Isaiah 45, we'll start with reading
just a couple of verses. Verse 9, we'll start there, read
verses 9 and 10. Woe to him who quarrels with
his maker. To him who is but a potsherd
among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter,
what are you making? Does your work say he has no
hands? Woe to him who says to his father,
what have you begotten? Or to his mother, what have you
brought to birth? Now Isaiah is a most remarkable
book. I know all the scriptures are,
but there's some things about Isaiah that make it stand out.
And one of them is this, Isaiah prophesied as far back as 740
B.C. Now that's the year that King
Uzziah died, was 740 B.C. And we read in Isaiah chapter
six, Isaiah says, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw
the Lord. So we know that Isaiah was a prophet at least as far
back as 740 B.C. But in this book, he gives prophecies
of things that will not happen for another almost 200 years
and even names the man involved. We look over here at the first
part of, or the first verse of Isaiah chapter 45. This is what
the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I
take hold of, to subdue nations before him and to strip kings
of their armor to open doors before him so that gates will
not be shut. Now Cyrus was the one who gave
the original order that the Jews return from their captivity back
to Jerusalem. And that would not happen until
about 200 years after Isaiah wrote these words, close to 200.
And Isaiah not only says this is what will happen, He gives
the name of the king who will do it. And indeed, that's exactly
what happened. In fact, so startling is this
prophecy and its later fulfillment, those who are skeptics of the
scripture say, well, it's obvious then the book of Isaiah was not
really written until they came back because nobody could have
known this. Well, God knew it. And he told Isaiah. Cyrus was
not unknown to God. God known everybody before he
ever made the creation. And he appointed what they would
do. So when Isaiah begins speaking in the voice of the Lord and
says, this is what the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose
right hand I take hold of, while such things may be marvelous
for Isaiah to know it, they are not marvelous at all for the
God of creation to know it. It would happen because he ordained
it to happen. And he goes on to say of this Cyrus, he says,
I take his right hand to subdue nations before him and so forth.
Now, verse two, he makes a promise to Cyrus. Now, understand this.
Cyrus never knew anything about this promise. And if he'd have
heard it, he wouldn't have believed it. Cyrus was not a believer. And this shows us something about
God. He can use anybody he wants to to accomplish his purpose.
Will he raise up what is essentially a savior for Israel from among
pagan kings? Yes, he will. And Cyrus is one
of them. And he says, I will go before
you and will level the mountains. I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron. I will give you the treasures
of darkness, riches stored in secret places so that you may
know that I am the Lord for the God of Israel who summons you
by name. For the sake of Jacob, my servant
of Israel, my chosen, I summon you by name and bestow on you
a title of honor, though you do not acknowledge me. I am the
Lord, and there is no other. Apart from me, there is no God.
I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me,
so that men from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting,
men may know there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there
is no other. Form the light and create darkness.
I bring prosperity and create create disaster. I the Lord do
all these things Now what's he saying he's saying to Cyrus You conquered You Took down empires. You took over the ruling empire
of that day and You became the most powerful man on earth but
it was I that paved the way for you. I took down mountains to
make it easy for you. I revealed to you the treasure
of secret places, because that's what they do is they go in and
steal all the treasures of the nations that they overthrew.
He said, I gave you the treasures of the secret places. I gave
them to you. And even though you didn't acknowledge
my name, you were doing what I wanted you to do. And you may
think that you have become a mighty king because of your wisdom and
your power. But it was I. I summoned you
by name, and here's why I summoned you by name. Because among living
there in the empire that you would conquer were the descendants
of Jacob, my people. And I put you there so that you
would send them home. And you didn't even know it.
You didn't even realize that you'd been called to this work.
You think you're somebody, and all those kings did. In fact,
in Isaiah chapter 14, where it refers to one, maybe Isaiah chapter
12. It's either 12, 14 or 14, 12.
I always get that mixed up. But it speaks of one, that's
where the only time to my knowledge that the name Lucifer ever comes
up. And everybody thinks that's the devil. No, it wasn't. The
Lucifer spoken up there, the word actually means morning star.
And it was a name that these Persian kings would give to themselves
because they thought they were so high and mighty. The sun rose
with them. That's what they were saying.
They thought themselves to be gods. And this Cyrus was no different. He ascends to the most powerful
throne on earth and he can't be content with that. He's got
to say, I'm the morning star. I'm the greatest there is. And
God's answer to Cyrus 200 years before Cyrus had the arrogance
to make that boast, I am the Lord and there is no other. Apart
from me, there is no God. Cyrus thinks he's high and mighty.
God says, I will strengthen you. Whatever strength you have, you
got from me, even though you've not acknowledged me. And from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting, men will know that there is none
beside me." Now it takes faith to see providence
in history. It takes a prophet to reveal
it to us. Were it not for Isaiah, were it not for Isaiah, if all
we had was a historical record of the events that went on over
there in what we now call the Middle back from the 700's B.C. to the 500's B.C., we would just
record it and say, yeah, the Jews, they had a lot of riches,
but they got easy to conquer. So, you know, these empire builders,
as is their custom. Went in there and tore down their
temple and stole all their gold and took it up there north. And
then sure enough, just as it always happens, later on, another
powerful man from another race of people takes over the empire. I mean, it's just what keeps
going on and on. We would never know. We would never know that
all of this was orchestrated by God. For the glory of his
name and the good of his people, did he not tell a prophet about
it ahead of time? And when it unfolds, we say,
well, I'll be just like he said he would. Oh, what a confidence
in the promises of God we can have when we see things like
this. In the mid 700s BC, Isaiah says, through the spirit of the
Lord, a man named Cyrus will rise to the throne and he will
act as a shepherd to lead Israel home. And sure enough, about
200 years later, that happened. Now, having said that, verse nine, woe to him who quarrels
with his maker. And you might say, well, that's
certainly true. All those quarrelers, they better
watch out. Well, who do you think this is
applied to? Who do you think it is that's quarreling with
God in this story? Is it Cyrus? No. Cyrus doesn't
even know the Lord. Do you think it's all the Gentile
nations that have come under Cyrus' dominion? No. They don't know the Lord
either. It could be applied to all men because it's for sure
that all men do quarrel with God in one way or another. The Bible says the carnal mind,
that is the natural mind, the mind we're all born with, is
enmity with God. When people come into this world,
they come in with a mind that's already opposed, already hostile
to God and all those things pertaining to God. And all it takes is for
them to grow old enough to become conscious of God, they begin
quarreling with Him. But that's not the quarrel that
Isaiah is talking about. It is not the world at large
that he speaks to, but Israel. Let's read verse 11. This is what the Lord says, the
holy one of Israel and its maker. That is Israel's maker. And what
do we read back here in verse nine? Woe to him who quarrels
with his maker. Now, it is undeniable that God is the maker of all
men. In fact, he says that here in
verse 12. He says, it is I who made the
earth and created mankind upon it. My own hands stretched out
to heaven. I marshaled their starry host. When it talks about quarreling
with his maker, one of the things it seems people of this world
want to quarrel about is whether or not he is their maker. But
it's pretty clear from the scriptures he is. Every man that's ever
come to this world, every man, woman, child, they've entered
this world, this is one thing that is known about them. God
made them. They are here because God put
them here. However, he makes us in our natural existence,
but here's the point in Isaiah 45, it is he that has made us
his people. In Samuel, 1 Samuel chapter 12,
verse 22, Samuel's talking to the people there, the Israelites. And he says, it pleased the Lord
to make you His people. You know, it's a wonder. Creation
is a wonder to me. But I'll tell you what's an even
greater wonder. The creation of grace. The new creation. That out of this fallen and cursed
creation in which you and I live, and it's our fault that it's
fallen and cursed. It's our race that fell. Creation
didn't fall because the angels rebelled. Now you think of that.
Creation didn't... That didn't cause things to fall
apart. Man was given a unique position
in this creation and his rebellion against God, the Creator, not
only caused this particular race to fall into sin, but Paul said
it made the entire universe subject to the principle of corruption.
That's why everything falls apart. I don't want to be trite here,
but actually this is part of what Paul says when he says the
whole universe was made subject to corruption. You buy a car
and it's so nice and shiny and it runs so well, you know, you
turn the key or whatever it is it takes to start your car and
it starts and it purrs, it's really nice and you take off
in it and then you ride it long enough and all at once there's
a noise you haven't heard before. And the door doesn't shut as
nicely as it did when you first got it and you keep going. You
take it for its maintenance, but it doesn't matter how well
you maintain it, eventually that car becomes a heap of junk, doesn't
it? And it's taken over to the salvage
yard and it gets parted out or it gets crushed up into a cube
and hauled off to be used as scrap iron. And you want to know
why? Because Adam sinned. That's why. These bodies. Babies look so wonderful, don't
they? They look like there's nothing wrong with them. They
come into this world, they're a marvel to look at, you know.
You look at them and everything it takes to be human is right
there. Those little fingers and toes wiggle and they have their
emotional responses that you can detect and all that and they're
precious to behold. And it looks like there's nothing
wrong. But anybody who's raised kids
knows there's something wrong. And it shows up in due time and
then many years go by. And they don't look nearly so
perfect because they start looking like me. You start getting old. And that beautiful spotless skin
begins to sag and get wrinkles in it and spots on it. And it
keeps going until finally that precious little baby grows up and finds itself in
a coffin. Why? Because man sinned. That's why. All of it. Our deaths,
the death of our car, forest fires, irritating bugs, I'm not saying
there weren't bugs before, but I'm sure that they were not irritating.
They knew their place and they stayed out of ours. All of it
because of sin. Because man has this unique relationship
to the creation. Maybe we ought to put it this
way, unique relationship to the creator. And because of that
broken relationship with the Creator, the whole creation was
made subject to corruption. But out of that mess that we
have made of creation, God has called a people for the glory
of His name and He has made them a people. They are His. They
are a new creation. Look over here at the 100th Psalm. Psalm 100. Psalm 100. Shout for joy to the Lord all
the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness.
Come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us and we are
his. We are his people. The sheep
of his pasture. He made us. He made us his people. He made us his sheep. I believe
that King James puts it this way, it is he that made us and
not we ourselves. Isn't that true? So much of religion
would have us to be the makers of the people of God. We, by
our effort, assemble the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. That
we, as so-called living stones, walk ourselves up to the building
of God and put ourselves in the wall. But Peter makes it very
clear. He says, as living stones, you
are being built. This is being done to you. It's
not something you're doing. It's not an action that you're
carrying out. God makes us. And friends, while this creation
is a miraculous thing and it's a marvelous thing to think in
our minds, as the psalmist put it, that he spoke and it was,
he commanded and it stood firm. It's even more wondrous to think
that he spoke and we were. He called by his gospel and we
became his people. Now, whenever we quarrel about
God's providence, which is what was going on over here in Isaiah
chapter 45, whenever we quarrel about God's way of doing things,
what we are doing is quarreling with our maker. And we're putting
a question mark over whether he is indeed our maker. What were they quarreling about?
Well, there were some who quarreled with him over the fact that they
had been sent into captivity at all because in their self-righteousness,
they had never repented of the evil that they had done. They
may have said to themselves, yeah, we didn't do really what
our God said we should do, but it wasn't that bad. He shouldn't
have brought in Nebuchadnezzar to utterly destroy the temple
and pillage the city and tear down the walls and take us all
up into a country where we were strangers. That was just too
much. You know, there are people in
this world that reject God, quarrel with God over the concept of
hell. I read one of them making some
comments the other day online somewhere, and it was this woman
that claimed to be an atheist, and she just couldn't handle
it. She says, God's a murderer. The Bible is a murderer because
if Noah's flood is true, he wiped out the whole world, men, women,
and children. Wiped them out in a flood. I think it's interesting. She didn't think that it was
appropriate that God should wipe out all these humans which were
in utter rebellion against Him, but she's quite willing to wipe
out God because He didn't do what she thought He should do. It shows you that atheism is
really one letter off. It's not atheism, it's I-theism.
It's really what it boils down to. They make themselves to be God.
But these Jews didn't like the way God was handling things.
But he rebukes them. He says, woe to him who quarrels
with his maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds
on the ground. Now, Hebrew is a difficult language. Now, maybe it's not so difficult
if you grew up speaking it. But I like trying to look these
things up. And I'm by no means trained in Hebrew. I did just
a little bit of training in it, but the thing is, you look at
what they call these interlinear Bibles, in which they'll show
it to you in the original languages, and then they put the English
translation under each word. There's a whole lot of words
that just aren't there. For it says here, if we were
to read it strictly, woe to him who quarrels with his maker,
potsherd among potsherd. That's all it says, pretty much.
But I kind of like the way that King James puts it. They seem
to continue with the flow of quarreling and says, Woe to him
who quarrels with his maker. Let the potsherds of the earth
strive or quarrel with the potsherds of the earth. If you're going
to quarrel, quarrel with men. Don't quarrel with God. If you've
got a problem, take it up with people. Don't take it up with
God. Why? Well, at least then it's
like quarreling with like. And notice this, potsherds. You
know what a pot shard is? You know what a shard of glass
is? You break glass and there are
these little pieces left over. Well, a pot shard is you take
those ceramic pots and whoops, I dropped it and boom, it just
busted to pieces. And that's what he calls us.
He says, I'm your maker and you're just a broken piece of pottery. And they were at this time. Israel
was not this fine piece of pottery set up on the mantle of the Lord.
to glorify his name. It was broken. They were just pot sherds, and
they were arguing with the potter over how he was handling things.
Woe unto them for quarreling with their maker. He goes on
with a similar argument, saying, does the clay say to the potter,
what are you making? Does your work say he has no
hands? Woe to him who says to his father, what have you begotten? To those who look at their condition
in life and turn to their father and say, this is your fault.
Look what a mess you made. Now, sometimes in the world,
maybe the father had a hand in the mess that one of his children
turned out to be. But quite often, children, they ignore what their
fathers and their mothers said, and they turn out a mess, and
they want to turn around and blame it on their parents. And we look at such people like
that, and we say, well, who in the world do they think they
are? Their mom and dad told them, and they just wouldn't listen.
And that's what the Jews were doing. God told them what to
do, and He says, you do this, everything will be fine. They
disobeyed Him. Everything blew up, and they
got mad at God about it. They quarreled with their Maker.
And we do something similar if we begin to find fault with God
over the way He is handling our lives. I think it's amazing that so
much of the lives of people can go so well and you never hear
a word of thanks about it. Never a word of thanks to God
for how great things are. Let one thing go wrong. Why did
God do this to me? Did that thought ever go through
your mind? Why is God doing this to me? I like the answer that
one She was the wife of a notable Christian philosopher. Schaefer
was her last name. Edith Schaefer was her name.
But she was talking about trial and she says, people say, why
me? My answer is, why not you? What
is there about us that makes us think that our lives are supposed
to be a road pedal pathway? And what is it about us that
we think we are so wise? that we can chart out a better
course for our lives than can the God who made us. I'll tell you, quarreling with
God, and shame on us, we do it. We do it. But quarreling with
God is forgetting that in all things, God works for the good. of those who were called according
to His purpose. Those broken pot sherds of Israel
laying about, shall we say, the empire of Persia at this time.
Not at the time of Isaiah, but at the time Isaiah prophesied
about. They got mad at God. And yet their deliverance into
that empire, their deportation from Jerusalem, as difficult
as it was, was designed for their good. And he was going to do
something wonderful that would remind them once again that he
alone is God and he is their redeemer and that they can trust
him. Let me say something I'm almost
afraid to say, because when I talk about trial, I'm afraid to talk
about it because I feel I haven't suffered a great deal of it.
And I don't want to act like I'm complacent about the trials
of others. It's as though I were, you know,
bragging before the Lord that I can handle anything. I don't
want to invite trial. And I'm not saying that any of
us should claim that we enjoy our trials. But know this, and those in trial will testify
of it, particularly when the Lord brings them out of it, the
most blessed times in this life And those times in which you
cling to Christ most fiercely are those times when everything
in this life is just going to pot shirts. Maybe if we would learn to cling
to Him in the good times like we cling to Him in the bad times,
we wouldn't have so many bad times. Now once again, we don't invite
the bad times. But blessed be God, He doesn't
give us nothing but good times, because He knows if He did, we
would forget Him. That's why I believe it's in
Proverbs or Ecclesiastes, one of the wisdom books, where it
says, give me neither riches nor poverty. Don't give me riches,
nothing but riches, lest I forget you. And don't give me nothing
but poverty, or I might curse you. Give me a mixture for therein
I learn to trust you and to give you thanks. Let us not quarrel with our maker. But he goes on here in chapter
45. And he says to Israel something
akin to what he said to Job. Excuse me. Verse 12. It is I who made the earth and
created mankind upon it. My own hand stretched out the
heavens. I marshaled the starry host. I will raise up Cyrus in
my righteousness. I will make all his ways straight.
He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, but not for price
or reward, says the Lord Almighty. Now what's he telling Israel
here? He said, I'm the one who made the heavens and the earth.
So I get to do things my way. You're not going to like it when
I raise up a Gentile to be your savior. You're not going to like
it when I raise up one who doesn't acknowledge my name and use him
to bring you home. But I made the heavens and the
earth. And I spread out the stars and I filled the seeds. So I
get to do things the way I want to do. And you know what? I'm
going to make his way straight. I'm going to make this man who
doesn't know me have respect for me anyway. And he's going to rebuild my
city. And he's going to set my exiles free. And he's not going
to get paid for it. You remember our present president
when he was campaigning? made this great boast, I'm going
to build a wall and I'm going to make Mexico pay for it. So
far the wall hadn't been built and for sure Mexico isn't paying
for it. Now I'm not making a political statement here, I'm just saying
that's the way it is. Men boast of great things and they don't
happen. God said I'm going to make Cyrus send you home and
he's going to load you up with everything you need and he's
not going to get paid anything for it. He's paying for And God made the boast and God
made it happen. Cyrus sent them home and commanded
that the nations over which he had become the king to give the
people everything necessary to rebuild their temple. All the
gold that had been taken from them was given back to them and
more. Verse 14, this is what the Lord
said, the products of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush and all
those tall Sabaeans, they will come over to you and will be
yours. They will trudge behind you coming over to you in chains.
They will bow down before you and plead with you saying, surely
God is with you and there is no other, there is no other God. Now what's God saying to these
Jews that quarreled with him? He's saying, you don't like what
I've done. Tough. I'm still going to do what I
want to do and I'm going to send you all back. And it's not going
to be because you became righteous or because you freed yourselves
from your bondage. I'm going to take the very one
who held you in bondage for a while and I'm going to use him to send
you back. And also, everybody you were afraid of, I'm going
to bring them to you and make them bow before you and acknowledge
that you're my people and that God is with you and that there
is no other God. And he said, none of this is
going to be your doing. It is I that do it. In the response, Isaiah gives
a response here. He says, truly you are a God
who hides himself. A God and Savior of Israel. All the makers of idols will
be put to shame and disgrace. They will go off into disgrace
together. But Israel Oh, well, it'd be great just preach on
this text. Israel will be saved by the Lord
with an everlasting salvation. You will never be put to shame
or disgrace to ages everlasting. You see, the Lord is working
the salvation of his people. And sometimes the salvation of
his people looks like destruction. But all he's destroying about
them is their flesh. All that he's breaking into pot
shirts is their natural selves. And the time will come when the
salvation of God's Israel will be fully revealed and it will
be an everlasting salvation and never again Will we have to be
put to shame or disgraced? Never again will God have to
beat us into so many broken pieces in order to save us. For salvation
shall have been accomplished into its full. For this is what the Lord says,
he who created the heavens. See how often God refers to his
creative powers. That's a comfort to us. He is
God. He who fashioned and made the
earth. He founded it. He did not create it to be empty,
but formed it to be inhabited. For he says, I am the Lord and
there is no other. I've not spoken in secret from
somewhere in a land of darkness. I have not said to Jacob's descendants,
seek me in vain. You know, there are those who believe
that a man could seek the Lord and still be lost. who seem to
think that there's some virtue to be exhibited and saying, well,
I believe the gospel, I'm seeking the Lord, but I don't know if
I've been saved. I hope someday I will be. God never said to
the descendants of Jacob, seek me in vain. Our Lord Jesus says,
all that the Father gives to me will come to me. And he that
comes to me, I will not cast out. If you're lost, I'll tell
you why. You've never come to the Lord
Jesus Christ for his salvation. It's that simple. No one's ever
been turned away from him or by him. He does not say to those
sons of the scoundrel, and remember that's what Jacob's name means.
Those sons of that scoundrel Jacob, and that's what we are,
just scoundrel. I've never said to them, seek me in vain. I guess there were some of those
up there in a captivity are saying, well we're seeking the Lord,
but it doesn't look like anything's happening. No use in seeking
the Lord, nothing's coming of it. He said, I never said that
to you. But you gotta be patient, I'll do things in my time. I
the Lord speak the truth, I declare what is right. Gather together and come, assemble
you fugitives from the nations. Ignorant are those who carry
about idols of wood. who pray to the gods that cannot
save, declare what is to be, present it, let them take counsel
together, who foretold this long ago, who declared it from the
distant past, was it not I the Lord, and there is no God apart
from me, a righteous God and a Savior, and there is none but
me. What is God saying to all these quarrelers? Now I'm not
saying, I'm asking, what in summary here is God saying to all these
of his people that are quarreling? He is saying to them, sit down
and shut up. That's what he's saying. Now again, I'm not saying
that to you. I don't have that kind of authority.
But God says to all who quarrel against him, all his people,
now just sit down and be quiet a minute. You know why? Because until we learn to just
sit down and be quiet, we'll never get to hear what he says
next. The law of God, what does it say the ministry of the law
is? that every mouth may be stopped. Every mouth may be stopped. Oh, how blessed it is, brethren,
when the Lord shuts our mouths. When the Lord confronts us with
the glory of His person to such a degree, we are silenced. The Lord is in His holy temple.
Let all the earth keep silence before Him. Why? He's got something good to say,
and we won't be able to hear it if we're just yap, yap, yapping.
And here's what he says. Turn to me. And be saved, all
you ends of the earth. For I am God, and there is no
other. All this he said about himself
as the being God and the power of his person and the sovereignty
of his person and his right to do with his own what he will.
All of that is gathered together not to beat us about the head
and the shoulders and let us know when we die we're going
to hell. It was all given that we might realize that we can
turn to him and be saved. We can trust him. He's got it
all well in hand. We don't need to quarrel with
him. He is God, there is no other. And if He chooses to save us
in a way that's painful, thank God at least He chose to save
us. If He chose a harsh providence for us, it may not be the providence
we chose for ourselves. But we can endure it in this
knowledge that He does it to save us. He does it for His glory,
and He does it for the good of His people. Say, I don't like being a potsherd.
Yeah, but remember, it's potsherds that He collects together and
calls His. He says in verse 23, By Myself
I have sworn, My mouth has uttered in all integrity, A word that
will not be revoked, before me every knee will bow, by me every
tongue will swear. Sounds harsh, doesn't it? But
you know something, I think that's wonderful. You know what God's
saying here? Everybody's under my control. You who are my people,
don't you worry about everybody around. Everybody's under my
control. Everybody's going to be brought to bow to me. Even
this Cyrus, who you thought was your enemy, I'm going to make
him your friend. I'm going to make Him bow to me even though
He doesn't know me. And He's going to bow to me and do what
I want with you to bring you back into your land." Which was
a picture of salvation. Isn't that remarkable? Tell God,
imagine this now. God is operating the entire universe,
arranging everything that's going on to this end to save your soul. To save your soul. Now we may
not be able to see How God is using this, that, or the other
for that purpose, it doesn't matter. We don't have to know
how He's doing it. We just have faith that that
is indeed what He is doing. Verse 24, they will say of me,
in the Lord alone are righteousness and strength. Is that your confidence? Do you really believe that? In
the Lord alone are righteousness and strength. I've heard many
of the popular religious world trying to convince people about
how strong they are and what they can face and what they can
endure. In the Lord alone is strength.
There are many in religion who are calling people to be righteous.
And if you ever say that, or if you ever find fault with that,
right away they want to accuse you of some awful things. But
we have it right here. Here's the confession of God's
people. Once God has got them to sit down and be quiet, the
next time they speak, they say things like this, In the Lord
alone are righteousness and strength. Everything He does is righteous,
and every righteousness I have came from Him. He has with His
mighty hand and outstretched arms saved me, and none of the
strength is mine. All who have raged against Him
will come to Him and be put to shame. All those who spend their
lives in rebellion against God, say there is no God, or say that
He's not in control, by whatever means it is that they rebel against
God, in the end, they will be brought to Him and they will
be put to shame, forced to bow to the One they refuse to acknowledge
in their lives. But in the Lord, all the descendants
of Israel will be found righteous. Can you believe that? I want
you to think about yourself for a minute. Are you God's Israel? Are you part of God's Israel?
Whom the Apostle Paul describes as those who believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Are you part of God's Israel?
You will be found righteous. In the Lord you will be found
righteous and you will exalt. The day is
coming, brethren, when we will have the privilege of looking
at our lives from the perspective that God sees them. Now, we can't
see it that way right now. But when these lives are over, we will see as much as we're
able to see, all the wondrous threads of providence that God
wove together to bring us to Him and to the enjoyment of full
salvation. And indeed, we'll do like the
song says, and sings my soul, my Savior God to thee. How great
that We'll say, oh Lord, if I'd only known, if I'd only believed,
I wouldn't have done all that quarreling I did. I'm sorry.
I wouldn't have doubted you. I wouldn't have found fault.
But you have done things wondrously. It's a marvel to me that you
called me. And it's a greater marvel to
me that you used such things as you did to bring this wretched
sinner to yourself. and hold him close until such
time as you made him like your son. He'll call Cyrus. He'll break
you to pieces. But brethren, if you're his,
he will bring you home and you will be found righteous and you
will exalt. So let us be done quarreling
with our maker and finding fault with the way he does things.
Amen.