied savior of sinners. It is a good thing to feast with God in our souls, as one Puritan said. It is he who can take away the burden of a grieved conscience and supply it with new and solid comforts. He knows all the windings, all the turnings of our souls, where all the pains and all the grief lies. And he cannot but know it because he is above, he is only above the soul. He is therefore the fittest to make the soul a feast. He only can do it, and he will do it." End quote. Here we have that promise that God will make a feast for our souls. And so may we come to it on our end, desiring, expecting him to do so as a good and ever gracious host of this gospel feast. But there is one more excellent facet of this gospel banquet where we can now actually see what kind of feast It is as far as its dinner menu is concerned, every banquet, every feast has a dinner menu. And so here, this one has a dinner menu, so to speak, as well. Hence, we'll look lastly this morning at the special spread of the gospel's bountiful banquet, the special spread of the gospel's bountiful banquet. What sort of feast has the Lord of Hosts in his abounding grace catered and laid out for all his honored guests around his table? Well, look at the text. Yet again, Isaiah characterized, he illustrates it in these words, it is a feast of choice things, fat things, literally, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of well-refined wines on the lees. Here we have a piling on of words to describe the outstanding richness and fullness of all the dishes that are made available to all dining here at God's table. How all of its courses for consumption are the best that can possibly be imagined. You have the fattiest of meats for food and the most delicious well-aged wine for drink. which is what made a top-notch feast in Isaiah's day, both of those things. What makes a first-class feast is the quality of food, the quality of drink, and here Isaiah makes use of that to show forth how this is exactly the kind of feast that God in Christ provides for our souls in the gospel supper. All the sanctifying graces, all the refreshing comforts, are here are excellent beyond all comparison. They are filling. They are satisfying, enriching to our spiritual taste. But as choice, meat and drink of the highest quality can satisfy your hunger, your physical hunger and thirst, so to Christ, sacramental food and drink satisfy your spiritual hunger and your spiritual thirst. When the scriptures speak of our souls being enriched with spiritual graces that we receive from God and Christ, the Holy Spirit often employs the language of fatness and marrow. To be fat in this day and age was a good thing. Fatness is a rich thing. Psalm 63, verse five, the psalmist says it. My soul shall be satisfied with marrow. and fatness, literally fatness and fatness. And when the Bible speaks of wine in the context of feasting, the good kind of feasting that isn't under drunkenness, it is said to produce joy and gladness of heart. In Psalm 104 verse 15, the psalmist refers to wine that makes glad the heart of man. And so seeing both fat things and wine together here, Preserved wine they put it on the leaves so that it might have a Mightiness to it a good flavor and good color to it It's the best of both Here since the fat is full of marrow the wine was well. It was preserved well so as to be the finest We are taught here under these human symbols of the altogether sweetness, the unparalleled preciousness of Christ and his graces that we get to partake of in this heavenly meal. Richard Sibbes, again, commenting on this juicy text, says this here, a feast is promised. It's a spiritual feast. The special graces and favors of God are compared to a feast made up of the best things. full of all variety and excellencies, and the chief dish that is all in all is Christ, and all the gracious benefits we by promise can expect from him. All other favors and blessings, whatever whatsoever they are, are but Christ dished out, as I may speak. He is the feast himself. He is dished out into promises. Have you a promise of the pardon of sins? It is from Christ. Would you have peace of conscience? It is from Christ. Justification, redemption, it is all from Christ, end quote. All these salvific graces in the form of gospel promises as we feed on Christ and the merits of his perfect life lived and his life sacrificed unto death in our stead. These are the fat things of God that he wishes to nourish us by. This is what we are to drink down abundantly with the deepest sense of joy in the sacrament. We need to speak to our souls, everyone here. and say, soul, here God has spread before you this day a beautiful feast indeed, a feast of choice pieces, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, well-refined wines on the lees. Have your fill. Here is true food and drink provided for you in Christ. For God our Father says to you this day, listen carefully to me and eat what is good and delight yourself in fatness. Take for yourself every comfort of the gospel declared and signified and sealed to you by Christ's word and sacrament and digest them, chew on them. relish in them, and you cannot but leave this table refreshed and freshly touched by my love and my salvation that shall be yours forever in Christ. Oh, that all of us here would see the Lord's gospel supper for what it truly is with these eyes of faith, what God and Christ have intended it to be, a feast of choice pieces, a feast of wines on the leaves, of fat things full of marrow, of well-refined wines on the lease. No earthly feast can feed you like this one spread before you here today. May God then grant you and I faith to feast together as those desiring to be nourished in our inner man with those fat and well-refined, full, redemptive graces of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen, let us pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, what a wonderful and lavish banquet that you have invited us to come and enjoy today. And Lord, I pray that everyone here would be found often around this table. Lord, that we would not make light of it. Lord, that we would desire to be fed from heaven from you with that living manna, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. And we know we partake of that by faith. It is not That we are, it's not the physical elements that are feeding our souls, but it is the Lord Jesus Christ himself in his person and his work, feeding us by his spirit. Exactly what we need to be filled with love for you, with joy in you, Lord, to grant us the grace to live for you in this life. And so, Lord God, we pray that we would feast around this table with delight, even as you, oh God, delight to dwell with us here. And so, Lord God, we pray that you would incline our hearts to this, that we would indeed lap up every choice piece that we have in our partaking of Christ and him crucified by faith. We pray all this in Christ's name and for his sake. Amen.