Turn in your Bibles tonight to
Isaiah chapter 40. Isaiah chapter 40. Now this chapter begins with very,
very specific instruction to those who preach and teach the
Word of God to the Lord's people. They are told to comfort God's
people. You see here in verse one it
says, comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. I feel compelled to take just
a minute and talk about what this does not mean. This does not mean Well, just
say whatever people want to hear by nature. Just if it pleases
natural men to say, if it pleases them and gets a crowd in, if
it gets them to give money, then it must be all right. That must
be a comfort. That's not what this means. If men get in the pulpit or teach
and say what is A comfort that way salves the consciences and
makes it as if, well, we're, you know, man's basically good
and he's, you know, he's done a few bad things or we're all
doing the best we can. Those things may be a temporary
comfort to unbelievers. It makes them content or comfortable
for a time or for a season. But who does God command be given
words of comfort? Does it say everybody? I don't
think so. Look at it again. Comfort ye,
comfort ye who? My people. The comfort of God
is for the people of God. Comfort means here to proclaim
pity to those who repent. Or in other words, there is mercy
for sinners. That's the message. That's the
truth. But there's also clearly stated
how this truth is to be declared. Do you see the next thing it
says in verse 2? It says, comfort ye my people,
saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem
or to those who are my people, my nation. And comfortably here
means this. Preach to my people. from the
heart to the heart. True preaching is telling the
truth from the very heart of God through a man to the heart
of other men. That will comfort. That alone
will comfort. What follows in verses 3 through
5 is an example of what it takes to make this actually happen.
You see verse 3, it says, 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. This world is nothing but
a desert. And he says, preach here a highway. Every valley shall be exalted
and every mountain and hill shall be made low and the crooked shall
be made straight and the rough places plain and the glory of
the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. I'm certain that some
of you are getting tired of me talking about when I was a kid. It's what I know about. And do
you know I remember when there were no interstate highways?
Dwight's laughing. He remembers that. I remember
leaving one year at Christmas to go from Birmingham, Alabama
to my grandparents in Monticello, Kentucky. I'm telling you, it
was the biggest roller coaster ride of my life. All the roads
were two lanes. I'll tell you what, when cars
started getting bigger, those highways that were this wide
had cars that were this wide. You know, they just went like
this, and like this, and like this, and like this. Coming into
Mile South of Kentucky, I think we counted one time, 42 bumps,
which meant, come on, Dad, get it, get it. And we'd go, woo,
and woo, and just, it was more fun. Of course, it wasn't very
fun when you went down to the Cumberland River, and you went
up the other side and got behind a truck, and the switchbacks
and the curves, and it took forever to get up that road. So I remember
when there were no highways of interstate quality. But then
they started building them. When the president was Eisenhower,
you know, that's why they call him the Eisenhower Interstate
System. When he was president in the
50s, they started building them. And I remember seeing them being
built. I watched many of them. And here's
how I think it went. These fellas had a big map and
they'd sit there and then they'd get little maps of all the places
and they'd get the engineers and they'd plan and all this
and then one day they'd start bringing men and equipment. And
those fellas, I'm telling you, there was a lot of landscape
to be altered. They'd bring in bulldozers and
stuff and they'd just move all kind of dirt and rocks and they'd
have fellows with picks and shovels and sledgehammers and all that.
And sometimes they'd use dynamite. They'd actually bring in dynamite
and they'd have, that's the first time anybody ever thought to
cut through a mountain instead of to either just switch back
up it or tunnel through it. They started dynamiting the whole
mountains. And then they'd, where they had big gullies and valleys,
they'd fill them in. They'd dynamite this mountain
and move all that dirt and rock in between and then they'd drill
it and fill it and dig it and scrape it and grade it and rivers
were bridged and mountains moved and curves were just taken away
until the day arrived when one day, had the first time I ever
saw one of those big yellow machines brought in. And they'd set it
here. And then the 18 wheelers would
start pulling up. And they were full of all this
black gunk. And they'd back up and hook up to that thing and
start pulling that machine. And it would just creep along.
And the fellows were coming behind it. And they'd get the extras
back in there and they'd go along and they'd start the day and
then at the end of the day, here's what would happen. You could
stand where they finished for the day and you could look back
and it was just this black ribbon. I lived in Missouri when they
started it, and boy, it was as flat as a pancake from St. Louis
to Kansas City, and my dad says, man, I can drive it. It was a
highway, a super highway. You say, well, you know, that's
sort of what they're describing here, and let me tell you why
I think that is. Our pastor, every true preacher
of the gospel, does what our pastor does. He spends hours
and days preparing the highway to our God. You say, how does
he do that? Well, he gets out the map. This is a road map to the true
and living God. He gets it out and he digs in
the word. He works with it. You know what
this is called? Dunamis, the dynamite of God. And I'm telling
you, he gets in that study and he handles it. He works with
it. This is delicate and serious
work, handling dynamite. I've never handled it, but I
think I'd be careful with it. And he spends hours and days
preparing the highway of our God. The map is here, the plan,
the purpose of God. He digs in it. And by the grace
of God, he fills in the ditches that would cause us to stumble.
He removes the hills and mountains that would trip us up. He straightens
the curves that would get us off our course. It takes hours
and days to search out the clear way, the straight and the narrow
way, removing the obstacles that would distract us, ferreting
out the warnings, the meanings that would confuse us. He reveals
to us by the Spirit of God, as God's Spirit reveals it to him,
the road signs, the yields, the stop, the go. He makes a straight
path. And it takes hours and days.
And then he brings with him his little stack of notes in here.
And he stands up before us praying, waiting that God would send his
spirit and let us bring all the black gunk in our hearts into
this building. All that stuff we've worked on
all week and we bring it in here, pour it out before the Lord and
if God blesses it, I'll tell you, we leave here on the straight
and narrow. We see the highway of our God.
We see the purpose of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. We see
where it came from and we see where it's going. It is truly magnificent to see
the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then the next day,
you know what our pastor does? He goes back in there and starts
digging again. He starts it all over again.
There's a new piece of highway to be laid. He starts preparing to cry or
to preach all over again. What is there to say about us?
Look at verse six. The voice said, cry. And he said,
well, what will I cry? And it says, all flesh is grass. All the goodliness thereof is
as the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower
fades. Because the spirit of the Lord
blows upon it, surely the people is grass. The grass withereth,
the flower fades. You say, boy, that's not very
comforting to me. You say, I'm just a bunch of
old grass that could be burned up or just raked together and
thrown in the ditch? Is that all we are? That's not
very comforting. Well, hold Isaiah 40 and turn
just a few pages over to Isaiah 58. Part of the comfort to believers,
when God opens the eyes of one of His children, He has to show
us who we are. And He'll do that by showing
us who the Lord Jesus Christ is. And it's not a very pretty
thing. We realize that who he is, then
we start seeing ourselves as what we are with nothing but
grass. You see Isaiah. We'll look at Isaiah 57 verse
21. It says, there's no peace sayeth my God to the wicked.
So cry that same word, preach, cry loud, spare, not lift up
that voice like a trumpet and show my people their transgression
and the house of Jacob, their sins. You know, we've got to
hear about that. And I'm sorry. It bothers me
when I preach that I know so much more about sin than I do
about righteousness. I wish it was the other way around.
But you say, how come you know so much about sin? Because I
are one. I am one. I have vast experience at it.
Does anybody else here have any experience with this stuff? I'm
good at it. I'm an expert. It's one of the
few things I really know about. Much to my shame. And God's got
to show us that that's who we are. And as we'll see, there's
a cure and there's something to be done for this. But God's
preachers have got to tell us not soft things, not comfortable
things, but things that will comfort us. And the only way
we'll be comforted is if we've first been discomforted. Does
that make any sense? I tell you, we don't know anything
about the cure until we've had the disease, do we? Listen. Lots of folks talked about the
flu. The first time we ever had a
flu epidemic that I remember. And I thought, what's the flu?
It's just this stuff, you know, and everybody was being sick
and staying out of work for days and this kind of thing. Oh, and
then I got the flu. All of a sudden, the flu's a
very bad thing. And, you know, they weren't such
sissies after all when you're in bed with 104 fever sweating through the sheets four
times a day and hacking and coughing and up in the bathroom all night. Oh, it's real now. It's real
now. I want the shot, doc. I want
the shot. And I tell you what, we don't
know anything about the cure until we know about the disease. So it is the responsibility of
the preacher to preach as it says here in Isaiah 58, cry aloud
like a trumpet, show my people their transgression, show them
their sins. But now don't stop there, look
at verse 2. Yet they seek me daily and delight
to know my ways. That'll one happen. If we preach
the sin, folks will say I want the cure. It says, as a nation
that did righteousness and forsook not the ordinance of their God,
they ask of me the ordinance of justice. They take delight
in approaching into God. Listen, I know why y'all keep
coming back here. You know why? You know, you've
had the disease and this is where the cure is. This is where the
gospel is preached. Now go back to Isaiah 40. And you notice I read all this
about the grass. We're nothing but grass, and
it's a mess. But look at the last phrase of verse 8. But the
word of our God shall stand forever. That only means something to
somebody who's been knocked down. If we want to know where to stand,
we've got to first have been knocked down. But now look at
verse 9 with me. Oh, Zion that bring us good tidings,
get thee up into the high mountain. Oh, Jerusalem that bring us good
tidings, Lift up thy voice with strength. Lift it up. Be not
afraid. Say unto the cities of Judah,
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. Our Lord, here's what the preacher
preaches about Christ. Our Lord declares good tidings,
good news. Behold your God who can save
from sin. He says, behold, we may be weak,
but he is strong. His arm, Christ rules us, his
people. He's a benevolent king. The Lord,
the preacher of the gospel says, Christ doesn't need us to work
or reward him in any way. No, he does that for us. He does
all the work and he rewards his people. Christ our shepherd leads. Christ our shepherd feeds. Our
shepherd carries the young and those with young. This shepherd
leads all the way. He'll never leave us. Look at
verse 12. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
and meted out heaven with the span and comprehended the dust
of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance. Do we see what that's saying
there? He takes Mount Everest and Has anybody seen a scale
big enough to weigh that sucker? I mean, I was looking tonight
coming over here and the sun was setting and there's a mountain
over here that looks like a volcano or something to me, especially
when the smoke's coming out of that one stack at the paper plant.
And I thought, that's a big baby. And it's just, it's about this
high compared to Mount Everest, like this big. And our Lord takes
Mount Everest. He could take Mount Everest and
just go. And it wouldn't be a pinpoint on his finger. That's how insignificant we are. We make Mount Everest. What are
we compared to Mount Everest? And it says the mountains to
him can be just, just, he just gather them up and put them on
his scale. He can measure them. Verse 13, who had directed the
spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor, had taught him.
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. Behold, the nations are a drop
of a bucket, and are counted as a small dust of the balance.
Behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. He gather
all the islands in the world, And if you put them in one pile,
it wouldn't be a Hershey's Kiss. That's how big
it'd be. It'd be nothing. It'd just be
a speck, a spot. And there's a point to all this,
to talk about the insignificance of man. And this earth, as we'll
see in just a minute, it says, behold, verse 15, behold, the
nations are a drop of a bucket and are counted as a small dust
of a balance. Behold, he take it up the aisles
as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient
to burn nor the beast thereof sack sufficient for a burn offering.
What is it we can bring in terms of sacrifice to atone for what
we've done? Verse 17, all nations before
him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than
nothing in vanity. Vanity. Remember that word for
a minute. Now, we must not take our eyes off of him. The minute
we do, you know what we'll start to do? If we take our eyes off
the Lord Jesus Christ, I guarantee you what we'll do, we'll start
making a God, a different God. You say, oh no, how long did
it take them coming out of Egypt? What had those folks seen compared
to what we've seen? They had seen all those plagues. They'd seen, they'd come up against
the ocean, they were backed up to it with the greatest army
in the world here, going to come kill them all. Moses stretched
forth his rod and said, Behold our God. And the waters moved
back, and they walked through on dry land, and they got over
there, and the army thundered down in there to kill them all,
come after them, and the water came back and destroyed them
all. They'd seen that with their eyes.
And they got a few days out in the desert and said, it's hot
out here, it's thirsty, we don't like it. We don't have what we
had in Egypt. We want to go back. Can't we
go back? I tell you, how ungrateful. And you know, Moses went up in
the mountain to get the commandments of God. He's gone just a few
days. You know what they did? They
said, Well, I guess this show's over. Let's make us a god. Isn't
that what they did? They fashioned a golden calf. They made him a god. Now listen,
let's not kid ourselves. If God leaves us alone for a
minute, we'll start making a god. And do you know who it'll be?
I don't care what it looks like. You go to a museum, about half
the stuff you see, you know what it is? It's ancient gods. It's
little tikis and it's and this one made like that, and it's
totem poles, it's all this stuff, all these gods that men have
made. And do you know why men do that? Why men make gods like
that? Because you know who the real
god is? If I can pick the god up here and move him over here,
you know who's the real god? I'm the god. We make ourselves
into a god. Do we see that here? Look back
at Verse 18, to whom then will you
liken God, or what likeness will you compare unto him? The workman
melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with
gold and casteth silver chains. The rich make idols out of gold
and silver. But now us poor folks, here's
what we'd do. Verse 20, he that's so impoverished
that he hath no oblation, he doesn't have much money or anything,
chooseth a tree that won't rot, he seeks out a cunning workman,
to prepare a graven image that shall not be moved. You know,
the rich in England and in Italy and all that, they make their
gods out of gold and silver and they put them on the wall and
stuff. But now in the islands out there where they don't have
gold and silver, they just carve them out one, out of wood or
stone or something. And that's what I'm talking about
here. And listen, if we're rich, And we get our mind off Christ,
we don't see Christ, we'll start making a God out of gold. If
we're not, we'll make him out of wood or something else, but
we will make a God. Verse 21, have you not known?
Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from
the beginning? Have you not understood from
the foundations of the world? It is he that sitteth upon the
circle of the earth and the inhabitants of the thereof are grasshoppers. The God is the God of heaven. The one who made heaven and earth,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the God. You know who we
are? We're not gods. We're grasshoppers. You're a grasshopper with wings. You're a grasshopper that at
night can make the fiddling sound. You're the cricket God. What
are we though? Grasshoppers. You know what happens
when the grasshopper gets in the way at your house? I promise
you, if he's eating your roses or your corn or whatever, when
you catch that grasshopper, here's what you're going to do to him. You're just going to put your
foot out there and squish him. And God's telling us, by nature,
we're nothing but grasshoppers. We're not a problem to Him. We're
not making trouble for Him. We're not doing anything but
condemning ourselves by claiming to be our own God. And He's saying,
have you not known? Have you not heard? Well, how
are you going to hear without a preacher? That's what we come here to do,
is to hear about the true and living God. Have you not heard
from the beginning? Have you not understood from
the foundation of the earth. It is he that sits upon the circle
of the earth, the inhabitants thereof, or grasshoppers, that
stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spread them out
as a tent to dwell in. That bringeth the princes to
nothing, he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. Yea,
they shall not be planted, yea, they shall not be sown, yea,
their stock shall not take root in the earth, and he shall also
blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall
take them away as stubble. Everyone who makes themselves
a god or makes their own god, it's vanity. And I have to share
this with you. I looked up the word vanity.
You know the Lord created everything. The Lord knows everything. The
Lord understands everything. He is everything and we're nothing. We're vanity. Here's what Here's
words I found that are synonymous with vanity. Pride, arrogance,
conceitedness. Sound like anybody you know? Listen to this list. Self-love,
self-confidence, self-gratulation, self-sufficiency, self-applause,
self-conceit, self-esteem, self-praise, self-adulation, self-glorification,
self-worship. That's stuff all in the dictionary
of synonyms for vanity. That's what we are by nature. We don't want a God. We want
ourselves to be God by nature. And if God leaves, we ought not
marvel at what men and women will do. We perceive ourselves
by nature as gods. Unless He comes to us and shows
us that that sky you see that reaches from horizon to horizon,
to Him that's as if you went in your living room and slid
the curtain. across the window. That's what
it is to him. And all we are is vain grasshoppers. But look at verse 25 here. You
know, it's not for us to evaluate God and reach conclusions about
who He is and so forth. No, the importance of a pastor
reading and preaching who God is declared to be in His Word. That's what we must heed. and
read for ourselves in the word, asking God's spirit to reveal
to us, look in verse 25. To whom then will you liken me,
or shall I be equal, saith the Holy One? Lift up your eyes on
high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out
their host by number. He calleth them all by names,
by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power,
not one fails. Here's one of the amazing things
about this grasshopper business, and I'm not trying to make more
of it than I think it is. Have you ever seen, who's telling
us about seeing grasshoppers. You were. Y'all went out, was
it Montana or somewhere? Y'all were out and you were driving
along the interstate and all of a sudden just what, millions
of grasshoppers were there just all over the car. It was almost
like a blanket across everything. Grasshoppers, grasshoppers, grasshoppers,
everywhere grasshoppers. Would we liken him to a grasshopper? When we make ourselves a God,
we say he's just a grasshopper like us. He is altogether not
such a one as we are. And you know, here's the point
I want to make about this grasshopper business. You saw millions and
millions of grasshoppers. Do you know what? Every single
one of them has a name. He knows your name. He knows every one of us grasshoppers
by name. Oh, that he'd know my name and
call it out and say, hey, you're my grasshopper. Come hither,
come hither. That's what preaching the gospel
does. When it turns us, it causes us to see how much it's a grasshopper.
And I'm not a God. And I need Him to show me who
I am and who He is and have mercy on me, to not give me what I
deserve, which is just to be stepped on, to be gotten out
of the way. Have you got verse, go back to
our verse 27. Do we really think that God,
let me ask you this. Caleb, if one of your children,
We're out running around, even out here in front of the church
and all of a sudden started veering off towards the road. You're
going to say, stop, wait, or if you have to, you'll go get
her, right? Bring her back. Okay. Do we really think that
on this highway that the Lord puts us on? If I shouldn't admit
this, I'll get in trouble for it. I was driving across Kansas
here last week and it was getting late and I was getting tired
and I found out something about Kansas. You don't have to get
that far off the road, all right, the interstate, before you're
blowing up dust and stuff behind you like it was a hurricane.
It's so dry out there and everything else. And I got just a little
bit off. Do we think if our God saw us get off the highway and
drive out across here that he doesn't notice that? No, he'll
come where we are and put us back on the road, get us in the
way. Has thou not known, has thou
not heard that the everlasting God, verse 28, the Lord, the
creator of the ends of the earth, he doesn't faint, he's not weary.
There's no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint
and to them that have no might. He increases strength. Even the
youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly
fall. Let me try to tell you what that's
saying there. He never falls asleep at the wheel of salvation. He never does. He's always watching
us. He's always got his eye on his
children just the way we would. If we had the ability to prevent
him from doing anything self-destructive, we would. He prevents us from
doing anything that will eternally harm us. And do we ever think,
do we ever get to this place where we feel, you know, I'm
just too exhausted to come to the service tonight. We'll read
verse 29 again. He gives power to the faint.
And then do we ever. Think, I'm too tired physically. And look at the second phrase
in verse 29. And to them that have no might,
he increases strength. Have you ever been tired and
thought, I just can't make it tonight? But somehow, by the
grace of God, you do. He gets you here. Aren't you
always glad when you leave? This verse 30 talks about children
have boundless energy except for one time. You bring them
into a church building, they're instantly going to be, they're
going to just pass out. It is, aren't they? Huh? Yeah,
I raised enough of them too. But look what it says about them.
Even the youths, he can keep them from fainting and from being
weary. He can enable them to listen
and to hear. And the young men show they won't
utterly fall away. And look at verse 31, here's
some good news. But they that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength. That means they'll have it renewed
for them. We don't have any strength by
nature. And that time when you think
I just can't make it and you get in here and you hear the
word and God fills us up and here's what happens. They mount
up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary,
and they shall walk and not faint. You ever come in just dragging
and whatever, and you go out the door. You know, better, better. And I know sometimes it's not
enough better. And sometimes it's real better,
but it's better. It's better. It's the only thing
going to help us. And that's how it will be if God blesses
his messenger. Go back to verse one for just
a minute. I'm almost done here. That's how it is if God blesses
our pastor. With comfort ye, comfort ye my
people, saith your God. Speak comfortably to Jerusalem. That is, show them, show them
in the word how that repentance is necessary. That we're sinners
and when we repent, God has pity on us. He's great in His pity
on us. It's okay to admit, I've done
this. I am a sinner. You know why? He'll have mercy. He'll have
pity. And cry unto her, this is the
second part of the message, cry unto her that her warfare is
accomplished. What's that mean? It means Christ
has conquered all our enemies. Satan's on a chain and our sin's
been put away. We've been pardoned by the blood
of Jesus Christ at Calvary. Christ, his bride has received,
what does it say next? God's people, what have they
received? He says, crying to her that her warfare is accomplished.
Now listen to this. And that her iniquity is pardoned. It's done, it's over. For she
hath received double of the Lord's hand, double for all her sins. I hope I can illustrate this.
Double. Now, if I told one of you fellas,
I got a job I want you to do. Sam, I got a job. I'm going to
pay you a dime to do it. And if you do a really, really
good job, I'm going to double it. Oh, boy. Sam's excited about making that
20 cents. On the other hand, I used to
try to bribe my children by saying I give you a dollar for every
A you make. And if you make all A's, you get double that. It had various degrees of success. It was sort of like nowadays
it would be whoopee, what's seven or eight dollars. But what if
you were to say to one of these young people, now look, I'm going
to give you $10 for every day of school you go to. And if you
have perfect attendance, you get doubled. Now, they're smart
enough to know, I'm going to school 180 days a year, that's
$1,800, and if I make them all, that's $3,600, now we're talking
real money. You say, that might motivate them some. All right, let's get down to
where the rubber meets the road here. If I said to you, let's
begin this thing with, give me a tally on your sin. Tell me
how many you got. Now that in itself presents a
problem, doesn't it? Because I'm telling you, mine
are so many, I don't think I can count that high. And that doesn't
include the ones I don't even, I'm not even aware I did. I got
a little problem here, don't I? When the Lord says, I'm gonna
give you double, double for all your sin, how's this gonna work? God says, it's okay, I've kept
perfect track. I know every sin, every one of
you ever committed. It's written down. There's a
book where it's written. It's written down. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Oh, my. He says, I got
this number. And then he says, I'm taking
him away. That's the first part. I'm going
to take him away. He says, I'll give you double
form. What's the double part? Well, first, I'll put away your
sin through the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary. It says by the Lord's
hand. Let me tell you, when his hand
was nailed on that tree, there goes my sin. Every single one
of them is nailed right there. And the blood that ran out covers
them up. They may be all written down
there for some people, but not mine. Not the children of God.
They're covered by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. They're
buried under his blood. But you said we get double. Okay,
here comes the double. For your infinite sin, I'm gonna
give you infinite righteousness. For every sin you ever committed,
I'm gonna give you a righteousness. You say, how's that work? The
same way, it's the very righteousness of Christ. For every sin you
or I, one of God's children, committed, Christ duplicated
the situation in righteousness. Let me show you. When I lost
my temper and swore, Christ blessed. When I did something really selfish,
the Lord did something really generous. When we hated, Christ
loved. When He harmed, when we harmed,
He healed. When we refused to bow, He worshiped
God. When we were sinful man, He is
the holy God. He became sin so that we could
become the righteousness of God in Him. That sounds like double
to me. He put away my sin and gave me
His righteousness. What a transaction. Is that glorious
or what? Turn over to 1 Corinthians 2
and I'll close with this. 1 Corinthians chapter 2. The only way we will ever hear
and know what we are and who Christ is is to come hear the
gospel. Look at these verses in 1 Corinthians
2 verse 9. As it is written, I have not
seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man
the things which God hath prepared for them that love him, for them
that know him. But God hath revealed them unto
us by his Spirit. This is through the preaching
of the gospel. God's revealed them unto us by his Spirit. For
the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
Come here a man whom God has sent to comfort his people, and
he'll preach to the heart from the heart, and we'll go away
with a blessing. Well, I pray that that's what's
happened this evening.