So beginning there in verse 8
verse 8 seems very similar to verse 7 But there are some differences
and there's some teaching that we need to see here He says in
a little wrath. I hid my face from thee for a
moment. It's hard to think of God's wrath
as little How can there be a little wrath? There's either wrath that
there's not wrath. It seems like We'll talk about
that. But with everlasting kindness
while I have mercy on you. I saith the Lord thy Redeemer."
Now, the words little and everlasting
are key words here. The wrath is temporary, it's
for a little time, whatever that is, and then His kindness and
mercy are everlasting. And there's a lot of speculation
as to what this little wrath is. In verse 7, the Lord said,
for a small moment have I forsaken you. He's talking about the period
of time. That's the littleness of it. And also, it's not the
full-on wrath of God. The word is anger. You remember
the Lord was angry with Moses when the Lord was speaking to
him from the burning bush, and Moses kept making excuses. He was right about it. He said
I don't I can't even talk or why would you send me to talk
to your people? I can't even talk and kept making excuses
and it says the Lord was wroth with him He said I'll be with
you And so the Lord does get angry
with his people at times in a sense and Now, again, it's speculated
as to what this refers to. Some say it's the Babylonian
captivity, where the people of Israel were in bondage for 70
years. But really, this chapter seems
to refer mainly to the Gentiles. And so I don't think that's right.
Some say he's going here. He could be going all the way
back to Egypt for a little moment. Ah, for Succu. They were in the
Egyptian bondage for, what, 400 years? That's just a moment to
God. What's 400 years in the light
of eternity? What's 70 years in the light
of eternity? Some say it's speaking prophetically of the times during
which the early church suffered great persecution. Paul, Saul
of Tarsus was part of that. And then after a time they enjoyed
peace. But this could well refer to
the Gentiles as a whole. Not just any particular time
in history, but the Gentiles as a whole from whom God hid
himself completely for a time, for a great time. In years, and
from our perspective, but to God again, it's just a little
wrath. But now he's revealed himself
in mercy by the gospel of his dear son to the Gentiles as we've
seen various places in the scripture. The barren, verse 1, are said
to be the Gentiles, and I'm pretty sure that's right, and so this
is most likely, I think, that that's part of this. Our first
lesson, though, from this scripture and that is one regarding the
study of scripture. And this is important. Now, if
you were looking at this verse and studying through the Bible
and you come to this, as I did in preparing this message, don't
waste time trying to figure out what specific time in the history
of the nation of Israel our Lord's referring to. If He don't tell
you, you're not going to know. The only thing we know is what
he tells us, right? He don't tell us. So people disagree
about it. And one man's opinion is as good
as another. Don't worry about that. You're
never going to know for sure. And the simple reason you're
not is because he didn't tell you. We only know what he tells
us. And this is important to understand
when you're studying scripture, anywhere in the word of God.
Think about this. If we knew exactly to what the Lord is referring
there, for a little moment I hid my face from you, if we knew
he was talking either to the Jews or the Gentiles or to everybody
or whatever, and we knew exactly what he was talking to, the lesson
here for us would be exactly the same as it is with us not
knowing. Wouldn't it? We would consider that specific
case where the Lord hid his face from the Jews or the Gentiles
and we would apply that as we do now, anyway, without knowing,
to our own lives and experience. If it doesn't apply to me, then
what's it for? And we can do that without knowing
the specifics of it, can't we? Here's what we know. The Lord's
not ambiguous. He doesn't tell us because it
doesn't matter. That's why he didn't say, because
it doesn't matter. What we're learning here is that
the Lord does at times deal with us in a little wrath. He does
deal. There's God's wrath that he poured
out on Calvary. And really, you think about it,
even those in hell are gonna just suffer a little wrath compared
to that. They're never gonna extinguish
the wrath of God in hell. Only the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything's
little wrath, but Calvary and what Christ suffered for his
people, in comparison it is. Now why is it little wrath? Why is it? Why don't we suffer
the wrath of God? Because of the word at the end
of the verse, redeemer. That's why. The one that's saying
this to us has redeemed us by his precious blood, by suffering
the wrath of God in our place. And so we're not going to. And
really, most likely, it's only called wrath in the sense of
how we perceive it. This little wrath, Look what
it amounts to. Here's what it is. He hides His
face from us. You see that there? He just hides
His face. He hides His face from us. And
this is not abandonment, of course. He said He'll never leave us
nor forsake us. And I believe that's true. Before
we ever knew Him, did He ever leave us? Did He ever forsake
us before we even knew who He was? It doesn't even say here
that He takes His eye off of us. It just says we can't see
His face. He sees ours. He sees every hair
on our head. But we're hidden from Him. Or
He's hidden from us. You see, that's why I feel like,
because it's talking about our perspective. He's hidden from
us. It has to do with what we see.
And I believe that's why it's called wrath. God's wrath. It's something else. It's not
this. Just a brief, for a little moment,
hiding of his face. In all of Job's misery and suffering
and loss, the thing in his language that seems to terrify him the
most is when he cries out to God, why have you turned your
face from me? Boy, this tells you something
of his altogether loveliness, doesn't it? He is so beautiful
and essential to us that it seems to be wrath when only we're unable
to see his face for just a little while. And really, this is not necessarily,
again, talking about a period of time followed by another period
of time. This, I believe, is referring
also to the temporal versus the spiritual. In the temporal sense,
in time, in our experience on this earth, there is a small
forsaking. There is a sense of not being able to see him. We
long to, we hear the gospel and we do in a sense, but we see
through a glass darkly. His face is to some degree always
hidden from us. In this temporal life, is it
not? Paul called it the body of this
death. Would that apply to our text?
But in spiritual terms, we are kept, upheld, comforted, provided
for, all things are ruled for our good. In the eternal sense,
there's not even a little wrath. You see, all of it was born by
our Redeemer, and God's great mercies are upon us. Forever, usually that word forever
in the scripture, When we talk about I'll love you forever,
we mean from now on. That word forever usually, and
you can look it up in the original, not hard to do anymore, it typically
means without beginning or end. So it's not necessarily talking
about there's a period of time when we're forsaken and then
we're not. If we've been in Christ from the foundation of the world,
when did God forsake us? Is there ever a moment that His
mercies are not ours? We haven't experienced them always.
We haven't always been reconciled to God, but He's always been
reconciled to us by the blood of His Son. It's only our sense of things
in this flesh, I believe, that He's referring to here. And in every believer's experience,
there's that small hiding of God's face before we ever see
His face in our experience. We are by nature the children
of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in what? The word in our text, mercy. The best exposition of our verse
eight here, think about this as an exposition of the verse
we just read in Isaiah 54. Let me read it to you Ephesians
2 and you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins
wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this
world according to the prince of the power of the air the spirit
that now worketh in the children of disobedience Among whom we
all had our conversation our conduct in times past in the
lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
and of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath. God's
wrath as far as we knew was upon us. Given as others. But God who
is rich in mercy. Could that not be an exposition
of our text right there? In a little wrath I hid myself
from you for a while. But now my mercies are everlasting. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together, hath given us life
in Christ, with Christ. By grace are you saved. So little
and everlasting. In all those ways, I believe,
we've experienced these as believers. Whatever we experience that may
seem like God forsaking us or may seem like a little rat, It's
confined not only to time, but to a small amount of time. His
kindness and mercy as Redeemer is forever. And this speaks too
now of the completeness of the satisfaction made by His precious
blood. Don't ever see the word Redeemer
in the scriptures without thinking of blood. For you know that you
weren't redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver and gold
from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your
fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot. Verse nine in our text, for this,
now he's been talking about from our point of view now, so far,
right? In verse eight he said, I hid
my face from you. In other words, we can't see
his face. That's our experiences, and that's
troubling. That can be most troubling. But look, now we see it from
God's perspective. What's going on from God's point
of view? For this is as the waters of Noah unto me. For as I have
sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth,
so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, neither
nor rebuke thee. Whatever our perception is, whether
we We're able to see God's face at any particular time or not,
any particular time in our lives, any particular moment as believers. We may fear that. David cries concerning that.
He said, have you forgotten to have mercy, Lord? In the Psalms. But I like to see things from
God's point of view. He sees us in Christ. This is
like the waters of Noah to me. He never sees us anywhere but
in the ark. We may feel that it's wrath. We may say this is called, you
know, this is wrath. We may use that word. We may
use the word forsaken. But in the waters of Noah, not
one drop of wrath fell on those who found grace in the eyes of
the Lord. Not one drop. That's how God sees it. I like
the way He sees better than the way I see. We may feel despondent, we may
for 40 days and 40... Don't you imagine it was somewhat
discouraging in the ark? You think Noah was, you know,
they were having a square dance in the ark? I don't think it
was probably a very pleasant place to be as for the flesh.
You reckon? The wrath of God, you could hear
constantly the wrath of God beating on that ark. So if you looked
at it from the point of view of the flesh, you might get discouraged. You might get impatient. You
might get despondent. But they were in the ark. The
ark is salvation. The ark is Christ. When you see
with eyes of faith, when you see with spiritual eyes, what's
the alternative? To whom should we go? We have
life right here. inside Christ. And Noah found
grace in the eyes, whose eyes? Noah might have wondered at times,
boy is this ever going to end? Are we going to survive this?
Is God going to wipe everybody out, us included? Forty days
and forty nights, it would probably take about four for me to start
thinking that way. But what was God seeing? Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. That's what was in God's eyes.
Grace. There was never anything but
grace for Noah in the eyes of God. Whatever Noah's sense of
things was. You know, maybe when Noah was
preaching and everybody was mocking him, He was saying it was going to
rain. They said, what's that? Well, the waters, the heavens
are going to be open and the waters, the earth is going to
be flooded with water. What? It never had rained, I'm
pretty sure. Not only is it going to, it's
going to rain a lot. And you're all going to die.
And they laughed at him. Maybe he felt the Lord was not
blessing his ministry then. As Isaiah must have felt when
he wrote, who hath believed our report? To whom is the arm of
the Lord revealed? But it was all in God's purpose,
according to the will of God. To save much life. And again, we have the promise.
When God's wrath was poured out on that ark, you know what he
said? No more wrath. No more wrath. And that's Christ. If Christ has borne the wrath
of God due unto your sin on Calvary, having borne your sins in His
own body on that tree, and bore the wrath of God, it's not going
to rain anymore. This is Christ and the fact that
God poured out His wrath upon His darling Son in the place
of sinners. And there is therefore now no
condemnation to those in the ark. God said, I'll never destroy
the earth with a flood again. He poured out His wrath on the
ark and those who were in the ark found grace in His eyes and
they were saved. And it's not going to rain anymore.
God's satisfied. Now you say, well Chris, it still
rains every once in a while. Not like that, it don't. You
know what rain is now? It's life. It's life. Because it rains now,
it waters the little flowers, it waters the vegetables, it
waters the animals, it waters us. No wrath, no condemnation to
them which are in Christ Jesus. Justice is satisfied by Christ
for us And believe me this is as the waters of Noah to me Verse 10 for the mountains shall
depart and the hills be removed But my kindness shall not depart
from thee Neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed saith
the Lord that hath mercy on you Now this sheds a lot of light
on what we've already seen tonight, even as the mountains are being
removed. What does it say? In the hills, let's see, the
mountains shall depart and the hills be removed. Would that
scare you maybe? Some people get scared when it
thunders. I can't say thunder has never scared me. It's been
so loud at times and so close, it seems so close. What if God
destroyed the hills and the mountains, the most stable thing on this
earth? Just wiped them out. I guarantee
you everybody would be crawling and crying for mommy. That would not be pleasant. He's
still talking about our perception there. That's
what it seems like sometimes, that the whole world is coming
to an end, you know. The sky's falling or whatever.
Terror. What we see and what we hear
terrorizes us. But even in the experience of
that, which is frightening and seemingly, from our point of
view, catastrophic. His kindness has never departed
from us. It may seem like it to us, but
it's never so. And notice the word covenant
there. It's a covenant. It's the covenant God that we're held by and protected by, kept
by. God would have to break his covenant
with us for us to perish. Think about that. when you're
afraid. That can never be. Christ is
the messenger of the covenant. And he is the very truth of God.
His is the blood of the everlasting covenant. He said this cup is
the new covenant in my blood. Drink all of it. And as long
as the righteousness of Christ is sufficient and the blood of
Christ is precious enough Then for that long, I'm safe and have nothing to fear. Verse 11, O thou afflicted, tossed
with tempest and not comforted. You see what the removing of
the mountains and the hill. He's talking about just catastrophe, disaster, terrifying. Toss with tempest and not comfrey. Behold, I will lay thy stones
with fair colors and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And
I will make thy windows of agates and thy gates of carbuncles and
all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all your children shall be
taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of thy children. Whether Jew or Gentile, he's
talking to his people. Both, I imagine. In the afflictions and terrors
of this world and of the flesh and our perception of things, here are the words that calm
the spiritual storm in the heart of the believer like no other. I will. You see that all through there?
I will lay your foundation, your stones, your foundation. I will make the windows. I'll make your gates and all
your borders and all your children. It doesn't say I will again there,
but that's clearly implied. I will teach them. Isn't that
comforting? I'm going to teach them. And
I'm going to give them great peace. I will. Whatever else is true,
God's thoughts toward us are thoughts of peace and not evil.
That's Jeremiah 29 11. You remember he said, I know
my thoughts toward you. You may not, but here I'm telling
you what they are. Aren't you glad? They're thoughts
of peace and not evil. And remember what else it says
in that verse Jeremiah 29 11 if you want to look at it later.
To bring to pass a desired end for you. A desired end. Exactly. Now we may not have sense enough
to desire the means to that end. But by His grace, He's shown
us that whatever storms or fears or worries or troubles, whatever
it is, if we're going to end up with Him, what difference
does it make? What can move us? The desired
end is Him. The desired goal. Christ is the
goal of the law. God gave his law to bring you
to that desired end. Righteousness in Christ. The children spoken of here,
of course, are his spiritual children. He's talking to his
church. All of your children are going
to be taught of God. He's not talking about flesh, children of the flesh,
earthly children. I don't believe that God promises
that He will save all of our offspring in a physical sense.
He does not make that promise in the scriptures. These children
spoken of here are those among us who are born of the Spirit.
They've been His children always and then He births them of the
Spirit of God. Not the flesh. But what is especially
comforting about this, though you might well desire that God
would have promised to save all of our earthly children. But what's beautiful and comforting
about this is that whoever is saved, whoever is the children
of God, are so because He says so. He makes them so. He teaches them. He gives them
peace, great peace. And He doeth all things well. I'm glad that my children are
in His hand. That they hang upon His mercy.
I know that if He will, He can. And boy, you talk about, I started
to say that's enough. That's more than just enough.
That's everything. That's everything. Verse 14, in righteousness shalt
thou be established. Thou shalt be far from oppression,
for you're not going to fear. You fear for a little while. I hid from you for a while, there
was grief, there was abandonment, there was... The law is nothing
but terror and grief under the bondage of the law
because of us, not because there's anything wrong with the law,
because there's something wrong with us. But you're not going to fear,
and from terror, it's not going to come anywhere near you. Now this first phrase In righteousness
shalt thou be established just simply means that the way God
does things is that all of the mercy and peace that he's promised
in these verses concerning us is established in righteousness.
It's going to be done because it's right to do it. That's the
only way God can do anything. It's right to do it. And it's right for him to be
kind and merciful and teach us and give us great peace Because
of our Savior. Because of His love, because
of His blood. Always remember that God always
does what's right. He can only do what's right.
But it's right for Him to bless me because my Savior lived for
me and died for me. Verse 15, Behold, and for the same reason now,
No harm can ever come to us for the same reason We're not not
only we're not gonna be afraid why aren't you gonna be afraid
cuz there's nothing to be afraid of Look at this verse 15 behold.
They shall surely gather together There are enemies there are those
that hate God in you And he said you'll be hated of all men for
my namesake That's why they hate you if you were of this world.
They'd love you Because you're not of this world. But I have
chosen you out of the world. Therefore, they'll hate you too.
They're going to gather together. They fight, don't they? Boy,
they hate. You talk about hate for God in
this world. I know I say this a lot, but
it's gotten so bad, y'all, that people don't even let God determine
what they are anymore. Boy or girl, they won't even
let God decide that anymore. We're going to decide that. You
talk about I don't know how you could spit any more in God's
face than what people do now, than this world does now. They're going to gather together,
but not by me. Whosoever shall gather together
against you shall fall for your sake. I'm going to do it for
you. I'm going to bring them down
for you. I'll give men for thee, and people for thy life. Behold, I have created, and listen
to this, is this not comforting? The Lord's commanded me to comfort
you. And boy, there's not but one
way to do that, and that's in Christ. Behold, I have created
the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire. and that bringeth
forth an instrument for his work, and I have created the waster
to destroy." Now you think about that. That's three levels. Not only is the one that hates
you and would do you any harm in his hand, But the fire in which the instrument
that he's going to do you harm with, and this is a picture now,
this is spiritual principalities and powers and wickedness in
high places that we do battle with, not armies carrying physical
weapons. But this is the picture, the
weapon that he would harm you with, God forged it. And he made
the one that forged it. And here's what he's got to say
about all that. No weapon that is formed against thee will ever
do what it was formed to do. That's what that word prosper
signifies right there. It'll never get it done. And
every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou
shalt condemn. Now we're getting into the spiritual. This is the heritage of the servants
of the Lord. And their righteousness is of
me. The only way that you can't be
condemned is if you're righteous. Right? He just said nobody will
be able to condemn you. When they try to judge you, when
they try to condemn you, you're going to condemn them. And the
only way that can be true, the only way we can not be condemned
is if we're righteous. And the only way we can be righteous
is by Him. You see that? Your righteousness
is of me, saith the Lord. There are always going to be
enemies. There are always going to be those who hate our God, our
Redeemer. But they can do nothing against
Him or us. Don't be discouraged. Thanks
be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren,
be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord, forasmuch as you know that your labor is not in vain. And
the Lord, what a comfort. He says, I made the weapons. I made the one that wield them.
I made the ones that made them. And I'm telling you, you've got
nothing to worry about. If anybody else said it, I'd
say, well, you know, it's nice to have, you know, thanks for
the vote of confidence, but I'm not sure you know how this is
all going to end up. He does. He's the one that made everybody
and everything. And not only made everybody and
everything but runs them. Runs them. And he says, quit
being afraid. You know people sit around and
they try to figure out complicated stuff. You know I read something
Somebody wrote the other day and I just had to say what difference
does it make? Somebody arguing about some point
of doctrine or other about whether God makes us sin or allows us
to sin or What different if God didn't reveal it what difference
does it make I You've read some of this book, if not all of it.
Is that the point of this book? To try to figure out whether
God causes us to sin, or allows us to sin, or some combination
thereof? Is that the point of this? The Gospel is not complicated. We deserve by nature the wrath
of God. But it's not going to come near
us. It's as the waters of Noah. God put us in the ark. We found
grace in his eyes. We looked at him with fear and
trembling and rightly so. But he looked at us with grace
and he put us in his son and he poured out his wrath on his
son and now nothing can hurt us. And you know what he said?
Don't be afraid. Is that hard to understand? He said, comfort my people. Is
it gonna comfort you if we try to figure out whether we're superlapsarians
or infralapsarians? Is that gonna comfort anybody
tonight? Do you even know what it means? If not, good. Every tongue that shall rise
against you in judgment thou shalt condemn. On what basis? Are we going to say, well, you're
right, I'm guilty, but I didn't know any better. Or, you know,
yes, sure, yeah, you're right, I confess, but I'm not any worse
than anybody else. My good outweighs my bad, I've
heard that one a lot. On what basis can we condemn
those who condemn us? On this one. Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justified this
wretch. Who is he that condemneth? You
know how I'm going to condemn you for condemning me? Just like
this. It's Christ that died for me.
You lose. Oh, yea, rather that he's risen
again, who is even at the right hand of God, through this very
night intercedes for me. Let's pray. Thank you again, gracious Father,
for your precious gospel. Oh, Lord, we have no other refuge,
and may we never seek any other refuge. at the Ark of God, the
Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for him who bore our
sins and bore the wrath of God against our sin. Thank you for
that precious blood that was shed. And thank you, Lord, for presenting us faultless in
your very presence with exceeding joy. Thank you for washing us from
our sins in the blood of your son. May we go from here rejoicing
in him. Lord, may our hearts be light
and encouraged and strong, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. Who for the joy that was set
before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat
down on the right hand of God. May we never take our eyes off
of Him. In His precious name we ask.
Amen. Amen. You're dismissed. It's good to see Brother Drew
tonight.