The Long-Expected Anointed One - Brandon Scalf

All right, everyone, grab your Bibles and turn with me to Isaiah 61. Isaiah 61, and we will be looking at what some theologians have called the last servant song.

Now, traditionally, it has not been included in what we would know as the servant songs, but it fits all of the criteria.

And so Isaiah 61, and we will be looking primarily at verses 1 through 3, and the title of today's message is

The Long Expected Anointed One. And so Isaiah chapter 61, and if you would please stand with me for the reading and honoring of God's holy infallible.

An all -sufficient word. This is the word of God.

The spirit of Lord Yahweh is upon me, because Yahweh has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to captives and freedom to prisoners, to proclaim the favorable year of Yahweh and the day of vengeance of our

God, to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a headdress instead of ashes, the oil of rejoicing instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting, so they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of Yahweh, that he may show forth his beautiful glory.

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Amen? Amen. Go ahead and have a seat and get your eyes back on verse 1.

And as you're finding your place there, I want to ask you a few questions. Questions that I no doubt already know the answer to, but questions that will help us as we venture through this text.

And those questions are these. Have you, any of you, ever experienced affliction?

Have any of you ever experienced being brokenhearted? Have any of you felt like a prisoner to your circumstance?

Or how many of you have actually been prisoners? How many of you mourn?

How many of you cry? And how many of you hurt? Well, of course, the answer to these questions is, yeah, me.

All of us. And if for some reason you're too young to understand what

I'm saying here, it's coming. It's coming.

Hurt, pain, trial, tribulation is coming. And I don't say that on the front end so that we can all sit around and lament, but rather so that we can understand what actually is going on in the advent of Jesus Christ the righteous.

What's true now was true then, and what's true then is true now. And every generation, mankind, has groaned under the weight of tyranny as it pertains to governments, but more than that.

And really, this is actually the point, and we will see this as we look at Jesus interpreting it about himself in Luke chapter 2, or Luke chapter 4, rather.

That mankind has always groaned under the weight of sin, suffering, and sorrow, and that they have always yearned for deliverance.

And so in the words of the apostle Peter, think it not strange when these things come upon you.

Sorrow, afflictions, and these sorts of things, these are things that are woven in to the human experience because God has ordained it to be such, but also because we brought it.

Genesis chapter 3, which we've discussed in weeks past, humankind ushered in the fall of mankind, bringing with it sin, death, and sorrow, and afflictions, hardship.

And so from Eden's curse to Israel's exile, from Genesis to the new covenant, in many ways, the cry of the human heart has always been and still is, how long,

O Lord? How long, O Lord? How long is it going to take you to get here?

How long is it going to take you to make all things new? How long,

O Lord? But the beautiful reality is that the prophets, and specifically here, the prophet

Isaiah pointed to a day when an anointed one would come and declare liberty to captives, to the afflicted, and binding up the brokenhearted.

There was a promise coming of a new dawn. And here's why this is important.

Because if you don't actually feel, and this is one of the reasons that the Bible tells us that we're not to fill ourselves with strong drink and we're not to be inebriated by different things, right?

Because we need to feel the hardship of this life.

And why do we need to feel this hardship of this life instead of numb it? Because without that, without the feeling that hardship, you can't feel the goodness and graciousness and wonder -working power of Jesus Christ, the righteous.

And so let's look at Isaiah chapter 61 here, and let's see here what's going on.

And, of course, this is a prophecy, but it's not a vague prophecy. In many ways, it is, as we will see in Luke chapter 4, a trumpet blast heralding that this anointed one, the

Messiah, has come, the one prophesied from Genesis chapter 3, all the way through the rest of the

Old Testament and finding its culmination in Luke chapter 4, where Jesus unrolls the scroll and reads these very words and then declares in a way only

Jesus can, right? Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

And as he went on, the crowd was not happy about this. He wasn't who they expected, he wasn't who they wanted, and they literally, this same hour, tried to kill him, throw him off a cliff, it says.

So Jesus' message is not always met with smiles, although it is something that ought to produce joy in every

Christian who takes it seriously. This also teaches us that Christ is not a mere prophet, but he is the fulfillment of prophecy.

He's the author of prophecy. And he is the long -expected anointed one.

And so the first thing that I want you to see as we look at our text is the

Messiah's sovereign anointing. The Messiah's sovereign anointing, an anointing that ought to cause, as I just said, joy in us that goes down, down, down into our hearts.

So much so that commenting on this specific verse, Martin Lloyd -Jones was talking about the joy that this should produce in Christians.

And he says this, as we face, speaking of Christians, the modern world with all its trouble and turmoil and with all its difficulties and sadness, nothing is more important than that we, who call ourselves

Christian and who claim the name of Christ, should be representing our faith in such a way before others as to give them the impression that here is the solution and here is the answer.

In a world where everything has gone so sadly astray, we should be standing out as men and women apart, people characterized by a fundamental joy and certainty in spite of conditions, in spite of adversity.

And Martin Lloyd -Jones was not just saying this as someone removed from reality. Martin Lloyd -Jones saw suffering in many ways that deepen his understanding of suffering in ways we can't imagine.

He was a medical doctor before he became a pastor and he saw people getting sick. He saw them die.

He saw them die at young ages without modern medicine. More than that, there was a war going on, right, during his pastorate.

And it was so bad that bombs were literally going off as he would preach at times.

And he stood his ground. He stood behind his pulpit. He understood suffering.

And he understood that Christians do not get to be stuck in anything else other than joy.

Why? Because the Anointed One has come. The Anointed One has come.

And so in chapter 60, we have seen here in Isaiah up to this point a promise that all things are going to be made new and that he is going to certainly, certainly do what he has promised to do by nature of his covenant.

And here in 61, he's talking about the person of the covenant, the one who is going to solidify and make good on all of God's promises.

And so in verse 1, it says, the spirit of Lord Yahweh is upon me because Yahweh has anointed me.

The thing that you need to understand as we look at this text first and foremostly is that Jesus, and this is

Jesus, right? And we know that if you turn with me to Luke chapter 4.

And Luke chapter 4, as we look at verse 16, Jesus, right after coming out of the wilderness and starting his public ministry, it says, and he came to Nazareth when he had been brought up and as was his custom.

He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him and he opened the scroll and found the place where it was written.

Verse 18, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed and to proclaim the favorable year of the

Lord. And verse 20, and he closed the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.

And he began to say to them, today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

And so when Jesus saw this scripture, he believed it to be speaking about him.

And of course, John the Baptist believed the exact same thing. And Jesus in the gospels actually sends this same message to John while he is in prison.

I'm fulfilling the scripture, although he left something important out, but we will get to that momentarily.

But the thing that you need to know about this Messiah, this Jesus Christ, the anointed one, is that he was sovereignly and supernaturally empowered to do his work.

It says here, like I said, the spirit of the Lord Yahweh is upon me, he says, because Yahweh has anointed me.

So here you have the spirit of, and literally in the Hebrew, the sovereign

Lord or the sovereign Yahweh. He is the sovereign one.

And his spirit is upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And this spirit is not merely symbolic in nature.

This is not just something that we're supposed to sit back and say, oh, that's cute. No, it was the very spirit of God.

It is the power of God that was resting upon the Lord Jesus. One of the hand grenades, as it were, that you can throw into any theological discussion is this.

Did Jesus accomplish his miracles as the anointed one empowered by the

Holy Spirit, or did Jesus perform his miracles as God? Which one was it?

Well, we don't have time to get into the totality of that, but as the anointed one empowered by the

Spirit, that's the answer. If he could just tap into his divinity at any moment, he would cease being human.

And so it says here, the spirit of the Lord Yahweh is upon me. So the miracles of Jesus, from the healing of the sick to the raising of the dead, they're speaking about what it looks like when

Jesus, the anointed one empowered by the Spirit, leans into the mess. And, of course, it speaks of his divine enablement.

He was empowered by the Spirit. We see this in Acts chapter 10, verse 38, when it says, You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how

God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

If you read Mark's gospel over and over, you will see, and then he went, and then he went. So he's got all of this.

It happened very quickly. And it would often say, And he went by the power of the Spirit. Jesus was always going in the power of the

Spirit, which is why it's so mind -blowing. If you lean into this reality, if you understand this reality, what it's saying in Ephesians chapter 1, which we've been walking through as a church, the book of Ephesians, that that same

Spirit that empowered his ministry and that ultimately raised him from the dead is the same Spirit that now lives and works in you.

Now, of course, you have to be careful here because charismatics will run with this doctrine, and they will try to say, Well, yeah, that's what we're saying.

We have the same Spirit. We can be Jesus. We can be like Jesus. No, no, no, you cannot. He was the Messiah. He was the anointed one.

He was God in the flesh, hypostatic union, fully

God, fully man, or as R .C. Sproul would have our necks if we didn't say, truly man and truly

God. He was all God all the time, and he was all human all the time.

Well, Pastor, how does that work? If I knew that, I'd be God. That's where we fall down and we worship, amen?

But he had to be made just like his brothers in every respect. Hebrews chapter 2.

He needed to share in their flesh and blood. And in that flesh and blood reality, he was empowered by the

Spirit, by the sovereign Lord Yahweh. This same

Yahweh who got the people, his people out of Egypt in the

Exodus. He's the God who saves his people and avenges himself on his enemies. It is the

Spirit of God, the sovereign savior judge, which rested on the anointed one so that he could work the works of God.

This is an element of Jesus we do not often think about, but we need to.

We need to because we need to understand how God's Spirit works. But more than that, we need to understand that this is also how he can die in our place for all our sins, like not trusting the

Lord, not walking by the Spirit as we ought to, as Galatians tells us to do.

And not only was it done by a sovereign God, it was given to him, this Messiahship, by God.

It was sovereignly bestowed. If you just look with me here, it says, because Yahweh has anointed me.

This Hebrew word for anointed is the word mashiach or mashach, depending on which

Hebrew scholar you listen to. And it really denotes a divine selection.

And it's where we get the word, if it's unclear, Messiah. When we talk about the

Messiah in the New Testament, it's just transliterating this word here in many, many ways.

There was this great figure whom was going to come and put right what went wrong in Israel.

But what Israel didn't understand is that it was actually what was going wrong in the whole world. And it was deeper.

It was deeper than they thought it was. This Messiah then is not self -appointed.

He is not simply standing up and saying, I will take this on my shoulders.

He is, as the servant songs have shown us, if we read the book of Isaiah, God's chosen servant, sovereignly equipped for his mission.

The idea here is when someone is empowered by the

Spirit and that they are actually anointed. In the Old Testament, this actually not only means that they're assigned a task, but they're given the ability to do it.

They're given the ability to do it. And he did, right? And we know this is true because of Matthew 3, verse 16, where God affirms his identity as the one set apart by God.

In Matthew 3, verse 16, it says, And after being baptized, speaking of Jesus, Jesus came up immediately from the water.

And behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him.

And he says, Well done. He doesn't say well done. He says,

My son, whom I am well pleased. He's well pleased. Why?

Because he is the anointed one. Not only that, but it was scripturally fulfilled, so it was sovereignly enacted, but it was scripturally fulfilled.

When Christ proclaimed this passage in the synagogue, which we just read in Luke chapter 4, he declared its fulfillment.

So it wasn't just an abstract hope. It was there for them to taste, to see, right?

It was unmistakable who this Messiah is. And he's the

Savior Messiah. Children, I want to help you understand here.

Jesus has been prophesied many, many, many years before he even showed up.

And it was written in a book. And that book is something that God's people over time memorized and they loved.

And when life got really, really hard for them, really hard, they would meditate on those verses.

They would think about them. They had them stored in their hearts so that they could be hopeful. And then one day

Jesus came and he said, I'm here. That thing you were hoping for in all of those bad and hard times,

I'm here to set it right. I'm here to set it right. It's like, have you ever seen a movie where there's a king and he has like the wax and they put the stamp on there to close the letter?

That's called a seal. This is kind of like that.

Imagine a seal royal decree being opened after many, many centuries revealing that the king maybe chose someone to be his second in command after him.

Well, the Bible's teaching us here that Christ is that royal decree sent and sealed by God himself.

And the Bible is proof of that. It's wild.

Let me ask you this, Heritage. Do you acknowledge Christ as this spirit empowered anointed one who has been given not only a mission to save the lost and to heal the brokenhearted, but who as Psalm 2 would say, is set up as his king over absolutely everything?

You have to, you have to. His anointing confirms his authority to rule our lives and we are to bow to him as such.

So that's why at Christmas and Advent, we're celebrating the coming of a king, a savior king to be sure, but a king nonetheless.

The second thing that I want you to see as we're moving through this text is the Messiah's spirit -filled preaching.

The Messiah's spirit -filled preaching. Jesus came not just to die on a cross, but to preach the gospel.

It has been said by many people before me, but I'll echo the sentiment because it's true.

God had one son and he made him a preacher because God loves to preach to his people.

And Jesus Christ came to preach. Look with me here. It says to bring good news to the afflicted.

To bring good news to the afflicted and then a little bit later on to proclaim release to the captives and freedom to the prisoners.

To proclaim, verse 2, the favorable year of Yahweh. So here we've got these words that we need to take seriously.

Bring. Okay. Proclaim. Okay. All of these mean that he was a preacher.

He came to preach, to proclaim good news, good tidings. It could also be translated, and it is in some

English Bibles. Now to take this word and to essentially compare it to say what 2

Timothy, which we've been going through in the evenings, means would be somewhat irresponsible of us because this is written in a different language at a different time and they didn't have church the way that the

New Testament had set up church. And so what is this word here and why does it matter?

Well, the same word is used in Exodus chapter 15. This idea of bringing good news or proclaiming release to captives.

This bringing good news. It's modeled in Miriam, the heraldess.

After the crossing of the Red Sea, the Israel obviously narrowly escaped death by the working and mighty power of God as the sea split open for them and the

Egyptians were drowned that were chasing after them. And it was after this that a song was sung and this

Miriam, this heraldess of a victory, heralded a victory that had already been accomplished, rushing to assemble a welcoming party to meet the shepherd and his flock.

Not in Exodus, but in 1 Samuel 18 .6 that is also used to speak of the same thing.

And what happened is a high mountain was chosen so that all would hear and the herald should speak in ways where he was not afraid.

He would or she would do this thing so as not to enable anyone to entertain, nor should they entertain, any doubt of the truth of the things that were being praised or preached or proclaimed in light of what had happened.

For instance, let me read for you verses 20 and 21 of Exodus 15. It says in Miriam, the prophetess,

Aaron's sister took the tambourine in her hand and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing and Miriam answered to them, sing to Yahweh for he is highly exalted.

The horse and his rider, he has hurled them into the sea.

That's the picture. That's the picture. So Jesus came to proclaim and to preach something that had already been accomplished.

Of course, we know it was accomplished in eternity past. The lamb was slain before the foundations of the world.

But Jesus, in Luke chapter four, says this has been fulfilled.

Notice he does not say, I will be fulfilling this. He says it has been fulfilled.

It's done. It's been done, right? I'm here to preach. I'm here to proclaim good news to the afflicted.

I'm here to bind up the brokenhearted. I'm here to proclaim release to the captives.

I'm here to free the prisoners and proclaim the favorable year of Yahweh.

I'm here to comfort those who mourn.

It's beautiful. It's wonderful. In Exodus chapter 15, it goes on and it shows us what that looks like to believe such things.

Now what Jesus is doing here is he's even borrowing language as we get to verse two where he says to proclaim the favorable year of Yahweh to something the

Israelites would have known as the Jubilee. The Jubilee in the Old Testament, God was already hinting at what

Jesus would ultimately come to do. In Leviticus chapter 25, specifically verses eight through 55, which

I won't read in its entirety, God establishes an institution, as I said, called the year of Jubilee.

And basically what happened is every 50th year, Israel was to take the whole year off. Who would like that?

Many of you, I would bet. They would take the whole year off, cancel all debts.

They would return to its original owners, all family property that had been sold and generally be kind and generous to everyone.

You can remember some of this happening when we studied the book of Ruth. And then they were to, as Leviticus 25 .10

says, proclaim liberty throughout the land. That was everyone's job for literally the entirety of a year.

It foreshadowed this very liberation that Christ speaks of here, and we know that because of Galatians 5, verse one.

Here, Isaiah is making it very clear to the people of Israel who had found themselves in quite troublesome times that the

Messiah brings that liberation to its fullest realization through the gospel.

The cross, it cancels our debts. God says we're free to leave the past behind and move on because of what he has done.

There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans chapter eight, you can see how this is pointing to that reality and its true view.

Now, at this juncture, it is true that we need to pay attention to the original context.

And in the original context, it says that these people, the Israelites, lived in quote -unquote ruined city, devastated for generations.

We can see that in verse four. As we continue on, they are disgraced by the mocking nations in verse seven.

They are plundered by robbery and injustice in verse eight. And if you're an

Israelite or if you're just a careful reader, you should come to this passage and go, it seems very difficult to imagine how some verbally proclaimed message could achieve such triumphant release and lavish enrichment.

But that's what God does. Because he is sovereign, because he uses the spirit to empower, this anointed one who stood in our stead, he's just announcing that it's been done.

And so we have to look at this with New Testament eyes. We have to look at this as if it's speaking about Jesus because it is and Jesus tells us that.

And so we can't live in the Old Testament. We have to look at this passage as Christians. That's one of the problems with some of the hermeneutical principles that some teach where we just stop at the grammatical historical and we eject the redemptive historical.

I agree, we should do grammatical historical interpretation. And if you don't know what that is, please join us in Shepard's Institute on Mondays.

But I'll say this, if we stop there, then we stop thinking like Christians. We need to see how

Jesus fulfills, redeems, how this looks like him, how it smells like him, how it tastes like him because everything from beginning to end is about Jesus.

And can we mess that up? Oh yeah, well, certainly we can because we're fallible, but Jesus can't.

And Jesus tells us this is about him. And so as we look at these things, broken hearted, poor in spirit, captives, yes, they have significance for the people of Israel.

They were broken hearted. They were poor in spirit or they were poor rather, both in reality and in spirit.

And they were at times captives. And there is a real sense in which

God was promising them that those things would come to an end. But it was to a much bigger and deeper reality.

So let's look at this, broken hearted. The Hebrew word for broken hearted pictures shattering pieces.

See, the reality is when we come to grips with our sin, which is really what we're being liberated from, and that's what confounded, confused the people of Israel.

They thought a king was coming to set up a kingdom and to rule. Now, he did do that and he is doing that, right?

But that was not why he came and died. He wasn't there. There are literally people who believe in a large number that Jesus came to set up his kingdom in Israel and failed, was killed, and had to abandon mission.

No. He came to free us from the captivity of sin.

He came to do away with our alienation problem, not from the rest of the world, but from God himself.

You see, sin is a far greater enemy to you than anyone. Sin is a far greater to you than any nation.

Sin is far greater danger to you than any political figure.

That's something hard to wrap your mind around. But here's the deal. If you have seen your sin, it breaks your heart that you could do such a thing to a

God that has loved you so much, and then also that it was your sin that held

Jesus to the cross. Actually, it was God's sovereign hand, but the reason for it was your sin, that it hurt others, and that you are so fallen, even having been redeemed, and so the gospel gathers the fragments and pieces of our lives, our broken hearts, and it restores them.

And he proclaims hope to those crushed by sin and sorrow, offering healing that no human remedy can provide.

You see, another king could have come along, and they could have set up a kingdom, and they could have, to some degree, set up a kingdom where there was some sort of justice pouring down.

There's been times in history where there have been good governments, quote, unquote. Now, you got to take me, don't take that too far, right?

But only Jesus can do away with the brokenheartedness that comes from sin.

Only Jesus can do away with the poorness that is of spirit, and only Jesus can free those who are captive to sin.

And that's what the book of Romans says, right? We are slaves of sin. The poor here are not just materially destitute, but spiritually bankrupt.

Christ offers the riches of salvation to those who recognize their need for his grace.

The proud receive nothing, but the humble inherit the very kingdom that he came to set up, which is a spiritual kingdom.

It has physical elements, to be sure, but it is, first and foremost, spiritual. This kind of motif and this understanding of things helps us to understand the

Beatitudes. Jesus says in Matthew chapter five, verse three, if you remember, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus here is taking everything and flipping it on its head. There's a radical transformation happening once this gospel is proclaimed.

And then, of course, once it has been inaugurated, moving on to captivity.

Captivity is the cruelest metaphor that the Bible uses for sin in many ways. And the anointed one shatters the chains of spiritual bondage, and he declares freedom when he says this in John chapter eight, verse 36.

So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. When Jesus comes to free, it's not one that falters.

There's no recaptivating. You become, instead of a slave of unrighteousness, as Paul says in Romans, you become a slave of righteousness.

You become God's slave, which is why our translation of the Bible uses doulos over and over and over again, which means slave as opposed to servant.

I want you to think about it this way, children. Would you look at me here for a second? Have you ever seen a movie or thought about or seen a book where people are in jail?

And have you ever seen where they're walking around and they got this big set of keys, the guys who run the jail?

The keys are rattling. And what's crazy is if you think about it, if someone was in that prison cell and they were hearing that, they would just be hoping, man,

I hope that key, I hope that key is coming from my cell. I hope they're coming to let me free.

Well, that's what happened when Jesus Christ came on the scene. Jesus pulled open the cell door that we were all in.

He liberated us, and He unlocks the prison of sin and leads us into true freedom, not just freedom from oppression underneath a

Roman governor or anything like that, but true freedom, freedom from sin and freedom to worship the

Lord and to heal the brokenhearted, to get rid of our pain, although it won't be fully done away with now.

But Revelation promises us that He will wipe every tear from our eye. He makes us truly free.

Let me ask you today, are you brokenhearted? Do you feel like a captive because of sin, even if it's other people's sin?

Do you feel spiritually impoverished? Do you feel enslaved by your sin?

If so, hear the words of the anointed one. Hear them.

He's got good news. And we know it's the gospel because He tells us in Luke 4, remember?

It's the gospel. The gospel is new. The gospel is that which

He is proclaiming. And He does so, and this is my third point, by eternally delivering

His people. So point number three is the Messiah's eternal deliverance. So not only does

He proclaim, but He really delivers. He really delivers.

He proclaims release of the captive, verse one still at the end here, and freedom to the prisoners, to proclaim the favorable year of Yahweh and the day of vengeance of our

God, to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion. It says here

He binds up the wounded. That means He is a healer. He tenderly binds the wounds of those ravaged by sin.

He gets in the mess. We see this in Psalm 147 .3. He is the one who heals the brokenhearted and who binds up their wounds.

Not only that, but He breaks the chains of bondage. He doesn't just sympathize with captives, but He breaks their very chains.

Romans 6, 6 and 7, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him in order that our body of sin might be done away with so that we would no longer be slaves to sin, for He who has died has been justified from sin.

And not only that, but He comforts, He comforts, He comforts all those who mourn to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a headdress instead of ashes.

Verse three, the oil of rejoicing instead of mourning.

And then He goes on, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So these are the realities that He's done away with and these are the emotions that He's going to deal with.

He's going to wipe tears. He's going to help those who mourn and He's going to, and this is the big idea of these last two stanzas,

He's going to literally reverse that very thing that exists. The ashes of despair are replaced with joy.

He exchanges as the Messiah sorrow for celebration, filling hearts of His people with complete and utter gladness.

We see that in Psalm chapter 30, verse 11, when it says, you have turned for me my mourning into dancing.

You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness. Here's the truth, friends.

The season of Advent reminds us that we are to, no matter how dark the world gets, to trust that Jesus is better, that what

He has come to do is better and that He is turning all things for our good. Roman chapter 8, verse 28.

And that He is and has the capacity and He will, as the sovereign Lord, do away with our sorrow, with our mourning, with our grieving.

The oil of gladness that is spoken about here is the oil of rejoicing.

And verse 3 is a fragrant, soothing balm in ancient

Israel. And as you've heard me say over and over, when Christ came, when

Christ came, He poured out His Spirit, replacing despair with the joy of salvation and the balm just literally gets itself into every single ailment.

So it's a sweet thing, an aromatic thing. To us it brings joy, but as the

Apostle Paul has said elsewhere, it's the fragrance of death to those who hate and to this despairing.

What's interesting here is it says the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. And not only that, but we see that it goes on and talks about how not only are they given this mantle of praise, instead of being weak, that they've actually been called oaks of righteousness.

Oaks of righteousness. Now, one of the things I want to address before moving on is this. The reality is that if you look at Luke chapter 4 and you look at what

Jesus sent to John the Baptist and saying he was fulfillment, he left off a very important point.

Maybe you should have noticed this when we read Luke chapter 4. But one of the things, the main thing that he left off is this piece that we overlooked on purpose, which is in verse 2, to proclaim the favorable year of Yahweh and the day of vengeance of our

God. What this teaches us is that Christ most certainly fulfills all prophecies, but he doesn't necessarily fulfill them all at the same time.

And so Jesus, in saying what he said, revealed to us that very truth.

At his first coming, he inaugurated the year of the Lord's favor. He brought grace with him.

He brought mercy with him. He brought a wrath -absorbing death.

And at his second coming, when he has promised to return, on that day he will bring in the day of vengeance of our

God, which is often called the day of the Lord in the Old Testament. And what you need to know about that is it is at that time when the door of grace will be shut forever.

So here's the good news of everything that we've been talking about as we've walked through the Advent series and everything that we've talked about today.

Christ can be yours and he can heal your brokenheartedness. He can free you from the captivity of your own sin.

And he can do all of this, and he has done all of this, for those who would bow their knee to him, love him, and cherish him, and grab hold of him by the instrument of faith.

And that open hand, that extension, is available to everyone in this room.

All you need do is throw down your man -made crown and trust in this Lord. To trust in this beautiful Savior, this anointed one, the

Messiah, the one who has come to put all things right which went wrong by our doing.

Grace upon grace upon grace, but there is coming a day, and it says it here, Jesus says it in the

New Testament, it is true that there will come a day when that hand of mercy, that extension of grace, will be pulled back.

And on that day, it will be too late to change your mind.

And you will still bow to this King Jesus. You will still worship this Jesus because you will clearly see this

Jesus for who he is because the Bible says that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord. And you can either do that now and see Jesus for who he is, or you will be made to do it as he presses you to the dust and shows you his glory and shows you his beauty and shows you his

Lordship. He came as a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and he exists as the

God -man Jesus Christ atop a throne where he is ruling and reigning as enemies are being put under his feet.

This is not anyone to trifle with. This anointed one will come and he will bring

God's vengeance with him and for pastors not to say that is dangerous.

And Jesus reading, he stops. As I said, why?

Because he knew he was there at that time not to deliver judgment, that would come later, but to save sinners.

John chapter 3 verse 17 Jesus says, for God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world but that the world might be saved through him.

Jesus knew that was his task. He was, however, also aware that a coming day would come when he would execute judgment because it was given to him by the

Father. In other words, what Isaiah sees as a double -faceted ministry, the

Lord Jesus apportions respectively to his first and second comings, the work of the servant and of the anointed conqueror.

In John chapter 5 verse 22, Jesus says, for not even the

Father judges anyone but he has given all judgment to the Son so that all will honor the

Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the

Father who sent him. Truly, truly I say to you he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment but has passed out of death into life.

Truly, truly I say to you an hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the

Son of God and those who hear will live for just as the Father has a life in himself even so he gave to the

Son also to have a life in himself and he gave him authority to execute judgment because he is the

Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, Jesus says, for an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear my voice and will come forth.

Those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life and those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment be not fooled.

Christ will judge but now he holds open. He holds open this invitation to life.

And in last, in closing the last thing that I want you to see which is my fifth point, Yahweh's perfect planting.

Yahweh's perfect planting. Look with me at the end of verse three. At the end of verse three it says so they, a type of purpose clause, will be called oaks of righteousness the planting of Yahweh that he may show forth his beautiful glory.

Lest you thought this was about you, Isaiah reminds us that it's really about God.

It's really about God's glory and how beautiful he is. And it's his doing not only through Jesus but through his people whom he has delivered and he delivers them wonderfully, beautifully and perfectly.

This is why in Philippians chapter two Paul says or chapter one rather, verse twenty -six he says he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on, bring it to completion on the day of Christ.

Perfect it until the day of Christ. That's what it was. Brain's not working today.

Bear with me. He says that why? Because who Jesus begins a good work in, who he comforts he will continue to perfect and comfort.

You see what I'm saying? But here it's beautiful. He uses this imagery of oaks and like mighty oaks the redeemed these people who he's speaking about freeing, they're deeply rooted in God's grace and their lives will bear the fruit of righteousness.

So though they were captives of sin now in Christ they will be doing righteous deeds.

That's why it says they will be called oaks of righteousness and in Psalm one three it talks about the man who rests in God's grace and says he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither and whatever he does he prospers.

He makes them righteous by covering them in the blood of Jesus and he does so the planting of Yahweh it's what

Yahweh does he's the one who plants he's the one who makes righteous he's the one who grabs hold of people and gives them to the son to the anointed one, to the

Messiah the planting is God's work as it says here for his glory that he might, another purpose clause, show forth his beautiful glory.

The gospel is not about you, the advent is not about you, it includes you, it is very important right?

It includes you, but it's for God and it's for his glory and that's beautiful, that's good because if it's about God then you're thrust into a thing that you are always meant to do, namely worship namely worship which is essentially what this is about this is what it is saying we are made as Ephesians 2 says trophies of God's grace made to be righteous and also testifying to his salvation.

In Ephesians chapter 2 10 it says for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which

God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them, good works, righteousness in other words. And this enables us and begs us and thrusts us into praise and that is the ultimate purpose of redemption redemption.

Do you believe that? Do you believe that this morning? Do you believe that you were saved not just so that you wouldn't go to hell but that you would worship

God? That you would sing of the praise of his glorious grace? That you would be thrust into something much bigger than yourself?

It is glorious that the Lord comforts those who mourn and sets free those who are captive to sin, but more than that it speaks of the beautiful glory of Yahweh and what he has done in the planting of oaks of righteousness right?

That's why I get so bent out of shape when people start throwing bombs at say

Calvinism for example and the perseverance of the saints and all of this sort of stuff. God cannot and will not fail and not only that but it's beautiful and it's his glory it has nothing to do with us and he does what he does in such a way not as to boost your own self esteem but to uphold and to promote

God's Godness and his beauty and his glory and it's only there where we find our true rest as Augustine said in him not in ourselves not even in our salvation but in him as we worship him through the realization that we have been saved that we have been freed that we have been comforted and in that we then are comforted so this is a whole loop de loop in a way right?

This is the truth of the matter as you worship God for the salvation that he has given you you then are comforted as you mourn you are then bound up in your broken heart because the balm of the gospel is applied to it and you think and you praise

God that he has set you free as captives and this is why Jesus came this is what advent is about and this is why the entire

Psalter ends with Psalm 150 it could have ended with anything it could have ended with absolutely anything and I do mean that because you've got five books in the book of Psalms and not all of them are in chronological order in fact some were written by Moses some believe

Ezra some believe Daniel that's a weird one but it's out there but it ends with this praise

Yah praise God in his sanctuary praise him in his mighty expanse praise him for his mighty deeds praise him according to the abundance of his greatness praise him with trumpet blast praise him with harp and lyre praise him with tambourine and dancin praise him with stringed instruments and pipe praise him with resounding cymbals praise him with clashing cymbals let everything that has breath praise

Yah is that what you're after at Advent are you after presents at Christmas time anticipating that or are you after thinking about how you've been saved and how awesome you were for taking

God up on his offer or are you interested in praising

Yah because Yahweh planted and he's made oaks of righteousness and he is covering us with the balm of the gospel and he is helping us even now and so as we look at this passage it's important that we remember it as a portrait of Christ the one who heals the broken hearted frees the captives comforts mourners and transforms sinners into oaks of righteousness and it ought to cause us to worship

Christ and see Christ as the fulfillment of every promise and rejoice in his salvation and if you don't know