I want to begin our time this evening, perhaps in a bit of a reverse order than we would normally. I'd like to begin just with a question. The question is, what do you need most? What do you feel you need most at this moment? What do you really need? I ask it three ways because I suppose it's a difficult question for us to answer. You might say to me, it's a question I can't answer. The heart is a complicated thing. Well, let me ask you a second question then. What is the most pressing anxiety? What is that concern that looms ever and always in the back of your mind? If you can answer that question, then you can answer the first. So friend, what is it? What is it that you really need most this evening? In one sense, friend, that's the very question that our text raises for us. In fact, it's that question that really we ought to have begun with when we looked at chapter seven. It's the question that the prophet, as God's mouthpiece sets before his generation, what really is the crisis as you see it? What do you really need from God? A friend, we saw that the prophet himself answers that question for us. They ought to have seen not national subjugation, not a potential coup d'etat as the greatest of crises. The greatest crisis facing Judah was her apostasy. And the prophet reiterates that chapter seven, chapter eight, and again, even in chapter nine, he reminds them that their greatest need was to return to the living God. Because their greatest problem was not, it was not their longevity, it was not their health, and it was not their wealth. Their greatest problem was spiritual. And the prophet has reminded them of that time and time again. This was a people, you remember from chapter eight, who ought to have said, to the law and to the testimony. That ought to have been their battle cry. But instead of saying to the law and to the testimony, that is, instead of saying, go to the law as the rule of our walk, or go to the testimony as the ground of our hope, they said instead, a confederacy. A confederacy with anyone and everyone. They said, instead of going to the law and to the testimony, seek those out who have familiar spirits, necromancers, fortune tellers. Instead of saying to the law and to the testimony, instead of going back to God, this was a people who sought out different saviors. Well, beloved, our text in this ninth chapter, it returns to those self same themes. It reminds us once again of what really is the crisis. And so what is the solution? My friend, it begins in verse one there with a powerful, a powerful word. A powerful word, especially given what you find in chapter eight in verse 23. It's the word nevertheless. Nevertheless, notwithstanding all that has gone before, notwithstanding the desolation, notwithstanding the annihilation that is described for us in verse 23. Nevertheless, there will be a preservation. Though this is a people driven to darkness, there will be preserving. And then in verse two, you have a promise. And that promise is actually somewhat obscure, isn't it? Because it focuses not on Judah. It actually focuses on Galilee. far removed to the North, not to the land of Judah and Benjamin, but to the land of Zebulun and of Naphtali. And that promise is really given to us in fuller form in verses three to five. That people they're described will not only be preserved. The people described there, they will enjoy more than just their lives for a prey. They, will be replenished with riches and they will be made to rejoice. And why? In verses six and seven, you have the reason. Why this people in the northern part of the promised land will rejoice for, says verse six, unto us, a child is born. My beloved, as you hold all of that text together, I want to remind you of something that I think we could easily forget and certainly most modern exegetes have forgotten. And that is that the prophet's principal aim from the seventh chapter till this is to set Judah's true crisis before the people. To remind them that their greatest needs do not pertain to the protection of their wealth or their health. He reminds them that their greatest need is fundamentally spiritual. The greatest crisis is spiritual. And beloved, if that is the case, if indeed the prophet is alive to the fact, as of course he was as God's mouthpiece, that the greatest evil was not Assyria, but was sin, and the greatest danger was not occupation, but eternal and everlasting death, then you would expect that the prophet would now be urging the congregation to see that themselves. Not only urging them to see the true crisis, but urging them to see that there is not only a greater evil, but there is a greater salvation that they ought to be looking for. than what could be found from Assyria or Syria. Indeed, a greater savior than what they had hoped for. Beloved, if Isaiah really does believe that the greatest crisis in Judah is spiritual, he must be driving them to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he does. Because he says, that is the spirit of God in Matthew chapter four, he says this prophecy is fulfilled. When the Lord Jesus Christ enters Galilee of the nations, there you find the greater savior that here the prophet anticipated, who solves the greatest crisis, who meets the greatest need. So friend, before we take up this text, allow me to go back just briefly to the question with which we began. What is your greatest need? Friend, do you feel that your greatest anxieties pertain to your health? How about to your wealth and your standing in this world? Beloved Isaiah urges you to see that those things are of such greater, oh, sorry, far much lesser importance than what is offered in this text. Here you have the Lord Jesus Christ as the greatest savior, the only savior for the greatest dilemma, the greatest crisis. And as such, this text teaches us that only in Christ is found true joy and security. Only in Christ is found true joy and security. And the prophet shows this to us by first of all, reminding us of the rescue, the rescue that's in view. And you see that in the first verse. And the first verse is notoriously difficult to translate. And you notice that even the translators before us, you'll notice the number of italics that are used as it were to help us understand the text. It's syntactically difficult. But what I want you to notice friend here is first of all, the main principle is easily grasped. And that is that the dimness that is described in verse 23, it will not last. the dimness will not last. There is a time that is coming in which that will dissipate. Now what's striking is as you look at verse 23 in the original, as you look at verse one of chapter nine in the original, you'll notice that every single noun, sorry, adjective rather, that is given in verse 23 is negated expressly in chapter nine, verse one. Every single adjective. And so there's a total reversal that is here. And friend, the sense is that there is a time coming where grace will be inaugurated for those who are once in darkness. However you read the text, you must grasp that. And you also must see from the second verse that those upon whom this grace comes, friend, they are passive in the moment. These are not a people who seek or who manufacture this light, but it comes upon them. And friend, you shouldn't miss from that as well that this light is then a surprising light, an unsought for light. If you hold all of that together, then friend, you recognize that that which is described for us in the beginning of this ninth chapter, is truly meeting the spiritual crisis that was described for us at the end of chapter eight. You remember, friend, that the darkness that is reversed in our text is a darkness that is not only of temporal misery, not only of physical affliction, the darkness you remember led men to curse God. It was a spiritual darkness, not just temporal. And that means then that the light described in our text is of necessity for a reversal of that darkness in its totality. That which was the greatest part of the darkness before is now overturned. The greatest evil of chapter eight is overturned with the light in our text. And beloved, that means then we are describing here the light of the gospel. shining upon those who are once dead. And we'll see, God willing in the time to come, that the light that shines produces real and spiritual effect. It makes those who once cursed God to rejoice in Him. Friend, we see the rescue then in this text is a rescue from sin and its misery. And we need to recognize friend that this rescue comes upon those who are well deserving of the darkness in which they subsided. Remember a friend in the text that it's the present tense that is deployed there. When he says that they were in darkness, he says that they were walking in darkness. They dwelt in this darkness. Not just misery, but sin. Beloved, what you have here then is a picture of those who were in the midst of death and worthily so. A parallel I suppose you find is in Ezekiel 16. Remember there the Lord, he presents to us a picture of the church and he says this, I said unto thee when thou wast in my blood, live. I said, he says again, unto thee when thou wast in my blood, live, while she was in her blood. That is while she was polluted, while she was in her misery, then the light of his grace came upon her. Then she was given life by the Lord. And so it is in our text, the light that shines here comes upon those who walked in darkness, who abode in darkness. And beloved, so does the light of the gospel in every case. When Israel was in Egypt, Friends, she, as Joshua tells us, she was given over to idolatry. And yet the Lord surprisingly delivered. After making a career of apostasy, then suddenly Manasseh is turned back to the Lord. After Saul was once a vehement persecutor of the church, now he's made a preacher of the gospel. And beloved, so it is with every Christian. The light that comes upon us is known as substantially distinct from that which is described in our text. When the light of the gospel shown, we were ourselves in darkness. So says the text. When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, his revenient in that sense. And while we were enemies, while we ourselves walked in darkness, while we were estranged from the life and from the light of God. Friend, what this text reminds us is that the gospel came to us not as though we were innocent beggars. We weren't. Beloved, every one of us, even those converted in their youngest years, were those who hated God from the heart, who too walked in darkness and in the shadow of death. And beloved, at its inception, then, at its inception, the grace of God was entirely a work of God. While you and I would exercise faith from the new life that was given, the inception of life, friend, is only a work of God. And you see that illustrated for us in the fourth verse. He says that the deliverance that is to come in Galilee, these ones who are described in our text, it will be as in the day of Midian. And you remember, of course, that takes us back to Judges 7. It takes us back to the episode with Gideon and the Midianites. And you remember, friend, perhaps that in that episode, the Lord God himself pared down Gideon's forces until there was only really a handful. But do you remember why he did so? Beloved, the text is clear in Judges 7 verse 2, the Lord tells us why he pared down Gideon's forces and it was this, so that none could say, my known hand hath saved me. And what the prophet says in our text is that the redemption that will be wrought, the deliverance that these ones will know will be in that sense. Friend, it will be a like redemption where none could say, my own hand has saved me. The Galileans who were described in this text will find that salvation is of the Lord alone. Alone. Beloved, in these first two verses, the prophet then sets before us this surprising work of grace. And it's supposed to surprise us. These were people long in darkness and worthily under the misery of sin. And yet the light came. And while they were impotent in themselves, they knew the greatest of deliverances. Friend, this text is supposed to make us marvel at the grace of God. And beloved, what is recorded for us here is recapitulated in the conversion of every single one of God's people. They too walked in darkness, and they too were saved in such a way that they could not say, mine own hand has saved me. Do you marvel, beloved, at the work of grace? Do you marvel at its objects? You marvel at the display of omnipotence that it provides for us. And so that is the rescue. What then of the rejoicing? Because we see that in the third verse. And again, we come to a text that is quite difficult in the original. It's difficult because of the preposition low. And so friend, our best men are divided in many ways on how to understand what we find in this text. Kelvin rendered this text as an interrogative, as a question. In other words, he would read it, thou hast multiplied the nation and hast thou not increased the joy. That's one potential reading from the original. Another is Matthew Poole. He takes the word lo there as something of being a pronoun. That is, thou hast multiplied the nation and has increased his joy. And Poole makes arguments why he can read it so. Luther and others take it this way, that in the first line, you have, of course, the Lord's blessing upon the people. In the second line, where he says, thou has not increased the joy, he's speaking to a contingent of men who did not rejoice. In this case, namely the Jews who refused the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in the third line, he returns to those who actually rejoice. And so he sees their two parties. However you take the text, and I'm going to leave you with all of those options this evening. However you take the text, friend, I want you to notice that in that last line of the third verse, you do find a rejoicing people. You can't miss that. And I want us to rest on that just for a moment this evening. You find a people who are once in darkness and at once worthily in anguish, now made a people who rejoice before the Lord." Now, friend, I want you to notice, and all commentators are agreed on this point, the rejoicing that is in this line is spiritual. This is not a carnal rejoicing. He is saying here that there is a people who rejoice before the Lord, truly rejoice and make God the object of that joy. And he even describes for us the manner of their rejoicing. It is as one who is recipient of a great harvest, and one who has scored a great victory, and so has reaped its spoil. And beloved, we find in this text, as the evangelist writes in Matthew 4, that all of this is from the Lord Jesus Christ. He, in our own text in verse six, reminds us of that. He is the cause of this rejoicing. Here we find that there is a people, namely God's people who rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ. Friend, why is that significant? Why is that significant in our text? It's significant because in Isaiah's day, friend, as we already read, this was a people who cursed God. Now Isaiah tells us of a time when they would rejoice before him. A people who were once his enemies, now made those who delight in the Lord God. Beloved, it's a staggering reversal, is it not? And here we're told that their rejoicing would be as the farmer in harvest, as the soldier in victory. Beloved, as you work through the scriptures, you find this language applied again and again to those who benefit from the Lord Jesus Christ. In Isaiah 53, probably most prominent of all, you have these words. He, that is the Lord Jesus, shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he says he hath poured out his soul unto death. the Lord Jesus victorious, and then distributing his benefits to his own, his people made to rejoice in his victory. We will spend the remainder of our time thinking further on that. But friend, I want us just to see in this text, that a mark of grace, a mark of those who have had the light of the gospel shine upon them, according to the prophet, is that they rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his victory. They rejoice in his fructifying work. They rejoice in the spoils of his conquest. And so friend, the question for us this evening is certainly, are we a rejoicing people? Do we really rejoice, friend, in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ? Because according to our texts, those who have had his light shine upon them, they do so. They are made to rejoice in him. And so we close this evening, friend, by looking finally at the reason for this conquest, and so the reason for the people's security and their joy. For unto us, the sixth verse begins. For unto us. Friend, I want you to notice the speaker first of all. Have you ever thought about that in this familiar text? Who is the one speaking? What's striking is of course the pronoun is in the plural. It's not just one person speaking. And the antecedent requires that it is the very people described for us in the preceding verses. Namely, these are the Galileans speaking, upon whom the light of the Lord Jesus Christ has shown. They are saying all of this victory and all that we are rejoicing in the security that we now have, it was all because unto us, unto us, a child. Unto us a son has been given. And friend, if you and I have been paying attention through the eighth chapter, you recognize that this is exactly, exactly what Isaiah's generation ought to have said. It is an extended form, if you like, of the cry of verse 20. You remember in verse 20 that the people there are supposed to cry to the law and to the testimony. Let the law be the rule of my life and let the testimony, the promises of God be the ground of my hope. And now, now the people say, all that we have and all that we rejoice in is because unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. The promise and even the holding of the Lord Jesus Christ now is the ground of their victory. and of their rejoicing. The reversal, friend, could not be more clear. The contrast could not be more stark. Beloved, I also want you to notice that in this text, that underscores that the joy that's described beforehand is a genuine and a spiritual joy. Why are the people rejoicing? Beloved, it's simply because they've been given Christ. because they have him, they rejoice. Is it not staggering friend that though there's so much talk at this stage about the benefits that accrue to them through the Lord Jesus, they are very clear in the first lines of this confession of faith. They rejoice because they've been given him. They've been given him. And therefore, they are secure. And therefore, they rejoice. Friend, what we learn then in these last two verses is that the reason for the people's security and joy in this text is just in Christ, in himself. Yes, the benefits that accrue to the people of God are manifold and are wondrous. But this confession of faith, as it is in the sixth and seventh verse, reminds us that all of that is grounded in the person of Christ himself. If they've been given Christ, and that is enough. Their security is found in him. And so it is for every believer. Says the apostle, ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. You don't have a life, says the Apostle Paul, but only that which is hidden in the Lord Jesus. Beloved, that means that that life is impregnable. It is unassailable, really. It is absolutely secure. Simply because, says the Apostle, you are united to him. Or in the words of our text, he has been given to you. Your life is hid in Him. And as far as rejoicing goes, friend, I know we read this text regularly, but it needs to be underscored. Peter illustrates for us how every believer is to have the experience of those in this text. He writes of the Christians under persecution. He says, though your faith is tried by fire, yet Jesus Christ, whom having not seen, ye love, in whom though ye now see him not yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Christian note that Peter says exactly the same thing that we find in the sixth verse in our text. It is Christ himself Friend, that fills them with rejoicing and with a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. This is why they rejoice, friend, as those in harvest, as those who have great spoil, because they have the Lord Jesus Christ. So friend, as we close this evening, allow me just to return to the question with which we began once more. Have you grasped what is your greatest need, really? It's not longevity. It's not wealth. It is not temporal security. Your greatest need corresponds to your greatest crisis, namely your apostasy from God, your sin. And the only solution is the only savior presented to us in our text and in all the Word of God. Friend, let your wealth, let your health, let every earthly good you have diminish. Our text holds out that which you really need. And so do you grasp that this evening? And do you also grasp, secondly, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in his redemptive work? This text is supposed to set us, as it were, in a posture of wonder, that his grace is so surprising and that his grace is so lavish, that his grace is sufficient for our greatest need. So friend, do you grasp your greatest need this evening? He grasped the glory of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want us to close, friend, by reminding you that this text and all of the deliverance and all of the joy that's described here is predicated upon the giving of the Lord Jesus Christ. Friend, every time the gospel is published, Even tonight, Christ is offering himself to you. It is a fresh offer this evening that you have. Beloved, will you close with it? Will you close with it again and again? Because you need to. Coming to Christ is not a single thing. Yes, the inception of spiritual life happens once, But friend, you and I, every time we hear this offer of the gospel, we are to close with it afresh. So will you. And do you see friend that even this evening, the greatest offer is being tendered to you again, corporately and personally. But I also want you to notice that in this text, you have a wonderful picture of the grace and of its freeness of God. Beloved, the Lord God could have looked at lost and ruined mankind and said, I will get the glory of my justice upon them. I will destroy them utterly and exalt my righteousness. Friend, he might have done so. The decree to save men was a free act of God. There was no coercion, but know the Lord God was pleased, as Paul reminds us time and time again in Ephesians one, to exalt the glory of his grace, to save a people to himself, to save those who are described in this text. And friend, remember that the Lord Jesus was pleased to make these people his portion. James Durham put it this way. He says, it is his portion when, to say so, the world is dealt, that he gets a number of lost sinners to save as his share. And though he be heir of all things and the firstborn, yet he loves that better than a thousand kingdoms. When he has his spoil and prey of the taking, his people, that is it. and he chooses no other. And our text shows us that this is indeed, indeed the Lord's pleasure to save a people who were once in darkness and worthily so. And our text underscores for us that he was pleased to do it. Your calling in mind then this evening as we leave this place Friend is to repent of our carnality, to remember what is our greatest need, to fly to Christ as our only and sufficient savior, to lay hold of him afresh as he holds out to us his offer once again. And beloved to do as the people do in this text, to trace all of our security and all of our joy in Christ himself, and in the unsearchable riches that he's unlocked for us. And for God's name, his sake and praise, may he lead us to do just that. Amen.