Well, this is the last time that
we'll meet together this year. And as we go into the new year,
I'd like for us as a church to be encouraged by the promises
that we have from our faithful God and our faithful husband,
Christ Jesus. The subject today is promises
to the mother, promises to the mother. Isaiah 49 describes the
church of God as the mother. This is Christ speaking, Christ
our husband. And he's speaking of the church,
his bride, as the mother of his children. Look at verse 17. He says, Thy children shall make
haste. Thy children. Then in verse 20,
he says, The children which thou shalt have after thou hast lost
the other. The children which thou shalt
have then in verse 21 He says then shalt thou say in thine
heart who hath begotten me these How did I, how were these born?
Who's begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children? You
see, it's about the mother, the church being, or the church being
the mother, the bride. Now I know that some people don't
like this truth, some people reject this truth, because the
harlot mother, the Church of Rome, the Catholic Church, has
so corrupted this doctrine. But false religion corrupts all
doctrine. The Jews who rejected Christ
for the law, as well as a great majority of professing Christians
in our day, who teach the will of the flesh, they teach the
works of the flesh, they teach blood kinship of the flesh, They
preach the lie that Christ died for all men and wants everybody
to be saved, but he's a helpless little imp that can't do anything
to save them. That's all a lie, and that's
all corruption, and that's all corrupted from this Scripture
that's true. And that's done to keep her children
in bondage with her. That's the purpose. That's what
Paul said in Galatians 4. Jerusalem, which now is, is in
bondage with her children. And that's what their purpose
is. She doesn't nourish her children with the sincere milk of the
word. She gets them drunk with the wine of her fornication.
with fables created in the vain imaginations of men. She corrupts
all doctrine, the harlot does. But we don't turn from the truth
of God simply because the harlot corrupts true doctrine. The truth
is the church of the living God is the bride of Christ. And he
as the faithful head and husband of his bride is providing everything
for her so that so that as he brings forth his children, begotten
through her, she'll be well provided for and can well provide for
his children. We get the picture in our houses.
You ladies want a faithful husband. You want a faithful husband to
provide for you, to provide for you so that everything's taken
care of and you can provide for his children. And that's what
our Christ is. He's a faithful husband providing
for us, his church. so that we can be the mother
of his children. We would, if you were faithful,
you husbands, and you're providing for your wife, and she didn't
consider you able to provide for her, and she fretted all
the time, and worried all the time, and carried on like that,
you would find that pretty difficult, because you're providing everything
for her. She don't have to worry about it. Well, Christ is providing
everything for us and we don't have any worries. We don't have
any reason to fret and doubt and disbelieve what he promises
he will do. So I want you to see here this
morning, there are seven promises to his church in this figure
of the church as a mother. Let's start with this first point. The church shall have her children.
She shall have her children. Verse 17, he says, thy children
shall make haste. Thy destroyers and they that
made thee waste shall go forth of thee. Now thy children, the
children that are going to be born to the church, are those
elected of God unto salvation before the world began. They
were given to Christ before the world was made. But now the church
has faced many destroyers. That's what the text says here
about thy destroyers. In the garden, The mother was
deceived and in the garden we fell into sin by the sins of
Adam. The Jewish church state at the
time that this prophecy was being delivered was being destroyed
by Babylon. It was being destroyed by many
destroyers. The church in our day, there's
many destroyers that would destroy God's church, Christ's church.
And today that harlot is dressed very attractively. Because she's
learned a lot in times past. And our foe today is not the
out-and-out freewill Armenian works religionist. That's pretty
obvious. Our foe today is the reform teacher. Our foe today
is the one who's teaching Calvinism, but with sleight of hand is mixing
law and grace. That's exactly what they're doing.
Our husband warned us about this. Christ said false Christs and
false prophets shall rise and shall show signs and wonders
to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect. So that's the
case today, but the promise of Christ our husband is, thy children
shall make haste, and thy destroyers, and they that made thee waste
shall go forth of thee. Christ has come in the likeness
of these children, and for sin he's laid down his life. He's
come and He's been made a curse for those giving Him of the Father
to redeem us from the curse of the broken law. And He's born
our sin and our punishment in His body on the tree so that
all these children have been reconciled to God our Father
so that they must be born of His incorruptible seed. They
must hear the gospel. They must be brought to the church,
to the fold that He's folding us together in. And they shall
be because Christ is victorious. Christ is the head of his church. All power, all power in heaven
and in earth is given unto him. He can do whatsoever he's pleased
to do. And what he's pleased to do is
make his children come to the sound of the gospel. bring them
to hear his word and his truth. What he's pleased to do is put
our destroyers away from us and keep us safe from our destroyers.
He's destroyed them all on the cross. He came and on the cross
he destroyed him that had the power of death, that is the devil.
He did so by removing all the sin of his people past, present,
and future so that now whenever the devil stands to accuse one
of his children, it's an empty Bunch of hot air. Because there's
no sin to accuse them with. There's nothing there to accuse
them with. Christ has put it all away. So,
therefore Christ says to the mother, thy children shall make
haste. Our husband shall draw his children. He shall make them make haste
and come to his holy house. These children shall be born
again of the Holy Spirit of God. They shall be. There's no doubt
about it. Now that encourages me. That gives me so much joy
and so much peace to know all I have to do is preach the gospel.
He's doing all the work. He said, you just declare what
I've given you to declare. Thy children shall make haste.
He's going to bring them. Therefore, my beloved brethren,
be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain
in the Lord. It never is. It never is. Alright,
here's the second thing. The children shall come from
every kind of people. They're going to come from every
kind of people. Verse 18. He says, Lift up thine eyes round
about, and behold, all these gather themselves together and
come to thee. At the time of this prophecy,
the church of God was in Babylon. They were in Babylon. Just like
today, we're surrounded by mystical Babylon. We're surrounded by
falsehood on every side. But this is what Christ says.
He says, lift up your eyes round about. Lift them up and look
and behold. He says, look to the north, look
to the south, look to the east, look to the west. He says, lift
up your eyes and behold. All these shall gather themselves
together unto thee. We're going to see folks come
that we would never imagine would ever have an interest in the
gospel whatsoever. And He's going to bring them
because they've been His from the foundation of the world.
He says, all these gather themselves together and come to Thee. It
means from every nation and tribe, and tongue, and people." It doesn't
mean all people without exception, but it means all kinds of people.
From every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people, all His
elect shall be brought together by His omnipotent hand and shall
come to His church. Look at Isaiah 43 verse 5. Isaiah
43 verse 5. Fear not, for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed, thy children,
from the east, and gather thee from the west. I will say to
the north, give up, and to the south, keep not back. Bring my
sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth. Even
every one that's called by my name, for I have created him
for my glory. I formed him, yea, I've made
him. So this promise is sure. I sent
an email out to you Friday and you probably wondered what I
was talking about, but I asked you to send me your I want to see how many nations
were represented here in this congregation. And this is the
list I got back. Irish, English, Scottish, Indian,
Italian, German, Swedish, French, Dutch, Danish, Slovakian, Czech,
and Josie responded too and said now he's Southern. but there's Polish. So right
here in this assembly, we see God's making true on his word. You've got all these different
people from all these different backgrounds assembled right here
together. That's what he's talking about.
Look around you, he said. They're coming. My people are
coming. Christ was slain and has redeemed
us to God by his blood out of every kindred and tongue and
people and nation. And for as many of you as have
been baptized into Christ, you've put on Christ. And there's neither
Jew nor Greek, there's neither bond nor free, there's neither
male nor female, for you're all one in Christ Jesus. And if you
be Christ, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the
promise. I was talking to somebody just
the other day that's Jewish. or claims to be Jewish, and he
said, you know I'm Jewish, don't you? And I said, no, you're not.
I said, I'm Jew. He said, you're not Jewish. I
said, I most certainly am. I said, I'm a Jew. He's a Jew
which is one infant, born of the Spirit of God, who's praise
and glories of God, not of men. I am a Jew. I'm a Jew just like
Abraham was. Abraham was a Gentile. The Jews
hadn't even been formed by God 430 years later. He was a Gentile,
called of God, created anew in the heart, circumcised in his
heart, and God gave him, made him the head of the church. And
everybody that's put on Christ and baptized into Christ by the
Spirit of God is a Jew. We're the Hebrews. We're the
children from beyond. That's where we are. From beyond
and from eternity. That's who we are. So you can
tell folks, I am a Jew. We're one in Christ. One in Christ. Here's the third thing he teaches.
The children shall be an ornament to the mother. Look at verse
18. The second part there, he says, As I live, saith the Lord,
thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament,
and bind them on thee as a bride doeth. Now when he says, as I
live, saith the Lord, that's an oath. That's a promise. God
can swear by no greater. This is God speaking here. This
is the promise of God. As I live, saith the Lord. Our
Lord knows that you and I are encouraged when we see him making
good on his promise. That's what gives us great encouragement
to know our salvation's sure. It's accomplished. When we see
God in this life, in this world, day to day, we see him making
good on his promise, it encourages us greatly. And so from time
to time, he births one of these newborn babes into his church. through the mother, and which
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor
of the will of man, but of God. He does this. They're born again,
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word
of God, which liveth and abideth forever. And this is the word
which by the gospel is preached unto you. Wherefore, lay aside
all malice and all guile, and as newborn babes, desire the
sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. These newly
born babes of God that he births and brings in to the mother,
they adorn the church just like a bride is adorned by her dress
and her ornaments. That's what the text said there.
These children are adornments to the mother, just like a bride
adorns herself in her dress and her ornaments. You husband saw
your bride adorned on her wedding day. And when I saw mine on our
wedding day, I thought, that's as good as it gets. I won't ever
see her adorn that beautiful ever like that. She was just
beautiful. But that was nothing, absolutely
nothing in comparison to the day she held my newly born child
in her arms. She didn't think she looked good.
She'd just given birth and her hair looked like Medusa and she
was laying there in the bed. But she had that baby in her
arms and she was adorned in beauty. with that child in her arm. That's
what he's telling us here. Whenever God births his child
into this family or brings one to unite with us, Christ adorns
us. He adorns us by entrusting to
us the care of one of his eternally loved, darling children. That's adornment. That's a privilege
that adorns us. That's a responsibility that
adorns us. He says there in that verse,
he says, thou shalt bind them on thee. I'm continually telling
my children what a beautiful mother, what a faithful mother
they have. And I'm constantly telling them
that's the case because of how faithful she is to provide and
care and teach my children. And I mean that. It's because
of that. That adorns her. You young ladies,
you can wear all the jewelry and you can get bedazzled up
like you with all these different ornaments. I tell you what's
going to adorn you. When you love your husband, and you take
care of his house, and you care for his children, and you feed
his children, and you provide for his children, that's going
to adorn you more than anything else in the eyes of a faithful
husband. Now, if he's a scoundrel, he
won't care about that, and he won't care about you either.
But if he's a faithful husband, that's going to adorn you in
his eyes more than anything else. That's what adorns us in the
eyes of Christ, is these, is him giving us these children
that he's birthed and given to us to provide for and care for
and feed and nourish. And that's our privilege, and
that's our responsibility. You and I, as chosen, redeemed,
regenerated saints, married to our husband, were to bind his
children to us. That means we're to provide for
them, we're to feed them, we're to train them up in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord with the sincere milk of the Word.
teaching them to believe on Christ, teaching them to live for Christ,
teaching them to worship and serve Christ, promoting the gospel
here and through missionaries and other places, to nurse them
when they get sick, to lift them up when they fall, to bind them
up when they get hurt, just like you faithful mothers do to your
children in your home. That's what the church, us here
together collectively, are to do for these children. one another,
His children, one another. They may be 80, they may be 8,
but those that are born of His Spirit, these newly born babes,
that's what we're to do for them. And we do so by heeding the Gospel
ourselves. We do so by coming and hearing
the Gospel preached ourselves. We do so by prayerfully casting
ourselves on the mercy of God and the care of God ourselves.
We do so each individually by going home and searching His
Scriptures, and reading His Word, and rehearsing His promises in
our ears, so that we might be built up in our faith, rather
than looking to the waves, and the troubles, and our flesh,
and our ways, and turning aside to our thoughts. Our thoughts
are not His thoughts, and our ways are not His ways. He's going
to do things in a way most miraculous to us, in a way that we never
would imagine. And we do it by example. By doing these things,
we're teaching by example, too. And Christ receives all the glory
because He's the one who makes you and I married only to Him.
He's the one who makes His people faithful to Him by His grace
and His love and all the great things that He's done for us.
He causes us to just be in love with Him. He makes us fruitful
in bearing His children by giving us His gospel and giving us boldness
to declare it and by sending forth His Spirit and making them
to be born again. He gives the glory for making
us faithful in raising them up in the nurture and admonition
of the Lord by Him showing us how He's raising us up in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord. If we haven't experienced
it ourselves, we won't know anything about it. But having experienced
this mercy and this grace, we're able to do this for one another. And that's what He's teaching
us here. You can let corporate religion, men that want to talk
about the corporate church and all this stuff, let corporate
religion have their dead letter cold corporate religion. I'll
take God's house and the warmth of His family and His love over
that garbage any day of the week. Now here's the fourth thing.
He says to us, the increase shall be greater than the decrease.
Look at verse 20. The children which thou shalt
have after thou hast lost the other, the children which thou
shalt have after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in
thine ears, the place is too straight for me, give place to
me that I may dwell. There shall be some decrease.
That's what He's teaching us. There's going to be some decrease.
There's going to be some children lost. Some of God's brethren,
of Christ's children, are going to be called home to glory. They're
going to die and they're going to go to be with Him. And that's
a happy decrease. We like that because they get
to go and see their Redeemer face to face. There are going
to be times that our brethren are going to be removed by God's
hand to pastor a church somewhere else, or be moved to be faithful
members somewhere else, to be helpers in another body someplace. And that's something to rejoice
in, too. But sometimes we find that difficult. Sometimes we
have trouble with that. We pray that we want God to send
laborers into the harvest, but then when He sends them from
us, we act like what we meant was send them, but send them
from someplace else. Don't send them from us. Because
we think, well, we're so small in number. If we lose one, we're
not going to be able to be sustained. We're not sustaining us, brethren.
God is. Christ is. So I hope if God gives
me that blessed privilege to be used as an earthen vessel
to help and teach one of these men, and the Lord called him
to pastor someplace else, I hope I consider that to be one of
the greatest blessings and privileges God could ever give to a man.
And we'll send them off with gifts and prayers and hugs and
kisses and do everything we can to help them. Well, but then
there are the times when you have this decrease of those who
go back into the world. And we pray for them. We pray
God will bring them back. And if there he is, he will bring
them back. But usually this is the decrease that comes from
a manifestation of the hypocrisy of men's hearts is what it is.
Men, as long as the doctrine was dead letter, as long as it
required no commitment, they followed Christ. But when he
said that except we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we have
no life within us. When he said except Christ is
our life every day in every way, he's first. He's first. Not my wife, not my husband,
not my children, not my house, not my job, not my investments,
not any of those other things. Christ is first. When he pressed
that and he pressed true, true godliness, true, true holiness
of heart is being committed to Christ in every day in every
way. When he pressed that from that
day forward, many went back and walked no more with him. They
walked no more with him. Anybody Anybody will come and
hear the gospel when it's like coming to a movie where you can
go and not be vested in it, hear it, go home, forget about it
an hour or two and go back to your life. But when it involves
true commitment, and it involves truly Christ being all, and Christ
being in all, your brethren, so that you're providing for
them, you're showing your love to Christ himself and doing for
Christ himself. When this gospel becomes real
in our hearts like that, brethren, that's when Christ is our life.
That's when it's gone from being up here in the head to down here
in the heart. That's when God's grace is working
affectionately in the heart. There's a big difference in those
two. But the brethren will never fall away. We'll never go away
because we're kept by Him. We say, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life and we believe and we're
sure you're the Christ, the Son of the living God. We have to
have Him. But when those go away like that, men that have no commitment
to the gospel whatsoever, men that never gave two cents to
support the gospel, did nothing to support the gospel, men that
decrease and leave the gospel, that's not a decrease for us,
brethren. That's a gain for us. That's
gain for us. It's not a decree. It's not harmful. It's gain to us. He says, Thy
destroyers shall go forth of thee. They're going to leave.
He's going to depart them from us, He said. I would much rather
see those leave that would harm God's sheep than see them stay. It's just plain and simple. I
have a two-fold job. My job is to preach Christ and
Him crucified to you, and my job is to stand between you and
wolves. That's my job. And I would much
rather see them who would harm you get out of here than to stay
here. And that's not decrease, that's
gain. That's gain to God's people. Our husband promises, though,
that the increase is going to be much greater than the decrease.
Look at verse 20. The children which thou shalt
have, after thou hast lost the others, shall say again in thine
ears, the place is too straight for me. It's too narrow. We're so crowded in here. We
don't have room. Give place to me that I may dwell.
Let me spread out the tent and make space to dwell in. God's
able to do that for us. He says that's what He will do.
And he's able to do that in locally, in the local assembly like this
right here. You all have looked, gone online on the live webcast
at Todd's Roads Grace Church in Lexington, Kentucky. They
started out with three or four members. is what they started
out with. There's about 300, over 300 there
now. God's able to do this. He gives
the increase. And then, and the church universal
over all time. At any one point, the church
has generally been a remnant in the earth at any one time
in comparison to Babylon. But over all time, of all his
elect, over all time, this is going to be a multitude no man
can number. It's going to be a multitude that we just can't
even imagine that he saved. And that's what he promises.
The increase is going to be much greater than the decrease. Alright,
here's the fifth thing. These children shall all be the
miracle of God's grace. Now, let me just make a few comments
before I read this next verse. God often whittles us down to
a small number before he adds this increase. I've seen it happen. I've seen it happen. I've seen
a place where the auditorium was full, the nursery became
full, and they began to keep the young people out in the backyard.
It got so crowded and so many people. But there was always
some naysayers, always something wrong, always something to where
we couldn't buy a piece of land, we couldn't buy a building, we
couldn't build a building, we couldn't do anything. There was always
something wrong. And it always came from the people
that had the most. That was generally who it came
from. And God whittled it down. He whittled it down to about
four houses, about five households, whittled it down. and opened
up the door to a nice place, a nice building, and things that
we never could have imagined that we would have. And now if
you go to that church, the people who are there in that church,
who are the ones that are the supporters and the ones that
are committed to that gospel, them and their spouses that are
there now. When I went to that place, all
of them were sitting on the back two or three rows in the back
around five years old, 10 years old, 12 years old, something
like that. And there's one family there that was there. One older
family that's there that was there in the beginning. The rest
of them are gone. Why does God work that way? Why
does He decrease things and whittle it down like that and then do
great things with His people? He does it, one reason is, a
true God-sent preacher and true believers will preach the gospel
the more boldly the more they see this decrease happening because
they're depending more and more on their Redeemer. And secondly,
He does it so that when He does this work, we are forced to acknowledge
He did it and we didn't do it. If we had a great number and
we could do all these great things because we got this giant surplus,
we'd pat ourselves on the back at how well and frugal and wise
we are. But when he does it in ways that
we'd never imagine, look at verse 21. Then shalt thou say in thine
heart, who hath begotten me these? Seeing I have lost my children
and am desolate, a captive from moving to and fro, who brought
up these? Behold, I was left alone. These,
where had they been? They're His. They're His people.
They're His ones that He used, that He brought up, that He called
out, that He gave the increase in His church, so that we're
forced to acknowledge He's done the work. We didn't do the work.
Alright, sixth thing. Christ is the standard set up
by which all these children shall be saved. Look at verse 22. Thus
saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles,
and set up my standard to the people. And they shall bring
thy sons in their arms and thy daughters shall be carried upon
their shoulders. We see here that the power is of God's own
hand. It's not of us. He says, verse
22, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles. His hand
is Christ. He's the hand of God. He's the
right arm of God. The power of God come forth.
That's Christ. And the standard, he says here,
I will set up my standard to the people. The standard is the
banner, it's the flag, it's the ensign, it's the sign. It's that
thing held up so that all the people on the battlefield can
hear the trumpet blowing and they can look to the banner and
see the flag and know that's the point to rally to. That's
the place to go to because there's the flag lifted up. We see it.
We see it. Christ is that banner. He's the
banner. He's the one we preach. God set
Him up in eternity when He chose Him to be the Redeemer of His
people, the Savior of His people, the High Priest of His people,
the Lamb of His people, the Shepherd of His people, the Bishop of
His people, the Savior of His people. God set him up when he
began to use men to write the Holy Scriptures and all the Law
and the Prophets. It's him that's being spoken
of and held up throughout the whole book. From the lamb slain
in the garden, to the seed of woman prophesied of in the garden,
to Abel's lamb that Abel came with, to Noah's ark wherein he
and his family were saved from the flood of judgment, The Moses staff that he walked
by, that he went in and used to deliver all of the children
out of Israel, to the water in the wilderness that came out
of the smitten rock, that's smitten rock's Christ. That's Him who
was smitten that we may live. All through the Scriptures, all
through the Scriptures, God set Him up. He's the banner high
and lifted up. God set him up high and lifted
up when he sent him into this earth and God spoke from heaven
and said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased,
hear ye him. God set him up whenever He sent
him to the cross and Christ willingly went to that cross and laid down
His life and was lifted up for all the world to see, hung there
on that cross bearing the shame and the sin of His people and
bore the wrath of God in the place as a substitute of His
people and put away their sin. God the Father set him up when
he raised him from the grave and set him at his own right
hand and gave him authority over heaven and earth and said that,
sit here from henceforth till your enemies be made your footstool. God the Father sets him up when
he sends forth the gospel into this earth and he has him declared
fully before all his people in the gospel with those pastors
that he raises up and gives according to his own heart. God sets Him
up in the hearts of His people when He births them anew and
shows them that all their salvation is accomplished in Christ. Why?
Why did He say I set Him up and He's my banner? Why? Because
it pleased God that His Son have all preeminence. That all the
fullness of God dwell in Him. That all eyes in heaven, earth,
and hell be on His Son. It pleased the Father. And as
long as we're around, that's what's going to happen. As long
as God will enable us to preach this gospel, we must preach Christ
and Him crucified. I heard a preacher the other
day, And he was talking and he was
explaining that this new generation has got to have the gospel presented
to them in a different manner from generations in the past.
And his manner of presenting the gospel was he didn't preach
the gospel. That was his manner. When all
was said and done, he didn't preach spit. We must never become
the harlot wife. We must never turn to her adulterous
methods and message. Only God's grace can save sinners
from the whine of her fornication. Get to Christ. Get to Christ. Get to Christ. When I talk to
Eric and Scott and they're preaching for me and we're talking about
the messages and things, that's what I keep telling them. Get
to Christ. Get to Christ. Get to Him. Brother Henry used
to say, open up your message, read your text, tell what you're
going to tell them and skedaddle to Christ. Get to Christ. Tell the truth. Tell the truth
and let the chips fall where they may. is through the truth. It's through the truth that man
is grass. That man is like the grass that's
here today and tomorrow it's thrown into the oven. It's worthless. Just the weeds and brambles and
thorns and briars that you pull up and discard. That's what we
are. That's what man is. We can't save ourselves. We can't
please God. We can't bring ourselves to God.
We can't do anything that will please God. And we can't enter
glory unless God's fully pleased with us. God, God is salvation. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation
is of the Lord. It's through a message that declares
that we're nothing and that Christ is everything. Through a message
that declares the complete, total, thorough ruin of mankind and
the complete, thorough, total redemption of God's people by
Christ Jesus that God opens up that dead heart. There'd be one
sitting there, and they're just there because mom and daddy brought
them. They're just there because they had to come along. They
didn't want to be there. If they wasn't there, they'd
be where they are when they're not there. But they're sitting
there, and they're hearing it all of a sudden. Something grabs
them. Something takes hold. And over
a course of time, sometimes a little time, sometimes a long time,
they begin to have a desire to hear more. They begin to have
questions, and they begin to ask questions, good questions,
honest questions, not smart-aleck questions anymore, but questions
where they're now trying to find out the truth. And they begin
to listen when they're taught the truth, and they begin to
hear. And next thing you know, they find themselves believing.
They find themselves despising everything they once trusted
in. They find themselves despising those friends that they thought
were friends that were really their enemies that were constantly
telling them don't listen to that garbage and don't get too
invested in that garbage. Now they realize that those weren't
friends at all. And they began to hear the truth,
and they began to delight in it, and they began to have to
have Christ. And the next thing you know,
they're asking, now what do I do? I want everybody to know I believe
Him. I trust Him. I want to be united
to the church. I want to join with the church.
I want to be a helper in this work. What do I do? Confess Him
in baptism. Unite with the church. Support
the church. Help the church. With your attendance,
giving yourself first to the gospel. and then that which you
are able to give to the gospel. You're never too young to give
to the church, never. If God gives you a heart, if
you're old enough to be saved by the gospel, for him to have
given his son for you, old enough to be useful in the church, and
are very useful. Young people, and I say young
people, I mean babes in Christ, whether they're, sometimes a
babe in Christ is 80 years old, but they're a baby. And sometimes
they're 16 or 17. But a babe in Christ, a newly
converted newborn son, child of God, gives us energy. It gives us, that's been around
a little while, it gives you a new delight. It gives you fresh
courage that God's working in your midst. And then there's
always something they can be useful for. There's always something
to do and always some something they can help with. And they
got new energy that that somebody's been sitting around gets. And
they sometimes that new energy shames us into getting up and
having some energy ourselves. So it's got doing this thing,
like it needs to be done. And we But we've got to preach
Christ. He's the hand and the standard
of God. Salvation from the electing of His children, to the redeeming
of His children, to the regenerating of His children, to the teaching
of His children, to the preserving of His children, to the resurrecting
of His children. Salvation is all by the sovereign,
free, unchangeable, distinguishing, particular, everlasting love
of God and grace of God in Christ Jesus. Alright, here's the seventh
thing. But making his church triumphant
in this earth, we shall know he is the Lord. Look at verse
23. And kings shall be thy nursing
fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers. They shall bow
down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up
the dust of thy feet. And thou shalt know that I am
the Lord, for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.
By what God's doing in all this work and making all these promises
come to pass, He's going to show us truly He is our Lord. He is our Savior. He is our faithful
husband. One of these days we're going
to see the final fulfillment of this prophecy. I don't know
what that'll be like. I don't know exactly what that
will be. There's people who claim to be authorities on prophecy
and I'll leave that to them. But right now, even right now,
I do know this, Christ is King of kings. And Christ right now
is using the kings and the queens of this world to provide for
his bride and his children. That's exactly what he's doing.
If we have freedom from kings in this earth to worship God,
It is due to the King of Kings providing for his bride and his
children. If the land prices plummet, it's
the Lord of Lords providing for his bride and his children so
we can get us a piece of land. If the economy flourishes, it's
the King of Kings providing for his bride and his children. The
King of kings and the Lord of lords is using the kings and
queens of this earth to nurse his children in this earth to
provide for us exactly what we need so that the mother of Christ's
children can keep his house as he does the work of calling out
his children. Isn't that why you men work?
You work and you provide for your families so that your wife
can keep the house while you raise and nurture and teach your
children. And she helps you to do that. That's exactly what
our King of Kings and Lord of Lords is doing. Our husband's
the King of Kings. Our husband is the Lord of Lords.
Our husband owns everything there is to be owned. Invisible and
visible. So that he is providing everything
for us. Turning the King's heart, whichever
way he will. And using them to provide for
us. You believe God? You believe
that's what he's doing? That's what he's doing whether
you believe it or not. This is his promise. He said, as I live, this is what
I'm doing. That's what he's doing. So, let's
be eager to get the gospel out far and wide in any and every
format that we can. Having these promises, brethren,
This makes me eager. This makes me excited for the
work that God's given us to do. We're entering a new year. We
got seven faithful promises here from Christ our husband that
ought to invigorate us and energize us to hit this new year running.
Take those printouts back there in the back. They've been sitting
back there so long I'm tired of looking at them. Take some
of those handouts. Take some of those CDs that have
been recorded and take them with you. Put them in your vehicle.
You listen to them and then have them there so that you put them
on your desk at work. Maybe somebody will come in and
strike up a conversation and you'll be able to invite them
to hear or give them something to read or give them a CD to
listen to. But have them with you. Keep them with you somewhere
so you can have them to give out. You walk into a convenience
store that you pass by every day on the way to work. They
may know you there well enough that you can say, hey, can I
drop off five or six CDs here at the counter and just leave
them there? Maybe somebody will come through and pick one of
them up. Take it and listen to them. But what I'm saying is,
try to get the gospel. The scripture says, in the morning
sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand. For
thou knowest not whether it shall prosper, either this or that,
or whether they both shall be alike good. We don't know. So getting these messages each
week, it's a full-time job for me. I'm not a multitasker. I have to have my heart set on
one thing and do that. And to get these messages and
to be in prayer for this, I have to be focused on it or the messages
are going to suffer. If men want a part-time preacher,
They probably want a part-time Savior, too. I want a full-time
preacher because I want a full-time Savior. I want to hear the gospel
fully, completely. Well, that takes up every bit
of the time I have, but God's put each of us here together.
He brought us right here together in the body to help with some
aspect of the work. So if you want to help, ask.
If you'd like to help, ask. There's always plenty of things
that you can help with. We're looking into some avenues
of getting the gospel out on video, and we need some help
with that. There's a lot of different things
about that that we need help with. We're looking at buying
a piece of property. There's aspects of that that
we need help with. If you'd like to help with posting
articles on our website, there's lots of things I'd like to be
doing on that website that I just don't have time to do, and we
need help with that. But having these promises, brethren,
having these promises of what our Lord will do is to make us
eager to do what God has made available for us to do. That's
why He gives us these promises. This is how God makes us the
mother. It's how He makes us the bride. It's how we're used
of our Redeemer to bring forth His children. And He gets all
the glory both now and forever. He works these things before
our feeble, faltering, faithless eyes in such a way, verse 23,
there at the end, he says, and thou shalt know that I am the
Lord, for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me. You will never
be ashamed to believe God. That's what the word wait means.
You'll never be ashamed to cast all your care on Him and trust
Him and believe His promises. And one of these days, we're
going to know. He said, I'm going to show you
now. You're going to know I'm the
Lord. One of these days, we're going to know like He knows us.
that he is the Lord. These promises are sure and they're
certain and steadfast as our salvation in Christ is. That's
so. Amen.