All right, brethren, let's be
turning to Isaiah chapter 41. Isaiah 41. And it's so good to
be with you again. And I have a lot of friends here
that I've been friends with for a long, long time. And it's always
good to be with you. Always good to see you. And I
really like, enjoy coming here. I'm so thankful that you asked
me to come. And just really appreciate it. Brother Donnie, we had a meeting
two weeks ago, and after each one of the messages, you know,
I just didn't want to get up and say anything after the preaching
because I didn't want to mess it up. It was so good. That's
how I feel right now. I told Fred a minute ago, I said,
I'd really like to just feed on what I just heard for a while
is really what I'd like to do. That was really, really, really
a blessing to me, Brother Donny. Isaiah 41, I'm going to begin
by just making a few statements and I want to read my text. You
know, the Lord's people must go through much tribulation.
That is what the Lord said. We must, through much tribulation,
enter the kingdom of God. It's a must. It's a need be.
So we're going to go through some trouble. The Lord has been
pleased to leave us in this body of death. That's going to cause
us trouble. He's been pleased to leave us
in this sin-cursed world. That's going to cause trouble.
But He's left us here for a purpose. Our Lord has got some lost sheep
that He has redeemed, and He will call every one of them out.
And that's why we're here. We're here to preach this good
news of our Redeemer, and He shall call out His people. Now,
because this gospel is offensive, that's part of the reason we're
going to suffer. You know, the churches we go to, that we know,
that we fellowship with, they're all just small congregations. There's a few here, there's a
few there, and we're scattered, we're far apart. And every congregation
has some kind of trouble within it. Every one of them. And everybody in each of the
congregations have their own personal troubles. Talking about
God's people now, God's saints. We have the promises of God here
that He's going to keep His people and He's going to continue to
keep His church and He's going to bless His word and He's going
to call out His people. And I want you to be comforted.
I want you to be assured. I want you to be strengthened.
I want Him to do that for you and you go out of here knowing
all is well. All is well. The Lord is faithful
and all is well. Our text gives us five promises
that's going to meet every need of God's child. These are five
promises. Every need for you that trust
Christ alone. He's going to do this for you.
This is what he promises. We become fearful. We get fearful
of many things. This is that bad fear Brother
Donnie was talking about. We start fearing people and things,
and this is what he says, verse 10, God says, Isaiah 41, 10,
he says, Fear thou not, for I am with thee. And then, we look about, we start
looking from the Lord, and we look at things, and things here
below, and we start to get anxious. We get dismayed. He says, verse 10, Be not dismayed,
for I am thy God. We're weak in ourselves. At times we get so weak, we can't
hardly continue. Verse 10, God says, I will strengthen
thee. Our burdens become heavy to us.
It's just too heavy for us. God promises, verse 10, yea,
I will help thee. Sometimes our foot slips. and
we fall and we think we might fall away. This is what the Lord
said. Verse 10, Yea, I will uphold
thee with the right hand of my righteousness. Now there's five
promises. It's just one promise really.
God said, I will save you. But let's just look at these
five things briefly. If God's given you faith in Christ
to trust Him and Him alone, these are five promises to you. Five
promises to you. Now let's hear what he said.
First of all, God says in verse 10, Fear thou not, I am with
thee. Now throughout the scriptures,
God tells his people a lot. Fear thou not. And every time
he says fear not, there is a because with it. And the cause is God
and what he is and what he's doing. That's always the because.
Fear thou not, for I am with thee. Look down at verse 11. We become fearful when enemies
of the cross become incensed against us and oppose us. And
there's some enemies. They don't... The carnal mind's
enmity against God, and he hears this gospel, and he becomes incensed
against us and opposes us. That makes us fearful. But look
at what he says in verse 11. Behold, all they that were incensed
against thee shall be ashamed and confounded. They shall be
as nothing, and they that strive with thee shall perish. How so?
How's this going to happen? Verse 13, He said, For I, the
Lord thy God, will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear
not, I will help thee. The because is always the Lord
saying what He will do for us. We're weak worms in ourselves.
We become fearful of our own selves. Verse 14, Fear not, thou
worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel. Because of God's electing grace,
we're Israel. We're the elect Israel of God.
But in ourselves, we're worms. We're Jacob's. But look what
he says. Fear thou not, worm Jacob. What
could be more helpless than a worm? What could be more weak and helpless
than a worm? Well, now, if there's any sinner
trusting himself and trying to be his own strength and his own
power and his own salvation, he got every reason to be fearful.
But to you that are so weak and so helpless, He says, Fear not,
thou worm Jacob, here is the reason. I will help thee, saith
the Lord, in thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Let's look
at another place, Isaiah 43. Trials and persecutions make
us fearful. When trials come and persecutions
come, they make you fearful. God promises in Isaiah 43, 1,
Now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he
that formed thee, O Israel, fear not. Why not? He said, for I
have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name. Thou art mine. We now passeth
through the waters. I'll be with thee. When you go
through the rivers, they won't overflow you. When you walk through
the fire, thou shalt not be burned. Neither the flame even kindle
upon you, because I am the Lord thy God. the Holy One of Israel,
thy Savior. He said, I gave nations for you.
I gave people for you. You've been precious in my sight.
You're honorable. I love you. Therefore, I give
men for you and people for your life. We become fearful when
we see so few hearing our gospel and believe in the gospel, and
we start seeing folks go away from the gospel. That makes us
fearful, too. Look what he says right here
in Isaiah 43, 5. Fear not. Why? For I'm with thee, I will bring
thy seed from the east and gather thee from the west. I'll say
to the north, give up to the south, keep not back. Bring my
son from far and my daughters from the ends of the earth. Everyone
is called by my name, for I've created him for my glory. I formed
him, yea, I made him. You see, the reason God commands
us to fear not is God himself. He's the Savior. He's the Savior. And what He promises, He will
do. You that have been in the faith a while, you can say, that's
so. He's made good on those promises
to me. Hadn't He, Brother Donald? He's with us without fail. He
chose us by His grace. So there's nothing that's going
to change grace. Grace wasn't... He didn't choose
you because there's something in you. He chose us by grace. And so nothing was going to make
Him change His favor toward His people. Christ redeemed us. That's what He told us. I redeemed
you. That's why you don't have to fear. You're my purchased
possession. I paid my blood for you. I will
save you. The Spirit of God gave us all
things that pertain to life and Godless. And God don't take back
His gifts. So He says, fear not. I am with
thee. All right, secondly, let's go
back now to Isaiah 41.10. We begin to look at things we
can see with our carnal eye. We start looking at things below
that we can see with this carnal eye. We start judging by appearance,
and that's what makes us anxious. That's what it is to be dismayed. The word means to look away,
and we look away from Christ to things down below. And it
means to be anxious. We start getting anxious because
of what we see. What he says, verse 10, Be not
dismayed, Isaiah 41, 10, Be not dismayed, I am thy God. He's saying here, Be not dismayed. Be not looking away. That's what
it could be. It could be translated, be not
looking away from the Lord Jesus. That's what he's saying. And
don't be anxious about what the things going on around you here
below. You remember what Paul said? Paul said, if you're risen
with Christ, seek those things which are above. where Christ
sits on the right hand of God. And you know, He's sitting there
with all power over all. The God-man has all power in
heaven, earth, over the things that are seen, the things that
are unseen. He's the head of the church.
He's ruling and reigning. And so Paul said, you set your
affection on things above, not on things of the earth, because
you are dead. You died in Christ, and your
life's hid with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then you shall appear with Him in glory. Can't
you say that, brethren, that most of our anxious trouble comes
from looking away from Christ and looking at things we can
see here below? Be not dismayed, God said, I
am thy God. Now, listen, if we boast that
we made Him our God, and there's a lot of people in this world
that boast that they made Him Lord. I made Him Lord of my life. If we're boasting that we made
Him our God, we have great reason to fear. How is God thy God? Did you first
love Him, or did He first love you? Did you first choose Him,
or did He first choose you? Was the choice by grace without
any cause in you, or did He look and see something in you worth
saving? Did He call you and make you willing by His power, or
did you by your will decide you'd let Him save you? You see, the
difference between those two are the difference between grace
and works. Between grace and will-worship. Between salvation and condemnation. This is serious. This is what
he said in Isaiah 41 right here in verse 9. He said, Thou whom
I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from
the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant,
I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away. That's who he's talking
to. He's talking to the ones He chose and He called and He
drew to Himself. Blessed is the man whom Thou
choosest and causes to approach unto Thee. That man will be satisfied
with all the blessings of His house. And this word here now, if you're
only a sinner saved by grace, if that's what you are, then
understand this. When He says here, I am thy God,
that means I am for you. That's what it means. Go over
to Romans 8. I tried to think how I could
give you this and maybe not read the whole thing, but it's just
too good not to read the whole thing. Look here in Romans 8
and verse 28. Romans 8 28 we know that all
things work together for good to them that love God to them
who are the called According to his purpose for whom he did
foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren
Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called. And whom
He called, them He also justified. And whom He justified, them He
also glorified. What shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? That's what God said in our text.
Be not dismayed, I am for you. And none of the things you see
with your carnal eye and none of the people that oppose you
can be against you. Because I'm for you, that's what
He's saying. You talk about strengthening
your heart and settle you, and He just takes that word, and
when He speaks that word into your heart, He turns you to Him
above. And He sets your affection singular
on Him singularly. And that's where you settle.
That's how this old flesh is mortified. That's Paul. That's
what he's saying in Colossians 3. He said, all this took not,
taste not, handle not, that's not mortifying the flesh, that's
inflaming the flesh. He said, if you're risen with
Christ, look to Christ, set your affection on Christ. And He says,
mortify therefore, and that work will be mortified thereby, your
members which are on this earth. Because when you're looking to
Christ, you can't be looking at yourself. And when you're
looking to Christ, you can't be looking at other things and
being anxious. And when you're looking at Him
and He settled your heart, you're settled. And you know He's doing
the saving. You remember when Moses entreated
the Lord for Pharaoh, and the Scripture said, concern of that
swarm of flies, and the Scripture says, because Moses entreated
for them, Scripture says of those flies, there remained not one. Well, because Christ entreated
the Father for His people and made intercession for us and
came between us and that law and came between us and the curse
and paid the price for us, concerning our sins, there remains not one.
There remains not one. God is satisfied. Christ justified
His people. He put our sins away forever. They blotted out. God remembers
them no more. And so He says to us now, who's
going to separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? Shall distress or persecution? Our famine, our nakedness, our
peril, our sword, as it's written, for thy sake we're killed all
the day long. We're counted as sheep for the slaughter. We're
as helpless as sheep. But no, we're not going to be
separated from Him because in all these things we're more than
conquerors through Christ that loved us. Be not dismayed, He
said. Don't be anxious. I'm with you. I'm for you. That's what He said.
All right, thirdly, In Isaiah 41 verse 10, the Lord says, fear thou not,
verse 10, I will strengthen thee. I will strengthen thee. How was
Paul made to know that he was weak? How was he made to know
he was weak? He didn't think he was weak.
Not at first. How was he made to know Christ
alone was his strength? Paul said, the Lord gave him
a gift. He gave him something. He said,
He gave me a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be
exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelation.
We all want to know more of the Lord, and we want to know Him
more and more, and we want to be used of the Lord however He's
pleased to use us. But I can tell you this, the
more He teaches us and the more He uses us, the more we're going
to suffer in this world. And you know why? Because if
He didn't give us that, we would be exalted above measure. We
would get puffed up with pride and think we had done something. And so He gave that to Paul graciously. So he would not be exalted above
measure. And here's what he taught him
through that. Child of God. When you consider that, that
he gave Paul this messenger of Satan to buffet him. Alright? Are you opposed by somebody?
Who they hate the gospel, they're opposing you. Who sent them? Why did he send them? He sent
them for the same reason he gave that message of Satan to Paul.
He taught Paul, Paul, I'm not taking it away. What I'm teaching
you is my grace is sufficient for you. We won't find that out
until he brings us to a place where we are so weak that we
can't do one thing but trust him to save. That's so now. And that's what Paul was being
taught. He's told him, my grace is sufficient for you, for my
strength is made perfect in weakness. Paul said, he said, here's what
it did for me. It made me start glorying in
my weakness. I glory that I'm weak. There's
no other religion in the world, no other religion in the world
that glories that we are weak and incapable of helping ourselves.
This is the only one right here. That's what Paul said, I glory
that I'm so weak that I can't save myself because the power
of Christ rests upon me. When I'm weak, that's when I'm
strong. The problem is, this is most of our problem, this
is my problem, and it's most our problem. We're too strong most of the
time. Think we are, you know, think we are. We can so easily
get offended and get puffed up. But the weaker the better. The weaker
the better. And the Lord's going to teach
us that. We don't even have to worry about it. He said, I will
strengthen thee. That's going to involve Him first
making us totally weak to know the strength's Him. When it says
He's our strength, it means He is all our wisdom. Really and
truly, He's all our wisdom. He is all our righteousness. He is all our holiness, our sanctification. He's all our redemption. He is
all our strength. He's the power of God unto salvation.
He is the power of the gospel. He is the gospel. All our strength
is Christ. But we're going to have to be
made weak. that His power may rest on us and teach us that.
When we're weak, that's when we're strong. All right? I can't leave this point. I gotta
show you this. Look over at Isaiah 40, verse 29. Just to put the
period on this point. Look here. He giveth power to
who? To the faint. And to them that have no might,
He increases strength. That's who He's the strength
of, them that just can't... You know, you hear that saying,
God helps those that help themselves. No, that's who He don't help.
He helps those that cannot help themselves. Alright, fourthly,
Isaiah 41 verse 10. He says, here's His next promise,
He says, Fear not, yea, I will help thee. I will help thee. Now, how will the Lord help you?
How's He going to help you? What's the means He's chosen
to help you? It's what we're doing right now.
The means He's chosen to help His people is the preaching of
the gospel of Christ. That's the means that He's pleased.
And I'll tell you what happens when we become fearful, when
we become dismayed, anxious, all these things, strong in ourselves
and thinking we can figure things out or whatever. We're very prone
to say, I'm just not going to go hear the gospel preach. That's
like if you got really, really sick and you said, I'm not going
to go to the hospital. I'm so sick, I'm not going to
go to the doctor. This is how he's going to help
you. And you don't need it. You need
it all the time, but there's no time you need it more than
any other than when you are dismayed and fearful and and just think you're going to
perish. You need Him. Christ is our only helper and
He helps through this good news. We come here and we want to hear
Him preach this gospel to us. He's the prophet. We want to
hear Him preaching this to us. We want Him to renew our hearts
like it's the first day we ever heard it and hear Him say, I
have redeemed you, thou art mine. That's the strength. He's the
great physician and the balm is everything he's accomplished
that is declared in this gospel. That's what we need. That's how
our flesh is mortified. That's how our inner man is renewed
and we're revived. I tell you what, Donnie, when
I came in here, I really didn't feel like preaching. I felt that
way all day. And that message, I felt, okay,
I think I can get up and preach. You always assemble where the
gospel is preached. The great physician said, I'll
help thee. And he's going to do it this way. Don't forsake
the assembling together, especially when you're troubled and there's
trouble all about you. You go hear the gospel preached. Our Lord promises here in verse
10, Isaiah 41, 10, He says, Yea, I will uphold thee with the right
hand of my righteousness. I will. Our Lord Jesus has already
upheld us at all His elect. He upheld us on the cross already.
Our Lord Jesus upheld us when He bore the righteous judgment
of God in place of His people. He upheld us. He upheld us by
being made a curse for us and putting that curse away for us.
There's therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. He upheld
us when He came to us with this gospel and created a new man
in us and gave us faith and repentance and a new heart and fear of the
Lord and a reverence for Him and made us willing to bow down
and trust Him to do all the saving. He upheld us then. And he's already upheld you every
day. You that he's called, he's upheld
you every day right up to this point. Do you think now he's
gonna get to this point and decide, I'm not gonna uphold you anymore?
No, he's gonna uphold you. He said he would. He said he
would. Look here in Isaiah 46, verse
three. Isaiah 46, verse three. He says,
hearken unto me, O house of Jacob. and all the remnant of the house
of Israel which are born by me from the belly." Remember what
he told Jeremiah? Before I formed you in the belly. I knew you. I sanctified you. I ordained you a prophet. Look
what he said. You're born by me from the belly.
You're carried by me from the womb. Even when you didn't know
him, he was carrying you. Look, and even to your old age,
I am He, and even to your gray-headed, I'll carry you, I have made,
I will bear, even I will carry, and will deliver you. You see
there where it says, even to your old age, I am He? That word
means, I am He means, I am, I don't change. You've changed. You've
changed from your mother's womb till you were born, till you
grew, grew, grew, grew, up right up to now. Your hair changed.
Some fell out. Some turned gray. You've changed.
The world's changed. All these things have changed.
He hadn't changed. His gospel hadn't changed. His promise hadn't changed. His
grace hadn't changed. None of it's changed. He said,
and I've been carrying you the whole time, and I'm going to
carry you the rest of the way. That's the Lord we're worshiping.
That's the Lord we worship. There's nothing in this gospel
that you and me did. We didn't first give Him anything.
In fact, the Lord said in Romans, He said, Who is it that first
gave me anything? I'll give it back to Him. For
of Him and through Him and to Him are all things. Everything
we have, He first gave it to us. He's been carrying us the
whole way. So child of God, Listen to what
He says to you now. Isaiah 41, 14. He says, I will
help thee, saith the Lord. I'm thy Redeemer, the Holy One
of Israel. Now, if you believe Him and trust
Him, you hear Him say that to you personally like you're the
only one He's saving. He says, I will help you. I am
your Redeemer. I'm your Holy One. There's only one Holy One. God's
people have one holiness, and it is Christ. What is thy God, thy Redeemer,
thy Holy One? What's He promise you? Isaiah
41 10. Yea, I will uphold thee with
the right hand of my righteousness. I've been carrying you the whole
way, and I'm going to keep carrying you. And, you know, I love the
fact God is absolutely, totally sovereign over everything. I'll
tell you something, that's not all there is though. If he was
absolutely totally sovereign and that by itself, we could
have reason to be fearful. He's holy too. So he's absolutely
sovereign in everything he does. He said, I'm holding you with
the right hand of my righteousness. Whatever I do for you, it's going
to be right. And that's what he's doing. He's
never, And you know, after you've gone through a little bit of
suffering, it's bad when it starts, but after you go through it,
this is what God's child said. I don't have a problem saying
this is what every one of God's children say, because this is
what we all say. It's been good for me that I've
been afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. I might
be brought down to just trust you to do the saving. Do y'all recognize this verse,
verse 10? Every time we sing How Firm a
Foundation, the whole song is right out of Isaiah. But every
time we sing How Firm a Foundation, the second verse comes from verse
10. This is the song. It says, Fear
not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed. For I am thy God, I
will still give thee aid. I'll strengthen thee, help thee,
and cause thee to stand, upheld by my gracious, omnipotent hand. So you take these now, this word,
and you just rest right here, and the next time you're troubled,
and next time you're anxious and dismayed, you go to that
verse, and you just read that one verse, and you think on those
five promises God made, and you look to Him, and you trust Him,
He shall do what he says he will do. There's no maybes in there.
It's just I will, I will, I will. So trust him. All right, President.