And if we get to our text, I'm
going to try to preach out of these last few verses of Habakkuk
3. And I say if we get to it, I
want to give you some background on this book of Habakkuk so we
can understand something of what he was saying. We don't really know when he
prophesied. We think it was around the time
of Jeremiah during the latter part of the reign of King Josiah. It was about 600 years before
our Lord came. Bacchic means embraced. And by
God's grace, He embraced the Lord. Or the Lord embraced Him
and therefore He embraced the Lord. And what we see in this
prophecy as well is that He embraced the Lord's people. Children of
Israel were very rebellious. And even despite them, he loved
them. And he prayed for them. And he
was praying for God's mercy in the midst of his wrath. He embraced
the Lord's people. But God showed Habakkuk that
he was bringing judgment upon the nation Israel and he was
going to use Babylon to do it. And the reason was because their
hearts were lifted up in pride. They esteemed themselves righteous
by their works. They esteemed themselves to be
making themselves holy by their works. They esteemed themselves
to be persevering. They thought they believed God
and they esteemed themselves to be believing God by their
strength. And they were full of pride.
And so God's word to Habakkuk is the gospel that God's children,
those justified by Christ, walk by faith. We live by faith in
Christ. He says here in Habakkuk chapter
2, he says, The Lord answered me, verse 2,
write the vision and make it plain upon tables that he may
run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an
appointed time. That which he was showing Habakkuk. He said this is coming at my
appointed time. But at the end it shall speak
and not lie. Though it tarry, though it take
some time to get here, wait for it, because it will surely come.
It will not tarry. And here's why he was bringing
this judgment. Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright
in him, but the just shall live by his faith. Now, this word,
the just shall live by his faith, is quoted three times in the
New Testament. And another time, this word here
about this vision is in Acts. And all three times when the
Lord teaches us in the New Testament that you just shall live by faith,
it's quoted three times. In all three times, it declares
that Christ is what faith looks to Him for. Faith looks to Christ
and Christ is what faith looks to him for. What we're looking
for and need in Christ and we believe Christ is, that's what
he is to his people. We find it in Romans 1, Christ
is the righteousness of those that believe on him. Paul said,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it's the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it. To the Jew first
and also to the Gentile for therein is the righteousness of God revealed. Remember how Paul said over in
Romans 10, the problem with the Pharisees was they had not submitted
themselves unto righteousness. They had not gilded themselves
unto obedience unto righteousness. And that righteousness is a person,
Christ. And in the Gospel, Christ is
revealed, the righteousness of God. And he said, for therein
The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it's written
that just shall live by faith. That's quoting Habakkuk. This
was the problem in Israel. They weren't looking to Christ
for righteousness. They were trying to work out
a righteousness of their own. And then in Galatians 3.11 it's
speaking of sanctification. Now Paul uses the word justified
in Galatians. But brethren, that wasn't what
the Judaizers were telling the believers to do, the Gentile
believers. They were telling them, now that
you believe Christ for justification, go back to the law, to your works,
for sanctification, to make yourself holy. But when a man does that,
he's trying to say he's justified by his works too. And that's
why Paul used that word. But here he quotes Habakkuk,
and he said, No man's justified by the law, by his works, whether
they're the Old Testament law or New Testament precept. No
man's justified by the law, by anything he does in the sight
of God. It's evident, for the just should
live by faith, and the law's not of faith. Any man that wants
to be justified or sanctified by his works, made holy by his
works or be made righteous by his works, the law says he has
to do everything in the law perfectly. That's not faith. The just, those
justified with Christ, they look for Christ not only for justification,
but for holiness. He's our holiness. That's what
it is to be truly sanctified, is to look only to Christ and
trust Him. And then in Hebrews 10, and I
want you to turn here, because I want you to see this. In Hebrews
10, Christ is the strength of faith. He's the strength of our
perseverance. We look to Him for preservation.
And Paul here is saying that those that walk by faith are
not going to draw back. But look what he said, and I
want you to catch this now. Hebrews 10 and verse 38, I'm
sorry, and verse Verse 35, cast not away therefore your confidence
which hath great recompense of reward. For you have need of
patience that after you've done the will of God you might receive
the promise. Now watch this next word, this
is straight from Habakkuk. For yet a little while, and he
that shall come will come, and will not tarry." In Habakkuk,
it says, the vision will tarry, but it shall come. Here, we're
told that it is a person. It's Christ. He shall come. In
a little while, he shall come. He will not tarry, now the just
shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall
have no pleasure in him. But we're not of them that draw
back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of
the soul. In all three of those applications, Christ is what
faith looks to him for. He's the righteousness of his
people. He's the sanctification of his people. He's the strength
of his people that preserves us. Behold, his soul which is
lifted up is not upright in him. A man that thinks he provides
any of those three things, he's not walking by faith. His soul
is lifted up, he's lifted up in pride. The just shall live
by faith. But Israel was lifted up in pride,
and because they were, they refused to believe on Christ, they refused
to live by faith, to walk by faith, They were worshiping idols,
the works of their hands. And so God sent temporal judgment. He sent Babylon, the Chaldeans. He sent Babylon. And they came
in, and they came in on horses, and they were the mightiest nation,
and they just devoured Israel. And they took all the wealthiest,
and the strongest, and the most productive, took them to Babylon,
and left the lame, and the hulk, and people that wasn't any benefit
to them, they just left them in Israel, in Judah. But they
took the wealthiest, and the most productive, they took them
with them. Now you can imagine, this is not a godly nation we
live in. Never has been. It wasn't in
the beginning. But when Habakkuk hears this,
it would be the same as you and I in this nation having a word
come to us from God to tell us China is fixing to come over
here and they've taken us. It's going to happen. And that
very well could happen. It would be the same kind of
terror that would strike you. You would fix to be overtaken.
And everything you've known all your life and the prosperity
you've known is fixing to be gone. And it's because they were
not trusting the Lord. And Babylon represents Mystery
Babylon. This is what is happening in
this world right now. Mystery Babylon is every kind
of falsehood. And we've always seen through
the ages It comes in like temporal, like carnal Babylon came into
Israel. It comes in and people receive every kind of falsehood
and embrace it and it becomes acceptable and it gets worse
and worse and worse in every generation. And it's gonna get
worse and worse and worse. And if some is in Babylonian
religion, looking to themselves, saying they believe Christ, looking
to themselves or whatever it is, some in religion, others
outside of religion, just in profane sin. But after God sent
Babylon to judge Israel and to strip Israel of everything they
had, then Babylon decided they'd go further and they would do
more than what God ordained for them to do, and they imputed
all this to their God, their idol God, and God destroyed Babylon.
And that's a picture of the end. Once Christ comes back to judgment,
He's using Babylon now to send judgment in this world, Mystery
Babylon, to just sift and separate those that are not His. and in
the end he's going to judge all who are outside of Christ. Now
that's what Habakkuk was seeing, but Habakkuk was also seeing
that this judgment is settled by Christ on the cross for his
people. That's what he said in Habakkuk 1.5. Look there, back
at 1.5, the Lord said, Behold ye among the heathen and regard
and wonder marvelously. When you see wonder marvelously
in the scriptures, it's always speaking of God's judgment. Of
His judgment. For I will work a work in your
days which you will not believe though it be told you. Now, I
can't do it tonight because I want to get to my text, but you go
home tonight and you read Acts 13, verse 26 through 41, and
the Spirit moved the Apostle Paul to apply that to the judgment
accomplished by Christ on the cross for his people. That very
verse. That's where the wondrous work
of God's judgment was satisfied toward his people was on Calvary's
cross. Now Christ is coming again and He's going to judge this
whole world in righteousness. But the judgment of His people
was settled on the cross. So what Habakkuk is seeing is
coming on Israel, he also knows this is going to be chastening
and correction for those that are really God's people. They're
going to benefit from this while the rest are going to be judged,
they're going to benefit from this. And that's what he sees. And so true faith beholds Christ
in whatever God's doing. That's what Habakkuk sees. He
sees God's work and God's judgment and he sees what's woe to the
wicked is well for the righteous. He's going to suffer. Habakkuk
is going to suffer. God's true people in Israel are
going to suffer through this that the Lord is bringing. And
whenever God sends judgment upon the wicked, His people suffer.
And when He's chastening you, it's painful and it's going to
cause you to suffer. But it's for our good. And faith
beholds that. And so no matter what God takes
from us, faith's joy is in the Lord. Not in anything else. and face confidences in the Lord.
And faith's strength is in the Lord. Faith's righteousness is
in the Lord. Faith's holiness is in the Lord.
Everything, faith trusts the Lord. And that's what everything
God's working in this world that causes us sorrow and tears and
pain and suffering and strips us and hurts us, it's not hurting
God's child. It's causing us to be brought
to find our joy more and more only in the Lord. God's weaning
us from this world. And He's making Christ more and
more to make us see He's the one thing needful. And He has
to teach us this constantly over and over and over. So in Habakkuk
3.16 we hear faith's joy in these last words Habakkuk said. He
said in verse 16, When I heard my belly tremble, my lips quivered
at the voice, rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled
in myself. that I might rest in the day
of trouble. When he cometh up unto the people,
he will invade them with his troops. Now he's speaking of
Babylon there, but he's speaking of God who's doing the work with
Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. And it's God sending his troops
when he does anything in this world, it's God doing it. He
said, I trembled, my flesh was brought to nothing that I might
rest when he comes. And he says, although the fig
tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines,
the labor of the olive shall fail, and the field shall yield
no more meat, the flock shall be cut off from the fold, there
shall be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength,
and he will make my feet like hinds feet, and he will make
me to walk upon mine high places. True faith is going to find joy
only in the Lord, in the God of my salvation. That's where
true faith finds joy. In the Lord, only in the Lord,
in the God of my salvation. And that's my subject, faith's
joy. Faith's joy. Now first of all, faith's joy
is in the Lord, not in our flesh, not in us. It's not in us. Our flesh has to be subdued to
keep us joying only in the Lord. Habakkuk said, when I heard,
when God told me what He was doing, and I saw this judgment
coming, and I saw this mighty work on the cross, and I saw
the last day of judgment when He's coming, I saw this vision
of what's God doing now in my life, what He would do on Calvary's
cross, and what He's going to do in that last day. When I saw
this judgment, My belly trembled, my lips quivered at the voice,
rottenness entered into my bones. And I trembled in myself, that
I might rest in the day of trouble. When He cometh up unto the people,
He will invade them with troops. Daniel said the same thing. In
Daniel 10.8, the Lord showed him a similar vision. And Daniel
said, I was left alone, and I saw this great vision, and there
remained no strength in me. For my cuddliness was turned
in me into corruption, and I retained no strength. And he said, and
then a voice spoke to me. It was Christ. And he put his
hand on me, and he set me up on my hands and my knees, he
said. And he spoke peace to him. What's going on here? Well, in
the first hour, the Spirit of God comes. You know what the
first thing the Lord is going to convince you of? The Spirit
of God is going to convince you of sin. Why? What's the sin? You don't believe
on Christ. And He's going to convince us
of righteousness. Why? Because Christ has gone to the
right hand of the Father. He has come to the cross, He's
accomplished that work, and God received Him back to glory. He
is the righteousness of His people. And He's going to convince us
of judgment because Christ crushed the devil's head on the cross
when he took away the sin of his people, when he declared
his people to be justified and God to be the justifier. He took
all the devil's power from him. He crushed his head on Calvary's
cross. Now that's what God's going to make us see in the first
hour. And you know what's going to happen when he does that?
Everything about our flesh is subdued. We find no confidence
in our works. Our goodness is turned into rottenness. We don't see anything good in
ourselves at all. And that is a converting work. Our flesh trembles, quivers,
our pride is dealt a blow, our fleshly strength is gone, our
self-will is cast down, we have no strength in our flesh, and
it's for this reason that we might rest in Christ alone. That's
what has to be done first. Do you remember Peter believed
the Lord? And when the Lord told him, Peter,
Satan has desired to sift you as wheat. And he said, now when
you're converted, That converting work that God does in the first
hour, when he makes you see this and makes you have no confidence
in yourself, that work don't stop. That work's not a one-time
work. He converts us over and over
through our life, and he keeps doing this. And every time he
does it, Habakkuk is his prophet. Habakkuk believes God. But Habakkuk,
God did this work in him all over again, and he said, I couldn't
find any confidence in myself. I saw myself, and I saw my sin,
and I saw my weakness, and I saw my lack of faith. I saw I had
no righteousness. I saw that I deserve this judgment. And I couldn't trust myself.
But He did this to me, so I find all my joy in the Lord. And that's
what the Lord's going to keep doing. When Christ does this,
He's going to keep on making us find all our joy only in the
Lord. It's not in us. And then secondly,
faith, joy is in the Lord, not in things. He says here in verse
17, although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit
be in the vines, the labor of the olive oil shall fail, the
field shall yield no meat, the flock shall be cut off from the
foe, there shall be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice
in the Lord. This was gonna happen in Habakkuk's
country, he knew it. Everything that, All the carnal
things we typically consider as blessings, and we're thankful
for the things we have that God's given. We know who gave them.
He's blessed us with many temporal blessings, but faith's joy is
not in the things. Now, what if God made the land
you live in to be like that right there? There's not a thing you
can look on and say, I have a blessing in that. He took it all away. I tell you what's gonna happen
if that happens. There's gonna be a lot of people that profess
faith in Christ that ain't gonna be found nowhere. God's fan's in His hand. He does
the sifting. That's not my job, that's not
your job. He'll do that sifting. And He'll do it by taking away
the things that we consider our blessings. You hear it all the
time. I can't believe on God, how could
you believe a God that lets such wicked things come to pass in
this earth? He does that for his people, taking away things
to show us and keep us knowing and rejoicing that our joy is
in the Lord, it's not in things. Habakkuk said, though all these
things be removed, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. Now, when
God removes temporal things, false faith is going to find
no rejoicing in the Lord. Not any. Where there was once
a smile and everything was good, when the carnal things change
and the outward temporal things change, there will just be a
pouting. No joy. And I can show you that
in Amos 4 in verse 6, listen to this. The Lord said, I have
given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and wont
of bread in all your places, yet have you not returned unto
me, saith the Lord. Now he did that, when Habakkuk
saw that, what did Habakkuk do? Yet I rejoice in the Lord. He
went straight to the Lord. But these that didn't have faith,
the Lord said, I took rain from you. And he said, so two or three
cities wandered into one city to drink water, but they were
not satisfied. Yet have you not returned to
me, saith the Lord. I smitten you in blasting and
mildew when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees
and your olive trees increased, the palmer worm devoured them.
Yet have you not returned unto me, saith the Lord. On and on
he goes. I sent pestilence among you.
I sent a coronavirus to you, yet you've not returned unto
me, saith the Lord." God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. He said, I overthrew your cities
like I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, yet you've not returned unto
me. What did Lot do? When God overthrew Sodom and
Gomorrah, Lot lost every temporal possession he had. Even his dearest
loved one, God took her. He lost everything. And everything,
the reason Lot was where he was, was Lot's own fault. And God
saved Lot in spite of Lot. And you know what Lot did when
God did that? He said, Behold, now thy servant hath found grace
in thy sight. Thou hast magnified thy mercy,
which thou hast showed unto me, and saved my life. God took everything
he had. Can you imagine if God just sent
a big A big meteor raining fire round and just landed it right
smack on top of your house and destroyed everything you have.
That's what he did to Lot. And then killed his wife. And took everything he had. Lot
said, he returned to the Lord. Lot said, you have magnified
your grace and your mercy to me. That's what true faith is
going to do. Lot rejoiced in God's free grace. Lot changed, his circumstances
changed, his sin, everything he did changed. God's grace didn't
change at all. And he made Lot see that. Whatever God takes away, you
might have temporal prosperity right now. And God lowers your
income, so you have to work harder for less. Or he may just take
your income all together. True faith's gonna say, he took
it all away to keep me knowing he's my only provider. He's Jehovah
Jireh, the Lord will provide. That's where faith's gonna find
this joy. Say he comes and he takes away
your good health you have and gives you some painful disease.
True faith's gonna enjoy in Christ the great physician. He's gonna
say, he did this for me to keep me knowing he's the bomb of Gilead. He's made my soul every widow.
from peace to great troubles in our lives. True faith's gonna
rejoice saying, I have peace in Jehovah Shalom. He's my peace. And he did this to show me he's
my peace. He's my peace with God. If trouble
put faith in a sinner, it doesn't. Trouble reveals whether it's
true faith or not true faith. But if trouble put faith in a
sinner, everybody in this world would have been saved a long
time ago. Because everybody receives trouble. But God's sanctifying
grace sanctifies every tear in His child. And He makes you,
when He removes your temporal things, true joy is going to
rejoice in the Lord alone. And see, He did this to teach
me. He is my all. The promise of
God do not change in Christ, though He may change all our
outward circumstances. This is going to come to pass,
brethren. And I think it's coming to pass sooner than we realize.
There's things happening right now that are incredible to me.
And I know every generation has thought, you know, it's worse
than it's ever been in their generation. There's things just
exponentially taking place right now. But I know what's happening. And whenever the Lord brings
trouble, His people are going to joy in Him. And where there's
not true faith, they're not joining him. But none of his promises are
going to change because the outward circumstances change. If you
have peace in your heart and he's purged your conscience to
where you know he is all your salvation, he's your righteousness,
he's your holiness, you're accepted in the beloved, no matter what
he does outwardly, not one promise of God is going to change because
the outward circumstances change. And faith knows that and faith
rejoices in that. And I'll tell you something else
these things represent. All these things that were taken
away, they represent the means of grace. Now we rejoice, brethren,
that we have a place to assemble and hear the gospel preached.
And as long as God does this, we're gonna assemble, we're gonna
worship God. Because this is a great blessing we have. But
God's people are not finding our rejoicing in walking in these
doors and sitting in these pews. That's not our rejoicing. Our
rejoicing is Christ who we hear when the gospel goes forth. And
if God takes away the building, and He takes away the assembly,
and He makes it to where you can't assemble with God's people,
because there ain't a church to be found, there's a famine
of the word, God's people are still going to be joined in Christ
our bread. If He brings you to a place where
you're like Elijah, and you think you're the only elect child left,
and you can't find a brother nowhere in sight, We love our brethren and they're
the closest thing we have to Christ on this earth. Rejoice
that you have brethren. Value that you have brethren.
Love your brethren. But if He makes us be in that
place where He made Elijah be, our joy is still going to be
in the Lord. There's no fruit. There's no
calves in the stall. There's nothing around to rejoice
in that I used to have to rejoice in. Yet all joy in the Lord.
That's where his people are going to be. All earthly cisterns will
leak out, but the fountain of living waters never runs dry. If we live for earthly bread
and earthly joy, if our joy is in the means of grace rather
than the God of all grace, then where will our joy be in famine
when all is taken away? He did that in Habakkuk's day.
He did that in Habakkuk's day. But if our life is Christ the
bread, we're going to joy come what may. We're going to joy
come what may. True faith doesn't say the Lord
gave and the Lord has taken away. That's not what true faith says.
True faith says the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord. Now thirdly, because faith's
joy is in the Lord alone, He's the only one we joy in. The only
one we joy in. He says here in verse 18, Yet
I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
The Lord God is my strength. He will make my feet like Han's
feet, and He will make me to walk upon my high places. He
will. Faith's joy is in the God of
my salvation. Is He the God of your salvation?
That means Christ is your righteousness, That means He's your holiness.
That means He is your acceptance with God. And if that's so, if
you've made to see Christ is the one thing you need, the one
you need is Christ, then when God takes everything else away,
you're going to still be rejoicing. And He's going to take everything
else away. If you find your fruit, and your
assurance in you. If you live long enough, there's
going to come a day when you're not going to do anything that's
going to give you an assurance. You're not going to see any fruit
in you. And if you have to look back to something you did to
find some assurance, I pity you. That's not where you're going
to find fruit. You let your brethren see the
fruit in you. They will. And they'll ignore
your sin. Pharisees will ignore the fruit
and see your sin. But in themselves, they see lots
of fruit and no sin. God's child is going to find
all his joy in the Lord, all your fruits in Him. In Him. And you rejoice that He's the
God of your salvation. You rejoice that He's your strength.
He said there, the Lord God is my strength. If He's omnipotent
to send me trouble, if He's omnipotent to send you trouble, He's omnipotent
to save you through it. Is that not right? Boy, if we
could remember that. If we really believe He's sovereign
and He ruled everything to send me this trouble, He's sovereign
to bring me right through it. Christ is our omnipotent Savior. He is all the strength of our
salvation. It was Him in power who took
the sin of His people and laid down His life and put away the
sin of His people forever. That's the power that guarantees
He's going to save all His people. He is that power. All power in
heaven and earth is given to Him as the God-man mediator.
That means when He speaks, the universe bows and does what He
says. And He's your strength and salvation. Whatever trouble He sends in
this life, rest assured, it's nothing compared to the trouble
that's coming. It's nothing compared to the
judgment that's coming. He brought it upon Israel 70
years in the year 70 A.D. and destroyed
Israel, wiped them off the map. And this is what he said to us.
Jeremiah was complaining because of the judgment of men and people
were rejecting his word and he was facing all kinds of trouble
in his day. And the Lord said, if thou hast run with the footmen
and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? When the judgment comes, when
things get really really hot and the fire is blazing. If in
the land of peace wherein thou trustest they weary thee, how
wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan? Faith's joy is the
Lord is my strength. I'm utter weakness. And he gonna,
like he did back, he gonna make us see that so that we say, the
Lord is my strength. He's my strength now, he's my
strength whatever judgment he brings on this earth, he's gonna
chase me, correct me, keep you looking to Christ, and in that
final judgment, he gonna be our strength that's gonna defend
us and be our advocate with the Father. And by being our salvation
and strength, faith rejoices knowing God our Savior should
do these two things. This is what He's always going
to do right here. Habakkuk said, He'll make my feet like hind's
feet. The hind is the deer. Now you think about it. There's
a lot of deer come up here and I see them and I grew up hunting
deer and seeing a lot of deer in the woods. You just, you startle
a deer and you just don't hardly ever see a deer stumble. They
can jump and twist and turn and go through places that you didn't
think a deer could fit through. And they just don't hardly ever
lose their footing. And that's what he's saying.
In my flesh, I may slip and I may fall. He says God's people are
going to fall multiple times a day. But in our inner man,
he's going to make your feet like hinds feet. He's going to
make you stand on Christ. And he's not going to let you
fall. That's what he's going to do. And he says here too,
he'll make me walk upon my high places. Now you think about this. We get so encumbered with all
the things going on in our lives and everything becomes so important
and just so monumental and we can't get through this because
it's just too big. When you've flown in an airplane,
you look out the window and you look down at the houses It gives
you some perspective of just how tiny and insignificant we
really are. And just how tiny and insignificant
your troubles really are. And what our Lord does is He
brings you up to Him and sets your affection on Him at God's
right hand where you are complete. And speaks into your heart and
makes you to know He's doing everything that's come in the
past and He's doing it for you, for your brethren, for His people
all over this world. And he makes the trouble become
very small. And he becomes very large. And
he's much bigger than any problems you have. He's much bigger than
any trouble we have. People see things happen in the
church and they start complaining and criticizing and critical
and calling up other pastors and talking to other people,
wanting to know, what should I do? We need to be doing something
about this. Well, what have you done? What have you learned? What has God shown you from it?
That's what we need to be concerned about. First, I need to remember
and be taught I am nothing but a wretched sinner. He's going
to make us do that. He's going to subdue our flesh
first. If we're going to join the Lord,
that's what's going to happen first. Secondly, He's going to
make us see we have no reason to joy in anything in this world. He'll take it away if He needs
to, to make us know that. And thirdly, He's going to remind
you. He's going to set your feet like Heinz' feet on Christ, and
He's going to lift you up to where He is and make whatever
trouble's going on, make you know He's ruling it. And just
like He taught you in your heart, whoever is going through that,
He can teach them in their heart. And if you believe He's sovereign,
and He's your strength, and He's your joy, and He did that for
you, Pray for your brother. Be gracious for them. Be gracious
to them. Love them just like he's done
you and wait on him. Just imagine if we all did that
in every trouble we have. Imagine if we all quit looking
and criticizing and criticize the one in the mirror. and then
look to the Lord and say, He's all my salvation. We wouldn't
have much trouble, would we? Where does the trouble come?
When we stop walking by faith and we decide we're going to
be our own righteousness, we're going to be our own holiness,
we're going to be our strength, and we're going to be that for
others. I'll tell you where we'll end
up. We'll end up where those poor Israelites ended up when
God sent Nebuchadnezzar in there, wiped them off the map. Look
to Christ. Trust Christ. Stay on Christ. He will work salvation. And that's
what we'll do. We'll joy in Him. We'll joy in
Him. He's going to keep you rejoicing
in Him. He's going to keep His brethren rejoicing in Him. No
matter how bad it looks, no matter how bad it gets, He's going to
keep His people joying in Him only. Let's trust Him. Let's
trust Him. Let's believe Him. And you'll
find joy in your heart when you do that. You'll find joy in your
heart. Father, we pray You bless this
Word. Lord, be with us. your people and work this work
in each of us. Keep us rejoicing in you alone. Make us quit hearing anything but your word.
Make us quit beholding anything but Christ by faith. Blind us like you did Saul on
the road to Damascus, so we can't see anything but Christ by faith. Lord, make us think about those
people in other countries that risked death to come and worship
you. And make us Rejoice in the things you've
given us while we have them. Not just rejoicing in the means
and the blessings, but in you who gave them. Lord, be with our brethren who
are suffering bereavement and who will suffer bereavement and
keep them remembering that our God is alive. And our Savior,
He's not died. He's alive and He's their life. Dry their tears and comfort their
hearts. Strengthen them, Lord. We know
you have some dear brethren that are going through that. Be with
them and comfort them. Lord, bless our children. Melt
their hearts. Bring them to Your feet. And Lord, keep us there. Keep us there. Forgive us, Lord,
how we need forgiveness. And just behold us in Your Son and in
His righteousness and His perfection. For His sake, Lord, we don't
deserve a thing. Just for His sake, do what you
do to us, to your people. Lord, we're sorry. We're sorry
for being so sorry, for being just wretches and not honoring
you more. Make us truly, truly joy in our
Redeemer. No matter what, no matter how
we might sorrow in this life, keep our joy in our innermost
man. Keep our joy in Christ only.
We ask you, Lord. We need you. We beg of you. Be our salvation. Be our strength. Whatever you bring to pass, Lord,
keep us looking to you. We thank you. Thank you for all
your rich blessings in Christ. In His name we pray. Amen.