In verse 7, the Lord says, Harken
unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is
my law. Fear ye not the reproach of men,
neither be ye afraid of their revilings. Now this is the word
of the Lord to his elect, to his regenerated people, And it's
at the very time that they were captive in Babylon. Now that's
important to know. This was the word the Lord sent
to them when they were captive in Babylon. This is the Lord's
word to them when they were bound by a people that did not know
God. They're in captivity, bound. wanting to be loose, they're
bound by people that do not know God. This is the Lord's word
to them when they're in the pit that these people dug and threw
them into. They're in a pit, a literal earthly
pit. This is the word of the Lord
to them when they don't have bread. There is a scarcity of
bread for them. We see their fear and their anxiety
down in verse 14. It says, the captive exile. That's who they were. They were
captured by the Babylonians and taken into exile into a foreign
country. The captive exile hasteneth. They were fearful, they're anxious.
The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed and that he
should not die in the pit nor that his bread should fail. Now,
it seems like they had a good reason to fear, doesn't it? It
seemed like they had a good reason to fear the reproach of man and
man's revilings, but it wasn't so. This is what the Lord says
in verse 7. Hearken unto me, ye that know
righteousness, ye that know Christ our righteousness, the people
in whose heart is my law, the people in whose who God's created
a new heart and that's written the everlasting covenant of grace
on your heart. That covenant is ordered in all
things insure. He said, fear ye not the reproach
of men, neither be afraid of their revilings, for the moth
shall eat them up like a garment and the worm shall eat them like
wool, but my righteousness shall be forever, and my salvation
from generation to generation. Look down at verse 12. I, even
I am he that comforteth you. Who art thou, that thou shouldest
be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the Son of man which
shall be made as grass, and forgettest the Lord thy maker? that thou
hast stretched forth the heavens and laid the foundations of the
earth, and hast feared continually every day because of the fury
of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy, or as if he
made himself ready to destroy? And where is the fury of the
oppressor? He said, here you are, captive,
and you're hastening, you're anxious, you're fearful. Verse
15, but I am the Lord, You see, I am the Lord thy God, that divided
the sea, whose waves roared. The Lord of hosts is his name,
and I have put my words in thy mouth. And I have covered thee
in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens and lay
the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, thou art my
people. You see, the Lord's saying to them, you don't have any reason
to fear. Now, it's important to know this
was the Lord's word to them when they were captive, when they
were in the pit in Babylon, when they have a scarcity of bread. It's important to know this is
what the Lord said to them. Fear not. Don't fear the reproach
of man. Don't fear his reviling. It's
important to know that because if that was the Lord's word to
them when they were in that condition, Me and you can be sure, that's
the Lord's Word to us, whatever it is we suffer. We haven't suffered
anything like that. And if that was His Word to them,
that's His Word to us right now. Fear not reproach. That's our
subject. Our Lord Jesus was reproached
by men. He was reviled by men. And He
told us, we will too. You don't want to bring reproach
on the gospel or on the Lord, but you're going to be reproached
by men. You're going to be reviled by
men. You just mark it down because our Savior was. And He said,
we're not above Him. We will too. But He tells us,
fear not the reproach of men. He said in Proverbs 29, 25, the
fear of man bringeth a snare. The fear of man brings a snare,
but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe. Now I
want to show you three things. I want to show you who we forget
when we're fearful of man. Number two, I want to show you
who comforts us. And number three, I want to show
you the result. Now this is the third time that our Lord said,
hearken unto me. We've seen the first two. This
is the third one here in this chapter. He says, hearken unto
me. Now, when we're reproached and we're reviled by men, the
Lord tells us, listen to me, not to them. That's what He's
saying. Hear the Lord and shut out the
voice of reproach, shut out the voice of the reviled, hear the
Lord. Now, when we're in the darkness, and this is that darkness
He was talking about in Isaiah 50, when we're in darkness, it's
only the Lord speaking that's going to give us light. And when
He speaks, this is what He's gonna say, listen to me, listen
to me. Don't listen to the reproach,
don't listen to the voices of men, listen to me. I pray the Lord to speak to us
right now and make us hear Him. All right, first of all, the
fear of man. The fear of the man's reproach
and his reviling makes us forget who we are. Makes us forget who
we are. Makes us forget who made us to
be who we are. Look in verse 12. Who art thou
that thou shouldest be afraid of a man? That's what the Lord
asked him. Who are you? You've forgotten who you are.
The fear of man makes us forget who we are. So the Lord's gonna
renew us to know who we are, more particularly, who made us
so, and more particularly, whose we are. That's what he's gonna
remind you of, whose we are. Back in verse seven, our Lord
begins by speaking into our hearts. Verse seven, he says, are good
to me, ye that know righteousness. That's who you are, you're those
that know Christ Jesus, the righteousness of his people. And he said, the
people in whose heart is my law, That's who you are, the people
in whom God's written the everlasting covenant of grace. Now how do
God's saints, how do you know Christ Jesus the righteous? How
do you know him? How do you have his law written
in your heart? Verse 16, he said, I have put
my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of
my hand. Now, it'll help us to remember this. When we're reviled
by men and we're reproached by men, I tell you, and this goes
for any sin you see in a man or in a brother or sister or
in any man, and especially if you're reproached by a man and
reviled by a man, try to remember this. You were the reviler. You
were the one reproaching God and reviling God. That's what
you were doing. That's who me and you were. We
were that way toward Christ, we were that way toward His people.
Why do men do this? Men hate Christ, our righteousness. That's why men reproach His people
and revile His people. I'm going to tell you something.
Have you, now that the Lord saved you, do you have a heart to reproach
God's people and revile God's people? God's people are not
the one doing the reproaching and the reviling. That's clear
as a bell in Galatians. Those that are born after flesh
persecute them born after spirit. And the reason men reproach and
revile God's people is they hate Christ our righteousness. That's
where we were. That's what we did. We hated
Christ our righteousness. They hate Christ being the only
righteousness of his people apart from our works. That's what the
reproach and reviling, that's where it starts. Man wanting
to take some glory. That's where we were. They hate
to hear that we must be born from above by God. That's the
only way we can know the Lord. We can't do it ourselves. They
hate that we have to be preserved by the Lord. What they hate is
salvation is of the Lord. That's when you hear men reproach
you for believing Christ and trusting Christ, when they start
pointing out your sin and start reviling you and all, yeah, you're
not who you claim to be. Listen, you remember that's exactly
who you were. That's all you were in your flesh.
Well, who made the difference? Who made the difference? That's
how the Lord's going to renew us from being fearful of men.
He's going to renew you and remind you who made the difference between
you and what you used to be. What He is, who He is, and what
He's done for us, that's how He's going to make you know who
you are and whose you are. We belong to our Lord. He had
the power to create a new heart in us. He had the power to come
to you and speak and say, hearken to me. And with that word, he
created life in you. He created a new heart in you
that you didn't have before. And he planted his word in your
heart. Remember back up in verse two,
what did he do with Abraham? He said, I called him along and
blessed him and increased him. And that's what He did for you.
That's the only thing that made you different. And He didn't
use anything of your old nature. He didn't use anything of you.
You didn't assist Him in this work. And I didn't either. The
Lord came and He spoke and in power He put a new spirit in
us. And when he wrote his, when he
put that new heart in us, he wrote his words, his everlasting
covenant grace, his, that new law, the law of the spirit of
life in Christ Jesus, he wrote that in that new heart. It made
you know him. And he said, hearken to me, verse
seven, you people in whose heart is my law, verse 16, I have put
my words in thy mouth. That's why you have this law
in your heart. I put my words in your mouth. Jeremiah 24 7,
he said this, I will give them a heart to know me, that I'm
the Lord. We didn't have that before. We
couldn't make ourselves know the Lord. Men do not go to this
book and study this book and discover who God is. Christ has
got to be revealed. Paul said in Romans 1, I'm not
ashamed of the gospel of Christ for therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from Christ Jesus the faithful into the heart of
faith he's given. He has to do that. We can't do
that. And He came and said, I'll give
them a heart to know Me that I'm the Lord, and they shall
be My people, He said, and I will be their God. For they shall
return unto Me with their whole heart. That's what a holy heart
is. The heart God's given is a whole heart. It's a heart He's
made whole. And you're going to come to Him
one way. You're not coming to Him half-hearted. If a man tries
to come to Him half-hearted, halting between two opinions,
he's not coming to Him at all. We're coming to Him with the
whole heart that He's given and made whole and made you see Him
and know Him. That's how, that's faith. He
said in Jeremiah 32, 39, I'll give them one heart and one way
that they may fear me forever for the good of them and of their
children after them. He's going to keep his fear in
our heart. We'll come into unbelief and we can't see him, we can't
know him, we can't call on him. We're fearing man and what man's
going to do. And it's a strong thing when you start fearing
a man's reproach. And the only one that can save
you out of that is the Lord. And He's going to renew His people
and keep His fear, you fearing Him, rather than men, for your
good and for the good of our spiritual children that He's
going to birth through us. He said, I'll make an everlasting
covenant with them. That's still all he's talking
about in our text. I'll make an everlasting covenant with
them. I will not turn away from them to do them good. Isn't that
good news? You can't do something to make
God turn away from you to do you good. And he said, but I'll
put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me. Left to ourselves. Now you know
this is so and I know this is so. Let's bring this down to
where the rubber meets the road. Left to ourselves, the reproach
of men, the reviling of men has a terrible effect upon us if
God left us to ourselves. It makes a new believer. A man
starts hearing the gospel and he starts believing the gospel,
but his mother and his father don't believe that gospel. Sister
and brother don't believe that gospel. Somebody, friends, family,
people that has influence on him, they don't believe that
gospel. And they begin to reproach him, revile him for believing
that gospel. Unless God intervenes, it will keep him from confessing
Christ. Because he's fearful of men. He's fearful of men. Fearful of losing that favor.
It will make, if God left you and me to yourself, it will make
you, the fear of man will make you shun a fellow brother or
sister. If somebody that has some influence
over you doesn't like them, and you'll lose their favor, it'll
make you shun a brother or sister, unless God intervened, unless
God keep you. If you put in a situation like
these children of Judah were in, right here, in a pit, in
the middle of a foreign country, you just imagine if you was carried
over into the Middle East somewhere and dumped in a pit. like the
hostages are over there now. If the Lord hadn't protected
you and kept you, especially if they come to you and say,
deny the Lord, deny this one you claim to believe, you deny
him in a heartbeat. fearful of man, but our Lord
promises, I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall
not depart from me. That's his problem. That's the
only reason you're not going to depart from him. I'll put
my fear in their hearts. And our God not only had the
power to create a new heart in us, He had the power to put His
fear in our hearts and He has the power to renew that fear
in our hearts and keep that faith in our hearts by continually
reminding us of this everlasting covenant of grace, ordered and
sure in all things because Christ has fulfilled everything He promised
to us. And He shall do what He's promised. He keeps renewing us to remember
our Redeemer Himself. not just His covenant promise
and not just the fact that He had the power to call us and
reveal His gospel to us, He keeps us remembering our Redeemer Himself. We're protected by our God who
had the power to reveal Christ in us. That's who's protecting
us now. The same God that had the power
to reveal Christ our righteousness within us and who has the power
to continue to renew us by his grace. That's who he is. Look
what he says in verse seven. hearken unto me you that know
righteousness. And he speaks here, we're gonna
see in a moment, he's speaking of my righteousness. That's the
righteousness he's talking about. If a man hears that and thinks
that he's talking about your righteousness, something that
man does, he's missed it all together. He's talking about
his righteousness, Christ Jesus. Verse 16, how do you have that
righteousness and know that righteousness? I've covered thee in the shadow
of my hand. that I may plant the heavens and lay the foundations
of the earth and say unto Zion, thou art my people. The only
way God, holy God, the only way he could say to you and me, thou
art my people, the only way he could is if his holy justice
is honored. He couldn't call you his people
unless his justice is honored. God's holy. Men want to exalt
him as being, God is love and he is love. But he's not going
to love in a way that's inconsistent with his holiness. That's his
chief attribute. Whatever he does has got to be
holy. It's got to be righteous. It's got to be just. And you
sinned against him. You broke his law. And he declared
plainly in his law, the soul that sinneth must die. So how
are we going to die and live? Well, God's gonna have to be
just, and the only way he can call you my people is he's gonna
have to kill everybody that, he's gonna put them through the
death penalty, everybody that sinned against him. And the only
way he can be merciful to you is if he does it in a way that's
just. That's the only way he can. How's he gonna do that?
The only way to do it is for God to do it himself. And that's
what he did. In the person of his dear son,
God came forth and God honored his law. God went to the cross
and bore the sin of his people. God satisfied his own justice.
God did it. And so when God comes to be merciful
to his child, he's just to do it because he satisfied and honored
his own law. That's the only way He can call
you, my people. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect, it's God that justifieth. He's the one
that did the justifying. That's God in human flesh, Christ
Jesus the Lord, the Son of God. He's God, one with the Father,
one with the Holy Spirit. It's God that just, it's Christ
that died and risen again and interceding for us at God's right
hand. That's who did the justifying. And this is the covenant I'll
make with him after those days, saith the Lord. He tells us what
the covenant is, he's written on the heart. What is this law
he wrote on the heart? He said, there's sins and iniquities
I will remember no more. And where remission of these
is, there's no more offering for sin. Having therefore bred
the boldness to approach holy, holy, holy God through the blood
of his son, Christ Jesus. That's how we approach. And that's
the covenant he writes on your heart. He comes and makes you
know, I've put your sin away. I've justified you. I've redeemed
you. You're risen with me. And now
you have access through the blood of my son. That's what God reveals
to his people. That's the only way he can call
you my people. Make you know the words fulfilled.
He fulfilled it. Listen to the Lord here in our
text. Why does he declare this to us again and again? Why does
he, why have we become so fearful and so unbelieving? Why does
he keep renewing this in your heart? Look here to Isaiah 51
7. He says, hearken to me, you that
know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law, fear
you not the reproach of men, neither be you afraid of their
revilings, because the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and
the worm shall eat them like wool. But my righteousness shall
be forever, and my salvation from generation to generation.
I'll tell you, when men start to reproach and revile, how could
you possibly be a child of God? I knew they wasn't a child of
God. All these different things men will say to reproach you,
revile you. God says, the man that reproaches
and reviles you, He's going to be eaten up just like a moth
eats a garment. He's a dying man who's dying,
and he'll be eaten up like a moth eats a garment. But he says to
you, my righteousness, the righteousness I've made you, the righteousness
I've made my people, is forever. My salvation is forever. So who
are you going to fear? Who are you going to fear? Who
are you going to bow to and give the glory to? A man that's going
to die and perish? Are you going to fear the Lord
and trust, if He's made me righteous and He's saved me, He can keep
saving me. Men can revile or reproach and
say all manner of evil against you, but they can't take your
spiritual life from you, and they can't take your faith, and
they can't take your righteousness, and they can't take what Christ
is to His people. They can't take Christ from you.
That's all that matters. So who art thou that thou shouldest
be afraid of a man? Who are you that you should be
afraid of a man? Secondly, all the glory for renewing us and
keeping his fear in our heart, all the glory goes to God alone. All of it. Look here in verse
12. I, even I, am he that comforteth you. You see, that's what the
Lord's doing for us here. He's comforting His people. And
this is how He keeps us trusting Him. It's the goodness of God
that leads you to repentance. When you're in this shape right
here, and you're under the reproach of men, and reviling of men,
and you're fearing men, you know what you need? You need to be
granted repentance. It's sort of ironic when men
are reproaching and reviling you and saying, you need to repent.
Yes, you do. You need to repent for listening
to them and trust the Lord. That's exactly right. And that's
what the Lord is saying here. We get overcome in unbelief and
we're giving man the glory that belongs to God when we're fearing
a man. We're giving him the glory that
belongs to God. We're forgetting the God who
made us. And so the Lord can comfort us and renew us, and
he's gonna make us see what we are and who we are. Look what
he says here in verse 12. I, even I am he that comforteth
you. Who art thou that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall
die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass? And forget
us, the Lord thy maker. that has stretched forth the
heavens and laid the foundations of the earth. Here you are anxious
and trying to get out of this pit and trying to save yourself
from being in a famine and all this. Verse 15, but I'm the Lord
thy God. I'm thy God, he said. I'm the
Lord thy God that divided the sea, whose waves roared. The
Lord of hosts is his name. The Lord's comforting us and
making us see how silly it is for you and me to be fearful
of a man. Who art thou that thou shouldst
be afraid of a man that shall die? Think about that. Who are you that you should be
afraid of the Son of Man which shall be made as grass? He's
weak as grass. Why are you afraid of a man?
The Lord comforts us by renewing us to know who He is. You're
forgetting the Lord, your Maker. I made you, He said. He's our
sovereign Creator who stretched forth the heavens. We don't think
He can save us. He stretched forth the heavens.
He said, I'm your sovereign Savior who laid the foundations of the
earth. And you're fearful of a man that's as weak as grass?
He reminds us, I'm the Lord thy God. I've made myself your God. That's all by grace. Well, you
didn't earn that. You think he's gonna take that away from you
once he's made you know I'm your God? No. You're his child and
he's your God. He's not gonna take that away.
And this is the sovereign, omnipotent savior who divided the sea when
the waves roared. He's the Lord of hosts. Everything's
under his sovereign power and under his sovereign dominion.
That's who he is. So our maker, he's able to protect
us and preserve us, especially against a man who's weak as grass. Christ said, don't fear man.
Only thing he can do is take your life, this earthly life. He said, fear him who's able
to destroy your soul in hell. Never forget the Lord's power,
brethren. He's ruling all providence and He said in Romans 8, He's
doing it for our good. Everything. You know why they
were in Babylon in exile and captured in bondage in a pit
with a lack of bread? You know why they were there?
Because they weren't trusting the Lord and that was the best
thing for them to put them there where they didn't have any other
choice but to trust the Lord. That's what he did it for. That's
what he does our trials for is to make it so you don't have
a choice. Faith is not a choice, brethren.
You go back and read what Joshua said, and that's Christ. He's
speaking the word of the Lord he's speaking. He begins that
passage saying, it says, Joshua was speaking, thus saith the
Lord. And he never stopped saying, thus saith the Lord. And it gets
down and Christ says to his people, choose this day whom you will
serve. Here's your choice, the false
gods on that side of the flood or the false gods on this side
of the flood. If you got a choice, it's between false gods He takes
your choices away. Christ said, as for me and my
house, we will serve the Lord. No choice to it. And that's what
the Lord's going to do. He's going to take our choices
away so that faith is believing. Faith is trusting the Lord. You
don't have to make a decision to do it. You can't help but
do it when His power and grace brings you to it. And He's made
His promises to us. He's promised to be our shield.
He's promised to be our defender. He's promised He'll never leave
us. He'll never forsake us. So instead of thinking on the
man who revives, and I know this is tough. I'm telling you, only
the Lord can comfort you and turn you. But instead of thinking
on the man who revives, you think on the Lord and on His goodness
and His grace towards you. When you're in that place, you
start thinking on His goodness and His grace that He's shown
you. And you start thinking on all His promises that He's made
good on. He promised to send His Son from
the garden, and He sent His Son. He promised all through the scriptures
and every lamb that died that He was going to redeem His people
from all our sin. And in the fullness of the time, He sent
forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, and He redeemed
all His people that were under the law. He promised that when
it pleases Him, He's going to come and reveal His Son and His
people. And when it pleased Him, what
did He do for you? He revealed Christ in you. You think on the
promises. He said, I'm going to keep you.
I'm never going to leave you. I'm never going to forsake you.
And you remember, has He left you up to now? Has He forsaken
you up to now? No. Think on those things. Hear His voice. Hear His word. Hear what He says rather than
listening to what a man says. Remember how He's delivered you
from so great a death and continues to deliver you and promises,
I shall deliver you and trust Him. The Lord comforts us by
making us know that this oppressor, as furious as he may seem, the
oppressor has no power. And we're only imagining that
he does. That's truly, that's what the
Lord's saying. We're only imagining that the man who's oppressive
and reproaching and revolting, you're imagining that he has
power. Look at what the Lord says here,
verse 13. Who art thou that thou hast feared
continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor
as if he were ready to destroy? It's only as if, brethren. That's
it. It's as if he, and the margin
says there, as if he made himself ready to destroy, as if he's
doing what he's doing of his own power by himself. He's not. Where's the fury of the oppressor?
Where's the fury of Pharaoh now? Did Pharaoh make himself, did
he make himself ready? Was Pharaoh just lift himself
up, decide he was going to destroy God's people? God said, I raised
him up. I gave him the power he had to
make my power known to my people. That's why I raised him up. Where
is he now? God dumped him in the sea. Where is Sennacherib,
the king of Assyria? Oh, he boasted he made himself
ready. He boasted he was the oppressor
ready and he could pour out his oppression on Judah all he wanted
to. The Lord said, I raised you up
and I gave these cities into your hand and I brought you up
against my people Judah. and I'm using you like you're
an axe in my hand, like you're a saw that a man uses to cut
a tree down. And when he finished using the
king of Assyria, Sennacherib, for that purpose and accomplished
his purpose and taught his people, you know what he did with Sennacherib?
He destroyed him. Well, what about Nebuchadnezzar? That's who's over him right now.
That's the oppressor that seems so furious to him right now.
What about Nebuchadnezzar? He, in his fury, that's what
the scripture says, in his fury, when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
wouldn't bow to his idol God, Nebuchadnezzar cast him into
the furnace of fire. And he said he did seven times. He said,
I want to watch him just disintegrate when you throw him in there.
And he threw him in there, and he looked in that furnace and
he said, I see one that looks like the Son of God. That's what
Christ said back in Isaiah 43, 2. He said, I'll be with thee.
And he said, and when you walk through the fire, thou shall
not be burned, neither shall flame kindle upon thee. And the
scripture says the Lord delivered them out of that fire. And it
says, whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was a hair of their
head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell
of fire had passed on them. They didn't even have the smell
of fire on them. Not a hair singed. Do you think that really and
truly happened? I'm sitting here telling you
today. That really and truly happened. The Lord raised up
Nebuchadnezzar. He got furious and threw them
in that fire and the Lord brought them out of that fire. It didn't
singe their hair. It didn't put a smell of smoke
on their clothes. The Lord did that. The Lord did
that. Fire can only do what fire can
do because the Lord gives us His power to do it. He's the
law of nature. And if He takes that power away,
fire can't hurt you. Do you believe that? He does
rule everything that seriously, that minutely. And the Lord made
Nebuchadnezzar praise the Lord. He said, there's no other God
that can deliver after this sword. And then the Lord abased Nebuchadnezzar,
he put him out in that field like a wild beast, and then finally
returned his understanding to him, and Nebuchadnezzar said,
blessed is the most high, and I praise and honor him that liveth
forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his
kingdom's from generation to generation. All the inhabitants
of the earth are reputed as nothing, and he doeth according to his
will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the
earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest
thou? He said, now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the
King of Heaven, all whose works are truth and His way's judgment,
and those that walk in pride He's able to abase. See, brethren,
the oppressor was made by the Lord. He made him. All those
men we just talked about, the Lord raised them up and gave
them their power and brought them up against His people. An
oppressor is ruled by the Lord. He's used by the Lord to keep
you trusting the Lord rather than trusting a man. When he
brings a man against you to reproach you, he shows you how weak you
are. You just fall in unbelief like that. Oh, we're going to
die. And then the Lord comforts you and shows you, who are you?
Who are you? Whose are you? Look what I've
done for you. Why are you fearing this man?
I'm using him to teach you this. And here's what the Lord's going
to do. He's either going to save the man. I think he did that
for Nebuchadnezzar. He's either going to save him
or he's going to destroy him, like he did Pharaoh and Sennacherib.
But either way, that man's going to praise the Lord. The wrath
of man shall praise him, and the remainder thereof shall he
restrain. That's the Lord of glory. Now,
we got to... I can't tell you all that and
not have you turn to Isaiah 54. Turn there with me. Next time you're approached by
men or involved by men, I want you to say this to yourself,
remember this, it's just as if he's ready to destroy. It's just
as if he is. You remind me of that, alright?
It's just as if he is. The Lord's doing this. Look here
now, Isaiah 54, 14. In righteousness shalt thou be
established. Thou shalt be far from oppression,
for thou shalt not fear. and from terror, for it shall
not come near thee. Behold, they shall surely gather
together, but not by means. That means they're gonna gather
together, but it's not me trying to destroy you. He said, whosoever
shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake. 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. No weapon that is formed against
thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against
thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants
of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. Now that right there, brethren,
what happens when he says that in your heart? What happens when
the Lord comes and reminds you of this again? That's the last
point. I left out verses 9 and 11 because
I want to save it for now. When the Lord comes and speaks
this good news in your heart again and renews you in your
heart, the result is going to be you're going to start calling
on the Lord. See, you were the one that was asleep, but when
He speaks His word and wakes you up, you're going to start
calling on Him to awake. And you're going to start praising
Him as you're calling on Him to save you. Don't you find this
so? When you're calling on the Lord to save you, don't you just
praise Him and praise Him while you're calling on Him to save
you? You repeat to Him things He's already done for you and
things He's doing for you. And then in the course of that,
you're going to start singing his praises and singing what
he shall do and how your salvation is sure. That's where he brings
you when he does this. And look, I'm just going to read
it. Verse 9, they start saying, Awake, awake, put on strength,
O arm of the Lord. Awake as in the ancient days
and the generations of old, are not thou he that hath cut Rahab,
that's Pharaoh, and wounded the dragon, that's Pharaoh. Rahab's
Egypt. Are thou not it which hath dried
the sea, the waters of the great deep, that hath made the depths
of the sea a way for the ransom to pass over? Now they're remembering,
aren't they? Now they remember who the Lord
is. And they're praising him as they're asking him to come
save them. And then look what they're gonna say. This is still
the Lord's people talking. Therefore the redeemed of the
Lord shall return, and come with singing under Zion, and everlasting
joy shall be upon their head. They shall obtain gladness and
joy, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. That's where
he brings us, brethren. By speaking this word in our
heart and reminding us, he brings you to start calling on him to
save you. And as you're doing it, you start repeating what
he's already done to save you. And then you start saying, and
I know he's going to save me. That's what he does. And I pray
that he'll do that for us now and keep us trusting him. All
right, brethren. Brother Adam, I'll tell you what.