When I see my brethren hurting, I want a message that will comfort
them. And sometimes you have to trust the Lord will give you that. even
when you weren't necessarily looking at a particular scripture
or what have you. In Isaiah chapter 40, verse 1, the Lord says, Comfort
ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably
to Jerusalem, That's His people, Jerusalem, His holy city. Cry unto her. What am I going
to tell her? Tell her, her warfare is accomplished. That means it's done. You may still see some enemies
in the land. You still may see enemies too
fierce for you to conquer. You may still see enemies all
around you on every side so much so that you think there is no
possible way your warfare could really be finished. But God says,
to you who believe, it's finished. It's done. It's done. Look at this second thing. Her
iniquity is pardoned. I don't care how bad things are,
I don't care how bad things get, for us in this life, this is
the one thing we need. We need our iniquity pardoned.
And he says, it's done, your iniquity is pardoned. And he
says, tell her she has received of the Lord's hand double for
all her sins. You've received righteousness,
forgiveness, mercy, and truth. Double for all your sin. Grace upon grace. Mercy upon
mercy for all our sin. The voice of Him that crieth
in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight
in the desert a highway for our God. What did He say? Cry. Look down at verse 6. All
flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the
field. The grass withereth, the flower
fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely
the people is grass." Now, the Lord says the warfare
is accomplished, and the Lord says, me and you are grass. That means we didn't have anything
to do with accomplishing the warfare. Now the only way that
this flesh is going to wither, I mean wither so as to be conquered,
wither so as to be brought into submission to God, wither so
as to be brought down, so that it doesn't reign in us anymore,
is found right here in verse 7. Because the Spirit of the
Lord bloweth upon it. When the Spirit of the Lord blows,
He withers the flesh in the believer and he edifies the inward man
that he's created in righteousness and true holiness. He withers
that which is lustful and useless and worthless and dying and decaying
and won't help us whatsoever. He withers that. Why are you
worried, the flesh? Why are you troubled? The flesh. Why are you sorrowful? The flesh. The flesh. But through His Word, through
His Spirit, He edifies that inward man and He makes that flesh to
wither. To wither. Because it needs to
be withered. Because look at verse 8. The
grass withereth and the flower fadeth. But the Word of our God
shall stand forever. This is the Word whereby you've
been born. This is the Word of the incorruptible
seed whereby you've been born. This is the Word whereby you're
going to be cleansed and purged and continually brought to the
feet of Christ and made to behold the warfare really is accomplished. And you've been rewarded double
for all your iniquity, for all your sin. It's going to be by
this Spirit. Now, here's what He says to lift
up the voice and to declare. In the verse 9 there, Behold
your God. Behold your God. Behold the Lord
God will come with strong hand and His arm shall rule for Him.
Behold His reward is with Him and His work before Him. He shall
feed His flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with
His arm and carry them in His bosom and shall gently lead those
that are with young. What a compassionate, tender
God we have. And this is speaking particularly
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He came. He's come to this earth. He's come with a strong hand.
He is the strong hand of God. He is the arm of God's righteousness,
the right arm of His righteousness that rules for Him. All power
in heaven and earth has been given unto Him. His reward is
with Him. He's not looking for anything
for me and you. That's a good thing because that
means no man can buy Him. No man can sway Him. No man can
turn Him. His reward is His own, and His
reward is that which the Father has promised Him, and that which
the Father has promised Him is the glory which He had with the
Father before the world began. And the glory that's promised
Him is to have a people, and that will be the completeness
of His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.
And that's His reward. That's what He seeks, the glory
of God and the salvation of His people. This is the Lord Jesus
Christ we're talking about. His reward is with Him and His
work before Him. The recompense for His work.
That which God's going to give Him for His work. Now let me
tell you this. He's come. He's done the work. He's come. He's glorified the
Father in every regard. He said, search the Scriptures,
for in them you think you have life, and they are they which
testify of Me. From the beginning it's been
talking about Him. And He's come, and He's fulfilled
every word that's written. He's fulfilled everything that
He promised the Father. He said, Father, the hour has
come. Glorify Thy Name, that Thy Son
might glorify Thee. And He said this, I have glorified
You on the earth. I finished the work which you've
given me to do. I performed that which you've
given me to do." And he went to the cross, and having the
iniquity of his people laid on him, he laid down his life, and
he poured out his soul unto death, and he accomplished the warfare. Satan waged war against him.
Man waged war against him. The law of God waged war against
him. And everything that was waged
against him, I deserved it, and you deserved it. But He conquered. And He won
the victory. And He's the captain of our salvation. He's the victor over all the
enemies of His people. And we are more than conquerors
through Him that loved us. Now look what it says about this
Savior. He shall feed His flock like a shepherd. Well, He did
that when He walked this earth. No, He's doing it right now.
If he's feeding you, if you're being fed, it's because he's
doing it. He's gonna feed his flock like
a shepherd. His flock are sheep. Me and you
are dumb, ignorant, stinking, worthless sheep, and we gotta
have a shepherd, and we gotta have a flock. We gotta be kept
in a flock so that we won't be turned aside and scattered and
taken by the wolf. We've got to be together. And
He is the Shepherd who sends forth His under-shepherds, who
gathers His flock together, who keeps them together, and He does
it through the Word of His Gospel. He shall feed His flock like
a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with
His arm. What an arm! This one who is
seated at the right hand of the Father. is gathering His lambs
from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south,
from heaven's glory in this earth, He's gathering them with His
arm. And He carries them in His bosom. We're talking about, you picture
this now, you picture a flock of sheep. And you picture one
sheep over here and it's lost all by itself and it's lonesome
and it's in danger and it's in harm's way. And really the sheep
don't even have any idea it's in harm's way. The sheep's just
that ignorant. It just don't have any idea it's
in harm's way when it's in harm's way. And that's what we are.
That's what we are. But this one goes, picture the
shepherd going out to that sheep and finding that little sheep.
And it's weak. It can't walk. It can't even
follow the shepherd. And so the shepherd picks that
sheep up and pulls it up next to his bosom and carries that
sheep back to the flock. Does Christ really do that? If
there's ever been one sheep gathered any other way, He don't have
the glory for it. And He gets all the glory. That's
exactly what He does. This One who is God Almighty. This One who is man in human
flesh. This One who is together God-man. The One who brought God together
with humanity in one body, in one person, who has all power
in heaven and earth, who upholds all things by the Word of His
power. This One. We saw Him last week
in Phrazekei, He turned the sun backwards ten degrees. Because the sun is doing His
bidding. This same one is described here as the shepherd of His flock
who gently leads His sheep and gathers them and carries them
in His bosom. And He shall gently lead those
that are with young. Now, you hear this compassionate, tender, loving description of
the shepherd. Now, I want you to hear who this
shepherd. Behold your God. Who hath measured the waters
in the hollow of his hand? We just watched a tsunami hit
Japan, and that's not a big country.
And the area that tsunami hit wasn't that big of an area. And
we watched it flip ships and cars and buildings like toothpicks,
just a little bit of water. This same one who gently carries
his sheep, holds the water, all the water,
in the hollow of His hand." That's who we're talking about
now. He meted out heaven with a span and comprehended the dust
of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance. Who do you think? can cause the
plates in this earth to shift and just throw us into complete
and total chaos. He can. He made everything. He upholds all things by the
word of His power. Who hath directed the Spirit
of the Lord being His counselor hath taught Him. Who's told him
what's best to do? We sit and we get on our platforms
and we get to thinking about the shape we're in and the problems
that's going on and this is what we decide. It's just not right
for me to be here where I'm at. It's not right for this to be
going on. Or we'll say something like this,
God's not doing this. God hadn't done this. You know
one time God destroyed every living thing on the face of this
planet with water? The same water that you drank
today, He ain't made anymore. It's the same water. The same
water you drank today, He drowned the whole earth with it. You know one time, People were
going about their daily business, men marrying men, women marrying
women, fighting for their rights and saying, we got every right
to live like this. We can live like we want to.
And God rang down hail out of the sky in Brimstone and killed
the whole city. This is the same God who by His
free, sovereign choice, based on nothing good or evil in His
people whatsoever, by His free grace, chose to save a people
who were no different than all the people that died during the
flood during Noah's day and all the people who died in the judgment
of Solomon and Gomorrah. There wasn't a bit of difference
in any of them. And He chose a people from among them to save
to the praise and the honor and the glory of His grace. This
same all-power, all-knowing, all... Holy God. And He sent forth His only begotten
Son for this miserable lot of wretches. And He sent forth His
only begotten Son who is spotless and holy and without fault and
without blame. And He came forth and having
proven Himself to be absolutely perfect before a thrice holy
God, this One who is God Himself in human flesh. willingly made
himself of absolutely no reputation and laid down his life for a
bunch of lying, God-hating rebels. This same one who made everything,
who stretched out the heavens in a span. You ever read about
the atmosphere in the first of Genesis? He made the atmosphere. He made the atmosphere where
everything's held up, where He would create time, put a sun
that would come up, circle, go down, circle, all the planets,
where He would put a people, where He would perform this grace
and work out this salvation, this righteousness, and save
that people out of that place into an eternity that's outside
of that little ball called the universe. We're talking about
a huge God. We're talking about a God so
big that we can't even speak in his presence. You know what'll
happen? You know, right now we stand
here and we act like little gods and like we know something and
we're worthy of something. But you know, if God really made
his presence known, you know what we'd do? We would try to
get in the grooves of that, of those two before us right there,
if we could. We'd hit our face. We'd hit our
face. This is the God. And who's directed
the Spirit of the Lord? Who's been His counselor? Who's
taught Him? He's done all this without any
help from me and without any help from you. What's the best thing you've
ever made? What's the best thing you've ever made that you're
the most proud of? Probably our children. But we didn't make them. He did. He did. What about something
you make? David one time said, I'm going
to build a house for you, Lord. And he said, what are you going
to build it out of? Everything you're going to build
it out of, I've made. How are you going to build a
house for me? The heavens is his abode, and the earth is his
footstool. Are you going to build a house
for him? What's the best thing we ever made, the best thing
we ever did? You know where we got our wisdom
and our counsel to do it? From Him. But look at everything
He's made from the beginning of time right up till now. And
everything He's worked and ordered and done, and ain't been anybody
been His counselor. Nobody. This is the same one who says,
comfort ye my people, And tell my people their warfare's accomplished. Tell my people I've accomplished
it. Tell my people I've rewarded
them double for all their iniquity. Tell my people their flesh is
grass. Don't trust in it. Tell my people,
behold your God. I'll lead them like a shepherd
leads his sheep. And I'll carry the weak ones
in my bosom. And I'll bring them home. Look at verse 14, "...with whom
took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path
of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of
understanding." Oh, I get so tired of hearing,
that's not fair. I get so tired of hearing, well,
that's my right. I get so tired of hearing unjust
judges talking about judgment. You've seen this new commercial,
it reminded me of what I told y'all the other day about an
unjust judge. You've seen this new one where
the woman's making the whole case and she's telling all this
to the jury and making the whole case and the judge looks, she
turns around and I mean, there's all this evidence against the
guy and they turn around and the guy's sitting there and they
say, what do you have to say for yourself? And he said, I'm
innocent. The judge says, that's good enough
for me. And the guy walks out. We're unjust in everything we
do. We'll say, we'll look at something
and we'll condemn it and we'll say that's not right and they
all not do that and blah, blah, blah. And we'll turn right around
then in our own situation and do the exact same thing and say,
but it's just for me to do it. He said, who taught him judgment? I don't know how that an earthquake
and a tsunami and all these things could be for His glory, but I
guarantee it will be. I guarantee it will be. And I
know that's hard for somebody that's suffering, but I know
it'll be for His glory. Behold, verse 15, the nations
are as a drop of a bucket. and are counted as the small
dust of the balance. Behold, he taketh up the isles
as a very little thing. Lebanon is not sufficient to
burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering."
What are you going to offer to God? What are you going to offer? If you had right now, if all
restraint was taken off, and everything was opened up at your
disposal, and you could run through this world Get the best riches
the best honors the best clothes whatever it is and Fix up yourself
the best you could with the best this world has and it's sure
to go get it You got get it Bring the best that you can bring it
all to God What are you going to offer him? He said, if you
had all of the offerings in this whole world, it wouldn't be sufficient. It wouldn't be enough. It wouldn't
do. What are you going to offer Him?
There's only one thing that God of heaven and earth is pleased
with. He's pleased with His Son. He's not pleased with me outside
of His Son. He's not pleased with you outside
of His Son. He's pleased with His Son, but
He's pleased with everybody that's in His Son. You know what I'd
do? If I was about to draw my last
breath and meet this God, which you are, you are. You are. I'd flee to His Son. I'd flee
and get in Him. I think I've told you this before,
but out beside my house where I grew up, there was a little,
it was old when I was growing up and we didn't use it, but
it was this little storm shelter. It was built right into the side
of a hill. And when I was growing up, if you heard that there was
a tornado, it generally was, it was there. And there was a
shelter there. and you just took off in that
shelter and it all went over you and you were spared. This
is what the scripture is describing when it calls Christ a sanctuary. He'll be for a sanctuary. Flee
into Him by faith. Lay hold of Him by faith. Run
to Him by faith. How do I do that? I don't know. When He teaches you, you just
do it. You won't ask any question, you just say, I believe it. I'm staying here, I'm staying
put. Well, let's go on here now. Look, he says, verse 17, all
nations before him are as nothing. They're counted to him less than
nothing in vanity. You mean all nations? You mean
even the United States? Even the United States. Every
one of them. Vanity. Nothing. To whom then will you liken God?
What likeness will you compare unto Him? So far, I don't think
there's anything that can compare to God, do you? From what we've
read right here in this chapter, is there anybody, anything that
can compare to God that you can liken to Him? Well, we got some Vain imagination. This is how vain we are. We'll
try to. Look, verse 19. The workman melteth
a graven image, the goldsmith spreads it over with gold, and
he casts silver chains and tries to make a god, make him look
like something. We don't worship it. We just
use this to help us worship God. Well, good then. You won't mind
if we just melt it down and throw it away. He that is so impoverished that
he hath no oblation, he chooses a tree that will not rot. He
seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image that
shall not be moved. Have you not known? Have you
not heard? Hath it not been told you from
the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
God is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the
inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers. You know how long we've had this
book? You know how long we've had this word in the earth? We've
had this long, long, long before Columbus came along. You don't
see how smart we are? It said right here all along,
he sits on the circle of the earth. And we said, it looks to us like
it's flat. Well, it's because we're so little.
It's because we're nothing and nobody's. And we don't know anything
unless God teaches us. He stretches out the heavens
as a curtain and spreadeth them as a tent to dwell in. And all
men you are as the inhabitants under this big giant tent are
just grasshoppers. Just grasshoppers. Look at verse 23. He brings the
princes to nothing. He makes the judges of the earth
as vanity. You see the princes and the judges
of the earth. He said the glory of the grass
is the flower. Now when you look out on a field
sometime and you look out across and you see all the green grass,
and then in the springtime, this time of the year, you start seeing
the, what are they? Are they dandelions? You know, they come up, and there
are the little yellow flowers or whatever come up out in the
field. Well, those are the princes, and those are the judges, and
those are the wise men, those are the honorable men, and those
are, but they're still just grass. They're still just grass. In
fact, the grass was there before the flower was there, and the
grass will be there after the flower's there. The flower comes
up last, and the flower leaves first. But the grass is still
there. And we don't really miss the
flower when it's gone. We just look out there, and there's
grass still there. One spring, a flower springs
up from down there, and we say, well, isn't that pretty? Next
time we look out there, it's gone. Oh, well, we don't lose
any sleep over it, do we? Well, from the least to the greatest. You know what we are? We're grass.
And He says He brings the princes, the flowers to nothing, and the
judges of the earth. He makes them vanity. Yea, they
shall not be planted. Yea, they shall not be sown.
Yea, their stalks shall not take root in the earth. And He shall
blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall
take them away as stubble. To whom then will you liken me,
or shall I be equal, saith the Holy One? I just wish we could just, Lord
help us to enter in to who we're dealing with here. Who is this
we're talking about? This is the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high. Can
you see? Is there anybody here that can
see? Lift up your eyes on high. Behold who hath created these
things. Bringeth out their hosts by number.
He calleth them all by names, by the greatness of his might,
for that he's strong in power, not one faileth. Do you know how long this world's
been around? We claim it's been around billions
of years. I don't know how we can tell
that. We can't even solve a crime that was committed last week. We claim it's billions and billions
of years. I don't know how old it is, but I know this. I know
who's held it in store. I know who made it. I know who's
held it. When I sayest thou, O Jacob,
and speakest, O Israel, my way is hid from the Lord, and my
judgment is passed over from my God. You don't think this
God who knows, makes all this and has all this said about Him,
you don't think He knows your heart and my heart? Don't think
He sees all things and knows all things? Verse 28, "...Hast thou not known,
hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the
Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?"
There is no searching of His understanding. He giveth power to the faint,
to them that have no might He increaseth strength." Do you have any might? Do you
have any power? You know when we really don't
come to have joy and be settled and be comfortable and know this
all powerful, almighty, all saving God until we don't have any strength. I remember one time when I was
sick. I was real sick when I was about
five years old. I had pneumonia, double pneumonia. And I remember the doctors in
the hospital having to give me a shot. And I remember them,
they were putting an IV in. And I remember them telling me,
now stiffen up your arm. And I stiffened up my arm. And
they put that IV in me. And about 30 minutes went by,
and they were wheeling me down the hallway on a gurney. And they tried to move me and
was trying to comfort me. And the lady felt of my arms,
and she felt I was just very rigid. And she said, son, what's
wrong? And I said, you told me to stiffen
my arms up. And that was 30, 40 minutes ago. And she said, well, son, I just
meant, well, we put an IV in. You can loosen up now. Just relax
and rest. We got you. And then I was able
just to relax. They had me. I was safe. They wheeled me down into a nice
room. But I didn't realize that until
I let go and quit trying to hold on and all that. This is the
thing. He says he gives power to the
faint. To them that have no might, he
increases strength. We're not going to enjoy and
find the peace in the heart until we don't have any strength."
He said, my strength, my power is made perfect. It's brought
to your full understanding and you enter into it. When you're
brought to the height of your weakness, or the depth of your
weakness, or the end of your weakness, whatever you want to
call it, when you're just, when you have no strength, then you
find out where your strength is. This is the one we're talking
about now. Even the youths shall faint and
be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. We think of young
folks being really strong. They'll faint, they'll fall.
But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They
shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not
be weary. They shall walk and not faint. You mean to tell me that folks
who are faint and who don't have any strength, who are weary and
utterly foul, they're going to fly like eagles? And they're
going to run and not be weary? And they're going to walk and
not faint? How can that be? Go back to the beginning of the
chapter. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem
and cry unto her, Your warfare is accomplished. That's how. Your warfare is accomplished.
Your iniquities pardoned. You received of the Lord's hand
double for all your sins. If we will ever meet this God.
Let me ask you something. Try to think of something easy
everybody will know. Who's the first president of
the United States? What color was his hair? What country was he the president
of? Where did he live? Do you know Him? You can answer all those questions
I just asked you, but you don't know Him. We can answer all the questions
and learn all the systems of doctrine and learn everything
we can learn about Him, about God, about Christ. But I tell
you what we need. We need to meet Him. We need for Him to know us. That's
what He said. He said, I know my sheep. We need Him to know us. We need
Him to come to where we are and introduce Himself to us in invincible
grace. And when He does that, we'll
know Him. And we'll be brought to the end
of all our little boasting and our little complaining and our
little carrying on and our little judgment, our little so-called
wisdom. And we'll meet true wisdom, true judgment, the Holy One. And we'll say for the first time,
the half has not been told. I can't even liken this one to
anybody. Your friends will say, well explain
to me why it is that yesterday you was walking down the halls
with me at school and you said you didn't understand why your
mom and daddy went to that place and you didn't want to have anything
to do with. And now today you're telling me you believe on him.
Tell me how come that is? And all you'll be able to say
is, I just say I never met anybody like him. I've never met anybody that would
take a sinner like me and completely, thoroughly make me a brand new
creature, wholly to be accepted of Him, and He did all the work,
and then just came and told me it's all finished. And in every trial, in everything
we suffer in this life, He just reintroducing Himself
to us all over again and reminding us. I get the kids sometimes over
there to youth study to, you know, we'll look at that, look
at the computer at that Google Earth, you know, and zoom in
on our house and then we'll just back it up a notch, back it up
a notch, back it up a notch till it just ends up in the earth,
just this little bitty blip on the computer screen, you know. And then you think of this God
holding everything in His hand. We really, aren't we foolish? I know, I know that it's, tomorrow
I'll be fretting over a hangnail. But I know, aren't we foolish? I mean, you know when He talks
about His work and the work that He does with us, We talk about
these big things and he talks about it being in his hand and
all this stuff. But you know the work that he talks about
doing for his people? You ever notice in the scripture
he talks about the work of his fingers? It doesn't take that much power
to turn me and you. Or to turn the king's heart.
Or to direct things around and move them around and do what
he wants to do. Is that too big for you? Too
big to get your mind around? Too big for me to get mine around? You know what? I was going to
preach to you out of 1 Peter chapter 2. He said, as newborn babes desire
the sincere milk of the word. Does the baby have to know what
the mama ate? And whether she'd been getting
all her organic vegetables, and just exactly how the milk was
made, and just exactly what channels it goes through and all that.
No, it just tastes the milk and says, I know where it is, I know
how to get it, and I'm gonna drink it. And that's what'll happen when
God comes to you by grace, like a baby, like a baby. And you
don't grow past being a baby. We'll look at that next time. I pray that'll be a comfort to
you.