Plans of Old

Amen. Please go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 51. We're going to be continuing here in this section in Isaiah.

Chapters 24 through 27 summarize all the oracles that come before and talk about God's judgment against the nations and the salvation of his people.

And here in 25, we see a bit of a change. There's only a few times where Isaiah directly addresses

God in the book of Isaiah. And this is one of them. It begins this address of God. And what do we call an address of God?

It's prayer. This is a prayer from Isaiah to the Lord. Please stand when you have

Isaiah 25, 1. We will read.

Go ahead and read the whole chapter. Oh, Lord, you are my God. I will exalt you.

I will praise your name. For you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful, and sure.

For you have made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin. The foreigner's palace is a city no more.

It will never be rebuilt. Therefore, strong peoples will glorify you. Cities of ruthless nations will fear you.

For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm, and a shade from the heat.

For the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall, like heat in a dry place.

You subdue the noise of the foreigners as heat by the shade of a cloud. So the song of the ruthless is put down.

On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well -aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well -refined.

And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.

He will swallow up death forever. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the

Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, behold, this is our God. We have waited for him that he might save us.

This is the Lord. We have waited for him. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation, for the hand of the

Lord will rest on this mountain, and Moab shall be trampled down in his place, as straw is trampled down in a dunghill.

And he will spread out his hands in the midst of it, as a swimmer spreads out his hands to swim.

But the Lord will lay low his pompous pride together with the skill of his hands, and the high fortification of his walls he will bring down, lay low, and cast to the ground to the dust.

You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your great and awesome plan of salvation that you have given us in Jesus Christ.

We thank you for the words that were prophesied before him. We thank you for the word of life that came after.

And God, we ask that as you, as we look at this passage, that you would show us what you have here for us, that you would bring praise from our lips to you, that you would show us your glories in Jesus' name, amen.

So today we have gathered to praise the Lord. It's what we do every

Sunday and in families daily. We praise the Lord. And a question you might ask yourself is, why do we praise the

Lord? What is so praiseworthy about him? And that's what this passage addresses.

Isaiah prays to the Lord, speaks to him. He talks about the importance of praising the

Lord. God is good and he is worthy of praise. And Isaiah lists several things here.

He speaks of the wonderful things that God has done in describing those wonderful things. He calls them plans formed of old, faithful, and sure.

And so we can think about those distinctly. We can think the reason we should praise God is because he has done wonderful things, because he has made plans formed of old, because those plans are faithful and sure.

But just beginning with this first, very first phrase, oh

Lord, you are my God. What is that relationship between a

God and his people? A God is one who provides for his people.

He provides salvation, he provides, even if you think in pagan societies that have their various gods, they appeal to their gods for various forms of salvation, whether it be for their crops to grow, or whether it be for other kinds of blessings.

And they in turn give their praise to their God. This is the nature of a relationship between a

God and his people. Now, a lot of people think of praising God as being a burden.

They think it's better to have no God because then you don't have to offer anyone praise. The thing is, praising

God is not a burden, it is a great privilege, because those people who have no God have no savior.

They have no source of blessing. They are left on their own and have no hope of salvation. In addition to that, a lot of people think of praise primarily as a duty, that we do this because we ought to do it.

And of course, praise is indeed a duty, but it is more importantly a joy.

Now think about why people praise things. Why do people praise the things they enjoy?

Why do people praise the restaurant they ate at last week that was so good? Well, it's not because they owe anything to the restaurant to praise the restaurant, it's because they enjoyed it so much.

They want to share that joy and tell about that joy to others. And if that's the case for something as simple as a restaurant, how much more is that the case with the

God who gives all good things, with the God who saves and gives eternal life, is so much more true with Him.

And moreover, this relationship between a God and His people is not something that's established by the will of man.

You cannot just say, I'm going to have this God as my God, and He becomes your God. Rather, God must accept you.

It's not merely up to man to go and decide who

His source of blessing is going to be, it is up to God to decide who He will bless. God does not owe

His blessings to anyone. However, our God is so merciful and so gracious that He sent

Jesus Christ to die for sinners so that all who come to Him, all who come to Him with repentance, all who come to Him and turn to Him in faith, that He saves them, that He grants them a new heart so that they might serve

Him, and so that that relationship might be established between a God and His people.

God has provided for that relationship to be established in Jesus Christ.

John 1 speaks of this, that that salvation is not of the will of man, but it is of the will of God.

And so that relationship between God and God's people is one of great privilege, is one of great joy.

When Isaiah says, oh Lord, you are my God, he is saying something that is wonderful, something that he is joyous about, not something that's simply a matter of fact that then leads to these implications for how he lives his life, but something that's a joy and a privilege.

And so he says, I will exalt you, I will praise your name. So what he describes his relationship is in response to being one who receives salvation for God, one who receives blessings from God, is one who in turn exalts

God, one who is filled with God's goodness, is going to overflow in praise.

So he exalts God. To exalt is to lift something high, to lift up God or to lift up his name is to set him up for others to see or even for yourself to see.

Even when you're in private and you praise the Lord, what you're doing when you're exalting him is you are even in your own, even with that audience of one, just with yourself is declaring that God is truly high.

And so we should praise him, not just in private, but also in public. If you are overflowing with joy because of what

God has done for you, it is only right that you would praise him in the sight of others.

You know, when God does excellent things, do not withhold that, do not hide your love for the

Lord, rather let it shine. Now when, when should we praise the

Lord? Well, we should praise him at all times. We should praise him at appointed times. We have appointed times of worship on Sunday.

Your family has an appointed time of worship each day that you've set. And we should praise

God at those times, but we should also praise him spontaneously at all times, anytime something comes up to remind us of what

God has done. You might notice this in more mature believers, how quick they are to praise the

Lord, even for small things. One who has grown in the Lord has begun to have clearer eyes of faith that see

God's hand in everything, that see God's hand in all good things, even in trials, because they know that those trials even are from the

Lord. So let's talk about, let's talk about these reasons we ought to praise

God. Isaiah says, for you have done wonderful things.

God is to be praised for who he is and for his actions. His works in the world are wonderful.

They inspire wonder in man, and because of that, he ought to be praised. When it says wonderful things, what are primarily in mind are the things that come after this verse.

It speaks of great destruction, and it speaks of great salvation, and we'll be looking at that in the upcoming weeks.

But just to summarize a little, that great destruction, God destroys entities who seem indestructible, who seem untouchable.

And the context here in Isaiah, we're going to see in several chapters time that he will destroy

Assyria, who was at the time the greatest power on the earth, and as they were going to attack

Jerusalem the night before, 800 ,000 soldiers die just overnight for no particular reason that would be seen by without eyes of faith.

But the Bible reports that God sent an angel to destroy those 800 ,000 troops.

A massive wipeout that is unexpected, entirely unexpected, and is wonderful in the literal sense of inspiring wonder that God could defeat this great oppressor that no one could touch.

And God has defeated many great powers. You think of some of the greatest powers that have existed that no one thought would ever be brought low, and they have.

Even Rome, you think about how great and mighty Rome was and all the earth, and they were brought low as well.

One thing that you can take away from that is that even in calamity, even in destruction,

God is accomplishing his purposes. Romans 8, 28 says that all things work together for good to those who love

God, to those who are called according to his purposes. And those all things include calamities, they include destructions.

They are not purposeless incidents, but they are purposeful. God working things so that men will see how great he is.

You see, if we depend on the Lord, and the only good things we can have are from him since he is the only source that exists of all good things, if he has created this world, then to truly have happiness and enjoyment is to know

God. The more someone knows God, the more contentment, the more blessedness or happiness they have.

And so God, out of his goodness, shows mankind how wonderful he is by these great acts, even when they are acts of calamities.

But that other class of actions would be his great salvation that he has saved people.

Once again, in this context of Isaiah, the Assyrians are going to be wiped out and Jerusalem, the nation of Judah, is going to be saved.

Judah was a very small people, the whole land of Israel, a very small people. God said in Deuteronomy 7, 7, that he chose

Israel, not because they were the greatest of all nations, rather, they were the least of all the nations.

Why do you think he chose the least of all the nations? It was so that he could show his glory in bringing salvation to a small, small nation.

And the New Testament says the same thing about those who have had faith in Jesus Christ, those who have trusted in him, that God chose the weak things of the world, the shame, the strong, that he chose the foolish things of the world, the shame, the wise.

The reason why God has chosen the particular people he has is to show how wonderful his salvation is.

That's there in 1 Corinthians 117, excuse me, 127. You see, even the act of salvation, or sorry, even the mechanisms of salvation in the cross, how was this accomplished?

It was accomplished by God taking on flesh and the person of Jesus Christ, the incarnation, going very humbly to the cross to die.

This is not something that, according to man's wisdom, would provide salvation for people, but it was through that that death itself was defeated.

It was through this very lowly event, this very humbled man, that you see him exalted, saved from death, and then leading a whole people into eternal life.

God arranged things this way so that it would be shown how wonderful he is and to share that wonder with us.

Now, it continues on. It says he has made plans formed of old.

God has, in all eternity past, decided what would come to pass. Ephesians 111 says he has done everything by the counsel of his own will, that he has arranged everything by the counsel of his own will, not because of anyone else, but simply because of his own wisdom, he has determined what would come to pass.

This is prior to anything existing. It's before the foundation of the world. Now, this is the case most especially of the cross, because if you think of it, what plan do all other plans center around?

They center around God's plan for salvation. The reason that various events happen in human history, the reason the whole

Old Testament includes all the things that it has is because it is all moving forward toward the cross, and everything in the

New Testament that points back is pointing back to the cross. So not that you can measure things distinctly by time, outside of time and eternity, but if all the plans are dependent on one plan, it is they're dependent on the plan of salvation.

And so the oldest plan formed of old is the cross. This is the greatest thing that we have to praise

God for, what he has done in the cross of Jesus Christ. Now, the reason why it's important that these plans were formed of old is because they show

God's great wisdom and intentionality in what he is doing.

And the fact that he has delayed the revelation of that mystery, you know, like was being preached about this morning, a mystery is something hidden and then later revealed.

Why did God have a mystery? Why was there a delay? It was to show how wonderful his works are.

You know, if you have kids that grow up in a world where there's smartphones and all kinds of technology, they are not very amazed by these things.

We adults tend to be very amazed by these things because we did not grow up in a world where all of this existed.

The same is true when you think about what God has done in human history. Why did he delay so long before sending

Jesus Christ to provide salvation? It was so that man would not simply be accustomed to knowing that salvation, so that man would not take it for granted, but rather would recognize how wonderful it is.

That is why God has plans formed of old that he gave little hints into into the

Old Testament and then fully revealed in the New Testament. You know, one of the ways that you can grow in your praise of the

Lord is to study his actions in human history. You know, you can study what he has done in scripture and praise him for those things.

You can either even study what he has done in your own life and praise him for that. You can study what he has done in history, even outside of scripture, and praise him for those things as well.

I was talking to a brother yesterday who was saying that as an unbeliever, he hated reading books, never read books, but then, through what

God did in changing his heart, he learned to love to read about the Lord. It was very similar for me with history.

I like reading in general, but I've never really enjoyed history. I find it boring for several reasons, but once I began to realize how much history says about God's working and that these are not just events that happened, but they have

God's plan behind them and God's hand of providence behind them,

I began to appreciate what's going on in these much more. They became no longer just dates and accounts of events that occurred, but rather something intentionally and divinely orchestrated to show

God's glory, even events that aren't recorded in scripture. One day, as we are gathered in heaven, we will recount all the things that God has done, including just all the actions of the past couple millennia.

He goes on and says, these plans are faithful and sure.

God accomplishes all his purposes. Proverbs 19 .21 says that many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it's the purpose of the

Lord that will stand. God does not just make plans that are likely to succeed.

His plans always succeed, and not just because he's the best at making them and he is the most thoughtful and wise person who could do such things, but rather, he controls all the variables.

The variables are not something that could thwart his plan. He is sovereign over all things and decreeing all things.

He is accomplishing his purposes perfectly. And so his plans are faithful and they are sure.

Now, once again, which plan is greatest above all these? It is

God's plan of salvation in Jesus Christ. God has not told us everything of all that he will do, but he has revealed to us, most especially about his plan of salvation.

That is something that he has certainly accomplished in Jesus Christ. When Christ died on the cross and was raised again, death died that day for all who trust in him.

All who trust in him have eternal life. And if you trust in him, you can be 100 % sure that God's plan of salvation will pan out for you.

This is not something that's just a high certainty or a great likelihood, but it's something that is absolutely fixed, more fixed than anything else in the world, that the

God who exists intends to glorify himself by the salvation of his people in a way that they will most greatly appreciate how wonderful his actions are, how great he is, and that they will praise him as it is describing here.

Oh Lord, you are my God. I will exalt you. I will praise your name for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful, and sure.

Let's pray. Dearly Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you that you are a great and awesome God and you have provided a wonderful salvation in Jesus Christ.

And it is a privilege and it is a joy to praise you today. I ask today as we come and worship you, even with our prayers, that you would answer them and that you would give us all the more reasons to praise you, that as we see your works, as we see your answers to prayer, that we would see them with eyes of faith and be filled with joy, overflowing with praise.