Alright, brethren, Isaiah 41. That Word of our Lord, coming
to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Goes so well with this verse
in Isaiah 41. You know, I don't mind going back to a
passage that we were in, in a service prior to this, the message is
the same wherever we are. My concern is, do I have a message? And only the Lord can give the
message. And when He gives you the message, you preach wherever
He gives you that message. And I wanted to go back and look
at these two verses. Let's read them again together.
Isaiah 41, 17. When the poor and needy seek
water and there is none, and their tongue felleth for thirst. I, the Lord, will hear them.
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will open rivers
in 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." Now, everybody likes a sure thing. If it's a good
thing and it's a sure thing, we like that. Well, this text,
our Lord gives four promises. He gives four promises here,
four specific I wills. And brethren, you can't get more
sure than when our Lord says, I will. That's as sure as it
gets. If he says, I will, or I shall,
it's coming to pass. You can bank on that. Let me
give you some reasons why. First of all, because He's absolutely
sovereign. He's all-powerful. He's not like
the God you hear men preach, this God that men preach today.
This God men are preaching today does not even resemble the true
and living God. He doesn't even resemble the
God of this Bible. The God who created heaven and
earth, the God who saves His people is absolutely sovereign. That means He rules all things.
He calls Himself the King of Jacob. He is sovereign over His
people. Listen to this in Isaiah 14.27,
The LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? His
hand is stretched out, who shall turn it back? Isaiah 46.10 says,
He declares the end from the beginning, from ancient times,
the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand. I will do all My pleasure. And that's what God will do.
He will do all His pleasure. He's spoken it, yet He will do
it. He's purposed it. He will do
it, He'll bring it to pass. That's who God is. And God doesn't
do anything that He had purposed from eternity, from the beginning.
He purposed it, He brings it to pass. That's why we know these
I wills are sure. Because He's absolutely sovereign
to bring them to pass. Another reason they're sovereign
is His glory makes His promises sure. His glory. He keeps repeating there, saying,
I, the Lord, say this. I, the God of Jacob, have said
this. The God of Israel. He's attached the glory of His
name to His promises. And He will not have His glory
diminished in any way. Everything He's done in the creation
of the world is for His glory. We're here preaching His glory. We want to see Him get the glory. We want to give Him the glory.
This is what the Gospel is about. It's the glory of God. And that's
what we're here to do, is to declare His glory. He said in
Isaiah 48.11, For mine own sake, even for mine own sake will I
do it. For how should my name be polluted? I will not give my glory to another. He will save his people because
he attached his name to it for his glory. And then three, these
promises are sure because of he will save his people, the
Lord's name. When the Son of God came and
took flesh, The angels said they should call His name Jesus, Savior,
for He shall save His people from their sins. That's His name. And He shall save His people
from their sins. He's doing everything to save
His people. That's His will, brethren. The
salvation of His people make His promises sure. He promised
to save us. You see, we're saved by God's
will. We're not saved by our will.
This is the difference between what the world's preaching, what
false religion's preaching, and what God's true message is. We're saved by God's will. By
God's will. He's saying, I will, I will,
I will. Ephesians 1.11 tells us, In whom
also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according
to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel
of his own will. Salvation is according to the
will of God. Those things make His promises sure. Absolute sovereignty, His glory, the salvation of his
people. These are things that make his
promises certain, brethren. But notice who these promises
are for. Now this is important. Verse
17. He said, when the poor and needy seek water, and there is
none. I mean, they're telling Philip
for thirst. Every promise God has, and I,
oh, I pray the Lord will help us hear this and get this. Every
promise God has in this book is only for sinners. Every promise God has in this
book is only for the poor and needy. That's the only ones. Now, God promises, and all his
promises are only to sinners who are such sinners that we
have no wisdom in ourselves. We have no wisdom in ourselves.
We're such sinners, we're so poor, we have no righteousness
in ourselves. Can't produce one. We're so poor
we have no holiness in ourselves. We can't produce the holiness
we need. We need Him to sanctify us, keep
us sanctified, keep teaching us and growing us. We need Him
to do it. We are so poor we have no strength
in ourselves. We can't free ourselves from
our sin nature. We can't free ourselves from
sin. We have to have the Lord do this for us. Salvation is
of the Lord. Now when He works on you and
He operates in you by His sovereign effectual grace, He'll turn you
and you will believe Him. But it's because He gave you
the faith, He gave you the life, He granted you repentance, He
turned you, He worked effectually in you. And the same is true
with anything else God will have us to do. We are the poor and
the needy. The glory goes to God for working
in His people. We need him. And I'm telling
you now, the problem with most sinners is they're not lost,
they're not poor, they're not needy. Our poverty is that we have nothing
of ourselves and can provide nothing of ourselves. Christ
is all. Salvation is of the Lord, brethren. That's not just something we
say. That is true. That is salvation. Christ is
salvation. Just think about this. God sent
His only begotten Son into the world. Why? Because His people
could not save ourselves. And this was the whole purpose
of God. It was to show who He is and manifest His glory and
manifest His attributes and show to a people who God is and how
God saves and to save us in the process. This is all according
to the purpose of God. Are you poor and needy? Anybody
here poor and needy? I mean poor and needy. Does that
description fit you? It's the description of every
fallen child of Adam. But not everybody knows this
about themselves. Our Lord stood there that day
and said, if any man, if you labor and you're burdened and
you're heavy laden, come to me, I'll give you rest. And nobody
came. God stood in human flesh and
said that, and nobody came to Him. You think about that. Churches
will beg sinners to come down an aisle, give their heart to
Jesus, do this and that, and they'll talk people into doing
it. But when God stood here and said, come to me, they didn't
come to Him. Why? Why will sinners come to
the front of a church and give their hand to a man, a preacher,
but they wouldn't come to the Lord of glory? Why? Because that
Jesus being preached from pulpits, He's at the mercy of a man. And
that don't offend a man. A man will, if he knows, if he
feels like he's in control, giving his heart to his little Jesus
and doing this for his God, he'll do it. But when the sovereign
God of heaven and earth stood here in human flesh and He said,
No man can come to Me except My Father which is in heaven,
draw him. Except you eat My flesh and drink My blood, you have
no life in you. Come unto Me, all you that labor
and are heavy laden. They turned and walked away and
said, This is a hard saying, who can hear it? And those that
didn't go away, he said to them, blessed are you. Flesh and blood
didn't reveal this to you, my father which is in heaven. You
see, we're the poor and needy, brethren. God saves his people
who are poor and needy. Are you poor and needy? As He
made you to see, this is for those who are absolutely, totally
weak. All His promises are to those
who are poor and needy. Look back at Isaiah 41, 29. I mean, chapter 40, verse 29. Look at this. He giveth power
to the faint. And to them that have no might,
He increases strength. You see that? That's the only
ones whose promises are true. If we got some strength in us
and some wisdom in us and some ability in us, we're just a little
too good to be saved entirely by the Lord. I'm telling you
something that's so brethren. Look at Isaiah 61. This is who
Christ said He came to save. Now listen to this. This is what
He came to do. This is Him speaking. Isaiah
61. The Spirit of the Lord guides
upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings
unto the meek. He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to
them that are bound." You see this? He said, I've come to the
poor and needy. to proclaim the acceptable year
of the Lord, the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that
mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them
beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment
of praise for the spirit of happiness, that there might be called trees
of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be
glorified. He said to this man, while I look, he that is of a
poor and contrite spirit, and tremble at that, my word, Thy congregation that dwelt therein,
thou, O God, is prepared of thy goodness for the poor. He shall
spare the poor and needy and shall save the souls of the needy."
Some folks might not think that's the important thing to speak
about, but it's very important, brethren. He gives power only
to the faint, to them that have no might. He said, I didn't come
to call the righteous, I came to call sinners to repentance.
Those first four Beatitudes, it's what He makes His people.
It's what He makes us to know about ourselves. He said, blessed
are the poor in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, those entirely
dependent on the Lord. They shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.
They shall be filled. So our subject here is, is for
the poor and needy. I have something here to declare
a promise God's given for the poor and needy. If I had a long
title for this, it would be, Four Sure Promises for the Poor
and Needy. And I want you to see these four
promises now. First of all, our Savior promises
to hear us. If you're the poor and needy,
He promises to hear us. He says in verse 17, When the
poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue
faileth for thirst, I, the Lord, will hear them. When we behold
our poverty and we behold our need, you know, it's our normal
thinking to call our brethren, ask them to pray for us. I heard
somebody today called me very, very troubled and asked me to
pray for them. Now brethren, I'm here for you. I want to help you any way I
can. But listen, we have this natural desire because we naturally
want to look to self and flesh and others for help rather than
to God. But brethren, I'm not a priest.
We've been saved from that. We have a high priest and you
have direct access to him. You can go directly to him. That's
what I told this person today. I'm here for you. I'll pray for
you. And I'll be happy to listen to you, and I want to help you,
but I will almost every time tell you the same exact thing.
You go to the Lord. You go to Him. He promises here,
I will hear you. It cost Him dearly to give His
people this access. Dearly did it cost Him to give
this access. Go over to Hebrews 10. Let me
show you that. Hebrews 10. And look at verse 19. Hebrews
10.19. He said there that by one offering
He's perfected for every of them that are sanctified. The Holy
Ghost bears witness to us that God says there's sins and iniquities
I'll remember no more. Where remission of sins is, there's
no more offering for sin. Now listen to verse 19. Having
therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by
the blood of Jesus. He's talking to you that are
poor, so poor. He says you have boldness to
enter. by the blood of Jesus. That's the price that had to
be paid to give us this access. He gave His elect access to Him
because He perfected us. We have boldness to enter the
holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which
He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His
flesh. And having a high priest over the house of God, let us
draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having
our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies
washed with pure water." You have access, child of God. You
go to Him directly. When the poor and needy seek
water and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst,
I, the Lord, will hear them. If you cry out to Him and you
have no merit in yourself, you have no wisdom in yourself, no
righteousness, nothing that you can bring to Him, and He says
when you're poor and needy and your tongue fails for thirst,
He says, cry unto Me. He says, I the Lord will hear
them. He heard the children of Israel
when they were in bondage. He heard David when he was in
the wilderness. He heard the apostle Paul when
he cried to the Lord concerning his thorn in the flesh. Sometimes your tongue fails for
thirst. Sometimes you're just so poor and so needy, your tongue
fails for thirst and you really can't pray, you really can't
call on, you can't audibly, you just don't even know what to
pray. He hears the heart of His children. God is God and He knows
the heart and He hears the heart of His people. The Spirit helps
our infirmities. We know not what we should pray
for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for
us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Psalm 102.17, He
will guard the prayer of the destitute and not despise their
prayer. He will hear you. That's what
He promises. I will hear you. I will hear you. Here is the
second promise. This is our sovereign Savior
promising, verse 17, He says, ìI, the God of Israel, will not
forsake them.î ìI, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.î
I said He connected His name and His glory to His promises.
That's what He's doing right here. I, the God of Israel, will
not forsake them. He made Himself to be the God
of His elect Israel. We didn't choose Him, He chose
us. He made Himself to be the God of Israel. Christ Jesus, the One who came
down and lived and died and rose again, with His people in Him,
representing His people as the substitute of His people. He
is the God of Israel. In Him dwells the fullness of
the Godhead and the body. He is sovereign to work His will.
He is sovereign to keep us. He is sovereign to provide for
us. He laid down His life for His elect. You know what He did
by that? He justified His people. He made
us everlastingly righteous. He declared God just. He reconciled
us to God. It would not be just for Him
to forsake us. Everything. If you want to understand
what you should do, and you want to understand what God's going
to do, the touchstone is the holiness of God. God's going
to do everything in perfect righteousness. That's right. Everything. Isaiah
49, verse 14. Look with me over here. Isaiah
49, verse 14. But Zion said, The Lord hath
forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. He said, Can a
woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion
on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget. That's
how fallen and depraved we've become. Yes, they may forget.
Yet will I not forget thee? Behold, I have graven thee upon
the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually before
me." That's what He's declaring to us, brethren. I justified
you. I laid down my life for my people.
I will not forsake them. Justice won't permit Him to forsake
us. In Hebrews 10, there He said,
the Holy Ghost bears witness to us. that this is the covenant
God makes with us. He puts this gospel in our heart.
That's the law He writes in the heart. The law of faith and love
and righteousness and peace. The law of liberty. The law of
Christ. He writes this law in your heart. He makes you to know.
God says, He says, their sins and their iniquities I will remember
no more. Why? Because he said in Daniel,
Christ came to put an end to sins. And that's what he did.
He put an end to sins for his people. He brought in everlasting
righteousness. He reconciled us to God. He accomplished
that for us, brethren. He said, I've engraved in you
on the palms of my hand. I will not forget you. I will
not forsake you. He said in Isaiah 42 and verse
16, He says there, He says, I will
bring the blind by a way that they knew not. I will lead them
in paths that they have not known. I will make darkness light before
them and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them
and not forsake them. That's what God said. That's
what God said. He will not cast off His people,
neither will He forsake His inheritance. You're His purchased possession.
You're His inheritance. He will not forsake those that
He redeemed. When we see our poverty and we
see our need, brethren, and our tongue fills for thirst, and
we're thirsting for some renewing of Christ, and then see Him and
have some fresh renewing of His grace in our heart, and we're
thirsting for Christ our righteousness, and you've called to Him, know
this, He hears His people. He said, I will hear you. He
said, I will not forsake you. So be content. until He gives
you the answer. Be content until He works in
the heart. This is what the Hebrew writer
said. Let your conversation be without covetousness. Be content
with such things as you have. For He had said, I'll never leave
thee nor forsake thee, so that we may boldly say, The Lord's
my Helper. I will not fear what man shall
do to me. Fear God, don't fear man. One time, you all know Brother
Marvin Stoniker. my pastor. Not long after he first went
to Katie Baptist Church to pastor there, Brother Scott Richardson
had been the pastor for 30-40 years longer. He was sitting
in the congregation and Marvin was speaking about this, speaking
about how the Lord will not forsake His people. Please God to make
you His people. He won't forsake His people.
He redeemed His people. He justified His people. He will
keep His people. Out of the blue, Brother Scott
went, and what if he changes his mind? He said it out loud,
what if he changes his mind? And Marvin said, after all the
oxygen was sucked out of the room, Marvin said, he won't change
his mind. He said, I'm the Lord, I change
not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. That's the
assurance we have. Our God's immutable. So another
one of these sure reasons these promises are sure, our God is
immutable. He changes not. Number three, he promises, verse
18, I will open rivers in high places and fountains in the midst
of the valleys. Water is our need. You know,
just physically, water is your need. You can't do without water. Well, we need the water of the
Word. We need Christ who is the fountain
of living waters. And grace in scripture is described
as the water. We need God's grace. We need
the Word. And we need Christ who is the
Word incarnate. We need water. We need life.
We need life. I'm going to tell you something.
Righteousness is life. That's why Christ is the life.
He's righteousness. And if you have Christ, you are
righteous and you have life. But we need Him to make us know
this and keep us knowing this. And He promises, I will open
rivers in high places. They'll come directly from God.
Now, I'm not talking about some Pentecostal fanatic craziness. But you know what I'm talking
about as you have experienced this. When the Lord is speaking
to you through the gospel, through His word, from the mountain of God, they
will come directly into your heart, this river of life, and
you'll know, you'll know the Lord is speaking. You'll know
He'll make this word like a river to your poor, dead, dry heart,
and you'll behold Christ Himself by faith. And you'll know, there's
my salvation, there's my assurance, there's my life, there's my righteousness,
there's my holiness. He's my water, he's my life. He promises here, he says, I
will open fountains in the midst of the valleys. He said, I'll
open rivers in high places and I will open fountains in the
midst of the valleys. Fountains are wells. Wells are
where people go for water. And wells in the Scripture represent
the means of grace. Listen to Isaiah 12, 2. Behold,
God is my salvation. Now listen to that. Behold, God
is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid.
I've got a lot to be afraid of. I mean, if it was up to me, I
would. But not with God is my salvation.
I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord Jehovah is my strength
and my song. He also has become my salvation. Therefore, with joy shall you
draw water out of the wells of salvation." What's the wells? What's the means of grace? Well,
he said it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. Take advantage of this. He's
given us light in a dark place. Come hear the gospel preached. This is one of the wells. This Word right here. Do you
know there's places in the world where they don't have the written
Word of God? They could be killed for reading
the written Word of God. You're in a free country. God's
given you a place where you can read the Word of God. Get in
the Word of God. and go to Him in prayer. These
are means He uses to open these wells to us, and Christ Himself
is that fountain. He's going to use these means
to open the wells of water to us, open Himself who is the water
to us. Wherever we are, brethren, Christ
is able to open the waters of salvation to us. He says there,
if we're on the mountain, We're usually in a dangerous place
if we're on the mountain. That's usually a dangerous place.
He won't leave us there very long. That's a dangerous place
for sheep to be. Because we start thinking we're
full and we think we're not in need and we're not poor. That's
a dangerous place for God's child to be. But the Lord can make
a river on top of the mountain. Aren't you thankful? That's how
come He's going to keep you. When we think we're full and
in need of nothing, we are the most poor and needy then. We
just don't know it. But He's able to open the river
on the mountain. Or if we get so low in the valley,
and we're despair of life, and, oh, do I even know the Lord?
You ever been there? I've been there. I've been there
where I thought, Lord, do I know You? That's a serious thought
God's people have. Do I know the Lord or not? But He opens this fountain in
the valley. Wherever we are, Christ is our
need. Christ is the light. He's the
water. He's the fountain. And He promises
to give us fresh views of Him whether on the mountain or in
the valley. I will open rivers in high places and fountains
in the midst of the valleys. And then fourthly, here's His
promise. Verse 18, I will make the wilderness a pool of water
and the dry land springs of water. Now I've said to you two or three
times that this dry land and this wilderness is me and you
by nature. We're the wilderness and the dry land. I've preached
that several times, so I'm not going to look up Scripture and
show it to you, but you know that. You've heard that. You've
heard me show you that. But He creates in us new life.
He is not using anything of our flesh, nothing that is of Adam.
He is going to get the glory for this new creation. And everything
is of Him. And He creates a new man in you
and He supplies the water of life in our new man. He does
that. And however barren you feel and
however barren you become in yourself, God by His grace can
make us the opposite of that. There are some times when He
finds us and we are nothing but barren wilderness. That's it.
And when He comes and reveals Christ to you, He changes a man. He changes a man. He makes you
so thankful for grace and for mercy and for free forgiveness.
He makes you gracious and merciful and forgiving. Whereas before,
you just wouldn't forgive anybody. He makes you forgive because
you've seen how great God's forgiven you for Christ's sake. He can turn the dry land into
a pool of water. No sinner is too great for God
to save. No sinner. No sin is so great
that our Redeemer has not put it away for His people. We might
have become stained and stained our garments, but He's able to
wash them white as snow and robe us in His snow-white garment
of righteousness. It's all of Him. And He promises
He'll forgive us all our sins and remember them no more for
Christ's sake. Now pools, if you think about this, pools are
not just little spring, little rivulets of water. Pools are
overflowing. They're deep, abundant water.
And He'll make your cup overflow. He'll make you, He gives you
abundance of grace. In Christ we find abundance of
joy, perfect righteousness to cover us, perfect reconciliation
with God, perfect Him keeping us as the apple of His eye. God's
not stingy with grace. Listen to this. Philippians 4.19,
My God shall supply all your need according to his riches
in glory by Jesus Christ. He said in Psalm 36.8, they shall
be abundantly satisfied. Abundantly. We're talking about
a pool of water. Abundantly satisfied with the
fatness of the house. And he promises this, I will
make the dry land springs of water. A spring, there was a
spring down from my house. I grew up in South Arkansas.
If you fellas can't tell, I'm not from the north. I grew up
in South Arkansas and there was a spring down the road from my
parents' house and I'd be out ride my bicycle on a hot summer
day and you know it's 98 degrees most of the summer in South Arkansas
and I'd come to where that spring was and I could go to that spring
and everything it could be a drought. And I could go to that spring
and there was no doubt there would be water coming up out
of there. Crystal, cool, clear water. And I'd lean down and
get the best drink of water. Oh, it was so good. I'd go out
of my way to go to that spring just so I could get some water
out of it. He said, the dry land, I will make springs of water.
Perpetual, never-ending, renewing grace by the Spirit of God. bubbling
up. But He'll keep life in you. He's
going to keep the gospel new to you. He's going to keep Christ
new to you. He's going to keep these scriptures new to you. You think about this, brethren.
I've been preaching here for what, 16 years, 17 years? I have not said one thing new.
If you heard me preach the first message, you heard me preach
everything I'm going to preach. What keeps it new to you? Christ. The Spirit of God keeps renewing
the inward man and making Himself ever new to us, like a spring
of water bubbling up. Our greatest danger, brethren,
is when we think we're full and we think we don't have need of
anything, but God's promise is, I'm going to keep them knowing
their poverty. I'm going to keep them knowing
their need of Me. If you lay hold of these I wills,
our shepherds are going to feed us, our shepherds are going to
nourish us. This is all a spiritual work. He'll provide the lesser
things. He'll provide the things you
need in this life. This is your need. Christ, in knowing He's
all, is our need, brethren. This is what He does for His
people. My people, don't be like the people in Jeremiah's day.
He said, My people have committed two evils. They've forsaken Me,
the fountain of living waters, and they've hewed out broken
cisterns that can hold no water. The moment you start looking
at the works of your hands and some goodness in you, you hear
so many people that they just think they've progressed so now
they're so holy that they're just doing you a favor to let
you be in a room with them. You're in bad problem if you
get there. Growing in grace is not that. Growing in grace, the
more the light comes on in this condemned building, the more
you see how condemned the building is. And the more you see the
light, the more you see Christ as your salvation, and the more
humble that makes you, and the more you see your need of Him,
and He keeps that water in His people. so that you grow in grace,
you grow in the knowledge of Him, you grow to know more and
more your need of Him and your dire poverty without Him. That
makes you meek, that makes you know you can't do one thing without
Him. It doesn't make you proud like
a peacock, it makes you humble. We got a lot of self-righteousness
in us, it's all in our sin nature, but He's going to keep His child
humble knowing without me you can do nothing. But brethren,
he that believeth on me, he says, the Scripture has said, out of
his belly shall flow rivers of living water. And so I'll say
to you exactly what brother Ravi read, what Christ said. He said,
are you laboring and heavy laden? Are you poor and you're needy
and you need water and your tongue is failing for thirst? He says,
call on me, I'll hear you. He says, Wait on me, I'll not
forsake you. Be content till I answer you,
I'll not forsake you. He said, I will make rivers in
the mountains. I will open a river in the valley. I'll make pools in this dry desert
land. I will, I will, I will, I will. Come to me, he said. I'll give
Pelle a flow of rivers of living water. That's His promise. If you're poor and needy, you
have that assurance. That's what He will do for His
people. You can mark it down. Amen. All right, Brother Greg.