All right, brethren, let's turn
to Isaiah 30. Isaiah chapter 30. Thank you,
Adam. That's one of my favorite passages
of scripture that he just read. I remember being taught that scripture
when I was very young. I remember one time coming back
from Ohio on my 40th birthday in a blizzard. That chapter ended up being what
I preached from when I got back. The whole way back I was thinking
about that. Couldn't drive but about 20 miles
an hour the whole way back. And every time I'd think I was
going to pull off the snowplow, pull out in front of me, and
I'd just keep going. And I just kept thinking about that, about
that chapter. And it's just a favorite chapter
of mine. That's going to be the way we're
all going to go one of these days. Everything there is describing
how the body's going to become old and worn out, return to the
dust, if the Lord is pleased to let us continue. And the good
news is having Christ. The good news is if Christ has
made us whole, then we're whole, then we're healed, then we have
life and it doesn't matter what happens to these bodies. That's
the good news. If we have true spiritual health,
We have life. Regardless of what happens in
this flesh, we have life. Never ending. Always be with
our Redeemer. But I like this text here in
Isaiah 30 as well. I've preached from this five
times. And each time I read it, each
time I study it, it blesses my heart. And it's been about four
years now, coming up on about four years since I last preached
from it. And I was talking to a brother
recently who preached from it and he was telling me some things
he saw and it blessed my heart. And I want to preach on this
again. There's never a time that this passage is not needful for
God's people. In our time since the Lord called
us, there's never a time we don't need this passage. And really
the whole sum of it all is found in verse 18. It says, Blessed
are all they that wait for Him. Blessed are they that wait for
the Lord. And I pray the Lord make us see why. Now be sure
to get this first word back up in verse 15. Thus saith the Lord
God, the Holy One of Israel. This is the Lord God speaking
to us. I pray He make it so we don't
hear any other voice but His. This is the Lord God speaking.
This is His Word to you who believe. It's His Word to everybody here,
and I pray that even if you don't believe, He would give you a
heart to believe. This is His Word, the Word of
the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God, the
Lord God, the Covenant God. Thus saith the Holy One of Israel. He is the Holy One. He is the
One who is Holy. This is our triune God in Christ
speaking. And He says right here in verse
15, In returning and rest shall you be saved. In returning to
the Lord God Himself. Returning to the Lord God Himself.
Returning to the Holy One of Israel. Coming to the Lord God
and resting. In returning and rest shall you
be saved. Rest in Christ is our salvation. Our Lord Jesus
is the Holy One of Israel in whom all God's elect are holy. That's who He is. Our Lord Jesus
Christ is the one that God, He made us holy by choosing us in
Christ before this world was made. And our Lord Jesus, He's
the Savior of His people. He came down and He's the righteousness
of His people. It's true, He lived obedient
under the law, He fulfilled the law, He honored God, He magnified
God's justice, He went to the cross to put away our sin. But
don't ever miss this, brethren. He Himself is our righteousness. The Lord is our righteousness.
The Lord himself is our righteousness. Christ is the sanctification
of his people. He's the one in whom we were
made holy from eternity by God separating us into him. choosing
us in Him. He's the one who made us holy
by His perfect obedience to the death of the cross by His one
offering. He's the one we're separated
unto, sanctified unto. When the Spirit of God gives
you a new heart and forms Christ in you, you're inseparably united
with Him. united with Christ our Lord. And it's by Him doing just what
He's doing in this passage whereby He keeps us separated unto Him. He keeps calling on us, return
to me and rest. Return to me and rest. That's
how the Hebrew writer said in Hebrews 12. That's how He chastens
us. That's how He keeps us partaking
of His holiness. He's our holiness. He's the Holy
One. And He's the redemption of His
people. The Lord Jesus is the one who we were bound, we were
in bondage under the law. And the Lord Jesus is the one
who came and redeemed his people from the curse of the law by
being made a curse for us. Took a place and redeemed us,
bought us, purchased us. He came to us when we were in
the prison cell of our sin nature. And he redeemed us out of that
jail cell and freed us out of it by revealing this gospel to
us. I was talking to somebody this week. I love that picture.
Don't you love that picture of Barabbas? And he's sitting there
in that jail cell. And all he hears is Barabbas,
Barabbas, Barabbas. A few minutes pass and he hears
that multitude and all they cry out is crucify him, crucify him,
crucify him. And he doesn't know that Pilate
said, who do you want me to release? And they said Barabbas. He didn't
hear that. And he said, who do you want me to crucify? What
do you want me to do with this man Jesus? Crucify him. Barabbas didn't hear that. He
just heard Barabbas, Barabbas, crucify him, crucify him. And
Oath's jail, he's in that jail cell, he's probably back in the
corner in the darkness, and here comes Oath's keys jangling, and
he hears that jailer coming, and that jailer walks in. Don't
you know he was trembling? Don't you know he was in the
back of that jail cell trembling? That's how you were when you
first started hearing this gospel. And you knew you were guilty,
and you knew you were condemned, and you knew you were worthy
of death. You heard the law speak to you, and you knew you were
guilty. And you're in that jail cell, you're in that prison cell
of your own sin nature, and you're guilty, and you know you're guilty,
and you know you're worthy of death, and you hear those keys
jangling. And he came down there to where
Barabbas was. And he opens that door. And he
says, Barabbas, show yourself. That's what the scripture said
Christ would do. God said, I've given him for a covenant of the
people that he may say to the prisoners, show yourself, come
forth to the light. And Christ spoke through this
gospel and he did what they did for Barabbas that day. You come
to the light. And Barabbas walks out of that
dark corner of that jail cell and he walks toward that door
and he knows they're fixin' to say, this day you're gonna die. And they said, Barabbas, You're
free to go. Christ Jesus is taking your place.
That right there, brethren, is how the Lord redeemed us from
this sin nature. That's how he brought you out
from your sin nature and gave you life to trust Christ and
freed you, redeemed you. And all your days, he keeps doing
just what he did here. He keeps saying, return and rest
in me and so shall you be saved. When we're looking to ourselves
and we're trusting ourselves and we're carried away in sin
or we're carried away in this world and the cares of this world,
whatever it is, our Lord Jesus comes again and he speaks to
you just as effectually as he did in that first hour and he
says, return and rest and so you shall be saved. That's how
you get sanctified unto Him. That's how He redeems you out
of all bondage and keeps you free from all bondage. And one
day, brethren, He's going to redeem us out of these bodies
of death into His glorious presence called the glorious liberty of
the sons of God, according to Romans 8. He's our Savior. He's our salvation. And so, listen to what He says
here. He says, In returning in rest shall you
be saved. He says, in quietness and in
confidence shall be your strength. In quietly submitting to Christ,
you got a tumult going on around you, you got troubles going on,
you got all kind of problems going on all around you. And
he says, in quietly submitting to Christ, with confidence in
Christ, he'll be your strength. He settles our hearts so we're
not shaken. He settles your heart on Him
so that you're not moved here and there and keep running about
and thinking you have to save yourself. He brings you to submit
to Christ, quietly submit to Him, with all your confidence
in Christ, and He promises you, I'll be your strength. He does
that. He draws you to quietly resign
it to Him. He draws you so that your confidence
is in him. He's your strength to bring you
to do that, and he's your strength when he's brought you to do that.
And he says there, and in returning and rest shall you be saved. He'll be your salvation. In quietness
and confidence shall be your strength. He'll be your strength.
Look over at 2 Corinthians 12 and verse 9. 2 Corinthians 12,
9. Paul had that thorn in the flesh
and he prayed for it to be removed. In verse 9, he said unto me,
this is the Lord speaking, he said, my grace is sufficient
for thee. My grace is sufficient for thee,
for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore,
Paul said, will I rather glory in my infirmities, in my weaknesses,
that the power of Christ may rest upon me. He said, I'm going
to return and rest in the Lord. I'm going to come quietly with
confidence and submit to the Lord that he might be my salvation
and my strength. Therefore, he said, I take pleasure
in infirmities and reproaches and necessities and persecutions
and distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I
strong. What's the evidence that a sinner
sees himself as a ruined sinner? What's the evidence, when the
Lord has really taught you, what's the evidence you see yourself
as a ruined sinner? What's the evidence a believer
sees himself as totally weak, totally incapable of saving himself? What's the evidence of it? You
believe on Christ. You come to Christ and you quietly
submit to Him. And you rest in Him and your
confidence is in Him. And He's turned you from every
other help. He's turned you from every other confidence. He made
you submit to Christ's feet and wait right there with your confidence
in Christ. Trust Him. He's your salvation
and He's your strength. That's the evidence that God
has taught a man that he's a sinner and he needs Christ to be his
all. He needs Christ to be his salvation. He's trusting Christ
to be his rest. And when you trust Christ, you
don't have to strive. We don't have to strive to save
ourselves. Rest means we don't have to strive
anymore. Rest means we don't have to be
hasty running about to fix things. We have Christ our refuge and
our protector all the time. We have Christ as our shield
and defender all the time. Now, how did the children of
Judah respond to this word? When the Lord gave them this
word through Isaiah, how did they respond to it? It says in
verse 15, at the end there, it says, and you would not, and
you would not. But you said, no, for we will
flee upon horses. Now what was going on in Judah? We're talking about the one and
a half tribe of Judah here is what we're talking about. What
was going on in Judah? Well, years before this, years
before this, back when King Ahaz was, when Ahaz was the king of
Judah, the 10 and a half tribes of Israel They were separated
now, Judah and Israel. The northern part was Israel,
the southern part was Judah. They're separated. And the ten
and a half tribes in the north, Israel, had joined an alliance
with Syria. And they decided they were going
to come up against Judah and make war against Judah. And when
that happened, Way back there, Isaiah was sent to King Ahaz. Isaiah was, and he came there
preaching this same gospel to Ahaz. You can find this in Isaiah
7. Let's go over there and I'll
just show you some little bit of it. In Isaiah 7. Isaiah comes preaching, he's
preaching the same gospel, same message to Ahaz, king of Judah. And this was the word the Lord
delivered to Ahaz through Isaiah. Same gospel, Isaiah 7, verse
4. He said, Say to him, Take heed
and be quiet. Fear not, neither be fainthearted. You see that? It's the same word
that he says over here in Isaiah 30. He said there in verse 7,
Thus saith the Lord God, It shall not stand, neither shall it come
to pass. God declared He had set the bounds
of Syria. Their king wasn't going to rule
any other country but Damascus. He had set their bounds. And
the Lord told him here that in 65 years the children of Israel
shall be broken and they will not even be a people. That's
what the Lord told him. And the Lord told Isaiah, he
said, when you go talk to him, he said, you take your son with
you. The Lord told Isaiah, take your son with you and go. And
I just picture Isaiah comes to King Ahaz, and he's got his son,
young son with him. And I can hear Ahaz say, that's
a mighty fine boy you got there, Isaiah. What's his name? His
name's Sherjazib. What's that mean? It means the
remnant shall return. The Lord preached the gospel
to Ahaz even in the name of Isaiah's son. The remnant shall return. God has an elect remnant. And
God, by God speaking affectionately, saying return, like he does in
our text, they're going to come to the Lord. They're going to
come to the Lord. But above all that, the Lord
gave Ahaz the one sign that guarantees all God's elect that we shall
be saved. He said this was the sign that
the Lord gave Ahaz that Judah would be saved and that tribe
would not be destroyed. In Isaiah 7, 14, he said, Behold,
a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name
Emmanuel. You see, Christ is the Lion of
the tribe of who? Judah. And he's coming through
the tribe of Judah. He's coming through Judah. So
Judah's not going to be destroyed. Judah's not going to be, nobody's
going to go to war with Judah and conquer them before Christ
came. He came through that tribe. And that's the guarantee that
Ahaz had that Judah's not going to be destroyed. This war of
Israel and Syria trying to come against you, it's not going to
stand. And brethren, the guarantee that you and me have that we
shall be saved is Christ has come now. And He's the Savior. Just like He was the Savior of
Judah because He's coming through Judah, He's the Savior of His
people and we're coming to God through Him. And so that's the
guarantee we shall be saved. But the Lord declared to Ahaz
this message through Isaiah. He said there in Isaiah 7, 9,
at the end, he said, if you will not believe, surely you shall
not be established. If you will not believe. King
Ahaz would not believe Christ. He wouldn't. He made, you know
what he did? He made an alliance with Assyria. He's got Israel and Syria coming
up against him. So King Ahaz went and made an
alliance with the king of Assyria. And after he helped Judah, after
the king of Assyria helped Judah, then the king of Assyria, all
these years later, had turned and declared war on Judah. That's
where we are in our text. Ahaz made a mistake of not trusting
Christ, not returning to Christ, not resting in Christ, not having
his confidence in Christ, but he looked to the king of Assyria. Now the king of Assyria has come
to destroy him. And the Lord sent Isaiah again
with the very same gospel. Trust Christ to save you. Rest
in Christ. Have all your confidence in Christ.
He'll be your salvation and your strength. So what did the children
of Israel do this time? Here's Isaiah come now. There's
a new king now. What's the children of Israel
do this time? Go to Isaiah 30. Look at verse 1. The Lord says,
Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel
but not of me. that cover with a covering, but
not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin. Here's what that
means. They walk to go down into Egypt
and have not asked at my mouth to strengthen themselves in the
strength of Pharaoh and to trust in the shadow of Egypt. Verse
7, he said, the Egyptians shall help in vain and in no purpose.
Therefore have I cried concerning this, their strength is to sit
still. Israel, listen, now I want you
to picture what they what they saw. Before we judge them, I
want you to picture what they saw. If you were in Israel, you
see the king of Assyria and his mighty army, and you're just
little old Judah and don't have a very good army. And they come
up to the wall, and the king of Assyria was making all these
threats. And so Judah counseled. They had their counselors and
they went to their counselors just like the president has his
counselors. And they went to their counselors
and they talked to them and got counsel on what we should do.
And the Lord said, but they didn't come and ask me. And instead of hearing the word
the Lord sent to them through Isaiah, instead of trusting the
Lord God, they trusted in, the Lord says, in the shadow of Egypt. Oh, Egypt was mighty, Egypt was
a mighty nation, but it was just a shadow compared to the power
of God. They went down there and they
trusted in another nation and entered into an alliance with
them. They did the same thing Ahaz did years before with the
very one that's destroying them. What do they think the king of
Egypt's going to do after he gets through plundering them?
bring them right back into slavery. That's where they'd come out
of slavery. That's like me and you turning back to our flesh
and to this world that we've been delivered out of and trying
to save ourselves by the works of our own hands. The Lord sent Isaiah again with
the same gospel. In verse 15, ìThus saith the
Lord God,î Isaiah 30 verse 15, ìthe Holy One of Israel, in returning
and rest shall you be saved, return to me, rest in me, and
you'll be saved, he said. In quietness and in confidence
shall be your strength, and you would not, but you said, no,
we'll flee upon horses." Brethren, did you know that in the law
in Deuteronomy 17, 16, God forbid Israel to have horses? They couldn't
have horses. God knew they would. Egypt bred
horses. Egypt was known for breeding
horses and having mighty horses for war. And the Lord knew that
the children of Israel would go back to Egypt for horses or
that they would depend upon those horses. Brethren, now there's
no true believer, no true believer. You and me have been saved by
grace. You would not say, you would not say, I am made righteous
and I'm justified and I'm saved by the work of my own hand. I
know you wouldn't say that. The Lord's given you a heart
of faith. He's taught you the gospel and you wouldn't say that.
But when God sent this trial, That's exactly what Judah was
saying by trying to save themselves from that trial. That's exactly
what they were saying. And brethren, when you and I
face troubles in this world, and we're trying to save ourselves
by the work of our hands, it's no different than trusting ourselves
to save us and make ourselves righteous. It's no different. Judah fleeing on horses is a
sinner looking to his own strength rather than believing on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, but here's the good news.
This is the good news. Back there in Isaiah 30, this
is the good news. Our God saves by sovereign, unchangeable
love and grace. It's sovereign love and grace,
unchangeable love and grace in Christ Jesus the Lord. God has
an elect remnant who Christ has redeemed by his precious blood,
and they can say no to God and say we're going to flee on horses,
but God will not take no from them. He will not take no from
them. Look here in verse 16. You said,
no, we'll flee upon horses. Therefore shall you flee, God
said. You said, we'll ride upon the swift. God says, therefore
shall they that pursue you be swift. 1,000 shall flee at the
rebuke of one, at the rebuke of five shall you flee, till
you be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, as an
engine on a hill, and therefore will the Lord wait that he may
be gracious unto you. Our gracious Lord, what's he
doing here? You see, you and me as believers
would do exactly what the children of Israel did. we will look to
our own hands, we'll lean to our own wisdom, we'll try to
do something to save ourselves out of our circumstances or whatever
it is as we're going through this life. But the Lord sent
everything he sent to you to teach you this gospel more and
more and more. Just please try to remember that. When a trial comes or something
comes into your life, Lord's not just, he's teaching us, making
it effectual in our heart through this gospel. but He's using everything,
He's working all things together for the good of them that are
called, them that love God. He's doing this all according
to His purpose to teach us everything we hear in this gospel is true
because of our sovereign God and His sovereign and changing
love toward His people in Christ Jesus. When He first calls you
or when His believing child tries to save ourselves in a trial,
What the Lord's going to do is He's going to first bring us
to the end of ourselves. That's the first thing. Isn't
that what He did when He first called you? And when He started
calling you and you tried to find some ground and tried to
hang on to your fig leaves and tried to find some room to glory
in something you'd done, He just kept taking it away, taking it
away, taking it away. And the word here is, till you're
left like a beacon on top of a hill, till you're left like
a tree with all your branches broken off, or like a mast that
all the sails are broke, and it's just a mast now. Well, brother,
that's what he did when he called us by his grace. He made us see
we can't save ourselves. Well, in every other thing he
brings in our lives, that's what he makes us see. In these little
trials we go through, because we need to see it again and again.
And He's showing us this again and again. He brings you to the
end of yourself. And when we won't wait on Him, He says here,
therefore I will wait. Isn't that amazing? He said,
you wouldn't wait. And the Lord said, therefore
will I wait. Why? You ever wonder why the Lord
waits? When you're in trouble and your heart's breaking, And
it's just so heavy on you. You ever wonder why the Lord
waits? Why is He waiting? Here's why, verse 18. Therefore
will the Lord wait that He may be gracious unto you. That's
what He's doing. He's waiting that He may be gracious
to you. When He shows us, comes to you
and He shows you, that you've been saying no to Me. He draws
you to Himself and He shows you again. You've been saying no
to Me. That's when you see He wouldn't cast you away. He wouldn't
take no from you. He drew you back to Himself and
He made you to know you're saved by Him entirely by His grace. Have you ever seen your sin as
a believer, seeing your sin so real and so strong in a trial
or whatever you did, whatever it is, whatever the circumstances,
to where he just all over again shows you, you are saved entirely
by grace. He keeps showing you this. It
may be painful, but the Lord's waiting because His love is sovereign
and His love is unchangeable in Christ. And His purposes to
teach us were saved entirely by the grace of God alone. Verse
18, and therefore will He be exalted that He may have mercy
upon you. You know salvation beginning
and end is by mercy. Zacharias was the father of John
the Baptist. And this is what he said in Luke
168. He said, Blessed be the Lord
God of Israel. He said this about the Lord Jesus
Christ. He said, Blessed be the Lord
God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people to perform
the mercy promised to our fathers. Everything God promised Abraham
he would do in saving a multitude no man can number, it was all
according to God's mercy. And he sent Christ, and Zechariah
said, Christ has come forth to perform the mercy God promised. And that's what our Lord is teaching
us. He's showing us. He teaches us in His gospel.
He's teaching us in everything He's working in our lives. When
He brings you to the end of yourself and you see your weakness and
you see your sin and He's showing you all over again, I'm saving
you by mercy. By mercy. He said, I will be
exalted that I might have mercy on you. Christ was exalted on
the cross. He's exalted in the preaching
of His Word by the Spirit. He's exalted in our hearts in
the midst of whatever He's working in this world. He'll exalt Himself
before you in your heart and in providence and show you Himself
that He may have mercy upon you. Christ said, He said, I will
have mercy and not sacrifice. He's not looking to our works
we've done at all. He's not going to receive our
sacrifices we've made at all. He saves by mercy, by mercy. He said, I am not come to call
the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And he shows us we're
the sinner. and that He's calling us to repentance
from the very first time He calls you all the way to the last.
When He's calling us to Himself and He's turning us and making
us to return and rest in Him, He's calling a sinner to repentance.
We don't get past being the sinner. In my flesh dwells no good thing.
I'm the sinner. Are you the sinner? He's calling
and saving sinners, calling us to repentance. He's being exalted
that he might have mercy upon us. He's saving us by mercy.
Why does he save this way? Verse 18. For the Lord is a God
of judgment. For the Lord's a God of judgment.
We look to that cross and you know what you see? You see the
God of judgment. We see God do the wisest thing
anybody ever did that no man could have come up with, no man
could have advised this, no man could have... I used Darius as
an example on Sunday. He tried and tried to figure
out how he could show mercy to Daniel and yet uphold the law
of the Medes and Persians that could not be altered. And he
could not figure out how to do both. How can I honor my law
and how can I be merciful to Daniel? He couldn't do it. But
in Christ on the cross we see how God honored His law, upheld
it, poured out justice on every one of His elect people and how
that at the same time He was a Savior and justified His people
and saved His people. He makes you know He's the God
of judgment and how He calls you and how He corrects you. When He called you, He didn't
call you in wrath. It felt like wrath. And when
He corrects us, it sometimes feels like wrath, but He's not
called you in wrath. He's called you in judgment like
a father, like a tender father. Jeremiah 10.24, He said, O Lord,
correct me. Don't you want to be corrected? I don't want to perish with the
world. You don't want to perish with the world. And if it takes
the Lord's correctness, you want to be corrected, don't you? Jeremiah
10.24, he said, O Lord, correct me, but with judgment, not in
thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing. We couldn't withstand
God's anger. And He corrects you with judgment.
He will not, he will not, he will not quench the smoking flax. When you're so weak, he won't
break the, he won't break the bruise read. He won't smoke the,
he won't quench the smoking flax. He knows just, just enough to
give you and when to show you mercy so that it's not too much. He brings us to behold His judgment
and all His wisdom and knowledge to do all things after the counsel
of His own will. Everything that is coming to
pass in this world is Him fulfilling His eternal purpose after the
counsel of His own will. He is working for us in the very
best time. He is working for you in the
very best time so that you see His grace and His mercy magnified
and you see Him magnified in His judgment and His wisdom.
And He knows just how to do it so you see Him magnified. Look at verse 18. He says, Blessed,
happy are all they that wait for Him. Our All-Wise Shepherd
is teaching us this through every affliction. He's teaching us
to wait on Him. You know, there's no happiness
in trying to save ourselves. Absolutely none. There's no happiness
in trying to save ourselves out of a trial. There's no happiness
in trying to save your brethren out of the trial. Because the
Lord won't let us accomplish it. He won't. We end up fretting, we end up
hasty, we end up running here and there for help. But what
does He say? Happy, blessed, happy are all
they that wait for Him. Wait for Him, wait for His time,
wait for Him to do you good. Isaiah 28, 16 said, He that believeth
shall not make haste. He won't be running here and
there. If you believe the Lord, you don't have to get all worked
up and you don't have to get all bent out of shape and make
haste to try to make things happen if you believe him. Now listen
to what he said, he that believeth shall not make haste. He that
believeth and knows it's in the Lord's hand and the Lord's working,
he will not make haste, he shall not. And then listen to this
from Isaiah 49 23, they shall not be ashamed that wait for
me. There's the front and the back
of this. He that believeth shall not make haste, he'll wait for
me, he'll trust me, he'll look to me. And he says in Isaiah
49, 23, and they shall not be ashamed, they'll wait for me.
He'll never make you ashamed for trusting him. Verse 19, for
the people should dwell in Zion at Jerusalem. He's not going
to lose one. Thou shalt weep no more. He'll be very gracious
to you at the voice of your cry. When he hears it, he'll answer
you. You may not think he's hearing you cry, but he hears it. And
he'll answer it, verse 20. And though the Lord give you
the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet shall
not thy teachers be removed into a corner anymore. But thine eyes
shall see thy teachers, thine ears shall hear a word behind
thee saying, this is the way. Walk ye in it when you turn to
the right hand, when you turn to the left. When Judah prospered,
they thought they had no need of God. When they were prospering,
they thought they had no need of God. But through adversity
and through affliction, the Lord taught them they needed the Lord. That's why He calls adversity
bread. That's why He calls affliction
water. It's food for us, brethren. It's food for us because it's
teaching us. If He just let you prosper in this world, you wouldn't
need Him. But he keeps giving you this
bread of adversity, this water of affliction. It's like bread
and water for your soul to teach you you need him. And by this
he makes you cast off your vain religion. He said you're going
to cast away your graven images there. And he said there, and
he said, and it'll give you the increase of the earth, and it'll
be fat and plenteous, and your cattle will feed in large pastures.
See, all of this is for your benefit. All of this is for your
good. That's what the Lord's working.
in everything He's doing. That's salvation A to Z, brethren.
That's salvation at the cross. That's salvation from the moment
you wake up in the morning to the moment you lay down at bed.
That's salvation when you sleep at night and can't even save
yourself. That's how helpers you are all
the time, just like you are at night when you sleep in your
bed. And the Lord's saving His people the whole time. And He's
going to bless it to you. And he says, and he'll keep you
persevering and looking to him and waiting. And he said, and
when he returned, he said, blessed are them that are watching. They're
waiting for me. And he'll return. And he said
he's going to bring us into glory with him and sit us down at his
table. And he's going to come forth and he's going to serve
us. This is what he's been doing for us since he created the world. He's been serving you. He's been
serving you. Amen. Brother Greg,