we pray unto the Lord, you know,
continually. It's a great blessing and privilege
that we have that we, being who and what we are, are actually
able to approach the throne of God in prayer. And, you know,
when we pray, it's really kind of just a one-way conversation,
isn't it? Like, you know, the Lord doesn't
speak to us, But by his grace, we do pray and we have fellowship
and communion with him in that way, but he doesn't speak to
us. He doesn't give us an audible voice from heaven that lets us
know that our prayers are heard. And many times I even kind of
just become filled with fear and doubt and things, but we
do know from his word that he hears us. And you know, the Lord does speak
to us. We have this entire book here,
call it A More Sure Word of Prophecy. He speaks to us through his word. And he speaks to us through the means
by which we're doing right now, through the preaching of his
gospel. And he does show us things at times. You know, our brother sat up
here, he was late, by the way, that's why we were late tonight,
but sat up here and opened up Exodus chapter three and read
a passage of scripture that talks about the deliverance of God's
people out of Egypt, which represents this world, which represents
sin and bondage to the law, and Plainly and boldly there in the
text it declares that they were delivered out of the hands of
Pharaoh by the hand of God. Look at Psalm 31 verse 15. There are some passages in the
scripture that over the course of the last, let's say probably,
I don't know, like eight months or so, seven months, have become some of my favorites,
in particular the Psalms. I've just kind of fallen in love
with the Psalms and some of the things that David has written
in there, but Psalm 31, verse 15 is one of those. In those
first six words, David declares my times are in thy hand. And I just sometimes have to
sit back and marvel at how the Lord causes things to come to
pass and how he puts things on our brother's heart this evening
to open up God's word and go to a particular passage and read
that. and put it on my heart to stand
up here before you and talk to you a little bit today just about
the hand of God. If we actually sit back, I think, and just take our eyes off of
ourself for a little while and just sit down and look at
things as they really, truly are, I think there are many times
where we can see the hand of God moving. I do believe that. If we could just get over ourselves
for the most part and get our eyes out of this world. But David said, my times are
in thy hand, and that has become just a great comfort to me. And
we comfort in the promises that we find in the word of God. That is how he speaks to us.
He's given us his word. It's the only source of guidance
and direction for the children of God. As they wander through
the wilderness of this world, when the Lord delivered them
out of Egypt and caused them to cross through the Red Sea,
they spent 40 years in that wilderness before they reached the River
Jordan. And that's our life. That 40 years represents our
life as a child of God, delivered out of Egypt. We have been brought
and made new creatures in Christ, and we wander through this world
for 40 years until we reach the River of Jordan. And that picture's
our life. And the only source of comfort,
peace, and security that we have is God's word. He has given us a declaration
of Christ, the precious and perfect son of God, a declaration of
who he is and what he has accomplished for his people. And the word
of God is precious to us. It is truly the bread by which
we live by. The Lord said, you shall not
live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of his
mouth. And that's what this is. It is
his word. That's what this gospel is. It is his word. It is how
he speaks to his children. And that's why there's nothing
else in the world that's more important than what we're doing
right now. Nothing else. There's no other place that I
wanted to be tonight than where I am right now with my family,
sitting here, worshiping Christ and looking to him and seeking
to find out what does he have? Just get a little bit of what
he has to say to us. And we know that the word of
God is given by inspiration of God, and it's profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, instruction, and righteousness,
that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all
good works. And David declared that the word of God was sweet
to his taste. It was sweeter than honey to
his mouth. And the entrance of God's word giveth light and understanding
to the simple, and it's a light unto his path. And God's word
does guide us. God's word does direct us. It
instructs us, it teaches us. And David talks about that. He
said, teach me thy statutes. Guide me in the way in which
I should go. Make me to know. And we need
the Lord to do that to us because we don't know by nature and we're
not going to know because we're incapable of knowing and understanding
unless God Almighty causes us to know and to understand and
to walk. And how do we know and understand
and walk? By the example in which he's given us. Love the Lord
with all your heart. We follow him and walk as he
walked in love. Well, how do we know how we walked?
Well, he's given us examples of that. And he gives us the
spirit as well that produces the fruit of love and kindness
and meekness and everything else. He gives that to us. But all
of that comes from his word. And it's in the word of God that
a poor and needy, a hungry and thirsty sinner can find what
he needs and all he needs. And the Word of God is concerning
His Son. It is a declaration from beginning
to end of who Christ is and what He accomplished in the salvation
of all those whom the Father gave Him. It's a declaration
of who He is from the very beginning. In the beginning, God. And it
doesn't give an explanation or, you know, declare, you know,
how God became God. No, He's just, He's God. That's
all the explanation we need. In the beginning, God. And it's
just that simple, and it's just that true. It's a declaration
of his commandments and his statutes, and it's filled with so many
precious promises from God to his people. And we have in our
text a very short and simple declaration written by David.
And when we consider this statement and expounded upon it, like I
said, it's only six words, and we see a great depth of truth
and grace. Right here is a stream that starts
small at its source. So many rivers start small, like
a little source, and then as they continue to go, they spread
and they become bigger, and then eventually open out into the
ocean, into the depth of the ocean, and that's what we have
here. It's just six words, six simple words. But as you open
up God's word and you search the scriptures and you begin
to expound on some things, it begins to open up and you see
this and you see that and you see all these different things
and all of a sudden, you can just become lost in the depth
of it. I mean, what we're gonna look at tonight, we're just scratching
the surface. I mean, I could go on for hours
if I really wanted to. You could go on a lifetime and
understand this. My times are in our hands, my times. But David declares that my times
are in our hands and we have a blessed truth that gives a
believer great comfort and strength and hope. What times are in the
hands of God are all of them. All of them, all times, all events,
all circumstances with all of his contingencies and his possibilities,
every time, all of our times, from the time we take our first
breath in this world until the day that we take our last, that
whole entire spans of time is in God's hand. There's not a
second that goes by that's not in his control, there's not a
second that goes by that doesn't go exactly as God Almighty has
purposed and ordained before the foundation of the world to
be done. We know from God's word there's
a season for everything. We read that there's a season
and a time to every purpose under the heaven, a time to be born,
a time to die. a time to plant and a time to
pluck up that which is planted, a time to kill and a time to
heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to
weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. a
time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to
cast away, a time to rend and a time to sow, a time to keep
silence and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to
hate, a time of war and a time of peace. There's a time for
everything in the life of a believer. And it begins right there. It's
a time to be born and a time to die. And between those two
points in time, we experience everything else, gain and loss,
pain and sorrow, happiness and joy. But all of those times,
all of them, all of them are in God's hands. All things come to pass in the
process of time, and they do so according to God's purpose
and God's will. He has determined the end from
the beginning and controls everything in between. And that is a glorious
and a wonderful truth to the child of God, to know that, to
know that God is in control. We read in Isaiah, remember the
former things of old, for I am God and there is none else. I
am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the
beginning, information times, the things that are not, done,
saying, my counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure,
calling a ravenous bird from the east, a man that executeth
my counsel from a far country, yea, I have spoken it, I will
also bring it to pass, I will purpose it, I will do it. That's
whose hands my time are in. My time are in. Not the gods
of this world, made of silver and gold, or the imagination
of man's hearts, that the Lord God clearly describes as gods
that cannot save. My God not only can save, but
has saved. He's accomplished it. And whatever
he wants to do, as he sits on the throne of heaven, whatever
he is pleased to do, that's what he's gonna do, and nobody's gonna
stop him, and nobody's gonna stay his hand, nobody can hinder
him, nobody can question him. Despite all of the people in
this world that wanna hold up their signs and their banners
and their protests and everything else, no one can question God. Because one day, one day, every
man and every woman's gonna stand before Him in the day of judgment.
It is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment.
And then that's when reality sinks in. but my times are in his hand.
And for the child of God, we have the promise of God that
everything that happens in our life happens for our good. We
know that all things work together for good for them that love him,
for him that I'll call according to his purpose. And we know that
if we love him, it's because he loved us first, and he said
so right after he talked about that. When he talks about Jacob
and Esau, and he said, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I
hated, and that was according to the election of God, that
the purpose of God according to election I might stand, he
declared, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated, before
either one of them had done any good or evil. So if we love him,
it's because he first loved us. And contrary to what the religion
of this world will say and declare, God does not love everybody.
God loves the people. The love of God at the end of
Romans 8 clearly declares that the love of God is in Christ
Jesus. So therefore, the only ones that are the recipients
of God's love are the ones that are in Christ Jesus. And if you're
in Christ Jesus, Paul declared, it's because God before the foundation
of the world chose you and placed you in him. In fact, by nature, we hate God.
By nature, we despise God. By nature, we want nothing to
do with Him. By nature, we said no. The Lord looked down from heaven
to see if there were any that did seek Him. And you know what
He found? None. None. They've all gone astray.
They've all gone their own way. There's a way which seemeth right
unto man, and that's the way which man takes by nature. You
know where that way ends? Death. Every single time, without
fail, it's gonna lead death. And so the child of God, we don't
seek our way, we seek him who is the way. All right, I don't
wanna get too far off track here. My times are in thy hands, David
declares. We read in Isaiah, sing, O heavens,
and be joyful, O earth, and break forth into singing, O mountains,
for the Lord has comforted his people, and he'll have mercy
on his afflicted. That's what he told Moses there
in the passage that our brother read. I've heard their cries.
I've seen their affliction. So you go tell Pharaoh, I'm gonna
deliver my people and there's nothing he can do about it. In
fact, I raised him up for the purpose that I can simply cast
him down and display my power in him. The Lord hath forsaken me and
the Lord, or the Lord hath not forsaken me. My Lord has not
forgotten me. I know we feel that way many
times, but he hasn't. He hasn't. You know, Jacob or
David even said several times, Lord, how long are you gonna
hide your face from us? How long are you gonna forsake
us? He's never forsaken us, never. He's with us. My times are in
his hands and I'm always with him. They say, can a woman forget
her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son
of her womb? Yes, yes, absolutely. And we see that tragically time
and time again. As you look out throughout this
world, yes, a mother can forsake her child. A mother can leave
her child. A father can do the same thing.
Brother can forsake sister, sister forsake brother. The strongest
bonds that are supposed to exist within the realms of this world
and our family structure can be gone in an instant just like
that. And the person that forsakes
you can think nothing about them and they think nothing of you.
Yes, because the truth of the matter is, is that human love
You can't even call it love. We call it love, I feel like,
just for a lack of another word to describe it, but it's not
love, because it's not love as it's described in the word of
God. It's contingent, it's, you know, most of the time, honestly,
truly, we love people because of what they can do for us, or
what they can provide for us, or maybe what they've done for
us. Because that's just how we, as
humans, operate, and think, and work, and feel. Everything's
contingent upon what benefits me. That's mostly what our love
is based upon, according to this nature. Now,
when God works in a sinner, the love that we have for one another,
that's different. But that's only because we're
in Christ. It's only because of the bond that we have in Christ
that that love exists. It's only because God causes
us to love one another as he loves us. And even in that, humanly
speaking, is a very poor example because sin's still mixed in
everything that we do. But we do love one another. We
really do. But yes, a woman can forsake her
child. They may forget. He said, but
I will not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon
the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually before
me. So my times, which are in the
hands of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ declares
to his people they are graven on the palms of his hands. And that brings me peace, that
brings me comfort to know, you know, my names are not just written
in the books of life and heaven, my names are on his hands. When
he looks at his hands, he sees his people. When he looks at
his hands, he sees those nail marks. He sees those scars. What
was it that Thomas says? Thomas said, I know we give Thomas
a hard time, but he said, I'm not gonna believe until I see
what? His hands. I wanna see those hands. And
when the Lord appeared unto Thomas, what did he say? Behold, my hands. And those are the hands that
our time is in. The hand of God and the arm of
God, it represents authority, it represents power and strength.
It is the hand that holds the sword in battle, the means by
which work is accomplished. We hold the hands of those we
guide, and it's in the hand that is protection and preservation.
Even as a little child, I remember both of my children, I remember
holding their little hands in my hand. And they were just so
small, it's like they could almost double the palm of your hand.
but I would hold their hand. It's a symbol of strength, of
power, of authority. If you hold the child's hand
when he's scared, what are you saying to that child? Don't be
afraid, I'm right here, I got your hand, I'm not gonna let
you go. Nothing's gonna happen to you. And we desire to be in
his hand, much like we desire to be in his heart and in his
mind. The heart represents what? The love of God. The mind represents
the wisdom of God. And the hand represents the power
of God, especially the right hand when you're looking through
the word of God. The right hand is power. The right hand is authority. And reading Solomon, the beloved
of the Lord said, inscribe me upon your heart and upon your
arm. I want to be inscribed there. And that's what we desire. I
want to be inscribed on his heart. I want to be graven in the palm
of his hand. He said, set me as a seal upon
thy heart and thy arm. And I would consider us to, as
we look at this, that this is a personal and an intimate declaration
made by David. He doesn't say the hands or the
times of the saints or the times of thy people or the times of
God's people. He says, my times are in thy
hand. My times, these are my times. This is personal. This is intimate, this relates
to me, this relates to all those who are in Christ Jesus. My times
are in thy hand. When I rest my head on my pillow
at night, that's what I find comfort in. Yes, if it said the
times of the saints are in God's hands, I would find great comfort
in that, but that's not what it says. It says my time. It's
just like when the Lord asked those two disciples of John,
he said, what do you seek? It's right here, it's in the
heart. This is personal, this is intimate. When the Lord reveals himself
to a sinner, he works in that sinner. And so I wanna spend just a couple
minutes here just considering whose hands my times are in,
whose hands your times are in if you're in Christ. These are
not the hands, or these are thy hands, he said, the hands of
God. My times are not in my hands. I do not control my own destiny.
I do not determine my end or how the course of my life unfolds
by what my hands do. I know the world likes to say
that, it likes to preach that, it likes to declare that, it
likes to promote that, that you control your destiny and this
and this and that and that, but that's not how it works. Everything
that happens in this world happens because God, according to the
power of His hands, caused it to come about. And so everything
that you have in this world was given to you by the hand of God. And if you don't have it, it's
because God hasn't given it to you. And if you never have it,
it's because God didn't give it to you. And if you do have
it, it's because he did give it to you, which is why we should
always be thankful for everything that we have and give thanks
unto God Almighty, because if it wasn't for that, we wouldn't
have anything. Everything that we have, whether
it be great or whether it be small, whatever it may be, has
been given to us by the hand of God. Everything, everything. I don't control my destiny. I
don't determine my end. And my hand or my time, thankfully,
are not in the hands of men. Because if our times are in the
hands of men, we know, because we know ourselves, what men are
capable of. And so much as when David had
numbered the people of Israel, the Lord gave David several options.
And what was it David said? He said, I don't want to be in
the hands of man. So one thing David did not want to do, do
whatever you are pleased to do, Lord. I don't want to be in the
hands of man. Chastise me, whatever the case
may be. If I'm in your hands, I'm good, but I don't want to
be in the hands of man. And my times are not in his hands
or in the hands of man. My times are in God's hands.
They're not in my hands, they're not in anything else, but in
Christ, my times are in his hands. And consider just a couple of
things here. My times, I want us to see three things as we
look at this. They are the hands of the God who is sovereign,
they are the hands of Christ my Savior, and they are the hands
of Christ who protects, preserves, and provides. My times are in
the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is sovereign.
As I stated before, the hand represents authority and power
and strength, and the Lord Jesus Christ right now sits at the
right hand of the throne of God in heaven. That's where Timothy
saw him as the men were stoning him. He looked up into heaven
and he saw the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God Almighty
at that time standing. which carries significant importance,
but this is where Timothy saw him. We're told that after he
offered himself a sacrifice for sin, he sat down at the right
hand of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
sovereign God. He declared this from the very
beginning. He declared unto the Pharisees and the Sadducees,
I and my Father are one, and that's why they hated him and
picked up stones to stone him, because he declared himself to
be who he was, God Almighty. The scriptures declare, unto
us a child is born, and unto us a son is given, and the government
shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful
Counselor, the Mighty God. The Mighty God. the everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace. John declared, in the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God.
The same was in the beginning with God, and all things were
made by him, and without him was not anything made that was
made. We just went through chapter
one of Colossians. Chapter one of Colossians declares Christ,
who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature,
for by him were all things created that are in heaven and in earth,
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions,
principalities or powers, all things were created by him and
for him, and he's before all things, and by him all things
consist. That's whose hands my times are
in. Christ, who is sovereign, who
created all things, who rules all things. Everything that happens
through the course of time, he is determined and he causes to
come to pass. He is sovereign. He sits on the
throne of heaven, ruling and reigning. He does whatever he
pleases. He is all wise, almighty, all
knowing, the only God. He said, I am the Lord and there
is none else. There is no other God. And that's
particularly important, especially when you consider the times in
which the Old Testament was written. They had a God for everything.
A God for the sun, a God for the moon, a God for the stars.
Every plague that was brought upon Egypt was a representation
of their gods. They worshiped cows, they worshiped
frogs. I mean, everything, everything
was a God. And in fact, so many times the
religions would go and conquer a city and they find out that
they had a God they didn't know anything about, so they brought
their God back to their city so they can go ahead and worship
them. So when the Lord declares, I
am the Lord and there is none else, there is a very particular
significance to that statement because in reality, Christianity
was the first religion that worshiped one true God. Man was so concerned
about going out and finding as many gods as he could to add
to his collection to make sure he probably didn't miss anything.
I don't know, we're just depraved, we're just corrupt. We'll worship
and serve the creature more than we will the creator, but the
Lord declares, I am God and there is none else. He is God, God
alone, the creator of all things, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ,
and that's whose hands my times are in. and I am the object of his love.
The scriptures declare that we are precious in his sight, and
thank God for that. How and why, I know how, I don't
fully know why, but we are precious in his sight,
and he loves us, and we're in his hands. Reading Isaiah, thou
Israel are my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed
of Abraham, my friend. Thou whom I have taken from the
ends of the earth and called thee from the chief men thereof
and sent unto thee, thou art my servant. I have chosen thee
and will not cast thee away. Fear not, why? For I am with
thee. And be not dismayed, for I am
thy God. I will strengthen thee, yea,
I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand
of my righteousness. That's Christ, the right hand
of my righteousness. That's how we're upheld. He said
in Isaiah chapter 41, when the poor and needy seek water and
there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I, the Lord,
will hear them. I, the God of Israel, will not
forsake them. You know what I'll do? I'm gonna
open up rivers in high places. Are they thirsty? Then I'm gonna
cause water to come out of a rock. I'm gonna open up rivers and
high places and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will
make the wilderness a pool of water and the dry land springs
of water. I will plant in the wilderness,
the cedar, the shita tree, the myrtle, the oil tree. And I'll
set in the desert, the fir tree, an area where trees don't grow
and trees don't prosper. I'm gonna plant some trees there.
And I'm gonna open up the rivers and I'm gonna open up the valleys.
I'm gonna do all of that. that they may see and know and
consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord has
done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it. The Lord,
when the children of Israel, from the very beginning, He worked
in such miraculous manners and displayed unto them His greatness
and His power, how? By His wonderful works. He caused
a sea to be divided. But then He caused the enemies
of the children of Israel to cross and He destroyed them all.
There was a cloud that followed them by day, a pillar of fire
by night. He literally would wipe out their
enemies before them without them having to do anything. I believe
it was Moses that raised the banner. The Lord said, as long
as Moses is raising that banner, you're going to prosper. He caused
the sun to be blocked. He did so many things in the
Old Testament, how showing to his people exactly what he said,
the hand of the Lord has done this. He left them with no other
explanation, no other means of deduction, but that God did this. And left them to where they had
no other place to go in that conclusion. The hand of the Lord
has done this. And we still see it today. Not
like they did in those days. In those days, it was there for
a reason and for a purpose. But we open up the word of God,
and do we not see the hand of God, the hand of Christ, doing
these things? And do we not, by God-given faith,
believe this to be true? You read the book of Noah, the
Lord told Noah to go build an ark. Do you know that throughout
history, there are about five other accounts of that exact
same thing happening in other parts of the world or written
through different societies and cultures? How do I know that
this one is true? And not something that's written
on some clay tablet in a museum. God gives us faith to believe
and know who He is, to know the truth, because this world is
filled with many, many lies, many lies. It is what we speak. From the time we can begin speaking,
we do nothing but speak lies. My times are in the hands of
Christ, my Savior. And I would like for us to consider
this in the light of God's word and in the relationship of Christ
with and to his people as their shepherd. Christ is declared
to be and described as a good shepherd, the great shepherd,
and we are declared to be and described as his sheep. And in
the covenant of salvation between God the Father and God the Son,
God chose us in Christ and gave us for his Son to save, to protect,
to preserve. In the eternal covenant, or the
covenant of God's salvation is an eternal covenant. Christ is
a lamb slain before the foundation of the world, but throughout
time, we do see that covenant displayed and set forth. Christ,
the Son of God, descended from the throne of heaven and was
made as man, and in being made as man, he was born into this
world, and he lived. He lived, and he died, and he
rose again. And the work of Christ our Savior
was accomplished and finished on this earth in time when he
died on the cross of Calvary for his people. On the cross
there that he cried out, it is finished. This is the will and
the work that the Lord Jesus Christ came down to this earth
to do. He plainly declared, I came to do the will of my father.
I came to do the work of my father. And this is what that will is.
This is what that work is. And in John 17, as he prayed
unto the father in the high priestly prayer, he declared, I have finished
the work which thou has given me to do. It is done. It is accomplished. It is finished. We read and we
know that he did always those things which pleased the Father.
That work of salvation which was based upon the covenant that
was made before the foundation of the world is complete. So
Christ is my Savior, Christ is my surety. And he said in John
chapter 10, he said, my sheep, My sheep hear my voice, and I
know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of what? My hand. My Savior, my surety,
has his sheep which are graven in the palm of his hand, and
he keeps them in the palm of his hand, and he declares, no
man, no thing, no nothing is ever going to pluck them out
of my hand. And he said, my father which
gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck
them out of his hands. I and my father are one. We are
safe and secure in the hands of Christ our Savior. They are
the hands which bear the marks of the nails by which he was
hung on the cross. It is those marks that testify
of his love for us and the work he accomplished on the cross.
These are the hands, like I said, that he presented to Thomas.
In, by, and through Christ, I am righteous, predestinated to be
conformed to the image of God's Son. I am sanctified, set apart
as an object of God's love, mercy, and grace. And by His blood,
I've been redeemed, and my sins have been washed away. And in
Christ, I'm glorified and justified, and we find great truth or great
comfort in the truth that my times, our times, are in those
hands. the hands of my Savior, the hands
of the one who loved me so much, so much that he went to the cross
and bore my sins in his own body, my sins that I committed and
suffered and died under the penalty of God's justice and wrath. Those
hands, those hands, which were nailed to the cross
to Calvary are going to speak to the Father for all eternity. and my times right now are in
those hands. And that represents, like I said,
power, and that right there, when I consider it as Christ,
my surety, my savior, that represents love. If you wanna know what
love truly is, then you look to the cross, because there is
no greater example of love than that. And the word of God declares
that very plainly, I believe in 1 John, very plainly. If you want to know what love
is, look to Christ as he hung and died on that cross. My times are in the hands of
Christ who protects, preserves, and provides, and I'll just be
a couple more minutes. My times are in his hands, and we have
seen that Christ is sovereign in creation, that he has all
power, he is the savior of his people. We read through the word
of God, and we see what Christ is to his people. He truly is
their all. Christ is my all. There is nothing
else. It is him. And when I say my
times are in His hands, what I'm saying is that my times are
nowhere else. There's not a backup plan, there's
not a safety net, there's not some contingency, no. My times are in His hands, and
that's the only place that they are, and that's the only place
that I want them to be, because He is my all. His hands are what
are most precious. He guides us and directs us,
He protects us, provides all things for us, does all things
for us. He loves us with an everlasting
love. His promise, He will always be with us, will never leave
us, never forsake us. He does all things and causes
all things to come to pass for our good. He is our rock, He
is our fortress, He is our high tower. It's under His wings that
we find comfort. It is on His breast that John
laid. He is the great shepherd who
comforts us with his rod and his staff. He is my brother,
he is my friend. He found us when we were lost
and placed us on his shoulders and carried us to the fold. And
then with the rest of them that were in that fold rejoiced over
us. He keeps us, causes us to lay
down in green pastures and besides still waters. And when we go
astray, he brings us back. He protects us from the lion
and from the bear, like David talked about, being the shepherd.
When the lion came and the bear came, I killed them. Why? Because they're not gonna hurt
my sheep. They're in my hand. We are His precious bride found
in the open field, dying and polluted in our own blood, and
He washed us, made us clean, decked us, clothed us, and made
us beautiful through His comeliness. And when we're afraid, when we're
filled with fear and doubt, He speaks comfortably to us. We
find in Him are all, all our comfort, all our peace, all our
safety and security, all our strength, all our hope. My times
are in His hand. Paul said, unto him that is able,
to do what? To do exceedingly, abundantly,
above all that we ask or think. That's whose hands my times are
in. Him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, all that we ask or
think. According to the power that worketh
in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout
all ages. Now unto him that is able, He's
able. The Lord asked those two blind
men, he said, do you believe I'm able to do this? Yes. The leper said, Lord, I know
you're able, are you willing? He's able to do what? To keep
you from falling. And to present you, to present
you, a filthy, vile, depraved, corrupt, undeserving sinner. to present you faultless before
the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To the only wise
God, our Savior, glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now
and forevermore. And that's gonna be our song
for eternity. We sing it now by the grace of God, but that's
gonna be our song for all eternity. Unto Him who is worthy to be
praised. My times are in His hands and
there's no other place I'd rather be than in the hands of God,
in the hands of Christ my Savior. My times of peace and prosperity,
of happiness are in His hands. My times of trouble and sorrow
and pain, affliction, sickness, temptation are in His hands.
My times, all of my times are in His hand. And it is in this
blessed truth that I rest and that I trust. Paul wrote, with
confidence, that he, Christ, which has begun a good work in
you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. He which
has begun a good work in you, he will finish it. He said, fear
not, do not be afraid, do not let your heart be troubled. You
believe in me, do we believe? I guess that's the question,
isn't it? I guess that's the question right
there. I'm just going to end at that. Do you believe? Do you believe? I say with all humbleness and thankfulness, and I do believe in my heart
that Christ has been preached to me. I believe that in my heart. I
believe in my heart that we've been gathered here together in
the name of Christ. I believe in my heart, because
he promised that where two or three are gathered together in
his name, he's there in the midst. And I know, I know, the only
hope a sinner has of salvation is by exactly what we're doing
right now. I don't know whose heart has
been prepared to receive the word tonight. Maybe that heart is prepared
tonight. Maybe, maybe, that the Lord's
just beginning to work. There's a lot that goes into
preparation of the heart. It's like planting a garden,
all right? In many ways, that's the example the Lord gives us.
You go out into the field and you prepare the ground to receive
the seed. Maybe tonight that's what's happening. You know, many nights there are
men that stand up here and they open up God's Word and they pray.
You know what each and every one of them pray for? I hear
it all the time. I've heard Todd say it, I've heard Jason say
it, I've heard Tommy say it, I've heard Sammy say it. Their exact words. Let's not,
Lord, be with my children. Let's, Lord, be with our children. Our children. And it may be that this very
night, the word of God goes out in power, and that's how the work of salvation
begins. And maybe, I pray so. And it may be that there's someone
here who knows the Lord and just needs to know Him a little
bit more. Just needs to know a little bit
more. But that's the question. The question is, do you believe
salvation is by grace through faith? God give us faith. God give us faith. Let's pray.