The Joy of Redemption
Pastor Allan Kircher
Shell Point Baptist Church
4 November 2012
"Sing for joy, O heavens, for the Lord has done this; shout aloud, O earth beneath. Burst into song, you mountains, you forests and all your trees, for the Lord has redeemed Jacob, he displays his glory in Israel."—Isaiah 44:23
The fact is the world is one great piano
• and it is man that plays it
• when he is full of joy and gladness
• he puts his tiny fingers upon the keys
• He wakes the world to his majesty of joy
If his soul is gloomy, then he plays some pensive, dolorous requiem
• Then the world must keep pace with/other little world--his mind.
The prophet, in this chapter, had been studying the great redemption which God had brought for his people
• he was so happy and delighted with it
• so overjoyed, so charmed, so enraptured
• That he could not help saying, "Sing for joy, O heavens."
The angels were looking down on man w/eyes of sympathy.
• Looking down at us with sympathy.
• Saying to us, “Sing, sinners can be saved”
Rejoice repenting sinners can have their sins forgiven them!
• The angels in heaven are saying,
• Look, see the stars they are like the bright eyes of God
• They are looking down upon the poor world every night.
• Sing, O blue skies of profound height!
• Sing for joy O heavens!"
And the Lord must come down from those lofty heights and look upon the earth and say, “O earth, echo, echo with song.”
• The valleys and plains sing.
• The majestic mountains and hollow caverns sing for joy!
• Let us all sound/joy because Jehovah has redeemed man!
• In His mercy he has come down to us poor souls.
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Do you not see how the great poet and prophet, in a mighty fervency of delight, wakes the whole earth, and even heaven itself, to one mighty burst of song?
• And what is the subject of it?
• "The Lord has redeemed his people and glorified himself.
Oh, that I could stir in your hearts songs of joy for the redemption which God has brought for his people
For the glory which God has gotten to himself by this wonderful act of grace!
There are three redemptions/may well make all hearts rejoice:
• the first is, redemption by blood
• the second is, redemption by power
• And the third/completion/the two, redemption in perfection.
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I. The first is, REDEMPTION BY BLOOD.
You know the story. Man had sinned against his God, and God, the Just One, must punish sin.
• So it is agreed that a plan must be made.
• a plan devised by which justice is satisfied
• And mercy will have full reign.
What a day that was when eternal wisdom was revealed to man.
The plan in which the Son of God should suffer instead of us.
• Justice will now have its claims discharged in full.
• Mercy now enjoys its boundless, unlimited sway!
• Sing for joy, O heavens, for the Lord has done this
• What wisdom has devised so benevolent a scheme!
Rejoice, O earth, because of the marvellous, matchless understanding which framed so wise a plan!
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So it was necessary that someone should suffer instead of man.
• How else could man escape the wrath of God!
• Will the Eternal Son undertake to do this?
He is God; his glory is excessive; angels veil their faces as they adore Him.
Is it possible that he will ever become a man, to bleed, to be spit upon, to be scourged, to be crucified?
• Will He undertake to do it?
• Well, did He not say several times: Ps. 40:7, Heb 10:7.
“Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—I have come to do your will, O God.”
• There you have it!
Sing for joy, O heavens, shout aloud, O earth beneath.
• Let your hallelujahs rise!
• The Son of God has undertaken the redemption of men!
• That which was once only a scheme
• Has now become a covenant.
That which was only a plan in the divine mind is now a compact between the Father and the Son.
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Now that Christ has undertaken it, will he perform it?
Well, the years roll on, the world gets older/and darker, yet He has not come.
• But suddenly shepherds were keeping their flocks by night.
• They heard a sound up yonder!
• Then a multitude of heavenly hosts appeared singing,
“Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
• What in the world could this mean?
• It is Jesus, the Son of God!
• Coming to do what He undertook to do!
There he is, lying in a manger, wrapped in swaddling bandages, and God is born into the world.
• God has become flesh.
• Has come down to tabernacle among us.
• That we may behold His glory.
• The glory of the only begotten Son of the Father.
• And yet a man of the substance of his mother, like ourselves.
• Sing for joy O heavens, shout aloud.
Let the carols of that first Christmas night never cease.
• For that which was once only a scheme
• Then a covenant
• Has now commenced to be a work for us to see!
Sing for joy O heavens, shout aloud. He is here.
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He has come to do it, but will he ever fulfill it?
• Will he ever accomplish the stupendous obligation?
• 32 yrs roll over Him
• During which He is despised and rejected of men.
• A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
But will he ever achieve that last, that dreadful task?
• Will He ever be able to perform it?
• Will He bare His back to the world?
• And turn the other cheek to them?
• Will He be led like a sheep to the slaughter?
Can it ever be that the Lord of life and immortality will actually die the death of a criminal?
• To be buried in a borrowed tomb?
Brothers and sisters, not only will it be, but it has been.
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Recall to memory that eventful night when Judas betrayed him with a treacherous kiss
• When, in Gethsemane, he was covered with a bloody sweat,
• a sweat caused by your sins and mine.
• Do you not see him led away by those who have arrested him?
• Do you not see the Lord of glory mocked?
• Made an object of ridicule, the taunting of sarcasm
• And the butt of scorn?
The Son of Man covered with an old robe, the robe of some common soldier!
• His back laid bare to show you it was covered in another crimson.
• The crimson of His own most precious blood.
• Those blessed shoulders torn apart for that sin in your life.
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Do you truly see him staggering along beneath the weight of that heavy cross?
• Hurried and hounded through the streets of Jerusalem?
Can you hear Him as He tells those in the streets not to shed tears and weep for Him, but for themselves and their children?
• Can you not see him as they fling him on his back
• stretch out his hands and feet to the wood
• And then drive the cruel nails through their tenderest parts?
Can you not see him as they lift him high between earth and heaven dropping the cross into its place, dislocating all His bones, till He cries out,
“I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me”?
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Yes, he is accomplishing it all.
Jehovah's wrath is pouring over him, wave after wave, and he is meekly bowing his head to it all!
• Jehovah's sword is being driven into his heart
• and he is baring his breast to receive it
• for your sake and for mine!
Sinner, he does it altogether. He can do it. He is doing it, he has done it, for he bowed his head, saying, "It is finished!" and gave up the Holy Ghost.
That which was first a purpose, then a covenant, and then a work initiated, is now a work achieved.
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Jesus Christ has redeemed His people with his own most precious blood.
• But they took His mangled corpse down from the cross.
• They put it in the tomb.
• It remained a question whether he really had accomplished the work
• for if he had, God would set two seals to it:
• first, by his rising from the tomb
• And secondly, by his ascending into heaven.
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See then, believer. On the third day, the mighty Sleeper unwound his grave-clothes;
• An angel came from heaven, and rolled away the stone
• and in the glory of a life
• unshackled by the restrictions of vanity to which our poor human soul is made subject
• He rose from the dead.
And when he had shown himself to his disciples, and to others, for forty days
• he took them out to Olivet
• he communed with them and blessed them
• he went up into heaven
• And a cloud received him out of their sight.
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Can you not, in the devout exercise of imagination, track him past those clouds?
Do you not see heaven's heroes as they meet him and welcome him?
• Can you see His chariot waiting for him?
• Can you see Him as he mounts it
• they sing in advance of Him till they come to the crystal gates
• and then, from over the gates, the watchers cry
"Who is this King of glory?" while others shout as it is listed in Ps. 24:7, "Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in."
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Yes, in He rides, up to his Father's throne, and there He sits
• God over all, blessed forever
• The Lamb once slain, no more to die.
"Sing for joy, O heavens, shout aloud, O earth
• The work which was accomplished is accepted.
• The deed which was finished is stamped and recognized by heaven,
• now there is peace
• "Through the blood of the everlasting covenant."
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Ah! I know what would make some of you very happy.
• Should you come this morning to the cross
• look up and trust Christ to save you
• You would then have unspeakable joy.
• Never did a soul trust Christ in vain.
You would receive pardon, you would get peace, you would feel as if heaven did sing, and as if earth did rejoice.
You would say,
• "Here am I, a poor, guilty sinner
• having nothing to trust to of my own
• but I know my sins were laid on Christ,
• and if they were laid on Christ,
• they cannot be in two places at one time;
Consequently, they cannot be put on me when I trust in Jesus;
• they were put on his bleeding back, and they are gone,
• And there is not one left in the Book of God against me."
O dear hearer, if you believe in Christ, you are perfectly absolved.
There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
Let your soul, then, be happy.
This is the first redemption—redemption by blood.
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II. Let us strike another key, and celebrate the second theme that redemption unfolds,—REDEMPTION BY POWER.
The price was too precious to be paid for those who are not saved.
If Christ has paid his blood for a soul, he will have that soul.
• Neither will God's honor rob him of his purchase
• Nor will Christ be content to lose what he so dearly bought.
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This second redemption, which is conversion and regeneration, is equally a subject of holy joy; very briefly I will set it forth.
• What sort of people are those whom Christ saves?
• Why, some are the very worst of the worst.
• Some of them were best friends of the lost;
• Oh, they were lost themselves.
But when the grace of God met with them, it washed them, and made new men of them.
There is many a man who has been a Full Bird Colonel in the devil's service
• but the Lord has taken them,
• Taken them from a Full Bird to a Private and made them a valiant man for the truth.
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What a great offender of the Gospel was Allan Kircher before this Lord met him!
• What a blood-thirsty criminal was Saul of Tarsus!
• What a horrible life the thief led before he met with Christ on that day of crucifixion.
Now, when I think of these being saved, I feel as if I could shout, "Sing for joy, O heavens, for the Lord has done this; shout aloud, O earth beneath!"
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Some have said, "I never entered a place of worship for years; I cursed at the very thought of it
• the Sabbath I never regarded
• the very name of God himself I despised
• But eternal mercy met with me.
“Sing for joy, O heavens, shout aloud, O earth beneath! ___________________________________________
The greatest wonder to every one of you will be that God's mercy saved you!
• I can understand God saving any of you
• But I often cannot comprehend why he should save me.
• this will be the wonder of heaven to each one of us
• to find ourselves there
• and how will we say
“Sing for joy, O heavens, for the Lord has done this; shout aloud, O earth beneath!
• Once our poor guilty feet tread that golden pavement.
• Once being washed in the precious blood of Jesus
• We will be permitted to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob in the kingdom of heaven!
• The joy to think that such sinners should be saved!
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Doesn’t it enhance your joy to think these sinners were so miserable before they were saved?
• They were prejudiced against the gospel
• But God knew how to knock their prejudices over.
• They were blind, and would not see the beauties of it;
• But the Lord has a blessed way of opening blind eyes.
• Their hearts were as hard as granite
• But God knew how to use the hammer, and shiver the rock in pieces.
Some of those who seemed the most unlikely subjects of divine grace have been chosen by divine sovereignty, and have been made wonders of divine power.
• This alone should make us sing and rejoice
• The blind have been made to see
• The deaf been made to hear
• The dead been made to live.
• Sing of this wonder of mercy!
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And still further, think of what these souls are saved from.
But for grace, the very hottest hell would have been ours; but we are saved from it.
• We should of drank of the bitter cup of wrath forever.
• But now we will never drink of drop of it!
And then consider what the man of God is saved to.
• He is saved for heaven.
• His head will wear the crown.
• His hands will sweep the strings of harps of gold.
• Sing O heavens, and be joyful, O earth!
Saved from hell and lifted up to heaven
• let the bass notes of our songs go down to hell
• and make the devils grind their teeth with rage
• and let the alto notes go up to heaven
• And make even the angels glad as they see how sinners saved exult in Jesus' name.
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And see how some are saved in the teeth of ten thousand obstacles.
It seems as though they only escape by the skin of their teeth, as though all the devils in hell came after them, with their mouths open, like roaring lions, seeking to devour them.
• Yet the hand of divine grace has been upon them, and they have been saved.
• Aren’t some of you perfect miracles to yourselves?
• When you see what temptations you have had
• and how your hearts were
• aren’t you astonished that grace should have made you a Christian at all
• And kept you in the way of righteousness until now?
Oh! with the tears in our eyes, let us bless God that we are what we are;
• let our hearts be glad this morning
• remember the hole we have dug in the past
• the mire of clay we thought was irresistible
• Irresistible to the effectual grace of the Spirit of God.
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III. And now, lastly, what a song that will be as heaven and earth rejoice WHEN THE BELIEVER IS PERFECTLY REDEEMED!
• On earth we are still subject to temptation
• We still wrestle with hard inbred sins
• But when death comes, we will be perfect!
There will not be a rag of corruption, nothing of the old man.
Church, will you not make the heavens and the earth ring when you find yourselves made like Christ?
• You will find nothing that Adam gave you is left
• All that sin is gone
• And you are like the angels of God.
Surely there will be no voice in heaven more exulting, more joyous, than that of men delivered from strong passions and deep depravity, and made perfectly like the Lord Jesus.
And there we will be perfectly free from all the cares and troubles of this mortal life.
• No sweat to wipe from aching brows!
• No tossing upon beds of weariness!
• No nights of languishing!
• No question of "What shall I eat, and what shall I drink
• Or what will I wear
"The Lord God will wipe away all tears from their eyes."
• No more spiritual battles and conflicts.
• Death and hell will no longer annoy us
• No longer will the sinners bother us w/ungodly conversation.
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Brothers/sisters, does it not make you long to be gone, when you think of the perfection of redemption?
• The body will be redeemed.
• It will rise from the dead.
• This poor dishonored body will be made like Christ's glorious body
• and then body and soul will be together
• like twin angels, they’ll glorify God throughout eternity.
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Don’t you wish you had wings to fly away?
Well, it’s only for a few minutes that you are detained here.
• "Minutes!" you say.
• "Why, they are months and years!"
• Yes, but what are they?
• When once they are gone, they will be as a watch in the night.
• You will think of them as God thinks of them now,
• As a very small moment.
• Courage!
• Wait with patience, and you will make all eternity sing because the Lord has redeemed his people
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I fear there are some of you who will have no part in this matter!
If you would have this last redemption, begin with the first.
• Faith first!
Your faith will be the first proof that you are so redeemed, and will lead you on until you attain that perfection for which we groan
The joy of his salvation will swell into a mighty chorus, in which heaven and earth will ring out their loud-sounding music,
While our tongues will sing Immanuel's praise for ever and ever.
Amen.
