Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to the prophet of Isaiah and
chapter 59, the chapter that we read. And we read for our
text part of verse 19. Verse 19, the latter part, when
the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord
shall lift up a standard against him. The whole verse reads, so
shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory
from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in
like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard
against him. Isaiah 59 and verse 19, the latter
part. Right from the very beginning,
when God created the heavens and the earth, when he formed
man upon the earth, gave him his commands, and then Satan
came in. The people of God, the Church
of God, have had dealings with and he has had dealings with
them, that is, Satan. Satan came to man and through
his temptations man fell. And Satan ever since has taken
advantage of the fall of man. That man does not have the held
in himself and our chapter here gives a very vivid picture using
Israel as the people whose iniquities have separated between them and
their God. A vivid picture of the lies of
the situation of fallen man Hands defiled with blood, fingers with
iniquity, lips spoken lies, tongue muttered perverseness. None is
calling for justice. None's pleading for truth. They're
trusting in vanity, speaking lies, conceiving mischief, bringing
forth iniquity. And it goes on and on. of the
evil and the wickedness that man walks in. And this is God's
ancient people. But it is a picture of fallen
man. It's a picture of what man is
by nature. Now we have here set forth that
it is not because there is no power in the Lord. The Lord's
hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor his ear heavy
that he cannot hear. The fold is not in the Lord,
but it is iniquities that have separated right from the very
beginning. May we all remember this. It
is sin, it is iniquity that separates between God and man. That is the condemnation In the
day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die, and spiritually
man has died, and the natural man is not subject to the law
of God, neither indeed can be, and he walks contrary to God. And we have set forth here that in man himself there is
no deliverance at all. In verse 12, our transgressions
are multiplied before thee, our sins testify against us. Yea, truth faileth, he that departeth
from evil maketh himself a prey. Then we read, the Lord saw it,
and it displeased him that there was no judgment, and he saw there
was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor, therefore
his own arm. His arm brought salvation unto
him. His righteousness sustained him. And dear friends, we need to
really bear this in mind. There may be some of you feeling,
well, what hope is there for me when it is sin that separates,
and sin is my problem, and sin is my burden, and sin is that
which I desire to be free from, And sin is what Satan takes advantage
over me in, but it's sin that separates, and God will not say,
because of my sin, so how can I be saved? But when we look at the whole
chapter here, and it is a reminding of the whole plan of salvation
and whole reason why The Lord Jesus Christ was provided and
is provided for poor sinners is because man is fallen. He is a sinner and sin does separate
and there is no help in man. So it is God that provides that
help and that is in salvation itself and it's in every time
a child of God has battle with sin, with Satan,
with the world, with his flesh. There is no help in self, but
there is in God. And sin does separate. God's
children are to know that sin is a bitter and evil thing, and
that they are not to sin lightly, carelessly, walking in ways that
are ways of evil and thinking, well, let grace abound. It is
easy to let sin in and death in. It's hard that it should
be cast out and is only cast out at a price. And so we have another reminder
here as well. The chapter begins that the Lord's
hand is not shortened that it cannot save. But I speak and
I say it reverently. The Lord cannot just save without
justice. He cannot just pass by the transgression
of the remnant of his heritage and not make payment and not
settle the debt that they owe. and that which is due to their
sin. To pardon without blood never
in God's plan stood. Without the shedding of blood
there is no remission and there must be atonement made. And we
need to remember these things when we Think of the context
here and the words of our text, because the words of our text
predominantly speak of the experience of God's children when they have
the enemy coming into their own souls, into their own lives,
against them, as of with a flood, driving everything before overflowing
everything, making it as if nothing was there before. You know, a
flood, you could have houses, you can have gardens, you can
have all sorts of things on the earth, but you get a flood coming
in and it covers everything. You go to the sea and as the
tide comes in, a tide of five meters, seven meters, Many things
might be there, hidden under that water, and all you see is
the surface of the water, and nothing is seen. And when Satan
comes in like a flood, how quickly he covers everything that seemed
to be there before. He blots it out, makes it so
the child of God cannot see the child of God, cannot see his
evidences, cannot see the word of God. Satan, he blackens the
Word of God. He blackens the Redeemer. He
comes as an enemy, either as a roaring lion seeking whom he
may devour or as an angel of light. But he comes as a description
here, just like a flirt. And so It is in this verse here, I want
to, with the Lord's help, look at the promises here, the expectation
for the people of God. Remembering these points we've
made in the introduction here. There is no deliverer but Christ. Sin and iniquity, they separate. Sin it must be dealt with by
God that it be just and holy in how the Lord delivers his
people. So I want to look firstly at
the enemy and his coming in. Our text says, when the enemy
shall come in like a flood. And then secondly, the lifter
up of a standard we have in our text, the Spirit of the Lord
shall lift up a standard against him. And the lifter up of the
standard is the Spirit of the Lord. And then lastly, the standard
that is lifted up, the aspects of that standard which is really
the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the banner, the
standard that is lifted up against the enemy. But firstly then, the enemy and
his coming in. Our text says when. It doesn't
say if the enemy shall come in like a flood. It says when. We think of how the church has
been warned of those that shall come in amongst them. Jude, he says in his epistle,
for there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before
of old ordained to this condemnation ungodly men, turning the grace
of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God
and our Lord Jesus Christ. The letters to the Revelation
speak also of those that shall come in teaching errors and practising
error and evil. We think of how our Lord turned
when Peter was saying to him that the sufferings our Lord
was speaking of that he was to endure, this becometh not thee. In other words, don't take up
the cross, don't suffer, Don't fulfil the scriptures, don't
walk in that path. And the Lord turned, and the
Lord rebuked him, and he rebuked Satan. He says, get thee behind
me, Satan. Thou savest not the things that
be of God, but the things that be of men. Satan came in in the
very first, in the guise of a serpent. And Satan still speaks. through
men, through even God's people, he comes in, he comes in, as
we said, either as a roaring lion in full view, as an adversary
against the people of God, like Haman was, seeking to destroy
the people of God from off the face of the earth in the days
of Ahasuerus and Queen Esther, and how the Lord lifted up a
standard and delivered the Jews at that time. But he came then
as a very open enemy, that many times in the history of the children
of Israel, he came in in the guise of even their own kings,
their rulers, even those of their religious rulers. who then led
the people astray, taught for commandments, the traditions
of men, coming in as an angel of light, as something that was
spiritually praiseworthy and good, and yet leading away from
the Lord and away from his word. Satan is a master of disguise. He is also an imitator. And everything that is set forth
in the Word of God, Satan will imitate. He'll imitate the Word
of God. He will twist and turn the Word
of God around, as he tried to do in the temptations of our
Lord. When our Lord reproved and answered
from the Word of God, then Satan also uses the Word of God. And we are to remember that. Where the Lord has blessed the
church with love, Satan will come in with a perverted and
false love. Where the Lord has blessed the
church of God with very rich hymns and psalms and spiritual
songs, then Satan will come in with his contemporary music and
worldly music and try to replace that which is holy, solemn, sacred
and scriptural with that which is empty and hollow and shallow
and worldly. In everything that God has given
to the Church of God, Satan will imitate it and bring in his version
of it with enough plausibility that many are taken with it and
drawn away with it. He comes in in the lives of the
people of God. We have our besetting sins, we
have those things that the Lord delivered us from when we were
first called. And like the children of Israel
who were delivered out of Egypt, their predominant sin was when
there was trials, when there was troubles, when the way got
hard, then they thought back to Egypt and they looked to go
back, make a captive again. returning back to their captivity. And we are just the same. And
Satan will tempt that way, that it has been nothing but trials
and tribulations and sorrows and weariness ever since we took
in the ways of the Lord. How much better it would be if
we went back and we shook these things off and we followed in
the ways of the world instead of the ways of the Lord. Satan
is at the root of all enmity and hatred against God. It is he which is king over all
the children of pride. And you can be sure where Satan
is working, then pride will be working. There won't be meekness,
there won't be humility, there won't be humbleness of mind. There'll be a rising up. There'll
be a defying of God. There'll be a lack of love to
the brethren and to the Lord. The enemy is Satan, and he is
the enemy to the Lord, an enemy to the people of God, to the
house of God, an enemy to peace and blessing. And we're told
here, not when, but if he comes in. And he comes in like a flood. And when he comes in, then all
that he's seen is the enemy, because he's just covered everything
else. And the people of God, they cannot
see their signs, they cannot see their evidences, they cannot
see what has been there before, they cannot see that which is
any encouragement and help in themselves at all. The enemy
comes in and he covers, covers that which the Lord has done
and which the Lord has accomplished. The people of God have been the
subject of the work of God. The people of God are a redeemed
people, same as the children of Israel. Those that Isaiah
prophesied to hear had been brought out of Egypt. God had wrought
for them. They were his people. And yet
when Satan comes in, what effect it had on the children of Israel
again and again, and how it brought God's chastening hand upon them,
and how it brought them to look even worse than the heathens
of the land. And this may be how we feel personally. We may feel that we are worse
than before we are called. We may feel that sin is working
so much and so strongly in our heart, we wonder whether we ever
had the grace of God. We look at our prayerlessness,
our carelessness, our hardness of heart. We look at the strength
of sin and the love that our old nature has to sin. And we
wonder where the scene will end. Yet what it has been, you say,
well, it is my own sin. Yes, it is our own sin. But it's when the enemy comes
in, and he comes in like a flood, then it is not just sin, if we
might say so, but it is sin that Satan is taking advantage of,
and he's stirring up, and he's using arguments from that sin
to cover over redemption, the work of the Lord, what he has
done for us and in us, and to cause that in our eyes there
is no hope. Wherever we get this thought,
this suggestion, there is no hope. This is what Israel said
in the face of the prophecies that God gave his servants. There
is no hope and what was the result of that will go on everyone in
our own ways. And we can always tell the enemy
when he comes in like that. The enemy will not offer hope.
The enemy will entrench in ways of wickedness and sin. The enemy
will cover over what has been there before in the way of blessing
and helps and things that have caused us to walk in the ways
of the Lord. The marks of the enemy are specifically
described in our text as coming in like a flood. I always feel
it is helpful When we come to a word like this, to think of
those descriptive words, instead of when the enemy shall come
in, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. You could read the text like
that and perhaps if you didn't got your Bible in front of you,
you wouldn't know what would have been left out. But what's
been left out is the description, like a flower. this specific
time when everything is just covered, obliterated, hidden. And that might be how you are
this morning. You say, with Israel of old,
we see not our signs. We cannot see our tokens. We
cannot see our evidences. We cannot see the Lord's work.
We cannot see the gospel. We cannot see hope. All we can
see is this flood and it covers everything. Well the word here of promise
is for this time, for this specific time when the enemy shall come
in like a flood. And whether it is as a period
of time or whether it is in a specific temptation, when Satan will come
in and seek to just completely overthrow a child of God in a
moment. It is at such a time that this promise is given. The Spirit of the Lord shall
lift up a standard against him. Does this Word raise up a hook
and towel, a hope in your soul this morning? Certainly as I
looked at this in way of preparing for the ministry of the Word,
it did raise up a hope with me and I hope it will with you and
with each tempted and tried soul and those that recognise that
this is an enemy's work, this is Satan's work, and yet not
dismiss our own sin, the evil of our own heart, in the matter
at all. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God, but the work that our Lord has done,
right from start to finish, is to destroy the works of the devil
and it is to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. So I want to look then secondly
at the lifter up of a standard. When the enemy shall come in
like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard
against him. In our third point I want to
look more clearly at what the standard is but on this point
the lifter up of that standard which is spoken of here as the
Spirit of the Lord and to notice that this is outside of us It
is outside of the sinner, it is the Holy Spirit's work to
do this. It is a promise of help from
God, what God will do, what God the Holy Spirit would do. And
may this raise up a real hope and encouragement in our souls. to draw us to look away from
ourselves and to look away from the flood and all that is covered
by that, all that the enemy has done and what he is saying and
what he is doing, and that our expectation and our hope and
our help is in the work of the Holy Spirit lifting up a banner,
a standard, the standard of the captain of our salvation, which
is our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In the days when the
armies fought hand to hand, the times when they went forth with
their infantry, their horses, What was so important was the
standard, the colours under what they were fighting. One of the
soldiers carried the colours, carried the flag, and it was
something to be dreaded and to be preserved at all costs that
the enemy should not take that standard. and destroy that standard
and that it not be able to be lifted up. It was a rallying
point. It was a point of honour that
they still retained that standard that belonged to their army,
to their forces. Well, in our text, the standard
is still intact. The standard is not taken by
the enemy, it is in the Spirit's hand. There is still a rallying
point. There is still the forces of
the people of God under the banner and standard of our Lord and
Saviour, Jesus Christ, of which the Holy Spirit of the Lord lifts
up this standard. The lifter up of the standard
is the Spirit of the Lord. the Holy Spirit, who looks at
this standard? Satan will look at this standard. Satan must see this standard. You know, it does us good to think
of standards and tokens and signs and who does look at it? You
know, when the Lord brought Noah's flood upon the earth, and that
destroyed, because of man's sin, it destroyed all that was upon
the earth, covered it all, and all that was left was the ark
and what was in it. God's work. But after the flood, God gave
a most beautiful token that when the rain came upon the earth,
that he would not destroy the earth again by a flood. It was
to be a sign that was given, not with beautiful sunshine,
but when it rained, when there was a threat of a flood, then
there was to be the sign, I do set my bow in the cloud. And it was, I will look upon
it. And I will remember my covenant. So the bow, we have drawn to
it, the bow is put there, but who looks upon it? So we look
upon it, we do, and we see it. And we are to remember God's
covenant. But God says he will also look
upon it. It's not just us looking upon
it. And so with the standard that is lifted up here, it's
not just the sinner to look upon it. We are to look upon it. It
is a standard that we are to see. But God is seeing this standard
and the enemy is seeing this standard as well. And so it is
a standard against the adversary and is a standard of remembrance
by God himself. In one sense, this is why the
Church of God is bidden to remember the sufferings of our Lord in
the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. You do show forth the Lord's
death till he come. It is a standard, it is an evidence,
it is set forth. And especially in the preaching
of the word, the Holy Spirit lifts up the standard there. And it is a declaration to man,
it is a, into the honor and glory of God, and it is a declaration
before Satan. of what Christ has done and what
Christ has accomplished. But it is this spirit that lifts
up this standard and it is lifted up in the public way of the ministry
and through the word and is lifted up in the hearts of the people
of God and is lifted up so that God sees it, Satan sees it and
the people of God they see this standard and it is that which
is an answer to this time when the
enemy comes in like a flood. The very implication of it is
that this standard lifting up is a deliverance, is a help for
this time, And it immediately follows in verse 20, and the
Redeemer shall come to Zion. The standard is lifted up, then
the Redeemer comes. The Lord comes, and of course,
we're speaking of gospel days, but speaking of the experience
of God's people. When the enemy comes in like
a flood, the standard is lifted up, then the Redeemer comes to
Zion. Then you come to those, you say,
yes, but here is the condition that turned from transgression
in Jacob. No, the Lord comes and he blesses
Zion. And when he blesses his people,
then he blesses them with repentance, with turning. The Lord is exalted
to give repentance and remission of sins unto Israel. Who does
the Redeemer come to? He comes to those who have repented,
who have turned, not because of their repentance, but they
repent because He has come and because He has blessed them.
And we are to look from the side of the need of repentance. And
when the Lord shows us that and the Lord blesses us with that,
We are to walk in that way. We are to know that this is the
way of blessing, but it is the token of the blessing of the
Lord. For the two are joined together,
remission of sins and repentance. They are both joined together
and they both come from God and they are wrought in a sinner. This whole chapter speaks of
sin. And to be delivered from sin
is to repent of our sins and to mourn over our sins and to
be delivered from the power and dominion of them and to have
those sins put away by our Lord Jesus Christ. And the evidence
of that is that this poor sinner that has been so overwhelmed
by the enemy and overwhelmed by sin and feels so hard and
so cold so sinful, so vile, is brought humbled, repentant, with
godly sorrow at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, mourning over
their sins. And after him, the heart softened,
melted, as he views this standard that is lifted up against the
enemy. The lifter up of the standard
is the Spirit of God, towering at Jerusalem until ye be endued
with power from on high. It is the Spirit that quickeneth
the flesh, prophet of nothing. He shall receive of mine and
shall show it unto you. It is the Spirit, until the Spirit
be poured upon us from on high. We need the Holy Spirit of God. We need the power of God. We
need God's answer to the enemy from without us, not from ourselves. Now help in self we find, yet
have sought it well, an aged treasure of our mind is sin and
death and hell, but to Christ for help I fly. And it is the
Spirit then that lifts up this blessed standard. So I want to
then look thirdly at the standard that is lifted up. The standard, as we have mentioned,
is the banner. It is that which belongs to the
captain of our salvation, to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is
the gospel in all its parts. But I felt that really what is
summed up in John's first epistle and chapter five, we have the
witnesses that are spoken of there. We have that which is
overcoming the world. Who is he that overcometh the
world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? Then we read this, This is he
that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ, not by water
only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth
witness, because the Spirit is truth. Then we are told the witness
in heaven. There are three that bear record
in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these
three are one. We have the Trinity bearing record
in heaven. And in verse 8, there are three
that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the
blood, and these three agree in one. This is the witness,
this is the banner that is upon earth and is lifted up by the
Spirit. And there's three then parts
to this banner that is lifted up. The first is the Spirit lifts
up the Word of God. In the beginning was the Word,
the Word was with God, the incarnate Word, But the written Word, Incarnate
Word, are the same, and the Holy Word of God is the inspired Word
of God. To the law, to the testimony,
they speak not according to these things. It is because there is
no truth in them. When our Lord was tempted by
Satan himself, then it was the Word of God that he answered
him with in every single instance. Even when Satan tried to misuse
the Word of God, the Lord said, it is written again, thou shalt
not tempt the Lord thy God. And so the first witness is the
Spirit, not only the Spirit lifting up this banner, but the Spirit
is banner in the Word of God, as the inspirer of the Word of
God, and that which makes the Word of God to have power. That is what we so need. We might
feel, well, we still believe in the Word of God, we have still
the Word of God, but when Satan comes in like a flood, the Word
seems to have lost its power. We say we've read that portion,
I know the gospel, I know the epistles, I can't turn to a piece
that is not new to me and all seems dry and there seems no
power and no help in the Word of God at all. But what we need
is the Holy Spirit, the author of the Word of God, to come and
to bring that Word with spirit and with power and with authority
into our souls again, that this standard is lifted up. For there's
been many times as well that Satan has come in and tempted
my soul to this or that and to walk in ways of evil, and the
Holy Spirit has brought to my remembrance very quickly, very
suddenly, the Word of God that has stopped that temptation And
I've been so thankful for it. And it is that which we need,
the authoritative word of the living God, lifted up as a standard
by the Spirit against the enemy. So did not I. Why? Because of
the word of the Lord. It forbids. It comes as a standard. It comes authoritatively. unto our souls, and that is what
we need. And not only the word, but we
need it to come in the way of the gospel. You know, in the
holy word of God, we have two parts in a way. We have the law
and gospel, and you can describe both of them, but there is a
way that we can take the gospel and we can apply it in the spirit
of the law. But is not just the gospel in
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, but is
this the spirit of the gospel? Neither indeed do I condemn thee,
go and sin no more. The gospel doesn't only tell
us how Christ died for sin and rose again, But it tells us of
the mercy through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Son
of Man came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. Not to show mercy at the expense
of justice, but to pay the price with his precious blood and then
show mercy. And so when the standard is lifted
up, it's not lifted up as the word of the law or the word of
the spirit of the law, but the gospel and the spirit of the
gospel, which is good news to sinners who look for wrath, who
look for judgment, who look for the Lord's condemning hand and
yet find mercy and a smile upon his brow. And yes, the Lord does
chasten and correct his dear people. But the lash, as the
hymn writer says, is lifted up, yet is softened in his blood. So the first part of this banner
and standard, the spirit lifting up, is the word, the word with
power, is lifted up, As the remembrancer, he shall bring all things to
your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. It is lifted up
on the pole of the everlasting gospel by the preachers of the
gospel. It is lifted up when poor sinners
read the word of God and the Holy Spirit blesses it and applies
it unto their souls. The second aspect of this banner
is the water, the witness that is of the water, which is sanctification. The Lord sets apart his people
for himself, and where he sets them apart, he sets them apart
in the new birth. Ye must be born, says the Lord
again, they that are born are born of the water and of the
Spirit. Those that are born again, they
are washed with the washing of regeneration. The change that
God works with his people may be blotted out for a time by
Satan, may be as if it had never happened. But when the Spirit
comes and lifts up this standard, he brings to remembrance what
God has done. He which hath begun a good work
in you, will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. The
very fact of the enemy attacking, he doesn't attack his own, he
attacks the Lord's people. And the very fact that the people
of God are groaning under their sins, it shows that they are
not in nature's darkness, but they do, and are able, like we
have in the passage here, be able to say, that our transgressions
are multiplied. Our transgressions are with us. And as for our iniquities, we
know them. They are not hidden from them.
They are people that actually are groaning under and they know
their sin. And is that you this morning? You might say, I don't know the
work of God in my heart. I don't know the blessing of
the Lord. I don't know anything good, but all I know is sin.
And all I know is evil, and all I know is what I groaned under. Well, this is the people here.
But then the Spirit lifts up the stand and says, But the Lord
has begun a good work in you. Why? Why did you first turn away
from the ways of sin? Why did you first mourn over
sin? Why did you first put the Lord
on in open profession, if you have? Why have you first made
a witness to the Lord? And he will bring to your remembrance
that which the Lord has done in setting you apart, sanctifying,
changing, renewing, cleansing. You're not dead in sin. You're
not a people that the Lord has not touched with that real change
in the new birth. And so the banner is a banner
where the Lord has made a change. It points to God's work. God
has begun a good work. God has redeemed. God has brought
the children of Israel out of Egypt. God has brought them through
the Red Sea. God has given them the law. You know, the Lord will never
forget what He has done in and for His people. And for the Lord
to lift up a standard to the enemy and say, that soul I have
bought with blood, that soul has been renewed. That soul has
been called. That soul has been quickened.
That soul has been brought. to walk in my ways. And yes,
you come in like a flood. You sort of cover all of those
things. But I won't forsake the work
of mine own hands. And I won't forget what I've
done for and in that soul that has been wrought by me. And so that is the second aspect
of this banner is what the Lord has already accomplished and
done in the way of regeneration and sanctification and setting
apart of a people. In other words, the Lord is laying
claim to that people. Satan, they are my people. I
have separated them. I have called them. They're not
yours. And the people of God are here. And remember that the
first promise that God gave It was really spoken to Satan, and
Adam and Eve, they listened onto it. That the seed of the woman
shall bruise thy head, thou shalt bruise his heel. They listened. And when the banner is lifted
up, who sees it? God sees it, Satan sees it, but
the people of God, they see it too. and the Lord bearing witness
that he has begun with them. They are his. But then the third
aspect of the banner is the blood. When I see the blood, I will
pass over you. It is the blood at Calvary that
was shed there. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission. But where there is the shedding
of blood, God cannot and Satan cannot demand a second payment. The payment is paid and the redemption
of the people of God is accomplished. We have an empty tomb. God hath
given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from
the dead. We have a risen saviour, a lamb
as it had been slain in the midst of the throne. The Apostle Paul was adamant
on that, that Christ not only had died, but he has risen again,
he's ascended up on high. And this is the standard, this
is the banner that is lifted up, an accomplished work, a work
that extends into the hearts and lives of the people of God,
to pluck them as brands from the burning, It has been effectual,
it will be effectual, it will be everlasting effectual because
Christ is in heaven. He lives so his people live and
he lives to save them unto the uttermost that come unto God
by him. He's a blessed standard that
is raised up when the enemy comes in like a flood. It is the spirit
that does it. the Spirit that quickens, the
Spirit that knows all things, that knows the people of God,
that knows what Christ has done at Calvary and in the hearts
and lives of the people of God. What a blessed promise that this
is. May the Lord be pleased to pour
out upon us again this blessed Holy Spirit of God, the remembrance
and as a standard lifted up so we see it. Satan sees it and
flees from us. And God sees it and remembers
his blessed covenant. You know, this is what we have
in verse 21. As for me, this is my covenant
with them, saith the Lord. My spirit that is upon thee,
my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out
of thy mouth. Out of the mouth of thy seed,
nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord from henceforth
and ever. What a blessed promise that this
is. May the Lord then help us be
with you each that are battered about, tried, tempted, tossed
by Satan, that the spirit might be pleased to lift up according
to this promise, this standard, and that we see it. and that
we have the benefit and blessing of it in our souls. Amen.