Seeking the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to the portion we read, Isaiah
chapter 30, and reading verse 15 as our text. For thus saith
the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest shall ye
be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength,
and ye would not. Isaiah 30 and verse 15. Isaiah prophesied in the days
of Hezekiah among other of the kings, but specifically at this
time when Assyria was attacking not just Israel, but all the
nations in that area. This is some 700 years before
Christ. And Israel were seeking help,
not help from God, seeking help from Egypt, seeking help from
other nations, seeking help from man. instead of relying upon
the Lord. There's a great contrast really
from this time when eventually the ten tribes of Israel were
carried away and scattered by Assyria, to that of some 130
years later, where Jeremiah is prophesying
and where then again they were not listening and they were carried
away, this time to Babylon, but to be returned again after 70
years. But at this time, for Judah,
the Lord made a great difference. Judah, they did trust in the
Lord. They did rest in Him. and he
saved them from Assyria. Assyria's generals, they railed
upon Hezekiah, the king of Judah, and upon the true and living
God, as if he was just the same as gods of silver and of stone
and wood. And yet Hezekiah cried to the
Lord, Isaiah cried unto the Lord, and the Lord delivered them a
remarkable blessing in the midst of all the nations at that time
to have little Judah, the tribe of Judah, spared and delivered
from those mighty armies because they trusted in the Lord their
God. But here is Israel, and they
have been directed to trust in the Lord, but they are walking
in a rebellious way. The chapter begins, to the rebellious
children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me."
What a message to us today. Where do we take counsel from? Who do we ask counsel of? Do we ask it of one that has
lived a few more years than us, or less? Or one of whom we think
is more knowledgeable than us? Where have they got their wisdom
from? Their understanding from? Man passes it down, man to man,
man can only go back as far as his knowledge and understanding
goes. The Word of God is the Word of
the Eternal and Everlasting God. And it is a trait to fallen man
right from the beginning that he would rather ask counsel at
man at fallen men, men that will die like he will die, rather
than go to the true and living God. And how we go to the true
and living God is going to the Word of God. The Bible is the
only Word of God to man from Genesis to Revelation. There
are no other words of God to man. It is the inspired, infallible,
Word of God. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God. And we go to God in prayer, asking
Him to give us understanding, to direct us in His Word, to
cause us to understand His Word and understand what we should
do and the way we should go. The Lord is in control in this
world. He governs all nations and He
has a plan and a purpose for the world, and one day the world
that He made and created and formed shall end. And at its
end, the Lord shall end it, not man, and He shall come again
with power and great glory, and His people then shall rise from
the dead, they shall be forever with Him, and those that are
still alive at that time shall be caught up with those that
have risen in the air to be forever with the Lord. The Lord makes
a new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. And we have to remember these
glorious plans of the Lord that are revealed in His Word. We
have those prophecies in the Word that foretold what would
happen to Israel, and it did happen to Israel. The coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He did come. We have set before
us in the Word those things that fulfill the Scriptures, that
tell us that this is the Word of God. Why, throughout the Word,
some 500 times, we have the phrase, Thus saith the Lord. It claims
to be the Word of God and not the Word of man. And we could
not trust it. If it was the Word of Man and
such words as this chapter and of this text would be meaningless,
if really all we had here was the Word of Man, then we might
as well trust in man, rather than trusting in someone that
wrote something a few hundred or thousand years ago. But when
we know it is the Word of the true and living God, who said
that heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass
away, then we are to trust in the word, or trust in the God
of the word of God. Well, Israel here was a rebellious
people. They would not do this. They
would not listen. They would go down to Egypt. They would rest in another's
wisdom, another's might, in horses, and in the might of another nation. Or how often we think later on
we have the same that was spoken against Asa, king of Israel. An army of a million came against
him, Ethiopians. And at that time he trusted in
the Lord and the Lord delivered him. Then later on, instead of
trusting to the Lord, he went to another nation and sought
help from them. And even he persecuted the prophets
that reproved him for doing that. And again and again, we have
a reminder for God's children that they have for their God,
the true and the living God. And part of that is to trust
in him. Trust in Him for time and for
eternity. If we cannot trust Him for time,
how can we trust Him to put away our sins? How can we trust Him
for eternity and to deliver us from the wrath to come and the
judgment to come? The vital thing for us is to
have an interest in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and
a trust in His salvation. and lean hard upon what the Lord
has done and not on our own works or any other one's works except
that of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we have the word that is in
this chapter. The Jews, the ten tribes of Israel,
they were told, they were told where this hope was to be. In verse 7, the Egyptians shall
help in vain and to no purpose. Therefore have I cried concerning
this, their strength is to sit still. They'd already had this
message. Then they have the message of
our text. For thus saith the Lord God,
the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest shall ye be saved, in
quietness and in confidence shall be your strength, and ye would
not. And they said that they would
flee and that they would take other ways, but when this is
spoken of God's people, when God's people rebel, he sends
his word after them, he sends the rod, he chastens them, He
corrects them and He brings them at last to hear the word of the
Lord. And the way it transgresses is
hard. How much better it would be to
hear it first than to rebel against it and let the Lord deal with
us and then at last we hear it and at last we obey. But that
is the great mercy for God's chosen people, that though they
may rebel at first, yet he does not let them go, and he will
correct them, he will cause them to hear at last his word. I want to look then at this word
in a gospel sense. We would start, of course, as
we have with the literal events that are happening in Israel. The Word of God is not cunningly
devised fables. What we have here, though it
is a prophet, it is the real experience of Israel. It is a history book. It speaks
of real nations and real people and what God did for them. and
how he appeared for them in the midst of an ungodly world, in
the midst of a world of heathens, a world of idolaters, and how
the Lord dealt with his people, his special people, his chosen
people. And so he would apply this to
the people of God of all ages in these gospel days from Christ
to the end of the world, When the Lord commanded to go into
all the world and to preach the gospel to every creature, that
gospel or good news of salvation, it was really preached from as
soon as the Lord came, was born into this world, even before
he suffered, bled and died. It was a message of peace, a
message of goodwill to all men on earth, peace. And it was not
peace on earth, but on earth peace, known by the people of
God. The Lord said, in me, ye shall
have peace. In the Lord Jesus Christ, ye
shall have peace. In the world, ye shall have tribulation
or great trouble and distresses. But in me, ye shall have peace. Be of good cheer. I have overcome
the world. And so I want to Look in this
verse that is before us, the verse that was brought to Israel,
brought now in a Gospel sense to us. The first point, how we
shall be saved. The Word says, for thus saith
the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest
shall ye be saved. The second point is what shall
be our strength. in quietness and in confidence
shall be your strength." These are very clear statements for
Israel and for God's children. And then thirdly, our response
to the Lord's message. Always when the Lord brings his
word, when it is preached, there is to be a responding to it. And when the Lord sent forth
his disciples to preach, he said, where that word was not received,
they were to shake the dust of that city off their feet and
to go on to the next. He that receiveth you receiveth
me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. So there will be a response,
and the solemn case in our text is, and ye would not. But firstly, how we shall be
saved. The message here from the Lord
God, the Eternal God, the Holy One of Israel, that is still
the Holy One of Israel, He is still the Holy One of Heaven
and of Earth. There is one God, And one Lord
Jesus Christ, one triune God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, three
distinct persons in one Godhead, all divine, all eternal, all
holy, all unchangeable, all with no beginning nor end. Though
our Lord was made flesh and dwelt among us, He is the eternal God. And this is His message then.
to us. In returning and rest shall ye
be saved. How could that be put? How is
it put really in the gospel sense? We think of when John Baptist
came, when our Lord came, what were they preaching? They were
preaching repentance. What is repentance but turning
or returning to the Lord, turning back again. What were the people
of God doing here? Going off to Egypt? Going to
another hell? Going after their own strength
or man's strength? Where was the way that they would
be saved? Going on in that way, continually
in that way? Or was it returning and turning
back to the Lord? Returning to the Lord. Repentance,
that is what repentance is. when Paul came to Mars Hill and
he spoke to those at Athens who had altars for all sorts of gods,
a hill of gods, and then one altar for the unknown God. And
he said to them that, he whom ye ignorantly worship, I declare
unto you. And the God that made heaven
and earth, In Him we live and move and have our being, and
He declared to them that one true God. And then He says that
God commanded, now this ignorance, this ignorance of nations going
after idols and going after these other gods and other strengths,
For many, many years God winked at it, he turned a blind eye
to it amongst the nations of the earth. But now, now in these
gospel days, now that Christ has suffered, bled and died,
risen again, and the Holy Spirit is given, now God commandeth
all men everywhere to repent, to turn from these idols, from
man, from every other way of salvation, to look for salvation
in none other but the Lord alone, to return unto the Lord. And this is the message for the
people here, that they were to return. In returning and rest
ye shall be saved. There is no salvation in any
other. The Lord said, there is none
other name given among men whereby we must be saved. If you believe
not me, you shall perish in your sins. There is no other way of
salvation, but that that is described and set forth in the word of
God of which the Lord is the author of Him. Our way of being
saved must be in this only way. Paul, the Apostle Paul says,
be followers of me as I also am of Christ. He says to the
Hebrews, let us run the race that is set before us, looking
unto Jesus. It is in that one name It is
given a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bow. Really, it is a very simple message,
a very direct message, that for poor fallen men, that they are
to look in that direction and that direction alone. They are
to seek for salvation there. We live in a world where, like
Athens, like Mars Hill, there's multiples of gods, many gods,
and even amongst Christianity, there is so many that say that
they are Christians or that they are following Christ. But if
they knew their Bible, if they followed the Word of God, they
would know that they are not following after Christ at all. And we have many times, like
when Paul writes to the Galatians, that he shows the people there
that had received the gospel, the good news through Christ,
but added to it their own works. Man will always want to put his
hand to it, always want to do something towards his own salvation,
instead of resting on what the Lord has done. So we have here,
it is in returning and in rest shall ye be saved. Returning
unto the Lord. We think of our Lord's parable
of the prodigal son, where he went from his father, he took
his worldly goods, he spent them all in righteous living, then
he began to be in want, And then he remembered all that he had
in his father's house, and he said, I will return, and that
he will say, I am not worthy to be called thy son. Make me,
I pray thee, as one of thy hired servants. And so he returns,
and the father saw him a great way off. When he saw him, he
had compassion on him and ran and embraced him, and he would
have nothing of the idea of him being a servant He said this,
my son was dead and now is alive again. And the blessing all began
with him remembering his father's house and returning there. And here's a message to a backsliding
people, here's a message to all people that there is no salvation
except in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the way of salvation set
forth in the Word of God. According to the Scriptures,
we read when Christ suffered, all that he did was that the
Scriptures might be fulfilled. And when Satan tempted our Lord,
the Lord rebuffed every one of those temptations with, it is
written from the Word of God. And that should be a real lesson
to us. Return to the Lord, return to
the Word of God. Look for salvation there. Look for it in God alone. It is His judgment throne we
must stand before. It is He that we shall give account
to. So does it not then render that
we should look to His Word? Perhaps if we use an illustration. If we had a car and we had an
insurance policy on it, then we would know that if we had
a cause of needing that policy, we had a car accident, that we
would have to go to that insurer to ask them to pay out for us,
to pay our debt for us. But if we have had the insurance
document and we said, well, we don't want to read that, We're
not interested in that. We'll just read part of it anyway.
And we won't read the conditions. When in the conditions, they
said that if you left your car with the keys in it, you were
not insured. If you were driving without a license, you were not
insured. If you left the car unlocked,
you were not insured. If it had not got an MOT, you
were not insured. You hadn't read any of those,
and you just read those bits that said, you're covered, you're
all right. And then you had the accident. Then you had the great
bill for the repairs, not only of your car, but someone else's.
And so you go to the insurer, and you want some money. And
they say, well, what did you do? And they look at all of the
conditions, and they say, well, you've broken those conditions. Your car wasn't MOT'd, you hadn't
got a license, you left the key in it. Sorry, we're not paying
you anything. And you'd begin to protest. And they said, well,
you couldn't be bothered to read the word that we'd written. You couldn't be bothered to read
the conditions. So see to it. I'm just, we're right, we gave
you the warnings, we told you the conditions, and that shall
be at the last judgment day. Men shall stand before God, their
maker and their creator, and the Lord shall judge them according
to his word, according to the law of God. They might say, well,
we didn't bother to read it, or we had it, But we decided
to follow those that interpreted it this way that was nice and
easy for us and we could just have our sins and have our life
and live as we liked and we were told they'd be alright at the
end. He would say to them, but why didn't you read the Word?
Why did you leave it to others to deceive you? Why did you not
look into it yourself if you knew your whole eternal existence
relied on that? Your soul relied on that. Why
are you trusting in man? How many will do that? And they'll
trust in man's interpretation of God's Word. They won't have
a Bible. They won't read the Bible. They'd
like someone to tell them themselves what it says, what it means,
and what they should do. Like Israel, they said, tell
us good things. Tell us things we want to hear.
Don't tell us bad things. Don't tell us anything that will
restrict our lifestyle and that will go against what we want
to do. We want the effect of an idol that sees what we want
it to see, hears what we want it to hear. It can't do anything
to us because it's but stone or gold. It can't reprove us. It hasn't got a mouth. That's
the kind of God we want, just to puff it, puff it, just to
do what we want. We'll put words in his mouth
and he will tell us nice, smooth things, just what we want. Is
that the God that you want, that I want? Or would we rather know
the truth this side of the grave, before the judgment day, before
we stand before God, to actually know what the Lord requires and
what is the way of being saved, and here in our text it tells
us how we are saved, how we are to be saved. In returning and
rest shall ye be saved. In returning to the true and
living God, in looking for salvation to him and alone and to none
else. And then there's the other part,
in returning and rest, Really, repentance and faith. In the Word of God, the rest
often is spoken of the Lord Jesus Christ. Return unto thy rest. There remaineth a rest to the
people of God, or a keeping of Sabbath. But Christ is our rest. Hear his word. Come unto me,
all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find
rest unto your songs. The children of Israel, in the
Old Testament covenant, they worked six days and rested the
seventh. The same as in creation, God
worked six days of creation and hallowed and rested the seventh
day. Works came before the rest. But in the New Testament, we
rest on the first day of the week because Christ rose from
the dead. The work is finished. It's completed. It is done. The atonement has
been made. Christ has died. He put away
the sin of his people. He satisfied the justice of God. He endured the wrath of God.
He finished the work. He cried upon the cross, it is
finished. Then He rose from the dead, giving
assurance unto all men that the sacrifice was accepted, the wrath
of God was appeased. And this is the gospel, the good
news of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, a finished work. So the rest of the week is worked
out what has worked in. We show forth the praises of
Him who has called us out of nature's darkness, and into his
marvellous line. And the rest here is a resting
on what Christ has done, a trusting on what Christ has done. Imagine
if we owed a debt, say to a builder's merchant or at another firm,
and it was a great debt and we were trying very hard to work
and pay that debt off. And we worked long hours and
we tried hard as we could to settle that debt. But the more
we tried and the more we worked, because of the interest on it,
the debt got worse and worse. But then someone came along and
they said, look, we will take your debt. You put it on our
account, and we will pay it." And so that builder's merchant
at that firm, what was owing on your account, was put upon
someone else's account, and they fully paid off that debt. Now, if you didn't believe that
they'd done that, you'd still try and try to pay off your debt. You'd have no rest. All the time
labor, But if you believe what they said, if you really believe
that they had settled your debt, you wouldn't worry anymore, you
wouldn't labour anymore, you could rest in the complete knowledge
that that debt had been honourably and rightly paid. And it all
hinges on how much you trust that person. How much you trust
that that debt really was settled as to whether you can rest or
not. And with the children of Israel
here, how much they believed in the might and power of their
God to appear for them and to deliver them from the Assyrian
armies. If they could believe that, then
they would rest. But if they could not believe
that, then they were busy going down to Egypt, they were busy
doing all these things, but we read in verse 7, the Egyptians
shall help in vain, to no purpose. They won't be any help. All of
that effort, wasted. All of that labour, wasted. The great message right through
the New Testament is not a works lest any man should boast. Paul
to the Romans in Romans 10, he said they were his own countrymen,
that he bore them record that they had a zeal for God, but
not according to knowledge. They were going about to establish
their own righteousness, their own goodness, their own works,
and hadn't submitted unto the righteousness of God. All the
time the message is the same. The Pharisee is looking for his
own works to save him. Saul of Tarsus was at the first. And all of God's people as well,
we are born under the law, we are under the law, but our Lord
Jesus Christ, he was born under the law and made of a woman to
deliver us out from under the law. You know, one that owes
a debt, they are under the law, if they don't pay that debt,
then at last they can be locked up for it. But as soon as that
debt is paid, the law doesn't have any more say over them at
all. If you get a letter through the
post and they say you've got a speeding fine, you're under
the law. The law says you should pay that
fine, and all the time that fine is not paid, you're under the
law. You don't pay it, it's doubled. You don't pay it, you go to court.
You don't pay it, you go to jail. And the law is on top of you
all the time, that debt remains. As soon as you write out your
cheque and you pay that, it's paid, points on your licence,
the law is satisfied, it's done, you can't be taken to jail, the
law has no more demand upon you, it's done, it's settled. And
so is in the way of salvation. With our first parents, in the
day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. We are
under the sentence of death, we already are. Our loved ones
have died, our parents have died, our grandparents have died, our
great-grandparents have died. Men must die, we must die. We're under that sentence and
we are under spiritual death already. We cannot by nature
know or find out God at all, but it is the Lord that alone
can give eternal life, alone that can give faith, and it is
through his word. Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God, and it is a trust. That faith is
trust. Faith is trusting in what the
Lord has done, what is revealed in the word of God, what the
Lord has done at Calvary. And it focuses right in all four
of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all focused on
Calvary. The Scriptures always repeats
what is so vitally important. We have the creation account
in Genesis, and right through nearly every book of the Bible,
creation is referred to. It's a vital, vital beginning.
And in the first three chapters of creation of Genesis, we have
just about every doctrine, every teaching that is unfolded right
through the Word of God. When we come to the Law of God,
it's repeated twice. You can read it in Exodus, in
Deuteronomy. When it comes to the birth of
the Lord Jesus Christ, it's set forth twice in Matthew and in
Luke. And when it comes to the death
and resurrection of our Lord, it is in Matthew, Mark, Luke
and John. Emphasising the importance of
that. It is Christ that died, yea rather
is risen again. He is not here, he is risen. The debt is paid. And so the
trust, this is the way of salvation, how we are saved. in returning
and rest shall ye be saved, in repentance turning from all other
unto Christ alone, to the way of salvation set forth in the
Bible alone, and in trusting alone in what he has done and
he has accomplished. And where the Holy Spirit, and
it is the Spirit's work, it's the power of God that opens the
ear makes one willing to receive the Word and to believe the Word
and to trust in it. Faith is the gift of God and
is through the Word of God, and where then it gives rest, joy
and peace in believing, fully believing the record God hath
made of His Son and the work that He has done. This then is
the message, how we shall be saved, in returning and rest,
in repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly then,
what shall be our strength? For thus saith the Lord God,
the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest shall you be saved,
in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength. Men put their strength in all
sorts of things. Some will say, well, my strength
is my bank account. Any trouble comes, I've got enough
money, I pay for it. Another will say, well, my strength
is in my physical strength. I can do anything. There's nothing
that I can't do. Another will say, my strength
is in my wisdom and my knowledge. I can handle anything. Electronics
and mechanics and woodwork and painting, electrics and plumbing,
whatever it is, I can do it. That's my strength. In other
words, my strength is people. It's not what you know, it's
who you know. I know this person and that person, and I can manipulate
them and make them do what I want. And each one has these different
strengths. But the Word of the Lord here,
He says in quietness and in confidence, shall be your strength. And we
put it in the Gospel way, in this way, in submission and quiet
waiting upon the Lord. Many times through the Word of
God, it speaks of submitting to the Lord. Submission to Him. We mentioned about Paul with
writing to the Romans and in Romans chapter 10. And the contrast with those that
were working and going about to establish their own righteousness,
their good works as a payment that God should accept them.
And he says that they have not submitted themselves unto the
righteousness of God. Man is proud. Man is full of
self-importance. And to submit to someone else
is beneath him. To submit to God's way and not
his own way. You think of Naaman the Syrian,
who really, he did want to be healed of his leprosy, but he
had these great ideas that when he came to the door of Elisha,
that he would do some great things. And instead, Elisha just sent
out a messenger and told him to go and wash in Jordan seven
times and he would be healed. And he despised Jordan. He thought
the rivers of Damascus, where he lived, was better than them.
And he was expecting some great thing. He went away in a rage.
He wouldn't submit to the simple directions that were given him
to be cleansed. And then his servants came to
him and reasoned with him, said, my lord, if the prophet had said
to do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? But what,
just a simple thing? And then he went and did it,
he submitted. Kept himself seven times in Jordan,
came again, his flesh as a little child. How vital to submit, how
proud, remember this. By nature we are proud. We will
not have this man to reign over me. I will not be dictated by
the word of God. I will not be ruled by that.
I will not be ruled by another. I will do my own thing. That
really is the mentality of the world today. Just like in judges,
every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And every
man wants every man to be able to do what is right in his own
eyes. And it is ending up in absolute
chaos in this country. A man likes that. He wants every
man to, including himself, just to be able to do what he likes. He will not have one to say,
no, this is the word of God. This shall be our guide. This
is what we shall rest in and this is how we shall walk and
how we shall act. No. But the strength of God's
people in quietness and in confidence, not in running hither and here,
not in rebellion, not in fighting, not in striving against the Lord,
but just in a quiet continuum. ways of the Lord. Submission and quietly waiting
for the Lord. We have in verse 18, Therefore
will the Lord wait that He may be gracious unto you. That is,
as He brings down the people, humbles them, brings them down,
And therefore will He be exalted that He may have mercy upon you. For the Lord is a God of judgment. Blessed are all they that wait
for Him. How many promises in the Word
of God for those that wait for the Lord. And what is set forth
here is this is the strength of the people of God. May that
be our strength, dear friends. to have submission to the Lord
and quietly wait for the Lord. Is there a thing that you can't
submit to tonight? Is there something that the Lord
has not yet appeared, He has not yet dealt with it as you
think He should deal with it? And you might say that then is
our weakness, but our strength will be to be submissive to the
Lord's will, handling of the matter, and to wait for Him to
perform all His will, and what He will do, and His purposes. I've seen it in the Lord's dear
people. I trust I've known a little of
it myself. And it certainly is a strength
and not a weakness. The Lord said to the Apostle
Paul, My grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made
perfect in weakness. And the strength of the people
of God is to sit still, to wait upon the Lord. In verse 7, The Egyptians shall
help in vain and to no purpose. Therefore have I cried concerning
this, their strength is to sit still, to sit still, to wait
for the Lord. Our help cometh from the Lord
that made heaven and earth. The Lord said to Ruth, or Naomi
said to Ruth, when she'd made her petition to Boaz to take
her as his wife and to redeem her, to do the part of an ear
kinsman. She said, sit still, my daughter.
The man will not be in rest until he have finished the thing this
day. May this be a word to you this
evening, poor soul. Sit still, my daughter. The man
will not be in rest. Until you finish the thing this
day, that will be your strength. Well then we have our last point,
our response to the Lord's message. Well their response was, and
he would not. The Lord knows how we respond
to his word. And may we know, may he make
us honest with ourselves, How we respond to the Word of God. How we respond to it preached. Do we ridicule it? Do we test
it by man? Do we do it? Are we doers of the
Word? Not hearers only? In the epistle
to James he speaks of that. And our Lord told the parable
of the man that built his house upon the rock and the man that
built his house upon the sand. And the difference was the man
that was a doer of the Word and a man that was not a doer of
the Word. May we be like those that are
upon the rock, that hear the Word of God and keep it. You know, there's nothing so
grievous and sad to a parent or to an instructor of A person
that has told them the way to go, told them what to do, and
they go and do the opposite. They don't do as they have been
told. How easy we can fall into that. I remember years ago, as a young
man, I went to buy some bricks from this person. And this builder,
he gave me a wheelbarrow to take it out to the car. And he said
to me, now put the bricks, not many of them, but just over the
wheel of the wheelbarrow. And then you'll be out of control
and take it out. And I thought, I don't know.
I was strong. I filled the wheelbarrow up,
and off I went. And it started to wobble, and
I struggled. And he came after me very angry. He said, didn't I tell you? Just
put it over the wheel. You didn't do as you were told.
I've never forgotten that. And he was right. And we can
be many times grieved when we give someone specific instructions
and they think we know better and we're going to do different.
And so when we have the Word of God, when we have the Word
before us here, what is our response? Do we add to it? Do we take from
it? Do we change it to suit ourselves? Do we do what Israel did? After
it set forth before them, ye would not. Would not walk in
that way. May the Lord make us obedient
to the word, doers of the word. Make us to be of those that walk
in the ways of the Lord and in the way of salvation. In this
way ye are saved. In this way is our strength.
And may that truly be so with us. May the Lord bless the Word. May it abide with us. Amen.