Morning. For a call to worship
this morning, turn with me, if you would, please, to Psalm 121. Psalm 121. This is also called the Keeper
Psalm. We'll start with verse one. I will lift up mine eyes unto
the hills, from whence cometh my help. In the hills they're
talking about there's the Temple Mount, the Mount Zion, where
God met man. I will lift up my eyes unto the
hills from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord,
which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to
be moved. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel
shall neither slumber nor sleep. And Israel here is all the elect. If you're a believer, you're
Israel. The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord is thy shade upon thy
right hand. The sun shall not smite thee
by day, nor the moon by night. "'The Lord shall preserve thee
from all evil "'and the evil one. "'He shall preserve thy
soul.'" That's the most important part. "'He shall preserve our
soul. "'The Lord shall preserve thy
going out "'and thy coming in from this time forth "'and even
forevermore.'" Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Oh Lord, our God, our great God. We thank you for your word. We
thank you for this song. Where you said that you will
keep us and you will keep our soul. Oh Lord, that is so important
to us. We thank you that you are God.
And that you are in control of all things. That all things are
under your control. Everything that happens. is for
your glory and for our ultimate good. Oh Lord, we pray for our assembly. We pray, oh Lord, we are a needy
people and we need your help. And this psalm promises your
help, oh Lord. And we pray that you would send
the Holy Spirit to help us and be with us. Father, we've come
to thee this morning to worship you. We pray that our worship
is acceptable unto thee. We pray that the Holy Spirit
dwell with us as we know you are here with us. Father, that all that is said
and done might be for your honor and for your glory. Father, we
pray that we might hear from you this morning. Father, that
we wouldn't hear from a man, but we would hear, O Lord, for
the message that you have given Greg for our hearts. Father, we pray that you would
be with him. Give him the liberty, O Lord, to deliver that message
to us. These things we ask in your precious
name. Amen. Let's stand together again. We'll
sing the hymn that's on the back of your bulletin. this is and rare my sentence see. This is my home. My days are mixed with joy and
misery. This is my hope, this is my truth,
that Jesus rules for me. How swift its end must be! This is my hope, this is my truth,
That Jesus lives for me. When I look out upon and bear God's judgment seat. This is my hope, this is my truth,
that Jesus comes for me. Please be seated. Would you open your Bibles with
me to 1 Samuel chapter 9? 1 Samuel chapter 9. I've titled this message, Outward
Appearances Aren't What They Seem. Outward Appearances Aren't
What They Seem. The children of Israel wanted
a king and They chose a man, God chose a
man, and they rejoiced in that choice. God gave them a man that
they were pleased with. His name was Saul. He ended up
not being a good king at all. And God gave him what they asked
for, which is a lesson in itself. We looked at that last week and
being careful what we want, what we ask for. The Lord gives us
what we want. It won't be for our good. Children of Israel did not believe
God. They wanted something that they
could see, something that was impressive, something that was
outward. Faith is just the opposite of
that. Faith, by definition, is believing something you can't
see. It's believing God. Faith is not believing that God's
gonna do something for me if I just believe it hard enough.
Faith is believing God, period. And we know that without faith
it is impossible to please God for they that come to him must
believe. They must believe that he is and that he's the rewarder
of them that diligently seek him. We do not come into this
world with faith. We come into this world spiritually
dead. Faith is a gift from God. It is the result of our salvation,
not the cause of it. God doesn't reward our faith
by saving us, he gives us faith when he saves us. And so this work of grace in
the heart comes by hearing. Scripture says faith comes by
hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God. The children
of Israel at this stage did not believe God. They didn't have
faith. They, like all men, like you and like me, only believed
what they could see and what they could experience, what they
could feel. That's the natural man, they
that are after the flesh. They that only have the one nature,
the nature they were born with, the fleshly nature, the Adamic
nature, they that are after the flesh, they do mind the things
of the flesh. So it's impossible for a natural
man to have faith because all he has is flesh and all he has
is that which he can see and that which he can feel. I want
us to see this morning that there is a glorious, liberating truth
and hope through faith, through faith. We're not saved by faith,
we're saved by grace. But we're saved through faith.
And that is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should
boast. I want to believe God. I feel
so often times like Thomas felt when the disciples told him something
that he had not seen and he couldn't believe it. He said, I will not
believe what you just told me except I see the nail prints
in his hands and thrust my hand into his side. I'm not going
to believe it based on your word. I've got to see it and experience
it for myself. We have two natures, child of
God. And we can say with that father
who brought his child to the disciples to have the demons
cast from him and the disciples weren't able to help and he brought
him before the Lord and he said, he said, he said, Rabbi, if thou
can't do anything, help us. And what our Lord say to him,
if thou can't believe, all things are possible to him that believe
in the one that father and he cried out and said oh lord i
do believe help down mine unbelief help that i'm so full of unbelief
it is the it is the the root cause of all sin It is, as Scripture says, the
sin that doth so easily beset us. It's unbelief, and it's the
mother of all sin. It gives birth to every other
problem that we have. The unbeliever, the unregenerate,
has no regard for what God says. They make all their judgments
based on what they see and what they feel. The Lord Jesus Christ
said to those unbelieving Pharisees, except you see signs and wonders,
you will not believe. You won't believe me because
of what I'm saying. You want some outward evidence
of it. He went on to say, except you
believe that I am, that I am God, you shall die in your sins. I wish I could believe God as
I ought. I wish I could never be distracted by outward circumstances. I wish I could trust God perfectly. We are men of flesh and sadly even as believers we
make our judgments contrary to what God has said based on what
we see and based on what we feel. I want to believe God more perfectly
than I do and I want you to believe God. And I want you to see from
the example that the children of Israel give us here, the example
that God the Holy Spirit has given us by recording this story
in his word of how vain Man's perceptive is, perception is,
how empty it is. Unbelief is the black hole that
sucks in all light. It is the root cause of all the
rotten fruit that we are still eating from the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. It is, it's our problem. Unbelief
is our problem. Doubting God, questioning God,
not taking God at his word. Let me ask you a question. Is there anything that would
be more offensive to a holy God than not believing him? Anything? And yet we're so full of unbelief. A God who himself is truth And
yet here we are, creatures of flesh filled with sin, speaking
lies from the womb and drinking iniquity as if it was water.
And here we are questioning and doubting God. How offensive is
that? A God who cannot lie. A God who
only has good for his children. Why do we mind the things of
the flesh as we do? Why do we doubt him? Why do we
act like the children of Israel and make judgments based on our
outward circumstances rather than on the clear declaration
of God's word? We're sinners, that's why. We're in need of a savior. We're
in need of one who believed God perfectly. We're in need of him
to present himself before God Almighty as our substitute, our
sin bearer, the only one who's able to satisfy the demands of
God's holy justice and righteousness. Oh, how desperately we need Christ. We cannot believe God as we ought. might we learn. You have your
Bibles open to 1 Samuel chapter 9, look at verse 1. Now there
was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish and Kish translated
means bent and he's the father of Saul. He's the father of Saul. What a twisted, bent truth our
opinions are and our perceptions are when it comes to Ourselves,
when it comes to who God is, when it comes to how it is that
God's pleased to save sinners, we're just sons of Kish. The son of Abel, the son of Zeror,
the son of Bekoroth, the son of Ephra, a Benjamite, a mighty
man of power. So here this Kish was, he was
a mighty man of power, he was a man of wealth, he was a man
of influence. He was a man that commanded the respect of other
men. A mighty man of wealth. And he had a son whose name was
Saul. And Saul's name translated means
one to be desired. You looked at Saul, you thought,
well, I wish I was like him. That's what everybody thought
when they saw Saul. Look what the scripture says about him.
A choice man and a goodly, that means he was incredibly attractive.
And there was none among the children of Israel a goodlier
person than he. He's the best looking guy in
all of Israel. And from his shoulders upwards,
he was higher than all the people. Literally head and shoulders
taller than everybody else in Israel. Best looking guy in the
whole country. One to be desired. The children
of Israel wanted a king. They rejected God. They didn't
believe God. They wanted a man that they could
look up to, a man that would lead them. And God gave them
exactly what they wanted. Look at the end of chapter 10,
verse 24. And Samuel said to all the people,
see him whom the Lord hath chosen, and there is none like him among
all the people. And all the people shouted and
said, God saved the king. Oh, we've got a king now. We've got something we can see.
We're like everybody else. Look at verses 18 and 19 in chapter
10. And he said unto the children
of Israel, Samuel speaking to the children of Israel and Mizpah,
thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I brought up Israel out of Egypt
and delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out
of the hand of all kingdoms and of them that oppress you. And
you have this day rejected your God, who himself saved you out
of all of your adversities and all of your tribulations. And
you have said unto him, Nay, but set a king over us. Now,
therefore, present yourself before the Lord from your tribes and
by your thousands." God is rebuking them for their
unbelief and how oftentimes I hear the Lord say to me what he said
to the disciples, O ye of little faith, why didn't you believe me? Why did you follow after what
you could see and feel and touch and experience instead of trusting
me? Might the Lord increase our faith? Might He show us the vanity of
our own ways and our own opinions and shut us up to Himself? Let us learn from Israel's unbelief
to trust God, for outward experiences are not as they seem. The consequences of Israel having
Saul the best looking guy in the whole country, head and shoulders
above everybody else, was to their detriment. Contrary to Saul, after Saul
proved himself to be unfit as a king, Samuel went to Jesse's house,
I brought this out last Sunday, and asked Jesse, he said, because
God had directed Samuel to go to Jesse's house to pick a replacement
for Saul. God had taken the kingdom from
Saul. And so Jesse brings his sons and one after the other.
I mean, they're like Saul almost. They're kingly looking. They're
stalwart young men that have the attributes of what looks
like might be a king. And God says to Samuel, don't
look at their outward appearance. Man looks at the outward appearance.
God's looking at the heart. You know, there's nothing in
chapter nine about telling us what Saul's heart was. Tells
us what his outward appearances were. Tells us nothing about
the condition of his heart. Tells us nothing about his faith. Contrary to that, after Jesse
had brought all of his sons before Samuel, and the Lord rejected
each one of them one by one, starting with the oldest down.
And Jesse knew he's in the right house. He said, do you have any
more sons? Well, you know, the youngest boy is out in the yard
taking care of the sheep, but surely you're not interested
in him. He's not very kingly. We just, you know, he's just
a young boy. Bring him in, it was David. A
man after God's own heart, a sweet psalmist of Israel, a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ himself as the son of David. Outward appearances are not what they seem. For the unbeliever, the unregenerate,
outward appearances are not what they seem in terms of your righteousness. There is a way that seems right
unto a man and that way which seems right is, you know, if
I live a good life and I do my best and I, you know, God's going
great on the scale, on a curve, so I just gotta be above average
and do my best. Surely, surely of all the men
in the world, I'm not, God wouldn't send me to hell. You know, I
don't know if that, what is it, JJ, WWJD, people used to wear
that, I don't know if that's still in vogue or not. But there's an outward appearance.
Men think, well, what would Jesus do? If you think that what you're
doing is an example of what Jesus would do, you've mistaken. Outward appearances are not what
you think they are. Because the truth is that what
would Jesus do with you if you think that about yourself? He'd
send you to hell is what he'd do. You came into this world just
like I came into this world, lost and undone, hell deserving,
full of sin. So how do you know that? I don't see that in myself. That's
because you're being deceived by outward appearances. You're
doing the same thing that these unbelieving Israelites did when
they looked at Saul and they saw his beauty and his stature
and his strength. And you think, well, surely I'm
OK. I'm OK. You're OK. Everybody
thinks that about themselves. Well, what does God say? What
does God say? God says that when you open your
mouth and look up into heaven, he looks down your throat and
he sees an open sepulcher. He sees nothing but death. When
he looks down from heaven into the heart of man, he sees that
every imagination of the thought of man is only evil and that
continually. That's what God says. Now faith
is believing God. You say, well, I don't see that
about myself. I don't see that every imagination of my thought
and every thought that I have is evil. I didn't ask you to see it. I said,
you believe it. Well, how can I believe it if
I don't see it? That's the whole point of this message. The whole
point of this message is to believe what you can't see. Why do I
believe something I can't see? Because God said it. That's why. Faith believes God. The flesh
just believes what it can see. But the natural man can't see
his sin, so he doesn't believe he is a sinner. God says the heart of man is
deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it? And what do
we hear from the counsel of the world? Well, you know, just follow
your heart. A fool will follow his heart.
A wise man will follow God. How oftentimes we are foolish
in doing what we think our hearts, we follow after our hearts. Our
hearts desires for this or for that. at his very best state is altogether
nothing. Vanity. That's what God says. That means the best thing that
you've ever done, the best thoughts you've ever had, the best prayer
you've ever prayed, the most well-intended sacrifice you've
ever made for someone else, God says it's one big zero. It's
one big zero. Say, well, I don't see it that
way. I feel pretty good about what I did. Who are you going to believe? Outward
circumstances, your opinions, your feelings, your thoughts,
what you see, or what God says? You see, that's why the children
of Israel got it. Here is the root of all of our problems,
brethren. This is the cause of all of our sins, just not believing
God. Just not believing God. Calling God into question, thinking
that we know best. Samuel warned the children of
Israel over and over again, don't do this, don't do this. No, we
insist on it, all right. All right, I'm gonna give you
what you want. God saved the king. We've got
a king now. We're somebody. A child of God, the opposite of that is true
for you and me. So what do you say in preacher? If the Lord has given you grace
and taught you the gospel and reveal Christ to you and in you,
when you are tempted to look to yourself, all you see is your sin. You
see, here's the truth. All the unrighteous of the world,
all those outside of Christ, believe themselves to be righteous.
And all the righteous believe themselves to be unrighteous.
Because when a child of God looks to himself to try to find comfort
and hope and assurance of his salvation, all he can see is
this sin. The law exposes it, Satan uses
our sin to accuse us, it causes discomfort, it causes fear, it
causes shame, it causes doubt. Well, child of God, let me ask
you this, what are you going to believe? Are you going to
believe what you feel about yourself and what you see in yourself
or are you going to believe God? Because God says, as he is, so
are we in this world. God says that we are holy and
unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. Who are you going
to believe? God says once. in the end of
the world." Now, when the Bible speaks of the end of the world,
it's speaking of that entire period of time between the first
and second coming of Christ. And this verse proves that. Once,
in the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by
the sacrifice of himself. When the Lord Jesus Christ bowed
his mighty head on Calvary's cross, when he cried, it is finished. Father into thy hands, I commend
my spirit. He took all the sins of his people
to the grave and he left them there. He buried them in the
depths of the sea, separated them from us as far as the East
is from the West. He says, I remember them no more. I've covered them by the blood. John puts it like this in 1 John
chapter 3, whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for
his seed and that seed of Christ remaineth in him and he cannot
sin for he is born of God. Now that's what God says. And
that goes contrary to everything I see in myself. and everything
I feel about myself and every experience I have in myself,
what God says is contrary to what I see. Who am I going to
believe? Reckon yourselves to be dead
indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ. Reckon
it to be so because it is so. It is so. That's the good news. You say, preacher, you're saying
sin's irrelevant? No, this is what I'm saying.
The strongest inducement for a Christian to obey God is the
fact that he has already been pardoned in Christ for sins he
has not yet committed. It's called grace. The strongest
inducement that the child of God has to not disobey God is the fact that
he's already been forgiven in Christ for his unbelief and for
his unfaithfulness. You see, the strength of sin
is the law. Religion would put you under
the law and say, well, the inducement for obedience is the law. But the law doesn't do anything
but increase the desire for sin and increase the power of sin. It's only grace that breaks the
bondage of sin. What am I saying? Child of God,
look to Christ. I had a man that listened to me
preach for a long time and he finally got frustrated and he
threw his arms up in the air and he looked up into the ceiling
of the house where we were and he said, you keep talking about
looking to Christ. I'm looking and I don't see anything. because you're looking with the
physical eye. What are we talking about? We're
talking about look to Christ for all of your righteousness,
look to Christ for all of your justification before God, look
in faith. The unnatural eye can't see this,
only the eye of faith can see this. Someone says, well, you know,
we're dying. And we are. What does God say
about that? What does God say about that?
John chapter 11. He that believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? You say,
wait a minute, that's contrary to what we're experiencing. That's
contrary to what we see. That's contrary to the very thing
that we fear. Yes it is. Yes it is. And that's the point of this
message. We can become like the children of Israel and only believe
that which we can see and reject God's word. We can, by God's
grace, believe God and when believing God is going to be contrary to
everything that is seen in the flesh. Everything. It's supernatural. It's unnatural. It's not. That's why God has to give us
faith to just believe him. It'll be contrary to everything
else. Here's what God says, this corruptible
flesh must be made incorruptible, and this mortal body must be
made immortal, so that shall be brought to pass the saying
which is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where
is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin. The
strength of sin is the law. Thanks be to God through Jesus
Christ. He's given us victory. He's fulfilled
the law. He's conquered death. That's
why he said he that believeth in me shall never die. We don't speak of. deceased loved
ones as somebody that we lost or someone who died prematurely. We know exactly where they are.
To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
That's what God says. Who are we going to believe? So the the unbelievers looking
at themselves and thinking I'm doing pretty good. I don't need a savior. The believer
looks at himself. I need, I need Christ. I've got
to have the promises of God. What about in Providence? Providence,
I love that word. It's the word video with the
word pro before it. Providence, pro video. In other
words, the film's already in the can. God saw the whole picture
before it ever took place. Everything that's happening in
time, God ordained in eternity. Everything. So sometimes you
hear believers say, well, you know, providentially, everything
is providential. Everything he saw and purposed
for his glory before time ever began. Now what we don't have
time to read in chapter 9 and 10, and I would encourage you
to do so, is the circumstances around Saul and Samuel coming
together. Saul's father Kish had lost some
asses and Kish sent Saul and one of his servants out to look
for the asses. And Saul, I'm sure after several days thought,
I'm on a fool's errand here. I'm chasing after some wild asses
in the wilderness and we need to get back home. And through
that experience, God sent Saul to Samuel. and God spoke to Samuel
and all the events that took place. It was all God's ordained
purpose in order to accomplish his will. The unbeliever looks
at outward circumstances and they think that it's all being
done by man and by nature. You know, young people like you,
it used to be that when you filed an insurance claim for a hurricane,
And it wasn't that long ago that the insurance companies called
that damage an act of God. I'm talking about secular insurance
companies. That's what they called it. In
my lifetime, it used to be called an act of God. Not anymore. Why? Because it's not an act of God.
It's an act of nature. It's an act of man. It's everybody,
you know, God's out of the picture. The world sees these circumstances
as just, you know, They credit everything to secondary causes,
they don't realize that God is the first cause of everything. But you know, child of God, that
he works all things together for good to them that love him
and those that are the called according to his purpose. You
know that everything in your life is right on schedule. Right,
right on time. Your God reigns over the armies
of heaven and over the inhabitants of the earth and no man can stay
his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? God, this is not
right. You know that. Why? Because you can see it in your
circumstances. You see the hand of God working.
Well, sometimes we do, but not often. You believe God, don't you? You
believe that which you cannot see. You're not like the man who's
only mind in the things of the flesh and being led by those
things which he can see and which he can feel. Turn to me to Isaiah
chapter 45, Isaiah 45. This is so glorious. When we
preach the gospel, What we're saying, and let me just be so
simple and clear on this, we're just saying that God is God.
If God's dependent upon me to do something in order for him
to be able to have his will accomplished, he's not God, I am. I am. A God like that needs to bow
to me. Our God is God. Look at what he says. Do you
believe this? Do you believe this? Has God
given you faith to say amen to what he has said? Look at Isaiah
chapter 45 and look with me at verse 5. I am the Lord and there
is none else. There is no God beside me. I
girded thee though thou has not known me. that they may know
from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is none
beside me. I am the Lord and there is none
else. I form the light. I create darkness. I make peace. I create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. The world looks at things that
break our hearts. I'm not saying that the sufferings
that happen in this world are irrelevant or we're numb to them
or we don't care. They break our hearts. But the
world looks at the evil that happens and they think, how could
God allow that to happen? If there is a God, why would
he allow such a thing to happen? And the child of God, knowing
the evil of their own heart and knowing the evil of the world
and the unbelief against the God who is, thinks just the opposite. Why doesn't this happen more
often? And the answer to that is that the wrath of man shall
praise him and the remainder he shall restrain." The only
reason that these things don't happen more often, the only reason
we don't have mass murderers every day is because God is restraining
man. That's the only reason, not because
of the goodness of man. It's because of the restraining
grace of God. I'm the Lord. I bring light and
darkness. I create evil and good. There's
none beside me. I'm God. And faith bows to him. Faith
rejoices in knowing my God reigns. He's in absolute sovereign control
of all things in the minute circumstances of my life and in the grand circumstances
of world events. My God is on his throne. He's
never been threatened. He's never been moved. He's never
asked a question. He's never been, he never had
a new idea. He's never been taught anything. He's God. How do I know that? Because I
see it in the circumstances of life? No, because God has given
me faith to believe him. Look at verse 8, drop down ye
heavens. from above and let the skies
pour down righteousness. Let the earth open and let them
bring forth salvation and let righteousness spring up together.
I the Lord have created it." Now he's talking about the death
and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The skies were
open. God came down. He came into this
world. He lived a perfect life of righteousness.
He went to the cross and into the grave and the grave opened
and God conquered death. Woe unto him that striveth with
his Maker. Oh, don't miss that. Don't miss that. Woe unto him that striveth with
his Maker. Let the potsherds of the earth
contend Strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay
say to him that fashioned it, why makest thou or thy work? He hath no hands. Woe unto him
that sayeth to his father, why begettest thou to his mother?
What hast thou brought forth? So, the way things are, in truth
are just the opposite of the way men see them to be. In our person, the unbeliever, in fact, is the
opposite of what he thinks he is. And the believer is the opposite
of what he thinks he is. How do we know that? God said
it. In Providence, the unbeliever
thinks he's in control of the circumstances of his life. The child of God knows, my God
reigns. He's in absolute control. In the person and work of the
Lord Jesus Christ, things are opposite than what they appear. These, I preached in a church,
well y'all know, over in Clearwater two Sundays ago. And I went into
the men's room and they've got a picture of this long-haired,
blue-eyed hippie on the wall. And they think it's, they think
it's the Lord. And I went straight to the pastor
and I said, you gotta get that out of there. Well, he's no longer
there, he got fired. He stood up against all the stuff
that was going on there and he's now no longer the pastor of that
church. But Ed, our Lord, our Lord, there
was no beauty in him that we should desire him. He wasn't
like Saul. Physically speaking, he was not
like Saul. He didn't stand head and shoulders above everybody
else. He didn't look like that. I don't
know who the medieval Western artist was that came up with
these pictures, these blasphemous, idolatrous pictures. The Lord,
the scriptures are clear. Make no image of those things
which are above. We don't make images of our God.
We don't have crosses. We don't have pictures. Our Lord would have been just
a common man. The scriptures are clear. It would
have been shameful for a Jewish man to have long hair. It would
have been shameful in that day. Our Lord didn't have long hair. Larger than average nose, probably
shorter than average, probably just, you know, just a common
man. Nobody knew that he was... His
own brethren, he lived with them for 30 years in his household.
They didn't know he was God. What does the world do? They
need something they can look at. They need something they
can touch, something they can feel. They need an image. What
do we have? We have God's Word. We have God's
Word. His visage was so marred more
than any man. There is no beauty in him that
we should desire him. We hid, as it were, our faces
from him. And his body is not what it appears. You say, what are you talking
about, preacher? Well, what's the body of Christ?
What's the body of Christ? Is it not his church? Gospel churches are small, they're
few and they're far between. And all these grand edifices
to the glory of man that he's made and all these grand denominations
that have such political influence and such monetary value, those
things are not of God. The Lord brought down Egypt,
the most powerful nation in the world, with flies and lice and
frogs. You know, what? The Lord said,
do not despise the day of small things. When God does something,
he does it small. He doesn't do it in a way that
captures the attention of the flesh or that's appealing to
man. He does it in a small way. Why? Because he said, I'll not share
my glory with another. He doesn't have to do something
grandeur in order to order to be glory. He works in small ways. Now there is going to come a
day when the eastern sky is going to split, the trump of God's
going to sound and the Son of God's going to come in all of
his glorious splendor and he's going to be riding upon a white
horse and his tongue is going to be like a flaming fire and
that's his word. And every knee shall bow and
every tongue shall confess that he is God to the glory. The unbelievers are going to
hide. They're going to cover themselves in the mountains with
rocks. They're going to, from the wrath of the Lamb, the scripture
says. That's not how they see him now. No, they put a image of a bloody
body on a cross and don't you feel sorry for Jesus? Don't feel
sorry for him. He's not looking for anybody
to feel sorry for him. When he was going to Calvary
carrying his cross, there was some women that were weeping
and he stopped and he looked at them, he said, don't weep
for me, weep for yourselves and for your children. I didn't come
here for you to feel sorry for me. I came here to save my people. And I'm going to accomplish the
purpose that I set. You're the ones that need to
be felt sorry for. You see, things are not as they
appear, are they? They're not as they appear. Everything
is just the opposite of what it appears. Who do we believe? We believe
what God says. We believe what we see. They
that are after the flesh, oh, they do mind the things of the
flesh. And we have a fleshly nature and we often caught up
in minding the things of the flesh. But they that are after
the spirit do mind the things of the spirit. May God give us
his spirit and enable us to believe him. Because what he tells, what
he says is just the opposite. Coming to Christ is not tweaking
your understanding, it's a 180 degree turnaround. Because what man believes naturally
about himself and about God is what he can see, what he can
feel, what he can experience, and it is the opposite of what's
true. God, give us faith. to just believe him. Our Heavenly
Father, thank you for your word. Forgive us for our unbelief. Lord, how shameful it is that
we would call you into question, we would doubt you, that we would
continue to be tempted by the devil to partake of that fruit,
thinking that we could be like God. Lord, what sinful creatures
we are. What? What need we have for Christ? Lord, what hope we have in the
promises that you've made. We ask it in his name. Amen. Number 12, let's stand together
number 12. We sing this him acapella. Upon my great and sovereign God,
I cast my soul and rest. My Father's hand controls the
world, and what He does is best. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. In raging storms and
fiery trials, He keeps me from all harms. He walks with me and
holds me in His everlasting arms. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth
and power combine to make thee blessed. My God with skill infallible
and great designs of grace. With power and love that never
fail, shall order all my ways. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. My life's most minute
circumstance is ordered by my God, who promised that in all
things he will ever do me good. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. Tricia. When...