Alright brethren, Isaiah 42. Let's read it one more time. This is the Lord God speaking to our Lord Jesus Christ. Speaking to His Son. He said, Thus saith God the Lord, He that created the heavens and stretched them out, He that spread forth the earth and that which cometh out of it, He that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein. I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, speaking to Christ, I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. I am the Lord, that is my name, And my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images." In those first few verses, God the Father commanded us to behold Christ His servant. Now here, God the Father speaks to Christ His Son, and He declares here what He will do for the Lord Jesus Christ. We're getting, right here, we're getting to go into into the throne room of God in eternity, before the world was made, and hear God the Father make His covenant with His Son. That's what we're getting to do right here this morning. This is such a happy passage. It's going to bless the hearts of His people. He said, verse 6, I the Lord have called thee in righteousness and will hold thy hand and will keep thee. You think God's promises are sure? You think they're sure? That's what He promised His Son. We see how the Father fulfilled this promise for His Son. We see it. We see what He did for Christ when He walked this earth. We see He fulfilled this promise. Well, child of God, for you that He's called because we're one with Christ and because everything that God has promised Christ, He promises us. This Word is for you too. This Word is God's covenant promise to you in Christ and by Christ. I the Lord have called thee in righteousness and will hold thy hand and will keep thee. He's sending us forth to preach the gospel and in that sense to be a light. And He's telling us what He will do for us as He sends us forth. And how He will bless the Word. He's using us who He's called to preach the Gospel. And so all the things that He promised Christ here, that He would do for Christ, He promises He will do for us for Christ's sake. So as we hear this promise, as you hear God the Father's promise to His Son, you hear God the Father's promise to us. in His Son and by His Son and for the sake of His Son. Now first of all, who made the promise? Is He able to do what He promised? Well, who made the promise? The way He declares His faithfulness to fulfill this covenant promise is He declares who He is. He says, thus saith God the Lord, He that created the heavens. He that stretched him out, he that spread forth the earth and that which cometh of it, he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein. That ought to settle our hearts, brethren. The one who is promised to save his people is our Creator. He's the one who gives. He speaks of creation so easy. He just spread it out like you'd spread out a blanket. He gives breath to all people and the Spirit to all people that are on this earth and walk about. There's not a second in our life that we're not utterly dependent on God to give us breath. The Spirit we have. That's so of regenerate and unregenerate. Believer and unbeliever. And here's the sad thing. Men that are taking God's name in vain, God gave them the breath to curse His name. So we see who made the promise. He's able to fulfill all that He promised because He's God, He's the Creator. Now brethren, being one with God, being one with our Lord Jesus, And behold, in how faithful God the Father is to Christ, and how faithful Christ is to the Father, we have assurance that our God will save us according to His covenant promise. We see His faithfulness. We look to Christ to learn everything, and we see in what the Father did for Christ, what Christ did for the Father. We see faithfulness, so we know He'll be faithful to us. Now secondly, here's the covenant. This is the promise. We're saved by promise. Here's the covenant. That's what a covenant is. It's a promise. And here it is. God our Father made covenant to Christ. And Christ entered covenant with the Father. The covenant's not in our hands. It's in Christ's hands. And this was God's promise to Christ. He said, verse 6, I the Lord have called thee in righteousness and will hold thy hand and will keep thee. I, the Lord, have called thee in righteousness and will hold thy hand and will keep thee. I've called thee in righteousness. God called Christ in righteousness. He called Him to fulfill our righteousness. That's why He sent Him forth. I said to you in the first hour, this whole thing is about God's righteousness. He called him to fulfill righteousness, to manifest God's righteousness, how God can be just and the justifier of the believer. And he called him to fulfill our righteousness and he called him to be our righteousness. God called Christ in righteousness, first of all, for God himself. It was first of all for God Himself to fulfill the righteousness of God, to honor His law and magnify His law. Before God could do something for us, He had to do something for Himself. Before He could save His people, He had to make certain His laws upheld and His justices honored. And God called Christ in righteousness for God's elect. He sent forth Christ to fulfill our righteousness for God's elect. He sent him forth to be the righteousness God's provided for His people. We couldn't provide a righteousness by our obedience to the law. We died in Adam. We became guilty in Adam. We couldn't provide a righteousness under the law. That's the first covenant. And Christ came to redeem us and lay down His life for the remission of sins of that first covenant. And there it is. We sinned in Adam. We became guilty. That's it for me and you. That's the end of the story for us. He gave the law to shut our mouths to show us. That's the end of it for us. We can't justify ourselves. We cannot do it. Christ came to save sinners. Are you a sinner? He came to seek and to save the lost. Are you a lost sinner? Most people aren't lost. Most people aren't sinners. Most people aren't qualified for Christ to save them. They're too righteous. You've got to be lost before you can be found. You've got to be a sinner to be saved by Christ. He said, I didn't come to call the righteous. I came to call sinners to repent. There's none righteous, no not one. Isn't that clear? There's none righteous, no not one. There is not one man on this earth that could obey God in the righteousness God demands. The whole book declares Christ is the righteousness of God. He's the righteousness of His people. That's what this whole book declares. Romans 3 said, now the righteousness of God is manifest without the law and the prophets, without you keeping the law. Now the righteousness of God is manifest without the law, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. It's what the law and the prophets said all along. Even the righteousness of God, which is by the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that righteousness is given unto and is upon all them that believe. And it has to be this way. We all have to be saved by Christ's righteousness. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Does that fit? Does that describe you? Do you need Christ to be your righteousness? The Lord declared He's the righteousness of His people. He's the righteousness of God. Is He your righteousness? Here's another question. Is He your only righteousness? We can't be looking to Christ for part of our righteousness, but then at the same time thinking we're doing something to make ourselves righteous. Christ has to be our only righteousness before God. The problem with the Pharisees, Paul said, was they were going about to establish their own righteousness. And they had not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. He's the terminating point. He's the end point for which God gave the law to bring His people to Christ. To be made righteous in Christ. To be saved by Christ. To be presented to God righteous by the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Turn over to Hebrews chapter 5. He said, I've called you in righteousness. I want you to see this now. The Son of God came into this world and He filled the office of high priest. That's what we're talking about here. He filled this office of high priest and He came willingly. It came willingly. But listen, no man can take this office. He has to be called by God to this office. And that's what God's declaring. I called him in righteousness. He is the right one to trust because God said, I called you and it was righteous for me to call him and trust him to do this work. And he's righteously declaring to us that he's the high priest because God called him. It's right. Everything about this is right. Look here, Hebrews 5, verse 1. For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins, that's his first job, and who can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way, for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity, with weakness. He can, he walks where they walk, he knows what they suffered, so he can have compassion on them. And by reason hereof he ought as for the people, so also for himself to offer for sins. And no man taketh this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made a high priest, but he that said to him, thou art my son, today have I begotten thee. As he saith also in another place, thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Dear saints, I want you to hear this, and sinners sitting here, and sinful saints sitting here, believing sinners, hear this. Christ is our One High Priest. He's the One High Priest. Christ offered to God perfect obedience for the sins of His people. He pleased God without any sin of His own. He bore the sins, He bore the curse, He made satisfaction. So He represents us to God. He's the representative of His people to God. Are you one of His people? Do you believe Him? Do you trust Him? Do you think He can represent you to God better than you can? That's really what faith is, is saying, He can represent me to God. I can't do it. Well, here is another thing. In everything you suffer, in every trouble you are in, go to this one high priest. He has been tempted in all points like his people yet without sin. He knows the weakness of our flesh, the infirmity of our flesh. He knows what it is. He alone, He alone, nobody else but Christ our High Priest is able to succor His people, comfort you, and strengthen you in spirit, and keep you trusting Him. Go to Him. Go to Him. Believe on Christ and in every need, go to Christ our High Priest. Pour out your heart to Him alone. He alone is able to save to the uttermost. You know why? He has an unchangeable priesthood. He ever lives to make intercession for his people. Now look what else the Lord said to him. Isaiah 42 verse 6. I, the Lord, will hold thy hand and will keep thee. I will hold thy hand and keep thee. That might seem strange when you consider that the Lord Jesus Christ is God. I mean, He He created water, turned water into wine. He took a few fish and some loaves and fed a multitude, created something that wasn't there. He spoke and made the wind and the waves be still. He's God. But as the servant, Rather than God looking to any of His people, Christ represented all His people as the perfect believer in God. When He walked this earth, He's the one perfect believer in God. That's what the Lord Jesus did in His perfect faith. That's the faith by which His people are made righteous. That's the faith by which we're saved. Look over Galatians 2.16. In case somebody don't know this, I want you to see this again. This is the righteous, this is the faith by which we're saved. Our faith is very weak and our faith is sometimes it's almost practically non-existent. We're just full of unbelief. But we're saved by the faith of Christ. He's going to keep faith in your heart, but it's not our faith that's saving us. The faith He gives you, trust His faithfulness. We trust Him, and He's going to be the one to save us. Look here now, Galatians 2.16, Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Christ. That word of means His work, His faithfulness. Even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that's your faith. that we might be justified by the faith of Christ. That's His. And not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Now go to Psalm 89, and this right here is going to bless your heart right here. God said, I'll hold your hand in righteousness. And that's what the Lord did for His Son. Psalm 89, 19. Now this is God's promise to David, but listen, if you read Acts 2, this is what Peter declared at Pentecost, David is a picture of Christ. The true David is Christ. Everything the Lord promised David right here is God's promise to Christ. This is just a fuller, more detailed record of the covenant that the Father made to the Lord Jesus. That's what this is. And listen now, because you who believe, you're Christ's seed. You're His. And because this is the promise God made to Christ, this is the promise God has made to you in Christ. Alright? Now remember that when we read this. Psalm 89, 19. Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one, speaking to Christ, the true David. He said, I've laid help upon one that's mighty. I've exalted one chosen out of the people. I have found David my servant. With my holy oil I have anointed him by the Spirit, with whom my hand shall be established. Mine arm also shall strengthen him. My hand shall be established by him, and my arm shall also strengthen him. The enemy shall not exact upon him, nor the son of wickedness afflict him. And I will beat down his foes before his face and plague them that hate him. But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him, and in my name shall his horn be exalted. His strength is what the horn means. And I will set his hand also in the sea and his right hand in the rivers. He shall cry unto me that, and when he says I'll set his hand in the sea and his right hand in the rivers, that means I'm gonna give him all power over all. He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. He'll be faithful to me, God said. Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for him forevermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also, now here he's talking about his elect, you that he's brought to faith. His seed also will I make to endure forever. and His throne as the days of heaven. If His children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments, if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments, then I will visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes. That's what you and me have all done. And that's what God did at the cross. He visited our iniquity with the rod and with stripes, but He visited it on Christ in our room instead, and with His stripes we are healed. And so listen, nevertheless, verse 33, My loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that's gone out of my lips. Once I have sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David, his seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established forever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Now you stop and think about that. That's what Selah is. Stop and think on that. When Peter was preaching on the day of Pentecost, he said, now brethren, you consider David, his sepulcher is with us today, he's dead, his body's in the grave. He said, that spoke of another one greater than David. And he said, this same Jesus, who you crucified, slew on a tree, God's raised up and made him both Lord and Christ. He's the true David. And all, listen now, That's God's covenant to the true King David, right there, that we just read. That's His covenant. And that's God's covenant to you who trust Christ to save you because Christ is the covenant. That's the next thing we see in our text. Go back there. This is why God sent Christ and what He sent Him to be for His people, verse 6. He said the next place, and I will give thee for a covenant of the people for a light of the Gentiles. Men want to debate, I've heard men debate the covenant theology. And oh boy, they just try to show out how brilliant they are over somebody else and splice and dice covenant doctrine and try to tell you how many covenants there are and this and that and the other. Listen to the Word of God. Christ is the Covenant. Christ is the Covenant. Doesn't that simplify it? God just simplifies it for us, doesn't He? Christ is the Covenant. We just heard God the Father's Covenant to Christ His Son. We just heard everything He promised Him. The promises of God to His people are only in Christ. The promises of God to His people are fulfilled by Christ. The covenant by which we're saved is fulfilled by Christ. He's the covenant. Therefore, all God's promises to His people are yes in Christ and amen in Christ. 2 Corinthians 1. I want you to read it. 2 Corinthians 1. And look at verse 19. The Son of God, Christ Jesus, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, it wasn't maybe, but in Him was yes. For all the promises of God in Him are yes and in Him amen unto the glory of God by us. You know the false Jesus that men preach? He's a maybe Jesus. He's a maybe Jesus. He may save, He may not. You know why? Because He don't want to offend anybody and so He leaves part of the work in your hand. And that makes Him a maybe Jesus. They say He loves everybody and wants to save everybody, but then when He puts you in hell, He hates you. That makes Him changeable. That means He's not immutable. He's a maybe Jesus. But the true Lord Jesus He's a definite, sure, certain Savior of His people. He's the covenant. He's the covenant. Listen to this. The true Lord Jesus, all the promises of God in Him are yes and in Him, Amen, and to the glory of God. Look back at verse 4. Look at Isaiah 42, 4. He shall not fail, God said. He shall not fail, nor be discouraged till He hath set judgment in the earth, and the Gentiles shall wait for His law. In His name the Gentiles shall trust. That's what it means. That's what Matthew 12, 21 says when it quotes that. He shall not fail. He'll set judgment in the earth and He'll set discernment in the heart of His people. Listen to Isaiah 49.8. Thus saith the Lord, I will give thee for a covenant of the people to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages. Listen to Luke 1.72. He was sent to perform, to finish, to accomplish the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, to fulfill everything God promised the fathers. Romans 15.8 says Christ came to confirm the promises made to the fathers. Establish them. Hebrews 9, 15. For this cause, He's the mediator of the New Testament. For this cause, He's the mediator of this new covenant, this new promise God's made. New in the sense that it's ever new from eternity. Listen to this. for this cause, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under that first covenant. In other words, to redeem us from the curse Adam brought us under. so that they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. That's why God put it in His hand, that through death He might make the promise sure. Listen to this. I love this right here from Romans 4.16. In fact, go look at it. Romans 4.16. I love this. Why are we saved through faith? Why is it that God gives you faith to trust Christ rather than that we're saved through the law? Why is the promise through faith? Here's why. Romans 4, look at verse 16. Salvation is a faith that it might be by grace to this end so that the promise might be sure. to all the seed, so the promise might be sure to all God's children, and not to that only which is of the law, but that which also is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all." Abraham didn't have the law. He didn't have the Ten Commandments. That didn't have anything to do with how he was saved. How was he saved? God gave him faith to trust Christ the covenant to fulfill everything for him. The covenant's the law. You know, when God gave it, that's the old covenant, that's the law. We broke every law in that old covenant. Christ kept every law in that old covenant, fulfilled every law in that old covenant, then paid our sin debt for not keeping any of them. So that now before God, we are righteous before God. That's so of all those that He came to save. And He gives you faith to believe Him. And so therefore, the promise of salvation is absolutely sure. If it was just, if it was through the law, one, we couldn't keep the law. But if it was just through the law, is there anybody sitting here today that is a natural Jew? Anybody here? If there's anybody sitting here that is a Gentile, which I think every one of us are, none of us would be saved because God didn't give us the law. He gave the law to Israel. He didn't give it to us. But you see, we're of that same faith as Abraham. Before God gave the law, He saved Abraham to show us He doesn't save by the law. He saves by Christ who is the righteousness of the law for His people. And that's how we're saved. So therefore, the promise, the covenant is sure not only to His elect among the Jews, but His elect among the Gentiles too. You get that? Oh man, that's good. That's a blessed scripture right there. That makes it so we can say what David said. In 2 Samuel 23, 5, David said, He made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things in sure, and this is all my salvation and all my desire. Ordered in all things in sure by Christ. That's all my salvation. That's all my salvation. Alright, what about faith? Let's go back now. What about faith? How are we going to be brought to believe Christ and to keep believing Him? We see here that this thing is all by God's covenant. Christ is that covenant. He fulfilled everything for His people. Let me say this before I leave that point. If you really want to just boil it right down, this is what He said. You had 600 plus laws under that old covenant. That was the old one. God said if you want to be saved by law, you got to do all those commandments, every one of them with no sin. The new covenant, the everlasting covenant is this, Christ Jesus. He's the righteousness that that whole law was declared. All that big long list of laws was declaring, here's the righteousness right here. And that's when it says the law bears witness, that's what the law does. It points to Christ and says, there I am. There's my righteousness right there, Christ Jesus. And here's how God saves when he brings you under this new covenant. Here's the law of this new covenant. This is why his yoke's easy and his burden is light. Believe on Him. Believe on Him. Trust Him to do it all. And you're righteous. He imputes His righteousness to you and says, everything that law demands, you've done it perfectly. That's a light yoke, isn't it? But we got to be given that faith and made to believe him. And we got to be kept believing him because if left to ourselves, not only will we not believe him in the beginning, we won't keep believing him. We keep wanting to go back and bring that law back in for some reason. We're insane by nature. We keep wanting to bring that law back in. So how are we going to be given faith and kept in faith? Here it is. God the Father said to Christ, verse Isaiah 42, 7, I've given you to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. Oh, this is such a good analogy. Being blind and being prisoners bound in a prison house is such a good analogy of you and me as we come into this world. That's what we are. We're blind, we can't see, we can't believe, and we're bound in prison, shackled in the prison house, in complete and total darkness. That's what we are. Self-made religion, it's nothing for a man to take on religion. Self-made religionists are like these prisoners you see in documentaries sometimes. You watch a documentary and you have these prisoners who sometimes are lifers and they've worked out some crooked deal with the warden. So he gives them extra stuff and they've worked out deals with the gangs so they're protected. And you see their cell and their cell is just all decorated and they've got more amenities than other people have, you know. And they get all kinds of extra perks and all that. Now, that's a self-made religious man. He's made his crooked deal with his warden, the devil. And the devil wants you to be religious. He wants you to think that you're contributing to your salvation because he got you lock, stock, and barrel if you believe that. And he wants you to believe that. And so a man's cleaned up his life, he's got religion, and he's united with all the gangs of religious organizations in this world called churches. They're all in agreement. all protect one another. And all the while, think of how foolish you would be for this prisoner that has all this stuff. He can get up and do whatever he wants to do in his jail cell. For him to be boasting that I'm free? He's in the prison house. Well, a self-made religious man, he may look good, he may have all this, his jail cell may be fixed up fine and look really good. He's still in prison. He's still bound. And he's blind and can't see it. Well, Christ has to do something for us. And this prison is such a good illustration of what Christ has to do to save us. Because two things had to be done to set us free from the prison. We got to be justified before the law and then we got to be brought out of the prison house. That's sanctification. We got to be justified and we got to be sanctified. Well, here we are. We're like Barabbas. We're bound in the prison. We're in darkness. We've got shackles on. And we hear the shouting. He heard, Barabbas, Barabbas, Barabbas. He didn't hear them say, which one of these men do you want us to release, the Lord Jesus or Barabbas? And they said, Barabbas, Barabbas, Barabbas. They wanted to release Barabbas. Barabbas didn't hear that. All he heard was Barabbas, Barabbas, Barabbas. And then they said, and what do we do with this man Jesus? all Barabbas heard was crucify him, crucify him, crucify him. Barabbas, Barabbas, Barabbas, crucify him, crucify him, crucify him. That's what we started hearing by God's grace. And we think we're dead. We're going to die. And this is what God gave Christ to do. The Lord Jesus comes to us through the preaching of this Gospel. And there we are in our jail cells, shackled in the back of our cell in the darkness. And the Lord Jesus Christ comes through this Gospel. And He says to you personally. He comes to his jail and He says, I've loved you from eternity. I've loved you with an everlasting love, and I enter covenant to save you." One of the shackles falls off. He says, and I came into this world, and I lived the life you couldn't live in perfect righteousness, and I died a death you couldn't die, and I justified you. And I've gone to the judge and I have presented myself and he has declared, you are innocent and no charge can be laid against you. Your record is clean, past, present, future and will never be anything but clean. Shackle falls off. And he says to you, now I've come to sanctify you, make you holy in your heart, to see this, and know this, and believe me, and follow me. Now follow me." And all your shackles fall off, and that prison door is wide open, and Christ, and you believe Him, and you start following Him. That's because Christ justified us on the cross, made us not guilty, then He came to us in the prison and set us free in sanctification. That's what God said He sent Him to do. God said to Christ, that thou mayest say to the prisoners, go forth, and to them that are in darkness, show yourselves. That's the first time when He came to you in the darkness of your prison cell and you're hidden there in darkness. First time He said, show yourself. That's the first time you did truth. Christ said doing truth is coming to the light and confessing that all your works were worked by Christ. That's doing truth. Men won't do that because they don't want to confess that all those works that they're calling righteousness are evil. But He brings you to believe Him. And why does He do all this? He's going to keep you following Him. He's going to keep you trusting Him. He's going to keep you walking after Him because we keep wanting to go back to the jail cell. He's going to keep revealing this to you. You're here today because He's freeing you again. He's going to keep you following Him. And why does He do all this? Why did He trust in all of Christ? Verse 8, he said, I'm the Lord, that's my name, and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. Now let me ask you one question. In everything you've heard today, who got all the glory? Did man get any glory? Did I put anything in your hand to give you something to boast and brag about that you did? Who got it all? God got it all. That's what God's people want. And we're offended when we hear a message that gives the sinner something to boast and brag about. We want Christ to have all the glory. Do you want Christ to have all the glory or do you want some of it? If you want some of it, you're still in prison. You're still bound. God said, I will get all the glory. He said, I will not share the praises due to me. I will not share the glory due to my name. That's why He chose His Son. That's why His Son is the Covenant. Christ is the Covenant. Trust Him. Trust Him. You'll be saved. You'll be saved. Trust Him. I pray today He's delivering you from those shackles and setting you free. And if you're His and you've been bound because of some trouble in your life, I pray He's setting you free again. He just keeps doing it. Amen. Alright, Brother Greg.