One of the verses we're going
to be looking at this hour is in Judges chapter seven, verse 11. And thou shalt hear
what they say, and afterwards shalt thy hands be strengthened. Now we're going to see that that
had to do with the prophecy that the Lord had given a man and
Gideon heard it. And as a result of that, he was
encouraged and comforted to believe God. I hope the Lord will give
us ears to hear this morning and that we'll leave this place
believing God. Tom's gonna come and lead us
in number 62 in your hymnal crown, hymn with many crowns. Let's
stand together, number 62. ? Crown Him with many crowns, the
Lamb upon His throne ? ? Hark how the heavenly anthem drowns
all music but its own ? Awake, my soul, and sing of Him who
died for thee, and hail Him as thy matchless King through all
eternity. ? Crown him the Lord of love ?
Behold his hands and side ? Rich wounds yet visible above ? In
beauty glorified ? No angel in the sky Can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his wandering eye At mysteries so bright. ? Crown him the Lord of life
? ? Who triumphed o'er the grave ? ? Who rose victorious to the
strife ? ? For those he came to save ? ? His glories now we
sing ? ? Who died and rose on high ? who died eternal life
to bring and lives that death may die. ? Crown him the Lord
of heaven ? ? One with the Father known ? ? One with the Spirit
through him given ? ? From yonder glorious throne ? ? To thee be
endless praise ? ? For thou for us hast died ? Be thou, O Lord,
through endless days adored and magnified. Please be seated. Morning. For our call to worship,
let's go to Psalms 86. I'd like to read this chapter. Psalm 86. Bow down thine ear,
O Lord, hear me, for I am poor and needy. Preserve my soul,
for I am holy. O thou my God, save thy servant
that trusteth in thee. Be merciful unto me, O Lord,
for I cry unto thee daily. Rejoice, the soul of thy servant,
for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For thou, Lord, art
good, and ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all them
that call upon thee. Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer,
and attend to the voice of my supplications. In the day of
my trouble I will call upon thee, for thou wilt answer me. Among
the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord. Neither are there
any works like unto thy works. All nations whom thou hast made
shall come and worship before thee, O Lord, and shall glorify
thy name. For thou art great and doest
wondrous things. Thou art God alone. Teach me
thy way, O Lord. I will walk in thy truth, unite
my heart to fear thy name. I will praise Thee, O Lord, my
God, with all my heart, and I will glorify Thy name forevermore.
For great is Thy mercy toward me, and Thou hast delivered my
soul from the lowest hell. O God, the proud are risen against
me, and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul,
and have not set Thee before them. But Thou, O Lord, art a
God full of compassion and gracious. long-suffering, and plenteous
in mercy and truth. Oh, turn unto me, and have mercy
upon me. Give thy strength unto thy servant,
and save the son of thine handmaid. Show me a token for good, that
they which hate me may see it and be ashamed, because thou,
Lord, hast opened me and comforted me. Let's go to our Lord in prayer. Our Father in heaven, We come
to you this morning thankful to be together in your name,
Lord. We cannot pray a prayer like
this one that your son prayed, but we ask that you would be
with us as we attempt to worship. We ask that you would reveal
yourself in your word to us and that you would cause it to be
effectual. We ask that you would Give us
remembrance of your son throughout the week after we leave here,
Lord. We ask that you would keep your
hand upon us, give us ears to hear this morning, and be with
your men across the country, Lord, as they declare your word. I ask that you would give them
boldness to preach it just as it's written, nothing more, nothing
less. It's in his name we pray, amen. Let's stand together, we'll sing
the hymn on the back of your bulletin. To Him who found us dead in sin
and planted holy life within. To Him that taught our feet the
way from endless night to endless day. ? To him that brought our
righteousness ? ? And sanctified us by his grace ? ? To him that
brought us back to God ? ? Through the Red Sea of his own blood
? ? To him who suffered on the tree ? ? Blessings and praise
and glory be ? ? To cleanse from every sinful stain ? ? Worthy
the Lamb, for he was slain ? ? To him that sits upon the throne
? ? The great eternal three in one ? ? To him let saints and
angels raise ? ? An everlasting song of praise ? Please be seated. Would you turn with me in your
Bibles again to Judges chapter 7. Judges chapter 7. I've titled this message, Who Gets
the Glory? And I want to introduce this
message by saying this, the Lord loves his children too much to
allow them to rob themselves of him. by robbing him of his
glory. We often think of our God being
a jealous God, and he is. And the scripture's clear, I
will not share my glory with another. But let us not think
by that, that our God is like we are. Not sharing his glory and being
a jealous God is not a matter of ego or pride like it would
be for us. It's a matter of love. He loves his children too much
to allow them to rob themselves of him by robbing him of his
glory. Jonah chapter 2 verse 8 says,
they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. They that observe lying vanities
forsake their own mercy. Our God loves his children so
much that he will not allow them to observe lying vanities. He
will not allow them to forsake their own mercy. He may, with
the reprobate, leave them to themselves and claim glory unto
themselves, but not for his people. Man by nature, every single one
of us, are glory hounds. Simple illustration of that is
this. You're handed a group picture and you're in it. Who's the first
person you look for? Social media is a perfect modern-day
example of that, is it not? Men figured out what sells, what
people are most interested in. Themselves. Themselves. Strife and vain glory. That's
what man's glory is. It's vain glory. When man doesn't
think he's getting the glory he deserves, it causes strife
between him and someone else. Those two things always go together.
Where God's people are gathered together and Christ gets all
the glory, puts away all strife. Now we, We promote ourselves. We glory in the approval of the
attention of men. We're offended when someone slightens
us. We're quick to defend ourselves
and to justify ourselves. You have your Bibles open to
Judges chapter seven. Let's read these first two verses
together. Then Jerubabbel. Now that's Gideon. They changed
his name to Jerubabbel, the hater of Baal or the enemy of Baal
after he tore down the altars of Baal. And his father said,
Joash, his father said, let Baal defend himself. And they called
Gideon Jerubabbel. and Jerubabbel, who is Gideon?
And all the people that were with him rose up early and pitched
beside the well of Herod." The word Herod there means fearful,
fearful. So now we've got the enemies
of God, the people of God gathering together in fear. So that the host of the Midianites
were on the north side of them by the hill of Morah in the valley. Moral translated means teacher.
We come in the presence of our holy God with a reverential fear
of him and pleading with him to teach us. Lord, show me the
truth. Teach me. Deliver me from the
lies and the vanities of this world. And the Lord said unto
Gideon, the people that are with you are too many for me to give
the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves
against me, saying, mine own hands have saved me. And Gideon had 32,000 men. The
Midianites had 100,000. The Israelites didn't have the
weapons that the Midianites had. And God says to Gideon, you've
got too many. If I allow your 32,000 without
weapons to defeat the Midianites, who are very well stored with
weapons, then you'll vaunt yourself up. So I want you to go tell
the people, if anybody's afraid, tell them to go home. So Gideon,
in obedience to God, turns to his 32,000 men. He says, if anybody's
afraid, go home. 22,000 of them went home. So
now Gideon's left with 10,000 men. And God says to Gideon,
this is still too much. Send them down to the river.
And those that get down on their hands and knees and drink from
the water, Send them home. Those who pick the water up in
the palm of their hand and lap it like a dog, that's your army. That's your army. Now Gideon's
got 300 men to go against 100,000 Midianites. God says now. Now the victory that I have promised
will surely give to me all the glory. There is but one religion in
the world that gives to God all the glory for salvation. Every
other religion except for one ascribes to man some glory, either
for his salvation or for his betterment. Every religion. The gospel of God's free grace
in the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ gives to his
glorious personage all the glory for having done all the work
all by himself. God loved Gideon. God loved Israel
too much to allow them to vault themselves up. He said, I'm going
to whittle your army down to 300. And when the victory comes,
I'll get all the glory. Oh, how sinful we are, how full
of pride we are. And let me say this, the evidence,
the real evidence of depravity is not seen in the bad things
that men do, although men are capable of doing some horrible
things. The real evidence of depravity is man thinking that
there's something good in him. That's the real evidence of depravity.
Thinking that I can approach the throne of God based on something
in me, a prayer that I prayed, a commitment that I have, a life
that I'm living, something. God's gonna reward me and allow
me to come into his presence because of something in me. That's the evidence of depravity.
And that's what all men believe, except not just for salvation,
but for their betterment. Don't, don't miss that. You know,
men, men and their pride, they want to bought themselves up.
They want to glory in themselves. Is that not evident? Is that
not evident in your life? It's evident in mine. Is it not evident in the world
that you're looking at? Yeah. God loves his children so much
that he will not allow them to rob themselves of him by robbing
him of his glory. He's going to humble them. He's
going to put them in their place so that he becomes their shield
and their exceeding great reward. And that's what he's doing for
Gideon here. He said, Gideon, okay, you got 300 now? Now, now
we're gonna go against the Midianites. And you're going to know that
I did this. The Lord brings his children
to the place where they have nothing. He makes them to be
sinners. Lord, I can't do anything. Lord,
I don't know anything. It's cold, it's dark. Lord, I
need that dew from heaven. The Lord said, I did not come
for the well. The well don't need a physician. The sinners, not the righteous. That's what our Lord's doing
here. He's bringing Gideon down. Down, down, down. You know, we
were looking at Jonah earlier, and Jonah was commanded of God
to go to Nineveh, and the scripture says he went down to Joppa, and
then he went down into the ship, and then he went down into the
belly of the ship, and then he went down into the, you see, rebellion
against God is always a downhill spiral. It always goes downhill. You know the parable that the
Lord told about the man who had a demon and he cast the demon
out of his house and then he swept his house clean and then
he garnished it? And we think of that as a picture
of a person who becomes religious, who's got certain habits or perhaps
addictions in their lives and they get that demon loose. And
then they become religious and they garnish their house and
the demons come back and they're seven times stronger than they
were before. And that's so true. To be bound
up in the pride of religion is worse than being irreligious. think about your own experience,
who's the easiest people for you to talk to about the gospel? The irreligious will sit and
listen and be interested, the religious won't. Tim and I were
talking about that this week, and we had similar experiences
in that we went from a freewill Armenian gospel And we swept
that demon out of our house and we garnished our homes with reformed
Calvinism. And our pride and our self-righteousness
was worse as a Calvinist than it was as an Arminian. You see, you go from bad to worse.
The demons come back seven times stronger. What are they going
to do? They're going to appeal to our pride. And again, Our
God loves his people too much to allow them to observe lying
vanities and to forsake their own mercy and to lose him by
denying him of his glory. He's going to whittle down their
troops until they are completely dependent upon him for everything. Isn't that glorious? That's what's happening here.
Turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter eight. Deuteronomy chapter eight. Our God is so full of mercy. He's not a jealous God because
He needs us for anything. He's jealous for His people. He's jealous for His glory because
His glory is our only good. His glory is our only good. Deuteronomy chapter eight, look
with me at verse 16. Who fed thee in the wilderness
with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that which might humble
thee, and that he might prove thee to do thee good at the latter
end. I know the thoughts that I think
towards you. Thoughts of good, not of evil.
I'm bringing you to your expected end. And God knows how to humble
His people. And what a beautiful thing it
is when the Lord makes us completely dependent upon Him so that He
is our glory. We've got nothing to glory in.
Nothing to glory in. He gets all the praise and all
the glory. Look at verse 17. And thou say
in thine heart, my power and the might of my hand hath gotten
me this wealth. Oh yeah? That's what Nebuchadnezzar said.
And those of you that were here the first hour know that he spent
seven years crawling around in the grass, being wet with the
dew of heaven until God brought him to himself. That's mercy. Look at verse 18, but thou shalt
remember thy God, for it is he that giveth thee power to get
wealth, that he may establish his covenant, which he swear
unto thy fathers as it is this day. Lord, if I have the power to
believe, it's because you've given me that power. If I have the power to love Christ
and look to Christ Believe God's word, Lord, that's all from you.
That's all from you. You've whittled my army down
to nothing. I've got 300 men that don't even
have a weapon. What are we going to do against
100,000 Midianites? Not going to do this until I
get you to the place to where you are unable to baunt yourself. What a mercy. What a glorious
thing that is. We are so sinful by nature, so
depraved, so unable to help ourselves. We're dead in our trespasses
and sins. All God has to do for you and
I, to get our just reward in an eternal hell of judgment is
nothing. Do you get that? All he has to
do is leave us to ourselves. That's how sinful we are. And
we will go about our way And we will think that there's something
good in us. You ever been to a funeral where the person wasn't
preached into heaven? Never have, have you? I haven't either. There's the evidence of man's
depravity. People making a covenant with death, with hell, they're
in agreement. And God says, I'm gonna disannoy your covenant.
And when the overflowing scourge comes, you will not escape. What
does he do? He just leaves men to themselves.
He doesn't have to do anything. We're already sinners. We're already hell deserving. Lord, I need you to do something
for me. I need for you to arrest me.
I need for you to intervene into my life. I need for you to give
me what I have to have in order to be right with God. Lord, if
it's left up to my hand, Left up to my hand. Look at verse two again. And
the Lord said unto Gideon, the people that are with thee are
too many for me to give the Midianites unto their hands. What is the
hand in the Bible? The Lord Jesus Christ is spoken
of as seated at the right hand of God. Our hands are filthy. The scripture says, who can stand
in the presence of God? They that have clean hands and
a pure heart. How are my hands? God said, you
put your hand to something, you defile it. As soon as you put
your hand to it, you've defiled it. Why? Because the hands of
man are a picture of his works. If I give these Midianites into
your hands, you will vaunt yourself and you will say that I did this.
I got this wealth. I got this salvation. I earned
it. I made the decision. Or I improved my betterment by
my obedience. If God enables us to be obedient,
we give to him all the praise and all the glory for that. It's he that works in us. causing
us to will and to do after his good pleasure. And if he didn't
work in us, we would not will or do his good pleasure, would
we? Not gonna give them into your hands. Not gonna let you
look to your hand and think that, here's the glory. Brethren, he
was wounded for our transgressions. They pierced his hands with nails. He was wounded in the very place
where our sins manifest themselves, the works of our hands, in order
to put away our sins. Gideon's now about 300 men. And
the Lord tells him, they don't have any weapons, no swords. The Lord tells him, he says,
you take a clay pitcher, put in that clay pitcher a torch.
Hold that in your left hand. In your right hand, take a trumpet.
And you divide the enemy, you divide the army up in three groups
of 100. So I suppose they surrounded
them on three sides, leaving one side open. And at the given
moment, they were to blow the trumpet and break the clay jar
and cry out with their voice, the sword of the Lord and the
sword of Gideon. And a hundred thousand Midianites
woke up in the middle of the night, hearing this cry and seeing
the light and hearing the trumpet. And they turned on one another
and started killing each other. And the ones that could flee,
fled through that open space. Not a single Israelite raised
a sword. What's that a picture of? The Lord Jesus Christ. He was
born of a woman, born under the law, made in the likeness of
sinful flesh. And the light of the gospel was
in him. And he was broken on Calvary's
cross. And that light shines forth.
And the trumpet is the trumpet of the Jubilee. Every 49 years,
the starting of the 50th year in Israel was to be the year
of Jubilee. And three things happened on
the year of Jubilee. All slaves were set free, all
debt was canceled, and all property was returned to its original
owner. And that happened on the day of Jubilee, on the year of
Jubilee. And the Lord Jesus Christ is, is called that year of the
Lord, that year of jubilee. And that's what happened by his
death on Calvary's cross. Slaves were set free. We're slave
to sin. We serve sin. We can't serve God. We can't
see God. We can't believe on God. Now
the Lord blows the trumpet of jubilee, set the prisoner free. And he cancels all debt. You
and I have a debt that we cannot pay. Debt for our sin. God requires death for that debt. And even our physical death is
not sufficient because that's why hell is eternal. We'll spend
eternity in hell because all of eternity will not be sufficient
to pay the debt for your sin and for my sin. The Lord Jesus Christ had to
do that. His body, my body is broken for you. Is that not what
he said? They broke the clay and the light
comes out. And the voice of God cries from
the Word of God, the sword of the Lord. What is the sword? It's the Word of God, the sword
of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. This is what this is
a picture of. But God's gonna get us to a place.
We've got no place else to turn. He's gonna shut us up to the
Lord Jesus Christ to depend on him alone to deliver us. It's also a picture of us. That
clay vessel had to be broken. We have this treasure. We have
this treasure. What is the treasure? Christ
in you, the hope of glory, the light of the world. But the vessel
has to be broken. Has to be broken. And that's exactly what the Lord
does when he sends his spirit convicts us of our sin, causes
us to believe, Lord, I'm broken. You're gonna have
to do this if it's gonna be done. The redemption, or the reduction,
I'm sorry, of the troops of Gideon teaches us And before God calls
a sinner, he strips them. He strips them of all their hope
but Christ. Job 37, 37, 37 says, he sealeth
up the hand of every man that all men may know his work. He sealeth up the hand of every
man that all men may know his work. His hands. What is God saying
to Jonah? What did Gideon, what's he saying
to you and me? I'm gonna get all the glory. Not gonna be any other explanation
for this victory than the hand of God, the light of the gospel. The trumpet of the gospel, which
declares, you know, when the Lord said, if your right hand
offend you, cut it off. You know, the gospel is the hatchet
that cuts off the hands of men, that causes them to realize,
Lord, there's nothing in my hand, nothing in my hand. It is the hatchet that severs
men's hands from their salvation. That's what it does. Our hands are unclean. Listen to Psalm 109 verse 30.
The Lord shall stand at the right hand of the poor and save them
from those who condemn their soul. Who condemns your soul? The law
of God condemns our souls. We come to God based on anything
that our hands have done, then the law will become our judge.
And the law can say nothing to us but guilty, judgment, justice,
hell. That's all the law can say. The Lord shall stand at the right
hand of the poor and save him from those who condemn him. That's
what he did. Don't you love the story of Stephen?
The declaration he made of the gospel and then there at the
end of Acts chapter seven, when they took up stones to stone
him and the scripture says that he looked into heaven and he
saw the Lord Jesus Christ standing. Standing. Who stands in a court
of law? The advocate, the lawyer of the
condemned stands and defends their case. And that's exactly
what the Lord Jesus Christ did on Calvary's cross. And that's
what he did when he went to glory. He stands on behalf of his people
and he advocates for them. And he says to his heavenly father,
the judge, I've paid their debt. And Stephen, like every other
child of God, received him to glory. I trusted not on themselves.
Why 300 men? Well, we know what the word three
is. a reference to in the Bible.
Scriptures are clear, 1 John 5, verse 7. There are three that
bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost,
and these three are one. So Gideon's gonna defeat these
100,000 Midianites with 300 men symbolic of the Lord God, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost defeating our enemy. and setting us free. The next verse in John chapter
five says, and there are three that bear record on the earth,
the spirit, the water, and the blood. I pray that the spirit of God
is taking the water of his word and revealing to us right now
that the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ puts away the sins
of God's people. There's the three that give witness
on the earth are here right now, right this very moment. This
is the word of God, which by the gospel is preached unto you.
If the blood is not preached, the gospel is not preached. If
Christ's death on Calvary's cross and the efficiency of his blood
and the sufficiency of his blood to cover the sins of his people,
is not preached, then we're only left with the works of our own
hands. That's all we're left with. Men will vaunt themselves
unless I whittle their hopes down to God only. God only. And that's exactly
what he does. The Father, in eternity past,
according to his own will and purpose, chose a particular people
in grace, in Christ, before the foundation of the world. That's his part. That's the first
hundred. These 300 are split up into 100
men groups, three of them. And the one is representative
of God the Father. He says, you are a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people. God hath from
the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the
spirit and belief in the truth. God elected a people, there's
no gospel without election. No gospel without election. You
see, otherwise we're left up to vaunt ourselves because now,
if God didn't choose a people, then that means I do the choosing.
And the Lord Jesus Christ said, you did not choose me, I chose
you. I'm not gonna let you get any glory for this. I love you
too much to allow you to rob yourself of me by robbing me
of my glory. And then, The second group of
100 men is the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who entered into that
covenant relationship with his father and said, I'll redeem
them. I'll pay the ransom price. I'll lay down my life for the
sheep. I'll satisfy God's holy justice,
and I'll fulfill the law. And I'll accomplish their salvation.
And when he bowed his mighty head on Calvary's cross, he said,
it is finished. It is finished. You didn't do
anything to earn that. You didn't do anything to contribute
to that. He did it all, didn't he? I will be their ransom. I will
redeem them. I'll be their righteousness. Hosea went to the slave market
and purchased Gomer for the price of a slave. And that's what our
Hosea did when he went to Calvary's cross. He purchased his bride
with his own precious blood. There are three that give witness
on the earth. Three, the spirit, the water, and the blood. And faith is believing the witness
of God. Maybe we believe God. We believe
God. This is the record. God has given to us eternal life,
and this life is in His Son. He hath the Son hath life. By one offering He has perfected
forever them that are sanctified. I'm not going to let them glory
in their salvation or anything else for that matter. And when
they do, I'm going to cause them to see that their wealth and
all that they have came from my hand, by the spirit, the water
and the blood. I'm going to humble them and
they're going to give to me all the glory and my glory will be
their only good. And it'll be their, my glory
will be their glory. And then the third group of a
hundred is the Holy Spirit. Lord Jesus said, it's necessary
for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come. But when he comes, he's going to convict the world
of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Without the Spirit
of God, we would have no conviction of sin. We would have no conviction
of righteousness or of judgment. We wouldn't be looking to Christ
as our righteousness. We wouldn't be seeing that the
prince of this world was completely judged at Calvary's cross. We
wouldn't learn or understand anything. It is the Spirit that
gives life. The flesh profiteth nothing.
Nicodemus, you've got to be born of the Spirit. And so the spirit
makes God's people, those whom were chosen in the covenant of
grace, those for whom Christ died, he makes them willing in
the day of his power. He gives them eyes to see, and
he gives them faith to believe. And God gets all the glory. I'm
not going to let you do this by your hand. Get in, 32,000
is too many. Get in, 10,000 is too many. Get
in, you got to have 300. 300. And all they're going to have
is a clay pitcher with a torch in it and a trumpet and a voice
to cry, the sword of the Lord. End of Gideon. What gave Gideon the confidence
to go against the 100,000 with 300 men? Well, look with me. We'll close here. Look at chapter
7. Chapter seven, at verse seven. And the Lord
said unto Gideon, by the 300 men that lapped will I save you
and deliver the Midianites into thine hand and let all the other
people go, every man into his place. So the people took vittles
in their hand and their trumpets and he sent all the rest of Israel
away, every man into his own tent. and retained those 300
men, and the host of Midian was beneath him in the valley. And
it came to pass that same night that the Lord said unto him,
Arise, get thee down into the tent, for I have delivered it
into thy hands, or into the host, for I have delivered it into
thy hands. But if thou fear to go down, go with Phura, thy servant,
down to the host." Now Phura would have been Gideon's armor
bearer. or his servant, his right-hand servant. He said, you take your
servant with you. And thou shalt hear what they say, and afterwards
shall thy hand be strengthened to go down into the host. Then
went he down with Furah, his servant, unto the outside of
the armed men that were in the host. And the Midianites and
the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the
valley like grasshoppers for multitude, and their camels were
without number as the sand of the sea. for a multitude. And when Gideon was come, behold,
there was a man. It's dark. Gideon slipped down
there with a servant. The valley is full of the enemy.
And God's got a word for Gideon. And Gideon's listening. And there
was a man, didn't know Gideon was there. telling a dream unto
his fellow or his partner and said, behold, I dreamed a dream. And a cake of barley bread tumbled
into the host of Midian and came unto the tent and smote it, that
it fell and overturned it and the tent lay alone. And his fellow
answered and said, this is nothing else save the sword of Gideon,
the son of Joash, the man of Israel. For unto his hand hath
God delivered Midian and all the host. And it was so when
Gideon heard the telling of the dream and the interpretation
thereof, that he worshiped and returned unto the host of Israel
and said, arise for the Lord hath delivered into our hand
the host of the Midianites. When he heard the dream and the
interpretation thereof, he took courage And he said, surely,
surely God has given them to us. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
comes by the word of God. Do you believe what God has said?
He said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be
saved. Cast all your care upon him who cares for you. Give to
Him all the glory for all things, knowing that your very next breath
is dependent upon Him. I love you too much to allow
yourself, allow you to rob yourself of me by robbing me of my glory. I'm going to lay you low and
make you completely dependent upon me and cause you to rest
all your hope on my word." My word, I've spoken it and it shall
come to pass. There's the evidence, that's
the... God says, come, drink freely. Come unto me, all you that labor
in a heavy burden. I'm not going to allow them to
bonk themselves. Let the world bonk themselves. Let the religious, who most of
which have gone from fleshly living to religious living,
and they went from bad to worse. But my people, they're going to trust God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, three in one,
the witness of which is the Spirit, the water, and the blood. And
that's all they're gonna have. And they're not gonna be putting
out a fleece, and they're not gonna be looking for evidences
anywhere else. That will be what I have for
them. And I will give to them the faith
to believe me and to hang all the hopes of their life and their
mortal soul on me. Our heavenly Father, I thank
you, we thank you for your word and Lord, forgive us for our
unbelief and enable us to look in faith to
Christ. For it's in his name we pray,
amen. 318. 318. Let's stand together. Number
318. ? I need Thee every hour ? Most
gracious Lord ? No tender voice like Thine ? Can peace afford
? I need Thee, oh I need Thee ? Every hour I need Thee O bless
me now, my Saviour, I come to Thee. I need Thee every hour,
stay Thou nearby. Temptations lose their power
when Thou art nigh. I need Thee, oh, I need Thee. Every hour I need Thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior,
I come to Thee. I need thee every hour, enjoy
your pain. Come quickly and abide, or life
is vain. I need thee, oh I need thee. Every hour I need thee, O bless
me now, my Savior, I come to thee. I need Thee every hour, Most
Holy One, O make me Thine indeed, Thou blessed Son. I need thee. Oh, I need thee. Every hour I need thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior. I come to thee.