Thank you. Let's open our Bibles this morning
to the book of Matthew chapter one Matthew chapter one. Let me read a few verses beginning
with verse eighteen Matthew chapter one. You're familiar with these
verses. What a blessing they are to us.
Matthew 1.18. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ
was on this wise. When as his mother, Mary, was
espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found
with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph, her husband, being
a just man and not willing to make her a public example, was
minded to put her away privately. But while he thought on these
things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared. And the angel appeared to him
in a dream. And the angel said, Joseph, thou son of David. fear not to take unto thee Mary
thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son,
and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his
people from their sins." Now, all this was done that it
might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet,
saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring
forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being
interpreted is God with us. Then Joseph being raised from
sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took
unto him his wife, and knew her not till she had brought forth
her firstborn son. And she called his name Jesus."
Now, our text speaks of two glorious names of our Redeemer, Jesus
and Emmanuel. Jesus and Emmanuel. You know, today, when we name
our children, we give them names that usually have no particular
meaning. We have usually decided to name
them after some respected loved one, somebody we loved a whole
lot, somebody in the family, somebody back Maybe grandpa,
grandma, or whoever you know, and that's the reason we give
them their names. For instance, when David was
born, we named him David Jonathan because of the sweet relationship
of those two individuals in the Bible, David and Jonathan. We thought, well, that fits good
together. It wasn't because of what the names mean, but because
of who had the names. And then a good many of you were
here when Susanna was born. And Nance and I both had recently
read the life story of Charles Spurgeon's wife, Susanna. And
we thought that's such a sweet name, and so we named her Susanna
from Susanna Spurgeon, and we named her Ruth. which comes right
out of the Bible. I've always loved the name Ruth,
such a beautiful name there. The reason we named our children
their names was because of the people who were associated with
those names. But in olden times, back during
Bible days, Names generally had meanings, and they were significant
meanings, weren't they? They were very important. He
just didn't choose a name at random. The name had some significance. The name had some meaning. And
it was certainly true with the names of our Lord. Every name
that he's got means something. They're weighty names. over there in Isaiah 9 6, for
unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. He's a child
who was born, but he's a son who was given, that the Father
gave him. Now listen to this. His name
shall be called Wonderful. That's one of his names. That's
capital W there. That's his name. His name is
Emmanuel. His name is Jesus. His name is
Wonderful. Do you know what Wonderful means?
Marvelous. Extraordinary. Great. That's his name. That's his name. He's wonderful. He's extraordinary.
There's nobody else like him. Who can compare with him? To
whom would you compare the Lord of glory? He's wonderful. And then the next name is Counselor. Counselor. Now today, if most
people, not God's children, but people out in the world, when
they They have some problems that they can't solve, they go
to a worldly counselor, and he gives them advice. That isn't
what this name means, counselor. He isn't one who gives advice.
You look up this word, counselor, and you'll see that the word
counselor means one who purposes, one who devises a plan. That's
who he is. He's the wonderful one. He's
the glorious one. He's the marvelous one who devised
a plan or a purpose. In old eternity, He purposed
everything that's going to come to pass. That's His name. He's
Counselor. He's the one who devised the
plan, and everything today, everything yesterday, and everything tomorrow
is going right along schedule for that plan. He's wonderful. He's Counselor. And then here's
another name. He's the mighty God. That means
he's able to carry out that plan. Whatever that purpose is, whatever
he purposed in old eternity, he's the mighty God who is carrying
everything, directing everything to its purposed end. We believe
in providence, don't we? What is providence? We throw
those big words out there and we just kind of assume that everybody
knows what the word providence means. Well, I'll tell you what
I mean by the word providence. God is directing all things to
their appointed end for the glory of His name and to fulfill the
plan of redemption. That's provident. And this One
whose name is Wonderful, this One whose name is Counselor who
divides the plan, who planned everything that is, He's the
mighty God able to carry out everything. That's right. He's got power to do what He
plans. Now, you make plans, and you purpose to do something,
and you say, well, you know, tomorrow I'll meet you thus and
thus a place, but you might not have the power or the wherewithal
to carry out that plan. Oh, but let me tell you, this
one whose name is wonderful, whose name is Counselor, he's
the mighty God. And everything that he has decreed,
he is carrying right along. to its intended purpose. He's
wonderful counselor, the mighty God. Listen to this. He's the
everlasting Father. Everlasting Father. He's the
origin of everything. Everything started with Him.
Everything comes back to meet in Him. He began it all. He'll finish it all. He began
creation. He'll finish it. He began providence.
He'll finish it. He began salvation. He'll finish
it. Why? Because He's wonderful.
That's why. Because He's counsel. He's the
mighty God. He's the everlasting Father. He's the origin of all things.
Everything originates with Him. Everything goes back to Him.
He's the first cause of all things. And He's the Prince of Peace. He's the ruler of peace. He's
the head of peace because He made peace. He's the peacemaker. Oh, I saw on television the other
day one of these preachers, his act got down to the end of his
message, and he gave his sad, sob story, and he said, now,
have you made your peace with God? Oh, I can't make peace with
God, but I know who did. And he made it by the blood of
his cross. He reconciled sinners to God by the blood of his cross,
and he removed that enmity. He removed our transgression.
enabling God to be a just God and a holy God and embrace us
in love and mercy and grace. That's his name. His name means
something now. That's right. And right here
in Matthew chapter 1, the angel of the Lord told Joseph,
now, she's going to bring forth a son. And here's what you're going
to do. You're going to call his name Jesus. It may have been,
I don't know for sure, of course, but it may have been that when
he was born, somebody said, well, let's name him maybe after Isaac
or maybe after Abraham or, you know, there may have been several
names recommended, but I can see old Joseph there. He said,
I have the name. His name's Jesus. That's his
name. You know what the name Jesus
means? It means Jehovah is salvation. He's the Savior. He's the Savior. You see here in verse 21, "...she
shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus."
Now, why Jesus? Why is that to be his name? Well,
the text tells us, "...for he shall save his people from their
sin." He's the Savior. But now, you must understand
this. He didn't just begin to be Savior right here. He's always
been the Savior. Over in the book of Revelation,
it says He's the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
He must have been the Savior then. In fact, since He's the
everlasting Father, since He began salvation, He must have
been the Savior before there's ever a sinner. I'll tell you
several things about Jesus as Savior. He's Savior according
to God's purpose. God ordained him to be the Savior.
God, in his infinite wisdom and in his wonderful glory, purposed
salvation. He purposed the Savior and he
purposed the people whom he would give to the Savior to be saved
by him. He's always been the Savior.
He stood for His people in the covenant of grace. When the Father
chose a multitude of sinners to be the recipients of His mercy,
Christ was our Savior then. And we were given to Him by the
Father. We were entrusted to Him. And
the Savior said, I accept this gift. Oh, what a gift! A gift
of of a limitless number of people, of an unlimited number of people
from every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue, chosen in grace,
chosen unto salvation, predestinated to be conformed to the image
of Jesus Christ. And the Father gave us His Son,
and His Son said, I'll be their Savior. I'll be their Savior. He's the Savior according to
God's purpose, and He's the Savior according to God's providence.
Back home On Wednesday night, I made some comments there from
Luke chapter 2. Caesar Augustus sent out a decree
that all the world should be taxed. He's the big guy. He thinks he's in charge. He's ordering the census. Everybody
in his kingdom is going to be taxed. Let me tell you something.
Everything that heathen king did, all these mandates he sent
out. You've got to go back to your
hometown to be counted. All that, that's just working
in God's eternal plan. God already decreed that. Yes,
indeed. You see, everything's working
out according to his providential plan. The Lord Jesus is born
where he was born, to whom he was born, how he was born, everything
connected with his birth, all according to God's eternal purpose. Here's providence at work. is
obvious all through his life. His death, his death wasn't an
accident. His death's on purpose. Our brother read Isaiah chapter
53. He's the lamb led to the slaughter.
I just said he's the lamb slain for a foundation of the world.
The death of our Lord Jesus on Calvary was God providentially
bringing to pass His purpose of redemption. His name is Jesus. He shall save His people from
their sin. But He can't save them if He
doesn't die. How is he going to come to die? He'll die not
by the will of Judas, not by the will of Satan, not by the
will of the Romans, not by the will of the Jews. He'll die by
the will of God. You read Acts chapter 4 again.
Pontius Pilate and Herod and the Jews and the Gentiles, they
all gathered together, for to do, Lord, whatsoever thy will
and thy purpose hath decreed already. He's a Savior. He's a Savior according to God's
purpose. He's a Savior according to God's providence. He's a Savior
by purchase. That's how He's earned this title
of Savior now. He's earned it because He really
did save. How did He save His people from
their sin? Did He just brush them away?
Did He just say, well, we'll pretend they never existed? God's
a holy God. That's a righteous God. Well,
how'd God deal with that sin problem? That's the question
of questions, isn't it? How can a holy God remain holy
and not compromise His holy character and His justice, and yet show
mercy to bow sinners like you and me? How can that possibly
be done? Lo, God Himself comes down here,
and He honors God's law. And then he goes to the cross,
not to die as a martyr, not to die as an example, to
die as a Savior, to die as a substitute, to die as a sin offering, to
die as a sacrifice, to die in the stead of his people. And
at the cross, he took on Him all the sins of all of those
who would ever believe on Him. Bob read a while ago, All we
like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way, and the Lord has laid on him, laid on him like a giant
weight. Literally, it's made to meet
on him the sins of all of God's people, made to meet on Christ.
And then God the Father punished him in our stead, in our place,
in our room. He was our substitute. We ought
to have died, we ought to have suffered, but we'll never die.
We'll just go to sleep in Jesus and we'll never suffer. Why?
Because He died for us. He's our Savior by purpose. He's our Savior by providence.
He's our Savior by purchase. He honored the law. In the wages
of sin, death, Sir Henry, he died under the sentence of God's
law. And then He's our Savior. And
that's what we proclaim in our preaching. That's right. Jesus Christ Him
crucified. That's our subject. We meet today
to honor Him. We meet today to sing His praises. We meet today to preach His gospel. We meet today to bow low at His
feet and render honor and glory to His wonderful name. He's the Savior by power. Oh,
He makes bare His mighty arm of grace and saves sinners by
His power. He finds a sinner like, well,
like Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custody, sitting there
with his calculator, tallying up all the poll taxes it came
through. And the Lord of glory passes
him by. He says, Matthew, follow me. Oh, I tell you, sovereign grace
arrested that man's heart. There's something in the voice,
there's something in the words. There's something in the power
of that one who spoke the word. Follow me. And buddy, he did. He did. He saves by power. It's not your
decision. It's not your will. It's his
will. It's not your power. It's his
power. It's not my deciding. It's not
my seeking. The Lord said, I'm bound to those
who sought me not. How can that be? He sought us.
He comes after us in power. As the lost sheep wandering further
and further away, I never would have come back, would you? No!
He came after us in power and picked us up and put us on his
shoulders. I made mention to somebody the
other day, I saw that poem where it talks about two sets of footprints
going through the sand. Have you seen that? And then
there's just one set. And then, you know, how come
there's just one set there? And the Lord said, well, that's
where I carried you. Oh, let me tell you something. He carries
us all the way. There's just one set of footprints
from beginning to the end. I don't want to leave any footprints
to you. Oh, no. I want to be borne along
by the Savior, carried by Him, saved by power. I'll tell you
this about this salvation business and Christ being our Savior.
It's by preservation. He keeps us saved. Paul, I was walking down the
street one day, and somebody said to me, pointed to a fellow
and said, that guy doesn't come to church anymore, does he? I
said, no. He said, that's one of your converts, isn't he? I
said, yeah. That's what happens to my converts. They don't come
back. My converts fizzle out, but not his. When the Lord of
glory saves, he does a good job. He said, I'll be their God and
they'll be my people. I won't leave them. They're not
going to leave me. Job said the righteous shall
hold on the way. Preserve, save, preserve. And I tell you what, to be the
Savior, he's also someday got, there's got to be a presentation
of his people. And someday he's going to present
us faultless and he's going to do it with exceeding joy. He's
a Savior. He's a Savior in the beginning
and He'll be a Savior in the end. That's a complete salvation. That's the only kind of salvation
I'm interested in. I don't want it to start with
Christ being my representative in old eternity. And I don't
want it to end with Christ. With Christ in the end saying
to the Father, Behold I and the brethren that Thou hast given
me. I like Him bearing full responsibility for me. I like, that's the only
kind of salvation worth preaching. That's the only kind of gospel
worth believing. It's one that's all dependent
on Him. Don't you like that kind of gospel?
Man, I could sleep easy at night. What's going to happen if it's
dependent upon me? What's going to happen when maybe
I grow old and I can't even remember His name anymore? Oh, I'll tell you, when I can't
remember His name anymore, He'll still remember mine. What about when I can't remember
the blood anymore? What if my mind goes, and I can't
remember the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ? Oh, it will still be true. God will say, when I see the
blood, I'll pass over. It's dependent on Him seeing
the blood, y'all. He's the Savior. That's why we call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sin. And then another
name in this text, not just Jesus, and that's glorious. And we can
preach on verse 21 a long time, for he shall save his people.
He's got a people. He's going to save them. But
look at the next name, Immanuel. That's the next name in this
text, Immanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. And there's something about those
words being interpreted. Verse 23 there, which being interpreted
is. I use Strong's Concordance a
lot, don't you? Anybody who studies scriptures
a lot use Strong's Concordance. But you don't have to pull out
Strong's Concordance to see what Emmanuel means. In fact, you
don't have to pull out Strong's Concordance to see what Jesus
means. Jesus means he shall save his
people from their sin. And Emmanuel, the Spirit of God,
sent this message to Joseph. And, of course, it was first
recorded by the prophet Isaiah over in Isaiah chapter 7. His
name is Emmanuel, which here's the meaning of being interpreted
as God with us. God with us. The more I looked
at that name, the more filled with wonder and amazement I was. God with us. God. Can you even begin to understand
all that is included in that three letter word? God. Infinite God. Indescribable God. Everlasting God. All powerful God. God. Speak His name with solemnness. Say His name with reverence. That sweetens it. God with us. Never let us for a moment hesitate
as to the Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ, for His deity is
a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith. And while we'll never fully understand
how God and man could unite in one person, for can by searching
find out God, yet it remains a matter of faith that he who
was born in Bethlehem's manger is God of very God. Explain it,
I can't. Proclaim it, I will. As our dear
brother Scott Richardson said, we're not in explaining business,
we're in proclaiming business. We just tell the truth. He who
is God became man. He didn't cease to be God, but he joined his deity with
humanity. He who is the infinite of days
became an infant. He who clothes the lilies of
the field was wrapped in swaddling clothes. He whom the heaven of
heavens cannot contain." Who's going to build a house big enough
for God? And yet he is born in a manger. He who upholds all things by
the word of his power. Can you comprehend this? He is
held in his mother's arms. He who daily provides every living
thing with nourishment. Every living thing receives nourishment
from him. received his nourishment from
his mother's milk. He who is wisdom, he is made
of God to us to be wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.
He's the wisdom of God. And yet the Bible says he grew
in stature and in wisdom. Can you figure that out? He whose life came to give His
life a ransom for many. If it were any other being, if
it was Seraphim or the Cherubim, there wouldn't be anything nearly
as remarkable about this. That an angel should become a
man, well, that That wouldn't give me any
great consolation. But when God becomes man, there
must be something good in it for us. There must be something
glorious here if God becomes a man. Think of it. God! There lies the majesty of
it with us. There lies the mercy of it. God, there lies the glory of
it with us. There lies the grace of it. God alone might well fill our
hearts with dread and fear, for God is a consuming fire. But
God with us implies hope and consolation. God with us. I make five statements to you
and I quit. Number one, here are five things
I see. I don't know what you see in
this, but here are five things I see. I see the wonder of condescension
contained in this fact. God with us. That God, who made
all things by the word of his power, should assume the nature
of one of his creatures, that the Almighty should be linked
with the weak and the feeble, is just simply glorious. He descended to the depths of
humiliation, made lower than the angels, it says. Our Lord told His disciples in
John 14 He was going away, and they were downhearted and discouraged. And Philip said, Lord, if You'll
show us the Father, then it will give us a lasting satisfaction. That's what He said. It will
satisfy us. It will suffice us. It sufficeth us is what He said. This will do us lasting good
if we could just see the Father. Have I been with you so long?
Don't you understand? He that's seen me has seen the
Father. He's God in human flesh. In Jesus
Christ, we see the union of God and man. In Jesus Christ, God
is no longer a distant being seated upon His invisible throne
in the heavens. Forgive me if I don't say this
just right. It's kind of hard to express
these things the way they ought to be expressed. I feel like Moses standing before
the burning bush. Take off your shoes. You're on
holy ground. But this is the way I express
it in Christ. God looks at us through human
eyes. In Christ, God speaks with us
through human lips. In Christ, God listens to us
through human ears. And somehow or another, in Christ,
the heart of God is touched with the feelings of our But oh, I worship him. I'll tell you something else I see.
I see what a miracle of power was necessary for God to become
man. Have you ever thought about the power displayed in the Lord
fashioning a body capable of union with the Godhead? Our Lord was God in a body, a
body which was truly and really a human body, yet in some wondrous
way it was a body prepared to sustain the indwelling deity. Contact with God is terrible.
The Bible says, He looketh on the earth and it trembles. He
touches the heels and they smoke. God descends from Mount Sinai,
and it belches with smoke, and the mountains shake, and the
thunder rolls, and the lightning flashes. God told Moses, no man can see
my face and live. But in Jesus Christ, we see the
face of Him who is God. I remember years ago, Nancy,
you wrote a song after I preached from passage in song. He was chosen from out of the
people. Such a miracle, how can it be that God in his infinite
mercy should join flesh with his deity? What a miracle. When Christ came,
he said, a body thou hast prepared me. And there was such a special
body that the words to Mary went something like this, that holy
thing, that holy thing, that special
product of the power of God's Spirit. Yes, it was a body like
our own with nerves just as sensitive, muscles that could be strained,
and with the whole order of it just as delicately fashioned
as our own. And yet God was in there. He
was God. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then John
says, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld
His glory. We beheld His glory. The glory
as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Here's the third thing I see.
I see sure evidence that God has designed good for the sons
of men. If God Almighty, who inhabits
eternity, if He's pleased to come down so far down that He
joins Himself permanently to a body, He must intend glorious
good for the sons of men. I could understand divine justice
destroying the human race. If you understand anything about
our depravity, you can understand that too. We ought to die. Have you seen
that? That's what David in Psalm 51,
he justified God in his judgment. If you condemn me, you're right.
If you send me to hell, I'll get what I deserve. But when I read that God has
come down and was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, then
I know God intends good. He's going to save His people. He's going to show mercy to somebody.
He's going to be gracious to somebody. He's going to make
somebody righteous. He's going to forgive somebody's
sins. He's going to take somebody back to glory. He's going to
receive somebody back to himself. This can only mean good for people
who deserve no good whatsoever. And then I'll tell you this,
I see that the salvation for whoever he came for is sure. If God himself came down here
to secure our salvation and God can't fail, And whoever he came down here
to save, they're saved. In fact, I was preaching the
other Sunday there, from 2 Timothy chapter 1, where Paul said, who
has saved us and called us. And I said that in reference
to questions from my actions, that when were you saved? When
were you saved? Well, I saved for the foundation
of the world. I mean, you can answer that in different ways.
I saved for the foundation of the world. I saved at the cross.
I saved when the Spirit of God woke me up. In fact, I'm being
saved. And now is my salvation nearer
than when I first believed. Someday I'll be altogether saved.
But the reason I was called in time to see the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ is because of a saved poor foundation
worker who has saved us and called us with a holy call. Salvation, sure, because God
comes down. Because whatsoever God does,
He does forever. And these helpless, hopeless,
guilty, vile, hell-deserving sinners, He came to save when
Jesus Christ died on that cross. And He Himself said, It is finished. All the Old Testament types is
finished. All the Old Testament promises is completed in Him. Salvation was finished. God's
justice was finished with us. The law has got no quarrel against
anybody for whom Christ died. The law is not on our trail.
The law is sanctified. Christ quieted it. He took our
sins on Himself, and He died under the wrath of God, and He
went in that tomb. Our sins went in there, and He
came back out, and they stayed in there. And they're gone. Who can condemn those for whom
Christ died? Who is here to condemn it? We've
been justified. We've been declared righteous
by God Himself. Who can find a sin against me?
Search through all the books in heaven. All you'll find is
righteousness next to my name. But not my righteousness. His
righteousness imputed to me. That's right. His holy life,
His righteous obedience, all His perfect motives, words, deeds,
actions, desires, dreams, everything is credited to me. And I'm going
to be rewarded for His obedience. That's right. I'm righteous in Him. Righteous in Him. And then I'll give you this.
I see that man was without God. And that the only way for man
to be with God was for God to come down to man. We will not and cannot go to
God. There's none that seeketh after God. If there's going to
be any fellowship between God and this sinner, God's going
to have to do a great work. He's going to have to do it all
himself. If there's going to be any fellowship between God
and men, any association between God and men, any communion between
God and men, God must do everything necessary to secure that fellowship,
to secure that association, and to secure that communion, for
man cannot and will not. Can I give you this? Consider
God and our nature for a few moments. From the entrance into life in
a manger to his burial in a borrowed tomb, we trace the footprints
of Jesus Christ and see that he's been everywhere we must
go. He's been everywhere we must
go. Were you once in a cradle? He was there. Were you brought up in a home
where you had regulations and rules and parental authority.
He's been back. Have you been called upon as
a young person to assist in the family business? He helped out
Joseph in the carpenter shop, no doubt. Have you encountered
battles along life's way? You say, battles with Satan,
battles with Folks who don't love the gospel, he's there.
He was there. He's tempted and tried and tested. Satan threw every fiery dart
he could think of at Jesus Christ. Satan came to him and Christ
said he found nothing in there. I'm so glad. There's nothing
in him. Are you alone? He is alone. out on a lonely
hillside or out in the wilderness. He said foxes have holes, birds
of the air have nests, some men don't even have a place to lay
his head. This is a real man now. You feel sorrow? You ever had
a heavy heart? Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. I don't know all that's meant
by that, but I know he cried, and I know he's called a man
of sorrows. You've been wrongly accused?
Slandered for something you didn't do? You ever had that happen
to you? That hurts, doesn't it? He's
slandered. He's absolutely holy. You ever been betrayed by prayer?
You read over in the Psalms where Christ talks about being betrayed
by a friend, and you're reading the heart of a real man there.
And you can tell there's anguish in those words. And when you and I come to the
closing scene of life, we're going to find out Emmanuel has
been there too. He felt the pangs of death. He
endured the bloody sweat and the agony of death, the parching
thirst that accompanies death. He's God with us. And as surely as he went in that
tomb and came back out, we're going to go in a tomb someday,
and one day he's going to see to it that we're going to come
back out. Oh, when we die, it's absent
from the body and present with the Lord for the soul, but someday
we're going to have a new body. His resurrection guaranteed that.
He will always be God with us. That's so precious to me. He's
Jesus, my Savior. He's God with us. Here's hope for the sinner. Emmanuel, God with us. Why should I be without God?
Christ is God. Oh, let me flee to Him. Let me
fly to Him now. If God's in Christ, then I shall
go to Christ who says, Come unto me, all you that labor and are
heavily laden. I'll give you rest. Lord, I'm coming. And I
am. I'm coming right now, all over
again. I'm coming to him right now. I've come to him. He's my Savior. And then here's
encouragement for the saints of God. I'll give you a watchword
for the coming year. All you children of God, here's
a watchword for the coming year. Emmanuel, God with us. You, the redeemed of God, have
a right to all of this in the fullest sense, drink it in, and
be filled with courage. And if you're called in the providence
of God to do something, never say, I can't do that. Say, if
God is with us, I shall do it by His grace. Like that fellow
said, if the Lord called upon me to rule the world, and he
said, I'd be with you. He said, I'd give it a shot.
But he said, if I was going to go out here and sweep the sidewalk
and I had no confidence that God was with me, he said, I wouldn't
even try. I wouldn't try. God's with us.
Don't be discouraged, children of God. Don't be cast down. God's
with us. God's with us. God's with us
when you're on your job, when you're at home, wherever you
are, God's with us by His Spirit. I like the words of one old writer
who said upon his dying bed, he said, the best of all is God
with us. That's the best of all. This
is a new covenant promise, isn't it? Sure it is. He said, I'll be their God and
they shall be my people. I'll never leave them, they'll
never leave me. He's Jesus. He's Emmanuel, God with us. Amen. Let's sing a great
hymn, number 87. Isaac Watts' great old hymn. I know it's so commonly used,
but we've had the name of our Lord revealed to us this morning. Now let's sing this hymn with
some understanding. The words of this hymn are glorious.
Number 87, let's stand and sing it. I hear the world go round and receive your King. Let every heart prepare Him room,
and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven,
and heaven, and nature sing. Joy to the earth, the Savior
reigns, with winters soft and warm. While the years and floods,
the seas and plains Repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding
joy Repeat, repeat the sounding joy The moorless hill and scarlet
moon are close in this the ground He comes to make His blessings
flow. More as the curse is bound. More as the curse is bound. More as, more as the curse is
bound. He rules the world with truth
and grace and makes the nations proud. the glory of his righteousness,
and wonder of his love, and wonder of his love, and wonder, and
wonder of his love. Thank you, you're listening. Bye.