Well, we come to Isaiah chapter 62 tonight. It's just 12 verses, so let's read them. For Zion's sake, I will not keep silent. For Jerusalem's sake, I will not keep quiet until her righteousness goes forth like brightness and her salvation like a torch that is burning. The nations will see your righteousness and all kings your glory. And you will be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord will designate. You will also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. It will no longer be said to you, Forsaken, nor to your land will it any longer be said, Desolate. But you will be called, my delight is in her, and your land married. For the Lord delights in you, and to Him your land will be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you. And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you. on your walls, O Jerusalem. I have appointed watchmen all day and all night. They will never keep silent. You who remind the Lord, take no rest for yourselves and give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth. The Lord has sworn by His right hand and by His strong arm, I will never again give your grain as food for your enemies, nor will your foreigners drink your new wine for which you have labored. But those who garner it will eat it and praise the Lord, and those who gather it will drink it in the courts of My sanctuary. Go through. Go through the gates. Clear the way for the people. Build up. Build up the highway. Remove the stones. Lift up a standard over the peoples. Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth, say to the daughter of Zion, Lo, your salvation comes. Behold, His reward is with Him and His recompense before Him. And they will call them the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord. And you will be called sought out, a city not forsaken. Who is this who comes from Edom, with garments of glowing colors from Batzra? This one who is majestic in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength. It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Why is your apparel red, and your garments like the one who treads the winepress? I have trodden the wine trough alone, and from the peoples there was no man with me. I also trod them in my anger, and trampled them in my wrath, and their lifeblood is sprinkled on my garments, and I stained all my raiment. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption has come. I looked, and there was no one to help, and I was astonished there was no one to uphold. So my own arm brought salvation to me, and my wrath upheld me. I trod down the peoples in my anger and made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth. Well there's two sides to this story, aren't there? And what separates the two sides? Who separates the two sides? Jesus Christ. As Isaiah was writing, both the northern ten tribes of Israel and the tribe of Judah had become unfaithful to God. They turned to other gods. They turned to idolatry. And God had already judged the ten northern tribes in 722 B.C. When He did that, He did it by the hand of Assyria, a wicked nation. And He scattered them all over the world. Justice and righteousness, as Isaiah is writing, were absent all over the world. 59-14. Though justice has turned back and righteousness stands far away, for truth has stumbled in the street and uprightness cannot enter. The Lord saw, and it was displeasing in His sight, that there was no justice. And He saw that there was no man and was astonished that there was no one to intercede. Then His own arm brought salvation to Him, and His righteousness upheld Him. See, God had committed Himself long before to the establishment of a righteous future kingdom. It would be an eternal kingdom. But only God could bring righteousness into the world. Man didn't seem capable of it. And He wasn't. So God promised to send whom? His servant, who would establish His righteous kingdom and judge the wicked. We see both sides of the Lord's return and the Lord's coming in Isaiah. He first would come to save, but then the second time He will return in judgment. 42. 1. Behold My servant whom I uphold, My chosen one in whom My soul delights, and these words I have put My Spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations. And then 59. 21. Yahweh speaks to His servant. As for Me, this is My covenant with them, speaking of His people, My Spirit which is upon you, My servant, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring's offspring, says the Lord, from now and forever. Why do I keep reading these two verses every week? Because these two are the two that the whole thing hinges on. These are the promise of the coming of the Messiah and the Lord Yahweh speaking to Messiah about His people and the work that the Messiah would undertake. Last week we saw the Messiah, the servant, putting on the battle attire. The Lord's servant is the one who would fulfill God's covenant with His people. That's why we celebrate this supper. He fulfilled all of these promises. The servant, His anointed one, would also, as part of His ministry and mission, speak God's Word to humanity. He's the one who did this. He's the reason we know anything. Chapter 60, we saw that the anointed one spoke himself of what he would accomplish. What it said was he would bring good news, which would include the coming of the new Jerusalem, the binding up, the comforting of the brokenhearted, the poor in spirit, as he called them in the Sermon on the Mount. He would bind up and comfort those who mourn over their sin. He would free those held in bondage to and captive by their sin. He will proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. The year of the Lord's favor is the jubilee of gospel freedom. We're living in that year of the Lord right now. At His first coming, He inaugurated, the servant did, the year of the Lord's favor. When He returns, He will bring the day of the vengeance of our God. And it's certain, folks, God's people then will be called oaks of righteousness, established, planted by Him. And the Lord makes us new creations. Now this is Paul's language, isn't it? He adopts us as His children for the purpose that righteousness will reign in us. He has caused us to be born again and given us all these eternal blessings to make us like Christ. There's a purpose to this. The ultimate purpose, of course, is that He may be glorified. And this was the mission of the servant, Jesus Christ, in the world. And now it's our mission. So as Jesus, we saw last week, walked into the synagogue in Nazareth, the very beginning of His earthly ministry. And was handed the book of Isaiah and began to read. He affirmed. all of these things. He affirmed that He was the Anointed One, the One upon whom God had put His Spirit. And He was the One to fulfill all of these promises of God over 4,000 years. So we said, 61.1, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted. He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, and freedom to prisoners. Verses 4 through 7 last week. Isaiah depicted the redemption of God's people in terms of the rebuilding of Zion. There'll be a new Jerusalem, a new Zion, a new heavens and a new earth where there will be everlasting joy. You ever experience the joy of the Lord? Well, He will give it to all His people and it will never leave. This joy, he says, will be different from the joy of wicked men, which is momentary and which passes away. And all of this, Isaiah tells us, actually Yahweh tells us through Isaiah, is confirmed by an everlasting covenant. You know, when God makes a covenant promise, we're certain it's going to be kept. His promises are a little better than ours. No, they're a lot better. They're certain. They are certainties. He says, 61a. I will faithfully give them their recompense and make an everlasting covenant with them. And this is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic blessing in Genesis 12, 3. That all of Abraham's seed from all the nations of the earth will be blessed. And as I mentioned earlier, in chapter 59, verse 17, God had clothed Himself with righteousness and salvation. At the end of chapter 61, we find the Lord's servant, symbolically attired in the same fashion, ready for battle. Symbolically. There's no battling the Lord. Those battles are over in an instant. But this shows us, and this has been Isaiah's point, and he's told Israel this. You know, and as we read through Isaiah, we really come to wonder, how is it that those Pharisees and scribes, experts in the law and in the Scripture, didn't understand who Jesus was? Everything he was doing was fulfilling what Isaiah had prophesied. Everything. And Jesus pointed that out on at least three different occasions. He would be the instrument of righteousness and justice to the world. The world today wants to make up its own righteousness and justice. It's got its own new standards. And it started in 1962 and 63 when they took the Bibles and prayer out of the schools and said, no, we can come up with better social justice. You notice this social justice that people are going on and on about doesn't seem to look back to the Bible to find out what social justice really is. It's the way of the world, folks. To be clothed in those garments of righteousness was to be commissioned and sent as the Savior. To accept the clothing stands for His commitment to the task. You know, He wasn't just floating along. He chose to do this, to come here and save us. And in 61, 10, and 11, we see our Messiah rejoicing in saving us. So chapter 62 tonight, it shows us what will take place in Zion. Now Zion's going to become a metaphor for both the new Jerusalem and for the people of God, the city of God. And we're going to see here tonight what's going to take place as God moves toward the establishment of His kingdom. Righteousness will shine forth, he says. Zion will receive a new name. Not a city of desolation, but filled with joy and praise. He's talking about the heavenly Jerusalem. For Zion's sake, I won't keep silent. For Zion's sake. For the sake of His eternal people. For Zion. For the city of God. For the church. For His whole plan of redemption. For the sake of His kingdom. See, as the temple of God is His people, So is His city, His people. It's not geography. It's people. And for Zion's sake, for the sake of His kingdom, His city, and His people, He will what? He won't keep silent. He has things to say and things to do. And this phrase, I will not keep silent, involves both speaking and action. And you know who God has appointed as the human delivery system now for salvation flowing into the world? Who is that? The church, yes. The saints, us. This is our task right now. And I keep saying this, there's nobody else to do this. We can say all the church down the street will do that. No. This is our task now to not keep silent, to not be stationary, but to move, to act. I will not keep silent means it's certain that God would intervene on behalf of His people. And so the anointed one here is committing himself to fulfillment of bringing God's plan to salvation. This means he will speak. This means he'll preach the good news. Proclaim, as we saw last week, the year of the Lord's favor until righteousness is seen in her. This work goes on until righteousness is seen in the city of God. Goes forth like brightness is the language he uses here. And until her salvation is like a torch that is burning. So he sees the city of God and it's all the people of God gathered together in righteousness. The anointed one established his church to do this. Now righteousness is not going to be seen in its fullness until the new Jerusalem comes. But this is to be our objective. So what's going to happen in Zion? Look at verse 2. The nations will see your righteousness. Do you think God wants to wait until He brings the New Jerusalem for the people of the world to look at His people and see righteousness? Or does He want for the people of the world to look at us and see righteousness right now? It's a great sin against Him to sit around and wait around and say, well, we don't have to become that righteous people yet. He wants to see it now. That's what He's saying. The nations will see your righteousness. And what the Lord is going to do for Zion, for His people, is for the world to see it. This verse, verse 2, describes the results of the victorious salvation of Zion. This should have begun in earnest when Christ came, and it did. Certainly, you know, you can imagine the Apostle Paul preaching, people looking and seeing the righteousness of the people of God. They certainly saw it in people like him who said he was the least of all the saints. Nations will see the transformation that will happen to Zion, her righteousness, her glory. And he says you'll be called by a new name. Now the giving of a new name, when does that normally happen? When you get married and the wife customarily takes on the name of the husband, the surname. That's a new name. Well guess what the picture is that we have of God and His church in Scripture? It certainly is of a marriage. So this is not a name that His people or the city is going to get from the people of Zion doing a self-promotion. Look at our new name. You know, sometimes companies change their name or different things might, organizations might change their name. No, that's not what's going to happen here. God's going to designate the new name. And He's going to do it based on a unique feature of His new city. And what is that unique feature? Righteousness. Justice. It says, verse 3, you will also be a crown of beauty. So all of this verse, I don't know if you picked up on it as we were reading it, all of this chapter, he's talking to the city. Talking to the city of God. Sometimes called Zion, sometimes Jerusalem, sometimes New Jerusalem. He says you will be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. The new city of God. He's comparing here to expensive jewelry. Precious royal jewelry. The city is going to be something beautiful. The people will be something beautiful. He says, it will no longer be said to you, forsaken, nor to your land will it any longer be said, desolate. But you will be called. Now here's God looking upon His people. My delight is in her. and your land married. And that's the key here. For the Lord delights in you, and to Him your land will be married. Now I'm not going to ask for testimonies or anybody to raise hands. But think back over the last week. And would you say that the Lord delighted in everything you've thought, said, and done for the last week? But that's what He wants. He wants to look upon His people and delight in everything He sees. And one day, believe it or not, He will. And all of those who are there in this kingdom, in this city with Him, He will delight in everything He sees all the time. And you who are there will have everlasting joy. This is His promise. So here in verse 4, this transformation is depicted as a change from desolation to happy marriage. Obviously the result of the work of the servant as we saw back in chapter 54. The wedding gown and the jewelry that we saw back in chapter 61 now make way for a new name. And this is reflected in the practice of new wives changing their surnames. But Zion's old names are discarded because of this transformation. So here's the names that God gives His city, His people. My delight is in her, instead of deserted. The land will be called Beulah or married, as opposed to desolate. And these new names, you see, are not just meaningless new labels. They accurately describe the new future and the new relationship when God has transformed His people and His city and established a faithful, mutual covenant relationship with them in a righteous city. Now here's the thing about God's covenants to this point. One side of the covenant is doing very well in keeping the covenant. The other side isn't doing as well, is it? Our fidelity to God is somewhat less than His fidelity to us. But in this new city, in the new Jerusalem, in eternity, our fidelity to Him will rise to a level where He is pleased and He delights in us. And he talks about this here again in terms of marriage. For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you. The people of the city marrying the Lord. And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, look at this, so your God will rejoice over you. What he's talking about is transforming us. Wouldn't it be great to be righteous? To be just? to be totally without lack of ethics or morals, that day's coming if you're in Christ. He's going to change us. He's not going to bring us in the way we are into His eternal kingdom. The redeemed church is Christ's bride. A picture from chapter 54 again. Here's what God is saying. He's saying that there will be a permanent mutual love relationship between God, His people, and Zion in this covenant relationship. And the most important change that's going to happen is His people will be a people who truly love, serve, and worship Him, who are faithful to Him. This is what's in store for believers in Christ. Look, left to our own devices and our own desires, we would always serve who first? Ourselves. He has to change us for us to get to this point. But He's going to. He's going to bring great blessing to us and great glory to Himself in doing it. This is why when we pray, and really with all sincerity, when we ask for healing and God heals, the glory is His. He gives us a sense of that joy in seeing it, in witnessing it, in experiencing it. But the glory is His, and we will reach a point where we desire His glory. God Himself and His Bride, He's saying it, will rejoice in finally accomplishing what He set out to do when? In the Garden of Eden, in the beginning, what He set out to do will be accomplished. He didn't fail, by the way, we did. In the end, His miraculous transformation of the people will bring back the joy and the delight that should have always characterized the relationship between God and His people. Do you see the mess we've made of things? This is the mess that humanity has made of God's plan. This was God's plan in Revelation 19-7. We get to the very end of the Bible. What do we see? This glorious marriage supper of the Lamb. This is the meaning of all of human history. It doesn't much matter what Darwin said or what they're teaching in the schools anymore or what the new morality is all about. This is God's plan. This is His one and only plan. He's going to demonstrate something that He couldn't have demonstrated unless Adam fell. What is it? Grace. He's going to show us how much He can love and bless people who rejected Him. Who turned away from Him. And He's going to do it as a free gift. This is His delight. This is His plan. He wasn't shocked or surprised by Adam's sin, folks. This was His plan. And having promised these future glories, He urges the faithful to prayer. Now this is a really interesting turn here that Isaiah takes. Verses 6 and 7 are an exhortation to prayer, persistent prayer. On your walls, O Jerusalem, I've appointed watchmen. All day and all night they will never keep silent. You who remind the Lord, take no rest for yourselves. And look at this, verse 7. And give him no rest until he establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth. These watchmen are to remind the people of the Lord to give God no rest until the transformation of His people is complete. This should be our objective, is this transformation, this being conformed to Christ, as Paul calls it. Now let's open our Scripture sheets here, and we're going to see what Scripture tells us about prayer. Luke 11 5, Jesus says to them, Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says to him, Friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him. And from inside he answers and says, Don't bother me. The door has already been shut. My children and I are in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything. Now he's teaching us about prayer here. So what happens? I tell you, Jesus says, even though he won't get up and give him anything because he's his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs. What's he saying? Keep banging on the door until it's going to be easier on the guy to get up and give you some bread so he can go back to sleep. Look at Luke 18.1. Jesus is telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not lose heart. Now we talk about prayer a lot here, folks. We're praying for a lot of things. Now here's what Jesus wants us to know. In a certain city, there was a judge who did not fear God. He didn't respect man. So this is an evil judge. There was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him saying, give me legal protection from my opponent. For a while he was unwilling, but afterward he said to himself, even though I don't fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I'm going to give her legal protection. She hounded him enough. Otherwise, by continually coming, she will wear me out. The Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge said, now will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He long to lay over them? He's telling us to badger God in prayer. I tell you, He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth? And then there was Jacob. Genesis 32, beginning in verse 24. Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh. So the socket of Jacob's thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. And then he said, Let me go, for the dawn is breaking. And he said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. He wouldn't let go of the Lord unless he would bless him. So he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. He said, Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed. Moses, Exodus 32.9. The Lord said to Moses, I've seen this people. They've built this calf. Behold, they are an obstinate people. Now then, let me alone that my anger may burn against them... This is the Lord speaking to Moses. ...that I may destroy them, and I will make of you a great nation. So He's going to destroy the people, He tells Moses. And don't worry, I'll make you a great nation. Moses entreated the Lord his God and said, O Lord, why does your anger burn against your people whom you've brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, With evil intent he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth? Turn from your burning anger and change your mind about doing harm to your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by yourself and said to them, I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens." He's reminding God of His own promise. What are they going to say about you? So the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people. And finally, Daniel 9, 15. They've been in bondage, in captivity. Not Daniel so badly, but the rest of the people for 70 years. He's an old man. And now, O Lord our God, who have brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and have made a name for Yourself, as it is this day, we have sinned. We've been wicked. O Lord, in accordance with all Your righteous acts, let now Your anger and Your wrath turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain. For because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people have become a reproach to all those around us. So now, our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his supplications. And for your sake, O Lord, let your face shine upon your desolate sanctuary. O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations in the city, which is called by your name. For we're not presenting our supplications before you on account of any merits of our own, but on account of your great compassion. O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Your own sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people are called by Your name. What do you think about these prayers and this teaching on prayer? What do we learn from the Word of God here? Keep nagging them. He's telling us to do it. You know, we think if we keep going to the same person over and over again with the same request, with the same whatever, that we're bothering them. That's our normal human thought. God says, no, you keep coming to me. Anything else that strikes anybody about those prayers? We always want to pray in God's will, but we also want to pray that He will act for what reason? For His own glory. When He does something miraculous, it should give glory to Him. There's a constant reminder to the people of what God has promised in these prayers. You promised. You've promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Lord, You've named this city by Your name. Constant reminders and constant persistence. Now look, the church is supposed to be serving this function of persistent prayer today. This is for us to be doing. The unbelievers aren't doing it. And this doesn't mean that we pray for what gratifies our flesh and that God will hand that over to us. We're not getting cabin cruisers if we just really stay at it. That's not what He means at all. And, you know, you might ask, look, if God's already decided what He's going to do, and He has, then what's the point of prayer? Anybody want to answer that for us? To show our faithfulness to Him? Does it matter if we pray or not? Does it make any difference? It does. In our fallen human minds, we don't find answers to these questions. It doesn't kind of make sense. If God's already decided, then what's the difference if we pray? But Scripture reveals to us the mind of God. And in Scripture, we do find answers. And we find God's will as plain as it can be. Jesus, in two parables, He's teaching us. And then look at the others. Moses, Jacob, Daniel. These are our teachers. And now Isaiah. Remember, All that God has commanded, all of it, including the command to pray, is in some way related to and part of what? His eternal plan of redemption. All of it. The Lord's Supper has something to do with His eternal plan of redemption. And prayer is a very important and urgent part of His plan of redemption. We're the watchmen here. We're the centuries on the city wall. We're watching what God is doing in the world today. We encourage one another about our Lord. We remind one another of what He's promised. And we also speak to God, or we certainly should be. Jesus Himself taught us about persistence in prayer. It's kind of a shocking thing to wrap our heads around, isn't it? Jesus told us to badger God until He blesses us. This verse, these passages that we've read, show us that our prayers are to give God, Isaiah's words, no rest. Give Him no rest until He brings this transformation. Now, I'm going to read a couple things from two of the greatest preachers of the last three or four hundred years. Jonathan Edwards. The great American preacher in the 1700s wrote a famous appeal to the Christians of his day to unite in prayer for revival. And at the end of this prayer, here's what he wrote. He says it's very apparent from the Word of God that he often tries the faith and patience of his people when they are crying to him for some great and important mercy. How does he try the faith and patience of his people? Anybody want to take a stab at this? by withholding the mercy that is being sought for a season. And not only so, but at first He may even cause an increase of the dark situation. And yet He, without fail, at last prospers those who continue urgently in prayer and with all perseverance and will not let Him go except He blesses. That doesn't mean we get everything we want. We must remember to always, always, always pray in His will. If His will is some great difficulty for us, that means it's right. As hard as that can be sometimes, it's even harder when it's somebody close to us who has to suffer. And we know it's in His will. Well let me read from Charles Spurgeon. Some mercies are not given to us except in answer to importunate prayer. That's badgering God. Some blessings are like ripe fruit, he says, in autumn time, ready for the picking. Other blessings require the tree to be shaken violently. Importunate prayer, as Jesus taught in Luke, is a vital requirement of the Christian life. Thomas Brooks put it this way, he that would gain victory over God in private prayer. Notice those words, victory over God in private prayer. Must strain every string of his heart. He must in beseeching God, beseech him and so get the better of him. He must be like importunate beggars that will not be put off by frowns or silence or sad answers. Those who would be masters of their requests must, like the importunate widow, press God so far as to put Him to a holy blush. As I may say with reverence, They must with a holy impudence, as Basil speaks, make God ashamed that He cannot look us in the face if He should deny the importunity of our souls. Those aren't my words, but they reflect, I believe accurately, these scriptures that we've been reading. I don't know that I'd be bold enough to use a term like making God to a holy blush. Otto Christian Hallisby, a Norwegian theologian. He resisted the Nazis during World War II. Suffered for it in a concentration camp. Maybe we should listen to this man. I'll bet he knows something about prayer. He understood what it meant to pray all the way through until God answers. He said that prayer is like mining. Prayer is like boring holes deep into the rock of human hearts. It's work. It tries our patience. We can't see results, but in God's time, He places the dynamite and lights the fuse and the rocks crumble. God has called us to give Him no rest until He makes a revived church the praise of this earth. We're too casual in prayer. We know we are. We don't set aside large enough blocks of time for prayer. We limit the time. We figure we'll ask God. God knows everything that's in our minds. We don't really have to stay at it for any period of time. He's saying stay at it. Get down on our knees before Him and pray. He promises to answer us. These all teach us, hard as this is for us to get this into our heads, that God is in a sense overcome by persistent prayer. Jacob wrestled with God. Jesus compared prayer to a man pounding on his neighbor's door late at night of all the pictures to come up with until the neighbor gets up and helps him. James 5, 16, therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. You know, one of the things that we find, and it's true for all of us, I suspect, is the greater the need, the more we come to believe in prayer and trust in prayer. We have to understand that God is not limited by the laws of science. He's not limited by the laws of physics. And sometimes He bypasses them. He's not limited by them. And He doesn't abide by them. If He wants to go past them, He will. God has positioned you and me Ray Ortlund says, in this generation to pray down His power upon the ministry of the gospel and not quit until the whole world is praising God. Ortlund is the one commentator who I've read over the past couple of weeks who has really stressed our role and our responsibility in these things. The building of the New Jerusalem. The making of the New Zion. One other commentator says, Pray as if without our prayers, the Lord would be slack concerning His promise. Pray as if on our prayer alone hung the resolution of the matter. You know, we know when we're seriously making an argument to somebody. When we're saying, look, I really want you to come to the picnic. Or when we're just saying, look, it's going to be on the 12th, and if you make it, that'd be great. You see the difference. Sometimes we're urgently inviting something, asking for something. And sometimes our attitude comes out as we can take it or leave it. And Isaiah tells us such faithful prayer warriors will not be disappointed. Look what he says in verse 8. The Lord has sworn by His right hand and by His strong arm. Why is He swearing by His right hand and His right arm? There's nothing else to swear on. He can only swear by Himself. So there's nothing higher than Him. There's no one higher by whom to swear. He assures them by an oath here. Covenant promises of grain and wine, which are Old Testament language of blessing, for blessings for obedience. The Lord has sworn by Himself, by His own hand, that He will bring about all that He has promised. So now there's an oath from God that He's going to do what He said. In the New Jerusalem, what's he say? People will not do. They will not hunger and they will not thirst. Those who garner of it, eat it and will praise the Lord. Those who gather it will drink in the courts of my sanctuary. This picture of not hungering and thirsting in the New Jerusalem. I put Leviticus passages from Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. in your Scripture sheets. What these show us is this. Under the old covenant, if the people did not follow Him, did not obey Him, if they prayed to imagine ... You know, people do pray to the sun and the moon and the clouds and Saturn and ask for rain or sun or heat or whatever it is they want. people do that. And if the people of Israel did that, God was going to withhold their food. He was going to bring judgment against them. And He says in these passages here, I'll read one of them, Leviticus 26, 14. If you don't obey Me and don't carry out all these commandments, if instead you reject My statutes, and if your soul abhors My ordinances so as not to carry out all My commandments and so break My covenant, I in turn will do this to you. I will appoint over you a sudden terror, consumption, and fever that will waste away the eyes and cause the soul to pine away. But relevant to our passage here, also you will sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies will eat it up. Now we see the same thing in Deuteronomy 28. But look what he says here now in Isaiah 62, 8. I will never again give your grain as food for your enemies, nor will foreigners drink your new wine. Why? What are they going to do? What are the people of God going to do so that that never happens again? What are we going to do to earn this blessing? Let me put it that way. It's gracious. The New Covenant is all of grace. Somebody did earn it for us and we come into it by believing in Him. And that's the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. God now graciously promises not to give His people's food or wine as drink to their enemies. That's what's going on. They had to obey or else He would take the food they grew and give it to their enemies. We don't do anything but trust in Him. And this promise relates to eschatological events, last day's events. These enemies foreigners aren't the Babylonians or the Edomites or the Persians. Our warfare is spiritual. And the enemies he's talking about are the big three. Sin, Satan, and what's the third one? The last one to be tossed into the lake, death. All of this embodied in Babylon, the city of man. All of it will be defeated. Eating and drinking, you see, we're part of temple worship. They're symbolic here of worship, but in this new city. Praise to God, the celebration, the worship. And I wrote a note here, we have much to be thankful for right now. See, He's given us much of this right now. We do talk a lot about the blessings that lie ahead, but folks, we are blessed beyond all people right now. Why? What's the great blessing we have right now? Jesus. And with Jesus comes what? We have assurance. We have His Spirit. And what's the Spirit do for us? He intercedes for us. He prays for us. He helps us to understand all things, doesn't He? He's the one who guides us into all things. We have all these blessings right now. Here's what this boils down to. God judged the northern ten tribes in 722 B.C. He judged what was left of Israel in 70 A.D. But His judgment on the nation of Israel for its failure under that old covenant under which they were required to obey is not His last word to His people. When His new covenant purposes are fulfilled, His people will eat, drink, worship to all for the glory of God. And then God commands them and us to prepare the way for His salvation. Build up, build up the highway. Remove the stones. Lift up a standard over the peoples. Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth, Say to the daughter of Zion, Lo, your salvation comes. Behold, His reward is with Him and His recompense before Him. Well now he's calling both Jews and Gentiles, the people and the peoples, summoned to take to the road as pilgrims. In this picture we keep seeing. The invitation is issued, and didn't we see last week about preparing the way? What's the way to prepare the way for Christ? We recognize our unworthiness. We recognize our sin. We ask Him to save us, to forgive us. He is the way, the truth, and the life. Hindrances are removed. A worldwide people of banners up in the air, summoning the nations. And he says, behold, your salvation has come. And this is likely a reference to the inauguration of God's kingdom on earth at Christ's first coming. And verse 11, again, again and again, Isaiah affirms that the Lord has proclaimed His salvation to the end of the earth. Here's, I guess, one thing that separates believers from unbelievers. Believers understand that this final victory of grace isn't just Isaiah's wishful thinking. These words are God saying through His prophet, this is my will and this is my plan. And Christ is preparing a place for us. And where's the entry point? The physical entry points to this kingdom on earth right now. The church. Faithful biblical churches are the place of entry into this kingdom. Now you can come to believing outside here, but this is where the eternal city is proclaimed. So this assembly is what the Lord undertook. He's building this. This is why He came. To cleanse us. He put on these garments of salvation. And He's inaugurated it already. It's already underway. And so here we are looking to His return. Serving Him and humanity and sharing the gospel as we wait for Him to come back. Well the final verse for tonight. They will call them the holy people. Holy, set apart to the Lord. The redeemed of the Lord. Redeemed, bought back from what? What are we redeemed from? Sin. When you hear redemption, understand that the redemption is from bondage to sin. Isaiah sees a walled city, folks, formerly desolate and forsaken. And it's now populated, in his prophetic mind's eye here, with redeemed people worshiping God. The gates of the city are now open, as we see in the same picture in Revelation. A newly resurfaced highway leading from the ends of the earth, from every nation into this city. The nations are invited to come and enjoy God's victory here. This is a picture of the future. God proclaims His salvation to the ends of the earth, and it's through Christ. And He calls those who come, holy people set apart by His grace. One writer says, they will enter the new Jerusalem redeemed out of the wreckage of every failed human culture. Well, next week we're going to see the day Christ returns. They're also going to be those who reject Him. And for them, that's going to be a day of finality and of great terror. But we folks are most blessed to not only have heard these truths, but to believe them. Because the irony of it all, in some ways, from a human perspective, is that it's simply believing these things by which we receive them. Father, thank You for this gathering. Thank You for the hunger of people and the thirst of all of us to grow near to You, to know You, to hear of Your plan. We pray for the lost in our families, in our communities, in our places of work. And we ask, Lord, for Your grace, and we pray that You will give us hearts to pray persistently to You. for the salvation of the lost, for the revival of your church, and for your glory. In Christ's name.