Good evening. We're going to
open the service with hymn number 35 in your Gospel Hymn Spiral
hymn book. Hymn number 35. Let's all stand
together. I ask the Lord that I might grow
in faith and love and every grace, might more of his salvation know,
and seek more earnestly his face. "'Twas He who taught me thus
to pray, "'And He, I trust, has answered prayer. "'But it has been in such a way
"'As almost drove me to despair. I hoped that in some favored
hour At once he'd answer my request And by his love's constraining
power Subdue my sins and give me rest Instead of this he made
me feel The hidden evils of my heart And let the angry powers
of hell Assault my soul in every part Yea, more with his own hand
he seemed Intent to aggravate my woe Crossed all the fair designs
I schemed Blasted my gourds and laid me low Lord, why is this,
thy trembling pride? Wilt thou pursue thy worm to
death? Tis in this way the Lord replied. I answer prayer for grace and
faith. These inward trials I employ
from self and pride to set thee free and break thy schemes of
earthly joy that thou mayest find thy all in me. Please be seated. I'm going to read from Psalm
50 if you'll turn with me there. Isn't that a great hymn? Is that your experience? It sure
is mine. Psalm 50, we'll read from verses
1 through 7. The mighty God, even the Lord,
hath spoken. and called the earth from the
rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. Out of Zion, the
perfection of beauty, God hath shined. This is the place where
God is pleased to make himself known. As people come together,
it says, I inhabit the praise of my people. And our God shall
come and shall not keep silent. A fire shall devour before him,
and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. A fire went
before Christ when he was on Calvary's cross, the fire of
God's wrath. And just as we sang just now,
we experienced some of that, some of that fiery judgment,
don't we? The Lord burns away the dross and exposes our dependence
upon Christ. Verse four, he shall call to
the heavens from above and to the earth that he may judge his
people. We have one God, one man, one
savior that stands between God and man. He's speaks to God on
our behalf and speaks to us on God's behalf. And he's the only
man, the only man that can touch God and not be consumed and touch
man and not be defiled. And that's exactly what he's
done. Gather my saints together unto
me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. Sacrifice, if you go to the last
Verse of this psalm, we'll just skip over there real quick. Whoso
offereth praise glorifyeth me. It's the sacrifice of our lips.
It's declaring our hope and faith in Christ. Verse six, and the heavens shall
declare his righteousness for God is judge himself. Selah. Hear, O my people, and
I will speak. O Israel, and I will testify
against thee. I am God, even thy God. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we're thankful that you've brought us here once again to this place.
You put into our hearts a desire to know you and to hear your
voice, to worship you. You've given us hope in thy dear
son, and we pray that you would strengthen that faith this evening.
We pray that you would be pleased to speak to our hearts and comfort
us in knowing that your son, our savior, has successfully
put away our sin, satisfied your law, settled all justice, stands
in our stead before thee. We have an advocate with the
father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one, the holy one of Israel. Oh Lord, would you, would you
expose him and reveal him to our hearts tonight? we ask it in his name. Amen. you I am not skilled to understand
what God hath willed, what God hath planned. I only know that
His right hand is one who is my Savior. I take Him at His word indeed. Christ I for sinners this I read,
for in my heart I find a need. of Him to be my Savior, that
He should leave His place on high and come for sinful men
to die. You counted straight, so once
did I, before I knew my Savior. And oh, that He fulfilled, may
see, the travail of His soul in me, and with His work contented
me, as I with my dear Savior. Yea, living, dying, let me bring
my strength, my solace from this spring that he who lives to be
my King once died to be my Savior. Please be seated. We open your Bibles with me to
Isaiah chapter 42. I don't know which one of those
to touch. I better not Isaiah chapter 42. I've titled this
message, but now you see that in the first verse of chapter
43, but now God gives us a but. He is showing
us a contrast between the previous statements and the ones that
are about to be made. I know that you've had the same
experience that I've had in trying to talk to your friends and family
members about the gospel. And they'll listen and they'll
say, yeah, but. They'll butt the gospel. They'll
say, well, what about free will? Or what about the verse of Scripture
that says God's not willing that any should perish? But, they've
always come up with a but, don't they? And when man butts, he's
just showing his own rebellion against God. But when God butts,
God gives us such a A conjunction is what it is.
He's he's comparing the previous passage to the to the to the
next passage. He's showing us his mercy. Showing
us his grace. And we see it in verse 22 also
of chapter 42. We notice in verse 21, the Lord
is well pleased for his righteousness sake. He will magnify the law
and make it honorable. The Lord Jesus Christ, the only
one that magnified the law. As I said, Sunday, we don't magnify
the law in our attempts to keep it. We don't honor the law. All we do is if we think in any
way that we're going to satisfy the demands of the law, then
all we're going to be able to do is bring the law down to where
we are. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one that magnified the law. He's the only one that made it
honorable. And in verse 22, it says, but
in spite of the fact that we have one who has satisfied all
the demands of God's holy law, but this is a people robbed and
spoiled. There's our condition by nature.
We've been robbed, robbed of any relationship that we could
possibly have with God as a result of our father's fall. We've been
spoiled. There's no life. There's no righteousness. There's no hope of salvation
apart from God's mercy. They are, all of them, snared
in holes. They are hid in prison houses. They are for a prey, and none
delivereth. For a spoil, and none saith restore. None call for mercy. The Lord
has to initiate this but, this change that he's going to make.
He's got to do it because we're not going to seek him. No man
seeketh after God at any time. We're not going to ask for mercy.
We're not going to seek it. He's going to have to seek us.
Who among you will give ear to this? Who will hearken and hear
for the time to come? Who gave Jacob for a spoil in
Israel to the robbers? Did not the Lord? He against whom we have sinned? For they would not walk in his
ways, neither were they obedient unto his law. Rebels in prison at enmity with
God. Refusing to seek after God. Refusing
to do anything that would that would honor him. They left to
themselves. And who did it? The Lord. The
Lord left them to themselves is what he's saying. Verse 25. Therefore he hath poured upon
him the fury of his anger and the strength of battle and it
hath set him on fire round about. Yet he knew it not. Before the Lord was pleased to
reveal Christ in our hearts, we were hell bound and didn't
know it. Didn't care, weren't concerned about it. They knew it not and it burned
him yet he laid it not to heart. With no concern for our souls.
It wasn't in us to know how bad the problem was. But now, but now, in spite of
the fact that they have one who made the law honorable and magnified
it at every jot and tittle, satisfying God's righteousness and justice,
In spite of that, they rebelled against him. They wouldn't hear
of it. They had no concern for their
soul. Left to themselves, they would have gone to hell, and
they didn't care. They didn't care. Rather than
looking to Christ, they went about trying to establish their
own righteousness, setting themselves up on the throne of God. But
God. Aren't you thankful for this
but? The Lord intervenes. The Lord takes the initiative. It reminds me of Ephesians chapter
2, verse 2. In times past, we walked according
to the course of this world, according to the prince of the
power of the air, among whom also we had our conversation
in times past, fulfilling the lust of our flesh. And we're
like others, children of wrath, but God. who is rich in mercy,
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in our sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. If the Lord had not intervened,
if he had left us to ourselves, this would be our condition.
But God, but God. In Ephesians chapter 2, Paul
is talking about Epaphroditus who he uses to send the letter
to Ephesus and he says, yes, Epaphroditus was sick unto death,
but God had mercy on him. That's where we were, sick unto
death, but God had mercy on us. In Galatians chapter 3 verse
18, if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise,
but God gave it to Abraham by promise. It's not by the law,
by promise, by covenant. A covenant promise that God made
with God, that's how the inheritance is received. not by your keeping
the law. First Corinthians chapter 10
verse 13, there hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common
to man, but God is faithful. He will not suffer you to be
tempted above that which you are able, but will with the temptation
provide the way of escape that you might be able to bear it.
But God, the faithfulness of God, is what delivers us from
all the trials and tribulations of this life. God hath chosen
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. But God,
but God. commended his love toward us
in that while we were yet sinners, while we were yet sinners, while
we were dead in our trespasses and sins, Christ died for us. So we see in chapter 42, the
Lord says, there is a law keeper. There is one who's going to magnify
the law, one in whom I am well pleased, but they wouldn't have
him. They were hell-bound and didn't care. They went about
trying to establish their own righteousness. They would not
come to Christ. So therefore, not only did I
have to give them a Savior, but I had to do a work of grace in
their hearts causing them to come to Him. And so he says in
verse 1 of chapter 43, But now Thus saith the Lord that created
thee. Here's the. Here's the Lord. He's the creator and sustainer
of all of life. He's the Potter and we're the
clay. He made us and he forms us. And he says, but God. But now,
thus saith the Lord that created thee. Oh Jacob. Oh, Jacob. There's our old man. We come into this world as supplanters,
deceivers, and deceived. We are. That's our nature. And
that's what Jacob was. And the natural man thinks, well,
I'll get things right with God once I'm able to clean Jacob
up a little bit. He says, oh, no. I'm the one
that created you, O Jacob, and I formed you." Now there's a
picture of our new man formed from the same lump of clay. That's
the word there. It's a word used to describe
what a potter does when he takes a soft piece of clay and forms
it into the vessel that he wants it to be. And so he says, I created
you, Jacob, You came into this world as a sinner fallen in your
father, Adam, but I didn't leave you there. I formed you and I
made you a prince. I adopted you, brought you into
my family. But now, in spite of your rebellion,
in spite of your unbelief, in spite of your inability to see
the law giver and the law keeper, I had mercy on you. I formed
you, O Israel, fear not." Fear not. I need the Lord to say that to
me. Now, there's a lot of natural fears that men have. Most of
them are irrational, but nevertheless, they are what they are. You know,
some people are afraid of spiders. Some people are afraid of snakes.
Some people are afraid of heights. And everybody's got some phobia
relating to something in this world, and that's not what he's
talking about. He said, well, if I'm afraid
of spiders, does that mean I don't have faith? No. No, he's talking
about fearing the wrath that is to come. He's talking about
fearing the judgment of the law. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness. There is no condemnation to them
that are in Christ Jesus. Fear the condemning wrath of
God. Not if we've been formed Israel. We're able to look to
Christ and realize that the fiery wrath of God's judgment fell
on our substitute. And so he says, Israel, Jacob,
fear not. The Lord said, fear not man. Don't fear them that can kill
the body. You and I have had the the blessing
and privilege of being able to live in a time, in a generation
where we're free from the persecutions that have
fallen against believers in generations gone by. And the Lord says to all of us,
don't fear man. Fear not him that can kill the
body, but rather fear him. He's talking about reverential
fear. He's talking about bowing in worship before God. Fear him who is able to cast
both body and soul into hell. So when the Lord says fear not,
he's talking about don't fear the wrath of God. Don't fear
man. Fear God. Fear the thought, fear the thought
of standing before a holy God without a righteous substitute.
Fear the thought of that. Fear the thought of the law not
being satisfied. Fear not, don't fear hell. Hell's been conquered. Don't
fear death. Death's been conquered. Go with me back to our text.
Fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have redeemed thee. Now what's the consequence of
not being redeemed? Well, it's being spoiled. It's being overcome. It's being
bound up in the prison house. It's being all these things that
the scripture said in those verses of chapter 42. It's being made
a prey for Satan. It's being dead in our trespasses
and sins. And so he says, I've redeemed
you. I purchased you from that. by
the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only price
that God was satisfied for the redemption of our souls was the
blood of his son. In other words, I have redeemed
thee. I have redeemed thee. Aren't
you glad he didn't say I will redeem you if? Notice the tense
in the verb, I have redeemed thee. Redemption's already been
done. There's nothing can be added
to it. Nothing would be taken away from it. All of God's elect
were redeemed when the Lord Jesus Christ cried out from Calvary's
cross to his father and said, my God, my God, whilst I'll forsaken
me, it is finished into thy hands. I commend my spirit. Redemption
was done. Isaiah is writing before that
took place and he says, I have redeemed thee. How can that be? Well, you know how it could be.
Christ is the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the
world. And in the covenant of grace,
redemption has always been a settled thing. With God, it's always
been settled. There's nothing we can do to
add to or take away from the redemption that has been successfully
purchased through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
says, don't be afraid, I have redeemed thee. The law has been silenced. Death
has been conquered. The grave has been opened. Satan
has been defeated. Don't be afraid. I have redeemed
thee. I've redeemed thee. I didn't
redeem everybody. I laid my life down for the sheep. That's who I redeemed. I have called thee By thy name. I have called thee by thy name.
Now I've talked to some people recently that say they believe
the gospel, but they don't believe in two natures. And I'm thinking,
how can you not? How often times we're referred
to as Jacob and Israel. How often times do we only experience
in our own experience this war between the flesh and the spirit?
The old man and the new man, the body of death that's ever
with us and the hope of salvation that we have in the perfect righteousness
of Christ in the new man. That's what he said. I've called
you by your name. What is your name? Well, first,
your name's Jacob. When God calls us, what does
He reveal to us? That everything about us is Jacob. We're sinners. Let me show you
that. Turn with me to chapter 45, Isaiah
45. For Jacob, my servant's sake,
and Israel mine elect, I have called thee by thy name, I have
surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. What is our surname? Israel. My surname is Elmquist because
I got that name from my father. My given name is Greg. That's
why I am by nature. And what the Lord says is, your
name is Jacob Israel. Jacob's your given name and Israel's
your surname. That's your name. Let me show
you that. Turn with me to chapter 44 of
Isaiah. Verse one, Isaiah 44. Yet now
hear, O Jacob, my servant, and Israel, whom I have chosen. Thus saith the Lord that made
thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee. Fear not, O Jacob, my servant,
and thou Jesserim. Now that means upright. That's just another name for
Israel. That's our surname. whom I have chosen for I will
pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground.
I will pour my spirit upon thy seed and my blessings upon thine
offspring. And they shall spring up as among
the grass as willows by the water courses. And one shall say, I
am the Lord's and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob. And another shall subscribe with
his hand unto the Lord and surname himself by the name of Israel. There I am. Is that you? Jacob? Israel. That's your first and your last
name. You're Israel because that's
your father's name, Prince. That's your surname. But your
name given to you when you were born was Jacob. So the Lord go back with me to
our text. Oh, Israel, fear not for I have
redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name. You know, so many people think,
well, I can't have the name Israel until I clean Jacob up. You'll never have the name Israel
as long as you try to clean Jacob up to get it. Jacob's just going to have to
be exposed for what he is. Thou art mine. You belong to
me. I'm going to have my way. When thou passeth through the
waters, I will be with thee. The way of the Lord is through
the seas. There's a lot of turbulent waters in this world, isn't there?
Most of it we bring upon ourselves because of our sin, but the Lord
gives us lots of difficulties in this life, just like Peter. Someone asked me one time, how
are you doing? I said, well, under the circumstances I'm doing
fine. Well, what are you doing under those, they said? Well,
that's where I find myself most of my life, under my circumstances. Peter was walking on the water
as long as he was looking to Christ, wasn't he? And as soon
as he took his eyes off of Christ, what happened? It began to sink. Isn't that our experience? and
how easy it is for us to take our eyes off of him and look
at the waves and the wind and the circumstances that we're
under and think, well, there's no way we're going to make it.
The Lord says, when you go through the waters, I'm with you. I'm with you. Was he with the
disciples in that boat? You remember when he was asleep
and they were scared and thought they were all going to drown?
And these were experienced fishermen, and he was asleep. And they woke
him up, and what did he say? Why do you have such little faith? And he spoke to the wind and
to the seas, and immediately it became a placid lake. And what did they say? What manner
of man is this, that even the wind and the seas obey his voice?
They do obey his voice. But what does the Lord say? And
when you get in the turbulence of, uh, of, of trouble, cry out
to him what Peter say, Lord saved me. And immediately the Lord
reached down his hand and saved him. Never has one of God's children
cried out to him to be saved and he's refused to save him.
Never. Listen to what David said in
Psalm 66 verse 12. Thou hast caused men to ride
over our head. We went through the fire and
through the waters, but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy
place, a wealthy place. The Lord sends us through trials
and troubles to get us to a wealthy place. What is that wealthy place? It's fellowshipping with Christ.
It's rejoicing in Him. It's trusting Him. It's knowing
Him. It's faith. It's believing on Him. That experience that the disciples
had in Matthew chapter 8, that I just described where the Lord
is sleeping in the boat and He calms the seas. That happened
right on the heels of what the Lord had taught them in the Sermon
on the Mount. Turn with me to Matthew chapter
6. Look at verse 25. Therefore, I say unto you, take
no thought for your life, what you shall eat or what you shall
drink, nor yet for your body what you shall put on, is not
the life more than meat and the body than raiment? Behold the
fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor
gather into barns, yet your heavenly father feedeth them. Are you
not much better than they? Which of you, by taking thought,
can add one cubit unto a statue? And why take ye thought for raiment?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not,
neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even
Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass in the field, which
is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much
more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore, take no thought saying
what shall we eat or what shall we drink or whether shall we
be clothed for after all these things do the unbeliever. That's who he's talking about
here. He's talking about the Gentiles.
He's talking about the unbeliever. This is the thing that worldly
men that know not God, this is the thing that they set their
passions and fears and desires on. For your heavenly Father
knoweth that you have need of these things, but ye seek first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness. What is it to seek the kingdom
of God and His righteousness? Well, it's to seek the King.
the king to look to Christ and to believe that he is all your
righteousness before God. Seek ye first the kingdom of
God and his righteousness and all these other things that be
added unto you. Fear not. Jacob, Israel, I've called you
by your name and you're mine. Now I'm going to provide for
you. And I'm gonna cause you to learn
by experience the things that I made you to believe by precept. See, the disciples had just learned
this principle in precept by the Lord's teaching on the Sermon
on the Mount. And don't you know that they're
sitting there thinking, Amen, yes, Lord, that's true, I trust
you. I know you're going to provide
for me. And the next day they find themselves with the Lord
in the boat on the sea thinking they're going to drown. And so
what's the Lord do? He gives us the teaching experience
in life. to confirm that which he has
taught us in precept. Now, I always learned a whole
lot more in college from professors that came out of the business
world, men and women who had gotten some level of success
in the world, in the work world. and had been recognized for that
success and then came back to academia in order to teach from
their experience versus the professors that we sat under that had never
been anywhere but in school. They were, they were PhDs and
then they were, and then they were adjunct professors and then
they became professors and they've never experienced anything in
the real world. It's all they need. What do they
say? Those who can do and those who
can't teach. Isn't that so true? To say I
believe something in precept is one thing, but to have it
taught to us in experience is something else. And the Lord's
not going to allow His children to rest in a precept that he
hasn't taught them by experience. So these disciples, after they
heard the Sermon on the Mount, had to experience some storms
in order for them to learn what it meant to not be afraid. Fear not, for I have redeemed
thee." I have redeemed thee. You've been bought with a price.
You're not your own. I've delivered you from hell. I've delivered you from your
sin. I've delivered you from the rigors of the law. I've delivered
you from death. You're mine. I've called you.
I called you by your name. I called you Jacob. And then
I revealed to you that you're Israel. You're Israel. You're perfect. Perfect in Christ. And when thou passeth through
the waters, you're going to pass through some waters. I'll be
with thee. And through the rivers... Now
what is this a reference to? Well, what is the river that
the children of Israel had to cross in order to get into the
Promised Land? The Jordan. Look up the word Jordan. Translated,
it means death. We're going to pass through the
Jordan River one day. You say, well, I don't know if
I'm ready for that. I don't know if I have enough
grace for that. Here's our Lord's promise. When it's time for you
to cross that river, he'll provide the grace you need to get across.
not before. Through the rivers they shall
not overflow thee. That's his promise. Look at verse 3, for I am the
Lord your God. This is the basis on which you
can trust me. they shall not overflow the and
when that now walkers through the fire how can you read that
without thinking about those three Hebrew children and never
can as a third through into the fiery furnace and why were they
thrown into the furnace because they refused to bow to a false
god and what they say we don't know if our gods You're going
to deliver us physically or spiritually from this fire. We're not going
to bow to your God. We know that we can trust Him. What did Nebuchadnezzar see in
that fiery furnace? A fourth, like unto the Son of
God. They came out, not a hair on
their hair was singed, their clothes were not burned, and
there was not even the smell of smoke on them. Why? Because
that fourth man that was walking in the fiery furnace with them
consumed all the heat and all the smoke and all the fire unto
himself. Don't be afraid. The fiery wrath
of God's justice has been quenched. It's been put out. Sin's been
put away. The law's been satisfied. That's
why the Lord said, don't be afraid. You're mine. I've redeemed you. And when you walk through the,
when, when I put you through storms in this world, I'm going
to be in the boat with you. You may think I'm asleep. You
may think I don't have any, I'm not taking care of things like
I at Watt, but that's only because you've got little faith. You've
got a little faith. I've got the power to speak to
those storms, and I've got you there for a reason. And one day
when you go through the river, it's not going to overflow you.
And when you walk through the fire, the fire is not going to
consume you. Turn with me to 1 Peter chapter
1. Verse 5. Who are kept by the power of
God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last
time wherein you greatly rejoice though now for a season if need
be. The Lord knows when it's a need
be, doesn't he? Paul called the trials that we
go through necessities. These are all necessary things
that the Lord has ordained for us. For what? For our salvation. If for need be. You are in heaviness
through manifold temptations that the trial of your faith,
being much more precious than gold that perisheth, though it
be tried with fire, might be found under praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom, having not
seen, you love. in whom though now you see him
not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full
of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation
of your soul. The trying of your faith, which
is much more precious than the gold which perishes, It's all
for our salvation. Let's go back with me to our
text. How do we sing how firm a foundation
when through fiery trials your pathway may lie. My grace all sufficient shall
be your supply. The flame shall not hurt you.
I only design thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine. There's our God. He knows what
He's doing. And it's just perfect. He's perfect. He applies not
too much heat, not too little heat, just the right amount for
each one of His children. to perfect their faith. But God, for I am the Lord thy
God. I'm the eternal, self-existent, omnipotent creator. I'm God. I've got this, and I've got you
in my hand. In spite of the fact that you
wouldn't have anything to do with me, in spite of the fact that
I sent my son and he satisfied the law and made it honorable,
you had no concern for your soul. But now, but now you do, don't
you? Now you do, why? Because I called
you. You were mine. I called you by
your name. I redeemed you. I took away your fear. I am the Lord thy God. I was thinking this afternoon
about when Judas came with those Roman soldiers and the high priest
and the scripture says they had torches and spears and swords
and staves and they were coming to arrest the Lord at the Garden
of Gethsemane and the Lord didn't hide. He didn't wait for them. He walked up to them and He said,
Whom seek ye? Whom seek ye? And they said,
Jesus of Nazareth. And He said, I am. And the scripture says that they
fell backwards to the ground. And once they got themselves
back up and brushed themselves off, he asked them again, whom
seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.
And he said, I am. Let these go. He was in complete
control of all of that. I am the Lord thy God. The Holy
One of Israel. The Holy One of Israel. I was
talking to somebody yesterday and I told him, I said, I said,
you've got to be perfect to stand before God. Perfect? How can I be perfect? I gave the illustration of the
baby in the womb that I used Sunday with Bree and So you've
got to be in Christ. He's the Holy One of Israel. And God won't have anything to
do with anything less than perfect holiness. What's my hope to standing
before a holy God? To be found in Him. In Him. I am the Holy One of Israel,
thy Savior. Thy Savior. I have saved you
from the wrath that is to come. I've saved you from your sin.
I've saved you from the demands of the law. I've saved you from
death. I've saved you from Satan. I have saved you. I'm your Savior. Oh Lord, I need a Savior. I need
a Savior. And I will give unto you. Here's,
I want to conclude with this. Look what the Lord said. I gave
Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia, and Seba for thee, since thou,
what's precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable, and
I have loved thee. Therefore will I give men for
thee and people for thy life. Fear not, for I am with thee,
and I will bring thy seed from the east and gather thee from
the west. I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, keep
not back. Bring my sons from afar, my daughters
from the ends of the earth. Even everyone that is called
by my name, for I have created him for my glory. I have formed
him, yea, I have made him." Now let the politicians fret over
what to do with North Korea and Syria and Russia and China. And let the men of this world
worry about how it's all going to fall out. I'm here to say to you, according
to the word of God, that Putin is your servant. That guy in North Korea belongs
to you. China, the whole nation is yours. It's all yours. Every bit of
it. The Lord said the nations are
a drop in the bucket. A speck of dust on the balance
scale. Whatever happens in China, whatever
happens in Washington D.C., whatever happens in North Korea or Syria,
it's all happening. Every single bit of it is happening
for you. I gave Egypt for you. Ethiopia
and Syria. The whole world is here to serve
the salvation of my people. The only thing of any significance
or any consequence that's taking place in this world is the salvation
of my elect, the glory of my Son. And the
evidence of that is that when the last of God's elect hear
the Gospel and are brought to the knowledge of Christ, This
thing's coming to an end. It's over. Why? Because nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. Logan, China belongs to you.
It's all yours. It's all yours. You're mine. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful
for your word and how we pray that you would increase our faith
and cause us to believe on Christ. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen. Number 290. Let's stand together. Be still, my soul, the Lord is
on thy side. Bear patiently the cross of grief
or pain. Leave to thy God to order and
provide. In every change, he faithful
will remain. Be still, my soul, thy best,
thy heavenly friend. Through thorny ways, leads to
a joyful end. Be still, my soul, thy God doth
undertake to guide the future as He has the past. Thy hope, thy confidence let
nothing shake. All now mysterious shall be bright
at last. Be still, my soul, the waves
and winds still know His voice who ruled them while He dwelt
below. Be still, my soul, the hour is
hastening on, When we shall be forever with the Lord. when disappointment, grief, and
fear are gone. Sorrow forgot, love's purest
joys restored. Be still, my soul, when change
and tears are past. All safe and blessed, we shall
meet at last. th th