All right, good evening, brethren.
It's good to be with you again. I'm gonna be reading from Isaiah
35. Isaiah 35, and this chapter will
be our text this evening. Isaiah 35, verses one through
10. Now, these words, especially
in the beginning of the chapter, are seen and understood in our
Lord's second coming, when he will redeem his people, and he
will forever destroy the enemies of God, his Christ, those who
despise his gospel, and trouble his people. But we also see that
This is true of our Lord's first coming when he accomplished salvation
for his people in his flesh on the cross. So Isaiah chapter 35, and we'll
be reading verses one through 10. The wilderness and the solitary
place shall be glad for them. and the desert shall rejoice
and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly and
rejoice even with joy in singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be
given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon. They shall
see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our God. Strengthen
ye the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them
that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not. Behold,
your God will come with vengeance, Even God with a recompense. He
will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall
be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then
shall the lame man leap as in heart, And the tongue of the
dumb sing. For in the wilderness shall waters
break out and streams in the desert, and the parched ground
shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. In the habitation of dragons,
where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes, and in
highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way
of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over
it, but it shall be for those the wayfaring men, though fools,
shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any
ravenous beast shall go up thereon. It shall not be found there,
but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord
shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy
upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
we thank you, Father, for this night. We thank you, Lord, for
your word. We thank you for the gospel which
you've given abundantly and freely to your people concerning the
good news of salvation found in your Son, Jesus Christ. Lord,
we thank you that in your sovereign mercy, compassion, and grace,
you chose your people. That you, having loved them,
predestinated them, and have sent your Son to justify them,
and call them with the divine call of your Spirit of grace,
delivering your people out of the bondage, out of the prison,
out of the darkness of sin and depravity. And have restored
us in peace, in fellowship with our God through your Son, Jesus
Christ. And Lord, we ask that you would
bless your people now, Help me, Lord, to preach your gospel,
your word faithfully, and that you would feed your people, that
you would heal your people, that you would strengthen your people,
and comfort your people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Lord, we have no other hope,
no other salvation but Him. Keep us ever looking to Christ
our Savior. Help us, Lord, deliver us from
the bondage of dead-letter religion. Deliver us from the corruption
of sin. And help us, Lord, to walk faithfully
before You. This, Lord, we're asking that
You would guide us by Your Spirit, because we have not the power
or the strength in ourselves. We are but fools. We are weak. We are full of sin and folly
in ourselves. But Lord, you have given us light
and life by the seed of your Son, Jesus Christ. And you tell
us that you have made your people anew, that we are new creatures
in Christ, having your Spirit, being born again by the spiritual
seed of Christ our Savior. So Lord, we ask that you would
indeed help us to hear, that you would remove the blindness,
that you would strengthen that which is weak and sick and dying. Give us strength, Lord, and cause
us to walk in the way of holiness. Loose our dumb tongues that we
may faithfully and joyfully declare the salvation of our God, giving
all the thanks, all the praise, all the glory to you. Lord, we ask that you would indeed
bless us, help us, Lord. Lead us and guide us, and Lord,
help us to see. Help us to see the glory of our
Lord and the excellency of our God. or it's in Christ's name
that we pray and give thanks, amen. All right, brethren, so our text
is Isaiah 35, and we'll be looking at all 10 verses tonight. Now, in the last chapter, in
chapter 34, we saw the great and the fearful judgment, which
is coming upon the wicked inhabitants of the earth. These are the enemies
of our God. These are the enemies of his
Christ. They are the enemies of the gospel and the enemies
of the people of God, and they trouble the people of God. And
the controversy of Zion is that our God has spoken the truth
to us and committed the gospel of truth to his people, and we
stand in that truth by his spirit, by his grace, by his power. And so we speak that which we
have heard of the Spirit of God declaring that salvation is of
the Lord and it's by His grace and power that we know Him and
are cleansed of our sin and are made righteous by the blood of
Jesus Christ. We are justified of Him, sanctified
of Him, kept of Him, led of Him, and we rejoice and boast in Jesus
Christ our Lord and Savior. But the wicked, the children
of disobedience, the children of wrath in this world, they
boast in and speak of their works and what they've accomplished.
and that's their hope and their confidence. And so there's a
great controversy over the children of God, because those who speak
lies and falsehoods, they're confident that they are the children
of God. But the true and living God reveals
himself, not only in his word, but to the hearts of his people,
giving them his spirit, whereby we know and understand the scriptures. That's what Christ does, he opens
the minds of his people that they understand the scriptures
and see that they declare the Son of God. They speak of Jesus
Christ. So he's our great hope. Now we
saw described last week in chapter 34, their spiritual darkness,
which was fixed in their heart, right? It was there through the
corruption of Adam and God sealed their hearts up to be a habitation
of devils. the hold of every foul spirit,
and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird." This is what's
taken up residence in the heart of the wicked. And I pulled those
descriptions from Revelation 18 too, which says, this is the
spirit of Babylon the Great. So this world, naturally, fallen
in sin and death, is under the spirit of Babylon the Great. of Antichrist. But tonight, the
word before us takes us immediately back to the wilderness, right,
the wilderness. We saw the wilderness that was
in the heart of the wicked, all the evil and foul spirits there
in the heart of the wicked. But we go back to the wilderness
here of man's spiritual barren heart, but this time, the Lord
shows us the power and the efficacy of His grace, the salvation of
our God in bringing His chosen seed to life in His Son, Jesus
Christ. So that where last week we saw
the power of God to bring the sin and the wickedness of man
into judgment, right, to bring man, the sinner, who hates God
and will not bow to His Son, Christ, he brings him into judgment,
justly sealing his heart in condemnation, sealing him to eternal habitations
of death. But this week, we see the power
of God's grace to deliver sinners from death and bondage, to justly
forgive their sin and iniquity, and to seal them up to eternal
life in his Son, Jesus Christ. Our title is Encouragement in
the Wilderness. Encouragement in the Wilderness. So, verse one brings us to the
end for the inhabitants of the world. It brings us right up
to that point at the beginning of verse one, and it picks up
there in the very same spiritually barren land, which is described
here as a wilderness. and the Lord, whose word can
never fail." He tells us in verse one, that the wilderness and
the solitary place shall be glad for them. And the desert shall
rejoice and blossom as the rose. Okay, so who are these? Who are
these for whom the desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose? This
is the church in the wilderness. The church in the wilderness.
Now, the wilderness has always been a place described where
the Lord helps his people. He brings his people into the
wilderness and he does many blessed and wonderful things there for
his people. We know that Moses was there
in the wilderness when he saw the burning bush. We know that
the Lord was with Moses when he led the people out of Egypt
and through the wilderness. We know that Paul, right, Paul
when after the Lord saved him and removed the scales from his
eyes, Paul went into Arabia for a time and there was taught of
the Lord. And so the church even, right,
in Revelation is described being under the persecution of the
dragon, of the devil, were told that the woman fled into the
wilderness, the woman being the church, fled into the wilderness
where she hath a place prepared of God that they should feed
her there 1,260 days. So here in the wilderness, the
children of God, they're brought low, right, they're brought low
in self. We're brought down in self, down
in our confidence, in our abilities, in what we can do or what we
have done. That's all stripped away of us.
We are humbled under the hand of God there in the wilderness. And we're tried by the Lord's
good hand, by his own wise choosing, he determines what things shall
try us, and prove the faith which he's given. Not prove the faith
to himself, he knows what he's given, but he proves the blessings
of God, he proves that faith which he's given to his child,
to his child. They continue in him, they continue
believing God and trusting him, settled in the gospel and learning
patience, and from patience learning experience, and growing in love
and help to the brethren. And so the Lord, there in the
wilderness, purges the conformity that we have naturally in our
hearts, the conformity to this world, and love for this world,
the Lord purges that love from us. He purges that dead, corrupt
heart from us, and there gives a living heart, a heart of flesh,
meaning a heart that is soft and teachable under the hand,
the spirit, the instruction of our God. All right, so this is
what the Lord's doing, doing for his people here in the wilderness. And we're told in verse two,
Isaiah 35, two, it, right? All that the Lord will do for
us in the wilderness, it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice
even with joy and singing. In other words, we're going to
bring forth, not of this flesh, but of his spirit, we're going
to bring forth that spiritual fruit, which comes of Christ
our husband, right? The fruit which he produces in
his people. We see this in the glory of Lebanon
shall be given unto it the excellency of Carmel and Sharon. All that
is good. These are descriptions of lovely
fruitful things. Blessed things there in the land
are given to us to see that the Lord brings forth these blessings
in his people. And they shall see the glory
of the Lord, and the excellency of our God." And so the thought
there, what the Lord's saying to us is, when we're being instructed
and taught of the Lord here in the wilderness, We begin to taste
of the goodness of our God. We see what he's doing, that
all these trials and difficulties and afflictions in our lives
are for our good. They're for our good. They're
a benefit to us because they turn us from this world and they
turn us to Christ, the only hope of salvation that is given to
men by God. That's the only hope of our salvation.
when we taste of his goodness and his grace, what we're actually
seeing there is the glory of the Lord and the excellency of
our God. So, to those who have been chastened
of the Lord, being delivered, being taught and helped by the
Lord, we see that we're delivered from the blanket of death that
rests, that lies over the hearts, the minds, the eyes of all the
peoples of the earth, naturally, all who come from Adam's sea. because in Adam we all died,
in Adam all died. And so we became darkened and
foolish in our hearts and minds. We didn't know the true and living
God. We worshiped stumps and rocks. We worshiped ourselves
as idols. And so the Lord removes that
blanket. He takes that blanket of death
away. And he says to us who are blossoming
under his glory and grace in verse three and four, He tells
us now, strengthen ye the weak hands. Strengthen the weak hands
and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful
heart, be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with
vengeance. Even God with a recompense, he
will come and save you." So understand, brethren, what the Lord is showing
us through his word is that this land that we are in, this world
that we're in, is a foreign land. We are strangers in a strange
land, and it's full of dangers and snares. And what the Lord
did in sending his Son, and delivering us from sin and death, and in
sending his Spirit, whereby we know him, and whereby he's revealed
to us, and he teaches us in our heart, the Lord's destroying
the power of darkness. He's destroying the power of
this world that is over the people of this world. And so we become
strangers in this land. We become foreigners in this
land. It's not our home. It's not our resting place. We look for a city whose foundations
is built of God. It's of God's creation. And so we journey now, looking
unto Him, waiting for Him. We journey now in hope of Christ's
return. As Paul said, for we are saved
by hope. Romans 8, 24. So therefore the
Lord tells us, be strong. Remember the promises of your
God. Believe Him. Walk in faith. trusting Him, remembering Him,
and trust Him. Don't be moved away. Don't be made so afraid by the
things of this world that you turn from the things of God and
take up these, by fighting for these things yourselves with
your own hands. Trust the Lord. Remember His
promises. And as you are strengthened in
the gospel, so strengthen your brethren. in this gospel. Now,
I want you to turn over to Hebrews 12. Let's go to Hebrews 12 and
we'll look at a few verses there. And what Paul does at the beginning
of Hebrews 12, and in verse one, he sets our eyes right where
they need to be set, upon Jesus Christ. And he says, wherefore,
Hebrews 12, one, wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with
so great a cloud of witnesses, Let us lay aside every weight,
and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with
patience the race that is set before us." How so, Paul? How are we to run this race?
Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Christ
is the first and the last. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega. He's the beginning and the end,
and here he's called the author and finisher of our faith. And so we run in hope, and we
look to Christ, who for the joy that was set before him endured
the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right
hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured
such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied
and faint in your minds. You see, Christ was in the wilderness
where we are. He came into the wilderness in
the flesh, though he sinned not, though he was perfect and holy
and righteous in all that he did. And so our whole pilgrimage
now, our whole journey that incorporates and includes this instruction
of chastening, right? What we understand, what we see
is that this old man is crucified with Christ. And it's dead, and
we don't want to follow the whims and the will of this old man,
which is put off and crucified by Christ. And in doing so, all
who will live godly in this life will suffer persecution. They'll
suffer hardships for their hope of Christ. right, whether you are fully
aware of it or not, we shall suffer in this life. And drop
down to Hebrews 12, 11. Paul there says, now no chastening,
right, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous
but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit
of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. And then
he quotes from Isaiah 35 verse 3, And so, Through this chastening, our
good Father is preparing us. He's instructing us. He's refining
that which He has made. He's bringing us along and growing
us in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. And so as He's teaching us, we're
tasting of the glory of our Lord and the excellency of our God
in salvation. And so we're seeing that glory.
We're seeing the excellency of God here in the wilderness, right? This is where the Lord's revealing
it to us is in the wilderness. And so this is what he shows. This is what he teaches us in
the wilderness, what he's revealing to us. If you think about it,
this is what he showed to Moses. When Moses was in the wilderness
with the people, early on now, it was early on and the Lord
had given him the Ten Commandments and he went down, Moses went
down from the side of the mountain and saw the people in just total
rebellion against God, in idolatry and dancing around naked and
doing all manner of filthy things. And so he was angry, right? And
so now he's praying to the Lord, and he asks, he says, I beseech
thee, show me thy glory, right? Because he doesn't want to go
forward unless the Lord goes with them. And the Lord said
to him, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will
proclaim the name of the Lord before thee. And here's what
he said. He says it here, and he says
it later on when he passes before him. He says, I will be gracious. to whom I will be gracious, and
I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy." And so what the
Lord is teaching us in the wilderness is His sovereign electing choice
of His people, of His choosing, and we see how the Lord being
gracious to whom he will be gracious, and he's being merciful to whom
he will be merciful, and he's being compassionate to whom he
will be compassionate. And so we read this in his word,
and we experience the truth of this by his grace. We learn that
our faith isn't of this flesh. It's not of us. That's a gift
of God. That's of his Spirit. And we
learn the truth of those words that even though we were just
like the children of wrath and disobedience described as being
dead in trespasses and sins by Paul in Ephesians two, one through
three, we see those words, but God, but God who is rich in mercy
for his great love wherewith he loved us, for by grace you
are saved, right? We're saved by grace, we're saved
by his mercy and kindness toward us. And so as Moses heard it,
so we hear the gospel word in the wilderness, where God is
revealing himself to us in glory and in excellency, where we see
his mercy and compassion and grace upon unworthy sinners who
do not deserve any of his kindness toward us. And so we're learning
that salvation is of the Lord, All right, now the remainder
of this chapter, it unfolds for us things which must take place. We now see that Christ must come
and he must accomplish salvation for us because we can't do it
ourselves. And so these are things described
here, right? We saw the description in the
hearts of the wicked left in a barren, dead land. But here we see what the Lord
has accomplished in the hearts of barren, fruitless sinners,
and what he accomplishes in us for his people in grace and in
mercy. And understand that this is all
accomplished in us, not for any works of righteousness which
we have done, but purely in grace, because Christ came in the flesh,
fulfilling all the righteousness of the law, for his people, and
he went, having a body prepared for him of the Lord for this
very work, he went willingly to the cross, bearing the sins
of his people, and he put it away by the sacrifice of himself. When he offered himself up to
the Father, and the Father slew him in wrath to put away the
sin of the people. Christ made atonement. made payment for the sin of the
people. And there he accomplished our
justification. He accomplished our redemption. He propitiated God. He is the means of our forgiveness. It's because of him and him alone
that we are forgiven with God and reconciled unto him and have
peace and fellowship with the true and living God. Christ accomplished
all this work. And not only did he accomplish
our salvation, but he bruised the head of the serpent and forever
has condemned him and cast him out, and all our enemies are
defeated already. It's just waiting till Christ
comes again when he redeems these bodies and finishes off the enemies
of the people of God. And so we're gonna experience
the words that are recorded here for us at the end of 35 verse
four. Verse four there, it says, he
will come and save you. So the result of the Lord's salvation,
which he's accomplished for his people, is revealed here to us
in the following way. Look at verses five and six.
Having been saved by Christ, Then the eyes of the blind shall
be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then
shall the lame man leap as in heart, and the tongue of the
dumb sing." All right, now we know that Christ accomplished
these miracles in the flesh when he walked upon the earth. When
Christ, when John wisely sent his disciples to saying, ask
him if he is the Christ or if another should we expect another.
John knew, John knew, but he was, he was, he must decrease.
He was going to die. And so he sent his disciples
now to Christ that they might know what he already himself
knows. And so they asked Christ and
Christ responded saying in Matthew 11, five, the blind received
their sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the
deaf hear. The dead are raised up and the
poor have the gospel preached to them." Now we know that Christ
did these physical miracles for the people there, and he did
this to show the people, to show us that he is indeed the very
Christ promised of God from the foundation of the earth, recorded
throughout the scriptures. But our Lord added this as well
in verse six, when he said, and blessed is he, whosoever shall
not be offended in me. All right, blessed is that one
who shall not be offended in me. Because what Christ was saying
in Matthew 11, five, is he was describing every single one of
us by nature, as we come forth in Adam, right, with all our
strength, all our wisdom, our intelligence, our accomplishments,
our beauty, everything that we could bring forth of ourselves,
Christ has said, you're blind, you're deaf, you're a leper,
you're not what you think you are, you're naked, poor, and
blind, all right? We're blind spiritually, and
being lame, we can, of our own strength, walk in the paths of
righteousness. We can't do it. That's what he's
saying there. We are the filthy, polluted,
corrupt leper. We're the ones that are rotting
and dead in trespasses and sins. We can't hear the Spirit's words. We're dead spiritually so that
we stink. Our carcasses, like those wicked
left there at the destruction of God in the last chapter, our
carcasses stink, our works stink, our righteousnesses stink. Isaiah
says later, are filthy rags. They stink. Our righteousnesses,
our best deeds, all stink before the true and living God. We are
poor in spirit, bankrupt of any righteousness. We have nothing
to bring to the living God that is worthy of His acceptance.
Nothing. Nothing in ourselves. That's
what the Lord's showing us. And so, to the self-righteous
Pharisee, to the one who thinks of himself as a good person,
to the one who thinks that they're doing good in religion, the self-righteous
Pharisee, that's offensive. It's offensive. And people are
just as offended today as the Jews were offended in that day. Because it still goes out to
all those walking about in religion, trusting in their own works,
and think that they're something when they're nothing. And so
that's what Christ is showing us. Blessed is he whosoever he
is that shall not be offended in me. Because I just gave, he
says, a description of every one of you by nature. All that
we are in Adam. And so this salvation is and
must be accomplished by Jesus Christ. And he does this in the
heart of his people. He does the spiritual work for
them, so that the Lord himself is the one that removes the veil
of blindness, right? Those scales that were on Paul's
eyes when he was saved, these scales are on our eyes naturally
as well, until the Lord removes that blindness, until he removes
that veil from our hearts and our eyes. Christ is the one who
opens our ear so that now we hear The children of God hear
the voice of the shepherd of God, their shepherd. They hear
the voice of the shepherd and they follow him. And Christ is
the one that heals and strengthens these weak, lame legs of ours. He's the one that gives strength
so that now being led of his spirit, we walk in the paths
of righteousness for his name's sake, by his power, right? And
we jump up and we leap as in heart and declare the grace of
our God. Having our tongues loosened,
we declare the glory and the excellency of what God has done
for us. Not what we have done for him,
but what he has done for unworthy sinners such as ourselves. And
so the Lord is the one that performs all, every one of these mercies
of grace in the heart of his people, all right? He showed
them in the people as he walked on the earth, various people
who had different ailments, but every one of these are accomplished
in the heart of every one of his people, all right? And so every chosen child of
God shall have this power, this excellency, this glory worked
in them by the true and living God, by Christ the Savior. He
does this by his spirit in the new birth. He regenerates us. He raises us from the dead. He
makes all things new in the heart of his people. We are new creatures. We are his people. We follow
Him and trust Him and look to Him alone for salvation. Now,
back in Isaiah 35, verse 6, in the second half of verse 6 into
7, We read that in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams
in the desert, and the parched ground shall become a pool, and
the thirsty land springs of water, and the habitation of dragons,
where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. And so
this is speaking of that spirit that flows, the living waters
of the spirit flow within us, right, which Christ promised
that he would send. He said over in John 7 37, that
if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. And he that
believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall
flow rivers of living water. And this he spake of the spirit,
which they that believe on him should receive, for the Holy
Ghost was not yet given, because that Christ was not yet glorified. All right, and so as we've seen
throughout all the scriptures, the spirit is the one that leads
the people and he leads the people to Christ. If you are led of
a spirit, to have some confidence in yourself, to boast in self
and to rejoice in yourself. Well, that's not the spirit of
Christ because the spirit of Christ always leads to Christ. It's not the spirit of religion. It's not the spirit of much knowledge
and boasting in self. It's the spirit of Christ that
leads us and he leads us to Christ. And we see this here in verse
eight, Isaiah 35, eight. and an highway shall be there,
and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness. The unclean
shall not pass over it, but it shall be for those, the wayfaring
men, though fools, shall not err therein. And so Christ himself
is the highway in whom We are led of the Spirit, right? The
Spirit leads us to Christ. So that Christ restoreth my soul,
right? He restores our soul. He leadeth
me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil. That's a description of the wilderness,
right? That's a description of entering
into that final stage, whatever it is, in all those, every step
we take in this life, in the wilderness of this life, even
as we're passing in to death, right? The porch before the home,
as we're going in there, the Lord is with us. And He's the
one leading us and placing our steps. And so we're led upon
this highway, and we're led to and in this highway by the Spirit. This is the way of holiness.
It's Christ. Christ. Because God has provided
Christ to do everything. and bringing his scattered people
from throughout the world, these scattered people to Christ himself,
to look to him and trust him. When Peter, the apostle of Jesus
Christ, when he was writing, he wrote to the strangers in
his first epistle. He called them strangers scattered
throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Elect according
to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification
of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ." The Spirit sanctifies us, separating us apart from
the rest, separating us unto the gospel of God, unto the knowledge
of Christ, unto faith, revealing faith in his people, which he's
given, and he leads us to the obedience of Christ. He leads us to the sprinkling
of the blood of Christ, whereby we are cleansed and justified
in the blood of Christ our Savior. So he says, grace unto you, and
peace be multiplied. Now, the unclean, we're told,
they'll not come up in this way, right? They're not gonna come
up into this way so as to spread their error and infect the sheep
and shipwreck the faith of many. Isaiah 35 nine says, no lion
shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up there on. It
shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. All right, so the evil one won't
be there, his false, Ministers with their lies and falsehoods,
they won't be there. They're not gonna be able to
destroy what God has done. They won't do that. Only what
God permits and allows them to do, shall they do. And it'll
always be for the good of the Lord's people. Now here's the
final accomplishment in verse 10. The final accomplishment
of our Savior, when he shall have delivered us safely to Canaan
shores when he comes again. and the ransom of the Lord shall
return, and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy shall
be, everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall obtain joy
and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." So
brethren, I pray those words are a comfort to you who have
witnessed the glory of your Lord and seen the excellency of your
God, that He and He alone has worked this in your heart and
done these miracles of grace in your heart, revealing faith.
And brethren, we're saved in hope. We're saved in hope. We
can't look to special evidences and little tokens of grace as
we would see them. And many are troubled looking
for something more than what the Lord has done. But it's the
simplicity of Christ in which he works his grace in the heart. And even that little tiny mustard
seed of faith which he gives, brethren, where you have no hope.
No hope in this flesh, no confidence in this flesh, no hope in religion
or the things which you've done before, but our hope is fixed
in Christ. I pray that He would reveal that
to you and comfort your hearts, seeing what God Himself has begun
in you, His child, and giving you a hope in Him, and that you
would trust Him to complete that work. to finish that work. So
rather than looking for all these special evidences, hear His Word. Has He revealed the hope of Christ
in you? Has He revealed faith in you?
So that apart from all you see, you have no hope, but Christ
is your hope. If the Lord has done that work,
He'll keep you, and He'll keep revealing that more and more
in you, leading you in these paths, healing you in strengthening
you in the faith and grace of our God. So I pray that the Lord
bless that word to your hearts. All right, let's pray and get
things. Our gracious Lord, we thank you, Father, for your gracious
and kind word to us. Lord, we are unworthy, undeserving
sinners who All we earned was to be shut up in that barren,
filthy land, forever kept in darkness and in bondage to sin
and iniquity. But Lord, it pleased you by your
grace to deliver us, to set us free from that prison. Lord,
your words called to us saying, sinner, show yourself. And Lord, you strengthened that
which was lame, and lifted us up and brought us out of the
prison of bondage and darkness. Father, we thank you. How can
we thank you enough? Lord, we can't, but we're so
thankful and glad at what you've done in us, not for any works
of righteousness, which we've done, but in your grace and mercy. Lord, we ask that you would continue
to Reveal this word, the light of Christ and the light of your
gospel in the hearts of your people. Lord, we pray that you
would bless and comfort your people who are fearful and afraid
and worried about many things. But Lord, help us to see Christ,
help us to comfort one another and to be strengthened in this
word and fed and nourished in the gospel of our Savior, Jesus
Christ. Lord, help Help us to help one
another in this pilgrimage, in this strange land, that we would
remember one another and be a help to one another. It's in Christ's
name we pray and give thanks. Amen.