with you this morning. Very thankful
the Lord's given us the strength, the ability, the desire to be
here. I don't think we see how blessed
we are as a church. I just don't think we understand.
We come, we go, we come, we go. We have many afflictions in this
body. Many people suffering, sicknesses
and difficulties and trials. And I'll tell you, the Lord has
saved us out of so many, so much more. Giving us a unity. Taking it for granted is easy
to do. You assume that every church
would be like that, that everybody would just be desires to hear
the gospel and nothing else, and everybody else, every church,
have no affliction, nobody arguing, nobody upset, nobody throwing
snares or difficulties at each other. You'd think that wouldn't,
that shouldn't happen. It didn't happen here, so I guess
everybody else is the same. No, it's not. And so there are many things
to be thankful for. many, many things. The Lord has saved us
out of much affliction and kept us. I do ask the Lord to call His
people. I would love to see many come and worship with us. Truly, I would want and desire
His people to come. Jesus said, I pray not for the
world, but for them which you have given
me. They are thine, and you've given them to me. I do desire those to come. I know at first they got to start
out in the world, don't they? They got to be part of the world.
You got to be dead before you got life. You have to have unbelief
before you have faith. One man told me he's believed
all his life. I told him that's too long. That's too long. There had to be a time where
you didn't. And then there's a time when you are. And that's
a glorious thing. To be given faith in Christ is
the greatest miracle God can perform. We that have it are
astounded by people that don't do it. We should be astounded
that we do. It is a miracle. It's a miracle.
And I do pray God comforts you this morning with the message.
Like I said, I've been wanting to preach this message for a
very long time. Very long time. And it is a comfort to me when
I wrote it, but I hope it comes out like I hope the Lord will
bring it out as it was intended. Not as I intend it, but as He
intends it for you. That's what I want. I want Him
to deliver the message to you. I want Him to speak. What a glorious thing that the
Son of God would speak to men. But he does. He does. And this is how he'll do it. This is the means he's chosen
to do it. He'll preach his word to your
heart. And that's what I pray for this
morning. Let's go to him in prayer. Father, give us grace to lift
up our hearts in thanksgiving this morning. Praise. Adoration. Let us lift up our voices and
our hearts and minds as we hear the gospel this morning. And trace out each and every
one of your kindnesses and graces that you have given us in Jesus
Christ that cannot be removed. I beg you for the grace that
everyone here the voice of the Son of God and live. I pray that the voice of the
Son would come in the Spirit and comfort us in times of great
darkness and great trouble. You didn't promise that we would
be without trouble. You promised that we would have
it. But you also promised that you would help us in it, that
you would deliver us from it, that it was never meant to hurt
us, but to help. Let us trust you in the trouble
that you will lead us and deliver us in your time from the trouble. Thank you for the blessings of
keeping us from much trouble and difficulty in this world.
Thank you for the blessing of this congregation, the unity
that you give, the spirit of love we have. I pray, Lord, that
you would be gracious to help us to love you and serve you
and serve one another as you gave us commandment. Do pray for the forgiveness of
our sins, our failures, which are many. But I'm so thankful
the blood is infinitely superior to our failures, that your blood cleanseth us
from all our sin, and your arm is not short to save. I pray, Father, that you would
do that even this day. In the name of Jesus, our Savior.
All right, take your Bibles, turn with me back to Isaiah chapter
50. The text we found in verses 10
and 11. I started this, I had intention
of going through both of these verses, but I really want to
focus on verse 10, and I'm going to give you a little bit of verse
11. Listen, if what he speaks of in verse 10 regards you, that's good. But if you can't
find yourself in verse 10, you're in verse 11. In verse 10 he talks about God's
people, in verse 11 he speaks of another group of people which
are not his. I've entitled this message, Heirs
of Heaven Walking in Darkness. Heirs of Heaven Walking in Darkness. He says, Who is among you that
feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that
walketh in darkness? and hath no light. Let him trust
in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God." That's one group
of people. Now here's another group. Behold
all you that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with
sparks. Walk in the light of your fire. and in the sparks that you have
kindled, this shall you have at my hand. You will lay down
in sorrow." Here in these verses we have two distinct characters,
two distinct people. As the Holy Spirit often does,
He separates the precious from the vile. He separates the child
of God, the character of the child of God, from the character
of the children of the devil. He separates the heirs of heaven
from the heirs of hell. These ones said to walk in darkness. There's one group who fears the
Lord, obeys the voice of his servant, and yet they walk in
darkness. There's another group of people
that walk in light, but it's not God's light, it's their own
light, their own understanding, their own wisdom, their own will,
their own merit, their own works. One is the experience of God's
child that sojourns in this life, and the other traces out the
life and the death of those who are outside of Christ. And this
is very vital to see which one you are. Now, I love you and
I take your whatever you say. I'm a believer, I'm not. Really,
that's not for me to determine. You should be very honest with
yourself and as I trace these out, you should see which one
applies to you. This is the word of God. This
is not my word. as He is. So as I read this this
morning, and I know this, if you trace yourself out to be
an heir of heaven, this should be a great comfort to you. And
if not, oh may God be gracious to give you, to abandon your
light. And may He give you the characteristics,
because I tell you this, any characteristics of a child of
God have to be given. They're not merited. If I have
these characteristics, if this is speaking to me, I know this,
God gave it to me. That's it. Now, I want you to
see the heirs of heaven, I'm going to spend most of my time
here focusing on the true. You heard that before, that people
who study no counterfeit money, they don't study the false, what
do they study? They study the true. And then
they'll be able to see the false clearly. So what we're going
to do is focus on the truth, the heirs of heaven. Now, the
Spirit of God begins this by asking a very searching question. He says, Who is among you that feareth the Lord, and obeyeth
the voice of his servant? It is though he is speaking to
the whole. That's what we do, don't we as
preachers? We speak to everybody. I throw this out at a venture.
I don't know. And so the Spirit of God speaks to the whole. He
said, who it is among you. He's speaking to everyone at
this point to determine for yourselves, to distinguish those that kindle
their own fire and those who truly fear the Lord. The heir of heaven is one who
fears the Lord, that's the first characteristic, and the second
is what? Obeys the voice of his servant. Now listen, there is a natural
fear of God. There is a natural fear of God. The devils have it. Scripture
says the devils believe and they tremble. Remember that demoniac
came running? What was the first thing those
devils did? They bowed down in fear, in terror. Are thou come to torment us before
the time? They were in terror. And there
is a natural fear of men. Those Israelites who died in
the wilderness in unbelief, the Scripture said they feared the
voice of God when He spake. Saul, when he was being cast
out and abandoned of God, the Scripture says this, he was sore
afraid. So when God sends judgments,
condemns, He sends fires. I mean, look at the fire that's
taking place in that part of the country. It just ravished
it. In a few days, God took down what they built over a century. Gone. In one hurricane, one swoop,
took off almost the whole eastern side of our country. Gone. I
tell you what, When people are in those places at that time,
what compasses them is fear. But I want you to know that that
fear never leads to repentance. Now, I don't have the time to
do it, but Revelation chapter 9 and chapter 16, read it later,
listen to me, after all of the calamities that God put on those
people in that text, it says this, And they repented I think in chapter 9 it says
they blamed God. That's what natural fear will
do. Natural fear will only seek to blame God. Therefore, the
fear of our text is not natural. Anybody walking in natural fear,
that's not what is mentioned here. The fear of our text is
not natural. but rather it is a spiritual
fear. It is a spiritual fear that comes
from the power of God in the new birth. It is the first inclination
of any spiritual life is this, fear of the Lord. The fear of
the Lord is what? The beginning of wisdom. The
beginning of understanding, when God comes to a sinner, this is
the first inclination that will come. Fear. This is part of the
new covenant, the eternal covenant. In Jeremiah chapter 32, God says,
I'm going to gather my people. I'm going to gather them. I caused them to disperse, but
you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to gather them. I'm going to gather him, and
he says this in the covenant, I'm going to give them one heart
and one way. Now, before we had one heart,
didn't we? We had a heart only to ourselves.
A heart of affection to self and sin, and that's all we wanted,
that's all we desired. We had no heart for God, no love
for God, no love for Christ, no desire to hear His word. We
had one way, my way. We were like Frank Sinatra. We
did it my way. You know what? There is a way
that seemeth right unto man. I tell you, when I was lost,
I thought I had it. I thought I was on the way. Yeah,
I was on the way. There's a way that seemeth right
unto man, but that way ends in death. But when God gives us
and gathers, He gives us a new heart. A heart not to sin, we
still have that old heart, but He gives us a new heart to which
we desire to be righteous. We desire to be holy and acceptable
unto God. He gives us a new way. What way
is that? We know the way. Jesus Christ
said, I am the way. That's the way He puts in our
hearts, Christ. And when we're born again, we
begin to truly fear the Lord. Not like before, a natural fear. This is a spiritual fear. This
is the light that God commands to shine out of darkness. He
shines in our hearts and gives us, what's the first thing? Knowledge. Knowledge of what? The glory
of God. How can we glorify God? In the
face of Jesus Christ. That's what He gives us. It is
a sinner at this point is exposed. When God gives him a supernatural
fear of God, the sinner then becomes exposed. Like that woman caught in the
very act of adultery and thrown in his midst. She was exposed. No hiding. There's no place else
to hide. We could fool everybody else,
but at that moment, I could not fool Him. I fooled myself for
many years thinking I can hide. But when the fear of the Lord
came, I knew this, I was exposed. Have you been exposed? Have you been stripped of every
crutch? Every hope of saving yourself? At that moment we begin to see
the light of God's holy perfections and we see the ruin of our own
selves. I tell you this often, depravity
was a doctrine to me for many years. It was a doctrine that
I believed staunchly for many years. I knew this, everyone
was depraved. But when God saved me, I knew
this, I was depraved. Not everyone, me. Me, I was without help. I was without hope. But if you just got a natural
fear, you start thinking about hell and you don't want to go
to hell. I remember very distinctly a young woman that was in an
automobile accident. She expressed this later that
she cried while she's laying there on the ground. I don't
want to go to hell. I don't want to go to hell. I
bet she didn't. And there for a while, she would
come. Really seem to have all the desire
and vigor and sat in there listening tently By and by What where'd
she go that's natural fear that goes away One who is born of God we see
this that the leprosy is deeper than the skin Our leprosy goes
down to the very soul of Therefore, the fear of the Lord, the fear
of the Lord, it recognizes our ruin, that no amount of works
or religious deeds can deliver us from God's justice. You know
that? Are you sure of that? That there is no religious ceremony,
there's no amount of platitudes. Oh, I remember being religious
and all the platitudes that I could say. All the sayings that were
nothing but hollow, in my soul. Therefore one who fears the Lord
has one aim, one goal, one heart, and that is mercy. I need mercy. I thought of the people
of Nineveh. Jonah came through that city
and he preached one message and it was not a happy message. Forty
days and God's going to destroy and kill every one of you wicked,
evil people. He'd move on down the road. God's
going to destroy you in forty days. God's going to destroy
you. God's going to kill you. God's
going to, this is a wicked sin, it's vile and God's going to
kill it. He went up there on the hill with his arm folded
seeing what God would do. And you know what the people,
from the king to the least of them, they had one desire. They said, who knows if God will
repent that we perish not. What'd they want? They wanted
mercy. Someone who fears the Lord desires
one thing of God. Mercy. Mercy. You're born of the Holy Spirit,
you come seeking mercy. We come out of the depths of
our ruin. We come with a broken and contrite
heart and beg for mercy. See, I want to be saved by grace. One who has the fear of the Lord,
they have one idea about salvation. If I'm going to be saved, it
has to be completely by grace. It can't be by works. Why? I'm exposed. I'm exposed. Is this you? Do you know that about yourself? Has God revealed this to you?
Do you seek mercy? And I'll tell you this, everyone
who has a fear of the Lord never ceases to seek for mercy. It's
not like I sought for mercy yesterday and today I'm okay. I need mercy
today. And this fear is It brings one
thing. It doesn't bring terror. It brings
reverence. It sets myself on God's side
against me. I'm on His side. Whatever He
says about me is right. And whatever He does is right. Second characteristic is this.
He says, Who among you hath obeyed the voice of His servant? This is always the result of
godly fear. Listen to me. If this is not
the result of your fear, then listen, it's not godly fear.
Godly fear will always bring you to Christ. That's what it
does. If your fear does not bring you
to Christ, it's not godly fear. It's just natural. That's just
natural fear. I knew a man that always confessed
he was a sinner. He knew it, he always felt guilty
about everything. You know one thing he never did?
He never came to Christ. What was that? That wasn't godly
fear. Godly fear will always do this.
It will cause you to obey the voice of his servant. Now who
is the servant? We know it's Jesus Christ. Isaiah says this
multiple times. He uses this. Listen, Isaiah
42 verse 1. My servant, whom I uphold, mighty
elect, in whom my soul delighteth. He shall set forth judgment unto
the Gentiles." What is he going to do? He's going to bring salvation.
That's what my servant's going to do. I'm going to uphold Him.
He's the right hand of my righteousness and I'm going to uphold Him and
He's going to bring salvation even to the Gentiles. You know
that blue Isaiah's mind? That was just so astounding that
God would, if God's going to have mercy on the Gentiles, surely
He'll have mercy on us. They're the worst bunch of people.
God says He's going to bring salvation even to them. That's
how far it's going to reach. And listen to what He said about
His servant. One characteristic about my servant,
you're going to know him. When you see him, you're going
to know him because of this, he don't fail. And he's not discouraged. Everywhere Jesus Christ walked,
he was never discouraged. All the people followed him from
over on the sea, right? And they came over there and
said, Oh, you're the Christ, you're the Christ. And his disciples
were so happy. Man, look, we've got 5,000 or more, 10,000 people. We're setting this thing on fire.
By the end of his one message, everybody left but twelve. You
think he was discouraged? He was not discouraged. Those
were not my people. I got eleven right here and one
of them ain't even mine. He never discouraged. And what
is this servant sent to do? A servant is sent to serve, isn't
he? You know what a servant does? He serves. What was Christ, the
servant, sent of God to do? He was sent to do the will of
God. Isn't that simple? Lo, I come
in the volume of the book it is written of me. Listen! To
do thy will, O God. Listen! by the which will we
are sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ once for
all. He came to please God. And what did God say about his
servant? Now listen, you fear the Lord. He's going to point
you, the fear of the Lord points you to the servant. As you look
at him, what did God say about his servant? He said, that's
my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. This servant did everything
God told him to do. In this chapter, he says, if
you look in verse 4, he says, ìLord, have given me the tongue
of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season
to him that is weary. He waketh morning by morning,
he waketh mine ear to hear as to learn.î He heard everything
God told him to do and he did everything God told him to do.
What did he do? He by His own self obtained righteousness. Isn't this what those who fear
the Lord don't have? You that fear the Lord, you fear the Lord
because you don't have righteousness. What do you need? You need righteousness. Well, this is what the servant
came to do. He came to provide righteousness and not any righteousness
would do. Paul says in Romans 3, even the
righteousness of God, which is by the faith of Jesus Christ.
That's what he came to provide. Another thing the servant provided
was redemption. The fear of the Lord knows this,
I owe a debt I cannot pay. a debt of sin that hell itself
would not be sufficient to pay for eternity. I know that. What
do I need? I need someone to pay the debt.
This is the servant of God. He came to pay the debt. What a debt. What a debt. I cannot, can you count how many
sins you have? I mean just in number, if we
could just even get a grasp of the number of them, not to even
include the sentence upon one sin. The sentence of one sin
is eternal damnation. And how many have we committed?
How many this morning have you committed, even sitting here,
trying to wrap your mind around the servant of God, and yet we
still fail? But I want you to know this,
that the servant's death was greater than the sin. So great was the servant's offering,
the scripture says, he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. In Hebrews 9, 12 it says, He
obtained eternal redemption. Now, we can't even wrap our minds
around eternity and now we're talking about eternal redemption.
He got it. He obtained it. He bought it. That's the servant. His one offering,
one sacrifice did what millions of offerings before could never
do. He actually obtained redemption. And listen, He was so successful
that when He died, when He paid the price and died, He lay in
the grave three days and God said, that's sufficient. And
He raised Him from the dead and set that man on the throne of
God. Jesus Christ today is seated
on the throne of God doing his will Rather he is performing the work
that the father gave him even to this day You know what he's
doing he is saving his people from their sin He is saving his people he said
father I In John 17, the high priestly prayer, he says, Thou
hast given him power over all flesh. You got that? Who's really in charge? Who's
really running this show? Huh? In every part of your life,
in every particle of your body, who's actually running the show? Christ is. In Him we live and
move and have our being. We can't have being outside of
His power. Can't. And so the Son of God
is moving all things for this purpose that He should save His
people. That's what He said. Look at
John 6 again. It's that message that He preached and everybody
hated it. Everybody but 11. They all hated this message.
We could hate this message, but I love it. Look what he says
in verse 38. He says, I came down from heaven
not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
Isn't that the qualification of a servant? Isn't he saying
here, I'm the servant? I'm the servant. And this is
the will, the Father's will which has sent me. So you're aware
of it. He didn't just say this is a secret. I'm going to tell
you what His will is for me as His servant. That of all He hath
given me, I should... I'm sorry, verse 38. I came down
from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that
sent me. This is the Father's will, which has sent me, that of all
He hath given me, I should lose how many? Nothing. What if He loses one? Is He a
good servant? If He loses one, did He do the
will of the Father? No. but because He is a good
servant. He's not going to lose one, but
raise it up again the last day. And this is the will of Him that
sent me. Now look, this is the manifestation of it. Now I told
you what He's going to do, so I'm not going to lose one. They're
all going to believe on me. That's the will of the Father.
I'm not going to lose any of them. And this is the manifestation
of it. This is the will of Him that
sent me, that everyone that seeth the Son and believeth on Him
may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last
day. They murmured. They murmured. Isn't this what religion does?
Murmur at that. You know? He said, why are you murmuring?
No man can come to me except the Father which has sent me. as it is written by the prophets,
they shall all be taught of God. And every man therefore that
hath," listen, heard, every man that hath heard and hath learned of the Father,
cometh to me. So what is the will of the servant
after he accomplished the salvation of all that God gave him? What
is his will? His will is that every one of
them should hear and believe. That is the will of the servant
of God. Because one, that's the will
of the Father. And so what is meant by the voice?
Our text says, He that feareth the Lord and obeyeth the voice
of his servant. We know who the servant is. We
know what he did. What is his voice? What is that? Listen to what Jesus said about
his voice. He said, The hour is coming and
now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And listen to what's going to
happen. Everyone that heareth shall live. What does that tell you about
the voice of the Son of God, this servant? It tells me this,
His voice has power. His voice has power! You know, Lazarus, when he died,
our Lord said it was necessary for him to die. I thought of
that sad time that his family was going through. His sisters
didn't understand what was going on. They loved the Lord. Lazarus
loved Christ. And Christ was right there. He
could have healed him. He didn't even need to be there
to heal him. And he said this, this is for the glory of God.
Now what did he mean by that? Lazarus was going to be a picture
of how everyone hears the voice of the servant of God. He was
a picture of everyone who's saved. Like Lazarus, we were dead. And
when he said, Lazarus, come forth, was that an invitation? Did he invite Lazarus to come
forth? Lazarus, if you will pretty please,
I really want you to come alive, but you've got to help me out.
You've got to want to. BS. I really want to say the
other. But that's just so. That's a
crock. No, when the Son of God speaks,
you listen, there's power. Now, how did the voice of the
Son of God sound to you when it came to you? Was it harsh? Was it full of thunder? Or was it gentle and sweet? Listen, just because it's gentle
and sweet didn't mean it didn't have power. Listen to how it
comes, the voice of the Son of God when it comes. It comes to
a sinner who fears the Lord. It comes to one who is now trembling
before God. And when he comes, does he come
with condemnation? No. He said, I came not to condemn
the world. Why? It's already condemned.
I don't need to do that again. When God makes a sinner feel
his condemnation, he doesn't need to do that again. What does
he do? He speaks comfortably He speaks comfortably. The voice
of the Son of God comes to the ears and hearts of weary sinners. It comes in gentleness. I like the way that's phrased
in Scripture. It says it distills as the dew
on the tender herb. You know, you don't even see
the dew fall. There it is. It don't hit the tender plant. That's the way the voice of the
Son of God comes. It's there. And it's gentle. He says, Come
unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give
you rest. Who is He speaking to? Those
that labor and are heavy laden. He's not speaking to anybody
else. He only speaks to those who are weary and heavy laden. He said, ìOh, everyone that thirsteth,
come you to the waters, buy wine and milk without money, without
price.î Well, whoís he speaking to? Everyone? Nope, only those
that are thirsty. And so when you are a weary sinner,
youíre wore down to the nub, youíve tried everything. And
believe me, youíre not going to come to Christ until you try
everything. Youíll try religion, You'll try self-righteousness.
You'll try everything to get rid of this fear. You'll try
everything to get rid of it. You know what? You can't. And
when he brings you, wears you down, listen, he wears you down
to know this. You're weary of this. I can't obey the law. I can't make God satisfied. And
I'm weary of it. I'm weary of trying. Well, good. He said, come to me. I'll leave
you to rest. Come over here. Sit down. Work's
done. Come on. Who does that make happy? Only the weary. Thirsty. Are you thirsting for
the righteousness of God and the redemption before God? Are you thirsting for that? He
says, come to me and drink freely. He said, whosoever eateth my
flesh and drinketh my blood shall have everlasting life.
And so the voice then of the servant, it comes to us sweetly,
gently, but it doesn't come without power. It always comes with power. Now listen, if that voice came
gently to you and you rejected it, listen to me, it wasn't his
voice, that was your conscience. You can reject your conscience.
When he speaks, you won't reject it. Why? It comes with power. So everyone
who fears the Lord, listen what they do. They obey the voice
of his servant. What is the voice of his servant?
It's this. Believe. Believe on me. Trust me. As God commanded the light to
shine out of darkness, in that same way. When God did that the
first day of creation, He said, let there be light, and what
was there? There's light. Was there any resistance? Was the light resistant? Could
the darkness restrain it? No. When God said, He said, even
so, God had commanded the light to shine out of darkness, even
so, He has shined the light in our hearts The knowledge of the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. You that fear the Lord,
you know this. Now then, I'm going to get to this last thing
here. Look at this. And walk in darkness. Now wait a second. This doesn't sound right. It's
kind of strange. When I read this, we're often
surprised at this. How can one who has been given
light to fear the Lord, given understanding to obey the voice
of His servant. How then is it that we walk in
darkness? Listen to what John says. He
said if we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness,
we lie. How do you reconcile these two
scriptures? Isaiah said, you that fear the Lord and obey the
servant, you and walk in darkness. And John says, wait a second,
if you walk in darkness, you lie and do not the truth. What
does that mean? Well, we're talking about two
different darknesses here. John is talking about the darkness
of spiritual darkness. He's talking about those who
are dead. Well, this verse is talking about
those who have the light of the knowledge of the glory of God,
but are walking in darkness through great afflictions. Philpott said this, there are
two types of darkness. He said there are places on the
earth, caves, that no man has ever explored. They have never
seen light at all. That's one kind of darkness,
a darkness that has never known light. That's the darkness John's
talking about. But there are other things, like
there are places that have known light, seen light, and yet they become dark because
of absence of light. That's the light that's talking
about in this verse. The people of Israel at this
time were in a great darkness. They didn't understand. God said
He cared for them. God said He redeemed them. God
said, You're my people. God says, I'll never leave you
or forsake you. And here they were. They seemed
abandoned. They were in a darkness. Psalm 135 says that we cannot
even sing the songs of Zion on the banks of the river of Babylon. or in a darkness that they could
not understand how God could say He cared for them, and yet
they feel abandoned. They had light, but now then
there's absence of it. So this text is talking about
those who have the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ, but are now walking in darkness of feelings dark inward
convictions, darkness in their experience, darkness in the providence
of the regenerated soul. That's the darkness that is spoken
of here. And so, we who have the light,
what is this darkness? It's the darkness when God hides
His face. When God hides His face. We're like that bride in the
Song of Solomon. Listen to this. In chapter 4, the Lord tells
her how beautiful she is. The Lord tells her she doesn't
have any sin. And He says, I love you so much. And He said, you're like a garden.
Now a garden back then was a very rare thing. It wasn't just turnips
and lettuce and talking about flowers. It's what kings would
build, a garden for themselves, and then shut it in. Nobody else
could enjoy this but the king. And He said, you're my garden.
I planted you. I watered you. I take care of
you. You know what? She's so emboldened.
She's so elated with his love. She says this. Come on, North
wind. Come on, South wind. North wind. That's winter bitter. South winds prosperity, and she
says, I don't care. Let let the winter come or let
the spring come. That doesn't matter to me. as
long as you come. You let a child of God be in
that moment when the Lord is so present, he will have such
a zeal, a boldness, a strength about him. Let the Lord shine
His face in his heart and he'll never feel so happy as when the
Lord is near. Chapter 5, she becomes lazy,
remember? She wouldn't even get up to open
the door. How many of God's people do that? Feel so cold and indifferent. He delays in His coming just
a little while and what do we, we become cold, indifferent. You know what happened to her
at that? She come over to open that door, finally she got up
off her lazy rear and went up and opened the door, and know
what? He was gone. This is the darkness that God's
people have when God no longer shines His face on us. This was the case of Israel,
and this is the case of God's people often. The word here,
walks in darkness, has the idea of continuance. This is not just
a one-time thing for you, is it? Believer, is this darkness
a one-time issue? No, it's a lifetime issue for
us. It's a lifetime issue. Do you feel removed from all
hope? You that fear the Lord and obey
the voice of His servant, do you feel that there's no hope? Does your faith seem to be at
its last gasp? Have all your anchors failed
to hold you so that you drift away in the abyss of despair? Darkness. Darkness and no hope. Are you tossed from one dark
providence to the next, from one sorrow to the next, from
one sickness to the next, from one pain to the next. Are you confused? Darkness is disorienting, isn't
it? You walk in the woods, and it's dark, you get disoriented.
That's how I feel when you're in darkness. You feel disoriented,
confused. And notice he adds this, and
has no light at all. No light at all. This word light
means shining. In the darkness, we believers
never stop believing. That's a power of God, isn't
it? We never stop believing. Our faith shrinks, but it never
goes away. Our love shrinks. But it really
never goes away because in the darkness, I know what it's like
to live in light. And because I know what it's
like to live in light, I'm sad because of the darkness. Now,
if I never knew light, then I really wouldn't be sad in the darkness.
But because of the darkness, I'm sad. I want the light. And
so this word, no light at all, it means no shining. The Word
of God doesn't shine with luster anymore. My faith doesn't shine
as it once did. My love does not shine as it
once did. I feel like that there's no light
on any of it. I'm in darkness and I cannot
get out. What am I to do? I know He saved me. I know He's redeemed me. But I often ask with Rebecca,
why am I thus? Why this dull, lifeless frame? Could hardly there be worse who
never knew the Savior's name? What am I to do? He never leaves you without an
answer. Look at your text. Let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay
upon his God. The word trust has an idea of
refuge. What is the refuge in the darkness? What is it that we're to trust? Are we to trust God to deliver
us immediately from our troubles? Does He give you that promise?
He never gives you that promise. He promises to deliver you, but
death for the believer is deliverance, isn't it? What if He kills you?
Isn't that deliverance? Yeah. Or He may heal you from
your sickness. That's deliverance. We are promised
deliverance. Not on my time. Whenever He sees and however
He sees fit, He will deliver us. In that time we are confused. We are to trust in His name. Oh, that's vitally important.
Trust in His name. That means His character. When
you talk about someone's name, you talk about their character,
who they are. Can God lie? Did He not swear to redeem you
from death? Can He lie? Is His arm too short to save
you? He says it's not. God says this, I know the beginning
from the end because I ordained it. From ancient times of things
not yet done, saying this, I will do all my pleasure and my counsel
shall stand. Do you trust that? Because that's
what it means to trust in the name of the Lord, to trust Him
when you can't see anything. To believe Him rather than what
you see, what you think, and what you feel. When you can't see, you can be
comforted in this. He sees. What does it matter if I see
or not? If I trust His heart and His
love, if I trust His servant, He will lead me in the right
way. And the right way right now is
in darkness. That's the only way. There's
no other way through this. This is the right way. I'm in
darkness. I trust Him that that's the way. Now, how can you do that in darkness?
Because I'll tell you what, the most difficult thing for a believer
to do in darkness is trust. God is never going to tell you
to do something without power to do it. I'm thankful for that. He says, let him trust in the
name of the Lord. Well, how can I do that? Because
He who told me to do it will give me the power to do it. I
can have confidence in that. That's something you can be sure
of. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not to thine
own understanding. Listen to this, in all thy ways
acknowledge Him. And what does He promise to do?
He shall direct the paths. I don't know where I'm going.
Does that really matter? You never would have went this
way anyway if it was left up to you. Would you? Would you
go through this if it would be up to you? No. Good things are not up to us. Who put you in the darkness? Who alone can get you out? Trust in His name and listen
to this word, stay upon His God. Word means to root. Root down upon thy God. Cling to Him tenaciously in the
darkness and He will lead you. What's the alternative? That
other group of people, they're distinctly different. They have
their own light. They don't need God. They don't
need His power, His strength. They can save themselves. They walk by the sparks of their
own reasoning, by their feelings, by their emotions, by their experiences. They say, well, you know, this
happened to me, so therefore God must love me. The believer
never says that. We can't say that. Because most
of our time is spent in darkness. What's our hope? We fear the
Lord. Do you fear the Lord? Have you obeyed the voice of
His perfect servant? And yet now you walk in darkness.
What do you do? Trust in the name of the Lord
your God and stay upon Jehovah. And he'll lead you. He'll lead you. Ask God to bless
this to you and me both. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer. Our gracious Father, be merciful,
merciful, merciful. Confess our sins, knowing that
Jesus Christ, through him, you are faithful and just to forgive
us our sins. As we walk either in the light
of joy and peace in the times of prosperity or we walk in darkness,
give us grace that we should trust thy name and lean only
and always upon Christ our servant, our savior. Forgive us and lead
us, I ask in Jesus' name.