Alright brethren, let's turn
to Zechariah chapter 13. Zechariah 13. Our text is going to be verse
9, but I want to notice first of all a few things in context.
This is what's going to happen in our gospel day, the day we
live in. This is happening after Christ
has suffered on the cross for His people. He said in verse
7, Awake, O sword, against My shepherd, and against the man
that is My fellow, saith the Lord of hosts. Smite the shepherd,
and the sheep shall be scattered. It was God that awakened the
sword of justice against Christ when He bore the sin of His people
on the cross. Christ is God's shepherd. He
is the shepherd of God's sheep, those He chose and gave to Christ. And He is God's fellow. He is
God. He is one with God, equal with
God. So His work is eternal. He brought eternal satisfaction
to justice. And when God smote the shepherd,
God scattered the sheep into the four corners of the earth.
He said, smite the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered.
Now, listen carefully to what I'm about to say and just try
to think on this. God's sheep are not sheep because
they live in America or France or Israel. That's not what makes
us a sheep. You know, Paul couldn't have
said it more clearly in Romans 9 when he said, it's not the
natural sons of Abraham that are Israel. It's the spiritual
sons. It's His elect. That's who God's
sheep are. It's His elect. Think of the
folly if I said this. God chose me and saved me because
I was born and raised in Union County, Arkansas. You say, that's
foolish. Well, some men stood in front
of Christ one day and said, we're the children of Abraham. We've
never been in bondage. He said, you're the children
of the devil. You're not the children of Abraham. They were
Israelites, but they weren't true Israel. You understand that?
And God calls His sheep. It's not with respect to persons.
It's not because of the country they live in. It's because they're
the elect of God by His pure grace. That's why to say God
calls a sinner because of something in us, because of our race, or
something in us, or by our works, or where we live, or anything
like that, that's to preach salvation by works. It's not by works. It's by grace. Now God's finished
His work with political Israel, and it's just like it was before
Israel. There's not a distinction. There's neither Jew nor Gentile
in Christ. God's calling out His sheep.
He's calling out His sheep, and they're scattered in the four
corners of the world. He said here, I'll turn my hand
upon the little ones. It's God who's gathering them.
He's gathering His sheep. And then we're told what He's
doing throughout all the earth right now. We just read it, what
Brother Scott just read about. He said they're going to come
from the north, the south, the east, and the west. This is his
people in the four corners of the world. Now look at verse
8. It shall come to pass in all the land, saith the Lord, two
parts therein shall be cut off and die, but the third part shall
be left therein. That means the greater part in
the earth, in all the land, two thirds, We're going to be cut
off and die. That's the hypocritical believer
as well as the wicked unbeliever. They're all going to be cut off. But the third part shall remain,
he said. And this is God's elect. This
is those that are being redeemed by Christ and have been redeemed
by Christ and will be born of his spirit. These are God's people.
This is who we're talking about. What's going to become of those
God gathers by his grace? What's going to become of you
who believe in this gospel age? What's the Lord doing with us
right now? What's the purpose? I told Sarah this morning, we
got up and I didn't even know the ice was coming. I had no
idea. She ran out the door and fell flat on her back. Melinda
ran out the door and fell down, hurt her wrist. And I had to
go out and scrape all the windshields. We had to switch vehicles and
get in other vehicles that had four-wheel drive and did all
this stuff, you know. I said, you know, this is just
perfect because I'm preaching about trials today. And sometimes
the fiery trial is in the form of ice. It was this morning. But look here, this is what God
said He's going to do. Our divisions are going to be
alliteration to help you remember. God's predestination, Number
two, God's purpose. And number three, God's promise.
First of all, God's predestination. God says He's going to bring
each of His children through the fire. Every one of them.
Verse 9, I will bring the third part through the fire. Now, believers should expect
fiery trials in this life. Heirs of the kingdom of above
are going to be heirs of trial below. Those that are going to
be reigning with Christ above, they're going to suffer and bear
the cross of Christ here below. Those that are going to be crowned
with glory above, they're going to bear the cross and suffer
here in this world. Our flesh don't like the fire.
Our flesh does not like the fire. And that's what doesn't like
the fire. But for the believer in the inward
man, there's a rejoicing in the fire because we know the fires
of God. He says there, I will. The fires
of God. He says, I will. Psalm 7, 9 says,
The righteous God trieth the hearts and reins. God is the
one that trieth his people. The Lord trieth the righteous.
But the wicked in him that loveth violence his soul hateth. That
may be where Paul was quoting from, or one of the scriptures
he had on his mind when he said, Whom the Lord loves he chastens.
Whom He loves, He chastens. He's going to try us. But if
you're without chastening of the Lord, you're not sons, He
said. Now our conversion is a fiery
trial. Our conversion is a fiery trial
and the reason it is, is because Christ is a fire. Look over at
Malachi and look at chapter 3. Malachi chapter 3, just to your
right. This was speaking of John the
Baptist coming. before Christ, but it speaks,
this is how God saves his people. Behold, I will send my messenger,
Christ says. Malachi 3.1, I will send my messenger
and he shall prepare the way before me. How is he going to
do that? He is just going to preach the gospel. And the Lord
whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple. And just
like he suddenly came into that literal physical temple, he suddenly
comes to his spiritual temple. His house, His church, He comes
in the midst of His people. And it says this, even the messenger
of the covenant, as we saw this morning, He's the one that teaches
us the gospel. Whom you delight in, behold, He shall come, saith
the Lord of hosts, but who may abide the day of His coming?
And who shall stand when He appears? For He's like a refiner's fire. He's a refiner's fire. He's like
fuller's soap. He shall sit as a refiner and
a purifier of silver. And He shall purify the sons
of Levi. The sons of Levi were the priests.
You know who his people are, his true people? Peter said,
we're kings and priests unto God. He's going to purify his
true priests, his true people, and he's going to purge them
as gold and silver, here's why, that they may offer unto the
Lord an offering in righteousness. You see, we come into the house
of the Lord, and we come to worship the Lord, and we come in, and
you think you delight in Him, think you know Him, think you...
many come that way. And then you start hearing about
him. And he sits like a refiner. And the only way you and I are
going to offer to the Lord of righteousness that one offering
that he'll receive, which is the Lord Jesus Christ himself,
that he's provided, the only way we're going to come in that
one offering, brethren, in true righteousness, is for Christ
to purge away all the draws of our self-righteousness and our
free will and all of that mess. That's the only way we're going
to come and offer a true offering in righteousness. And then, secondly,
God's Word is a fire. Christ is a fire, and His Word
is a fire. The Scripture says in Jeremiah
23, 39, it says, Is not my Word like as a fire, saith the Lord?
When He sends that messenger before Him to prepare the way,
He fills that messenger full of fire by filling him full of
His Word. And the messenger comes forth
preaching the gospel, and as he preaches the gospel, Christ
burns up everything that can be burned up. Everything that
can be burned up. All the wood, hay and stubble.
All the false hopes and all the false zeal and all of that. He
burns it up. William Gatsby said, when God
brings Christ and the sinner together, there is an alarming
blaze of the whole of the sinner's lumber. We're building our structure. We're building our tower trying
to get to God. And when He brings His Word forth,
He burns up everything that can be burned up. And therefore,
when you're converted by Christ, and you stand with Christ and
His people, because this is what He does, this is what His Word
does, burning up the chaff, and because the flesh don't like
to let go of the chaff, when He's made you to stand with His
people, the thing that's going to happen is you're going to
be, you should expect the fire of persecution. from the world,
from the religious world especially. Listen to what Peter said. He
said, Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial that
is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you,
but rejoice inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings.
Christ said the Lord suffered, His servants are going to suffer
too. Why did Christ suffer? Because he wouldn't give man
any glory. He wouldn't let man say it was by his choosing. He
wouldn't let man say he worked out a righteousness for himself.
He wouldn't let man say he had some holiness in him. And men
didn't like it, so they nailed him to a cursed tree. And that's
what we were doing all our days until it burned up our wood hay
and stubble too. But he said, but when his glory
shall be revealed, you'll be glad with exceeding joy. And
he said, so if you're reproached for his namesake, He said, be
happy, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
Remember that spirit of glory we saw this morning? He'd given
you His glory. He created His image in you.
And He says, and God rests upon you. Their part He's evil spoken
of, but on your part He's glorified. So, Christ is a fire, His words
are fire, and we can expect persecution fiery persecution because of
it. And then there's all sorts of trials in this life that God
is going to purposely lead His people through. And first of
all, He's going to force you to make sacrifices to part with
what you love most. He makes us make sacrifices to
part with what we love most. He called Abraham and He said,
Abraham, offer up your son, your only son Isaac. What was that? What was he doing there? He was
making Abraham take sides with the Lord Jesus Christ against
that which Abraham dearly loved with all his heart. He made him
trust Christ, take sides with Christ against the very Son he
loved with all his heart. And that's what he's going to
do with us. He brought the children of Israel to Mount Sinai. And
he spoke about the law. Moses said, sanctify yourself
tomorrow, the Lord is going to give us the law. And they came
out there thinking, we are going to do exactly what he tells us
to do. And God appeared and that mountain
was just smoke and fire and everything in that mountain. And they ran
back and hit their faces and said, Moses, you come between
us and God because we can't come to God on our own. And when he
makes you hear the law, you hear fire and smoke and everything
else, and you fall on your face and realize, I can't come to
God in my law keeping. Christ, you go up for us. You
mediate for me. I can't do it. He's going to
make you part with everything that you love. And the thing
we love the most is our righteousnesses. That's what keeps a man from
bowing to Christ, is his own self-worth. All right? God leads His people in a difficult
way through life. That's a trial. And He's making
His people live by faith in Christ alone. Feed upon that heavenly
manna alone. That's what He's teaching us
as He's leading us. Israel's journey in that wilderness, that's
the believer's journey through this world. In Deuteronomy 8,
He said, Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy
God led thee these 40 years. It was God leading them the whole
way. He's that rock. He's that cloud. He's that pillar
of fire. He was leading them the whole
way. And He says, and He led you to humble you and to prove
you. He says, to know what was in
your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
God knew what was in their heart. He knows what's in my heart and
your heart. He's showing us what's in our heart. What's in our heart. That's right. And He said this.
He said, And He's going to prove you whether you'll keep His commandments
or not. You know what He's teaching us
in this life? You're going to trust Christ or not. That's what
He said. He said, Believe on My Son. We're
going to rest in Christ or not. He says, Sacrifice and love My
brethren. We're going to do that or not.
This is what He's leading us in all this way He leads us.
And He says this. He says this, And He humbled
you and He suffered you to hunger. Hadn't He suffered you to hunger?
He made you to see you can't feed yourself by your own works.
And you've hungered. But what's He fed you with? And
He fed you with manna. Heavenly manna. Christ the Lord.
And He said that He might make you to know that man doesn't
live by bread alone. He doesn't live by... His works
and His livelihood and His providing in this earth. But by every word
that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. And that's what
He's teaching us in all these trials. To trust Him. To live
by faith on Christ. Trust Him. He will provide. He's
our righteousness. He'll provide every lesser thing
in this world. And then God leaves false preachers in this world
to try us. And false religion in this world.
Over in Deuteronomy 13, he said, if there rises up a false prophet
among you, and a dreamer of dreams, and he's showing you this sign
and this wonder, and he says, go after other gods and follow
them. The Lord said, don't you hearken
to the words of that prophet and that dreamer of dreams, for
the Lord your God is proving you. He's proving you to know
whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with
all your soul. That's why He's left them in this world. You
know what His people are going to do? They're going to stay
with Christ. They don't have any other choice.
He has the words of eternal life. We can't go with a false prophet.
When we hear a false prophet preaching and giving man glory,
we can't go with him. We've got to stay with Christ.
And then God gives us choices in this life to try us. He gives
us choices in life to try us. In Gibeon, the Lord appeared
to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, Ask what I shall
give thee. Ask what I shall give thee. You
know, at the heart of every choice that we have to make in this
life, at the heart of every choice we have to make in this life,
God is setting before us the same choice that He set before
Solomon. Same choice. You want to choose long life?
Riches for yourself? The life of your enemies? Triumph
over your enemies? Solomon asked for understanding
to discern judgment. Are you going to choose a long
life of ease with your family, with your grandkids in false
religion? Or are you going to ask Christ to be your wisdom?
Stand with Christ. Are you going to choose riches? That promotion comes, you're
going to get that fat salary, that new parking spot, and that
new company car, and all the perks that go with it, and all
that stuff, and be out there somewhere stranded where there
ain't no gospel anywhere around you. Or are you going to ask
God to make Christ your wisdom? Trust He'll provide. When Solomon
asked for understanding, you know what God did? He gave him
Christ as wisdom, and He gave him all those other lesser things
too. You know what He said to us? He spared not His only begotten
Son. Do you think He's going to let
you go without? No. He'll provide whatever lesser
thing we need. So, in every choice, the choice
is this. I want Christ to be my wisdom.
I want to go with Christ. I want to go with Him. And then
He sets the impossible before us. He sets the impossible before
us. to teach us not to lean to our
own understanding, but to trust God to provide, trust Christ
to provide. He's walking along one day and
he leads Philip. He's got Philip there with him
and he's going along and Jesus looked up and there was all this
company of people just all around him right there. He said, Philip,
how are we going to feed all these folks? Listen to this. And this he said to prove him,
for he himself knew what he would do. Christ knows what you and I will
do, and Christ already knows what he's going to do. Our best
answer is this. Philip said, oh, we couldn't
feed these people. If we just had all this, we couldn't
feed all these people. And finally the Lord, He said,
tell them to sit down, Philip. You know what the best answer
is when the Lord brings you to something that's just, it's just
impossible. There's no way, there's absolutely
no way you're going to be able to get through this or do it
or overcome it or provide or whatever. You know what the best
answer is when the Lord brings you there? Lord, you know. Lord,
you know. He already knows. This He said
to him because He already knew what He'd do. Christ makes us
wait on Him. Boy, that's a fiery trial. We
don't like to wait. And I tell you what, I believe
Satan is giving us everything so fast in this day to make us
less patient, make us less patient, so that we won't wait on the
Lord. His people are going to wait on Him. He's going to make
us wait on Him. He makes you wait on Him to know,
listen to this, Mary and Martha sent word to
Lazarus that Lazarus was sick. He waited two days to go. He waited till Lazarus had died
to go. You know why he did that? He
did it for Mary and Martha's benefit. He told Martha, if you'd
believe, you'd see the glory of the Lord. She met him saying,
Lord, if you'd have been there, If you haven't made us wait,
he said, if you believe, you will see the glory of the Lord.
And he showed her, that grave don't mean anything to him. He's
life. He just spoke, brought him right
out of the grave. Running, I was in the woods one time with my
dad and my grandfather. It was at night. And I looked
up and I heard this noise all around me. We were coon hunting
is what we were doing. And I heard, we were sitting
there with the lights out, and I had got off sort of by myself,
and they were on up ahead of me. And I heard a noise, and
I looked all around me, and I could see eyes. And at first I thought
it was the hounds had come in. And I got to looking, and it
wasn't the hounds, it was coyotes, coyotes all around me. And man, now you talk about running. I ran as fast as I could to get
up there where my dad and my grandfather was. Because I was
scared. I was frightened. Men that are
not afraid, they don't run. Men that aren't afraid don't
run. They're patient. And you know what the Scripture
says? He that believes on the Lord will not make haste. You
don't have to be impatient. You don't have to run. You don't
have to try to make it happen. Wait on the Lord. Just wait on
the Lord. And then He puts us in the fire even when we faithfully
serve Him. Even when we faithfully serve
Him, He puts us in the fire. Paul was faithful. By His grace,
Paul was faithful. Served Him like no man ever served
Him. And the Lord put him in prison
and made him bear stripes. But you know, that was the Lord's
way of saving the Philippian jailer. Whatever He does in making
us bear the trial, He's going to bring glory to His name and
He's going to save us. He's going to save His people.
every time. So we know that. We just know
that. When you bear the stripes, you just know He's going to bring
glory to His name. I know He's going to do it. I
know He's going to do it. Well, we could go on and on,
but whatever kind of fire we endure, God's the cause. He said,
I will. I'm going to bring them through
the fire. Now here's the second thing. God's purpose. God's purpose. The purpose of the fire is to
refine us. That's the purpose of the fire.
He said, I will refine them as silver is refined. We love the
flesh and we love things of the world. That's what we love. And
those things will kill you. Those things will spiritually
separate you. They're no good for you spiritually.
None of that is. And we have to be purged of every
bit of that. Isaiah 125, he said, I'll turn
my hand upon you. That's what he said he was going
to do. I'll turn my hand upon him. He said, I'll turn my hand
on you and I'll purely purge away thy dross and take away
all thy tin. I'll take it away. You know,
when the fire comes on silver, Whatever is not silver gets burned
up, takes away the dross, burns up the dross. And when He burns
us in this fire, in all these different ways He tries us, the
only thing that's going to be left is what came from Him, what
gives glory to Him, and what He's sustaining. That's the only
thing that's going to remain. what he's provided. We sing how
firm a foundation. And he said this, when through
fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, my grace all sufficient
shall be thy supply. The flame shall not hurt thee,
I only design, thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine. We're
going to see that. I'm going to show you the scripture
that comes from. And also the purpose of this fire is to try
them as gold. Look at that. He said, I'll try
them as gold is tried. I'll try them as gold is tried.
That's to prove that our faith is the gift of God, that it's
upheld by God, so that God receives all the glory. It's not to prove
it to God. It's to hold up His people as
monuments of His grace. That's what it's for. You know,
earthly gold will endure a lot of fire. It will endure a whole
lot of fire. But earthly gold won't endure
what's called the seventh fire. Fire heated seven times. It won't
endure it. It will burn up. The Lord has
said in the end when He returns after He's called out His people,
the elements are going to melt with the fervent heat. Everything
in this world is going to burn up, the gold included. It's going
to burn up because it's earthly gold. All that's going to burn
up. And that gold won't withstand
that fire heated seven times. But the faith that God gives
is more precious than gold. It's more precious than gold.
That means it can withstand the seventh fire. And it's because
it's born of the Word of God. And the Word of God can withstand
the seventh fire. Listen to this. He says, the
words of the Lord are pure words. as silver tried in a furnace
of earth purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord,
Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever." And
that's the Word of the Lord. It's perfect. It can endure the
fire. It's perfect. And so by God's
Word, making our faith to be, for us to have faith, And by
God's Word sustaining our faith, Him constantly teaching you in
your heart, I'm going to keep you and preserve you from this
generation forever. And by Him constantly making
that Word affectionate in your heart, when you go through that
fire, that's how you can go through the fire. His Word will preserve
you through the fire. That's why the faith He gives
is more precious than gold. And here's what He does it for.
Look over at 1 Peter 1.7. Our faith, by God's promise,
by God's Word, by Him keeping us, by God preserving us, it
will endure the fire. He did seven times. And so God
puts us in the hottest fire. He puts His child in the hottest
fire. Why? Look here, verse 7. That the trial of your faith
being much more precious than of gold, though tried in the
fire, Even though your faith tried in the fire, it's more
precious than gold, though tried in the fire, that it may be found
unto God's praise and God's honor and God's glory. Do you see that?
It's to His praise and to His honor and to His glory. Not to
our praise and not to our honor and not to our glory. All God
would have to do is remove His presence from us and we're nothing
but draws. It's to His praise and His honor.
So when He's brought you through that trial and you remain and
you still trust the Lord and you still believe He's all your
salvation and that He's providing and keeping and preserving you,
when He's brought you through the fire and you still believe
Him, God holds you up and says, look what I did. Look what I
did. That's what God does. Look what
I did. so that he gets the praise and the honor and the glory.
And I guarantee you, when we've come through the fire, that's
exactly who we give the honor and the praise and the glory
to. It's Him. It's Him. Here's the last thing. That's
God's purpose in it. He's going to take away our draws
and He's going to show us that our faith is of Him. We've got
nothing to brag about. It's of Him. And here's His promise. Not only is the fire a trial
of God, but God promises to bring us through it. He says in verse
9, I'll bring the third part through the fire. I'll bring
them through the fire. Look at Isaiah 43. Here's where
that verse comes from out of how firm a foundation. Every
verse in that song is out of the scriptures. Look here, Isaiah
43.1. Fear not. Look there at the latter
part of it. Let's just read. Now thus saith
the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel.
Is that who you are, believer? There's a deceitful, wretched
Jacob in you, and there's an Israel in you. There's an old
man and a new man. Isn't that right? He says, Fear
not, I've redeemed thee. I've called thee by thy name.
You're mine. When thou passest through the
waters, I will be with thee. and through the rivers they shall
not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame even
kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the
Holy One of Israel, thy Savior." That's why they took those three
servants of the Lord and they threw them in that fire. They
heated that fire up and they threw them in that furnace. And
they looked in there and they said, didn't we throw three people
in there? They said, there's a fourth man in there, and he
looked like the Son of God. What'd he say? I'll be with you. When you go through the fire,
I'll be with you. And you know what the result
of it is? They came out of that fire, they wasn't burned, they
didn't even smell like smoke. You know what happens when you
come out of this fire? The old man, that flesh, it's burned,
and it's stinking, and it smells just like burned up drawers.
But that new man, fire and he touched him. It ain't done nothing
but just purify the gold. That's all. Because that's of
him. That's of God's making. And he's with you through that
fire. They say whenever a refiner can see his own image in the
silver, that's when it's pure. And he stops, he takes it out
of the fire because he can see his image in it. And that's what
God does. He puts us in that fire, purges
our troughs until He can see the image of Christ in us. Now
what does that mean? The world has taken that, I want
the world to see Christ in me. They've taken that and polluted
that to where it's just nothing more than, I want the world to
see me. That's what they mean by it.
What does God mean by it? He tells us in our text. God
promises to bring His child to this point right here. This is
where He sees His image, Christ's image in His child. Verse 9.
Zechariah 13, 9. He said, They shall call on My
name. They'll call on My name. We only call on God's name when
God's put us in the fire. Have you found that out? That's
true. We don't call on His name till
Christ comes in the first hour and starts to refine us and that
word comes and burns up our drawers and He begins to call us out
and convert. We don't call on Him till then. And it's the same
through this life. We don't call on Him till He
puts us in the fire. Saul of Tarsus thought he'd called
on Him. He thought he'd called on Him. He'd said a bunch of
prayers and the Lord put him in the fire. Put him in the fire
in conversion. And the Lord said, Behold, he
prays. First time. First time ever in his life.
Behold, he prays. We get called on to pray publicly.
I stand up here and pray publicly. And we do very little praying.
Very little praying. We stand here and mostly what
we do is try to think of how to say pretty words. That's what
we do. But you get in the fire and there
aren't any pretty words. There are no pretty words. Sometimes there's no words. That's when you pray. Lord save me. That was the best prayer Peter
ever prayed. Sinking down in the waves, couldn't
do anything for himself. Lord save me! That's when he prayed. And the Lord saved him. The Lord
saw his image in him. Brought him out of the fire. When we're not in the fire, we
become cumbered with dross, affections for this world, wandering after
every forbidden thing, and then God puts us in the fire, in the
hour of conversion, in every season of trial, and in our final
hour in this world. when there's no audible words,
when we're too weak for pretty words, when there's just groanings
that can't be uttered, when the Holy Spirit makes intercession
for us with groanings that can't be uttered. That's when God's
brought His fiery purpose to pass. That's when He's made the
fire accomplish that which He purposed from the outset. He
said, they shall call on my name. They'll call on my name. That's
what the fire is for. This is only by Christ dwelling
in you. That's the only way. And that's when God sees Christ's
image in His child. When He brings us to call, Lord,
save me. Call on His name. Christ, the
righteousness of God. And then here's the last thing.
He's going to bring this promise to pass too. Right here, verse
9. He says, And I will hear them, and I'll say, It's My people. And they'll say, The Lord is
My God. That's the purpose of the fire.
Our Savior knows we can't do without Him. He knows that. He
doesn't have to... He's not proving us to see whether
we can or can't do without Him. He knows we can't. He's showing
us we can't. That's what He's doing. He's
showing me and you we can't do without Him. You get to walking
along and you're not in a fire and things are good and you think,
oh, I can walk. I can run. I'm strong. They might
forsake you, Lord, I won't. Let's let Satan sift you a little
bit. Let's put you in the fire a little while. Get you back
down. Take the wind out of your sails
a little bit. Get you back down in the dust to where all you
can say is, Lord, you know what I'm going to do. You know. And when he brings you to call
on him, he says, it's my people. It's my people. And He makes
you hear that. He makes us hear that in our
heart. He brings you to say, Lord, save me. And He makes you
to hear, you're my child. You're my son. What do you do
after you're chasing your children? After they've bawled their eyes
out and they're broke now. You broke them. You got them
right where you wanted to bring them. What do you do? You put
your arm around them. And you say, you're my child. I'm just showing you, teaching
you, look to me and trust me and listen to me. That's what
God's doing with us. And He makes you hear that in
your heart. Let me show you that. Turn to Romans 5. Look at verse 3. We glory in tribulations. Now
I said to you, our flesh don't. But we do. The real us do. Not the old man, but the new
man does. We glory in tribulations also, knowing tribulation works
patience, and patience experience, maturity, and maturity hope,
and hope never makes us ashamed. Why? Because the love of God
is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given
to us. Because when we've come through
that trial, God's brought us to cry out to Him. Through the
Holy Spirit, God speaks into your heart and He says, You're
my people. You're my child. And He sheds
His love abroad in your heart. And you're never ashamed for
hoping in Him. You're never ashamed for trusting Him. Have you ever
been ashamed for trusting Him? Have you ever been ashamed for
trusting the Lord? You're not ashamed. Never. Because
He shows you. You're my child. I'm providing
for you. And then Christ appears glorious
to us in our hearts and this is what we say then. The Lord
is my God. The Lord is my God. We praise
Him. You know where this whole thing
is going to end? This whole thing is going to end and this is the
purpose of everything God does in conversion, in every trial,
and at the last day We're laying there gurgling. When that's all
over with, here's the end. We're going to bow at His feet
and praise and glorify Him and say, the Lord is my God. And that's the end here. I'll
bring the third part through the fire. and I'm going to bring
them to cry out to me, call on my name, and I'm going to hear
them, and I'm going to say, you're my people. And when I do, their
hearts are going to be so overflowing, they're going to praise and glorify
me and say, the Lord is my God. That's it. That's the sum and
substance of what God's doing with us, brethren. He's bringing
us to praise and glory Him. Let me read this to you. I wrote
this, and I want to say it just like I wrote it. Here's the whole
point of the trial. When God's brought His purpose
and promise to pass through the fire, we realize God loves us as well
when He hides the light of His countenance as when He shines
it upon us. As when He suffers us to grope within, as when He
raises our hopes and expectations to Him. He loves us the same
when He chastens us as when He smiles upon us. He loves us the
same when He afflicts us as when He comforts us. When we're in
the fire as when we're on the mountain. His love don't change. That's what He shows you. And
the reality is, it's His love that sent the fire. It's His
love that sent the fire to purge us, to bring forth the pure gold
of faith in Him. And it's only then that we truly
behold Christ, always hear us, That's when we know Christ always
hears us, and He always is saving us, and He's always truly our
God. That's when we know it. That's
when we know it. It's a whole lot easier to talk
about God's love than it is to know it. Isn't that right? You can talk about it all day
long, but you know how you know it? When you can't even bend a matchstick,
you just You got no strength. And he's doing everything. That's
when you know he loves me. He loves me. That's when you
know. All right, let's stand together. Eric, you come lead us in the
closing here on me.