The sermon, 'Your Sun Shall No Longer Go Down', delivered by Scott Brown, explores the themes of Isaiah 60, emphasizing the transformative power of God's light through Jesus Christ. The speaker elaborates on the metaphor of light, representing divine guidance, salvation, and the progressive healing of humanity from the fall's effects. The sermon discusses the New Covenant's superiority over the Old Covenant, highlighting better provisions, leadership, and societal norms within the church. Brown underscores the concept of 'everlasting light', a central theme in Isaiah, illustrating how Jesus Christ's light is unfailing and surpasses temporal light sources. Through this divine light, believers experience a profound change, transitioning from mourning to joy and establishing a righteous community. The sermon also delves into the imagery of harmonious living among diverse creatures in Isaiah 11, suggesting a metaphor for transformed human relationships. Ultimately, the message calls for believers to rise and shine, letting their light reflect God's glory in the world.

Sisaia 60, starting at verse 16. You shall drink the milk of the Gentiles and milk of the breast of kings. You shall know that I the Lord am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. Instead of bronze, I will bring gold. Instead of iron, I will bring silver.

Instead of wood, bronze. Instead of stones, iron. I will also make your officers peace in your magistrates righteousness. Violence shall no longer be heard in your land, Neither wasting nor destruction within your borders, but you shall call your walls salvation in your gates praise The Sun shall no longer be your light by day nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you But the Lord will be to you an everlasting light and your God your glory. Your sun shall no longer go down nor shall your moon withdraw itself for a Lord will be your everlasting light and the days of your mourning shall be ended.

Also your people shall all be righteous. They shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand and a small one a strong nation. I, the Lord, will hasten it in its time. Let's pray.

Thank you for today Heavenly Father. Thank you that we could be here to worship you together. Thanks for Scott. I pray you bless the preaching. I pray it would make a difference in our lives for your glory.

Amen. It really is a great joy to be able to speak of Isaiah 60 and to say again, as we've said so many times, what a wonderful thing it is to have the light of the Lord Jesus Christ and to meditate on the various blessings of that light and this morning as I've just been considering this passage and all of us gathering together before it you know my great prayer my my great hope is that just reading these words and taking them into our hearts would so give us a greater hunger to trust in the Lord with all of our heart and to lean not on our own understanding but in all of our ways to look to Him, to look to His light, to have His light shining in us, through us as the greatest thing in all of our lives, together as a church and Our hearts individually as we're secretly before the Lord and in our families as well. Well the central message of Isaiah chapter 60 is the power and the beauty of the works of the Son of God, who is the light of the world. And the chapter begins with these words, arise, shine, for your light has come.

And in that phrase, you find really the heart of everything that is said in the entire chapter. And as we noted last week, in that phrase, there are two things that you observe. One is a command to arise and shine, and also to acknowledge a reality that your light has come, that a light has come, that what will you do with that light? That's sort of the whole thing. But even more than that, the chapter discloses what the light has done for you.

And that's really the overwhelming focus of it. What has the light done for you? At the same time, as you see what the light has done, you arise and you shine. You let your works be seen because, you know, this is what the Lord Jesus Christ said his disciples would do is that they would let their light shine before men. That men might see their good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

So all of this is wrapped up in this message of the light. Now in this chapter we've already seen various manifestations of the light of Jesus Christ and now beginning in verse 16 the prophet just continues to describe the many blessings of light upon the church And he actually gives the reason for it all why is he doing this? And you you find this in in verse 16 at the end of it That you that you may know that I the Lord am your Savior and your Redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob." All these manifestations of God's light in the world are designed to help you to know something about your world, to transform your whole worldview. When you see these things, it would change your whole understanding of the world and your life. You would know that God is Savior and Redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob.

And so each verse in this great chapter brings us another demonstration of God's preferential love toward his people and how he is glorifying himself. And what really is the final purpose of it all? Everlasting light and that God may be glorified. You have in your outline an itemization of all these various things, where we have been and where we will be going. I think that John Calvin has probably explained how to understand these verses, which can be difficult to understand in terms of, hey, when is this happening?

He says, these words did not contain a promise of exemption from every annoyance and distress, but by comparison, they held out this solace of future evils that God spares his church, and consequently the church shall be safe under his protection. And during the very course of the deliverance, there was exhibited a striking proof of this peace, which the prophet extols. Finally, we must always keep in remembrance that we have so often, what we have so often said, that it is not only, that it is only in part that all these things are experienced by us, for the kingdom of Christ has not yet been completed. And here we learn about the progressive trajectory of the blessings of God in the world from the old covenant to the new covenant. There is a tree that came from a mustard seed that continues to grow and it's expanding and that's what we see here.

You see here a city that's transformed by the very best things. My understanding of this passage is that it's a disclosure of the way that God is unraveling, he's unraveling the effects of the fall by degrees. He's correcting the tragedies that have come into our lives as a result of the fall and there's so many tragedies and there's so much need for healing for all of us. We all sit here today as a people in such need of healing. There's so much to heal from, from the results of the fall and the ways that we've thought wrongly and lived wrongly and we've been affected wrongly even by our culture and even our own families.

There's so much to heal from. And what is the primary source of the healing? The light of Jesus Christ and the light of Jesus Christ alone. And so this is a picture of the church before God being exposed to things of the light. And there are various manifestations of it.

You know, right off the bat here in our passage, there's milk, you know, there's better food, there's better materials for everyday life. You have gold rather than these inferior materials. You have better leaders, You have better laws, everything is better in the new covenant. And this is really just a manifestation of what we read in Hebrews chapter 8 verse 6, where the author says, but now he has obtained a more excellent ministry inasmuch as he is also a mediator of a better covenant which was established on better promises. This is all about the better the better ways of the new covenant.

Everything gets better. And you know, as we read through this together here in the next few minutes, I just want you to be asking yourself, how are things better? What better things has the Lord given you than what you had as a worldly? What better laws do you have to live by now that you did not have before? What better ways of handling your trials and your fears and your disappointments in this life.

Do you have any better ways now? Has Jesus Christ shined His light into your trials and your troubles and given you a better way through those trials and troubles? Has He given you better ways to love, better ways to work, better ways to think, better ways to see the world? And that's what light does. It exposes things for what they really are.

And the light of Jesus Christ comes in and you have you have better promises a better covenant a better way of handling everything in your life and This is the message that is here. We We have a better covenant with better promises. And so we've already seen these various manifestations of how much better things are by the light of Jesus Christ. In the first two verses in this chapter, we see that the light is shining in the darkness. In verses three through eight, you see that this city is filled with light and Gentiles are streaming to the light And kings are coming to the light, you know, in the same way that insects gather around a light globe in the summertime.

Sons and daughters are coming with their fathers and mothers in verse 4. And in verse 5, the people are radiant. They're glad. There's more rejoicing than ever. The heart is swelling with joy.

And the wealth of the Gentiles starts coming in from the sea in verse 5. And in verse 6, you know, he takes you off of the sea and takes you to the land, and now these camels are coming and bringing all these treasures. And they're coming from the most surprising places in the world, like Muslim countries. And then new converts are bringing their treasures in verses 9 through 13, and they're laden with silver and gold, and the foreigners are building up the walls of the church somehow. It's a picture of foreigners and gentiles and whirllings, people who have been without God and without hope in the world and they come to Jesus Christ and everything changes and now their hearts rejoice and they bring their treasure into the treasuries of the Church of Jesus Christ.

That's us, that's who we are. We are the Gentiles who have come into the Church and we brought our treasures here. We're actually going to take an offering and we're going to give our treasures so that that work would expand across the world again today. Even in verses 14 and 15 you find that the former persecutors will bow down and give thanks to the church and the people have been harsh they're now humbled. They're no longer raging against the church.

How many of you used to rage against the church? How many of you used to persecute the church? And you said some of the most damaging things against the people of God and the Word of God and you spoke of how stupid it all was. Well this is a picture of your heart changed. No one is too hard that God can't reach in and change it.

So anyway, that's what we've seen so far now and when we get to verse 16 the remaining verses in chapter 60 more is explained and you have an outline in front of you that begins with verse 16 where where I've titled verse 16 you know better care from the Gentiles and from kings. It says, you shall drink the milk of the Gentiles and milk the breast of kings. You shall know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob. Here you have the Gentiles and you have kings, kings that have breasts. That is absolutely a metaphorical thing for sure it's not literal you can't take it literally but it's the whole idea of blessing and abundance of milk you know milk if you read what how the Bible deals with milk it's it's a picture of abundance and cream and fat.

It's a picture of blessing in the Bible. And it's mentioned often with honey. You have the land of milk and honey. And it's figuratively, you know, related to abundance. When you get to the New Testament, it's related to, you know, fundamental spiritual nourishment for the believer, that there is the milk of the Word and there is the meat, there is the milk and the meat.

The milk is the thing, it's the fundamental most basic thing that you need is milk. And it is a blessing. But milk and rich fat cream are all implied here. And this is all part of how God will use the nations of the world and even kings and even Gentiles to contribute to the blessing of the church and one of the commentators Albert Barnes said explains it like this he said whatever is valuable and rich which they possess shall contribute to your welfare. And there are various ways that Gentiles and Kings bring blessing to the church.

I mean, we have laws in our nation that actually favor the church of Jesus Christ in terms of taxation and in terms of treating the church preferentially. The church doesn't have to pay taxes. Here the nation's state of the United States of America has favored the church by not forcing it to pay taxes on its property or any of its income. And it's a way that nations have given an edge and advantage for blessing in the Church of Jesus Christ. It may disappear, but at this point, this is a blessing that God has given the Church of Jesus Christ.

There are various laws that protect the Church. We actually live in a land where there are laws that protect the religious liberty that we have to meet right here and to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. That may disappear someday, but think of how long we've enjoyed it. And think of the strength that has come as a result of having a nation that at least had foundations of biblical orientation from the very beginning. But God is, he's proving himself faithful.

He's doing this so that you would know something, that you would know that He is your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. You might just think about the various blessings that the Gentiles have been to you. Think about that. There are many ways that those unbelievers have impacted positively your life and their work and their things, their inventions. There are all kinds of ways that this happens.

And then, So you find this, you have these better provisions, you have milk. Milk from kings and from Gentiles. The whole thrust of this is that you get, with the light of Jesus Christ, you have something better. Way better than anything that you ever had before. He is better, He is more wonderful.

His milk is so good. And then he turns to his materials. You get better materials. Better materials for every part of your life. That's verse 17.

Look at it with me. Instead of bronze, I will bring gold. This is God, by the way. Instead of iron, I will bring silver. God is bringing things to his people.

Instead of wood, bronze. Instead of stones, iron. Now, notice the comparisons, you know, not bronze but gold, not iron but silver, not wood but bronze, not stones but iron. And this is just a figurative illustrative way of saying that Jesus Christ brings better materials to you for everything. And the New Covenant brings people into a season of blessing and There's an upgrade in your life.

It could be an allusion to the new temple and the superior materials used in God's temple and God's city that you read about in the book of Revelation. The building of God will be more glorious. This is the greater glory of the Church of Jesus Christ. And you know, it matters what you build with. The value and the strength and the integrity of the materials matters.

God here is saying that he brings you the very best materials and he, this is one way that he blesses his church. You know, you think about the things that God has brought to his church, the better ways of church life than the old life that he used to live. Think about all the one-anothers in the Bible that speak of how a church should be. Like is that a better life? You know, love one another, be kind to one another, forgive one another.

I mean, is that a better life than the old life? You know, be anxious about one another's offenses. You know, that's the way we used to live. We were angry. But then the Lord Jesus Christ showed us mercy and then we began to have mercy.

He gives us better materials. He gives us better ways to do everything. These are the better promises of a better covenant. And he gives you better materials with which to build your life, every single part of your life. And I think a passage of scripture like this, and particularly this verse, should help us to think about what better materials are there for me from the light of Jesus Christ to manage everything in my life, my mind, my family, my time, my money, everything.

What has the light of Jesus Christ brought to me that I might have better materials to build the structure of my life and to lay the foundations and then to build it from there because he gives you better materials in the New Covenant. You know there I think that if we if we stop we could mention hundreds And hundreds if I just opened it up for discussion. I said what better materials are there for the building of a life? Through the light of Jesus Christ are there and I think we could talk for a long time And I would just write them down one by one and then there are better leaders actually in verse 18 I will also make your officers peace and your magistrates righteousness. Now the question is, who are the officers and who are the magistrates?

And It's possible that they are one and the same. It's possible that they are two different kinds of leaders. Officers of peace could be church leaders. Magistrates could quite likely be civil leaders. And I think that's probably right but there's difficulty in understanding that but you know we do know for sure that in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ there are qualifications for various officers, there are qualifications for elders, and there are qualifications for deacons.

They have to be certain kind of people. And you know in 1st Timothy 3 we read about the superior kind of leader that God desires his church to have. And elder then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not covetous, not quarrelsome, one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence. For if a man does not know how to rule his own house, How will he take care of the Church of God? Not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride, he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.

Moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. And then he goes on and gives qualifications for deacons in the church that they must have particular qualities about their lives. The officers, This term really speaks of overseers, those who attend with care, those who count, those who have charge over. That's the whole idea in this first word, officers or overseers. In the next word, there seems to be a more adversarial tone to it, to drive, to oppress, to exact tax.

I think the King James version actually says instead of magistrates, exactors. It's the same terminology that's used in pharaohs, pharaoh exacting in a harsh way from the people there to tax, to oppress, to pressure. It's the same word in Isaiah 9, the rod of the oppressor. So it could actually just refer to the new leaders that God gives his church. It could refer to the two different kinds of leaders that God gives all of the people, his people and all people in the world through civil magistrates.

But whatever it is, your officers are peace and your magistrates righteousness. In other words, you get something so much more wonderful before, that God establishes authorities over His church to be a blessing to them. And then, not only do you get this better nourishment from the milk of the Gentiles and not only do you get better leaders who bring peace and who bring righteousness. Not only that, you get a better culture in your land. Verse 18.

Violence shall no longer be heard in your land, neither wasting nor destruction within your borders, but you shall call your walls salvation and your gates praise." Now look at this verse very carefully. He's describing a geographical territory. Do you see that? I mean Isaiah is so known for this. He takes you to these scenes.

Now he's taking you to a scene, it's kind of a geographical picture here. And there are two images that describe this larger territory. Because he's talking about a larger territory and in a city in verse 18. There are two images that describe this larger territory. There's the land, do you see that?

And there's no violence in the land. And then there are borders of that land, and there's no destruction along the borders. And then he shifts and he gives you two images that really describe a city. And the city has these two images. They have walls and they have gates.

And the walls are figurative of salvation. And the gates are figurative of praise. So you have this land where there's no violence and you have this city which is full of praise and It's characterized by salvation. They've been saved in that city. Because he all along has been speaking of a city in this passage of scripture.

Verse 14 makes this very clear. That is the city, it's the Zion. It's The people of God gathered together. And this is his design for his church in their land, in the promised land, and in their city. In a lot of ways, we form a land and a city here in our own church.

I do think it has implications far greater than just that. That we live in a land and we have various commands to do no violence to one another and not to destroy one another with our tongues or with any other way. There are various commands that help us achieve this kind of a land. We're establishing the rulership of Jesus Christ, the light of Jesus Christ in the land. And we occupy various parts of the land scattered around here in this place that we've been given to live.

And yet, in the city, It's such a happy place. There's praise and there's salvation. So you have a territory and you have walls and you have gates. And it's a city of love where cruelty and damage and injustice don't exist. When people are walking in the light.

And Isaiah has already used this imagery before, more than once. Perhaps one of the most famous places in Isaiah 11, verse 6, where he says, the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and the little child shall lead them. The cow and The bear shall graze, their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play at the cobra's hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea when you have the knowledge of God and the light of Jesus Christ it changes everything now I have a theory about this passage in Isaiah 11.

I'll flip it over to you. You can think about it, and we can talk about it maybe over the next several weeks or months. You know how Isaiah speaks of the jackals and the ostriches and the, you know, the arrow snakes and they're all gathered and then a, you know, spring comes up and now they're not living in this bombed out city anymore. There's water there and there's food and God is blessing them. He takes the gentiles, He takes the despicable of the world, the people who have ruined their lives and now they are just living in a wasteland.

And He brings water to them and now they have food to eat. It is a picture of God's kindness as he pours out his spirit Among his people and they they become fat their souls become fat. Well, I have a thought about Isaiah 11 that he's you have these different animals here you have the wolf and the lamb, you have the leopard and the young goat, you have the calf, you have the little child, you have the cow, you have the bear, you have the cobra, and and they don't hurt one another. And I think it's possible that in Isaiah's use of imagery, that he's also, he's speaking of people here. The cobra is a person, the bear is a person, And the little child is a person.

And he brings them all together. And they don't harm one another anymore because they have better laws. They have a better covenant. They have a better way to feel about one another. They have a better way to speak about one another and to one another.

They have had the light of Jesus Christ shining upon them. This is the way that God has designed for love in his church. It's a better culture. It's a safety and salvation and praise. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ said in John 13 34 that the mark of a Christian was love.

He says, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another." The Apostle John understood this so well. The apostle of love, I think it would be legitimate to call him. He he was very well instructed in the doctrine of love and he spoke of it so often.

In first John 4-7 he said, beloved let us love one another for love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God. For God is love. Beloved if God loved us, we also ought to love one another. The Apostle Paul writing to the Roman church explained what it ought to look like.

It's the light of the love of Jesus Christ in Romans 12. Verse 10 he says, Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love and honor, giving preference to one another. Not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. Bless those who persecute you.

Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another." These are the ways of love in the Church of Jesus Christ. And the Apostle Paul said to the Galatians that every single law of God in Galatians 3.14 is a law of love and this this is the picture in verse 18 at the end you have this better culture it's a it's a culture of safety and salvation and praise And it's all summed up in one single word, love. And the people don't hurt one another there.

And then as he continues to just pile on one image after another, then he turns to light in verses 19 through 20. And while he's been speaking of better food, the milk of the Gentiles, better materials, gold rather than the other things that are inferior, and a better culture, a better society of love. Now he turns to better light. And he talks about two different kinds of light here. You should recognize that.

There are two kinds of light that he's speaking of in verses 19 through 20. And again, I think that we're at the heart of the passage now. Verse 1 and verses 19 and 20 form what is the epicenter of the message of Jesus Christ to us in this chapter. And he's speaking of everlasting light. There's a light that's not everlasting and there's a light that is everlasting.

And he says this in verse 19, The sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you. But the Lord will be to you an everlasting light, and your God your glory." Hence, two different kinds of light. There's this temporal light of the sun and the moon and then there's everlasting light. Jesus Christ is the everlasting light. Jesus Christ is not the sun.

The sun is a figure of Jesus Christ, it's a shadow. The moon, in the same way, is not everlasting light, it's temporal light. But he's talking about here a light that does not go out. When you have Jesus Christ, your sun doesn't go down anymore. Verse 20, your sun shall no longer go down nor shall your moon withdraw itself for the Lord will be your everlasting light.

You know it was I think it was two days ago, Deborah said, Scott, you have got to go look at this sunset. And so I looked out the window of our barn, and it was astonishing. So I walked outside, And I started walking up the hill toward the sunset. The sky was absolutely on fire, brilliant on the one hand with orange and every shade of it and blue and every shade of it. You know, I know some of you are shaking your head, maybe you saw it.

It was absolutely stunning. And so as I walked toward it, you know, the sun just continued to go down by degrees. And when I walked out, the sky was almost completely full of light, and then of this brilliant color, and then as the sun went down, it got a little bit more gray, and a little bit more gray, and the gray just kept consuming the light. And it was such a beautiful light. And then finally it went down and then everything was gray.

And then I thought of this verse, but My light has not gone down. The light of Jesus Christ never goes down. You can glory in the light of a sunset. Always let it remind you that you have a light that never goes down. The sun is going to go down and it will be gray again and dark.

And then it'll come up again and quite likely the sky will be beautiful again, lit up and colored with this palette of God's majestic, you know, brush stroke. But even though the beauty of this world will go away, the light of Jesus Christ never goes down. And this is what Isaiah is saying. Now If you have hooked your joy to the lights of this world, the various lights that always go down, then you will never know everlasting light. And here, I think Isaiah is just making an argument for, to come to the light of Jesus Christ.

Why should you come to Him? Why should you repent of your sins? Why should you stop loving the world? Because if you can, by the grace of God, your light will never go down. Your sun will never disappear, because you'll have an everlasting light.

You know, it was said of Jesus, in him was life, and the life was the light of men. And it's, If you read, I tried to read every reference to light in the Bible this week, and I regret not having the time to bring some of it forward. But when you read about light, You find out that God has given light to illustrate something. He's illustrating Jesus Christ for sure. But he even uses light to explain that your sense of light is nothing like what he has for you.

Like even in Isaiah, in Isaiah 30, Isaiah has already indicated that the power of the light of Jesus Christ, it not only never goes down, it's far beyond anything you can imagine. In Isaiah chapter 30 verse 26, moreover the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun. The light of the sun will be sevenfold as the light of seven days in the day that the Lord binds up the bruise of his people and heals the stroke of his wound. You know what he's saying? He's saying that the light that he gives you, if you look at the sun, the light that he gives for the healing of your wounds is sevenfold more powerful than that.

His power to heal you by his light is beyond anything that you can imagine. And here in Isaiah 60, you know, arise, shine, you know, the light is shining on you, over you, and it's shining in you, and it's also shining out of you, but it all comes from Jesus Christ. His light, it never it never goes down. All the lights of this world will pass away but the light of Jesus Christ will not pass away. You know, light light is an image that's fundamental to explaining the gospel.

If you want to explain the gospel to somebody, read the verses about the light. We often get caught up in so many unprofitable discussions with people. But think of discussing the light. You know, the Bible says that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot comprehend it. The light clarifies, light shows the way.

And those who walk in darkness have seen a great light, and that is the light of Jesus Christ. The light is such a wonderful image. And what you have here is that the light shines, the light of heaven shines upon you and you have heaven in your heart and it continues to grow. We're in Bible study, I think it was Mike Davenport was quoting in English Puritan. Isaac Walton wrote of Richard Sibbes, he said, heaven was in him before he was in heaven.

And that's the power and the beauty of light. And then your mourning is ended. In verse 20, at the end of verse 20, not only does light shine and your light never goes down, if you have Jesus Christ, you will always have light for the thing that is upon you, always. Jesus Christ is your light. His word is light.

And you will always have a way through every single situation if you have the light of Jesus Christ and it will never go down. And it has a profound impact on you. And the days of your mourning shall be ended. The days of your mourning shall be ended. And I believe that he's speaking of this progressive healing process that takes place in the soul of man, in which there's so many reasons to mourn, particularly when you come to Christ.

And then your your mourning, though, however, it progressively ceases as you as you continually trust in the Lord with all of your heart and you lean not on your own understanding. He turns He turns your mourning into dancing. He gives you beauty for your ashes. We'll read about that next week. But, you know, we do live in a world of tears.

And There is an appropriate way that we mourn. Jesus said, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. There is a healing way to mourn, to mourn over your sin, to see it in its right light. That kind of mourning is a good kind of mourning. It wouldn't be right to say that you should never mourn.

I don't believe that's what he's saying here. The days of your mourning shall be ended. That There is this way that God and his people have to deal with their sorrows. They mourn over their sin and as a result, there's healing in the wings of Jesus Christ for those who mourn their sin and you know the Bible even calls us to weep with those who weep you know we're not so cold-hearted that we don't see the sorrow one another's sorrows but we weep with those who weep. So he's not saying stop weeping with one another.

He's not saying that. He's not saying stop mourning over your sin. He's not saying that at all. In fact, I mean, he said in the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." But I believe he's talking about a progressive care of God in the heart of a person who has been brokenhearted by this world, and he's being healed, and his mourning is turning, and it's finally experienced in heaven. Where God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, so says Revelation 21.

And there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. And then the next verse, verse 5 in Revelation 21, he says, then he who sat on the throne said, behold I make all things new and he said to me, write, for these words are true and faithful." God is removing our mourning by degrees. He's giving us more and more reasons to rejoice. Particularly as we are able to throw off sin, we can look back and we can say, oh Lord, thank you.

Thank you for helping me to move beyond that. Thank you for helping me to move beyond the anger of my heart. Thank you for helping me to move beyond the anger of my heart. Thank you for helping me to move beyond the disappointment that I've carried with me in my whole life. Thank you, Lord, for helping me to move beyond the hatred I had for a certain person.

Oh, God, thank you. Thank you that I no longer hate them. Thank you that I no longer am fearful of these five things that I used to be so fearful of. Thank you, Lord. You're turning my mourning into dancing.

You're giving me a garment of praise. You're healing me. You're taking me to heaven and in that day, then you will complete the entire process that began. So there's this whole matter in Christian theology of progressive sanctification and also it's characterized by a term that already but not yet. In other words, God has begun a work and he will complete it in the day of Christ Jesus.

You know, I ran across a piece of writing by a man who was writing in the 19th century, John Macduff, and he quotes this this text, and the days of your mourning shall be ended. And he speaks of how it's completed in heaven. He says this, the present world is a valley of tears, a wilderness of woe. While passing through it we are exposed to sorrows and sufferings of various kinds. Pain and disease beset us on every side And many in the extremity of their anguish wish for death rather than life.

Here we are subject to innumerable troubles, our fondest hopes may be blasted, and we may be called to survey the wreck of all that we once possessed. Here, the dearest friends are snatched from each other's embrace. The ruthless spoiler respects neither rank nor age. He tears asunder the very heartstrings of our nature and seems to delight in trampling on the tender sympathies of the soul. The parent is called to weep over the remains of a much loved child.

The husband has to mourn the loss of the partner of his life. The lover and friend are cut off by a stroke, and the desire of our eyes is taken away. From a thousand sources do our present distresses spring, and the streams of sorrow with all their sad variety follow us more or less through the whole course of our earthly pilgrimage. But in heaven, all our troubles will be over. No sorrow will be there.

All temporal and spiritual evils will be entirely banished. No disappointment, no anxiety will be there. No wearisome nights, no dismal mornings, nor no tossings to and fro until the dawning of the day will be there. There will be no sickness to blast and no death to devour there. There will be no Rachel weeping for her children.

No broken-hearted father exclaiming, Oh, Absalom, my son, my son, there. There will be no separation from those we love there. There will be no faithless friends to wound our hearts and betray our confidence there. There will be no being vexed day to day with filthy lives of the wicked there. There will be no temptations there, no fighting, no fears within, no hardness of heart or strings of conscience.

No, nothing to grieve, nothing to cause a single sigh to rise from the bosom or a single tear to fall from the eye will be there. But joy and peace will be there, and cheerful hearts beaming countenances will be there, and the conqueror's song and the waving palms and the harps of gold and the robes of spotless white will be there. Oh suffering saint think much of what is there it will help you to bear up and depress on your load of sorrow here. It is only for a little while that you have to traverse this howling desert, and then having passed the narrow stream of death, you shall know heaven by happy experience. No eye has seen nor ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him." Now I read that because we know the sorrows of this life, But it is the light of Jesus Christ that comes to comfort us in our sorrows, to take us to heaven, to give us a heavenly vision.

That's why the apostle Paul said, set your mind on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, so that we would constantly be transported there. And as our hearts are transported there, it would affect us here. And I think that's what Isaiah is speaking about, that he does deal with our mourning here and what a blessing it is. And then in verse 21 we see this other blessing of the light, a righteous people also your people shall be righteous they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified." So there's a whole transformation of people. There are a righteous people, and these are a people who are righteous on two measures.

First of all, it's a people who have the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone. That they don't trust in their own righteousness, they've stopped congratulating their own works, They've stopped thinking so highly of themselves and they've realized that they were sinners and they repented and they turned to Jesus Christ as their only hope. And they trusted in His righteousness alone. And they stopped thinking that they were righteous, but that he was and that by his righteousness they are saved and also the the result of it is that they begin to do acts of righteousness that's the part of arise shine shine do the works of righteousness in the world. It must change your life, or it hasn't really been yours.

And then he says that they will be for the planting, a branch of my planting. It's the Lord, the gardener, plants and waters them there. And they become a people, a people that are characterized by this. They are the work of my hands. In other words, their lives are the result of God working in them.

Whatever they are together is because of what God has done to work in them. And this is why it's so important that we turn to the Lord in the secret place that God would work in our hearts because we together become the work of his hands And any one of us who begins to nourish worldliness and things like that, we all, it harms, we harm one another when we do that. Because the work of His hands is diminished. So we owe it to one another to hate the works of this world and to turn to the things of the light. So you have a righteous people and you have a better nation.

Verse 22, A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation. And here in verse 22, you find that the result of the light of Jesus Christ shining in the world is the enlargement of a people. But not just enlargement, not just more of them, but they're stronger. There's an increasing strength of the people of God that's taking place. The little one shall become a thousand.

In Revelation chapter 7 verse 9, we learn that it will be so large that no man can number it. You think the church is so little. You know Elijah thought the church was so little. He thought he was the only one. God said, I have 7, 000.

And if you think of it in terms of today's scale, you might think that there really are only a few. But the Bible says that at the end of the age, there will be many that no man can count. You will not be alone. You won't be the only faithful church in the world, I guarantee you that. A better nation, a larger and a stronger nation.

The people of God are expanding in the world. They're more today than ever. And you might be deceived by the news reports, but this news report is true. This tells you what is really happening in the world, you know, I I believe I believe I've seen manifestations of this in my lifetime I I really believe I have seen dramatic improvements in the Church of Jesus Christ since I became a Christian over 40 years ago. There are things happening in this church right now That didn't happen in hardly any church, but they're happening in thousands of churches today.

It's true. God is sanctifying His people. He's raising up a people, and they're getting clearer and clearer about things. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation. You know, we are a kingdom of priests.

We are a nation. We are a holy nation. We are that nation that he's talking about right here. It's the nation of the Church of Jesus Christ Set aside as God's own possession in the world to declare the praises of his light in the world until he comes again And then we learn finally when it will all happen in the very last phrase, I the Lord will hasten it in its time. The Lord will bring it about.

Don't be too presumptuous about your interpretation of history. The Lord will bring it about. He'll make it all happen, even if you don't understand it. Or even if you think someone else doesn't understand it, he'll bring it about. I, the Lord, will hasten it in its time.

That you can be sure of right there. The word for time he uses here is the word that means season, and he's speaking of the fact that God works through various seasons, and the two main seasons of history from our perspective are the season of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. And then there's a third season, and that is the season of the new heavens and the new earth. And the promise is that God will bring about the things that are needful in his own time. And there are many places that we learn about this.

In Ecclesiastes 3, verse 1, we learn that God makes a promise about time. He says, To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. And not only that, you know, further down in the chapter in verse 11 in Ecclesiastes 3 he says, verse 11, he promises that he's made all things beautiful in his time. You can count on that. You can count on that for your life individually as a Christian, and you can count on it for your life as a member of the body of Jesus Christ.

He will make all things beautiful in His time. That's where this church is going. People often come to me and say, hey, where are we going as a church? Well, there's one answer right there. Jesus Christ is going to make all things beautiful in his time.

That's where this church is going. People often come to me and say, hey, where are we going as a church? Well, there's one answer right there. Jesus Christ is going to make all things beautiful in his time in this church. You know, our sense of time in God's is different.

Second Peter 3, 8 makes that very clear. With the Lord a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day. We always want to know what time we're living in. I think God has given us the generality so that we have a sense of it. But, you know, the disciples were very interested to know about what season and time they were in.

And they asked Him, and he said, it's not for you to know times and seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. And so we always are a people who are learning how to wait, which Lamentations speaks of this in Lamentations 3.26, it is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. But this we know for Sure, in the fullness of time, God sent his son, born of a woman, and he is the light of the world. And there isn't any better light than that. All our lives, we sort of build our lives on these lights, these little lights of the world.

And then we find out they're really all not that light at all. And the whole Christian life really is to finally come and see the things that we thought were light that weren't light at all So that and we thought we found that when we loved those lights, you know, our Sun was always going down We are always disappointed by those lights. That's the way it'll always be with the lights of this world. But with Jesus Christ, the light never goes down. The sun will never go down on you.

So here with the light of Jesus Christ, You get milk, you get gold, you get peace, you get praise, you get light, you get a family that gets larger and larger and larger. You know, I titled the sermon, Your Son Shall No Longer Go Down. My whole prayer today was that somehow today we would forget not His benefits, but that we would give thanks, and that we would see how to rise and shine, to display the light, to walk in the light, to let our light so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven, that we would obey the command of the Apostle Paul to excel still more, as he said it. In your own heart, the light filling your soul, in your family, in your church, in your marriage to seek the light of Jesus Christ and not your own. To see everything by his light.

And I pray that it would be fulfilled for us. The Gentile shall come to your light, verse 3, that the sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor the brightness of the moon, but the Lord will be to you an everlasting light and your God your glory. Let's pray. Lord again we we praise you for the the beauty and the clarity the the graphic precision of these things that you have brought to our minds, that you would renew our minds, and that you would help us to love the light more than ever. Amen.