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Let us turn together to the prophecy
of Isaiah in chapter 61. We take for our text this evening
verses 1 through to 5. The chapter begins, The Spirit
of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to
preach good tidings unto the meek. He has sent me to bind
up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and
the opening of the prison to them that are bound. Words to cause us in our hearts
to be praising the Lord. Now we have already seen in our
studies thus far that preaching is a challenging activity. One of the reasons for this is
the diversity of the hearers. There are, for example, both
adults and children. Matthew tells us that at the
feeding of the great multitude there were about 5,000 men beside
women and Children. Talk about the feeding
of the 5,000, but we have to remember that there were many
more than that. 5,000 men beside women and children. And I suppose we could have done
a study on our Lord's ministry to children. and that could easily
have occupied us for several weeks. For we have so much information
in the Bible concerning the preaching of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. And these things remind us that
the preacher must reach all ages. The preacher must seek to reach
all the different nationalities and cultures that he can address
in their particular languages. Often, during the Savior's preaching,
the listeners included friends and foes, and the preacher must
address the hostility of the flesh. to this salvation by grace. There is nothing more unwelcome
to us as sinners, as unsaved sinners, than this message of
the gospel that reminds us of our utter and absolute dependence
upon Jesus Christ. There's no other way out of our
situation as sinners. There's no other way out of our
guilt. There's no other way out of our
corruption. We are helpless to find a remedy
for ourselves. And these things great upon the
natural man who has such high estimation of himself. Look at our scientific achievements. Look at the progress that we
have made over the last two centuries. For example, we see how great
we are. Well, we see how great we think
we are. But as soon as we come to this
matter of addressing eternity, as soon as we come to this matter
of addressing our relationship to God, as soon as we come to
this matter of addressing the problem of sin, we see ourselves
in this object helplessness. and salvation must be by grace
the undeserved and merited favor of God, or surely there will
be no salvation at all. Friends, the subject matter of
the preacher is so spiritual and so sublime that we may say
with the Apostle Paul, Who is sufficient for these things? And we have a simple answer to
that, and it is not one, but Jesus Christ, our Lord, the eternal
Son incarnate. In the Bible, the subject of
preaching falls naturally into four main headings. the preaching
of the prophets, the preaching of Christ, the preaching of the
apostles, and the preaching of gospel ministers. We have five
addresses for the simple reason that as we saw this morning,
John the Baptist stands as a preacher, the link between. the Old Testament
and the New, the link between the prophets and the preaching
of Christ. But our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ made perfectly plain that his preaching was founded upon
the preaching of the apostles. that this inspired record of
the Old Testament was not set aside by the coming of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he could appeal again and
again to the Old Testament scriptures as the validation of his ministry
and of his preaching. But we acknowledge that the preaching
of the Lord Jesus Christ takes precedence because Christ is
the preacher of our fears. Christ is the center of what
we believe, and Christ is the sufficiency with respect to the
progress of his church. In looking at the preaching of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in connection with Isaiah 61
and these first five verses, we want to look first of all
at the authority of Christ's preaching. The natural man among
us this evening will have his various sources of authority. It might be ancient or modern
philosophers. It might be scientists. It might
be his own understanding. There's a whole myriad of things
to which the natural man can look for authority. But the reality is this. All
true authority begins with Jesus Christ, the one and only mediator
between God and men. And this authority of Christ
as preacher arises from his unique anointing. Here in this passage,
the Messiah speaks through his prophet. And he says, the spirit
of the Lord God is upon me. because the Lord hath anointed
me to preach good tidings unto the meek. Now anointing with oil was an
ancient practice to set apart to some office. And you see how
God incorporated this in connection with the matter of authority
in the kingdom of heaven. So Aaron, the great high priest,
had to be anointed with oil. David, that great king of Israel,
was anointed with oil. And in 1 Kings 19.16 we read
that Elisha, the prophet, was anointed with oil. So the Jews
were used to anointing by the institution of God in connection
with their leadership, spiritual and political. So the high priest,
the king, and prophets were anointed and set apart to the service
of God. Now though we are concentrating
at this time upon the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ as the
great prophet and preacher of the faith, we do need to remember
that his anointing was also as high priest. As high priest to sacrifice himself
as the Lamb of God in the place of sinners such as we. If it
were not so, there would be no message of joy and gladness and
release and salvation to preach. For there is no other way that
we sinners can approach to God and find acceptance and pray
our Father, which art in heaven, accepted be by the shed blood
of the Lamb. Our story, as it were, begins
at Calvary. And it must be so, because without
the shedding of blood, there is no remission. That was a principle
of the Old Testament law, to teach the necessity of the atonement
of Christ. Had the Jews taken that more
to heart, then there would have been less of the rejection of
the Saviour as the Lord of glory. It was a great stumbling block
to them that they should need a crucified Saviour. What a thought, dear friends.
One dying under the curse of the broken law. As it is written,
cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a tree. This is this what
is necessary in order that we might come to God. You see, the
natural pride of man staggers back at such a thing. But at the center, the center
of the preaching and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, with
the authority of Almighty God bestowed upon him, And as we
saw this morning, the spirit of God put upon him at that time
of his baptism by John the Baptist. These things draw our attention
to the fact that without that atoning sacrifice at Calvary,
there is absolutely no way to God. We notice that the Lord
Jesus Christ was anointed by the Lord. The Spirit of the Lord
God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good
tidings unto the meek. The capitalization in our English
authorized version here shows us that it is Jehovah God that
is referred to. Now this is the name of Israel's
covenant God. It declares God's unchanging
self-existence and self-sufficiency. He is not dependent upon his
creatures in any way. He is not dependent upon you
or me. It is our dependence upon him
that comes into focus in the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we learn that he, who is
infinitely and eternally supreme, has anointed his son, incarnate
Jesus of Nazareth, as the supreme and authoritative revealer of
the will of God. The spirit of the Lord God is
upon me, says the Messiah, because the Lord hath anointed me to
preach good tidings unto the meek. He has sent me to bind
up the brokenhearted. Those of us here this evening
who are ministers of the gospel surely believe that unless our
teaching is consistent with the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ,
it is worthless. Christ is the supreme and authoritative
revealer of the will of God. This despised Jesus of Nazareth
is, in fact, the preacher of excellence and the one whose
words are truly saving words. With an office of greater honor
than that of Moses and to be perfectly discharged without
spot or blemish. Christ himself could say unto
the children of Israel, I am has sent me unto you, one greater
than Abraham, one greater than Moses, to make known the will
of God. with respect to sinners such
as we as to how we might be saved. And this anointing of the Lord
Jesus Christ by God, the Holy Spirit, was to indicate that
we are to look to him and to him alone to save us from our
sins. So this authority of Christ as
preacher was ensured by this anointing with the Holy Spirit. Now, anointing with oil was an
ancient practice to indicate the setting apart to some important
office. And it was connected with the
bestowal of the Holy Spirit in order to ensure effective performance
of that office. We pray that our ministers in
their preaching will be endowed with God the Holy Spirit. For
if that were not so, our preaching would be in vain. How could it
possibly penetrate to the heart of the man or woman or boy or
girl? if it depended upon human energy
alone. And so we come back to this scripture,
given by inspiration of God, and we seek the work of God,
the Holy Spirit, in enabling us, in expounding it to the spiritual
benefit of our hearers. to ensure, as it were, the effective
performance of the office of preacher. And nobody, nobody
has that measure of the Spirit of God like the Redeemer himself,
who can say, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. How few words, dear friends,
and yet we see in them the Holy Trinity engaged for the salvation
of sinners such as we. God the Father pours out his
Holy Spirit without measure upon his beloved son. that he might
come with the very best of news to unworthy sinners. The very best of news concerning
himself. We were looking at John the Baptist
this morning. And we saw in that connection
that there was a visible testimony to these things at the baptism
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In Mark 10, we have the
record, and straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the
heavens opened and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon
him. There must be no doubt with us
that the eternal son of God incarnate, Jesus Christ the righteous, is
the preacher par excellence. If the preacher's message conflicts
with the teaching of Christ, it is the preacher who is wrong. And no amount of historical reference,
no amount of academic learning, or whatsoever else we might bring
into the arena can possibly displace the authoritative teaching of
Jesus Christ as the preacher of the church. If my preaching
does not correspond with his, then it is my preaching that
would be useless for the purpose of the salvation of sinners. Now, I make a point of this because
we've had two centuries of this theological liberalism undermining
the authority of the scripture, and consequently undermining
the authority of Christ and the authority of the apostles. Let us have it, dear friends,
settled in our hearts that this Bible which is before us in the
Old Testament and the New is given by inspiration of God. And as to the manuscripts of
the Old Testament and the New, and we refer to those that have
been in common use in the church, then we accept the verbal inspiration
of these records. And consequently, the witness
to the Lord Jesus Christ which is in them is accurate, and it
is normative for us, and we are to measure our preaching, if
we are preachers, and our lives, each one of us, if we are believers
in the Lord Jesus Christ, by this record. Consequently, we
have Christ's withering woes upon the Pharisees for their
false teaching, their teaching of what we call works righteousness. How often this comes out in the
preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, that works righteousness is not
good tidings. We mean by works righteousness
where sinners rely upon their own deeds to commend them to
God. How often have you talked to
a neighbor, a relative, a work colleague who is not saved, and
on the subject of our responsibility to God and what is necessary
to be received by God and to enter into heaven, they fall
back upon this fact, I am not so bad after all. I'm not like
these murderers that feature on the front pages of our newspapers. I'm not involved with uncleanness
and adultery and these kinds of things. You see, my life has
a sufficiency for acceptance with God. And this is nothing
but works righteousness in modern dress. that somehow we can save
ourselves by the life that we live. If we take that particular
view, dear friends, we are on a hiding to nothing. Because
there's no possibility of salvation by trusting in ourselves. Works righteousness is not good
news for sinners. for works righteousness results
in condemnation in the judgment. And we're back to where we were
with Jonah in connection with the message that he had to preach
to the Ninevites. The judgment would come upon
them because of the multitude of their sins. We have nothing,
nothing to bring into the situation. And that is why the message of
Christ concerning himself is so important to us, because he
has everything to bring into the situation in the matter of
acceptance with God and salvation and forgiveness of sins. Good tidings. Good tidings to
the meek. It's not good news to the proud
and arrogant that there is only one name under heaven given among
men whereby we must be saved. That is the name of Jesus Christ.
But it is the reality. And so Christ was able to present
himself, himself as the only possible solution. with respect
to our alienation from God. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man comes unto the Father
but by me. If we are going to take seriously
the Bible, if we are going to take seriously the preaching
of the Lord Jesus Christ, then it commits us to the acceptance
of the fact that it is Christ and Christ alone by whom we can
be saved. And if you're a believer here
this evening, you say in your hearts, amen. That's the way
it is. I would not like to be left trying
to find my own way to God, my own acceptance with God. I accept
the claims. of Jesus Christ to be the resurrection
and the life. And all my hopes are in him,
you see. And it is a blessed condition
to enjoy. Now what is the purpose of Christ's
preaching? We see that also in this passage
in Isaiah. He has 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. There is so much here, dear friends,
that we have to do what the Americans call unpack what is here. When you have everything pressed
down in your case for traveling, all that you see is the pair
of trousers that is on the top or the dress that is on the top.
You've got to unpack it to see all of the things that are there. Now, this revelation through
Isaiah, dwells upon the aim of Christ's preaching and how wonderful
it is. We're addressing the matter of
preaching in relationship to true spiritual renewal. And what a passage we have here,
dear friends, of that which results from the acceptance of the testimony
of the Lord Jesus Christ in connection with what he himself has done
for the salvation of sinners. Look at this. The purpose of
Christ is to comfort the brokenhearted. He has sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted. How often in life, dear friends,
we find ourselves called to comfort others. It may be a child's fall. And they have hurt themselves
rather badly. And it is necessary to comfort
a son or daughter or other child. Later in life, it might be an
examination failure. And things like that are hard
to handle. when one has put in a lot of work in their studies,
in the prospect of achievement, and achievement doesn't come.
And it can be quite devastating and produce a great deal of tears. There are other greater challenges
in life, are there not? The challenge of bereavement,
for example, the loss of a loved one, And how devastating that
is in a family when a father dies or a mother dies. My mother died when I was just
a boy. And what a hole that leaves in
one's life. You see, there are these situations
where comfort is needed. And when it is this greatest
need of reconciliation with God, we have nothing to put into the
situation of ourselves, nothing to offer of ourselves, except
what we learn from the lips of Jesus. And Jesus, the preacher,
cries into our life situation about comforting the brokenhearted. The Lord has sent me to bind
up the brokenhearted, he says. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Amen. It's true, you reply, if you
are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. You've experienced it
right from the beginning of your conversion time. When after all
of that labor with the burden of sin, it is lifted. And you
know the peace that passes understanding. But as we go through the Christian
life, with all of the changing circumstances in the tapestry
of the life that we live, You may come with your sorrows and
with your burdens to Christ, and you find real comfort. You find real comfort because
it is the purpose of Christ, to comfort the brokenhearted. It may be this evening that you
know absolutely nothing of these things. What is the preacher
talking about, this matter of comfort? in the situations where
we are brokenhearted. Well, you see, you cannot know
anything about these things if you're standing at a distance
from Christ. The Christ who says, come unto
me. The Christ who is saying this
evening to sinners in their lostness, come unto me. You can cease your
laboring. You no longer need to be heavy
laden. As John Bunyan graphically presented
it in Pilgrim's Progress, when Pilgrim there at the cross, his
burden falls from his back and rolls away, and he sees it no
more. A purpose of Christ to comfort
the brokenhearted. But also this purpose of Christ
through his ministry, through his preaching, is to liberate
those in bondage, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the
opening of the prison to them that are bound. Preacher might
say, put your hand up if you have been in prison. or some
preachers may come along and they may be able to tell you,
yes, I was in prison. I was a convict before I was
saved, they might say. So they know the reality of what
it is like to have their freedom taken away. At this present time, we are
visiting a friend who is detained in hospital on account of his
medical condition. And consequently, his freedom,
his liberty is taken away. We've seen how crushing that
is to him. Nearly every time we visit him,
he mentions it. I just want to go home. But because
of his condition, he cannot just go home. But I just want to go
home and have liberty to do the kinds of things that I was doing
before all of this came about. And you see, so precious is liberty. But the most precious liberty
of all, the most precious freedom of all is this spiritual liberation
when the blood of Jesus Christ is applied to believers who repent
of sin and look to Christ and know, know that they have access
to God. Though God is so almighty, though
God is so holy, though God so hates sin, yet the sinner comes. And with that prayer, Lord, have
mercy upon me, a sinner. He finds forgiveness and acceptance. and consequently liberation,
spiritual freedom. The amnesty, as you know, is
a day of liberation. It is when a general pardon is
granted to political offenders. Offenses are forgotten. The record
is struck through. and the reputation is clean once
again. The prisoners are set free. You can imagine how in the ancient
world imprisonment was so dreadfully confining, terrible condition. It is like that for some believers
in certain countries today, as you know, so cruelly treated
in this dreadful bondage, in prison, in chains even, to be
set free, to be liberated, to find oneself in a situation where
these constraints are no more. It's like being able to breathe
again, surely. Now, if this is so, in connection
with these merely human things in this world, how much more,
dear friends, is it so with this undeserved and free favor of
God, this grace of God that Christ proclaims? that our sins and
iniquities are remembered no more. The sins of today are sufficient
to send each and every one of us to hell. But the sins of today
do not need to be troubling the believer. You bring them to the
throne of grace. and you leave the throne of grace
as if they had never been. God has wiped the record clean
by the blood of Jesus. An amnesty of liberation secured
by God's eternal son incarnate. Now the purpose of Christ is
also to save the complacent by moving them to urgency. You see, sinners can sit in the
congregation of the righteous, listening to the preaching of
Christ, that is, preaching him as the subject. Just as many
sinners in the day of our Lord listen to the actual preaching
of Christ concerning himself, and all that he brings to those
who put their trust in him. But they did nothing about it. You see, we need to be saved
from our own complacency by being moved to urgency to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord, says the Messiah. and the day
of vengeance of our God. Now there is a wonderful transition
at John the Baptist because that preponderance concerning judgment
and condemnation that we rightly find in the Old Testament Scriptures,
not without these beautiful promises concerning God's salvation in
the Lord Jesus Christ, but it is as though the proportions
are reversed. And when we come to John the
Baptist and his declaration with respect to the one who is coming,
And when we come particularly to the preaching of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ, the prominence, as it were, passes
from the bondage, from the condemnation, from the judgment to come. I'm
not saying these things are not present. But the preponderance
passes from these things. into this wonderful matter of
God's salvation. But it is no good being lax. with respect to this message
of Christ. Oh, it doesn't matter, because
there's so much in this message with respect to freedom, with
respect to joy, with respect to forgiveness. Now, all of these
things are a reality. And Christ has come, as we see
here in verse 2, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Wonderful. But you see, and the
day of vengeance of our God. This matter of righteousness,
this matter of judgment, this matter of condemnation, this
matter of a hell as well as a heaven cannot be completely pushed out
of the picture because it is a reality. And those who are complacent
about these things need to be moved to urgency. And Christ
has this purpose in connection with his preaching, to stir up
the complacent, to be moved to an urgency concerning the needs
of their soul. So when Christ had read this
passage in the synagogue at Nazareth, he closed the book, and then
his preaching on the text began. And he says, this day is the
scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all bear him witness and
wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. With our gracious God, there
is an acceptable year. That is a day of grace. So in 2 Corinthians 6 and 2,
the Apostle Paul says, For he saith, I have heard thee in a
time accepted, and in the day of salvation I have succored
thee. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day
of salvation. Well, by invitation, I'm preaching
here tomorrow morning and tomorrow evening, but don't leave it till
then if you are not in Christ. For now, now, is the accepted
time. And you must put away your sins.
With grief and hatred you must repent, and you must look to
Christ, and you must rest in Christ now. For we do not know
what a day may bring. And if sinners ignore the overtures
of mercy and a day of grace, they remain exposed to the day
of vengeance of our God. You know all our computers are
based on on-off. The particular parts of the computer
are either on or off. And we're able to do amazing
things on the basis of this on-off principle. And this on-off principle
applies spiritually. You're either on for Christ,
or you're off against Christ. And now, is the accepted time. And the purpose of Christ is
to bestow inestimable blessings. I can only briefly comment on
this. To appoint unto them that morning's iron, to give unto
them beautiful ashes, the oil of joyful 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. You see, sinners brought to conviction
of sin and sorrowing for it. But neither they nor you can
lift the burden. Only Christ, preaching through
his servants, can give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for
mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
As the fasting Israelite put away his sackcloth and ashes
and puts on his clean garments, so the sinner justified by faith
alone in Christ alone walks in newness of life or transformation,
dear friends. from desolation to fruitfulness
as trees of righteousness. Psalm 1 verse 3, he shall be
like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth
his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither
and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Look down, look down
to your roots and where are they? Are your roots in Christ? And
consequently, you know what the preacher is talking about. Let me briefly conclude with
the activity resulting from Christ's preaching. For some of us have
prayed many years in a desire to see our congregations increase
and every seat be filled, our nation be brought out of this
dreadful condition in which we find it. We have prayed and prayed
for these things, have we not? And we need to be reminded of
the activity resulting from Christ's preaching. We might sum it up
in our theme, renewal. And they shall build the old
ways, They shall raise up the former desolations, and they
shall repair the way cities, the desolations of many generations. The purpose of preaching is not
entertainment or information, not to make men merely wiser. We have no doubts that the Apostle
Paul could have preached in a way that would have been acceptable
to the intelligentsia of his day. We have no doubt that the
Lord Jesus Christ had the capacity so to preach. His temptation
there in the wilderness to take some other direction whereby
he would be applauded by men and have the riches of the world
was a real temptation. But Christ would not deviate
one iota from the message which the Father had given to him to
proclaim. The purpose of his preaching
was transformation and action. You see that in the disciples,
these fishermen, tax collector, others. They became men of spiritual
action. What a description, dear friends
of believers we have here in Isaiah 61. 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. See the Jews there
coming back from the Babylonian captivity and their land is a
desolation and everything has got to start again from ground
level. Christ exhorts them through the
prophet Haggai. Who is left among you that saw
this house in her first glory, and how do you see it now? Is
it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? Yet now be
strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord, and be strong, O Joshua,
son of Josedek, the high priest, and be strong, all ye people
of the land, saith the Lord, and work, for I am with you,
saith the Lord of hosts. This, believer, is your mission. If you are called by Christ,
if you have heard that call, responded to that call, follow
Christ, this is your mission. You are a builder. You are a
rebuilder. When you see the desolations
of the world, the flesh, and the devil, your heart is to be
stirred up to do something about it. and our mind's eye captures the
scene. We see our local community, but
we see minds and hearts rather than bricks and mortar. This
is where the rebuilding must be done. There is work to be
done. And friends, if we are followers
of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are the workmen. Many disappointments, discouragements
lie behind us. We've tried this, we've tried
that, we've prayed, we have sought to do what the Lord would have
us to do. We find ourselves still in the midst of desolation. But
let us work. Let us work while it is day. And may Christ, the Lord of our
preaching and our testimony, grant us the blessing that only
He can give. Amen.
Preaching and Spiritual Renewal - The Lord Jesus Christ
Series WIBC 2019
| Sermon ID | 615192051111800 |
| Duration | 51:23 |
| Date | |
| Category | Conference |
| Bible Text | Isaiah 61:1-5 |
| Language | English |
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