Please turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 48. We begin this new chapter today. Isaiah 48. We'll be looking at things in the first two verses today. Let's hear God's Word. Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel and have come forth from the wellsprings of Judah, who swear by the name of Jehovah and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth or in righteousness, For they call themselves after the holy city and lean on the God of Israel. Jehovah of hosts is His name. I've declared the former things from the beginning. They went forth from my mouth and I caused them to hear it. Suddenly I did them and they came to pass. Because I knew that you were obstinate and your neck was an iron sinew and your brow bronze, even from the beginning I have declared it to you. Before it came to pass, I proclaimed it to you, lest you should say, My idol has done them, and my carved image and my molded image have commanded them. You have heard. See all this, and will you not declare it? I have made you hear new things from this time, even hidden things, and you did not know them. They are created now and not from the beginning. And before this day you have not heard them, lest you should say, Of course I knew them. Surely you did not hear. Surely you did not know. Surely from long ago your ear was not open for I knew that you would deal very treacherously and were called a transgressor from the womb. For my name's sake I will defer my anger and for my praise I was straight. I will restrain it from you so that I do not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For My own sake, for My own sake I will do it. For how should My name be profaned? And I will not give My glory to another. Listen to Me, O Jacob, and Israel My called. I am He. I am the first. I am also the last. Indeed, my hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand has stretched out the heavens. When I call to them, they stand up together. All of you, assemble yourselves and hear who among them has declared these things. The Lord loves him. He shall do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arms shall be against the Chaldeans. I, even I, have spoken. Yes, I have called him. I have brought him, and his way will prosper. Come near to me. Hear this. I have not spoken in secret from the beginning. From the time that it was, I was there, and now the Lord God and His Spirit have sent me. Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, I am Jehovah, your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way you should go, Oh, that you had heeded my commandments. Then your peace would have been like a river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. Your descendants also would have been like the sand and the offspring of your body, like the grains of sand. His name would not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me. Go forth from Babylon. Flee from the Chaldeans with a voice of singing. Declare, proclaim this. Utter it to the end of the earth. Say, the Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob. They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts. He caused the waters to flow from the rock for them. He also split the rock and the waters gushed out. There is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked. May God bless his word to us today as we've heard it read and as we hear it preached. As you can see from the reading that we have had here, this chapter is another very, very rich one. And God willing, it will be a number of weeks that we take getting through it. There are many, many deep things, very, very many precious things within this chapter. And we look at the beginning here, the very first two verses out of the 22 that are here. We've been seeing to give the wider context God talking about the destruction of Babylon and that is alluded to here a bit or I shouldn't say alluded to directly spoken to. But in the main now God is not talking to. or even about so much his destruction of Babylon and looking beyond that to the destruction of all those who oppose King Jesus and oppose his gospel and his kingdom. Now he is spending a good bit more time as surely you noticed as we went through here a lot more time talking to and about his people. And here in the first two verses we start right out with that. Hear this, O House of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel and have come forth from the wellsprings of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth or in righteousness. For they call themselves after the holy city and lean on the God of Israel. Jehovah of hosts is his name. They are the unworthy called ones. And let's look at these two portions here, these two different themes. First of all, they are indeed called. God here, Jehovah, acknowledges that they look to him formally in the covenant of grace. He notes here that they swear by the name Jehovah, the name of the Lord. And what does that mean? Well, they call on him to judge them in the covenant by his covenant name. It's not that it's some God that they have no relationship to. No, they call upon him in the covenant of grace to look upon them and to judge them and to bring them to discipline if there be need. Now for the godly, the true Israel of God, this is a heartfelt desire. Are you in Jesus Christ? And does this not ring true in your life? Do you not desire to be Christ-like? Do you not wish for an end to sin in your life? Are you not longing for cleanness and holiness? to know that your Father is more and more pleased with you. Is that not the desire of your heart? For the true Israel of God, for those who are circumcised in heart, not merely in their members, for those who are, to use more New Testament language, born again, this certainly rings true. We read here that they make mention of him. We see that in that phrase there in verse one. That is, they speak about him one to another. This is something we who are Christians often do, do we not? Oh, we may speak to one another about that basketball game yesterday with, who was it? Well that basketball game yesterday in Kansas. We may speak about the Indiana Kentucky game or there may be other things we speak about with one another. But with fellow believers do we not invariably turn to spiritual things. We delight to speak of the things of God, don't we? And it says here that the people of Israel lean or rest upon Him at least outwardly. They claim to be in the true people of God, the Israel of God, the remnant. They do indeed. Ultimately, they see that their trust cannot be in riches. They fly away. Their trust cannot be in their health because that can fail. Their trust is not ultimately in their own strength for they find that it becomes weak. There is no trust in anything ultimately but in looking to Jehovah through His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And to those who are called His people, God looks to them in Jacob, or as he was later renamed by God, Ezra. Jacob, of course, was the name given him by his parents when he came forth from the womb. First was his brother Esau born, and right out after him came Jacob, who was holding on with his little hand to the heel of his minutes earlier born older brother. He was the heel holder. He was called Jacob because he was the one that supplant or would supplant even yet his brother for his mother had already heard the promise that God would choose her younger son over her older. God renamed Jacob Yisrael And you maybe remember when this happened. You can read about it in Genesis 32, verses 22 through 32, especially verse 28. When he had with his wives, his children, his flocks and herds, his servants, left Laban's household under a cloud, as you remember. Laban had caught up with him, but God had protected him and left them in what we might call rather a standoff. And now Jacob had to be facing Esau. After making everything ready for the next day when he knew that meeting would occur in terror, in emotional agony, he began to pray that God would save him and his family. And one came who wrestled with him till dawn. And we know from the evidence who this was. It was the Lord Jesus Christ. And he wrestled and wrestled and wrestled. Jacob was moved to say when Jesus said to him to let him go, he said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. He was given a new name, Yisrael, the one who wrestles or prevails with God. What a name to be given. What a blessing from that second person of the Godhead. What a blessing to be in such a family, to be known as those who wrestle with and prevail with God. And we see here, too, that they are from the wellsprings of Judah. Particularly, of course, Isaiah was sent to the nation of Judah, who was one of the twelve sons of Jacob. Judah was the one, you will remember, who was the oldest of the sons of Jacob, who had not disgraced himself one way or another. Reuben had committed incest. Simeon and Levi had almost gotten everyone killed by their hot-headed action to avenge the honor of their sister Dinah. Judah had done nothing of the sort. In fact, if you go back and read in the Joseph story, He had a plan he thought might work out to rescue Joseph when the other brothers except for the oldest of all the other brothers were seeking to get rid of Joseph. Both he and Reuben that is Judah and Reuben independently came up with ideas how to rescue Joseph but could not get them implemented. It was Judah who at the judgment seat it seemed of this great and mighty one of Egypt that turned out to be his brother Joseph. It was Judah who spoke in Hebrew to the other brothers saying, see, I told you not to harm the boy and now God's brought this judgment upon us. He is the first one who ever expressed any even remorse about this act. He is the first one who saw that God's judgment was upon them. Judah's heart was moved. God was working in and through him. Well, we know what happened in subsequent history. Through Judah, much blessing came. To Judah was given much prominence. some 400 years later when the people marched forth from Egypt. Why, it was every day that they moved that the tribe of Judah led the people. It was predicted through Jacob that through Judah would come the one who would hold the scepter, that is, the royal staff, children. A scepter is a kind of a staff. We might call it a special rod that the king holds. It was predicted that one from Judah would be, in other words, the king. We read about a leader in Judah, Boaz, who married Ruth. And from him came, and Ruth, came Obed. who grew up children to get married and be a daddy and to have a little boy named Jesse, who would grow up and get married and have a little boy and another and another and another, several sons to his youngest one, a man named David, who became that king. But a greater king was to come even as God promised when David was king of all Israel. And all his enemies were for a time conquered before him. And he thought, now is the time to build a special place for my God. For here I am in this wonderful palace, and God lives in a tent. There's something deeply wrong about this, something deeply troubling. This looks bad. It is bad that I should be in a special place with God in a tent. I will build God a house." Great said the prophet Nathan. And then God spoke to Nathan and said, no, not so great. I've got some words I want you to tell David. And so the next day, you will remember, in 2 Samuel 7, Nathan said, I have a word from Jehovah for you. And it is this, you will not build me a house. because in my providence you are a man of blood, but I tell you something else. I will build you a house. A house not of brick and of stone, nor of cedar and of gold, but a house, a family, a reigning dynasty that shall go on forever and ever. From you shall come the one who shall hold the scepter forevermore. It was that promise of the coming Mashiach The coming Yeshua of whom Larry mentioned in Psalm 67 there. It was the promise, the coming forth of the Redeemer of Judah. The Redeemer of Yisrael. The Redeemer of the peoples of whom we sing in Psalm 67. We sing about Him as well in Psalm 2. in Psalm 21, in Psalm 45, in Psalm 72, in Psalm 110, and to some degree, those are the obvious ones, to some degree in every single psalm that we sing. And then we read, they call themselves after the holy city there in verse 2. They are called God's people. They are called, or they call themselves by the holy city. Now, there is no particularly holy city today, but there was at that time. There was a holy land as well, but there is no particularly holy land, for as we sometimes sing from Psalm 24, verse 1, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and all that it containeth. But then there was the holy city. And why was it called that? Why was Jerusalem that way, unlike any other city in the world? For there were other grand cities. Why, at the time Isaiah wrote, the largest city in the world was Babylon. And it was grand. It was grand. It was huge. It was populous. It was beautiful. Why, one of the wonders of the ancient world was there, the hanging gardens that Nebuchadnezzar, well, Nebuchadnezzar would yet build. It was not built in the time of Isaiah. That was a couple hundred years away. But there were other grand and ancient cities. But Jerusalem was the holy city. And why is that? Because it was there that Jehovah was pleased to dwell. in an earthly sense. It was the earthly place of God's residence where God was in the midst of his people. Here in Isaiah, we've had the promise already that we've seen a long time ago of one coming who would be called Immanuel, God with us. And this was typified by the temple. For in the midst of the land, Haaretz, in the midst of the people, Ha'am, we have God's presence. Where the very appearance, the very structure of the temple was a stone and cedar and gold solid 3D picture of God dwelling in the midst of His people. No other nation had such a thing. God dwelling in the midst of the people. That was a picture of the inestimable privilege we have God dwells with us, has dwelt in human form. No, that cuts it short. Has dwelt with us and continues with us in not merely a form, but in a full humanity. This temple was the place where the priests were. imperfect priests who were sinners themselves, yet who were called by God to be living pictures of what the Savior would do. For they themselves offered blood. They themselves burned up the victims. Pictures, of course. of the shed blood of Jesus at the cross. And the burning wrath of God poured out upon Him there so that He had to cry out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? This is the place of the sacrifices themselves. Animals' bodies cut apart. Blood poured out like water. Pictures of the one who would not only be the high priest, but the perfect sacrificial victim as well, whose body would be broken, whose blood would be shed. This is the place of the offerings, also involving animals a lot of the time, but sometimes flour, sometimes different forms of bread, sometimes wine. And these were living pictures of a full fellowship that the people of God would have when Christ would come. And that even in those days, people had, believers had, the true Yisrael had as they looked forward to the coming and promised work of this one that was typified there. The holy city was the place where the king dwelt. The king who was the covenant head, as far as the magistracy was concerned, the covenant head of his people. The king who protected them. The king who saved them from their enemies. even as our mediatorial king delivers us from far greater enemies and a far stronger host. And from the greatest enemy of all, our own sin. And Jerusalem is where the prophets normally were, who up to Isaiah's time had and past Isaiah's time would speak of, as they were led by the Holy Spirit, the One who was coming to redeem the people from their sin. In fact, as we again sang from Psalm 67, all peoples. What a glorious calling. And for those who were and are the true Israel of God. All these are glorious things and I think sometimes, folks, I know with me, we do not grab hold of these as tightly and hold them as preciously as we ought to do. But there were many, sadly, who did all this merely in an outward fashion. And there are many who profess to be believers across the world, and may it not be, but it could be, perhaps even in this congregation today. There are those who are merely what we call formalists. That is, they only go through the form, but it's not in the heart. There are many who are hypocrites and outright apostates. But in the midst of them, even in Isaiah's time, there was a remnant of true believers. In our day, there is a remnant of true believers who called upon God, swore by Him, made mention of Him, leaned upon Him. Those who truly are Ezra, who are truly Jacob, and who truly look to the blessing who came from Judah and who dwell in the spiritual Zion today and who are part of the spiritual temple that we have now. They are living stones built together upon a foundation of the prophets and apostles with Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. There are those, even yet, who do all this from the heart. May it be that we are numbered in that. However, you and I, if we are those living stones, you and I, if truly we are called by God, you and I, if truly We rest upon Him in Jesus Christ. We must confess with shame that we have in the past and even now fall into the sad description which is to follow. None of the outwardly religious and none of us whose hearts have been changed could or can claim that we've had a righteousness of our own to commend ourselves to Jehovah. There is nothing within ourselves that says to God, oh, you should choose him. You should choose her. You'll be doing well to have that one on your side. Pick that one. They deserve it. No, no. None of the hypocrites have that. None of the apostates have that. None of the merely outward ones have that. And none of you, and certainly not I, have that. For we are the unworthy cult. Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel and have come forth from the wellsprings of Judah, who swear by the name of Jehovah and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth or in righteousness. And we need go no further today than in that last clause of verse 1. There were many in Isaiah's day, and there are many today who profess to be believers, whose religious exercises are fake. Outwardly, they may look good. Outwardly, they may believe they're spiritual, but they're fake and hypocritical. And God makes this quite clear here. First of all, they do not do all this in truth. It's not done from the heart in many. And even brothers, sisters, you must admit with me, Even in us who are touched by God, even us who are the elect of God, even us who are justified and adopted and who are being sanctified, us who look forward to glorification and the resurrection, even for us there is often a divided and distracted heart. And instead of giving heed to worship, Maybe you succumbed to my temptation to be thinking of yesterday's basketball games, and I foolishly used that as an illustration. Their worship, or what they believe to be, and what they believe to be their devotion is not in righteousness either. For so many, it is not done according to the commandment of God. It's done according to the taste and tradition of men, ultimately transgressing the second commandment. And what about us? Surely we're clear of that, right? We go along with the regulative principle. We do everything outwardly properly. There's the thing. There's the thing. Do you do it from the heart? Sadly, even believers don't sometimes, and how horrible this is. We should be seeing, friends, it should be abundantly clear that in Isaiah's day, and in this day of accomplished salvation, that even for the Israel of God, even for the church of the firstborn. Their calling is not dependent upon their worthiness. Were it so, we would be miserably and eternally lost. The calling that is given to the one holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church of Jesus Christ. The calling that is given to individual believers is only and all of God's grace in Jesus Christ. We must thank God that it is, for there would be no hope whatsoever otherwise. But in Jesus Christ is all hope. For with Jesus himself, all his life was done in truth. He is the truth. All was done in righteousness, so that he might be that perfect priest, offering himself as that perfect sacrifice. But also, in order that his righteousness might be put to the account of each and everyone who comes to Him in faith. Do you see your sin? Do you see your unworthiness? And do you fear to come before God? And are you sick and tired of your sin? Well, I have been preaching for months off and on about good news for sinners. Just recently I did. And the good news is that even great sinners even the chief of sinners. And He comes to Jesus Christ who will put away none who come to Him. When the sinner comes to Jesus Christ, what Jesus did in His life and death and resurrection is put to the sinner's account. And so in that way, we are received, not rejected, by God. We are accepted, not rejected, by God. We are accepted in the Beloved, as the Apostle Paul was led to write in Ephesians chapter 1. God is both just and the justifier. of those who believe in Jesus Christ, as Paul wrote to the Romans in chapter 3, verse 26. The calling of the unworthy showed God's grace in Isaiah's time. And in this gospel dispensation, it continues yet and will continue until the appointed end is accomplished. what Larry pointed out in Psalm 67. The bringing forth of Christ, the taking of the Gospel to the nations, this all continues and shall until Christ returns all to the ultimate goal that Larry spoke of, the glory of God. This is our only hope, friends, and it is our sure hope. Grace in Christ is for the unworthy and for the ungodly. And for them there is a calling to come and to be and to give glory to Him in Jesus Christ. Amen. We're going to sing now from the second portion of Psalm 50. If you were paying to the reading of Isaiah 48, you will notice that there are some verses there that sound very much like what we have in Psalm 50B here. Not verses one and two, but later on in the chapter. And this speaks of the blessing that God gives to His people, or would if they would fully turn to Him. If He has touched your heart, if He has affectionately called you so that you've looked to Jesus and lived, these promises are indeed for you. But if you've been acting religiously, and that's all there is to it, these blessings are not for you. But they may be if you will turn to Jesus. Forsake your fakery. Turn away from your treason. Turn to Jesus Christ. Put your trust in Him. Then you have the promise that we'll be singing in just a moment from the last stanza there, from verse 15 of Psalm 50. Do thou call on me when troublous days draw nigh? To thee I'll give deliverance. Yes, from the greatest trouble of all, sin and its curse. Consequently, thou shalt me glorify.