Scott Brown's sermon, 'The Beauty of the Lord,' centers on Isaiah 33, emphasizing the transformative power of beholding the beauty of the Lord. The speaker discusses how the 'plunderer'—representing sin and inner turmoil—is disarmed and overcome as believers align themselves with Jesus Christ. This process of sanctification is highlighted as believers see the King (Christ) in His beauty, leading to personal repentance and inner renewal. The sermon draws parallels between the historical plundering of Assyria and the spiritual plundering of sin within individuals, using the imagery of rivers, quiet homes, and a majestic city (Zion) to depict the peace and security found in God. Scott Brown underscores the interconnectedness of beauty, glory, and holiness, suggesting that the essence of the Christian life is to behold and reflect the beauty of God. The sermon further explores the roles of God as judge, lawgiver, and king, asserting these aspects are essential for salvation. The beauty of the Lord is presented as the ultimate source of stability, transformation, and fulfillment, both now and in the promise of eternal life.

Please take out your Bibles. Open to Isaiah 33. The text for today starts in verse 17. We're going to begin reading in 16. He will dwell on high.

His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks, bread will be given him, his water will be sure. Your eyes will see the King and his beauty, and they will see the land that is very far off. Your heart will meditate on terror. Where is the scribe? Where is he who weighs?

Where is he who counts the towers? You will not see a fierce people, a people of obscure speech beyond perception, of a stammering tongue that you cannot understand. Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet home, a tabernacle, that will not be taken down, not one of its stakes will ever be removed, nor will any of its cords be broken. But there the majestic Lord will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams, in which no galley with orge will sail, nor majestic ships pass by.

For the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King, He will save us. Your tackle is loosed. They cannot strengthen their masks. They cannot spread the sale. Then the prey of great plunder is divided.

The lame take the prey, and the inhabitant will not say, I am sick. The people who dwell in it will be forgiven their iniquity. Heavenly Father, we pray that today this is a place that you would come to meet with us. We thank you that out of your kindness you revealed yourself to us in this text and that out of your kindness you brought us to it today. Please teach us from it.

Put your spirit on Mr. Brown as he brings this text to us. In Jesus' name, amen. Isaiah 33 tells a story of how the plunderer is plundered. What a blessing that is.

We dealt with that in the first verses of this great chapter. And the plunderer is plundered. And, as we said last week, the plunderer within you is disarmed and is being plundered as you're being sanctified and brought into conformity to the face of Jesus Christ. And so here in Isaiah 33 17 to 24, Isaiah continues the discussion of what happens when the plunderer is plundered, what wonderful things happen. He speaks of the most wonderful experience that can ever take place on this earth in the inner workings of a human soul.

And that is while the plunderer is being plundered, there's a king who's held up, he's a beautiful king. And you behold the king in his beauty. And when Jesus Christ is your king, When your plunderer has been plundered, you see the King in all of his beauty. And I think that's the force of this whole chapter. You'll see the outline in front of you.

I've made more space for verse 17 than any other verses because I think It really is the central matter of all the other things that are spoken of in this chapter. To see the King in His beauty is the essence of the Christian life. We see His beauty, as a result we see our ugliness, And as a result of that, in our repentance, He beautifies us. That's the Christian life. And we see that pictured here in this passage of Scripture.

To see the beauty of the Lord should be the most urgent request that we have in every situation that we face, 24 hours a day. Beholding the beauty of the Lord really ought to be for us the highest priority of every day. The sweetest thing to have lingering in our minds, the most life-giving contemplation, to guide all of our emotions that go up and down. There's the beauty of the Lord that is there to stabilize and to to recreate and to renew everything. It's the beauty of the Lord that renews everything.

The plunderer is plundered and the beauty of the Lord is set in its place. It's the most helpful experience that one can have when he is speaking to behold the beauty of the Lord. It beautifies words when you behold the beauty of the Lord when you're talking to someone. Oh, wouldn't it be so great if you could just constantly be aware in an unbroken way of the beauty of the Lord whenever you're speaking so that your very words were were actually affected by the beauty of the Lord rather than the ugliness of your own agendas and motivations and things like that. The beauty of the Lord is the center of everything.

The beauty of the Lord is the most blessed thing for a church. It's the most blessed thing for the soul of a family. And of course, it's the most life-giving and wonderful thing that can be had in the soul of a man or a woman or a boy or a girl. It's the beauty of the Lord. It's fit for the wife who's tired and crying out to God.

It's the perfect thing for the husband, aware of his failure, seeking direction. It's the most marvelous thing for a teenager who's looking for answers, or even the littlest child who has various fears and difficulties. Well, the context of this passage here in chapter 33 begins with this plundering of the plunderer. And as the plunderer is plundered, we find this reality being expressed in verse 16. He will dwell on high.

His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks. Bread will be given to him. His water will be sure. That's the condition that he's talking about. As the plunder has been plundered, as a person has turned his heart toward the Lord Jesus Christ, then there are these various things that happen to that person.

They're the blessings of salvation. We know that Assyria is the plunderer. God has put a hook in his mouth and he can only do what God would have him to do. The text earlier on has proclaimed that Assyria is under the control of God. God says, Assyria is my rod.

And Assyria is the picture of the devil here. But God is greater than this plunder. He will be destroyed. And in this whole context of the destruction of the plunderer. There are these five woes that were declared against Judah in chapters 28 through 32.

And then in chapter 33 through 35 is a whole other context of the mercy of God and the majesty of God in his judgment. And so that's what we're, this section that we're in now. Isaiah is using the destruction of the Assyrian army as an illustration of the destruction of the plunderer and of the blessings of the new covenant, of what it's like to know Jesus, really. And he speaks of heavenly Zion and all of the imagery that's there. And then, just to tell, to see what's ahead of us here, in chapter 36 through 39 is a historical section that begins with a historical account of Assyria's intimidation of Hezekiah, and then the most astonishing battlefield scene, I think, in the history of military engagements, and then God giving Isaiah 15 years of life, and then finally Isaiah's prophecy of the treasures of Judah being hauled away to Babylon.

That's the historical section that begins in chapter 36. Right now we're in this section, chapter 33 through 35, which declares the majesty of God. You know, it's interesting, We've been dividing up Isaiah into two sections, 1 through 39, which describes the judgment and the mercy of God against His people. And then secondly, the salvation of God, which is declared in chapters 40 through 66. That's the most common way of breaking up the book.

But in 1947, there may have been discovered a contradiction to this. The Dead Sea Scrolls, which is perhaps the most important archaeological discovery in history. As a Bedouin was out looking for his animals, and he came in to a cave on the cliffs of Qumran, which is about a mile northwest of the Dead Sea. And he found in this cave jars about 24 inches tall and about 10 inches across that contained leather scrolls from 168 BC. They're the Dead Sea Scrolls, which really are perhaps the most famous and one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in modern times.

But the scroll of Isaiah that was discovered in Qumran, the one from 168 BC at least, at least as late as 168 BC, was divided into two sections as well. And the first section in the Isaiah scroll of the Qumran scrolls was chapters 1 through 33. So the ancient division of Isaiah was 1 through 33. I've been looking at that, I've been wondering maybe that's really a right division. I think you can make a case for it because in 33 you have the plundering of the plunderer and then the beauty of the king and then the majesty of God and then there's this historical section in chapters 36 through 39 and then chapter 40.

I think It could be a reasonable way to divide the book up to 33, but the Dead Sea Scrolls divide the book of Isaiah a little bit differently. But what we see here is a king and beauty and a land. That's what you see in the text that's before us. When you have Jesus as your King, not only is your plunderer been plundered, the plunderer within you is being plundered because of one single fact, the beauty of the King, the beautiful King who beautifies His subjects. So let's get into the text, verse 17, Your eyes will see the King.

Now, you know, this is what will happen to you when your plunderer is plundered. Your eyes will see the beauty of the King. Your eyes will see the King in his beauty. They will see the land that is very far off. So in Isaiah 6 the prophet is describing a time when he saw the king high and lifted up.

Remember that in Isaiah 6? Now we have another set of eyes seeing the king. When Isaiah saw the king, he was completely undone. He saw his ugliness, and yet the king came to him. He said, Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.

For my eyes have seen the King, and what does the King do? He beautifies, he purifies, he comes with a coal and he touches his lips, and he blesses him with his beauty. And here now we have another encounter with eyes and the King. And Isaiah is declaring this most wonderful experience that can ever take place in anyone's life, and that is to see the beauty of the King. This is the essence of the Christian life, to see the beauty of the King.

You see beauty and you are beautified. This is the heart of Christianity. Synonymous terms with beauty are glory and holiness. They seem to be used interchangeably in the Bible. Beauty, glory, holiness, all these things are very, very much connected.

You know, when God says, you shall be holy, for I am holy, he's implying this whole world of beauty and glory and majesty. And, you know, what is beauty? The dictionaries define beauty as something as beneficial, something pleasant, pleasing to the senses. We know that beauty is everywhere. Nature reveals the beauty of God.

God has so many museums for His beauty, doesn't He? They're all over the place. All you have to do is open your eyes. You don't even have to open your eyes. You just have to think of what you've seen before and what you've heard.

Their sounds, their sights, their thoughts, their emotions, beauty, it's everywhere. It's absolutely inescapable in this world. The museums of God's beauty in nature, in scripture, in Christ, in his people, in worship. These are where His beauty is hidden. His mighty acts in the world.

He has said that He makes all things beautiful in His time. That's the end of it. You're a Christian, right? You turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. You've repented of your sins.

You don't have any hope in your own righteousness. What's going to happen to you? He makes all things beautiful in his time. That's what he's doing. This is what this King does.

He's all about beauty. We see his beauty in his words. Here's the reality. The very shortest distance to the beauty of God is the Word of God. Because there He is explained in words.

Jesus Christ is the exact representation of the beauty and the glory of God as well. When do you see the beauty? My view of this passage is that you see it in two ways, in two places. You behold the beauty of the Lord here and now. This is the first phase.

Here and now You see His glory and His perfection. You see your own sin. You see your own wretchedness. And you see Him, and He subdues your will. And you desire Him.

And you desire His beauty. And you desire the abandonment of your ugliness. So it does happen here and now. We do see through a glass darkly here, though. The beauty that we see now is nothing like the beauty that we will see in time to come.

But God allows us to give us to have allows us to have glimpses of it. We see through a glass of darkly. You know even so even though it's seen through a glass of darkly it's still really beautiful. It's remarkable and it's only a foretaste however. This is why David could say in Psalm 27, one thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple." The Christian has this beauty now.

He has it in measure. It's such a marvelous gift of God. While we do see through a glass of dark glue, we can see the beauty of the Lord. Moses desired it. You remember that in Exodus, I believe, 37?

He said, show me your glory. Show me your glory. And what did God do? He said, I will have my goodness pass before you. Because his goodness is a manifestation of his glory and his beauty.

When Moses said show me your glory he used the word kavod it means heavy you know A wealthy man was measured by the weight of his gold and his precious possessions. He was heavy. He was kavod. He was just loaded, loaded with the weight of his possessions and the value of his possessions. He was, and so when Moses said, show me your glory, he said, show me your kavod, and God shows him his goodness as he passes him by.

And of course, the living creatures say, Kavod, Kavod, Kavod, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory, meaning His beauty. Paul spoke of it as joy inexpressible. David said, one day in your courts is like a thousand elsewhere. And so this is the heart of the Christian life, to behold the beauty of the Lord.

I think it's our most urgent need all the time. You know, I know there are many sorrows here in this Church. I know there are troubles and difficulties that people are experiencing, fears and all kinds of things like that. It's always going to be like that, by the way. We will always be a people facing trials.

And what is our most urgent need? You know, you might be one of those fearful dads, you might be one of those tired mothers, you might want to be one of those depressed young people. Here is what you need more than anything else right now. The beauty of the Lord. Behold the beauty of the Lord.

Inquire in His simple, it's something that you can have in a moment. It happens out of the fruit of a longing heart. The other phase of His beauty is in heaven. Those who see the beauty of the Lord on earth will see it in heaven far more vividly and so in the second phase of the beauty of the Lord you You will be so connected with His beauty. Actually verse 16 says, He will dwell on high.

That means that has to do with dwelling in the midst of that beauty on high with God. His place of defense will be a fortress of rocks. So there's protection there, there's bread there, there's this glorification that God has for all of his people. You know, salvation begins with election and it ends with glorification. And we will find the beauty of this land, this better country as Hebrews 11 speaks of it, you know, the saints of old long for a better country.

So do you. You know, it's right to long for a better country you know you might say how come this how come so many things are broken in my life you know how come how come I have so many longings how come I fall so short what's that all about how do you understand that here's one way to understand that God is giving you a way of longing for heavenly glory. What you desire will be satisfied. Whenever you do not, whenever you fall short, whenever you have need, recognize God is going to fulfill that need. He will take care of you.

He will do it in glory. Now the troubles of this time are really there to help you to see That this world is not your portion, but there is a portion in heaven that's great. And so he gives you a foretaste of his glory. He gives you a sense of it, but you want more, it's not enough. And guess what?

You will never have enough. There's never been a Christian who said, no, no, I've got it. I'm there. I'm full of the beauty of the Lord. I'm inquiring in His temple quite enough.

A true Christian will never say that. Because God gives true Christians a longing for something greater than the glory and the beauty that they have today. You long for a greater beauty? Congratulations, You're headed for glory. God has it there for you.

You'll experience it in heaven. The King is beautiful. Christ is the center of all of His beauty. He's an attractive beauty. He's a transforming beauty.

He's the most marvelous kind of beauty that there ever is. It's a result of the miracle of the Gospel. The center of the theology of Jonathan Edwards was beauty. Did you realize that? Most people think the center of Jonathan Edwards theology was judgment because he preached this sermon one time called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

It became so popular that that became sort of the only thing he's really known by. But what's actually true about Edwards is that the heart of his theology was beauty, not judgment. Dane Ortland has just written a book about this. He called it, Edwards on the Christian life, alive to the beauty of God. That really explains Edwards.

And Edwards believed that to become a Christian requires that you become alive to God and His beauty. You were dead to His beauty. In fact, you didn't think anything of His was beautiful, but then you became alive to His beauty. And the very act of turning to God is turning from ugliness to beauty. He says, sinners are beautified as they behold the beauty of God in Jesus Christ.

Sinners are beautified as they behold the beauty of God in Jesus Christ. Now Psalm 90 verse 17 makes it clear that His beauty does rest upon the Christian. Psalm 90 verse 17, And let the beauty of our Lord God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands. Yes, establish the work of our hands. Here the psalmist is talking about the beauty of the Lord and how it rests on a worker.

And literally the beauty of the Lord fills His work. It's a marvelous thing. Work is an act of service. It's an act of beauty. We should always think of our work as not some secular thing, some irreligious thing we do when we leave church.

That is so wrong. Our work really was designed to be infused with the beauty of God. Everything we do in our work should tell, foretell the beauty of God. No matter what you're doing, whether you're serving customers or or writing books or moving dirt, whatever it is, that the beauty of the Lord rests upon the Christian's work because he's beholding beauty and out of his beholding of the beauty, the very work of his hands, the words of his mouth, all of his ways, are end up getting beautified. That's what Psalm 90 verse 17 says.

Isaiah 4 verse 2 makes it clear that the beauty of Christ is bestowed as a fruit of Christ's presence. In Isaiah 4-2 we read, In that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious. You got that? So you have the branch of the Lord is beautiful and glorious. And who's the branch of the Lord?

The Lord Jesus Christ. That's who the branch of the Lord is. And he says, the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped." So you have this beautiful branch, beautiful and glorious. And what happens when you embrace Him? There is excellence and appealingness of what you do and who you are in the world as a result of Him.

Psalm 110 makes it clear that His beauty rests upon His people in their service. One ten verse three, your people shall be volunteers in the day of your power in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning. You have the dew of your youth. This is a picture of the people of God rising up to serve the Church of God. And upon them is the beauty of holiness.

He actually says the beauties of holiness. It's plural. There are many beauties of holiness. It just expresses it in so many different ways. You know, next year, the National Conference for the NCFIC is going to be on holiness.

I can't wait. We're going to deal with this text. The beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning you will have the dew of your youth. Holiness is beautiful. Psalm 96 verse 6, you find language that indicates the strength and beauty that rests upon his people.

Honor and majesty are before him, strength and beauty are in his sanctuary." Well, this is the heart of the Christian life, Beauty. You know, what's the beginning of the Christian life? Beauty. You behold the beauty of the Lord, you see your ugliness, you turn to Him, and He beautifies you. That's the Christian life.

And He continues to beautify you, day after day, year after year. He brings trials and tribulations to challenge the ugliness that's there, to bring it to the surface so that He could beautify you. When You finally come to the place where you say, yes, that is an ugliness, Lord, in me. That trial has brought about an ugliness. It's like that old adage, when your trials reveal who you are, they don't make you into who you are in this sense.

When you're squeezed, the stuff that's in you comes out. And when it comes out, it's sometimes ugly. Trials often reveal ugliness. But God is not content to leave you in your ugliness, so He would squeeze you. He's jealous for your soul, and He so longs to purify.

So He brings you trials so that you would see the ugliness and that He would bring His coal fire upon your lips and He would cleanse you from all unrighteousness. That He would have to first bring you to your senses to say what's true about you. This is what confession is. The Greek word for confession is to say the same thing. Homo, lageo, homo, same, logos, to say, or word.

So you say the same thing. You enter into a trial, you see your ugliness, and your only hope is to say the same thing about that ugliness that God does. The truth is we become like what we gaze at. We gaze at beauty, then beauty fills our soul. We gaze at ugly things, ugliness fills our soul.

And it always comes out. That's why in the Psalms, particularly in Psalm 115, verse 8, and in 135, verse 18, David says that when you trust in idols, you will be like your idols, okay? What you love, you become like. And the same is true with those who look at the beauty of God. You gaze at the beauty of God, you'll become like Him in His glory.

That's 2 Peter 1, 4. We have become partakers of the divine nature. That divine nature works. It has activity in our souls. The Bible says, we shall be like Him.

We shall behold the beauty of His face and will be transformed from glory to glory when we behold the face of Jesus Christ. This is the Christian life. The Baptist Confession of 1689 helps us to see the beauty of the Lord in the chapter on that subject of God. Paragraph 1. The Lord our God is but one only living and true God whose subsistence is in and of himself, infinite in being and perfection, whose essence cannot be comprehended by anybody himself, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, who is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, every way infinite, most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will, for his own glory, most loving, most gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, the rewarder of them who diligently seek Him and withal most just and terrible in His judgments, hating all sin and who will by no means clear the guilty.

God, having all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself, is alone and in unto himself, all sufficient, not standing in need of any creature which he has made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them. He bestows His glory upon them. That's the doctrine in verse 17. He alone is the fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things. And he hath most sovereign dominion over all creatures, to do by them, for them, or upon them, whatsoever, Himself pleases.

Behold your God. The essence of the Christian life is beauty. All that we would be a people who would long for is beauty. And behold the beauty of the Lord. When you have Jesus as your King, When your plunder has been plundered, the most amazing thing happens.

You see beauty. The second thing that happens, your heart will remember your former state. Verses 18 and 19. Your heart will meditate on terror. Where is the scribe?

Where is he who weighs? Where is he who counts the towers? You will not see a fierce people, a people of obscure speech, beyond perception, of a stammering tongue that you cannot understand. Now, the second thing that will happen to you when you behold the beauty of the Lord having your plunder plundered is that your heart will meditate. This is something that will happen to you.

Your heart will meditate. You will have a way of thinking about things that you saw in the past. And here, the reader is transported into the future, where he's meditating on something. Isaiah is just so wonderful to do this. He takes people and he transports them into a moment in the future and they look back.

That's the scene here. And The heart is meditating in this scene. It's another one of those sort of freeze frame moments that Isaiah is famous for. There's this dramatic moment and here the heart is meditating upon something. And so it says, if you, you know, someone is with you in a far off land and they're saying, what are you thinking?

And you are thinking. You're lost in a moment of reflection. You don't even know what's going on around you. You're just lost. You're meditating on something and you're thinking, where did they go?

Where did my enemies go? They're gone. You're remembering the terror that you once had under that great plunderer, that one who tore you up, the one who condemned you, the one who led you even to the condemnation that Jesus Christ delivered you from. And you're in that moment and you say, where are they? They're gone.

Everything has changed. Your whole world has changed. You're meditating on that former terror, but it's in the past. It is past. The terror that you once had is gone.

By the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is gone. In God's kindness, He grants sinners the most helpful thing that they can have. And they're thinking that is the freedom of their mind, the freedom from their condemnation, and the terror that they once knew. They reflect on the days when they were being plundered. They're looking back and they're reminiscing.

And there are three people that are being meditated upon. There's the scribe and there's the one who weighs and there's the one who's counting the towers. You know, where is the scribe? This is the person who's counting up what's been destroyed most likely. This is kind of the bean counter counting up this thing and that thing, this piece and that thing that was the damage.

He's calculating the damage, and now he's gone. He's not counting the damage any longer. It's been counted, it's done, it's over. And then you have the one who weighs. This is probably the one who weighed the tribute that was owed And then third there's the one who counts the tower made this is most likely the military strategist who's counting the strength How many towers do we have?

How many trebuchets do we have? How many arrows do we have? He's counting. They're gone. There's no one counting.

And then after mentioning these three kinds of people, then there are these two reflections. First, there's a reflection on the fierce people, the frowning and condemning people, the people who hated you and they slandered you and they rejected you for your faith. Where are they? They're gone. And then there's the obscure, the people of obscure speech that you don't understand.

I think, you know again, Isaiah is using Assyria and the invasions of Assyria. Assyria has already overtaken 46 cities in Judah. Not Jerusalem yet. Sennacherim is going to come against Jerusalem and his whole army is going to die in the night mysteriously. But there's been enormous devastation already.

And He's reflecting now on these fierce people and these people speak a different language, the Assyrian language. Nobody, they come in there and they don't understand what they're saying. But they're gone. And this is the meditation of the judgment of God against the Assyrians. I think it's a meditation really, it's a meditation on judgment in hell.

It's a meditation on the line that was spoken of before, the trajectory toward hell. Now the trajectory has been broken. And now you look back and you're meditating and you say, where are they? They're gone. Your heart will remember your former state.

Your heart will remember the terrors. You remember what it was like to have the weight of sin upon you, the fever, heat of sin before you turned to the Lord and you repented. But you know the refreshment of the soul now. You're set free. You're set free from the law of sin and death.

You're set free from the condemnation of the law. And then there's another thing that happens when Jesus is your king and when your plunder has been plundered and the plunder within you is being plundered. Number three, you will see your beautiful city and your quiet home. Verse 20. Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts.

Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet home. I love that phrase. A tabernacle that will not be taken down. Not one of its stakes will ever be removed, nor will any of its cords be broken." So in verse 17, Isaiah is calling people to look to the king and his beauty. Now he calls them to look towards Zion.

Now he's having them look toward the city, Zion. Zion is another word for heaven. And in this verse, there's this pile up, It's like a crash of words, you know, that just pointing to heaven. Everything in verse 20 points to heaven. All the terminology here is related to heavenly terminology in the Bible.

It's figurative language for the glories of heaven. What is Zion and Jerusalem and the tabernacle and the stakes and the cords? It's an imagery that speaks of the pilgrimage that has been completed and one is in heaven. And what is happening in Zion? It's called the city of our appointed feast.

It's translated different ways in different places, but it's one single Hebrew word. It usually means congregation or assembly or synagogue, meeting, appointed meeting, tentative meeting. It's the most common translation really speaks of the community of the King, the gathered people of God. It's a picture of the feasts and being together in one city in a quiet home. There are all these places.

You know, the Lord Jesus Christ said to his disciples, Behold, in my Father's house are many dwelling places. The old dwell there. It's a home. It's a, it's a beautiful place. You know, John Newton captured, was captured by this verse here.

And he wrote a song about it. We're going to actually sing that song at the very end of the service. Glorious things of thee are spoken. John Newton writes this song, and he draws from Isaiah 33, verse 20 and 21. That was the inspiration of this song.

I can't wait for us to sing it in just a few minutes. Here's how it goes. Glorious things of thee are spoken. Zion, city of our God, God whose word cannot be broken, formed thee for his own abode. On the rock of ages founded, what can shake thy sure repose?

With salvation's walls surrounded, thou mayest smile at all thy foes. Verse 2. See the streams of living waters springing from eternal love, well supply thy sons and daughters, and all fear of want remove. Who can faint while such a river ever will their thirst assuage? Grace which like the Lord the Giver never fails from age to age.

This is one of the favorite hymns of Stonewall Jackson. One time he woke up his troops in the Shenandoah Valley singing it as he always did, out of tune, of course. But this is the great city. It's speaking of this city, It's the best city you'll ever live in. I don't know how many cities you've lived in.

I haven't lived in that many, but there's a city that is going to outdo all cities I've ever lived in. It's Zion. It's the city of our God. That's the city where you're going to live. There are problems with this city, but there are no problems with that city.

That's the promise that's here. There's an everlasting community of love. It's a quiet home. When you become a Christian, one of the most beautifying things that God does is He puts you in a community. And that community will never be destroyed.

That city that has begun on earth will be in heaven. It's a quiet home in verse 20. The word quietness here that Isaiah uses, it's used 36 times in the Old Testament. It's from the root word na'a, which means, you might guess, na'a. Beautiful.

The root word of beautiful. It's a beautiful city. It's a beautiful home. Beautiful cities, beautiful homes, and people being beautified there by the light of their Savior. He says, look upon Zion in verse 20, and your eyes will see Jerusalem.

So again we have this this it's a reality of our lives but it's also something that we ought to do. We ought to look. Well it is something true that God is doing and is happening. At the same time, it's also something that we ought to pursue. So that's why it's in the imperative.

Look upon Zion. You know, where have you been looking? You look to yourself, start looking to Zion. You've been looking to your exhaustion, look to Zion. Looking to your spouse, your finances, your weariness, your anger, your frustration, your discouragement.

Look to Zion. You're looking, you know, at your lack of discipline. Look to Zion. You've been looking at pornography. Look to Zion.

Look to Zion where the beauty is. Be beautified. Stop the pollutions and look to where the help really is. There's help everywhere. You know, you can get any kind of help you want in this world.

You can go from one council, you can find the council you want, by the way. Do you know that? Just keep talking to people, you will find the council you want. But here he says, look, look to Zion. Look to that one source of hope and happiness That's there It's it's a place of stability It's a it's a tabernacle that cannot be taken down not one of its snakes will ever be removed nor will any of its cords be broken.

It's strong. You can rely on it. You can go into that city and that city will not be destroyed. Hebrews 11 speaks of the fulfillment of verse 20. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance.

He went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs of the same promise, for he waited for the city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God." That's the city Isaiah's talking about right here. So That's what happens to you when you have Jesus as your king and your plunderer has been plundered and the plunderer within you is being plundered. What a blessing. And fourth, another thing will happen to you.

You will see a river. Verse 21. You will see a river. Oh, you know, I love water. I love rivers.

I love oceans. So whenever the Bible talks about anything water, I'm in there. I'm on it. I love it. Verse 21.

But there, the majestic Lord will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams in which no galley with oars will sail no majestic ships pass by." So the imagery that Isaiah is bringing here is a scene again Isaiah is always placing his readers in scenes and in remarkable moments and now there's a moment where there's a person standing on the bank of a river and there's this very dramatic reality before this person standing on the riverbank. It's a huge river. It can float the largest of ships. It's an imagery of power of this of this river going by. I mean it's it's massive.

You can't stop it. You know, water is powerful. This is why we have hydroelectric plants. They generate power. You know, water goes everywhere, you know, and water is powerful.

So this picture of powerful, powerful water. It's large And it's broad and it's unstoppable. And so this person is standing on the bank of this huge, huge river. Interesting, Jerusalem doesn't have rivers like this. There's nothing like this in Jerusalem or Israel anywhere.

They have little rivers. They have little streams. Nothing like this. So this is figurative. This is figurative of a huge river.

And rivers, large rivers open cities to vulnerability, right? You know why? Because a big river can take a big ship. And big ships are warships. So this is a river that can handle warships, but there are no warships.

There's nothing like it. The ships with galleys and oars, the Assyrian warships, aren't there. They're not there. You would expect to see these big warships in this big river and they're not there. What is happening?

It's such a strange scene and the person standing on the bank somehow is realizing there aren't any ships there and there won't be anymore. The war is over. There's nothing coming around the bend. I have nothing to fear. There's nothing that can harm me that's coming around the bend.

This is the safety that you have in Jesus Christ. This is the security of the believer, that Jesus Christ, by His sovereign power, causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. The warships are not there to destroy you. There may be trials, but they cannot destroy you. No majestic ships coming around the bend, but there is something else.

But there the majestic Lord. No majestic ships, but the majestic Lord. Now there's something here that we cannot miss. The person who's standing by the great river isn't just standing by a river. Because in the text, the river is God.

The river is God Himself. The river is there to declare the beauty of God. He says that He will be a place for us. Will be for us a place. That means He is the river.

I think that's that's partly what David meant when he declared in Psalm 46, There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God shall help her just at the break of dawn." Then he says, Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations.

I will be exalted on the earth. Revelation 21 has a similar thing where you find this river, this river. Revelation 22 speaks of the river and the tree of life. In chapter 55 Isaiah will say, Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. You who have no money, come, buy, eat.

This is the call of the gospel. This is the beauty of God. This is the protection of God in life. And there will be such broad and wide open beautiful spaces, but there are no threats coming down that river. And you'll no longer look up that river and wonder and worry what's coming around the bend.

You'll look at that river and you'll say behold your God. Now the reason for this protection is that it is accomplished as spoken of in verse 22. The next verse tells us again what you have when Jesus is your King, when your plunder has been plundered and the plunderer within you is being plundered. You'll see what He has done to save you. Verse 22.

You'll see what He has done to save you. For the Lord is our judge. The Lord is our lawgiver. The Lord is our King. He will save us.

So now his beauty is described in having three different aspects or facets or functions. He provides three things and then one last thing, a fourth. He brings everything to us for our salvation. We're a needy people. We can't be saved without these things that he mentions.

There are three things that he is and one thing that he will do. The first thing that he is, is a judge. As a judge, he shows us our sins. He is a law giver, showing us how to live. And thirdly, He is a King, showing us His provision by taking care of us and leading us.

You know, you have justice and law, and you have kingship. You have the three branches of government. You have the judicial branch, the legislative branch, and you have the executive branch. You have a judge, and you have a lawgiver, and you have a king. And you cannot be saved without a judge who will show you who you really are.

And You cannot be saved without a judge who will show you who you really are. And you cannot be saved without a lawgiver to show you how to live and how to glorify God. And you cannot be saved without a king who will take you to the place of glory. And He will save. He is a Savior.

The basis for our salvation is God. Because He is a lawgiver and a judge and a king, he can save. Now if he is Savior, he must also be judge. And he must also be lawgiver and he must also be king. People want a Savior today without a judge.

They want eternal life without a lawgiver. They want a nice life without a lawgiver. And they want guidance without a king. And that's the tragedy of modern evangelism. It does not give a judge and a lawgiver and a king.

But you cannot be saved without first dealing with that judge and with that lawgiver and that king, and he will save you. The beauty of the Lord are in all of these functions. And then, number six, when you have Jesus as your King and your plunder has been plundered and the plunder within you is being plundered, then you will see the weak made strong. Verse 23. You'll see the weak made strong.

Speaking to Judah, your cackle is loosed. They could not strengthen their mast. They could not spread the sail. Then the prey of great plunder is divided. The lame take the prey." So verse 23 uses this image of a ship.

It's a weak ship. It's a picture of a weak people. It's broken down. It's weak. But it's not sunk.

It's still floating. But its natural strength physically, from a worldly standpoint, can't be seen. The tackle is loosed. It's just floating there. But amazingly, the ship still takes plunder.

Then the prey of great plunder is divided, the lame take the prey." So you have this lame ship symbolizing the lameness of a Christian to save himself, One who's weak but being made strong, but yet he's plundering at the same time. He's bearing fruit. The plunderer is being plundered in this scene here. I think this is a disclosure of the weakness of the Christian, his great need for the power of God, how he cannot save himself by his own righteousness, how he can receive nothing unless it's given Him from heaven. But He's not sunk yet.

You know, no one ever got to heaven by their own strength. Nobody got to heaven because they cleaned up their life. You can clean up your life and get yourself to hell. But if you trust in Jesus Christ and His righteousness, and you believe that His shed blood has cleansed you from all unrighteousness, and that your righteousness is as filthy rags, and that you're like Isaiah who says, Woe is me, for I'm undone, for I've seen the King. Then you can be saved.

Paul said, When I'm weak, then I am strong. And I think it also speaks of the weakness and the humility of the church. You know, the church doesn't look so impressive on the outside. But Here we learn that the church is actually taking plunder. The lame, the lame are taking plunder.

The lame are being healed. God always exalts himself through the weak. Hebrews 4, 10 says, For he who has entered his rest has himself ceased from his works, as God did from his. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of obedience. You enter the rest of God as lame, blind, poor, naked, and your only clothing is from heaven by Jesus Christ.

You're like that ship. Do you ever feel like that ship? The meek inherit the kingdom of God it's not the proud ship that it's that inherits the kingdom of heaven It's not the beautiful sloops that last, as Isaiah spoke of in the early chapters. The beautiful sloops actually will be sunk. And the weak and the lame and the blind and the poor, the ones who know their weakness, who cry out to God in weakness, they will be saved.

And then finally, in verse 24, we find even more about When you have Jesus as your King and when your plunder has been plundered and the plunder within you is being plundered You'll see no sickness verse 24 and the inhabitant will not say I am sick The people who dwell in it will be forgiven their iniquity. Here Isaiah mixes the physical and the spiritual. He speaks of physical sickness and I believe that he is using the physical sickness as a parable of the true and devastating sickness of sin. So he speaks of physical and spiritual. He's speaking of the physical to talk about the spiritual.

He's talking about spiritual sickness, I believe, here. Now, in heaven, I don't think he's just talking about spiritual sickness. I think he's talking about physical sickness. It's gone in heaven. Not only are your tears wiped away from your eyes, but you get a new body and the lame are really going to be walking in heaven.

Things change for the physical body in heaven. But on the earth, I believe he is speaking of spiritual sickness. In the Bible, physical sickness is a figure of spiritual sickness. We see this in the ministry of Jesus Christ, which is why you always saw Jesus with the sick. He was always healing the sick.

He was always out there raising the dead. Imagine being with so many sick people. There's never an indication that Jesus himself ever got sick, but he was with a lot of sick people and he didn't stay away from them because it's the sick who need a physician and he comes to the sick. How thankful I am that He came to the sick. The imagery that He uses here is the imagery of the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16, verse 20.

And when he has made an end of atoning for the holy place, the tabernacle of meeting and the altar, he shall bring the live goat, Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess it over all the iniquities of the children of Israel." That is the word that Isaiah uses. Iniquity, that very same word. "...of the children of Israel and all their transgressions concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat and shall send it away into the wilderness by the land of a suitable man. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities in an uninhabited land and he shall release the goat in the wilderness." Isaiah is talking about an inhabited land where the iniquities are atoned for. Moses in Leviticus is talking about iniquities being sent into an uninhabited land, that the iniquities are transferred from the priest to the animal.

And the animal is sent away into the wilderness, never to be seen again. And it is true, those worships will never come back. The threats of terror will never be there again because the animal has gone out into the wilderness and no one will ever find him again. Because your sins are set apart from you as far as the east is from the west. The Bible says that your sins are plunged into the bottom of the sea.

I don't understand this, but the Bible also says that the Lord has no memory of them. I don't know how that works. Isaiah is so clear here. Behold the beauty of the Lord. The beauty of Christ is the beauty of the Christian.

The goodness of Christ is the goodness of the Christian. And there's nothing better for the soul of a human being than to behold the beauty of the Lord. And it begins with beholding the beauty of the Lord and then seeing the contradiction in your own soul and the wickedness that's there. And saying like what Isaiah said, I'm undone. And then the Lord coming in the beauty of His holiness and beautifying you with His beauty.

And then spending the rest of your earthly life beautifying you, so jealous for your soul, doing everything he can in this world to both comfort you and confront you, so that the poisons would be relieved, so that the beauty would replace the ashes of your life. This is the kindness of God. And this is why Edwards believed that beauty was the essence of the Christian life. And in this church, we ought to do the same. Would you pray with me?

Lord, Lord, we thank you for this great gospel being preached of your beauty and the salvation in Christ, the atoning sacrifice, the beauty of that sacrifice, the caring away of all of our iniquities into oblivion, replacing the beauty for ashes. Lord, we thank you for your kindness towards such sinners. Lord, I pray you would fill us with the happiness of all the beauties of holiness as we gather today. Lord, make this the happiest holiest gathering that we've ever had, feeding on your beauty, letting your beauty be the touchstone for everything that we say and do here in this place today. And as we go out into the world, that our work would be the beauty of the Lord.

Amen.