16th chapter of Isaiah, and in the fifth
verse, which the King James Version says, And
in mercy shall the throne be established.
The Revised Version says, A throne shall be
established in lovingkindness.
A throne shall be established in lovingkindness.
The Bible's a very wonderful book.
It has one great theme that runs right
through it from beginning to end.
It's a theme of God's redemptive plan.
It's the purpose of which we heard last
Sunday night from Pastor Crichton, of giving to
us in Jesus Christ a new sovereignty.
Restoring the dominion of God which he had
before sin came into the world, and causing
us once again to live under the authority
of Jesus Christ, and therefore in the place
of blessing and power.
The whole theme, and the whole music, the
whole drama, if you like, of redemption in
the pages of the Bible has that one
great purpose in mind, and you see it
unfolding page by page.
It is good, as you turn to any
portion of Scripture, just to for a moment
to pause and to ask yourself, how is
this theme revealed here in this particular chapter?
And I want tonight to look behind the
scenes in this text, and to show you
how wonderfully God's sovereignty was working out in
these days.
How tremendously God was working to a plan,
in spite of all the opposition to it.
Between the 13th and the 23rd chapters of
Isaiah, there are contained ten messages of judgment
against heathen nations and corrupt people, the judgment
of God.
Ten burdens they're called actually, in these chapters,
and they proclaim the ultimate sovereignty of God
over all the world, and over all men
that he has ever created.
And I do want to impress upon you
tonight, as I speak to you, that it
isn't a question of whether or not you
are going to submit to the authority of
Jesus Christ.
The only question is when you're going to
do it.
It isn't a question of whether you will.
God will have the last word with us
all.
Before him, our risen Lord, every knee shall
bow.
I must either acknowledge him here in time
on earth as my Savior, or bow before
him one day as my judge.
The issue is not whether I will acknowledge
his sovereignty, but when am I going to
do it.
He will ultimately be Lord.
And in the face of every discouragement, and
every opposition, and every power against him carrying
through his plan, the Bible gives us the
record of that plan being carried through in
triumph and in victory.
And here I have chosen of these ten
burdens, or judgments if you like, in these
chapters, this one in this chapter, and in
the preceding chapter, which has to do with
the people of Moab.
Here's an illustration of the very thing about
which I've been talking.
Here's an example of God's sure judgment upon
sin, and yet of his mercy and loving
kindness to the sinner.
Here's a tremendously, to me at least, a
thrilling illustration of God working out his plan
through the centuries.
Some people seem to imagine that because God
does not punish sin, the moment sin is
committed that we can get away with it.
Because the punishment of sin is delayed, well
perhaps God after all doesn't do it.
But here's an example from the pages of
the Bible of how God deals with sin
ruthlessly, and yet in mercy.
How he exerts his sovereignty and insists upon
his absolute authority in life, and yet does
it in mercy and in loving kindness.
And here as we speak and think together
about the judgment of God upon this people
of Moab, that great civilization which God brought
down into absolute shattering ruins because of their
sin.
I'm reminded that the prophet says in the
fifth verse of the previous chapter, my heart
shall cry out for Moab.
A sense of burden, a sense of concern,
and you know when God speaks in judgment,
he speaks with a tear.
As the Lord Jesus stood and faced Jerusalem
and wept over it and said, how often
would I, but ye would not.
Somehow as I've thought about this, this tremendous
judgment of God upon this civilization, I see
it simply as an illustration of the way
God deals with you and with me, determined
ultimately to have the sovereignty.
And yet every opportunity is taken to show
mercy if only we would listen and heed
his voice.
Let's just quietly then think this through a
moment tonight, because I think it's a very
thrilling story of how God deals with this,
this people of Moab.
Let me speak to you in the first
instance about what I would call the target
of God's judgment.
What is God aiming at when he judges?
What is he doing?
What is the focal thing at which he's
hitting?
What is it that he's determined ultimately, completely
to destroy?
The target of God's judgment.
Who are these people called Moabites?
Do you know anything about their history?
Do you remember how they began?
Let me put the picture before you.
Let's trace it through the Bible and see
how through century after century God spoke to
them, dealt with them, exercised his authority, and
when they ultimately refused to repent when his
purpose had been fulfilled, he ruthlessly judged.
Who are these people?
Let me remind you.
He is a man, an old man, at
least we would call him old, but those
days comparatively I suppose quite young.
And he's on a journey through a desert,
and alongside him is a younger man, his
nephew, Abraham and Lot.
And God has called Abraham into a land
of promise, and Lot, his nephew, is coming
with him.
And as they walk through that journey, presently
there becomes argument and strife concerning all material
things, their cattle, and it's quite obvious that
God would have Abraham separate from Lot.
And so Abraham turns to his nephew and
gives him the choice of the land that
is before him, and offers to him to
choose in any direction, any country, any place
he may desire.
And Lot looks around to the north, the
south, the west, the east, and eventually decides
on a fertile plain that lies almost at
his feet.
It reminded him of the land of Egypt
to which Abraham had taken him.
It seemed that there was an immediate prospect
of gain as he looked into the fertile
valley, the direction in which Abraham, going after
all, was so uncertain, the future it seemed
to be so unsure.
And so the only safe thing to do,
thought Lot, is to choose this land where
I'm now in, this fertile valley.
I know that there's a very unpleasant civilization
there, I know there's a city of wickedness
called Sodom, but that doesn't matter, I can
keep clear of it.
And so Lot made his choice like many
another man has made his choice, like perhaps
you and I have made our choice, God
forbid.
But maybe somebody here tonight tells them, tells
them the immediate and forsaken the eternal, tells
them the thing that seems to be at
their feet, the immediate prospect of success, regardless
of what it might lead them to.
And Lot made his choice.
And it's this tense, remember, towards Sodom.
And it wasn't very long before, before Lot
was not only in Sodom, but Sodom was
in Lot.
It wasn't long before the spirit of the
place, and the corruption, and the sin of
it, and the vice of it, and the
immorality of it got into his whole soul,
and Lot sank lower and lower.
Yet God would not destroy that city until
Lot had escaped, indeed he couldn't.
God had to preserve this man for a
very special reason that we'll see in a
few moments.
And so the destruction of Sodom was delayed,
and Lot was delivered and escaped, but you
remember his wife was turned into a pillar
of dust.
But eventually Lot got free from Sodom with
two of his daughters, that was all Lot,
and two girls.
And then the story doesn't bear repeating.
The whole, the whole sanctity of marriage, the
whole principle of the propagation of the human
race, the whole sacredness of childbirth was absolutely
violated, because Lot had a child by his
daughter.
And the child's name was called Moab.
And so the Moabite began.
And the origin of their history was in
the violation of the most sacred relationship on
earth, was in the corruption of the marriage
pie, was in the cutting across of all
recognized principles of morality.
And it was there that Moab began its
existence, his existence.
A man had chosen a worldly thing.
A man had refused, though he knew the
way he had refused, to walk with God.
He had chosen the immediate, the present.
He had said that he would be perfectly
able to keep himself away from the vice
and the temptation of the city, but he
had found himself utterly beyond, utterly unable to
prevent the landslide that took place.
And Lot went down, and the spirit of
Sodom got into his very character and nature,
and presently he gave birth to a son,
and he called him Moab.
And Moab began.
The story of Moab began in corruption, and
in immorality, and in the breakdown of the
sanctity and the decency of marriage.
Interestingly enough, through history of this people, they
were renowned for their pride.
The sixth verse of this chapter, if you
were to glance at it a moment, says,
we have heard of the pride of Moab.
He is very proud.
It seems as if through the centuries their
hearts have been hardened.
I think the most striking commentary upon this
people of Moab is in the 48th chapter
of the prophecy of Jeremiah, and the 11th
verse, where we read, Moab has been at
ease from his youth.
He hath settled on his leave, hath not
been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath
he gone into captivity.
Therefore his taste remained in him, and he
is not changed.
Borrowing language from the vineyard, where with new
wine, the wine is emptied from vessel to
vessel, to prevent it becoming pale and stagnant,
but not so with Moab.
The commentary of God's prophet and God's messenger
upon these people was a proud people, a
complacent people, a self-righteous people, an unrepentant
people, a self-satisfied people.
And through all the history of this, of
this civilization, their taste remained in them, the
unsavoury taste of a proud, rebellious, and sinful
heart.
We have heard, said Jeremiah, of the pride
of Moab.
He is very proud, and his loftiness, and
his arrogancy, his pride, and his haughtiness of
heart.
In the history of the people of God,
if you were to trace it through the
Old Testament, the history of Israel, Moab was
always their enemy.
Israelites were commanded not to go near them,
not to touch them.
When they went through the wilderness journey, they
were to avoid their territory, to have no
contact with them whatsoever.
And whenever Israel disobeyed and had contact with
Moab, they got themselves into trouble.
Solomon chose one of his many wives from
the Moabites.
The whole story, the whole parable, the thing
that the Holy Spirit seeks to get home
to our hearts, is God's insistence of separation
from sin.
And the whole target at which God is
striking in judgment is the target of sin,
of sinful nature, of the corruption of the
flesh, of a people who are arrogant, proud,
complacent, self-satisfied, and yet deep down in
their soul, who are guilty of this awful
crime, this awful vice.
God's target all through history, and God's target
today, the flesh, the self in us, you
and I, as we really are.
Of course, it's a sordid picture.
Of course, it's an unpleasant, grim background to
our story tonight.
But let's just wait a minute.
Isn't it really the background to multitudes of
lives in Chicago today, even, even nominal Christian
people?
Isn't it the background of many people who
profess a great deal of religion, and yet
deep down there's this, there's this sin, there's
this corruption?
Wherever there has been, wherever there has been
the breakdown of the sanctity of, of sex,
a man reaps what he sows.
No man breaks the sanctity, the sanctity of
life and escapes the inevitable judgment of a
holy God.
Nobody.
It may not be visited on him, but
it will be visited as it was in
the case of Moab upon one generation after
another that succeeded.
No man plays fast and loose with his
own personal moral life and escapes the consequences.
Nobody.
Here is the thing at which God is
striking.
Here is the target, God's target of judgment.
Here is the thing today in Chicago at
which the hand of God strikes, and it
may be the thing in your life as
you listen to me tonight.
Be sure of this, wherever any man or
woman plays with the sanctity of sex, God
never lets him escape.
And the judgment is brought not only upon
him, but his children right through one generation
after another.
The target of God's judgment.
Why?
Because the most sacred thing that God ever
did was to give man and to give
woman the power to propagate life, and to
do that out of God's will and out
of God's plan and away from God's method
is to cause you that.
The target of God's judgment.
The self.
The self and the sin of which every
one of us in this place is capable
of committing any minute but for the grace
of God.
The animal in us, the self-like, the
lower nature, whatever you call it, the physical
in every one of us, the capacity in
us all for sin, the thing that pulls
us down, the lust, the passion, the flesh,
any name you like to give it, you
can't give it too bad a name, that
is the target at which our holy God
is ruthlessly determined to strike that it might
be destroyed.
The target of God's judgment.
And here is Moab, the living expression of
it.
And through all the centuries God has been
speaking to them and the moment has come
in this chapter that we are reading when
the hand of God in exactly three years
time was going to strike and destroy the
whole civilization, a throne shall be established.
In loving time.
Ah yes, for centuries it appeared as if
they got away with it.
For centuries it appeared as if God had
forgotten to do anything about it.
Oh no, for his hand was upon them
in judgment the moment, God's moment, was about
to strike.
The target of God's judgment.
The very following thing.
Tonight I just wonder if the hand of
God and the sword of God's justice and
the target of God's judgment is directed against
somebody listening to my voice tonight.
Somebody who's violating, violating in their whole life,
in their thought life, in their personal life,
the sanctity of sex.
Oh yes, you're training to go into the
pastured are you?
You better get that issue settled before you
go in my friend.
You're training to go into the ministry, to
the mission field, you're in business, you're in
Christian work and Christian service.
Ah but nobody knows about you.
Why no, but the target of God's judgment
is directed against you.
For years perhaps you've practiced it all but
escaped.
For years you've been able to keep it
hidden under the surface and somehow you've imagined
that you've cleverly escaped the issue but the
target of God's judgment is directed and God's
hour has yet to come.
In that situation a throne shall be established.
I want to ask you in the second
place if you will to look with me.
Oh to trace, to trace the trail of,
the trail of divine justice.
There's the origin of the situation, there's the
background of the picture, here's the beginning of
the story, here's the background of this people
upon whom God was just about to fall
with absolute judgment and destruction.
There's the beginning of it.
Pride, self-complacency, self-righteousness, in spite of
the fact that beneath it all there was
this corruption.
But God says a throne shall be established.
The target of God's judgment in relation to
every one of us in this place tonight
is the flesh, the soul's life, that which
pulls us down time and time again and
God in that situation is going to establish
a throne.
That unruly mob, that unruly mob must be
brought to heel and God must assume authority.
Now interestingly enough as you trace through if
you would to the old testament and the
story of Moab, you would always find that
God said to his people, hands off, leave
them to me.
This is a situation far too big for
you to cope with, you can't deal with
it, leave them in my hands.
Interestingly enough it was in the very territory
which the Moabites live that Moses rehearsed God's
law.
The eastern bank of Jordan in the thirty
-fifth chapter of the book of Numbers in
the territory of Moab, under the very ear
of the Moabites, think of the background of
their life, their looseness and their sin and
their vice and corruption.
In that situation, listening to it as it
were, God rehearsed his law.
He brought to bear upon them in that
wild, loose situation, Moses rehearsed the law of
God.
It was in the territory of Moab that
Moses died.
Though they fought many times to rebel against
God and his way, though they indeed you
remember on one occasion tried to curse the
Israelites by hiring Balaam to do it, they
never succeeded.
They fought against God for centuries but they
were doomed to fail.
And in that wonderful sixtieth psalm, David with
a sense of tremendous authority and disdain said
concerning Moab, Moab shall be my watchdog.
I'll use them for the most servile God's
imagination.
Their rebellion against God was absolutely futile.
Their rebellion against God's verdict concerning them was
utterly useless.
He tracked them down relentlessly and followed them
through one generation after another, telling his own
people to keep their hands off because they
could not possibly do it themselves that God
undertook to deal with.
He was doing just this, my friends, in
the territory, in the territory of your life,
that self-life of yours, that animal life,
that physical life, in the territory of life
which time and time again has pulled you
back and pulled you down to sin.
You know what God is doing with that?
He's only got one thing to do with
it.
It's to pronounce in that life of yours
the sentence of judgment.
He has no other message for self than
death.
And in that territory, in that area of
your life where there has been looseness and
lightness, it is there that God's word comes
and God's law is rehearsed.
And there in the corridor of your soul
you hear the echo of God's Spirit speaking
to you about sin and attaching to the
sin of that life of yours guilt and
pronouncing the sentence of judgment and the sentence
of death over the area of your life
where there's been lawlessness and sinfulness.
If one concern is to get every one
of us to agree with his verdict about
ourselves, there is none right.
No, not one.
I think of the language, for instance, an
example of this very thing, the language of
the Apostle Paul.
He said once in the seventh chapter of
Romans, I was alive, he said, without the
law once.
But when the commandment came, sin revived and
I died.
What had happened?
In the area of Paul's life where there
had been no law, he had heard the
word of God, the law of God rehearsed,
and heard the law say, thou shalt not
covet.
And the result of that was that within
him there was created a desire to covet.
And Paul saw that the law brought guilt
and a sense of responsibility, and he knew
that it had tracked him down and found
him a sinner.
We fight constantly against the admission of what
we are, but it's a losing battle.
And in the territory of your heart and
of mine where there's been lawlessness and looseness,
the first thing that God does is there
to pronounce the law upon you, the sentence
of death and of condemnation, and to speak
the word of absolute authority.
A throne shall be established.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
And God speaks with the voice of absolute
sovereign authority in the area of your life
where there has been lawlessness.
The law says thou shalt not covet, and
you come to discover that the very listening
to the law only makes you desire to
break it.
In your heart you come to agree with
the verdict of God.
But the only answer, only answer to that
life of yours is the judgment of God's
death.
A throne shall be established.
I wonder how many more battles in life
you and I are going to lose before
we give in and admit that God is
right.
How many more battles we're going to fight
and lose day by day until we agree
with the sentence of God concerning ourselves.
The trail of God's justice all through the
book.
Tracking down this people, tracking them down, pinning
them in, bringing them, bringing them to agree
with his verdict concerning themselves until, until one
day the hand of God strikes in judgment.
A throne shall be established.
The trail of God's justice.
Yes, the target of God's judgment is upon
that self-life of yours, and he's been
hitting at it and speaking to you and
telling you that he's going to assert his
sovereignty and his authority and all through the
years of your life.
When perhaps you have successfully covered things of
which you are desperately ashamed, God has been
seeking to rehearse the law in that territory
to declare the fact that you're guilty and
to ask you to agree with his verdict.
But wait a minute.
A throne shall be established in loving-kindness.
The triumph, the triumph of God's loving-kindness.
A throne shall be established in loving-kindness.
That doesn't mean in leniency, not at the
expense of righteousness.
No, the throne of God insists on absolute
righteousness.
If I look through the territory of Moab,
the story of Moab, how wonderful it was
to watch God dealing in loving-kindness.
It was in the territory that was occupied
by this people that Joshua allotted the land
of promise to the people of God.
The Moabites, lawless, proud, arrogant, sinful, corrupt, heard,
heard at one moment the sentence of death.
They heard the pronouncement of the law guilty
and then they stood by and they watched
God's leader Joshua offering to the tribes, to
the people of God, the land of blessing
and the land of promise.
In the very place where death was pronounced,
life was offered.
I have set before you blessing and cursing,
therefore choose blessing, choose life.
Life and death, blessing and cursing, and in
that very territory of Moab, of lawlessness and
sin, they heard the pronouncement of judgment, but
they heard also the offer of life.
But even more significant, say, why didn't God
destroy Lot and his daughters?
Why didn't he, why didn't he destroy them
there at the very beginning of history?
Why didn't he just wipe them out for
their sinfulness?
Why did God say to his people as
they came through the wilderness, leave Moab alone,
don't touch them.
Why, why should he?
Ah, what was God doing?
What's the story of the Bible?
Isn't it the story of redemption through the
Lord Jesus Christ?
Isn't it the story that amidst sin and
corruption God was working to out of it
all a Messiah, the Lord Jesus?
Isn't the story of the Old Testament the
story of a seed of sin and evil,
and a seed which God had chosen, the
two going side by side?
And isn't the conflict of the Bible that
Satan all through history was seeking to destroy
God's seed to make it impossible for the
Messiah to come?
It's a thrilling picture sometimes to study Old
Testament and to watch how God's seed, God's
plan, God's line of succession time and time
again was nearly broken, nearly spoiled, and at
the last minute only escaped.
Why did God say leave the Moabites alone?
Why didn't God destroy Lot and his daughters?
I'll tell you, one day Satan had nearly,
nearly won the victory.
One day it almost seemed as if that
line through which God was bringing us of
fire was going to be broken completely.
And do you know where God found one
person that that line of succession might be
maintained?
He found it in Ruth.
In Ruth, from the people of Moab.
And Ruth, the Moabite, turned to the living
God from her gods and said, my, thy
people shall be my people, thy God shall
be my God.
And up from this tribe, this civilization which
was utterly corrupt and utterly sinful, God got
hold of one girl that repented, one girl
that turned from her evil and proper God
to the true Jehovah.
And that girl became in succession to the
Lord Jesus Christ himself.
Oh, the marvelous plan of God's overshadowing and
protection of his purpose and of his will.
A throne shall be established, he's Lord and
Sovereign, but it's going to be established in
loving kindness.
And from that civilization of utter corruption, he
found one soul, one girl.
And through that girl there was born a
child, and down through the ages, one day
there was born a faith.
A throne shall be established in loving kindness.
You see, my friends, all through the pages
of the book, it's the principle of the
cross at work all the time.
The cross, not simply an incident outside a
city wall two thousand years ago, but a
principle along which God is working with every
life all through history.
At the very place where the law has
sentenced and condemned to death, in that very
place grace saves and delivers and keeps.
In the very place where Moses pronounces the
sentence of judgment, there Joshua offers the land
of blessing and of life.
In the very place in your heart where
God speaks with absolute sovereignty and says, thou
shalt not, and brings to bear his law
upon the lawlessness of your life, in that
very place the life of Jesus Christ is
incarnate in a man who like Ruth will
repent and turn to God.
I say that the whole principle of the
cross weaves itself right through the story, the
wonderful thrilling story of the Old Testament.
It's so enthralling, let me just say this
to you tonight.
Here's this tremendous picture of this civilization of
Moab.
Here they are, a godless people, a sinful
people, a corrupt people, a people who have
violated all God's principles of decent living and
standard of conduct, a people who in spite
of that have been proud and arrogant, a
people upon whom God is insisting that he
shall be lord and sovereign and he will
exert his rule, and yet in it, as
he ruthlessly pronounces the sentence of death and
judgment, he opens the way to blessing and
deliverance, and out from such a civilization, he
shows how he does it, by taking Ruth
and making her to be in his purpose,
a one through whom one day Jesus is
to be revealed to the world.
That's the mercy of God, the loving kindness
of God.
I wonder tonight if you see the principle
of the cross operating in your heart, the
lawlessness of this self-nature of yours that
has played fast and loose with life, violated
God's principles of life and conduct so often.
That's you, that's the principle of the whole
business, that's the tragedy of it all, and
a throne shall be established there, God's sovereignty
there, and in that place in your life
where he pronounces the sentence of death, he
offers to you the land of fullness of
blessing in Jesus Christ, for at the cross,
a throne was established in loving kindness, mercy
and truth kissed each other, and now the
God who pronounces death to yourself in your
life, the God who offers fullness of life
in his indwelling spirit, and that's what baptism
means.
That's the very thing that you're going to
watch in just a moment.
Oh, that God may have spoken to your
heart from his word tonight, and shown you
that there's only one thing he can do
with self and that slave, cause it to
be crucified, and I'm to ascend to his
verdict and die to it all, the lawlessness
of self, and in its place receive with
open hands of the gift of God his
fullness of blessing and fullness of life, his
loving kindness and his mercy.
Let's pray together, shall we?
Lord Jesus, make these things real to us
tonight, that the self in us may truly
accept the verdict of a holy God and
die, and in the place where there's been
the sentence of death, there may come the
land of fullness of blessing, even Jesus himself
in all his indwelling power and grace, that
the throne of thy sovereignty may be set
up in us in loving kindness and in
mercy.
In loving kindness, Jesus came, my soul in
mercy, to reclaim.
From sinking sands he lifted me, from shades
of night to plains of light, O praise
his name, he lifted me.