Let us call upon the name of our covenant God together in congregational prayer. Our Father which art in heaven, we come unto thee in the day that thou hast made, the Sabbath day that thou hast given to thy people for our rest and refreshment in the gospel of Jesus Christ. A day of rest in which we might hear proclaimed the good tidings and the glad news that thou hast sent through Jesus Christ, that there is salvation for sinners, that there is life from death, that there is righteousness for iniquity, that there is grace for those who are broken and destroyed by our sin. We thank Thee, Father, that in this day of rest Thou dost send to us those good tidings through Jesus Christ Himself, who is anointed with Thy Spirit and who is sent by Thee to proclaim liberty to the captives and good tidings to the meek and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. to comfort those that mourn, to give the oil of beauty for sorrow and beauty for ashes. We thank Thee, Father, for what Thou hast given in Jesus Christ that we who are here upon this earth We who sin and come into thy house as those who are rebels of ourselves and have no good thing to offer and have only sin and iniquity and filth to ourselves are given by thee in place of all our unrighteousness the righteousness of Jesus Christ. who have in place of all the brokenness and ashes of our iniquity, the righteousness and beauty of our Savior. We pray, Father, that Thou wilt remember us in this day as Thou hast brought us to Thyself, that Thou wilt feed our souls, that Thou wilt comfort us and give to us Thy peace. And when we consider what thou hast given to us through Jesus Christ, then we realize, as the Apostle has said, that the riches of Jesus Christ are truly unsearchable. For thou hast lifted up Jesus Christ and hast not made his foes to rejoice over him. Thou healed him when he cried unto thee, and hast brought up his soul from the grave, and hast kept him alive that he should not go down to the pit, so that even though he died, and suffered all things for us, He rose again from the dead. And we thank Thee, Father, for Thy holiness and the joy that Thy holiness brings, the joy that Thou art consecrated perfectly to Thyself, and that the Lord Jesus Christ is perfectly consecrated unto Thee, and that Thou hast consecrated us to Thyself in Him. We thank Thee that Thine anger endureth but a moment, and that in Thy favor is life, For weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. We thank Thee that Thou hast made by Thy favor the mountain of our Lord to stand strong. That Thou didst hear his cry when Thou didst hide Thy face and he was troubled, when he made supplication unto Thee. We thank Thee, Father, that Thou hast heard him and been his helper and has turned for him his mourning into dancing and has put off his sackcloth and girded him with gladness to the end that his soul might sing praise to Thee and not be silent and give thanks unto Thee forever. And we thank Thee, Father, that Thou hast done all of this for Jesus Christ, for the sake of Thy church, for the sake of Thy people who could not deliver ourselves and who never can. but who in Jesus Christ are delivered fully and delivered indeed. We pray that thou will open the windows of heaven to us then this day and pour out upon us these glad tidings. Will thou Grant unto thy servant grace to bring thy word faithfully, that he might say, thus saith the Lord, and that we might hear then the voice of our Good Shepherd, a voice of mercy, a voice of love, a voice that binds our wounds, a voice that heals and builds us up. We pray that thou will carry that word to our hearts by thy spirit, and by the secret operation of thy spirit. In the depths of our hearts, thou wilt apply that gospel for our comfort and for our peace, that we indeed might be those who have joy and those who have the oil of gladness and those who are comforted and those who are righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank thee, Father, for what thou hast given us in the congregation We consider all thy works and find thy ways to be deep. Indeed, thy footsteps are in the sea, and thy paths are not known. And yet thou dost bring us into the sanctuary to show us the wonder of thy footsteps, for thy way is in the sanctuary. We thank Thee, Father, for what Thou hast done in this past week with the members of the congregation. We thank Thee for giving unto us another child. Will Thou remember Madeline Grace? Remember her family? We thank Thee for the health that Thou hast given to mother and child both. We pray that Thou will continue to strengthen and nurture and nourish the daughter that Thou hast bestowed. And we thank Thee, Father, that even as Thou hast given a daughter to a family in our midst, that Thou hast also given a daughter to the congregation. For here is our mother and our brethren. Here is our family. And we thank Thee, Father, for what Thou dost give. We know that the fruit of the womb is Thy reward, and children are an heritage of Thee. And therefore, we beseech Thee, Father, that Thou wilt continue to bless and keep this child, and bless and keep Father, our children, and continue to give unto us children of the covenant. Thou continue to grant this gift according to Thy provision. Thou give unto us also marriages in the Lord and make those marriages fruitful according to Thy will. We beseech Thee, Father, that Thou will provide for we are empty even in this. We are helpless. We are very low. Thou art very high, Thou art God, and our hope is in Thee. We thank Thee also, Father, for the good tidings of this day of Thy work of salvation in the hearts of Thy people. We thank Thee that Thou hast added Bob to our midst, that Thou hast given him membership among us, Father, Thou art good and Thy ways are very, very high. We thank Thee that in the building of the body of Christ and the adding of a member here and a member there, that all of this adding of members is from Thee. For the whole body is from Thee, and all the members are fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working and the measure of every part, making increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. We thank Thee, Father, that Thou art the God of Thy church and that Jesus Christ is the head of His people and the head of His body so that our life and our nourishment and our growth and our salvation is all of Him. We pray, Father, that Thou will also continue to knit us together as members of the body of Christ that we might have the peace that belongs unto the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that we might, knowing that peace from Thee live also in peace one with another. We thank Thee for the prayer of our Savior, that for the sake of His brethren and His kinsmen, He prays that peace might be within Jerusalem. We pray, Father, that Thou will continue to knit us one to another as Thou dost knit us to our head. We thank Thee also, Father, for Thy care of Audrey in this week, this past week. Will Thou continue to remember her in the recovery that lies before her now. We thank Thee for all of the benchmarks and all of the healing that has taken place so far. And we receive this from Thee. We thank Thee for the means that Thou hast given of doctors and medicines. And yet, Father, our fullness is of Thee, and our health is of Thee, and indeed all things are of Thee, so that health and sickness, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, life and death, come not by chance, but come to us by Thy fatherly hand. And we thank Thee for Thy grace, so that these things are sent to us, not for our destruction, but for our good. For we know, Father, that neither our care nor industry nor even thy gifts can profit us without thy blessing. And so we beseech thee that thou will continue to bestow upon us thy blessing indeed. We thank thee also, Father, for the protection that thou hast given in this past week to us in all of our earthly sojourn. We are so exposed to danger, our life is so fraught with afflictions and sorrows, and yet thou dost protect us. We thank thee for our good shepherd who feeds his sheep and who gathers the lambs in his arms, and carries them in his bosom, and who gently leads those that are with young. Will thou continue, Father, to bless us, and protect us, and keep us. We beseech Thee also, Father, that Thou wilt give unto us the Gospel for our comfort and peace, that Thou wilt give us the Gospel also to heal all our diseases, all our sinfulness, that Thou wilt give us the Gospel to show us Jesus Christ as the way and to show us that He also is the foundation of the Church and the unity of the Church, so that we may have oneness in Him, so that we may have together joy in Him. And because Thou alone art able to give this by a wonder work of Thy mighty, sovereign grace, wilt Thou bestow it, Father? Wilt Thou remember those who are distressed of Thy people? Wilt Thou be with those who are afflicted, those who are persecuted, thou remember them, wilt thou remember us. Wilt thou give unto us, Father, the comfort and the peace that though men kill our bodies, that no man is able to destroy our soul, but that thou art our God, and thou dost love thy church, and love thy people, and dost keep thy saints. We pray that Thou will continue to bless the Bible study as it meets. We thank Thee for the opportunity to have fellowship around Thy Word with members near and far. We pray that Thou will continue to instruct us in Thy Word, opening the Scriptures to us. Thou give to us the unity of the Gospel also in Thy Scriptures as they are studied. We pray, Father, that Thou will give to us faith to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, and Thou will give unto us the knowledge of justification by faith alone, and Thou will give to us that peace of being justified by faith and having peace with Thee through our Lord Jesus Christ. Continue to look upon us and all of our needs, for we remain ever weak, Thou always art strong. We always are empty, but Thou art full. We thank Thee for our Savior, in whom Thou hast bestowed all things upon us. Forgive our sins, blotting them out in Jesus' blood. Will Thou keep us from sin? Will Thou hear our prayer, blessing our worship for the glory of Thy name? In Jesus' name we pray, amen. We worship the Lord now in the giving of our offerings. The first offering is for the general fund and the second is for benevolence. you you Psalm 147. Psalm 147. As we are learning, the 150 Psalms are divided into five books, and each of those books of the Psalms ends with a doxology. When we come to the end of the fifth book, the final collection of the 150 psalms, then not only is the last verse of Psalm 150 a doxology, praise ye the Lord, but the last psalms themselves all form a resounding doxology to God. That begins in Psalm 145 with the great king whose progress we have been following through the entire psalm book from the very beginning. He was the blessed man. He suffered much throughout the book of Psalms. He was lifted up throughout the book of Psalms so that we see the whole life and work of our Lord through His eyes in the Psalms. But in Psalm 145, that great King comes to the end of the psalm book with the great cry, I will extol Thee, my God, O King. And I will bless thy name forever and ever. And then Psalms 146, 147, 148, 149, and 150, all are the call to the church. with the psalmist to praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. Each of those psalms begins and ends so that here at the end of the book of Psalms we have several resounding doxologies of praise to Jehovah who has established his king and given him all things and given us all things in him. In Psalm 147, the psalmist relates God's goodness to the lowly. God builds up Jerusalem. Verse two, he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel. And the psalmist goes back and forth between what God has done to his church with what God does in the creation. It's as if the psalmist is saying, you who are weak, you who have no power, you who need the mighty God to establish you, look at how powerful God is. You can see it all around you in what he has done in the heavens. Verse 8, for example, He covereth the heaven with clouds, and who for earth below prepareth rain, who maketh grass upon the mountains grow. And the church then is established in this truth of the power of God to save his people. Psalm 147 contains language very similar to Isaiah 61 and our text, especially in verse 3. Those that are broken in their heart and grieved in their minds, he healeth, and their painful wounds he tenderly upbinds. At this time, we'll sing verses 1 through 11 of Psalm 147. That amounts to the first four stanzas. Verses 1 through 11, the first four stanzas. The tune is very familiar, so we won't ask the accompanist to play through the whole thing. And then we'll sing verses 1 through 11 of Psalm 147. ♪ For it is pleasant and to praise it is a lovely thing ♪ ♪ A dove filled up Jerusalem, and he it is alone ♪ ♪ Another end to one ♪ ♪ Those that are broken in their hearts ♪ ♪ And grieved in their minds ♪ ♪ Be healed and their painful wounds be tenderly unbinds ♪ ♪ Be grouse and lumber ♪ Our seedlings and everyone ♪ ♪ Great is our Lord and offering power ♪ ♪ His wisdom's church can learn ♪ ♪ The Lord is our God, he can cast the wicked to the ground ♪ and thanks on high His praises sound. Who cometh on earth without to mourn the earth below, prepared with grace ♪ They will jump and ride ♪ ♪ This pleasure not in horse's strength ♪ ♪ Nor in man's legs doth lie ♪ ♪ But in all those that to him feared ♪ ♪ The Lord doth pleasure trade ♪ ♪ And those that to his mercy knew ♪ We turn in God's Word this morning to Isaiah 61. Isaiah 61. This morning we begin a brief series on this chapter out of the prophet Isaiah. A chapter that overflows with comfort for the people of God, for it is the chapter of the Lord's announcement of His commission and the work that God sent our Savior Jesus Christ to do. And what work has God sent our Savior to do? To preach good tidings unto the meek. And there is our salvation. Isaiah 61, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God. to comfort all that mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations. And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. But ye shall be named the priests of the Lord. Men shall call you the ministers of our God. Ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. For your shame ye shall have double, and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess the double. Everlasting joy shall be unto them. For I, the Lord, love judgment. I hate robbery for burnt offering. And I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people. All that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. This is God's Word, holy and inspired. May He bless it to our hearts this morning. Our text is verses 1 through 3. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted. to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. Beloved congregation and our Lord Jesus Christ, the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ needs good tidings. She needs good tidings because she has no good tidings of herself. The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ of herself is utterly empty The only thing that the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ of herself could ever say is her sin and her corruption and her iniquity. The Church of Jesus Christ then needs Jehovah God to come unto her and to proclaim to her good tidings. And in Isaiah 61, we have those good tidings. The whole chapter overflows with the good tidings that the Lord Jesus Christ brings to his church on behalf of Jehovah God. And Jesus Christ brings those good tidings to the church that you who are empty might be full, that you who are sinful might be righteous, that you who are poor might be rich, that you who mourn might rejoice. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ doesn't have any of this. But God in His goodness comes to His church and by these glad tidings, these good tidings, teaches His church what He has done for her. And the result of those good tidings for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is that sinful, despicable, revolting thing that the church is of herself. is given the very righteousness of Jesus Christ so that she knows by faith the very righteousness of her own Savior as her own, and is, as the text says, trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. In the text that we consider this morning from this chapter, the first three verses, the prophet Isaiah reveals his commission from God. God sent the prophet Isaiah to do something and God had sent the prophet Isaiah to preach Good tidings. The text then is an uncovering. It is a revelation so that the people to whom Isaiah was sent would know what he was there for. And that was a very important question for the people to whom Isaiah was sent. What are you doing here, Isaiah? What are you going to say to us, Isaiah? Are you here to make our suffering worse, Isaiah? What are you here to do? What are you here to say? Why are you talking to us? And it was such an important thing to know why Isaiah was sent, what his commission was, because the people to whom Isaiah wrote in this chapter were in captivity in Babylon. Now, as a matter of fact, in Isaiah's own day, they were not yet in captivity, but God picked Isaiah up as it were and whisked him ahead in history to see that Babylonian captivity and to cry unto the people a word of comfort, so that from chapter 40 through the end of the chapter, we have that word of Isaiah to God's people as they would be in captivity in Babylon someday. Jerusalem was a heap that was destroyed. The people were there in Babylon because of their sin, because of their disobedience to the law of Jehovah God. And so God sends this prophet to them with a commission to them, and the question is, Isaiah, why are you here? Prophet of God, why are you here? What are you going to say to us who are here in Babylon? And Isaiah in this text reveals the commission, the purpose for which God had sent him. The spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to those who are meek. He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. It was a marvelous revelation. of the commission that God had given to the prophet Isaiah. But the prophet Isaiah speaks here in the text as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, when you look at Isaiah 61, you can hardly see Isaiah. You can hardly find him there. He's there as the type But the reality shines through so clearly, so much so that the Lord Jesus Christ, in his first recorded public sermon in the Gospel according to Luke, quotes this text as applying to him. We read, rather, in Luke 4, verses 16 and following, And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all bear him witness, and wondered at the gracious words. which proceeded out of his mouth. Jesus Christ preached this text as a text that revealed Him, so that the Lord Jesus Christ, by Isaiah 61 verses 1 through 3, uncovers and unveils the commission for which God had sent Him. Why did God send the Lord Jesus Christ? To come to you, He anointed him with the spirit to come to you. He sent him to you who are meek, you who mourn, you who are brokenhearted, you who are in prison, you who are bound, you who have ashes, you who have the spirit of heaviness. He sent him to you to tell you good tidings and to tell you the good tidings that came from heaven itself, the good tidings that have come from God's own mouth according to God's own counsel. that God has come to those who are unsavable and who certainly cannot deliver themselves and who has performed the miracle of saving the unsavable, of making glad those who could have no gladness and of delivering those who could have no liberty. The Lord in this text unveils, reveals the great commission for which he was sent to you, and it is to preach to you good tidings, that you might be happy, and that Jehovah God might be praised." And so we consider this text this morning under the theme, Anointed to Preach Good Tidings. In the first place, consider the prophet's commission In the second place, consider the prophet's anointing, and in the third place, consider the prophet's fruit. Anointed to preach good tidings, the prophet's commission, the prophet's anointing, and the prophet's fruit. When Jesus the prophet, through that type Isaiah, but Jesus is the prophet, when Jesus the prophet reveals his commission from God, he says that he is sent to the meek. And that's a striking description. There's a lot in that description of those to whom he has sent. Oftentimes we think of meekness as a virtue. We think of meekness as one of the fruits of the Spirit from Galatians, and meekness certainly is listed there. But when the prophet says here that he is sent to the meek, he does not mean that he is sent to the virtuous. He does not mean he is sent to the good. But rather the word meekness here has that main meaning of meekness of being very low. That's why we use that word meekness or humility to describe one of the fruits of the Spirit. God's people know that they are low. But here it's referring to it as those who are very low, who are very afflicted in their lowliness. And what is their lowness? What is their affliction? It's their sin. That's the one to whom the Prophet is sent. He has been commissioned to go to sinners. Those who are lowly and despicable in their sin. Not people who are good. Not people who are really trying hard. Not people who are just about to turn the corner. Not people that you could look at and say, well, they're not as bad as they could be. He comes to the afflicted sinners, the lowly sinners, those who have nothing in themselves to give, those who are utterly despicable. The word meek here does not mean the virtue of humility. But the word meek here refers to the grossest and most disgusting sin. Remember the ones to whom Isaiah is speaking. and to whom Jesus Christ is speaking. We pick up in Isaiah 61, and we're going to have a brief series on Isaiah 61, that one chapter, Lord willing. But this continues what the prophet had been saying since Isaiah 59. And in Isaiah 59, Jesus tells us exactly what these meek are. Verse three of Isaiah 59, your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies. Your tongue hath muttered perverseness. None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth. They trust in vanity and speak lies. They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity. They hatch cockatrice eggs and weave the spider's web. He that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. you. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they know not, and there is no judgment in their goings. They have made them crooked paths, whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. That's the people who are these meek. That's the one who are these lowly. They are the lowly with sin. Which means that as we read Isaiah 61, you cannot look at the people to whom Jesus is sent as the prophet, and look at them and say, well, I feel some sympathy for them. I look at them and my heart goes out to them so that I'm kind of drawn to them. That's not the idea in 61. It's not meant to paint a picture of those who are sympathetic figures. It's meant to paint a picture of those who are revolting. That's all there is in those to whom the Lord has sent. They are utterly revolting. They are not Creatures of pity. Nobody could pity them. No man could find it in his heart to look upon them with some compassion. They are utterly, utterly revolting. And then, because it's always our nature to begin to think, well, I know some people like that. I know some revolting people. The Apostle Paul takes that, Isaiah 59, and applies it right to us. It's the whole human race. It's us. We are those whose feet are swift to shed blood. In Romans 3, the Apostle says about all men that there is none that doeth good, no not one, as he quotes the Psalms. and their feet are swift to shed blood, as he quotes Isaiah 59, so that this is the verdict, this is the evaluation concerning us, concerning the Church of Jesus Christ. We are these meek, that is, we are these lowly, we are these reprehensible, Nobody could look on us and pity us. Nobody could look at us and say, they're good people underneath, they're good way down deep. No, that can't be said of us. What we are way down deep, what we are underneath is utterly corrupt. What we are within is nothing but vipers with the poison of asps under our lips. That's our nature. That's to whom The Lord Jesus Christ is sent. That's the one to whom the prophet is commissioned. It is the utterly sinful. And what does the prophet say now when he is brought to these people? He's commissioned to come to the meek and he comes to these lowly, to these sinners, to these despicable ones. And you might think the word that he's going to bring to them is this, get away from me. Do you know who I am? I'm the prophet. I'm the prophet. I am the one who has been anointed by God. I'm consecrated to God. I'm devoted to him, not like you. You're not devoted to God. You're wicked. You're sinful. We might think that the prophet would say as he comes to these lowly, these empty, get away from me. But that's not what he says. His commission from God is to come to the utterly despicable and to preach good tidings to them. to say things that make these despicable sinners happy, make them glad. It's, from a human point of view, an unbelievable thing that the prophet is given to say. That's why this is such an unveiling and such a revelation of the prophet's commission. You could never guess this from what you see of the people. From what you see of the people, you would guess that he's coming to destroy them. But what he does instead is come to those people and make them glad. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. Happy news to the meek. In fact, the word preach good tidings is all one word in the original. preach good tidings, all one word, and it has the idea of a message that changes the face, a message that turns the face from ugliness and hideousness to beauty and joy so that it means exactly as the King James translates it, that there's this announcement, this preaching that is so good of news, that is so good and so unexpected that those who could find no hope of themselves are now made glad and made happy in this news. It is good tidings. Well, this Good Tidings that the Prophet brings does something to the people. This Good Tidings that the Prophet brings exchanges something. So that this Good Tidings is effectual as the Prophet preaches those Good Tidings. What happens when the Prophet preaches? Well, he comes to preach Good Tidings to the meek. They didn't deserve it. That's the last thing they deserved is Good Tidings. He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted." That's a marvelous statement, bind up the broken-hearted. This broken-heartedness refers again to that meekness, that lowliness of sin. It means a heart that can't hold anything. It can't hold any praise, it cannot hold any goodness. A heart that's broken is a heart that's shattered. A heart that has no substance and no integrity to hold anything good. You cannot go to the heart of the child of God, the heart of the sinner, and say about that heart, well, that heart that there's something inside that one that really, really holds goodness well. There's a new man in us, but this brokenheartedness of the flesh which is being described here is this utter emptiness so that there's nothing you can say about that person. He has any goodness in himself. And here comes the prophet to that one who has nothing and gives him something. In fact, gives him everything, binding up the brokenhearted. He proclaims liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. These are not people who are wrongfully imprisoned. So that you say about them in their prison, oh, I feel bad for them, that there they sit languishing in prison. They didn't deserve to be there. It was a bad trial that brought them there. It was a false charge that put them in that prison. Oh, I feel bad for them. No, these are people who deserve to be there. These are the hardened sinners. These are the wretches. These are those who have nothing good and only sin. Yet here comes the prophet to them and says I'm sent to you To open your prison and let you who are captive go free He continues that idea in verse 2 to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God the acceptable year of the Lord here referring to those times those set times in the Old Testament and a time of shadows when the prisoners or the servants or the slaves would be set free. There were set times. Every seventh year was a year of release so that the Hebrew man who had to sell himself into a kind of slavery and indentured servitude to his Hebrew neighbor, on that seventh year of release, he would be set free. And then the year of Jubilee, the 50th year when the captives were all set free. It's referring to that acceptable year of the Lord. But now the thing about that indentured servant, that Hebrew indentured servant, is that he belonged in that indentured serviture. There were Hebrews who, because of their carelessness or because of their theft, owed those whom they had injured or those whom they had stolen from more than they could pay. And so in order to pay off that debt, they were allowed to sell themselves into an indentured serviture until the year of release or the year of Jubilee. So these were people who were not innocent people. They were people who, some of them, belonged in that captivity. And now here comes the prophet saying, I'm going to set you free. I'm proclaiming the acceptable year of the Lord and you're released and you may go free now. And the day of vengeance of our God, which is the day of vengeance against anyone who would seek to take that freed slave and enslave him again, that happened at times in the history of the people of Israel, that an unscrupulous Hebrew would let his Hebrew indentured servant go free and then immediately take him back again. so that he followed the letter of the law of release and let him go, but then immediately captured him back, putting him under some pressure, some impossible situation where he had no choice but to come back into his service. And here the prophet comes through and says, I'm opening your prison. I'm setting you free. I'm proclaiming the acceptable year of the Lord and no one will make you a slave again. No one will take your liberty again. The prophet here comes with this message of good news and good tidings to the people to comfort all that mourn, verse 2. and to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, those ashes symbolizing that nothing is left. When you have burned the brush pile, then there's nothing left, except you pick up a few ashes, and that's nothing. You can't do anything with that. Those ashes were a sign then of being utterly emptied and having nothing left, the sign of sorrow and the sign of emptiness. I'm going to take away those ashes from you and instead give you beauty, the oil of joy for mourning, so that instead of this utter misery, in which there's no refreshment and there's only sorrow, you will have now the oil of joy, which was a picture of joy in the Old Testament, anointing your face even when you fast. The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that spirit of heaviness is that weight, that rock That stone, that pit that sits there and it hangs on you, weighs down your heart so that there's nothing you can do except think of that stone and wake up with that stone and go to bed with that stone, that heaviness that weighs on you. And here comes the prophet to those who have nothing and who cannot get rid of any of this grief and any of this sorrow, and gives unto them instead the garment of praise. This is the glad tidings of the prophet as he comes and gives them these things that they could not have themselves. This is his commission. But now the question is, how in the world does the prophet give that to them? Remember who those people are. They don't deserve any of that. How in the world are they going to have joy? They deserve to be in that spirit of heaviness. That's what belongs to them. They should carry that around with them for the rest of their life, in fact, for all eternity. That's what they deserve. How do they deserve to get out of prison? They don't deserve that. They deserve to languish there forever. Here comes the Prophet and declares to them, I'm going to give you all of this good and salvation in place of all of your sin and iniquity and all of the sorrow and grief that goes along with it. And the only way that the Prophet can do all of that is because this is the Prophet who's the Redeemer. He's the same one in Isaiah 59. In Isaiah 59, When God looked around at all of Israel, all of the church, and said, your feet run to shed blood. There's nothing but lies in your mouths. There's violence in your hands. That's all there is to you. Then there was this man who steps forward at the end of Isaiah 59, who looks around and wonders. That there's not a single man in Israel who is able to come forth and who is able to make intercession. And so he comes and makes intercession. He puts on himself the breastplate of righteousness. He's the great champion of the people and redeems them by his own arm of strength. Well, that one is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ stands in the place of his people, there in Isaiah 59, and does for them what they cannot do themselves. And that's the same thing happening here in Isaiah 61. How is it that the prophet comes to those sinners, those meek, those sinners, and says good things to them? How could he do that? Well, it's because he stood in the place of those sinners, and heard the evil things of God, the sad tidings, the tidings of condemnation. Those were the tidings that those sinners deserve to have. Those aren't the tidings that they hear, because the Lord Jesus Christ heard those tidings. And just as good, infinitely good, as the good tidings are, so infinitely bad were the bad tidings. that the Lord Jesus Christ heard in our place. I can't imagine, we can't imagine what it was like to hear those evil tidings, the tidings of a curse, the tidings of the entire infinite being of God moving against the sin of his people in Jesus Christ. And the Lord heard those tidings, heard them all. Those tidings were exhausted. The whole message was spoken to Christ, the whole message. When he said, it is finished, that's what he meant, the evil tidings are gone. For my people, for my elect people, the people for whom I died, those evil tidings are gone. And now the prophet comes, commissioned by God to come to you, sinner and me, sinner, and not speak to evil tidings, but good tidings, good tidings of salvation. The prophet comes and proclaims liberty to the captives. How can that be? Those people deserve to be in their prison. That's where they should languish. Well, the only way that they can be set free is that the Lord Jesus Christ went and stood in that prison for us. And there in the prison of God's curse bore everything that we deserve so that now there's no prison for us. Now we're open That gate is open and we are set free. How is it that He can give us beauty for ashes? Well, it's because He took our nothingness and our emptiness and our sin, all our iniquity upon Himself. He was covered with our ashes that we might have His beauty. The oil of joy for mourning, he was the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Now we might be glad, we sinners might be glad in what he has done. The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, he took that stone, that pet, into his own heart. bore it and carried it, the heaviness of God's wrath against our sins, that he might put on us a different garment, here called the garment of praise. All of this is describing, by implication with what the prophet took, and explicitly with what he gives to us, all of this is teaching the substitutionary work of our mediator for us. That's our salvation and that's the content of the good tidings. He stood in our place so that we who were disgusting sinners, who were reprehensible, whom no one could feel pity for, he took that place. and under God's wrath bore our curse, and by his perfect obedience to Jehovah God has obtained for us all the blessing of eternal life and glory, so that his righteousness is counted as our righteousness, just as our sin was counted as his sin. What's being described here is the substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why he can give something in place of all of this sorrow and sin and death. He gives himself, he gives his own righteousness, he gives his own joy, he gives his own life in place of all our sin and death. And he tells you about it. He teaches you that your sins are forgiven indeed. That was his commission. He came as our substitute and He came as our substitute speaking, telling us what He's doing and telling us why. The Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the sinners so that He comes to the sinners who cannot help themselves and declares to them what He has done. The Lord Jesus Christ as the prophet is anointed to this commission. He comes preaching good tidings, and he comes preaching because he was anointed, because he was sent. That's the way the prophet begins the passage, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. because the Lord hath anointed me, and then he hath sent me." And then verse two again, to proclaim. And then verse three again, to appoint. I was sent to do something by this anointing. The Lord Jesus Christ was anointed by the Holy Spirit. What he's describing here is God's official sending of him and official designating of him as the prophet who would speak on behalf of Jehovah God. The prophet does not come of his own accord. The prophet does not do his own will. The prophet is sent. The prophet is a messenger on behalf of someone else. And Jesus Christ, when he says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, is saying, I was sent by God so that the message that I'm bringing to you is not a message of myself, but is a message of Jehovah God himself. It means that Jesus is authorized to speak on behalf of God. Jesus is commissioned to speak on behalf of God. And the implication of that for the church is this, that what the Lord Jesus Christ says is from God. It's from God. That's the mystery and the wonder of the preaching of the Gospel in the Church of Jesus Christ. That what's proclaimed according to the Scriptures, what's proclaimed out of the Scriptures is from God. Because that's Jesus Christ Himself saying these things. Which means that when you hear good tidings, you sinners who hear good tidings, that's Jehovah God Himself saying You who mourn have comfort, I give you comfort. Your comfort is this Christ, your comfort is his work, his substitution. I say to you who are sinners, good things, glad tidings. I say to you who are empty and in prison and bound, I say to you, you're free, you're free. When the Lord Jesus Christ speaks, He's authorized to speak on behalf of Jehovah God. And because this is the message of Jehovah God, then that means that what is being spoken is according to God's eternal counsel. This is not some changeable message, something that's held out to you today and it's going to be whisked away tomorrow. The message of the Gospel for God's people, for his elect people in Jesus Christ, is an unchanging message. It's the truth of Jehovah God's own counsel and his own heart. From all eternity Jehovah's love was set upon you. You were nothing. I was nothing. You weren't there to do good works. I wasn't there to do good works. There was nothing lovely about us. But Jehovah God set his love upon us in the Lord Jesus Christ from all eternity, and that love cannot break. It cannot break. It's marvelous that's different from everything here below. Everything here breaks. But not God's love. God's love abides eternal. And that love that he has had from all eternity, which has never waned in the slightest, which has never turned into hatred ever, That love that he has had from all eternity, he proclaims now through the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has authorized Christ to come tell you about it. And he tells you about that through the preaching of the gospel in the church as the Word is expounded, as the Word is opened up. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to tell you what's in the heart of the Lord about you. I have been anointed, says Jesus Christ, the great prophet, and I have been sent to sinners to declare to them the good tidings of what I have done and the life that I give you in place of all of your death and the righteousness that is yours in place of all of your unrighteousness. The Lord hath anointed me to tell you what he thinks of you, what he has decreed concerning you, That message then is sure for the Church of Jesus Christ. There's nothing that can take that away. And when you consider that matter of that anointing then of the Savior that He's authorized to tell us what God Himself thinks, then where in this are you going to find your working? Can you find your working in there? Anywhere in there? Anywhere in this message that the Lord brings, you don't have any working. I don't have any working in this. What you have and what I have is nothing. We don't have any goodness. We're not about to turn. We didn't do something first. There's nothing of us in there except despicableness and being reprehensible and disgusting. There's nothing of us in there, nothing good of us. The only thing that's in there is Jehovah God. The only thing is His will. The only thing is the good tidings that He sends through Jesus Christ. And if you want to even take the hard case, because there are those who will bring up a hard case and say, okay, but what about those times when I've sinned so badly that I don't enjoy for a time the experience of God's fellowship? What about that time? Well, that hard case is here too. That's Isaiah 59. Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy. that it cannot hear, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear." You want to take that hard case of a child of God or the people of God for a time not enjoying so intensely the experience of God's fellowship. Well, even then, even then, God didn't break his covenant with his people. Even then, the chastisement that he sends upon them is his expression of his covenant fellowship with his people. And his love hasn't changed a bit. That hasn't waned. That hasn't gone away. That hasn't been extinguished. You want to take that hard case, and that hard case is always brought up in order to prove, quote unquote prove, that see, you do have to do something in order to reobtain that experience of fellowship with God. You did something that hurt the experience. You have to do something to restore the experience. All right, take that hard case. See if you can find your works in Isaiah 59 and going on to Isaiah 61. There's nothing of the works of man. The only thing that restores is what Jehovah God does. And what is it that restores at the end of Isaiah 59? The Redeemer shall come to Zion. Verse 20. Or a little before that, verse 16. He saw that there was no man. and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore his arm brought salvation unto him, and his righteousness, it sustained him. For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon his head. And he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak." And on and on. The Lord Jesus Christ comes and delivers us from all our sin. And the Lord Jesus Christ alone restores to us the experience, or the comfort, or the assurance. He alone gives it. He alone can give it. There's nothing that we can do to obtain it. What are we there but the sinners, the prisoners, the empty, the heavy? That's all we are. But the Lord Jesus Christ is commissioned by God. to come and by his tidings, his good news, to tell you of what he has done so that you are relieved and you are comforted and you have beauty and you have the garment of praise and your face breaks out into joyful, into joy. that the Spirit of the Lord is upon the Lord Jesus Christ so that he is anointed to proclaim the gospel means that it is by that secret powerful operation of the Spirit that this Gospel touches you, and that this Gospel gives you all these things, so that now when we come way down deep into the recesses of our hearts, even there, you don't have to produce something. You don't have to find something in yourself or stir something in yourself in order to make that word effectual, to make it take effect for you, to make it make you glad. The Word itself, by the power of the Spirit, makes its own entrance, so that those good tidings are carried on the breath of the Spirit, that mysterious Spirit who goes into the depths of our hearts and gives us their faith, so that by faith, not by our works, but by our faith, we hear these glad tidings. And by that faith alone, The comfort of the child of God, the assurance of the child of God, the peace of the child of God, the whole experience of covenant fellowship of the child of God is by faith and by faith alone. Look at the anointed one who's proclaiming the good news. It's by that spirit who has anointed, but with whom he is anointed and by whom he was commissioned that he comes. to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. That's a marvelous work, a miraculous work of God, and it's a mysterious, spiritual, hidden, invisible work. Just like a breath is a hidden thing. We've been breathing the whole time we've been here this morning, in and out, breathing in and out. Who even knew it? Who even knew we were breathing? Whoever heard any breath going out and going in in the congregation, there that breath goes in and goes out secretly, quietly. And that's the way the Word of God works too. That gospel comes forth and that breath of the Spirit quietly, secretly takes it into the depth of your heart and there gives you comfort and peace and the joy of your salvation. It's all the work of God, all entirely the work of God. and therefore is to His glory." And that's the fruit of the prophet as he preaches this gospel. The prophet's fruit in the first place is that, at the end of verse 3, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord. That's quite an image that's portrayed there. It's a garden, a park, a beautiful garden with many plantings, big stately trees there in that garden. That's not what it used to be. What the church is of herself is nothing but disease-ridden, stunted, twisted, gnarled growth. There's nothing there but death. It's a swamp. It's a bog. There's nothing there you can enjoy. There's nothing there you could take pleasure in. It's entirely disgusting. It stinks. But now God has come and has made us trees of righteousness. The trees of righteousness too. This beautiful planting, this beautiful garden that the Lord makes His church. Those trees of righteousness tell us what kind of garden this is. A tree of righteousness is a straight tree. It's a tree that grows up straight and tall. It's not crooked and twisted, but it's a straight tree. And it's a straight tree because there is one blessed man who is like that tree that grows by the riverside, who bringeth forth his fruit in his season, whose leaf withers not. It's that Jesus Christ who is that straight tree. And all we are is these dead, twisted things, so that you'd have to say about us, God could never look at us and be happy. We're not the kind of tree that he could ever take pleasure in. But there's that tree, that straight tree, the Lord Jesus Christ, that towering tree, like the cedars of Lebanon, reaching unto the heavens, so big around that you cannot wrap your arms around it, straight all the way up without any crook, And that straightness of that tree is simply His righteousness. His perfect obedience to the law of God. His perfectly measuring up to the standard of Jehovah God. There He is. And you say about Him, there's a tree that God takes pleasure in. There's a tree He looks at and rejoices in. Because it's the tree He gave. And it's the tree He planted. It's the tree He sent. It's the prophet who is anointed to bring good tidings. And now all of we, these trees who are also straight in God's garden, His planting that He has made, we're not straight with our own straightness, never. All we are is twisted and dead, but we're straight with His straightness. We're right with His rightness. We are righteous with His righteousness, justified by faith alone with the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what God does. He gives to these people who are sinners righteousness. And all of that, that the name of God may be praised, because none of us could do this. None of us could do this. We couldn't even know this. But God knew this. And God did this, the end of verse 3, that he might be glorified. This is the prophet's commission. This is what he was sent to tell us, who are sinners. It's a marvelous revelation, a marvelous unveiling. He says things that from our point of view, couldn't be heard, were impossible ever to be heard. But God sent him to make us happy with this gospel. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. Amen. Our Father, which art in heaven, wilt thou apply thy word to our hearts. We thank thee for the gospel of our Savior, how refreshing and good it is. Wilt thou use it for the nourishing of our souls and the comfort of our hearts. And wilt thou forgive our sins in Jesus' blood and make us happy with these glad tidings for Jesus' sake. Amen. We return to Psalm 147. Psalm 147. We continue singing of God's great work for his church in Christ, as that is compared also with his work in the creation. We'll sing verses 12 through 20, the last verses, which amounts to the last three stanzas of Psalm 147. I am. ♫ He stands for this the land of air ♫ His work unceasingly ♫ O'er frost-like ashes scattered here ♫ Like gold he's shown of him ♫ Like parcels casted here He sent forth his mighty word, and melted them again. His breath he makes to go again, while waters fall again. his judgments he gives himself to know. To any nation that ♪ Such favor did afford ♪ ♪ For they whose judgments had not known ♪ ♪ How to embrace the Lord ♪ ♪ And praise and thanks unto the Lord ♪ and mercy doth endure unto eternity. Blessed be Jehovah Israel's God to all eternity. Let all the people say amen. Praise to the Lord in me. grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.