All right, brethren, let's turn
to Isaiah chapter 49. This 49th chapter is such a rich,
rich pasture of Scripture for the Lord's sheep. I don't want
us to miss a single sprig in this pasture. So we're going
to graze a little bit longer right here before we move any
further. Now, just historically, give
you a little background. You know, the Lord took Israel
out of Egyptian bondage. As soon as they got in the wilderness,
they started murmuring and complaining because it was hard. They wanted
to get to where they were going. So he wiped them out, wiped a
bunch of them out. Then he delivered them into Canaan.
Well, they started building and building and got to complaining
because they wanted to get to that fat and plenteous place
they were going, you know, and so they finally got there. But
they, in the process, being fat and plenteous, forgot him. So
he wiped them out. He put them in Babylonian captivity. Then He sent forth a Deliverer,
delivered them out. Now in our text, He's bringing
them across the hot desert sands, across all the mountains, back
to Jerusalem to rebuild. And He's teaching them all along
the way. He's done it all. He's the way, He's the way, He's
the way. And then He gets them back. And what I just read to
you in Haggai, they got back. thinking now, surely they got
the lesson. They go right back to building for themselves, lose
sight of Him, don't even build His house. So He had to send
forth His prophet again to teach them. This is what He's constantly
teaching us. He's teaching us that Christ is our covenant.
Christ is our covenant. We saw in Isaiah 49.8, Thus saith
the Lord, I will give thee for a covenant of the people. to
establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolated heritages,
which He destroyed and we destroyed by our sin. Now God gave His
Son, we saw this, to be the mediator of the everlasting covenant of
grace. Let me try to be as brief as
possible. The mediator of the everlasting covenant of grace.
It means as God the Son, He perfectly fulfilled everything that was
required to make it so that God could remain just in showing
mercy. And because He is God the Son,
He is God who is doing the justifying, so that God is just and the justifier
of His people. That's what we need to enter
glory. We need to be justified. He's just and justifier of His
people. And because Christ is the Son of Man, because He's
a man, He perfectly fulfilled everything the law required of
His people in precept. Then took all the sins of His
people upon Himself and answered the penalty of justice, which
is death for His people, and justified His people of all our
sins. So that now the law, as far as precept goes, it says
of His people who rest in Him by faith that we are righteous.
As far as the penalty of the law goes, it says we are dead. And we are justified. The law
has nothing else to say to us. So through faith in Christ, we
have perfectly fulfilled the law of God, established it. So there you have the mediator
of the covenant. He brings God and His people
together in one. And then God gave His Son also
to be the messenger of the covenant. Verse 9, that thou mayest say
to the prisoners, go forth. To them that are in darkness,
show yourselves. All God's covenant people, while
unconverted, are prisoners. We're dead in sin. We're in bondage
under the law. We're in bondage to our sin nature.
We're under Satan's power. And we come under bondage a lot
of times after conversion. Because we just can't listen.
We just can't hear. We keep looking at our flesh,
and listening to our flesh, and looking at the world, and looking
at these things, and we get ourselves all in bondage. He's continuing
to deliver in His people. Christ, our covenant Redeemer,
our Liberator, the Messenger of the Covenant, through the
Gospel, through God the Holy Spirit, enters into each of His
prisoners and gives us life and liberty in the new birth. And
He says to us now, go forth. And so then, each believer begins
on our pilgrimage to that heavenly city in which God our Savior
Himself is the builder and maker which He's promised us. Just
like they took off out of Babylonian captivity and took off across
those hot desert sands on their way back to Jerusalem. You get
the picture now? This is where we're headed. So
today our subject, we've seen Christ as the mediator of the
covenant. We've seen Christ as the messenger of the covenant.
Today we're going to see Christ is our covenant shepherd. Christ is our covenant shepherd.
Now, look here with me in Isaiah 49.9, about middle ways of the
verse there. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures
shall be in all high places. They shall not hunger nor thirst,
neither shall the heat nor sun smite them. For he that hath
mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water
shall he guide them. And I will make all my mountains
away, and my highways shall be exalted. Behold, these shall
come from far, and, lo, these from the north, and from the
west, and these from the land of Sinai." Some say that's China. I don't know. Well, here's what
I want you to get. Every believer has the promise
of continual grace from Christ our covenant shepherd as he leads
us through this world to that eternal city of God. Did you
get that? We have the promise from Christ
our covenant shepherd. We have the promise of continual
traveling grace as he leads us through this pilgrimage, through
this world to that heavenly city. All right? There's five things
that believers want, that as we travel through this life,
there's five things we want. We want provision, we want protection,
we want refreshment, we want direction, and we want fellowship. These are five things we want
as we go through this life. We want provision, protection,
refreshment, direction, and fellowship. All right? The first thing Christ
our shepherd promises us is provision. Verse 9, he says, They shall
feed in the ways, and their pasture shall be in all high places.
They shall not hunger nor thirst. Now this provision, you know
this believer, you understand something of this. This provision
is far, far, far more important than any temporal food or water. Far more important than that.
Our covenant God shall provide us with the temporal things we
need. He'll do that. But this blessing is far, far
more needful than any earthly temporal blessing He could ever
give us. This promise that He promises
to give us. Look at Luke 12. Luke 12. I want you to place
here and look at Luke 12. This is the Word of our Master.
Let's hear Him. Listen to this, Luke 12, 28.
You know, He's been talking here about what we'll eat and drink,
put on, and He's been showing us how God feeds the sparrows
and He clothes the lilies of the field and what have you,
and He says this. This is the message we saw in
that message on Thursday night on wise or foolish, about the
wise virgins that had oil in their lamps. This is the theme
of that message. This is the subject of it. Verse
28, If then God so clothed the grass, which is today in the
field, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more will
He clothe you, O ye of little faith? Seek not what ye shall
eat or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. He doesn't
mean don't get up and go to work and don't have a job and try
to put food on your family's table. He doesn't mean that.
He means don't make that your focus. Don't make that your aim. Don't make that what your life's
about. For all these things do the nations
of the world seek after. That's all this world is seeking
after. This world is a blind hog looking for an acorn. That's
what they are. Now listen to me. But rather,
this is what he says, seek ye the kingdom of God. But rather
seek ye the kingdom of God. Make this your focus. Make this
your main objective. Seek ye the kingdom of God. And all these things should be
added unto you. You'll have these other lesser
things. Fear not, little flock. Fear not, little flock, for it
is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. See
how he speaks to us as a sheep and he's a shepherd? Fear not,
little flock, for it's your father's good pleasure to give you the
kingdom. Sell that you have and give alms. Provide yourselves
bags, which wax not old take your temporal things that are
holding your attention and your focus and Sell those things and
provide for your needy brethren provide for the cause of Christ
provide for his house Provide yourselves bags, which wax not
old See remember how I said Lord said you're putting everything
into a bag that has holes in it. I Moths will eat it and all
that. But here he says, doing this,
seeking his kingdom, seeking Christ, you're providing yourselves
bags that will not wax old. A treasure in the heavens that
fell not, where no thief approaches and neither moth corrupteth.
Now what's he mean by all that? He means this, because where
your treasure is, that's where your heart's going to be also.
It's just simple. Wherever our treasure is, that's
where our heart will be. That's where it'll be. Let your
loins, your inner man, be girded about, and your lights burning.
Remember those wise virgins? Let your loins be girded about,
the inward man, and your lights burning. And ye yourselves, like
unto men, that wait for their Lord, for when He'll return from
the wedding, that when He cometh and knocketh, they may open unto
Him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom
the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching. Verily I say unto
you, that he shall gird himself, and make them sit down to meet,
and will come forth and serve them. And if he shall come in
the second watch or come in the third watch and find them so,
blessed are those servants. So this is far more than temporal
blessings. Our Lord never taught us to seek
temporal blessings. He never once said, you better
go out now and don't question, don't even second guess what
that university is going to charge you for an education. Pay it
and get you an education. He never once said that. He never
once did say that. But that's what we do. Because
the world tells us that's what we got to do. That's what we
gotta do if we wanna succeed. But God says, I say unto you,
I am the bread of life. He that cometh to Me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst. That's
what He said. Christ told that Samaritan woman
at the well, He said, whosoever drinks of this water, this temporal
water, they're going to get thirsty again. But He says, whosoever
drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst! Can we hear that? He'll never
thirst! But the water I give him shall
be in him. It'll be in him. His loins gird
about and it'll be a well of water springing up into everlasting
life. This is what the psalmist cried
out for when he said, my soul thirsteth for God, for the living
God. That's what Christ means when
he says, but seek ye the kingdom of God. You thirst and you hunger
after him. This provision is Christ's continual
presence. He's our provision. Even when
we don't comprehend his nearness to us, he's our provision. Try
to understand. that in all the pathways that
we're traveling in this life, Christ is feeding His sheep. He's feeding us. In all the pathways
we're traveling in this life, He's feeding us. Look back there
at Isaiah 49 and look there at verse 9. He says, they shall
feed in the ways. They shall feed in the ways.
Isaiah 49.9, they shall feed in the ways. All the pathways,
all the ways we're traveling in this life, Christ is feeding
us. Now, you and I, we jump in a
car, we're going to travel, we're going to go over to a restaurant,
we're going to eat. We think of all the streets It's just
avenues that are taking us to that place and we're going to
eat when we get there. We're going to eat when we get
to that place. That's not how it is with Christ our Shepherd.
The ways, the ways in which we're traveling every day of our lives
is where He's feeding us all along the way. They shall feed
in the ways. Brethren, let's not spend our
whole lives waiting to get to greener pasture before we enjoy
the blessings of Christ. These are the ways God has pleased
to put us in and the ways in which he's been pleased to feed
us in. These are the ways. Try to enjoy
the blessing of Christ in every step of the way. Christ feeds
His people in the ways. In the ways. And Christ is feeding
us in ways and places with things where we least expect it. Look
at verse 9. And their pastures shall be in
all high places. The high places are mountains.
Green, fertile pastures full of good food and good rest, they're
not found in barren, rocky mountains. Listen, when God says, my ways
are not your ways, and my thoughts are not your thoughts, that's
exactly what it means. He's not gonna feed us, and he's
not gonna provide for us in the way that our little puny, ignorant,
finite imagination thinks he's gonna feed us. or how he's going
to feed us. He does something far above and
beyond anything we could ever think. This world, this whole
life, this body of death we live in is a barren, rocky place. That's all it is. Where there's
no spiritual food and there's no rest to be found anywhere
in it. apart from Christ, apart from
Him alone. Christ promises our pasture should
be in all high, barren, rocky places where we wouldn't ever
expect it. That storm came through and you
know that I had this big old pin oak tree right there at the
back door and it fell and it fell on my fence and it fell
on my neighbor's tree and it knocked down another neighbor's
fence and And there it sat, you know, and
I'm in a cast and my neighbor don't want me cutting it up because
it's in his yard and he don't want, you know, a lawsuit and
liability and all that stuff. So I got to pay to have it removed.
And it was just a whole bunch of trouble. And I looked at that
tree laying there and every day I looked at it, I thought, this
is just, it's just prohibiting my progress. But you know, God
taught me things that I could, the money I've paid to have that
tree removed, I couldn't have bought, I couldn't have paid
for the spiritual blessing God's given me through this. He's taught
me what I am. He's taught me what a horrible,
horrible, weak, desperate sinner I am through it. And He's taught
me how He continues to provide everything through it. He's done
that. And I would have never learned what he's taught me if
that tree hadn't fallen right there where it fell. Mountain
laurel is a beautiful flowering plant that grows only in rocky
places where other flowers won't grow. Mountain laurel. Well,
sheep laurel is given to us in rocky paths throughout this life,
even in the most sorrowful paths. What are heart blessings? What
are the heart blessings that Christ gives us in rocky, rocky
afflictions? He makes us to know more intimately. He makes us to know with a more
real assurance that His love and His grace is as unchanging
and as everlasting as our Great Shepherd is. That's what He makes
us to know. He makes us to know He's all
our sufficiency. And that's flowers that just
won't bloom in any other soil. They won't bloom anywhere else
but in the high places. These are not those mountaintop
experiences that the religious world talks about. Our mountaintop
experiences are sorrowful, painful, barren, rocky places where Christ
makes us to see He's our all. And we don't see Him, and we
won't rest until He makes us. Until He makes us do it. That's just so. That's what He
was doing to Israel. They would not look to Him because
they had plenty. Oh, they were full, and they
didn't ever have enough, and they always needed more. That's
why they couldn't look to Him alone. But it was because they
had way more than enough. And so He just said, I'll fix
that. I'll make it so you have to trust
me." And what a blessing to make us have to trust him, to make
us have to. He takes away the surplus and
makes us look to him. That's what he does. That's what
we want, brethren. Believers, once we've been delivered
from prison, Our tendency is, once we're delivered out of the
prison of our sin nature, out of the prison of vain religion,
out of the prison of our dead wisdom and our dead fleshly thinking,
and into Christ, our normal way of thinking is, we just now,
we made it! We've done it! We've made it!
We've arrived! We'll just sit down now and enjoy the fruit. That's what we always think.
And so we forget God. We forget the one who brought
us out. We forget the one who's doing the delivering and saving
us now. That's what we do. But we want living apprehensions
of our interest in Christ. We want a living realization
that Christ is abiding in our hearts. We want to know the power
of His resurrection. We want to be made conformable
unto His death, which is to be submissive and patient and willing
and trusting so completely that we're willing to just go to the
cross and lay down our lives. That's what's being made conformable
to His death. to be made the least, that's
what we desire, to be humbled, to be truly, truly, truly what
God regards as great in His kingdom. That's what we want. We want
to please our Father. We want to walk more by faith
and less by sight. We want to enjoy God and love
God and rest in God more than we love and enjoy and rest in
these defiling, filthy things of perishing earth. That's what
we really want. But we will not do any of these
things we want, seek any of these things we want, go after any
of these things that we really want in our inner man until God
forces us to go after Him. That's just so. That's how we
are in our flesh. That's just exactly. You can
convince me that a life preserver will do the job by just reading
the directions to me and let me just look at it, touch it,
look at it, look it over real good. You can convince me it
will do what it says it will do. But I'll tell you when I
really know it is when you put me in the flood and the only
thing between me and death is that life preserver. That's when
I know. That's when I know by experience.
And God will see to it that He puts us in all these ways and
all these rocky, barren afflictions, He puts us in that flood to make
us see He is all. Christ is our covenant shepherd
by faith, but he makes himself ours more abundantly by making
us to experience that he alone is our life. Be honest. When I said he's all our provision,
didn't we all first think about food and clothing and shelter
and the temporal things in this world? I did. When I started
studying it, that's what I started with. And I thought, that's so
stupid. I don't want that. That's what
I gotta be saved from. Thinking that's my life. Christ
uses the smallest daily incidents in our life to bring us into
the reality of his abiding presence. Our mundane little daily affairs
that we have to, drudgery we have to go through day after
day becomes unconquerable mountains to us. They don't take much to
be a mountain to us. You remember when your kid was
little, when they were just babies, and they'd try their best to
get up on the couch, and they'd wrestle and struggle and flip
and flop, fall down and couldn't do it. And you'd think, you just
reach over there and pick them up, put them up on the couch.
That's most everything that we deem to be the most worst thing
that's ever happened in the world to us. That's what it is. To
the God, the Father, is us sitting there just like an infant trying
to crawl up on a couch. I truly believe the more we face
every day looking for Christ, the more we'll feed in the ways. Do you hunger and thirst after
Christ? This is what He promises. Blessed are they which do hunger
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. They
shall be filled, right in the ways, right in the rocky barren
places. He'll give us green pasture.
Alright, the second thing we want is we want protection. He
says, verse 10, neither shall the heat nor sun smite them.
The heat and the sun here represent everything that would separate
us from Christ. We want to be protected from
all the fiery darts of the wicked that would separate us from Christ.
We do wrestle against flesh and blood, but we don't wrestle only
against flesh and blood. We wrestle against principalities
and powers and rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual
wickedness in high places. But the almighty power of our
justifier, the almighty hand of God, our covenant shepherd,
rules all providence. All providence is His providence.
He alone raises up and throws down. And He does it for this
one purpose of teaching us who He is, of showing us His power
in what He did. He showed us His power in what
He did with Pharaoh. He showed us His power and what
He did with the Egyptians, that He might make known the riches
of His mercy on the vessels of mercy that He prepared to glory
before the world began. That's what He's doing for us.
He alone defeats every evil purpose. He alone restrains the malice
of every man who would separate us from Him. And this is what
He tells us in Romans chapter 8 verse 35. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? This is what the sun and the
heat represent. Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword,
as it is written, for thy sake, we're killed all the day long.
We are a candidate sheep for the slaughter. We're just helpless
sheep. Christ our covenant shepherd is our shepherd. He's our strength.
We're just sheep. No, in all these things we're
more than conquerors through him that loveth us. For I'm persuaded
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. So
He's going to provide us full provision, righteousness, justification,
sanctification, redemption. He's provided us Himself and
He will continue to provide Himself for us in all the ways, in all
the rocky pastures. And He's going to provide us
protection. And the third thing we want is
refreshment. Verse 10, For he that hath mercy on them shall
lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them.
Can you imagine if you had been set free out of Babylon? You
know, a lot of people that were Israelites who were in Babylonian
captivity, when he sent Cyrus to them, you know, a lot of them
didn't leave. A lot of them said, we're content right here. We
got it good. They had it good there. I mean,
they had all the greatest things you could want. Babylon was a
thriving place. They had everything. And all
they saw and follow in Christ was a dry, barren, hot desert
that they would have to cross. The wilderness, the waste howling
wilderness that they would have, they would have to leave all
of that great abundance and head out into that nothingness to
follow the Lord. Can you imagine those who did?
Some of them just stayed where they were. They said, we'll just
stay right here. We want what Babylon gives us. We don't want the provision he
gives us. We don't want the protection he gives us. We want the provision
and the protection that this earthly this earthly king can
give us that's being fattened for the slaughter. That's what
we want. We want to be pigs feeding out
of a feed trough. But those that followed Him,
those that went with Christ, have followed Him. Can you imagine
what springs of water in a dry desert would be like? It's not
hard to imagine it in this world we live in right now, because
it's dry. It's barren. There's no water here. No water
here. If you want to see what's going
on in this world, what can make What can make this world applaud
and consider to be benevolent and gracious and the right thing
to do to applaud folks get sex change operations? To applaud
young people getting so many piercings they look like they
fell in a tackle box and so many tattoos they look like they became
a wall where somebody spray paints graffiti? And say that's, you
want to read what's happened? Read Romans 1. They didn't like
to retain God's knowledge, so God also gave them up. God gave
them over to a reprobate mind. And it's no different in religion.
It's dry and it's barren. It's all about history. If religious
men were preaching this message to you, they'd be telling you
all about the history of Babylon and Israel. And when you left
out of here, you'd be as dry and as thirsty as when you walked
in a door. But He's promised us He's going to give us refreshment. He's going to give us fresh views
of Christ and refreshment in Him. Christ, our covenant Shepherd,
keeps His abiding presence with us and He keeps us refreshed
with the Word of His Gospel and Spirit and truth by God, the
Holy Spirit of truth. He said, If any man thirsts,
let him come to Me and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the
Scripture said, out of his belly, out of his heart, shall flow
rivers of living water. In this He spoke of the Holy
Spirit. He said, the psalmist said, God, Thou art my God. Early will I seek Thee. My soul
thirsteth for Thee, and my flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and
thirsty land where no water is, to see Thy power and Thy glory
as I've seen in the sanctuary. We go out of this place into
the world and we say, now Lord, I want to see You here. I want
to see You as I'm going through this dry and thirsty place. But
notice this connection here, in the verse there. Isaiah 49,
notice this connection there in verse 10. He that hath mercy
on them shall lead them. I love that. He that hath mercy
on them, if we ever find ourselves cast down and doubting and wondering
if He's going to give us any refreshment, just try to remember
the mercy He's already shown you. He's saying here, He's connecting
this future refreshment of leading us to these springs of water
with the past mercy He's already shown us. He that has had mercy
on you will do this. We were dry, barren, dead flesh
in sin. We didn't have any life in us.
That's what the water represents, the spirit of life. We didn't
have the spirit of life in us. And He came to where we are and
He created life in our hearts. And He drew us to Christ and
made us drink long out of Christ. where we have all the full refreshment
of God's spiritual blessings in Him. Everything that can be
given to a sinner, we have it in Him. And He promises, now,
I that's done this for you, I'll continue to do this for you.
He said back in Isaiah 44, too, Fear not, O Jacob, My servant,
thou jester in whom I've chosen, I'll pour water on him that's
thirsty. I won't just sprinkle a little
on him. I'll pour water on him. That's thirsty. Are you thirsty? Are we thirsty? I'm talking about
for Christ Thirsty for Christ thirsty to see Christ thirsty
to follow Christ Thirsty to walk in the way Christ would have
us to walk thirsty to serve Christ the way Christ would have us
to serve him Thirsty to honor him in every little mundane thing. We do are we thirsty for Christ? He said I'll pour water on him.
That's thirsty. I'll pour it on him I'll pour
it on him. I'll pour my Spirit upon thy
seed and my blessing upon thy offspring and they'll spring
up as among the grass like willows by the watercourses. That's what
He promises. We want clear direction. That's
the fourth thing. We want provision. We want protection. We want refreshment. And we want
clear direction. Look at verse 11. And I will
make all my mountains away And my highways shall be exalted. Now our shepherd doesn't remove
the mountains. That would defeat the purpose. That would defeat
the purpose. And we face many, many mountains. Many mountains. And I said to
you, it don't take much for it to be a mountain to us. It does
not take much for it to be a mountain to us at all. But sometimes we
face real mountains. Sometimes the doctor says you
got three months to live. Sometimes the doctor comes to
us and says, you know, you've got a tumor eating the insides
up. Sometimes we get a real trial. It's a bitter, bitter, bitter
mountain that we've got to face. And it causes us many tears.
And at first, you know what we usually think? In all of these
mountains, we always think, this is prohibiting me from getting
to the green pasture. This is prohibiting me from getting
to my destination. It's stopping me from getting
to where I'm going. Carly, you know that song? It's
kind of old now, but I forget who sang it, about the climb.
It's not what's on the other side, it is the climb. That's
what he's saying right here. That's what he's saying right
here exactly. It's not what's waiting on the other side, it
is the climb. He's saying right here, these
are my mountains. You see that? He put them there. They're my mountains. And they're
there to remind us of our total weakness. And they're to remind
us that He is our full, full provision. He says, I will make
all my mountains away. I will make my mountains away.
By doing so, he makes us to know his unceasing love, his unceasing
care for his child. And then we find that his mountains
weren't obstacles at all. We find that his mountains weren't
stopping us from getting to the green pasture at all. We find
out that his mountains were his way of giving us that green pasture. His mountains were the way of
feeding us this nourishment. And when He does that, then we
realize that when He's exalted Himself in our hearts, right
in the middle of the mountain, then we see the way. And then
look what happens. Look at the nefarious next word.
My highways shall be exalted. His highways are exalted. His
highways of working all these things together, His highways
of taking these these mountains of obstacles and putting them
right in our path. His highway of running us right
into that mountain. His highway of bringing us to
completely, thoroughly throw up our hands and say, we cannot. Father, we cannot do anything
without you. His highways of then making us
to see. That's what I've been showing
you all along. You've been looking at all the
furniture in the ways. You've been looking at the job.
You've been looking at the house. You've been looking at the church
house. You've been looking at the pews. You've been looking
at the curtains. You've been looking at all these
things. And you've been thinking the preacher's just trying to
get in your pocketbook and try to get you to do something that
you insist you're not going to do. And missed the whole point. These things aren't the issue.
Christ is. Christ is. I agree with Brother
Scott. How do we get our friends to
see that He's the one thing needful? And how do we get ourselves to
see it? only when he's shown us that
he's the only one that can do it, that's when his highways
are exalted before us. He's exalted before us. We see
him and we see everything he's doing so wonderful and so good.
It's been good for me that I've been afflicted. So let's try
to remind each other, brethren, Every time we come to the foot
of one of His mountains, and we detect our brother, our sister,
me, you, we're coming to the foot of one of these mountains,
let's encourage one another. Start looking for Christ right
now. He's at the foot of the mountain. He's going to take
you, and He's not going to lead you around it. He's going to
take you and lead you right through it. And let's help each other
to see Him. Listen to the all-comprehensiveness
and the all-certainty of this. I will make all my mountains
away. You see that? I will make all
my mountains away." Look at the mountains of mercy He's already
overcome for us. He took our nature in union with
His nature. He took our sins as His own.
He took our judgment as His own. He made atonement for us. He
brought us the good news. He created us anew and delivered
us from the prison of sin's dominion over us. Believer, He's already
conquered sin and Satan, the world, death, and hell for us.
Is anything too hard for the Lord? Look over at Habakkuk 3. Habakkuk 3. I've been here before. I've been right here at this
place before. Habakkuk 3. And I've been not very long forgetting
it. Have to be brought right back
here again. But listen to Habakkuk 3.17. Although the fig tree shall
not blossom, Neither shall fruit be in the vines. The labor of
the olive shall fail. The field shall yield no meat.
The flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be
no herd in the stalls." How could I rejoice in all that? David
said, I've never seen the righteous begging bread. I've never seen
his seed begging bread before. Now that don't sound to me like
that's what that is saying. You won't ever see his seed baking
bread. You won't ever see his seed thirsty.
You won't ever see his seed doing without. If all these things
come to pass, the fig tree don't blossom, there's no fruit in
the vines, there's no labor in the, the olive oil's gone, the
fields yield no fruit, the flocks are cut off from the fold, there's
no herd in the stalls. That's where we're coming to,
brethren. When the breath gets to about
this short where we can just take about that much and it's
rattling and it's full of death, that's where it's going to be.
That's what's going to be the case right there. That's the
case right now. That's the case in this earth
right now. Well, how then is His seed never
going to be begging bread? How are we going to always be
provided for? Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the
God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength.
He makes my feet like hind's feet, like deer. He makes me
to walk upon mine high places. You see, He makes me to see they're
not only His high places, they're my high places. All these rocky
things He's been bringing me into, all this valley of shadow
of death and all this affliction He's been carried to, they're
mine. They're for me. They're by my
loving Savior's hand. They're for me. And here's the
last thing, and I'll hurry here, but we want fellowship. We want
to go through this with brethren, and we want to be with brethren. Verse 12, Behold, these shall
come from far, and lo, these from the north, these from the
west, these from the land of Sodom. I used to go hunting when
I was younger, and my dad always told me, now you stay put until
I come get you. Now I'll come get you and we'll
start out of the woods together." I was a little fella, you know,
about 10 years old. And he'd come get me and we'd
start out of the woods together. And we'd have a bunch of family
with us to hunt. We'd start out of the woods, you know, and I'd
look down through the woods. Wouldn't be able to even see
a path or a trail or anything, and I'd see my grandfather coming. And pretty soon our trails would
just meet. He'd join with us. Walk a little further and look
up, here'd come my uncle. He'd be walking his trail, we'd meet
with ours, we'd just keep going. And we all just kept going together
until we ended up at the house. When we got there, we'd all be
together. Well, you might not think we're moving because we
just meet here week in, week out, but we're moving. We're
walking. We're headed to our eternal home. And he's bringing, he's already
done, he's already brought some from the north, some from the
east, and some from the west, and some from the south, made
our paths to converge, and we're just right here together going
home. And when we get there, we're going to see that every
single one of his elect children, every one of his congregations
from the north and the east and the south and the west, every
one of his elect children from the four corners of the earth,
throughout all time, he's brought them all right there together.
and we'll all be there. It won't be when he lost. Abraham
looked for that city, forsook all, and just went through his
life as a pilgrim dwelling in a tent. He's there right now.
God gave him the promise. Moses forsook being the king
of Egypt, the greatest, most powerful nation in the world
to strike out in this wasteland wilderness and suffer with God's
people. He's right there now. Ladies, Sarah, Rebecca, Naomi,
they all continued. They're right there now. Believers
are arriving there every day. And it won't be very long, we
shall too. Turn over to Revelation. Revelation
chapter 7. We'll end with this. What I'm
trying to tell you, brethren, is our religion is not superficial. It's not an outward surface,
superficial, formal religion. It's not. I like to watch animals
in the woods, especially in the wintertime. They dig underneath
that outer layer, underneath that outer, cold, frigid surface. And they dig deep down underneath
all of that because the food's underneath all that. Well, Christ
is leading us in these ways to teach us our life is not found
on the surface. Our sustenance is not in these
outward material things. Our sustenance is buried deep,
safe, and sure in the depths of His grace, in the depths of
His love, in the depths of His never-ending salvation of our
souls. And Christ is feeding us the
greenest pasture where the natural eye only sees a barren, rocky,
dry, desert surface. The less we find provision, protection,
refreshment, direction, or fellowship in worldly things, the more abundantly
we'll find Christ is all and in all. Our life is in God's holy mountain
where Christ sits. And the grace promised here to
all who believe is just a foretaste of heaven. Look at Revelation
7 verse 9. After this, I beheld, and lo,
a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations,
and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne,
and before the Lamb. They came from the north, the
south, the east, the west, clothed with white robes, and palms in
their hands." Look at verse 13. And one of the elders answered,
saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes,
and whence came they? And I said, Thou knowest. Sir
thou knowest, and he said unto me, These are they which came
out of great tribulation. They came feeding in the ways,
finding their pasture in those rocky high places, and they washed
their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore
are they before the throne of God, and they serve Him day and
night in His temple. And he that sitteth on the throne
shall dwell among them, and they shall hunger no more, neither
thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any
heat. For the lamb which is in the
midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto
living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes." That's all I'm trying to teach you. That's
all I've been trying to teach you since the very first message
I ever preached to you. And I hope that'll be all I ever
try to teach you in the last one. Amen.