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The Son Shall Make You Free By Henry Mahan
Bible Text: Isaiah 61
Henry T. Mahan Tape Library Zebulon Baptist Church 6088 Zebulon Highway
Online Sermons: http://mahan.sermonaudio.com
Now the title of my message today is, “The Son Shall Make You Free.” And I am going to be speaking from Isaiah 61, Isaiah 61, three verses, verses one, two and three. And I would like for you to take your Bibles and follow along as I preach.
The Lord Jesus had come to Nazareth where he was brought up, where he lived and where he worked as a carpenter and where Mary and Joseph and the family still lived. Some of the people said, “We know him. We know his mother. We know his brothers and sisters.” But he came back to Nazareth and his fame had spread abroad everywhere, Capernaum and other cities where his mighty...some mighty works had been performed. But our Lord went to the synagogue on the sabbath day. When he came back to his home town he went to the synagogue. The Scripture says, “as his custom was for he was a Jew.” He was the seed of Abraham. He was the house of David. Remember, he was born in Bethlehem, the city of David. He is our Messiah. He is our Savior and he was brought up under the law, the law of circumcision, the law of the Passover, the law of the sabbath and the law of the first fruits and all these other feasts that he observed. And he did this, he said, to fulfill all righteousness on our behalf for our salvation.
Well, he came to the synagogue and the Scripture says, “They delivered unto him the writings of Isaiah the prophet.” And our Lord stood up to read. Back then they stood up to read and they sat down to preach. But our Lord stood up to read and he deliberately, this is Jesus Christ our Lord in the synagogue on the sabbath day with a large group of people there. The place was packed. They came to hear him. They said, “Do the things here you did in the other cities. Let’s see some of your wonders and miracles.”
And they were, too. They said they were.
Well, Christ picked out this messianic prophecy and he said. This...it is in Isaiah 61. You find it there, Isaiah 61 verse one, two and three. He stood to read. “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord God hath anointed me to preach good news to the poor, gospel to the poor. The Lord God hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted. He hath sent me to proclaim liberty, freedom to the captives, the opening of prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, to proclaim the day of vengeance of our God and to comfort all that mourn.” And he closed the book and he sat down. And all eyes in the synagogue were upon him and he said to them, “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears. This Scripture was written hundreds and hundreds of years ago about the Messiah, but you have just heard it and it is fulfilled in your ears. For I am the Messiah. I am the woman’s seed. I am the kinsman redeemer. I am the desire of all nations. I am the Lord our righteousness of whom Jeremiah spoke. I am the branch. I am the root of Jesse. I am the seed of David. I am the lion of the tribe of Judah. I am that prophet of whom Moses wrote. I am the messenger of the covenant of whom Malachi spoke.”
He said, “All of these promises and prophesies...” This is what he is saying. “All of these promises and prophecies and pictures and types of the Old Testament concerning the Messiah and concerning salvation is fulfilled this very day in your ears. The God man, the Messiah is here.”
That is what Timothy wrote. Timothy wrote in...or Paul wrote to Timothy writing the letter to Timothy in 1 Timothy three he said, “Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in human flesh, seen of the angels, that is announced to the angels, vindicated by the Spirit, preached to the Gentiles, believed on in the world, crucified on the cross, buried in the tomb and risen and received up in glory.”
Christ said, “I am he.”
Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 7:14, “Behold the Lord himself will give you a sign. A virgin shall conceive and bear a son and she will call his name Immanuel, God is with us.”
Micah wrote, “Thou Bethlehem...” We have been reading this the past few weeks. “Thou Bethlehem, little among the thousands, yet out of thee he will come forth unto me.” Now this prophecy is written years before Christ came. “He will come forth unto me who will be the ruler in Israel, king in Israel, whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting, from everlasting. God almighty in human flesh.”
Christ said, “I am he.
One day the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ was speaking to some of these religious leaders, some of these men who were sitting right there in that congregation in that sabbath morning in that synagogue. He had been talking to some of these men. They had been asking him all sorts of question, all sorts of questions. And he answered their questions and put them to silence. And when they had nothing else to say one of them said to him said, well, he said, “Which is the greatest law? Which is the greatest commandment?”
And our Lord said, “All the commandments are fulfilled in two. Love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.”
And he couldn’t answer. He couldn’t say anything. Now they were all silenced.
So our Lord put a question to them. He said to them, “Now what think ye of the Messiah?” This is what I have been talking about here, the Messiah, the Christ who is to come. “What do you think of the Messiah? What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he? Whose son is he?”
And they quickly replied. They could answer that because that is in the Scripture. They replied, “The Messiah will come as the Son of David. He will be born in this town of David. The Messiah will come from the seed of David, from the tribe of Judah, from the loins of Jesse.”
Well, our Lord said to them, “Now in speaking of the Messiah you say he is the seed of David, the Son of David.” In speaking of the Messiah David said, “The Lord said unto my Lord sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” David called the Messiah Lord. Now you say the Messiah is the Son of David. How can the Messiah, the Christ, the glorious Redeemer be David’s Son and at the same time David’s Lord? Tell me how he can be David’s Son and David’s Lord?
And the Scripture says that no man was able to answer that question.
Well, Paul answered that for us over in Romans chapter one. Paul answered that. This is what he said. “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God which he spoke by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. This is no new gospel now. This is the ancient gospel. This is the gospel of Moses and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the fathers.”
You can take Mathew’s genealogy and Luke’s genealogy of Christ and trace Christ’s heritage and lineage right on back to David and right on back to Abraham. He was made of the seed of David. But he was declared to be the Son of God.
So he is David’s Son according to the flesh, but he is David’s Lord and master according to what he is and what he has always been with power, perfection, holiness and raised from the dead, made what he wasn’t, a man and declared to be what he is, God almighty.
And that is when the Lord Jesus said to her, “I that speak to thee am he. I that speak to thee am the Messiah.”
And, my friends, this is what our Lord is saying to that synagogue crowd in the sabbath day when he read that messianic prophecy, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, to give liberty to the captives, to bind up the broken hearted, to comfort them that mourn. I am, this Scripture is fulfilled in your ears. I am the Messiah. This day all this Scripture is fulfilled.”
Who is the Messiah? Jesus the son of Mary. “Call his name Jesus. He will save his people from their sins. Call his name Immanuel.” Who is the Messiah? Immanuel, God with us. What is his name? Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of peace. What did the Messiah come to do? Let’s read the Scripture, the Scripture our Lord read, the Scripture the Messiah himself on that sabbath morning in that synagogue at Nazareth chose to read and to identify himself to all those people and to identify what his work, what he came to do. What did he come to do?
We know now who he is. Made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were born under the law.
All right. He says this. “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.”
Now the Spirit of the Lord God had been upon many men before. The Spirit of the Lord God, I believe, now, is upon every man whom he calls and sends to speak for him. I believe the Spirit of God is upon me when I preach the gospel. But the Spirit of God, what Christ is saying here, the Sprit of God is upon Christ Jesus the Messiah without measure as it has never been upon any man.
To do what? “He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.” Now in the Old Testament Scriptures there are three offices among the rulers of Israel. There’s the prophet. Moses was a prophet. There is the priest. Aaron was the priest. There is the king. Saul, David, Solomon, those were the kings. And no man had three offices. No man assumed these other offices. If he was a king he wasn’t a priest. If he was a prophet he wasn’t a king, he wasn’t a priest.
“This is my beloved Son,” the Father said, “Hear him.”
He is the priest. Aaron was the priest. Christ is...he is a type of Christ. Christ is our great high priest and his blood is the sacrifice, not the blood of an animal.
He is our king. David was a king, a type of Christ. But Christ is the king who reigns over his people.
“He has sent me as the prophet, the priest and the king to preach the gospel., the good news, to the poor.” Not just to the poor in possessions, but the poor in Spirit. Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.
And Arthur Pink gave the best definition of the poor in Spirit. Christ came, sent by God, empowered by the Spirit. That prophet, that priest, that king to preach the gospel to the poor. What is spiritual poverty? Arthur Pink says it is those who have nothing spiritually, who know nothing spiritually, who can do nothing spiritually. And he came to supply them with all they need. Preach the gospel to the poor.
And then he said, “He sent me to heal the broken hearted, to bind up the broken hearted.”
What is this broken heartedness? Well, I suppose every one listening to me has had some great sorrow to visit you at some time in your life. And you know what it means to be, what we say, heart broken. But our Lord is not talking about that kind of broken heart. Our Lord is speaking not here of the loss of a loved one or the disappointments of earth. Our Lord is talking about those who are brokenhearted over sin whose hearts are smitten and contrite because of sin, who are humbled by the Spirit of God over our sinful natures.
My sin is ever before thee. Against thee and thee only have I sinned. We were humbled over our sinful natures, our sinful words, our sinful ways before a holy God.
Isaiah saw the Lord and he said, “Lord, I am a man of unclean lips. I dwell among a people of unclean lips. I am undone. I am cut off.” Broken hearted over his sin.
The publican came into the temple. He wouldn’t go down to the front. He stood in the back, wouldn’t lift his eyes to heaven, smote upon his breast. He said, “God, oh God, be merciful to me a sinner.” He smote on his breast. He had a broken heart.
Oh, broken hearted over sin.
And our Lord said, “I come to bind them up. I come to heal them. I come to give peace to the troubled spirit and the broken heart.”
Then notice what he said. “I have come to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of prison to them who are bound.”
Well, now this is interesting. Who is this? I know who are the poor in spirit. I know who are the broken hearted. Now who are those who are bound and in prison? Well, there is an interesting dialog that our Lord had with some of these religious Pharisees over in John eight. Listen to it. Our Lord in John chapter eight verse 32 said to these men, these religious Pharisees, he said, “You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. You know the truth and the truth will make you free, free.”
And they answered back in their pride, they said, “We are Abraham’s seed.” Do you understand that? “We have never been in bondage to any man. We are not in bondage. We have never been in bondage. Why are you talking about being free?”
The Lord replied. “He that committeth sin is the servant of sin.”
Anybody listening to my voice, including this preacher who is talking, who has ever sinned, who does sin in word, thought or deed is the servant of sin. The reason we sin is because we are in bondage to sin. We are in bondage to a fallen nature. We are born in sin. In sin our mother conceived us. We are estranged from the womb. We come from the womb speaking lies. We exaggerate. There is no way in this world we can go one hour without sin in some way. We don’t love our neighbor as ourselves. We don’t love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. We are in bondage to sin, to a sinful nature, to a fallen will. And, as a result of that sin, we are under the curse of the law. We are in bondage to the law. The law demands perfection. We haven’t produced it. So we are in bondage. And we are in a body that is dying. We can’t stop it. Our body is decaying. It is corrupting. It is getting old. It is withering it is died. You can’t stop it. You are in bondage. Sin, the curse of sin, the state of sin, the nature of sin.
That is what Paul said over there in Romans chapter seven. He said, “I find when I would do good evil is present with me.”
You know what he is talking about.
So he that commits sin is the servant of sin. So how are we going o get out of this bondage? How are we going to get out of this captivity to the sinful nature? The next verse our Lord said, John 8:36.
“If the Son shall make you free, you will be free indeed. I have come to set free the prisoners of sin. I have come to set the captive free. I have come to deliver men from the curse of the law, from the bondage of the law. Sin shall not have dominion over you. Christ shall reign. He has come to set the captive free.”
Do you know what that means? I know what that means. The liberty of Christ.
“The Spirit of God is upon me. He sent me to preach the gospel, the good news of the gospel. He sent me to bind up the broken hearted. He sent me to set the captive free. And he sent me, listen, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Over in Leviticus 25 there is one of the most interesting, beautiful types of Christ called the year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25. I don’t have the time on the program to read it all, but you read it, Leviticus 25 verses eight through 10. One of the types of our Lord Jesus Christ and his redeeming work is the year of Jubilee.
Every 50th year in Israel—number seven years of sabbaths, seven years and one year, 50 years, every 50 years—there was a call...the trumpets sounded and there was a year of Jubilee.
What does that mean? Every slave was set free. All property that had been lost or sold or taken over by somebody else was restored to its original owner. All debts, no matter how much a man owed or to whom he owed it, all debts were paid in full and there was declared a year of rest and peace and no work. It is called an acceptable year of the Lord, the year of Jubilee.
And because God has accepted us in the beloved, that’s right. Ephesians says we are accepted in the beloved, then this slave has been set free. This servant of sin has been delivered. This bondage, this will that was in bondage is now free. What I lost in Adam is restored. He has restored my soul and all my debts of sin are paid in full and I have peace and rest. I no more labor in the toil of sin.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.
Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God.
He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Now then listen. “He has sent me to proclaim the day of vengeance of our God.”
Now, my friends, is God just to punish sin? Can God be holy and not punish sin? The death of Christ proves that God will punish sin. So there is coming a day of vengeance, the day of redemption, the day of resurrection, the day when the people of God will go to forever be with the Lord and the rest of the earth is going to be judged.
In Acts 17:31 says, “God commendeth all men everywhere to repent, for he hath appointed a day, a day of vengeance, a day in which he is going to judge this world and he is going to judge it in righteousness. By that man whom he hath ordained, whom he sent, of whom we have been reading and judgment will be based upon your relationship with him. Judgment will be upon all who have not his righteousness to sanctify them and his blood to justify them. The judgment will be upon all those who have not his blood to atone.
So Christ came to proclaim there is a day coming when men will be judged and the basis of that judgment will be our relationship to Christ. He that believeth on the Son of God shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. But he that believeth not on the Son shall be judged and cast into eternal condemnation.
Then he says about the Church he will give them beauty for ashes, his beauty, his glory in place of their ashes of sin. He will give them oil of joy for mourning. Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning. He will give them the garment of praise for the spirit of happiness that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord.
All right. If you want this tape write for it. Send two dollars and we will mail it to you. Until next week at this same time may God bless you everyone.
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