Job 22, 22 reads like this. This is a restless, restless
world. Not much true peace found in
it, regardless of circumstances, whether the rich and the affluent
or the poor. There's not much peace found
in this world. It's not gained by drugs. It's
not gained by alcohol. It's not gained by possessions.
It's not gained through religion. There's just not much peace in
this world. But I'll show you, I'll read
it to you from the Word of God, how man, an old sinner, can obtain
peace. Look at it. Job 22 verse, I'm sorry, 21. Acquaint now thyself with God
and be at peace. Come to know God. whatever it
takes. If you can come to know God,
and you can if you want to badly enough, come to know God, and
God will give you peace. Not as the world gives peace,
He gives real peace. Thereby, good, real good, good
in the best sense of good, good, everlasting good, shall come unto thee. Acquaint
now thyself with God, and be at peace." This is the last Sunday
of 07, 2007. And for some of us, maybe all
of us, it might be the last Sunday forever on this earth. I don't think God refrain from coming much longer. And I know that in my health,
it doesn't seem that I'm going to be here much longer. We need
to think about that. Might be the last Sunday ever. If people believe that, there'd
be more here this morning than what there is. Well, I'll go
next Sunday. Got something to do this Sunday.
Watch a football game, I'll go next week." Yeah, and you might
not. Might not. Acquaint now thyself
with God and be at peace. We live in what the Bible calls
the last days. The last days. The end time. The last age. And the Bible has
many things to say about these last days. It says perilous times,
dangerous times, troublesome times shall come. Things shall wax worse and worse. People deceiving and being deceived
themselves. Preachers running around claiming
and proclaiming themselves to be the preachers of righteousness,
but they're actually, Paul said, the ministers of Satan and hell. Paul said, Bob John said, try
the spirits. Test them. Be careful who you
listen to. We live in such days as this. Been nearly 2,000 years since
our Lord went back to glory. 2,000 years. And these are most assuredly
the last days. And I don't know how it could
get much worse. But that's all in the hands of
the Lord. Bad times, perilous times, dangerous
times, times as it was in the days of Noah, they just eating,
drinking, marrying, building, buying, selling, everything but
seeking after God. God's last, everything else is
first before that. When the Bible says plainly and
clearly, repeatedly, seek ye first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness. All these things be added to
you. David said, I'm an old man. I used to be young. I've never,
never, never seen the righteous forsaken of God. I've never seen
His seed big in bread. God take care of these things.
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Kingdom
of God and His righteousness. The greatest tragedy of our day. The greatest tragedy of our day. is not the threat of nuclear
war, though that could break out any time. There are rebel nations, rogue
nations that have nuclear abilities, could break out any time. From
Pakistan, India, any time. Different places. But that's not the great tragedy
of our day, the great danger of our day. And it's not the
threat of inflation or economic recession, though these things
can be bad. That's not the greatest threat
in our day, the greatest tragedy. And it's not the humanistic education
of our young people. They're taught evolution as if
it were an absolute truth and deny the Word of God, the Creator,
their own Creator. They deny. And it's not the fact that lawlessness
and crime and murder and abortion child abuse, homosexuality, that's
not the greatest danger. It's horrible. It's unnatural. But that's not the greatest danger.
That's not the greatest tragedy in our day. And it's not the
fact that so many understandably and I say understandably, have
no time for organized religion. I don't blame them. I don't have
any time for it either. It's just turned into a game,
a competitive enterprise, everything but an hour to worship God. Rather it is that so few, this is the greatest tragedy
That so few in the ranks of organized religion have honoring ideas
concerning God. They dishonor Him by what they
say about Him. They dishonor him by the way
they preach about him. When they do preach about him,
which is not very often, they just use the name to sanctify
whatever they do in religion. Add God's name to make it all
right, to make it holy, to sanctify it. Hucksters. So very few in the ranks of organized
religion hold true and honorable ideas of the true and living
God, that God with whom we have to do." Now listen to these statements
I'm going to make, and I can run on and on. And you think about what you
hear when men preach on television, radio, and the pulpit around
about. Men talk a lot about redemption. They sing about redemption. But
how much do they say about the Redeemer? The Redeemer! We must know Him. Him! Not a plan of redemption, even
a true idea of the truth of redemption. We must know the Redeemer. That's
salvation. He's salvation. Then men talk about salvation.
All denominations, they talk about salvation, but how much
do they talk about the Savior? How can men know Him if they
don't hear about Him? How can they call upon Him if
they've not believed in Him? How can they believe in Him if
they've not heard? They talk about all these things,
but not about Him who is everything. Men talk about being born again,
whatever that is, and yet they say so little about that One
who sits on the throne of all glory and all power, that One
only who can speak and raise the dead. It looks like that would be so
important. It is. But men don't talk much about
it. That One who quickens the dead. That One who, as the Father,
gives life to whom He will. The hour coming in now is when
the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And they that
hear, resurrect. New life! Eternal life. We hear a lot of talk. I noticed
some advertising on TV the last two or three weeks talking about
what we have for your children, the old and the young and the
middle-aged and every age group. We have a plan for them, have
a program for them. But all these plans and all these
programs, very little. Very little about God Himself. You could listen to them preach
for years and never know anything more about God. You're just caught
up in plans and programs. Everything but the truth of the
living God. But this Bible says, and I read
it to you, acquaint now thyself with God. Not a program, not
a plan, with God Himself. And you can't do that if you're
not hearing about it. Acquaint now thyself with God
and be at peace. So what we have is, rather than
the living God being the center, being the very center of religious
activity has become sort of a secondary thing, secondary thing. They
just add His name into their programs, onto their programs. God is supposed to be first and
foremost, the first and the last, the beginning and the ending,
and all in between. That's what He's supposed to
be. and rather than religious activity
and devotion being rooted and grounded in the knowledge of
God in Christ Jesus. He's merely an addition to it
all. They just use the name of Jesus
like some magic wand. This is what I'm saying, and
I got this from Spurgeon a long time ago. You think about it. The old ship Zion, the church. The old ship Zion must not be
so devoted to the sails that she forgets the wind. The Virgin said the ships used to
line up in a certain place. outside London and they'd have
their sails raised and they were all out there for one time and
they were waiting for the wind to blow. They couldn't go. They couldn't go till the wind
blew. We're so devoted to religion and to this and to that, we've
forgotten the wind. We've forgotten the power of
God. God the Holy Spirit. God the Sovereign Spirit. Man
can do this and that and the other 10,000 things, but no man
can give life. Only God. And only God can reveal
Himself to us. His own will, His own purpose.
The Bible says Christ has been given power over
all flesh. All of you here today. that He
might give eternal life to as many as the Father gave Him.
He only can do it. He only has the power to do it.
And what is eternal life? That they might know Thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. Acquaint
now Thyself with God, and be at peace. We know that God hath come, 1
John 5, 20, and hath given us an understanding that we may
know Him that is true. This is true God. We're in Him
that is true. This is true God. This is life.
But God had to come. God had to give us an understanding.
God had to turn the light on in our hearts. God had to shine
into these dark hearts. God had to create life in us.
God does that. And we've got so accustomed and
in bondage to program, we don't even need God anymore. 2007, the last Sunday. Spurgeon said, the old ship Zion,
I'm going to read it again, the church, must not be so devoted
to the sails that she forgets the wind. Without the wind, you're
just beating the water. Without the wind, you can have
the most beautiful sails. Without the wind, you can have
the best prepared ship, but you're not going anyplace. Without God,
you can build big churches, big buildings, big everything, big,
big, admirable in themselves. And without God, you're not going
to move a peg. Without God, it's all in vain.
Without God, it's all sin. Just adding sin to sin to sin
without God. Do we meet to learn more of God
and to worship Him as we know Him, or do we meet to carry on
a system of religion? Many are meeting to carry on
a system of religion. Awful. We are told by the Apostle Peter
to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. A lot
of people talk about growing in grace, but they're not learning
of Him. How can they grow in grace? You can't. Arthur Peck
said you can't separate those two statements. If you're growing
in grace, you're growing in the knowledge of Him. If you're growing
in the knowledge of Him, you're growing in grace. Grow in grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Equate now thyself
with God. You'll find out what peace is.
What peace is. I hope I can get this across
as strongly as I wish to. These people, bless their hearts,
who bring God down and have low thoughts of God, demeaning thoughts
of God. We have God being our helper,
high thoughts of God. We can't magnify Him and exalt
Him as high as we would. It's not just two different views
of the same God, it's two different Gods. Did you remember that? Well, I have a friend. He's a
rank Armenian and a freewheeler, but we still worship the same
God. No, we don't. No, we don't. God of this Bible is who He says
He is. If you try to change that, you've
lost it. I told you a story several years
ago now. A man came by the study. I was sitting in there, and he
came in. He looked kind of troubled. He said, Wayne, that's what he
called me, said, I've got something on my mind. I won't talk to you.
I said, well, sit down and talk about it. He said, my preacher. He just always said, won't you
let God do this and let God do that. I get so tired of hearing
that. It doesn't sound very God-like,
does it? I said, no, sir. I could never use that statement
in reference to the God of this book, the God I believe in. But
I said, mister, he's talking about his God. That's who his
God is. We're talking about two different
gods. I don't know how anybody can
open this book and read it, give any serious attention to it at
all, even be a casual reader, and not come to the conclusion
that God is God indeed. He always has been. He still
is. He always will be. He is God. And the very idea of Him being
God denotes absolute supreme. Sovereign. He's God. He's God. And then some people came by the house
and they wanted to give me a track, you know. Hey, mister, you saved? I said, I hope so. I've been
trying to preach the gospel for 40 years. I hope I have. He said,
oh, they started to walk off. I said, well, I'll take one of
those tracks. And I read that track, and it was a common, ordinary,
contemporary track. And on the last page of that
little track, please, exclamation mark, please, won't you let God
save you this very moment. I called my wife in. I said,
I want you to sit down and listen to this. We know what's going
on, but here it is right in front of you. Let God save you. Let God do something. The whole of the Word of God
is an open rebuke to anybody who'd make such a statement as
that. If I told you here that I'm telling the truth, I'm serious,
I know what I'm saying. If I told some of you here this
morning, I said, won't you let it rain? You say, well, that
man's insane. You don't have anything to do
with the rain. You can't let it rain. You can't turn it off.
You can't turn it on. That makes more sense than saying,
let God do something. You can't let God do anything. The heathen came to David and
said, why should the heathen say, why should the heathen say,
why now is your God? I'm going to paraphrase, but
this is what David said. He said, my God's in the heaven
where He's always been, and He's doing what He's always done.
What's that? What He pleases. Whatever He
pleases. In the heavens, on the earth,
in the sea, all deep places, whatever He pleases. Psalm 115,
Psalm 135. He does what He pleases. And
anybody who preaches another God, that's what he's doing.
He's not just different ideas about the true God, he's preaching
another God. God is set forth so clearly,
so plainly in this scripture, and thou shalt have no other
gods beside me. No other gods. But the would-be
God of our generation is most certainly another God. The most tragic, tragic thing
about this generation is that they have such low thoughts of
God. Psalm 50, God charged Israel. You folks think that I'm all
together such a one as yourself. You think I'm like you. God's
not like us. God's not like us. Let God do this and let God do
that. That's another God. Not to God this book. And if you look at your God in
those words, in that context, I'm going to let him do this
or let him do that, and you're worshiping another God. That's so serious and yet so
plain and simple. There's only one God, and He
is God indeed. He created this world out of
nothing. Everything that you can see, He made it out of things
you couldn't see. He spoke and it just stood fast.
He said, let there be, and it was. He's God indeed. The God of the
Bible is absolutely sovereign over all things, over this world,
over this universe. Absolute sovereign ruler. It's
all in His hand. It's all in His hands. And I'm
talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. By Him all things were
created. Without Him was not anything
made that was made. Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And right now He upholds all
things. How come this world is just going
on? The planets are kept in their
orbits and all the stars have their names given to them and
put in their proper places and He knows every one of them by
name. The Son of God. He upholds all things by the
word of His power and by Him all things consist. And that word means that they
all, this whole universe, finds its cohesiveness. Cohesiveness
in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a man sitting on the
throne of David. He is the gloriously unique God-man,
the Lord Jesus, and by Him all things consist. All judgment's
been committed to His hands and the execution of all judgment.
One day He's going to speak and all the graves are going to open
up. It's all in His hands. We're going to be judged by that
man, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's not one to be bargained
with. In that day, absolute sovereign king. King over all kings. Lord over all lords. He is today. And one day that will be manifest
to this world. He's not a little pygmy Jesus
that we've been talking about. He's the great God Almighty in
human flesh. God help us. God help us. Listen
to this. The God of this book is absolutely
sovereign. What do you mean by that? I mean
just exactly what those words mean. He is the sovereign, the
only sovereign, the true God, the only true God. There is none
to compare Him to. He alone is God. In that same
context, He said, if I said it, I'll do it. If I've purposed
anything, I'll bring it to pass. Because He's God. He does what
He pleases. When He created this world, He
created it when He pleased, as He pleased. And this God is, and we can't understand this
fully because none of us have realized it. He is absolutely
free. The only free being in all the
universe. He does nothing under constraint.
He cannot be constrained in anything He does. His works cannot be
thwarted. They cannot be slowed down. They
cannot be turned aside. He does exactly what he does
freely from his own mind, his own heart. He's free. And he's absolutely independent. Absolutely independent. Glory to God. No one can constrain
him to do anything. He dwells far above, high above
all need. He doesn't need a thing. I had a man I went to visit one
time about coming to church here, and he said the last church he
went to, he said they, the way they got him in, they said, we
need you. We need you out here. And I said, you won't hear me
say that. We don't need you. We just need God. I need Him.
You need Him. But God doesn't need us. He doesn't
need you. He doesn't need me. God doesn't
need me. He got along real well before
I was born. And He'll get along real well after I'm gone. He
doesn't need me. He dwells far above all obligation. He's under no obligation to do
anything for anybody. Whatever he has chosen in purpose
to do for sinners in Christ Jesus came out of that mind and that
heart. He wasn't forced into it. He
was free. Free. Said, I think I'll go down to
Ur of Chaldees and call out old Abraham. He's not any holier
than any of the rest of them, but it'll please my purpose. It'll glorify my name. And the
God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was yet
in Ur of Chaldea. God said, come out, and he went. God said, come out, and he went. The Bible says that God, the
God of this book, doeth according to his will in the armies of
heaven, and among all the inhabitants of this earth. None can stay
his hand or question what he does." You say, that must have
been back in the Old Testament. That's every day. Always has
been, always will be. He's God. When Satan got it in his head
to go against Job, he had to have God's permission. Had to have God's permission. In the context of all those things
and all those parties that came against Job, he said in chapter
23 and verse 13, He said he's the one man who can turn him. And whatever his soul desires,
that's what God does. And if that weren't true, he
wouldn't be God. We have such small, deflated,
dishonorable, blasphemous ideas about God in this generation. He is God, and one day He's going
to show who is the only potentate, King of all kings, Lord of all
lords. He already is, but one day He's
going to show it. One day men are going to see. The God of this book. Perhaps God will be pleased this
year ahead if he leaves this year. To raise up some preachers or
empower some that are already available. To exalt and magnify
and glorify the God of this book. That's the only way you can be
saved. You can't be saved by bringing God down. You can only
be saved by raising God up. That's what Peter did on the
day of Pentecost. This Christ, He was delivered
into your hands by the determined counsel and full knowledge of
God. You took Him, killed Him. But God raised Him up. And God
hath made that same Jesus, the one who was for a few minutes
in your hands, God made that same Jesus, both Lord and Christ. Lord and Christ. Lord and only
Savior. And about 3,000 of them were
pricked in their hearts. But if Peter had stood up and
said he was just a prophet or he was trying to do this or that
or the other, nobody would have been pricked in their hearts.
God uses the truth. Let me show you something, one
place here. See if I can find it. I know
it's in Isaiah. Isaiah 26. Job said, Acquaint now thyself
with God, and be at peace. Good shall come unto thee. Christ said, this is eternal
life. Knowing God in Christ is eternal
life. God gives us an understanding
to know. Those who know Him, God gave
us an understanding. In Isaiah 26 and verse 3, thou
wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. That man who knows God as is
revealed in this book. And He'll keep him in perfect
peace because he trusts in the Lord. He trusts in the Lord God
Jehovah. He has peace. He has peace. I couldn't have any peace if
I trusted in a God that was at my beck and call, you know. I'd
turn Him on, turn Him off at my will. There's not an enemy
in this world against me that I can stand up against by myself. But let all the enemies of me,
all the enemies of God, join hand in hand and come against
my soul. And they can't touch me. They
have to come through Him. And He's an absolute Sovereign. They can't get by. Betty, that's
my trust. That's my hope. That's my peace. That I'm in good hands. Trust
in the Lord with all your heart. You'll never be ashamed of it,
never be disappointed. May God bless these words to
every heart. Okay, David.