Latest / Reformed Thinking / Beauty for Ashes (Isaiah 61:3) | Charles Spurgeon

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Beauty for Ashes (Isaiah 61:3) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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Picture a weary soldier, but just on this long, grueling
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March through mud and blinding rain.
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Oh man, yeah. His boots feel like they are
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well made of lead. His rations ran out like 3 days.
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Ago, right, Total depletion. Exactly because morale is
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completely shattered. Or I mean, think of a tired
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harvest worker swinging a heavy scythe under this blistering,
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unrelenting sun. It's.
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A brutal heat. Yeah, muscle fibers are tearing,
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lungs are burning, and the worker is, you know, collapsing
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from the sheer physical toll of the labor.
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That absolute bone deep exhaustion is the precise
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condition of the audience Charles Spurgeon targeted on a
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cold January morning in 1871. It really is.
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Welcome to Reformed thinking. I'm so glad you're joining us
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today we're taking a massive deep dive into a single striking
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sermon by Spurgeon titled beauty for ashes, based entirely on
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Isaiah chapter 61, verse 3. It's.
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Such a fantastic text. It really is.
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We're going to unpack this line by line, looking at how the
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gospel offers genuine comfort that is both decreed by a
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sovereign God and, you know, practically physically felt in
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the darkest moments of human experience.
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And that physical exhaustion you just described, it's the perfect
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gateway into the spiritual reality we are analyzing today,
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right? Spurgeon is speaking to a world,
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and specifically to a church, that is just exhausted by bad
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news, internal failure, and the relentless weight of their own
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total inadequacy. Yeah, that heaviness is
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everywhere. So the goal for this deep dive
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is to breakdown Spurgeon's mechanical analysis of spiritual
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grief and divine comfort. He is not offering, you know,
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empty platitudes. Here he is laying out a
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theological framework for how God takes spiritually bankrupt
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individuals and applies A sovereign decreed consolation to
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their souls. Right, so we are looking at the
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anatomy of holy grief, the specific attributes of the
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Savior who provides the remedy, and the undeniable result of
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that divine exchange. Exactly.
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So before we jump into the text of Isaiah itself, really have to
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look at the motivation behind the sermon.
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Like why did Spurgeon believe his congregation needed this
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specific message at that specific time?
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Right. Context is everything.
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It is. He opens with this incredibly
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vivid military analogy. He talks about silver trumpets
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sounding to stimulate weary soldiers on the March.
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Oh yeah, the. Trumpets.
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He points out that many a weary soldier has tramped on with new
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vigor when the military band strikes up a lively tune.
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When I read that, I immediately thought of the modern equivalent
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of walkout music for a sports team.
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Oh, that is a great comparison. Right, like a team might be
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facing an opponent that completely outclasses them.
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They were feeling immense pressure in the locker.
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Room just totally psyched out. Yeah, but then the lights go
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down, the base drops, the crowd erupts, and suddenly those
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athletes are flooded with adrenaline.
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They get that surge. Exactly.
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Or think about a marathon runner hitting the dreaded wall at mile
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20. Their legs are giving out and
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they're ready to quit. Every runner knows that wall.
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Then suddenly they hear a specific song through their
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headphones. Or, you know, a loved one shouts
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their name from the sidelines and they get this miraculous
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second wind. Right, an external boost.
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Yeah, that auditory signal literally changes their physical
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capacity. That is what Spurgeon says this
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biblical promise is meant to do for the believer.
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It is a brilliant analogy really, and it forces us to
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confront Spurgeon's view of the Christian life.
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Which is pretty intense honestly.
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Highly intense, he absolutely refuses to view the Christian
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walk as like a leisurely stroll through a manicured garden.
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He describes it as heavy toil and eminent service.
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Heavy toil. Yeah, the Christian life
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involves intense, exhausting, daily conflict against it's the
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world, the flesh and the devil. It's a battleground.
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Right. To illustrate this desperate
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need for heady refreshment, Spurgeon pulls 2 very aggressive
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biblical examples. First, he points to Melchizedek
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giving bread and wine to Abraham.
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Oh yeah, the bread and wine. Right, but he notes that this
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did not happen on some fine holiday when Abraham was just
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musing in the plains of Mamre. This happened immediately after
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the slaughter of the kings. Wait.
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Right after the battle. Literally right after Abraham
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had just fought A brutal, harrowing battle to rescue his
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nephew Lot, he was bloodied, exhausted, and likely facing the
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psychological crash that follows intense combat.
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Wow, that adrenaline dub is real.
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Exactly in that moment of extreme depletion, God sends
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Melchizedek with physical and spiritual nourishment.
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That makes so much sense. And the second example is
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Elijah. Elijah had just faced down the
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prophets of Dale in a massive spiritual victory, but the
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moment Jezebel threatens his life, his nerves completely.
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Fail just runs. He runs into the wilderness,
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sits under a broom tree and asks God to take his life.
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I mean his tank is completely empty.
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He's totally burned out. Totally.
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In response, God sends an Angel to bake him bread on hot stones
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because a 40 day trek was before him.
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Spurgeon uses these historical narratives to prove that God's
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comfort is rationed out specifically for those who are
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physically and spiritually decimated by the demands of
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obedience. Decimated by obedience.
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That context clarifies his target demographic immensely.
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He specifically says these precious promises are for,
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quote, poverty stricken Saints and the heavy of heart.
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Right the heavy of heart. But let's pause there for a
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second. He is preaching to a massive
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congregation at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London.
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Many of those people were middle class or working class
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tradesmen. Yeah, they weren't all
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financially destitute, right? So why target the poverty
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stricken? He's clearly driving at
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something much deeper than their financial ledgers.
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He is diagnosing a specific spiritual condition.
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Oh, absolutely. So why is recognizing this
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specific type of poverty an absolute prerequisite for
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hearing the Silver Trumpet blast of the Gospel?
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Well, this cuts right to the absolute core of the reformed
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understanding of the human condition.
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The core baseline, yeah. Spiritual poverty is the
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recognition of 1's total inability to save, sustain, or
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improve oneself for a holy God. Total inability.
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Right. It is the terrifying realization
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that your spiritual bank account is completely overdrawn.
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You have absolutely no assets, no good works, and no internal
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righteousness to offer God in exchange for His favor.
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You are bankrupt. Utterly bankrupt, Spurgeon leans
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into this reality by courting a rather shocking verse from
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Proverb. Oh, the one about strong drink.
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Yes, where Solomon says to give strong drink to him who is
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perishing, and whine to those in bitter distress.
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Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their
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misery no more. That is such a gritty, real
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world proverb. It really is, and Spurgeon takes
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that proverb and applies it straight to the soul.
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He calls the promises of Christ the strong drink of divine
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consolation. I love that phrase.
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It's so good when a believer is crushed by the weight of their
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own spiritual poverty, realizing they cannot produce a single
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ounce of righteousness on their own.
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God does not hand them a list of rules to.
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Right, like here's how you earn your way back to neutral.
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Exactly. He doesn't do that.
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He hands them the strong, overwhelming draft of divine
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grace. It is designed to make them
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forget their own miserable lack of merit and rest entirely in
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the abundant, overflowing provision of Christ.
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So knowing that we desperately need this spiritual refreshment,
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the immediate next question is, you know, who has the authority
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to actually provide it? Right, who brings the drink?
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Yeah, Spurgeon outlines the multifaceted nature of the
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Savior, starting with Christ the preacher.
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The imagery he uses here is beautiful, he says.
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Christ's speech drops like the rain and distills as the dew.
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As the dew that is so specific. It is.
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He is very careful to clarify that this is gentle.
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It is not a hail shower. Think about the difference
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between those two weather patterns.
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Huge difference. A hail shower flattens the
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crops, breaks the branches and causes immense destruction, but
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the dew settles quietly in the early hours of the morning,
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seeping into the soil, bringing life and moisture without
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violence. I love that contrast.
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And Spurgeon lists specific examples of this gentle
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preaching ministry to the widow of name, drying her eyes as
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Christ raises her son Jairus, ceasing to mourn for his
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daughter Magdalen, weeping no more when she recognizes the
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resurrected Lord. All highly personal
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interactions, right? These are moments of intense,
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localized comfort applied by the spoken word of Jesus.
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And the contrast he draws with the hail shower is highly
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theological. He is contrasting the crushing
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weight of the Law with the gentle dew of the gospel.
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Right, the law versus the Gospel.
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Think about it. The law was given at Mount Sinai
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with Thunder, lightning, smoke, and a trumpet blast so
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terrifying that the Israelites begged Moses to make God stop
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speaking. They.
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Were completely terrified. The law acts like that hail
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shower. It batters a person down,
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exposing every single flaw, demanding a perfection that no
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fallen human being can ever achieve.
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It just shatters the pride and the Sinner.
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Exactly. But when Christ speaks the
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Gospel, he does not speak with the terrifying, impossible
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demands of Sinai. He speaks as the fulfillment of
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those. Demands.
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Well, it's good. His words drop like dew because
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they offer total rest to the person who has been battered by
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the hailstorm of the law's requirements.
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Because he already took the hail.
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Precisely. Christ, having fulfilled the law
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perfectly approaches the broken hearted with absolute
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gentleness, applying the merits of His own righteousness to
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their battered souls. That gentleness is amazing, but
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it transitions into something much more intense when Spurgeon
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describes the second title, Christ the Physician.
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This part gets real. This is where the imagery gets
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incredibly graphic. Spurgeon uses this vivid phrase
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horrible gashes which laid bare of the bone.
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Horrible gashes. Yeah, he says, some hearts want
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more than words. They need surgical intervention.
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When I read that phrase, I immediately thought of modern
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trauma surgery. Oh, absolutely.
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If someone is brought into an emergency room with a severed
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femoral artery after a terrible car crash, you do not put a
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small adhesive bandage over it and tell them to think positive
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thoughts. That would be total malpractice.
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Right. The world tries to treat the
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fatal wound of human thin with a superficial bandage of moralism,
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self help, or, you know, distraction.
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Which is nothing. Exactly.
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But Christ, the Great Physician, steps into the trauma Bay.
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He sees the horrible gashes that lay bare the bone and he
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actually performs the radical bloody surgery required to heal
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the fatal wound. That trauma surgery analogy
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captures the theological weights Spurgeon is conveying perfectly.
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He connects this healing directly to the Old Testament
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title Jehovah Rophi, which translates to the Lord that
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healeth us. The great Physician.
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Right. In the Reformed tradition, sin
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is not viewed as like a minor behavior, five year old quirk,
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or a slight stumble on an otherwise good path.
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Yeah, it was not as great. Sin is viewed as a fatal
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disease. It is a total corruption that
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infects the entirety of human nature, the mind, the will, the
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affection. The whole system is poisoned.
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Exactly. If a person believes their sin
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is just a minor scrape, they will look for a minor physician.
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They will look for a life coach. Wow.
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Yeah, a life coach. But when the Holy Spirit
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convicts a person of their sin, they see those horrible gashes
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in their own soul. They realize they're bleeding
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out spiritually. It's an emergency.
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In that moment of absolute desperation, Christ arrives as
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the only competent physician, and the method of his healing is
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astonishing. He heals by taking the sickness
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upon Himself. By his stripes we are healed.
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Espersion points out the Great Physician cures the patient by
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absorbing the fatal disease into his own body on the cross,
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satisfying the wrath of God and imputing his perfect health to
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the center. That definitive substitutionary
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healing leads directly into the third title Spurgeon examines,
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which is Christ the Liberator. The Liberator.
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He brings up the concept of the Year of Jubilee and we really
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need to sit with this for a minute because it is staggering.
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Let me set up the terrifying reality of ancient bankruptcy
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for you. It was incredibly bleak.
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Very bleak in the ancient Near East.
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If you fell into debt, you could not just file a legal document
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to reorganize your assets and wipe your slate clean.
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No Chapter 11 back then. No, the consequences were
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brutal. First you have to sell your
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ancestral land. If that did not cover the debt,
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you would sell your house. Just losing everything.
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And if that still was not enough, you would have to sell
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yourself and potentially your children into slavery to pay off
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what you owed. It was a downward spiral of
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total despair and generational bondage.
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Just. Completely trapped.
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But every 50th year on the Day of Atonement, a Clarion blast
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would sound across the entire country.
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Suddenly, all debts were completely cancelled.
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Slaves were instantly freed. Lost land was immediately
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returned. It was a sudden total freedom
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announced by that silver trumpet.
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Spurgeon applies this ancient legal reset to Christ, opening
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the prison doors for the Sinner. Mapping the year of Jubilee onto
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the work of Christ provides A stunning picture of objective
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redemption. We really have to look closely
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at the mechanics of the Jubilee here.
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Let's do it. The slave did not earn his
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freedom by working harder in the 49th year.
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He did not negotiate a better interest rate with his master.
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No, I had nothing to do do with his performance.
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His freedom was entirely unearned, objective, and
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complete. It was based entirely on a
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decree from God that was announced by the trumpet blast.
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That is massive. In the exact same way, the
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liberation Christ provides from the bondage of sin is not a
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cooperative effort where we work off our debt over time.
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Right, because we can't. The debt of sin against an
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infinitely holy God is infinitely too high to ever pay
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off. Christ pays the debt in full on
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the cross, and His resurrection is the Clarion blast announcing
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that the jubilee has arrived for the bankrupt Sinner.
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The Jubilee has arrived. The freedom is absolute.
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The chains of sin and the terrifying demands of divine
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justice are completely broken. You are no longer a slave to
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your own corrupt nature. You are the Lord's Freeman.
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OK, so since Christ is the absolute provider of this
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immense comfort, we have to identify the patients who
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actually receive it. Who qualifies as a mourner in
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Zion? Right.
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Who are the mourners? Spurgeon devises Holy Grief into
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several categories, and the first one creates a massive
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paradox that I really want to push back.
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On Oh, Let's Hear it. He talks about mourning over
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past sin, but here is the tension.
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Spurgeon explicitly states that the believers sins are
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completely forgiven, blotted out, and covered entirely by the
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blood of Christ. Completely covered.
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The Jubilee trumpet has sounded. A slave is free.
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Yet he says believers still maintain a sweet bitterness and
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mourn over those forgiven sins. Continually have challenged
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this. I get that.
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If the dead is wiped clean, why is the freed slave still weeping
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over the old Ledger? If justification is a reality,
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shouldn't the Christian stop grieving over the past?
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It feels contradictory to say you are totally forgiven but
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still mourning. It does sound contradictory on
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the surface, for sure, but the resolution lies in the massive
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relational shift that occurs in salvation.
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Relational shift. Yeah, true grace changes the
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fundamental reason why a person grieves before a person is
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justified. They mourn over their sin
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because they fear the punishment of a righteous judge.
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They're just scared of the consequences.
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Exactly. They are like a condemned
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prisoner weeping in a cell because they are terrified of
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the executioner. But once a person is justified,
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the punishment is removed entirely.
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A. Penalty is gone.
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Christ bore the wrath. The execution is cancelled.
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The judge has adopted the criminal and become a loving
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father. Therefore, the ongoing morning
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Spurgeon describes is not the terror of a condemned criminal.
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It is the affectionate sorrow of a child who realizes they have
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wronged A deeply loving father. That is a total paradigm shift.
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It is the more you comprehend the sheer magnitude of the grace
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that forgave you, the more horrifying your past rebellion
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appears. You look at the cross, you see
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what your specific sin cost the Son of God, and a holy, sweet
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bitterness fills your heart. A sweet bitterness.
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You mourn not because you're going to hell, but precisely
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because you've been saved from it at such an infinite,
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agonizing cost to your savior. It is a grief born of intense
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love, not terror. That distinction changes
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everything. It is the difference between
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selfish fear and genuine love. And that relational dynamic
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naturally bleeds into his second category, which is mourning over
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present imperfections. This is a crucial 1.
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This is where Spurgeon brings up what I think is his most
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brilliant analogy in the entire sermon.
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He compares the satisfied, morally unbothered person to a
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barn door fowl, a chicken scratching in the dirt.
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Picking around. Yeah, the fowl is perfectly
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content finding barley by the barn.
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It thinks it has reached peak flight when it hops onto its
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little roosting place because it knows absolutely nothing of the
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clouds or the high atmosphere. It has zero perspective.
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None. Then he contrasts that with the
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eagle, the royal bird that knows where the thunders dwell and
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sails above the storm. The eagle, the chicken, is
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completely satisfied. The eagle is constantly
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tormented by the desire to mount higher.
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Spurgeon is saying that the person who is satisfied with
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their own moral performance is just a barn door fowl who has no
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concept of true holiness. That fowl and eagle analogy
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perfectly encapsulates the doctrine of progressive
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sanctification. It really does.
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There is a very common, very dangerous misconception in
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modern religion that as a Christian matures, they will
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feel increasingly perfect and satisfied with their behavior.
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Right, like you just level up and stop sinning.
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They assume the longer they walk with God, the less they will
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feel the weight of their own sin.
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But the reality is the precise opposite.
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The opposite. The closer a person gets to the
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blazing, absolute holiness of God, the more acutely aware they
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become of their own lingering corruption.
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Oh, that makes sense. Think of it like this.
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A speck of dust is invisible in a dark room, but it is glaringly
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obvious in a shaft of bright sunlight.
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Wow, yes. As the believer draws nearer to
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the light of Christ, they begin to see the selfish motives, the
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pride, and the coldness of heart that they previously ignored in
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the dark. They see the dust.
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So the desire to cry higher, higher, higher, as Spurgeon puts
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it, is not a sign of spiritual failure.
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It is the definitive evidence of spiritual life.
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The pain of recognizing your own present imperfections proves
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that God has given you the nature of the eagle rather than
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the fowl. I love that the pain is the
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proof of life, and that desire for heights translates into a
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deep sorrow over broken communion and a lack of
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usefulness. Right.
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The outward grief. Spurgeon mentions a native of
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sunny Italy mourning the loss of bright blue skies when he is
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forced to dwell in a cloudy, dismal land.
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Just longing for home. He applies that to a believer
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who is missing close fellowship with God.
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If a cloud passes between them and the son of God's love, they
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are distressed. They cannot just go about their
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businesses if nothing is wrong. It bothers them.
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Furthermore, they mourn because they want to be useful.
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They desire to be a pillar of fire to guide others in the
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dark. They groan over the fields of
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their own ministry that yield thorns and thistles instead of a
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hundredfold harvest. They want to bear fruit.
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They do. They look at the lost world
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around them and it breaks their hearts.
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That outward looking grief reflects the very heart of
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Christ weeping over the city of Jerusalem.
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Weeping over the city. When a believer's heart is
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aligned with God's heart, they begin to mourn over the things
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that grieve God. They see the destruction of sin
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in their communities and their families and in the Church, and
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they cannot remain apathetic. They can't just ignore.
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It they feel the weight of a world and active rebellion
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against its Creator, a firm belief in the absolute
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sovereignty of God does not produce a cold, fatalistic
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apathy toward the lost. Right.
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Some people think it does. Quite the opposite, because the
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believer knows the terrifying reality of God's justice and the
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glorious reality of His grace. Their heart breaks for those who
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are alienated. From him it drives them to
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action. This holy grief over a lack of
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fruitfulness and this desperate pleading for the souls of others
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is the very mechanism God uses to drive his people to their
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knees. Independent prayer.
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God ordains the grief to produce the prayer that He intends to
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answer. That is a phenomenal transition.
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Having identified the deep, agonizing grief of these
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mourners, we arrive at the turning point of the sermon.
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The turning point. How does God practically
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intervene in this intense sorrow?
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He orchestrates a divine exchange.
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A literal exchange. Let's zero in on the specific
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verbs virgin highlights from the text of Isaiah to a point and to
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give he's incredibly particular about these words.
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Very particular. He says that it is the
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prerogative of King Jesus, both to a point and to give.
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God does not just randomly scatter comfort into the
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universe and hope someone catches it.
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He appoints it. Those two words form the
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absolute bedrock of the Reformed doctrine of Providence.
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The bedrock. The word appoint means that the
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comfort is sovereignly decreed from before the foundation of
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the world. It is an unalterable allotment.
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Unalterable. Spurgeon uses the analogy of
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Joseph in Egypt, allotting specific portions of food to his
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brothers at the feast. Joseph knew what each brother
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needed and he decreed their exact portion.
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He measured it out. In the same way, God sovereignly
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portions out the amount of grief A believer must endure, and he
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simultaneously appoints the precise corresponding comfort
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that will meet them in that grief.
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So the grief isn't random. This means your suffering is
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never random, it is not an accident, and your consolation
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is never left to chance. That is incredibly comforting.
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If God has appointed a specific comfort for a specific mourner,
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no circumstance, no demon, and no human failure can steal it
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away. It is secured by a divine
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decree. Secured.
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And then, as Spurgeon notes, he adds the word give to make the
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appointment an experiential reality.
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The Holy Spirit actively confers the appointed comfort directly
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to the soul at the exact moment it is required to keep them from
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fainting. Let's.
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Look at the actual elements of this divine exchange.
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The 1st is Beauty for Ashes. Such a famous phrase.
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It is, Spurgeon notes, a Hebrew word play in the original text
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of Isaiah, a shifting of letters that makes the phrase poetic and
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beautiful, but he takes it further into the physical realm.
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The physical. Realm.
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Yeah. In the ancient E, mourners would
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literally dump cold Gray ashes over their heads as a grim tiara
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of sorrow. It ruined their appearance.
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It is very visible. Spurgeon asserts that finding
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peace in Christ literally changes a person's physical
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countenance. He says he has seen it with his
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own eyes. Juan emaciated faces filling up
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again, dull and cloudy, eyes suddenly sparkling.
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The eyes sparkle. He argues that the beauty of the
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mind, the spiritual luster, is far superior to any surface
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comeliness. It is a brilliant observation on
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how internal spiritual realities inevitably bleed out into
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physical, tangible expressions. You just leak out.
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I will try to explain this plainly, avoiding any heavy
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academic jargon. We are not just floating spirits
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trapped in meat suits. Our bodies and our souls are
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intricately wired together. When a person is crushed under
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the terrifying weight of their own sin and the wrath of God, it
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takes a massive physical the stress, the despair, the
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sleepless nights. It ruins the face.
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The body breaks down under the weight of guilt.
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But when the Holy Spirit applies the objective truth of
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justification to that specific person, when they realize that
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Christ has absorbed the wrath and clothed them in perfect
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righteousness, the relief is staggering.
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The burden is lifted. The nervous system settles.
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The crushing anxiety evaporates. That internal objective peace
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radiates outward. It changes everything.
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The ashes of despair are blown away and the physical phase
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reflects the absolute security of a soul that is at peace with
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its Creator. You can literally see the grace
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of God on a person's face. That visible change is amplified
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in the next two exchanges, the oil of joy for mourning and the
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garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
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The garment of praise. Let's focus on that garment.
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I compare putting on this garment to wearing your favorite
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team's jersey loudly and proudly the day after they win a massive
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championship. Oh, that's good.
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You do not wear it under a jacket.
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You do not hide it. You wear it so everyone in the
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office, everyone on the street knows who you belong to and what
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just happened. You want people to see it?
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It is external and visible, but Spurgeon takes it even further
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than a sports jersey. He talks about royal garments.
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He says that when God gives this garment, the believer becomes an
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unending chorister, singing day and night.
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Yes, the jersey analogy captures the visibility, but we have to
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elevate it to capture the theological weights Spurgeon is
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aiming for. That external garment is paired
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with the oil of joy. Spurgeon connects this oil to
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the ancient unction poured on Aaron's head, which ran down his
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beard and all the way to the skirts of his garments.
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Oh, from Psalm 133. In biblical typology, that
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anointing oil is a direct picture of the Holy Spirit.
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The same Holy Spirit that rested upon Christ the head now flows
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down to cover every single member of His body, the church.
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So the joy we are discussing is not a manufactured psychological
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optimism. You cannot hype yourself into
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this kind of joy. You can't fake it.
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It is the direct result of the third Person of the Trinity
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taking up residence in the believer.
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The Holy Spirit takes the things of Christ, reveals them to the
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morning soul, and produces an unquenchable joy.
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Unquenchable. And just like a brightly colored
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royal robe, that spirit wrought praise cannot be hidden.
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It fundamentally alters the way the believer interacts with the
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world, turning their heaviness into a visible, undeniable
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testimony of grace. So what is the final goal of
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this massive transfer of grace? Does God comfort us just so we
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feel better, or is there a grander design?
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A much grander design. This brings us to the final
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section of our analysis. Analysis.
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The ultimate result. The text says that they might be
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called Trees of Righteousness. Trees of righteousness.
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Spurgeon creates a sharp contrast here.
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He compares these newly planted oaks of righteousness with what
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he calls wild crab trees. Wild crab trees.
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He issues a severe warning against being a grumbling
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professor of religion. He says that if an outside
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observer looks at a chronically unhappy, complaining Christian,
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they will say God save us from such Christianity.
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That is a harsh critique. It is.
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Let's analyze this Why is a lack of joy such a massive issue for
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Spurgeon? Why does he view complaining as
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a threat to the gospel? Spurgeon is identifying a
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massive apologetic failure here. Apologetic failure.
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Think about what a complaining Christian is communicating to
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the world. If a person claims that they
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have been rescued from eternal damnation, adopted into the
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family of the sovereign King of the universe, and promised an
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eternal inheritance that cannot fade.
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Yet they live their daily lives murmuring, complaining, and
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grumbling about every minor inconvenience.
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Their life actively contradicts their theology.
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It doesn't add. Up A sour, bitter disposition in
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a Christian tells the watching world that God is a harsh
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taskmaster and that the gospel is insufficient to provide true
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satisfaction. It is false advertising.
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It is false advertising, but an oak of righteousness stands firm
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in the storms. When a believer is stripped of
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their health, their wealth or their comfort, and they still
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maintain a deep, unshaken joy in the sovereignty of God, it stuns
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the secular mind. It confuses them.
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True joy in the Crucible of affliction is the most
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compelling, undeniable advertisement for the truth of
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the Gospel. It proves to a watching world
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that the believer's treasure is not of this world.
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It points straight to heaven. Spurgeon points to a classic
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literary moment. To illustrate this explosive
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joy, he cites John Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress.
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Oh, such a great book. He describes the moment when the
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character Christian, who has been agonizing under this
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massive, crushing burden of guilt, strapped to his back for
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the entire narrative, finally arrives at the foot of the
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cross, finally gets there. Just past the cross is an open
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sepulchre. As Christian looks the one
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hanging on the tree, the bands that bind his burden suddenly
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crack. They snap.
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The heavy load rolls off his back, tumbles down the hill and
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disappears into the sepulchre. What is Christian's reaction?
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He does not just nod respectfully and walk away.
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He goes wild. He gives 3 great leaps for joy
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and bursts into song. It is a visceral whole body
28:38
reaction to sudden objective liberation.
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And that reaction ties the entire text and the entire
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theology of the sermon together with the final defining phrase
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of Isaiah 61, verse 3, the planting of the Lord, that he
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might be glorified. That he might be.
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Glorified. Why does God orchestrate all of
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this? Why does He take a spiritually
28:57
bankrupt, heavily burdened Sinner, allow them to mourn over
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their fatal gashes, send the Great Physician to heal them,
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apply the oil of joy, and dress them in a garment of praise?
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Why do all that? He does it so that when anyone
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looks at that towering oak of righteousness, they will be
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absolutely forced to confess. This is the finger of God.
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Wow. This is the doctrine of Solida
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Gloria. Glory to God alone.
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If the Christian contributed to their own salvation, if they did
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10% of the work and God did 90, they could share the glory they.
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Can take some credit. But because they were totally
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depraved ashes, and God supplied all the beauty, all the oil, and
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all the garments by his sovereign grace alone, it points
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entirely away from human merit. The grand design of salvation is
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the display of God's spectacular glory against the dark backdrop
29:45
of human inability. God save sinners to display His
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own brilliance. We've covered massive ground
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today. We really have.
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We started by looking at the weary soldier and the exhausted
29:54
harvester, desperately needing the silver trumpet blast of
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divine comfort. Needing that strong drink?
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We saw how Christ alone functions as the preacher, the
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physician, and the Liberator arriving to apply the radical
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surgery required for the fatal wound of sin.
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The. Jubilee Trumpet.
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We analyzed the anatomy of holy grief, how the believer mourns
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not as a condemned criminal, but as an adopted child, acutely
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aware of their own imperfections compared to the blinding
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holiness of God. The eagle wanting to fly higher.
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We saw how God sovereignly appoints the grief in the exact
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dosage of comfort, trading ashes for beauty so that the believer
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becomes a visible, joyful oak of righteousness, displaying the
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glory of the Creator to a watching world.
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All for His glory. As we close, I want to speak
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directly to you, the listener. Take an honest inventory of your
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own mind today. What kind of morning currently
30:48
occupies your thoughts? That's a great question.
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Is it a worldly sorrow, grieving over lost status, bruised pride,
30:54
or thwarted ambitions? Or is it a holy grief?
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Are you mourning over your own spiritual bankruptcy in a way
31:00
that drives you directly into the trauma Bay of the Great
31:02
Physician? And I will leave you with this
31:05
final thought to Mull over long after this deep dive is
31:08
finished. Think about the specific,
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exhausting grief you are desperately trying to escape
31:14
right now. The trial that feels like it is
31:16
breaking you in half. It can be so heavy.
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What if that specific sorrow is not an accident of the universe?
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What if it is the exact sovereignly appointed soil
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required for God to grow you into an oak of righteousness?
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Wow. What if the ashes you are
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sitting in today are the raw materials God is using to forge
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a strength in you, so that a decade from now your branches
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will provide desperately needed shade for someone else who is
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collapsing under the heat of their own trial?
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Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into historical
31:45
truth. Keep wrestling with the text,
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keep asking the hard questions, and we will see you next time on
31:50
reformed thinking.