Well, let's open to Isaiah chapter 56. This is a fairly short chapter and we're only going to cover eight verses tonight because the tone and the tenor and the point Isaiah is making changes beginning in verse 9. Isaiah 56, thus says the Lord, preserve justice and do righteousness. for my salvation is about to come and my righteousness to be revealed. How blessed is the man who does this and the son of man who takes hold of it, who keeps from profaning the Sabbath, who keeps his hand from doing any evil. Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, The Lord will surely separate me from His people. Nor let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths and choose what pleases Me and hold fast My covenant, to them I will give in My house and within My walls a memorial. and a name better than that of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off. also the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to Him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants, everyone who keeps from profaning the Sabbath and holds fast My covenant, even those I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar, for My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples. The Lord God, who gathers the dispersed of Israel, declares, Yet others I will gather to them, to those already gathered. Well Lord, we pray for understanding that You would teach our minds and impact our hearts by this Your holy Word. In chapters 1 through 39, remember, Isaiah confronted his people, his own generation, with their continued failure to trust God, to treat God as God. They established, one writer says, what amounted to a pattern of such practical atheism that they disqualified themselves in the sight of God. So remember, then God sent them into exile in Babylon. And in chapters 40 through 55, Isaiah looked beyond his own day to the later times. And God promised that in both the near term, while they were in exile, and in the far term, God would save His sinful people. God has kept His promises. Isaiah prophesied that Judah would be released by the decree of King Cyrus. And that's exactly what occurred, isn't it? 170 years after it was prophesied. Why did God return the people of Judah to the land? What was the most important reason why He did that? Because Christ had to be born there. The Messiah was going to be born near Jerusalem. And Isaiah prophesied many things about the coming of the Messiah. When we think of Isaiah, we think of the prophecies of Messiah and the prophecies of the eternal righteous kingdom of God. The new heavens, the new earth, the new Jerusalem. And God's kingdom, as Isaiah has been telling us, is going to be a kingdom of righteousness, justice, and peace. And it'll be made up of people from which nations? all nations, every nation of the earth. He's doing it and working through one nation that He created for Himself. But it's for every nation and always was. And last week, Isaiah 55, that concluded a section that had begun in chapter 40. And it was an invitation to the whole world to come to God. Now that's different from what we had in the Old Covenant. And it was an invitation to one day come to a new Jerusalem in this righteous kingdom. 55-1, Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. What do you need to do to come? Believe. Listen, hear Him, believe, and come. Remember, from this point on, Isaiah's focus is now no longer on the problems of Judah and Jerusalem and their enemies. Now it's on the fulfillment of God's promises. This is why this is most people's favorite part of Isaiah, these last 12, 15 chapters. These are eschatological promises that God will fulfill for all His people. Now He's going to use the symbols of the old covenant. But these deal with the last days and eternity. And we can be sure that all of these promises will be fulfilled for two reasons. What are they? God can't lie. And God, He is able to do this. He's able to do things no one else, of course, can do. All creation is under His sovereign control. All of it. And all of this is going to be accomplished through whom? Jesus, the Messiah, the servant of the Lord. And the way this is going to happen is, what's He going to do with the servant that's going to free us? He's going to lay on Him the iniquity of us all. What a plan, huh? Jesus did come. He did bear our sins as Isaiah wrote 700 years before. And He opened the doors of God's kingdom for us. And now we proclaim this news as we wait for God's display of His ultimate glory in the end. And we've been given a foretaste of this glory right now. We know these things to be true. We know the blessing of God. We've experienced the blessing of His Spirit. So in Isaiah from chapter 56 on, He's going to show us. He's going to start to sound like Paul. He's going to start to show us what God wants to see in these people that He's blessed so much. That's us. He wants to show us what God wants to see in us as we await the coming of His kingdom. And it isn't just looking up in the sky and waiting for the kingdom. And it isn't just thinking about when's He coming. It's about something else. It's about justice and it's about righteousness. So this section now will begin with a word from God that challenges all of His people. That challenges all of us to act in just and righteous ways. To hold fast to His promises or His covenant. To turn away from false religion. Because only the faithful are going into the new Jerusalem. Only the faithful are going to enjoy these blessings. And because of the fact that these last chapters are eschatologically, meaning dealing with the last times, oriented, we don't find any specific setting or historical date for the time that Isaiah is speaking these prophecies. But every one of these messages describes what people of every age need to do if they want to partake of the blessings of God's glorious new kingdom. and what we must avoid so we don't suffer the wrath of God. Remember what we've seen Paul writing in Colossians. For the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience because of those sins, impurity, immorality. So first the Lord is going to announce this glorious future. And He's going to be a contrast we're going to see over the next three or four chapters. between the just who will and the unjust who will not experience God's salvation. And they're kind of counterpointed as we go through these chapters. So first we're going to have the announcement of the glorious future. The realization of God's salvation, of His righteousness. The gathering of His people. Scattered Israel along with believers from every nation. And He's going to show us that the marks of those who are waiting for this day and can expect to enter into it are justice, righteousness, perseverance, and devotion to the true worship of God. You want to know if you're one of God's people. These are pretty good signs if you are. And if you're not these things, then they're pretty good signs you have some work to do. God's people will also include, Isaiah is the messenger to Israel and Judah of this, the foreigner and the eunuch. Now why is he talking about eunuchs here? Well we'll see that in a moment. 56.1, Thus says the Lord, Preserve justice and do righteousness, he says. Now righteousness, righteous works are not offered to us as a means of salvation. But they are a characteristic of those who have been born again and who are looking to salvation. God is saying here, get ready for the salvation that is to come. His point is that His promises for the future are meant to impact how we live today. That's what his point is throughout this section we're looking at this evening. And this verse, preserve justice and do righteousness for my salvation is about to come and my righteousness to be revealed. This sets the tone for the rest of Isaiah. So wherever we are, you can always go back and look at this verse because this is the keynote verse. God is asking us, folks, Do you believe in the promise I made of a glorious future? If you do, I want you to live not the way you used to, I want you to live now in light of that belief. This is very important. This is what He wants them to know then and it's what He wants us to know now. Justice and righteousness. What do those words describe within our lives? Justice and righteousness. What would be examples of justice and righteousness? Just in general terms. To do what in terms of other people? To serve other people. Yes, to treat them how? As we want to be treated. To treat people right. Do we all know what it is, the difference between treating people right and not treating people right? I think we do. And so that's what we're talking about. All these duties that we owe to each other. And it doesn't just mean do no harm. You know, this is the world's morality. As long as I'm not harming anybody else, it's fine. No, that's not what justice and righteousness is. It means not only avoiding harming others, it means rendering help. Serving, as you just said, others. That's the difference. The thing about those ceremonies, when we see the Pharisees in those outfits, and we can imagine picture them going up to the temple, all in a nice procession, we might describe that as what looks like holiness, what looks like righteousness, what looks like religious devotion, right? But those ceremonies don't mean a thing. Not a thing. The Pharisees Like all hypocrites can use ceremonies to practice deceit. You can put on the outfit, you can go through the motions of the ceremony and appear to be righteous. That doesn't make you righteous. No. The nearer we are to God, though, the more we ought to be moved to actual righteousness. God says there's going to come a day when His victorious righteousness is going to be evident for all of us to see. This is going to be a glorious day. That day he's going to vindicate his people and he's going to faithfully fulfill all his promises. So you see this phrase here, my righteousness to be revealed in verse one. It's a shorthand for the fulfillment of all my righteous purposes. So God calls sinners to righteousness based upon what? Based upon our belief in what he's promised. of what the future holds. He calls us to righteousness based upon what we say we believe, what we profess. The Lord's righteousness, how do we get it? How do we get the Lord's righteousness? It's a gift, and it's a gift that comes from somebody else's righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ, His righteousness is imputed to believers through faith. His righteousness is imputed to us. We are credited with His righteousness. And in that way, God pours out His righteousness on sinners. And He calls it My salvation because by it, we are saved from eternal destruction. This is why I take this so seriously, I guess. The whole world not believing in Christ is headed for eternal destruction. And we can't just take that lightly. When we see people drift from the faith, from the church, it's a catastrophe. It is a terrible catastrophe because of what awaits them. Verses 1 and 2 here, when God's talking about righteousness, and He's the one speaking, by the way, in this whole passage, He's speaking of moral good works, extending righteousness and justice to others, and then He seems to point to keeping the formal law of God, the Sabbath. But look at how He defines the Sabbath here. Look what He's really talking about. He defines the keeping of the Sabbath here not in terms of ritual observance, but in terms of not doing any evil. Here, Isaiah presents God's intentions for the Sabbath in terms very much like the Lord Jesus Christ did. Remember what He did? Did He abstain from picking grain on the Sabbath? Did He abstain from healing on the Sabbath? No. Sabbath keeping in this passage is symbolic of living in accordance with God's words. This is not about that Saturday ceremonial event. Look closely at this. Sabbath is not ceasing from all activity. We learned that from Jesus. The real Sabbath is keeping our hands from doing any evil and it is keeping our hands busy with justice and mercy and righteousness. Remember, the Sabbath wasn't first announced on Mount Sinai with the other nine commandments. The Sabbath, in the beginning, was instituted by God as a weekly celebration of His perfect creation. You know who never understood the Sabbath? The Pharisees and the scribes. They never understood it. Whatever Jesus was doing on the Sabbath, they opposed Him. And what was He doing? What was He doing? Healing people, helping people, And they opposed it because they didn't understand what the Sabbath was. They couldn't distinguish between the essence of the Sabbath and the form of the Sabbath. We're going to read about this in Hebrews shortly. The Sabbath, it was three things. And maybe more, but it was these three. It was a way of showing that God is Lord over time. He has dictated that day of rest. That's why we meet one day a week. He's called us to stop everything else we're doing and gather together and worship Him. That's not some preacher's idea. That's God's command. Stop what you're doing. And the early church moved that day from the Hebrew Saturday to what we now know as the Lord's Day on the first day of the week. We see John in the Spirit on the Lord's Day when Jesus appeared to him in the book of Revelation. So there's a difference between the essence of the Sabbath and the form of the Sabbath. And the Sabbath was a way of showing God as Lord over time. It's a way of showing love and devotion to God. And it's a mark of one's loyalty to the covenant of God. We're here because we believe Him. When we come here, we say, Lord, I believe what You've told us in Your book. In Exodus, God said the Sabbath was itself a sign of the covenant. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come. Why? So that you may know that I am the Lord who makes you holy. The Sabbath here is not used by Isaiah to describe the seventh day of the week. It's what we call, and we use this in English frequently as well, a synecdoche. That's S-Y-N-E-C-C-D-O-C-H-E. It's a figure of speech in which we take a part of something and make it to represent the whole. We might say, Name a city. Pittsburgh won the game to mean the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team won the game. Pittsburgh becomes a synecdoche for that whole thought. And here the Sabbath stands for all exercises of true worship. And we'll see that as we move through this. And by now we better understand that God is not satisfied with outward ceremony. Does everybody understand that? I hope. He is not satisfied with outward ceremony. What does He demand from us? Earnest self-denial. He demands from us a devotion to His service. The sum of this is, There's no other way of serving God rightly but by obedience and devotion to Him. So here, if you look at these two verses, 1 and 2, the Lord is equating the absence of justice and righteousness with the profaning of the Sabbath. And Isaiah is going to continue to use the Sabbath here as a symbol throughout this passage as God's call to the world continues to unfold. But remember what Isaiah is doing here. The overall thought, he's telling Jews who thought themselves to be the only people of God that they are but one of many nations who will be part of the eternal kingdom of God. That's the overall thought here. And that's what Isaiah comes to in verse 3. And then he'll stay in this thought. Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, The Lord will surely separate me from His people. Nor let the eunuchs say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths. Now you can understand this. The eunuchs could not come into a Sabbath worship situation. Only Jews and some foreigners were permitted even into the assembly of worship of Israel. In order for a foreigner to come into the assembly of the people of Israel, he had to do what? He had to be circumcised. Well you see the problem the eunuch has. Circumcision is not possible with one who has already been emasculated in this way. So under no circumstances could a eunuch ever come into the people of Israel. A foreigner could by becoming a Jew. A eunuch could not under any circumstance. So a eunuch is not going to be keeping that old covenant Sabbath. He's got to be talking about something else. And what he's talking about is the new covenant. And he says, To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths and choose what pleases me and hold fast my covenant, to them I will give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than that of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off. Also, he says, the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to Him and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants, everyone who keeps from profaning the Sabbath and holds fast My covenant. Well, what's he talking about? Well, Isaiah is continuing along this theme of his prophecy, first of all, that the true people of God are a people from every nation. Now, we're going to see here in a minute, all of the sacrifices were rendered obsolete by Christ. And we must allow Scripture to interpret Scripture as we try to understand what Isaiah is telling us here. He speaks of the foreigner and the eunuch, one who is outside the people of God in the Old Testament but could come in, and one who is kept outside the Old Testament people of God and can't come in. prohibited by the old covenant law from coming in. Now let's get our Scripture sheets out and this will start to become clearer, I think. Exodus 12, 43. God has created this nation. It's several hundred years later. They're coming out of bondage in Egypt, delivered by the hand of Moses. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, this is the ordinance of the Passover. So He gives them the Passover and He says no foreigners to eat of it. But every man slave purchased with money. After you've circumcised him, then he may eat of it. a sojourner or a hired servant shall not eat of it. But if a stranger sojourns with you and celebrates the Passover of the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near to celebrate it. He shall be like a native of the land, but no uncircumcised person may eat of it." So you can see the importance of circumcision to the Old Covenant and to all of the Old Covenant ceremonies and feasts. Ezekiel 44, 9, thus says the Lord, No foreigner, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, of all the foreigners who are among the sons of Israel, shall enter My sanctuary. Circumcision was an absolute requirement to enter the sanctuary of God. To enter that temple. That physical brick-and-mortar temple. Or stone-and-mortar temple. One had to be a Jew or become a Jew by circumcision. That's how you became a Jew. to eat the Passover or to enter into the tabernacle. You see this? This wasn't possible for a eunuch. But Isaiah is prophesying here. And this is the point that all of that is going to change. And it did change with the coming of the servant of the Lord. Now by the time Christ comes and is ready to leave, Matthew 28, 19, He's telling His Jewish apostles, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. And then look what happens with Philip the evangelist in Acts 8, 36. They went along the road and they came to some water and he runs into this eunuch. Here's a eunuch from Ethiopia. And the eunuch said, look, water. What prevents me from being baptized? Philip said, Well, if you believe with all your heart, you may. He answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he ordered the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him. Everything changed when Christ came. It wasn't bringing the eunuch into the nation of Israel. It was creating this new people of God that were being born out of Israel. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away, and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing. So what do we see there? What does that tell us about the law given to Israel? It was not God's last word to us. That wasn't the end. His last word is an invitation to all who will come, all who will believe in and rest in Jesus Christ. Remember what we read from Revelation 22, 17 last week? Come all who are thirsty. It's the same words that we sang tonight. The same words that we found in Isaiah 55, 1. That's His last word to us. God's law to Israel was not God's last word. Now look at Ephesians 2.12. And Paul, a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee of Pharisees, fleshes this all out for us. Remember, he says to these Gentile believers in Ephesus, that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise. That would describe these foreigners and eunuchs. You had no hope and you were without God in the world. Well, what changed? What changed? Did God change? No. Verse 13, But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. He Himself is our peace. He made both groups into one and broke down the barrier. He abolished in His flesh the enmity. He made the two into one new man, and He reconciled them both into one body, never to again be separated. He did it through the cross. As to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath, I want you to look to Hebrews chapter 4. Because I want us to understand, Isaiah is talking about the Sabbath here, but he's not talking about that Saturday observance. He's talking about something else. And we see it here in Hebrews 4, beginning in verse 1, Therefore, Now here's the writer of Hebrews writing to Hebrew Christians. He says, "...let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you seem to have come short of it." Now he's telling them Joshua didn't give them a rest that lasted. Joshua being a representative of the Old Covenant. He said, "...for we indeed have had the good news preached to us, just as they also But the word they heard in the Old Testament did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. For we who have believed enter that rest. Just as He said, As I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest. although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day. Now look at this. And God rested on the seventh day from all His works. And again in this passage He says, They shall not enter My rest. ...Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had the good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience... He's talking about Israel there. ...He again fixes a certain day, today, saying through David, after so long a time, just as has been said before, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Now look. Verse 8, For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day after that. So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works as God did from His. Because Christ is our Sabbath rest and Christ did the work. There is no work we do to enter His rest. Therefore, he says, let us be diligent to enter that rest so that no one will fall through following the same example of disobedience. There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Christ is that Sabbath rest. What matters is that you rest in Him. that in response to the gift of God, you do what pleases Him, that you hold fast to Him. And that's what Isaiah is saying here. Because the Lord now admits into His assembly, His people, without distinction, not only all those He formerly prohibited, but anyone who believes and comes to Him. And beyond that, He says to the eunuchs, I will give in My house a memorial. A eunuch will have no children, no memorial in that way. No continuing dynasty. No pictures on the walls of future homes to remember them. God promises there'll be a future memorial, a memory of their faithfulness to Him on the walls of whose house? His house. His house. Revelation 22, 21 says, I saw no temple in the New Jerusalem, so it's not going to be in a temple. The memorial, he says, will be eternal. It will not be cut off. Because he had no sons, you know, Absalom had built a monument so he'd be remembered. 2 Samuel 18, 18. Now Absalom, he was the son of David, has set up for himself a pillar. For he said, I have no son to preserve my name. So he named the pillar after his own name. And it's called Absalom's monument to this day. But here it's God who promises, I will give the eunuchs a memorial. He's going to do it for these people who were prohibited from entering under that old covenant. He says, I'll give them a name better than that of sons and daughters. There are two ways people might look at this phrase. One is that God promises He'll give you a place in His home better than the sons and daughters Israel who were born there, who don't treat Christ as their Savior. Or we might read this as saying that the name and status of believers under Christ and under grace will be more excellent than it was under the law. Both are true as to which Isaiah is saying it could be either here. But look at this, the promise of an everlasting name. An everlasting name assures the eunuchs of an eternal place in heaven. And by the way, that same promise is there for all of us. But it has to do with coming to Christ, believing in Him, and serving Him. Their name's everlasting because it's written in heaven. It'll live there for all the ages. Here's a contrast. Wicked men wish to have their name made illustrious in this world. This is the goal that we are all driven to. Make a name for yourself here. Seek their own reputation. to have your name remembered. This idea of making statues to everybody who's ever played a sport is going on now. And now it's just all over the place. And you wonder what kind of level of pride that has to take to desire that. A metal image of yourself outside the ball field. But God's talking about here is a memorial that He's going to put up. He's going to be talking about a name that He'll remember forever. Because what He does makes us heirs of His heavenly kingdom. And in verse 6, Isaiah applies to foreigners the same language exactly as he applied to eunuchs here. So he finishes in verses 7 and 8, Even those I will bring to My holy mountain. I'll make them joyful in My house of prayer. Now again, we've got another one of these synecdoches. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable. Now they're not going to go offering sacrifices. We know that. That's why we read Hebrews. So we have that fresh in our minds. For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples. The Lord God, who gathers the dispersed of Israel, declares, Yet others I will gather to them, to those already gathered. Here he's reaffirming that foreigners and eunuchs who were formerly excluded from the people of God are now called to it. This is what Paul talks about in Ephesians 2 that we read. And in several other New Testament passages. And here's the thing. Remember what the big requirement was to enter into the temple. What was the one thing you had to do? Be circumcised. Now think about that. What spiritual value would you say there was in that? Right now and for the rest of time, all distinctions between circumcision and uncircumcision have been abolished. That doesn't matter at all. It did. It was the most important thing there was. It was the one thing that was necessary to walk into that temple. It was the one thing that was necessary to worship on a Sabbath in that old covenant. And here Isaiah is prophesying that one day this is going to occur. This abolition of the distinction. And this is why, folks, any idea of a continuing or future separation of Jews and Gentiles is entirely unbiblical. You have to deny Scripture to separate the Jews and the Gentiles any longer or ever again. And he uses this term sacrifices here, and we're going to look at a couple verses again, to refer to the spiritual worship of God. We don't offer sacrifices anymore, do we? No. He's talking about the worship of God that's taught in the gospel. Now, go back to Hebrews chapter 10, verse 1. He says, the law was only a shadow of the good things to come. It wasn't the very form or substance of things, and it could never, by the same sacrifices which they offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near. those sacrifices couldn't do that. In verses 11 through 14, he says, every priest stands daily ministering and offering these same sacrifices, which can never take away sin. But Jesus, after offering one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God. In verse 14, by one offering, He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified, set apart by God to Himself. And then look at Hebrews 13, 15. This is the sacrifice we offer now. Let us continually, through Christ, offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name and do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased." Those are the sacrifices He's looking for and those are the sacrifices Isaiah is talking about here. Remember, Isaiah is writing about a time after the coming of Christ. And the prophets always spoke in accordance with what was customary in their day. And in their day, the worship of God consisted of what? Sacrifices and other rituals and ceremonies. So that's why Isaiah is using this language. The other prophets did the same thing. But now we know those animal sacrifices could never take away sin. And now instead of animal sacrifices, we offer to God praises, thanksgiving, good works, and finally ourselves. Paul preaches this in nearly every letter. that this is what Paul is preaching. So does the writer of Hebrews. The sacrifices, the feast days, the dietary laws, and the separation of the people of God into Jews and Gentiles, that is over. It's been over for 2,000 years. And I think it is just enormously regrettable that anybody would be seeking to reinstitute it. It's certainly not what God has in mind. So when he says their offerings will be acceptable, is that because our offerings are worthy of God? No, it isn't. Our offerings aren't acceptable because of our value or the value of the sacrifice. God could justly reject everything we offer Him, even after conversion. Well let me ask him a question. What is it that makes our offerings or our service to Him acceptable? Christ. We bring it through Christ. We bring it in His name. If we bring it through Him, that's what makes it acceptable. That's why He says, without faith, Hebrews 11, 6, it is impossible to please God. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. So when we serve in the name of Christ, our works are accepted by God, even though we know they're less than Christ worthy. My house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples. We heard somebody say that once, didn't we? Yes, Jesus, when He was upset at the marketing that was going on in the temple. But His house is going to be, He says, will be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Eunuchs are back in. The likes of us are back in through faith. His house is very large and it's very happily united again in Christ. And He calls every one of us to be part of it. Do you ever think about what a great privilege it was that Israel had that temple designed by God, by the way, right down to the dimensions and the materials of the tabernacle. Now think about this. When He gave them the tabernacle and then the temple, He granted them a unique privilege. He gave them a single place of worship where He would meet with them in which the rest of the nations weren't even allowed to come into. Only they had this. They lived with this situation for 1,500 years. Now Christ comes and that distinction and all the distinctions have been removed. You can see the resistance of the Judaizers, why we keep reading about it throughout the epistles in the early days of the church. You can see what motivated the persecution by the Jews of the Christians in the early days in the book of Acts. Because now every person who believes can just walk into what is now God's temple. It's not that stone and mortar. It's the people of God. We see this in Paul's writings. We're going to look at a couple of passages in a second. The temple now extends to every part of the world. And all nations have been called to the worship of God. This was really something new to the Gentiles in the first century. We take it for granted because that's what we do. This was brand new. Imagine the joy of that eunuch. Think about this eunuch. I can be baptized? If you believe, I believe Jesus is the Son of God, down over the bank and into the river, that we would have that joy. What we're seeing here, what Isaiah is talking about, is the very clear difference between the law and the gospel. Under the law, the true worship of God was for one nation only. The temple was just for them, that temple. But now all are freely admitted into the true temple, the people of God. His assembly to worship Him everywhere. See, they had to go to that one building in Jerusalem to worship. It wasn't just that they were the only people allowed. That was the only place they could do it. We can go anywhere. Go in among believers, among the people of God and worship. And God welcomes us. 2 Corinthians 6.16, Paul says, we are the temple of the living God. Just as God said, He says, I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. And in Ephesians chapter 2, let's come back there again. He came, verse 17, and preached peace to you who were far away. That's the Gentiles. And peace to you who are near, the Jews. For through Him, Christ, we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then, he says to these Gentile Christians, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and you are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone. And look at this, in whom the whole building Being fitted together is growing into what? A holy temple to the Lord. 1 Peter 2 and verse 5. You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer what? Spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. You think we need a temple? You think God wants to build some more temples? Well read what Jesus says to the Samaritan woman at the well. John 4.21, Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, An hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you don't know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit. And those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. If we are to rightly understand the Word of God, we must understand what Israel was, what the nation was, what the sacrifices and the rituals and the dietary laws and the temple were. They were symbols. They were foreshadowings of Christ and the assembly of an eternal people of God that He would redeem. That's what it was. The nation of Israel as a nation was over for 2,000 years and yet a remnant, Paul says, of the people of ethnic Israel will be saved. Some are being saved in our present day as they were in Paul's day. But God's plan was never so small as to seek merely an earthly kingdom. God's plan is a heavenly kingdom. It's a heavenly kingdom. What did Jesus say to Pilate? My kingdom is not of this realm. That doesn't change. His kingdom has always been and always will be a heavenly kingdom. God always speaks of the heavenly Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem. God first chose Israel to be His covenant people. And He challenged them to obedience, to walk in a way that was pleasing to Him, to maintain a close covenant relationship with Him. And a covenant relationship with God means we submit to His will. It means we stand firm in commitment to serve Him. It means we stand firm in our commitment to worship Him. And now, in His law, God announced what would please Him. But by the prophet Isaiah, God is now testifying that the grace of God was going to be poured out throughout the whole world. That's what's happened. That's what's happening. And this could only happen, of course, by uniting the Gentiles and Jews into one body in Christ. And this is exactly what happened on the cross when the distinction between Jew and Gentile was forever taken out of the way. Look at John 10, 16. I have other sheep, I was talking to Jews, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice and they will become one flock with one shepherd." This has been Isaiah's message for his people in his time and for us. All of this was not some concession because of the failure of Israel to keep the Mosaic Covenant. This was a fulfillment of what his house was always intended to be. A place for all nations. and acceptance into God's holy temple to worship is based upon one thing, people's belief in Him. All can come to God, everyone, through Jesus Christ, through faith in Him. And God welcomes everyone who holds fast to the promises that He has made. I hope you find the joy in this that Isaiah presents to us because the kingdom of heaven has been opened to every single one of us and to every person who walks this earth. Well, Lord, we give thanks for the blessings that flow forth from your grace and your mercy and your love. We give thanks, Lord, that You've opened our eyes, opened our hearts, called us to Yourself, and placed within us a trust and a hope in You. We thank You for Christ. We thank You that Your Son came and served both You and all of us in reconciling us, sinful people, to Yourself. Lord, I pray you will equip us to share this message, that we will, by your grace, be your instruments in bringing people to the knowledge of you. In Christ's name, amen.