Would you open your Bibles to
Proverbs 18, verse 10. Proverbs 18, verse 10. The name of the Lord
is a strong tower. The righteous run to it and are
safe. John Newton, pastor in the late
1700s, wrote these words of a hymn we're
very familiar with. Through many dangers, toils,
and snares, I have already come. Tis grace hath led me safe thus
far, and grace will lead me home. A believer's life has dangers. That is, a believer's life in
this world, from the time God gives him spiritual life so that
he can believe the gospel in a spiritual way. From then on,
he does face dangers. I don't mean merely troubles. Now, all God's people do face
trouble and experience troubles, and there may be a danger in
them. But the trouble itself is not
what I'm talking about. I don't think that's what John
Newton had in mind. Everybody has troubles. There's
nothing that happens in the natural life of a believer which unbelievers
do not likewise experience. Paul said, there is no trouble,
trial, temptation taking you except that which is common to
all men. So when it comes to our natural
lives, believers and unbelievers, the experience is pretty much
the same. But we do face dangers the world cannot know. It's very
simply this, or for this reason, believers are spiritually alive
and the world is not. Now there is no such thing as
danger to a dead man, is there? I mean, once a person's dead,
danger's over. Nothing more can be done to Him.
But we have been made spiritually alive, and life is what experiences
danger. Now, we'll see what this danger
is in a few minutes, but what we're speaking of in this danger
is something only believers experience. This danger is something the
world cannot know, For the world is simply not in a position to
be exposed to the dangers of believers. Let's take note of
the dangers that believers face. First of all, why don't you turn
over to 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 12. Now these, what we're going to
be looking at is various troubles and temptations
But what we're aiming for, what is the danger within them? What
danger comes by these troubles and temptations? And in 1 Corinthians
10, verse 12, so if you think you
are standing firm, be careful. Now, you don't say be careful
unless there's some kind of danger. So he says, be careful lest you
fall. Be careful. Now the example he
gives us, or the illustration of it from Israel's history is
in the first part of the chapter, and it's talking about all these
people that left Egypt, all the Jews that left Egypt under the
mighty hand and outstretched arm of the Lord, They passed
through the Red Sea in safety. They ate the manna. They drank
from that rock. Moses struck the rock and the
water came forth. They drank that. They saw God's
miraculous power and were even moved by it. But they got there
to the Jordan River. God says, there's a land, I give
it to you, go in. And so they send in 12 spies
and 12 spies come back after a month and a piece. And they
say, you know, the Lord's right. That, that is a beautiful land,
a land flowing with milk and honey, but it's got giants in
it. And we're like grasshoppers in
their side. If we go in there, we're going to get slaughtered.
And 10 of the 12 spies spread an evil poisonous report among
the people. And the people with nearly one
voice said, we ain't going in. We're not going in there. And
God became angry at their unbelief and he said, they will not enter
my rest. And for nearly 40 years, God
led them about in that wilderness between Egypt and the promised
land until everyone 20 years older and above, when they rebelled
against God, everyone of them died there in the desert. The
only two, over 20, who eventually made it into the promised land
was Joshua and Caleb, because they believed. And so he says
to us, take heed when you stand, lest you fall. Now, we commonly
look at the promise. Unto him that is able to keep
you from falling. And we believe firmly that the
Spirit of God will preserve his people. But the only way we know
that we are his people is that we persevere. That we don't fall
in unbelief like these people did. That we don't, on the one
hand, think that we're so strong and become complacent about spiritual
things. We say we stand. By the grace
of God, we stand. And you know, we can get to the
point that when we say by the grace of God, we're just saying
words we know we're supposed to say. And we're not remembering
that we stand quite literally by the grace of God. And if we
ever get to the point, we think we're standing on our own. We're
going to fall. Now the Lord may let even his
own people, and I tell you we are such a mess in the flesh
that we can think these thoughts and if we belong to the Lord
and we say we stand, he might just back up a little bit and
say, really? And we start to crumble and then he reaches out
quick and picks us up. But there are those, and they
have made a profession of faith, they have staked out their ground,
they claim, on the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace,
and they say they're believers, and they say they stand, and
lo and behold, they fall. Now this side of the grave, we
can never with what we know about people, what we can discern about
them, we can never say of any particular person, they have
fallen and will never get back up again. We don't know that. I've known people that have known
the gospel, claimed to believe it, and even preached it, preached
it good, and then just disappear for 10, 12, 15 years, and then
show up again. But I'll tell you, that's a rarity.
Very, very rare. Nonetheless, we never lose hope. As they say, when there's life,
there's hope. We never say of a person, they are gone and they're
never coming back. We may say, they are gone, and
we may weep a tear for them, and we hope that they'll return,
but this we know. Any person who truly thinks he
stands on his own. I mean, that's what's in his
heart. Such a person is a lost man, and they will fall, and
they'll stay fallen unless God gives them grace. And here's
the danger to us then, that we not prove ourselves to be among
them, but always keep a firm conviction, firm conviction. that we stand, yes, but we stand
by grace, we stand in grace, and we will stand only so long
as God gives us grace to stand. And then look over at Galatians
chapter 5. Here is another temptation with a great danger in it. Galatians chapter 5. And we're going to read verse
4 or 5 verses. Galatians chapter 5 beginning
with verse 1. It is for freedom that Christ
has set us free. Stand firm then, and do not let
yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my
words, I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised,
Christ will be no value to you at all. Again, I declare to every
man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey
the whole law. You who are trying to be justified
by the law have been alienated from Christ. You have fallen
away from grace. Now that's a dangerous situation,
to be alienated, cut off from Christ. and to have fallen from
grace. Now, you hear people use the
word, well, so-and-so fell from grace. Normally, what they're
saying is someone fell into sin. It's exactly the opposite here. When these people fell from grace,
what were they falling into? Self-righteousness. There was
that group of people among the early believers, people who'd
been raised Jewish, And like Paul, you know, when he made
his boast, he says, circumcised on the eighth day. That was part
of Jewish law. And just as it is with all people,
the Jews took those parts of the law which could easily be
proven, and were basically easy to keep, Sabbath keeping and
the circumcision thing, and they made that to be the be-all. Being a Jew and being accepted
by God and these Some of these professed faith and they came
into the church and the church here is filling up with Gentiles
And here's what they're saying now. Okay. Yeah, we understand
the Gospels gone to the Gentiles That's all well and good and
they need Christ like we need Christ But they also need to
be circumcised if you're not circumcised you can't be saved
And Paul said here in Galatians chapter 5 If any of you been
to these people And you allow this ritual to be performed on
you thinking that it will gain you something in the sight of
God. He said, Christ is of no use to you whatsoever. You're
cut off from Christ. You have fallen from grace. Now
there is in our flesh, we are just enamored of rules. I know on the one hand there's
a rebellious side of us and we don't want to keep any rules,
but there's also this desire to keep rules so that we look
better than other people. And when this idea is allowed
to go to seed and completely takes over our thinking, you
see what we commonly witness in religion when you can identify
what people, what church people go to by what they wear. Why
is that? Because somebody told them that's
what they're supposed to wear. You know, if you want to be pleasing
to God, you've got to wear that. And you can tell by their deportment
in public. All kinds of rules. We had rules
in the church I was raised in, and they would be careful on
the one hand to say, these aren't for salvation. You know, they'd
always give that prefix. But I tell you, if you weren't
keeping them, they wondered whether or not you were saved. And even if they
thought you were saved, they would act as though there's these
levels of acceptance with God, and one is more acceptable than
another. And for that reason, probably
from the fifth grade on, I didn't watch movies. I didn't go to
the dance. I didn't partake of any alcohol
as a beverage. They always put that in there
because a lot of them had alcohol for medicinal purposes, you know. Couldn't smoke. All these rules. And if we fall for them, if we
take them on in order or because we think that God will be more
accepting of us because of it, then we're utterly cut off from
Christ. For you see, when it comes to acceptance with God,
it is going to be All Christ, or it's going to be all you.
The Lord Jesus Christ sings no duets. He will have the solo,
or He'll have nothing. And you will be saved all together
by His righteousness, or you will be left to where you are
under complete obligation to every aspect of the law to keep
it, or be cursed. But God is not going to join
hands with you. The Lord Jesus Christ is not
going to join hands with you as the united workers of righteousness. And you and Him together work
out some righteousness to get you to heaven. And you say, well,
that's no danger to a believer. It's a danger to people who profess
faith. Again, we know God's going to
preserve His people. But do you see Him standing there
preserving you? Here's the only way we know He's
preserving us, we persevere. And He preserves us in part by
giving us these warnings. Don't go there. Once in a while I pick up a book,
you know, and I'm starting to read it, and I'm thinking, hey,
this is good. This guy's got some good ideas. And you know
what? He does. But they are laid out in such
a way, I notice before long, I'm thinking about what I'm doing,
not what Christ has done. I am focused on my own works. And for a moment, it seems to
be encouraging. For a little while, it seems
as though it's a delightful thing, but before long then, I mean,
after a little while, you realize all it is, is the yoke of the
law once again. And so there's a danger. The
danger of self-righteousness. Now look back at Luke chapter
16. Luke chapter 16 verse 13. No servant can serve two masters, either
he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted
to the one and despise the other, you cannot serve both God and
money. Now, the important thing to notice
here, as you read this, is that the Lord did not say a person
should not serve two masters. He says, no man can serve two
masters. It's impossible. And if it's impossible, then
what the conclusion we come to is if we see someone serving
or perceive ourselves to be serving someone other than God, we cannot
make a claim that we're serving God. Now let's see what he means
by that. Verse 14 says, the Pharisees
who loved money heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He
said to them, you are the ones who justify yourselves in the
eyes of men. But God knows your hearts. What
is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight. Now
our translation here says you can't serve God in money. And
that's a perfectly legitimate translation of the word because
sometimes it's used that way. And actually within the immediate
context it works. Because he was talking about
handling resources, and then the Pharisees who loved money
heard all of this. But notice how our Lord broadens
it. It says, you are those who justify yourselves in the eyes
of men, but God knows your hearts. What's highly valued or esteemed
among men is detestable in God's sight. This word actually is
not even a Greek word. It's a word they dragged out
of the Aramaic language, which was the common language of Israel
in that day, and dragged it out and just wrote it out in Greek
letters, mammon. And it means a treasure in which
someone trusts. Now some people, the treasure
in which they trust is their money. And these Pharisees were among
them. They thought because they were rich, and they were for
the most part rich men, they were wealthy, and they thought
that was a sign, an indication of God's favor upon them. They loved the money, that's
why they were rich. A person goes after what he loves. They were rich because they loved
money and they went after it, but that's not all they loved.
In another place the Lord says, these are those who love to be
hailed in the marketplace, Rabbi! In other words, they justified
themselves in the eyes of men. And that was their mammon. That's
what they were trusting in. They strutted around in their
robes with the long fringes on them and the big boxes of scripture
on their head. And they walked along with a
certain deportment about them. And everybody kind of had that,
ooh, look at there. There's Rabbi so-and-so. We should go ask him a question.
We should have him tell us. exactly when the Sabbath ends
and when it begins, because He'll know. And He can tell us exactly
how much of our spices that we must contribute, because He'll
know. And these men are held in high
esteem because the world esteems such nonsense as that. The world
esteems a robe. Why do you think most ministers,
I say most, Not many of them around here, but in other places,
a lot of your ministers, they have these vestments, they call
them. Special clothes that the minister wears with sashes around
them and sometimes a chain with a medallion and all this kind
of stuff. And they wear hats and they carry sticks and all
that. Why? The world's enamored of that
kind of stuff. And it's detestable to God. And therefore we must be certain,
we must take warning here of this danger of trying to serve
two masters. On the one hand saying we serve
God, we worship God through Christ alone. We find our acceptance
with God in Christ alone and yet turn around here and try
to be popular in the eyes of men and justify ourselves in
the eyes of men thinking that will justify us inside of God. You see, we are not only spirit,
we are flesh. And this flesh is a dangerous
thing. Fourth, here's another danger.
Turn over to 1 Peter chapter 1. In 1 Peter chapter 1. We are warned from allowing the
troubles and difficulties of this life to remove our confidence
from Christ. And with this, we're beginning
to zero in on the singular danger that lies at the foundation of
all these dangers we've been speaking of. Verse 6, 1 Peter
chapter 1. In this, you greatly rejoice,
that is salvation. Though now for a little while
you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. Now, child of God, take that
to heart. He's talking to the elect of
God, that's what he calls them, strangers in the world, and he
says you're suffering all kinds of trouble. So let me give you this word
of comfort. There is no trouble that can fall upon a man, that
is no trouble in this life, that can fall upon a man or a woman,
human being, that says definitely that person doesn't belong to
God. Anything might happen to a child of God. When Job suffered
all that disaster in quick succession, Those sorry friends of his, the
first thing they did was put a question mark on whether he
was truly God's child. So I'll give you this word of
comfort right away. If it seems like the whole world
falls on you, don't be surprised. The world does fall in on believers
sometimes. But Paul says, verse 7, these
have come so that your faith of greater worth than gold, which
perishes even though refined by fire, may be proved genuine
and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is
revealed. Now, these troubles come. What
are these troubles designed to do? They are designed to purify and
reveal faith. And in every one of them, and
generally speaking, we'll find that God is often using the agency
of Satan to do this. And I'll tell you what Satan's
after. He doesn't care whether you're rich or poor. He doesn't
care whether you're pretty or ugly, smart or not so smart. He doesn't care whether you are
powerful or insignificant. None of that bothers Him. He doesn't care whether you're
drunk or sober. It means nothing to Him. Whatever He devises as
a trial to throw your way is for this purpose, to remove your
confidence from Christ. Every trial is a trial of faith. When you're sick, It's a trial
of faith. When you're well, it's also a
trial of faith that you don't take confidence in your good
health. When you're poor, it's a trial of faith. Will you trust
the Lord to supply or will you try to run and just by any means
you can get what you need? And when you're rich, it's a
trial of faith. And I'll say this, I don't guess I've really ever
been poor. I maybe have been poor by American standards, but
being poor by American standards still means you're pretty much
in the top 5% of the world. But I've been on kind of both
ends. And I'll say this, of the two
trials, I found that my times when we didn't know how the bills
were going to get paid were a lot less spiritually difficult. than
when you've got a balance in the bank. Now maybe that won't be the same
way with you, I don't know. But riches would be a much greater
danger to me than poverty ever would be. But all these trials, here's
the aim. to destroy faith. Now, when it
comes to one who truly is a child of God, one in whom the Spirit
of God has actually done a work, when the heat of the trial comes,
all it will do is burn off the dross. Like when you put ore
into a crucible, and you know they take that gold ore and they
dump it in there, and you know a gold ore is mostly dross. There
isn't much gold in it. But they heat it up until everything
melts. And when it's in this melted state, the dross is generally
less dense than the gold. The dross comes to the top. And
the, I don't know what they call him.
Goldsmith, I guess. He scrapes off the dross off
the top and all that's left is the gold. But here's the thing. During that heated time, there is this temptation to think.
that the heat is an evidence of God's disfavor and for faith
to fail. I heard a comparison once, probably
like this, instead of using gold they used silver and talked about
a silversmith who had his crucible going, you know, and he put the
ore in and there was somebody watching just curious. Silver Smith kept working with
it and more and more dross would come to the top and he'd clean
it off. And the fella asked him, he says, how can you tell when
the silver is ready, when it's pure and all the dross is gone?
He says, when I can see my face in it. And brethren, he's gonna keep
burning the dross off of us until he sees his image in us. The last bit of dross that's
going to be burned away is these vile bodies. And he'll give us
a new body like unto his glorious body, and he'll look into that
tried and tested silver, and he'll see his image, and he'll
say, done, finished. But I tell you, it's one thing
to say that when the heat's not too hot. It's another thing when
the Lord turns the fire up and you think He's trying to burn
you up instead of burn you clean. And then let's look at Hebrews
chapter 3. Hebrews chapter 3. And this brings
it down to the very essence of the danger that confronts a child
of God. Hebrews 3, verse... I got 7 to 14, we'll read it all. So as the Holy Spirit says today,
if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did
in the rebellion during the time of testing in the desert, where
your fathers tested and tried me and for 40 years saw what
I did. That is why I was angry with that generation. I said
their hearts are always going astray and they have not known
my way. So I declared an oath in my anger.
They shall never enter my rest. See to it, brothers, that none
of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the
living God. But encourage one another daily,
as long as it's called today, so that none of you may be hardened
by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ
if we hold firmly to the end the confidence we had at first. Now, what is the great danger
that faces us? Be careful. See to it, brothers.
There is not in you an evil heart of unbelief. We all want good days and there's
nothing wrong with that. We all would like the easy life.
We would like all of our investments to bear good interest. We'd like
all our children to grow up healthy and produce more healthy children
and everybody be happy. We want those things. Nothing
wrong with that. But here is where faith can be
proven. And whether we have truly a heart
of faith or an evil heart of unbelief, it's only in the midst
of trouble. Because anybody can believe when
all is well. The text that we started with,
the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run to it
and are safe. What can this tell us other than
this? They who are the righteous are
proven in times of danger by where they run. By where they run. And if you make a profession
of faith, if you say, I believe God, good, we're glad, we hope
you do. But as James said, the devils
believe there's a God, and they tremble at the thought of it. But you may say, I trust Christ,
I believe the gospel, great, and we're going to take your
word for it. But if you say that, God in essence is going to say,
now do you really? Do you really? Now how is the name of the Lord, our
strong tower. And remember in those days, they, generally speaking, you had the
large city, which may have towers on it, defensive towers, similar
to the castles we remember from the medieval days. But then you
had the people that lived out in the country. And when the
enemy came, the people of the country ran to the walled city
and to the towers up high. And the tower could be, it could
actually just be an elevated place. It didn't necessarily
mean a tower that had been built. But the high ground is always
the safest ground. But they would run there and
be safe. And for us, our tower, our place of safety is the name
of the Lord. How so? Well, the name of the
Lord. Does that word, and this is back
in Proverbs chapter 18, but then that word Lord, we know is our
Lord's personal name. Jehovah is how we pronounce it
in our day and age. Some say it should be pronounced
Yahweh. Nobody really knows because the Jews wouldn't pronounce it.
So my nose for sure exactly how it was pronounced. But we know
what it means. It's derived from that way that
God identified himself to Moses from the burning bush. When Moses
says, who should I say has sent me? He says, well, I am that
I am. You tell them I am sent you. And this name Jehovah is
derived from that simple I am. And it sets forth God as the
self-existing one, the ever-present tense one, the one who does not
change. And that is our strong tower.
But God then, throughout the Old Testament, in several occasions,
seven prominent ones, He combines His name with something else.
Remember, a name is not just something you call somebody.
It indicates their character. And so He gives these names which
show forth the details of His character, are our place of safety. Look over at Jeremiah chapter
23. We'll just look at a few of these and gain what benefit
we can from them. Now, the name of the Lord is
a strong tower, the righteous run to it and are safe. What
is his name? Well, I'll tell you, when we,
when our sins cave in on us, when for whatever reason If we
feel condemned, guilty, here is the name to which every
believer runs. Verse 5, Jeremiah 23, the days
are coming, declares the Lord when I will raise up David's
righteous branch, a king who will rule wisely, and do what
is right, your just and right in the land. In his day, Judah
will be saved and Israel will dwell, will live in safety. And
this is the name by which he will be called Jehovah Tzidkenu
in Hebrew, the Lord our righteousness. Where does the believer run when
he has no righteousness? can find no righteousness of
his own, knows his sin, he runs to the Lord our righteousness. Here's one of the surest revelation
of a true child of God. How does he respond to his sin? Our immediate reaction, that
fleshly reaction, always comes up with, oh no, I've sinned,
I've done something awful, I need to start being good. But the spirit of every believer
has been taught differently, and when his sin caves in on
his conscience. And when he begins to feel that
sense of alienation from God, and that just judgment of God,
that we condemn him for his sin, he doesn't run to Moses. He doesn't
run to the top of Mount Sinai and hope to find a place of safety
there. He doesn't run to church covenants and plans of morality
and this sort of thing. He runs, beeline, to Jehovah
our righteousness. Paul said, that I may win Christ,
that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness
of my own which comes by the law, but that righteousness which
is by faith and is of Jesus Christ. That's the righteousness where
you'll find a believer. And that's the strong tower in
which the sinful righteous can hide. You say, wait a minute,
that doesn't make any difference. What do you mean the sinful righteous? It is an oddity in the scriptures
that those who think themselves to be sinful are righteous in
the sight of God. And those who think themselves
to be righteous are sinful. Our Lord said, I did not come
to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners. I've come to call
sinners to flee to the tower of the name of the Lord. Why? Because they're the righteous. Salvation is through faith, and
it is by faith that we are made righteous, that righteousness
is imputed to us, and the first point of that faith is an acknowledgment
that I am a sinner. Now just turn over a few pages
to Jeremiah 33, and I want to show you the glorious result
of this name of the Lord. which is our strong tower in
the face of guilt. The Lord our righteousness, Jehovah
our righteousness, and brethren, He is. He is the source of our
righteousness. He is our righteousness. But
notice what that does for the people of God. Verse 15, of Jeremiah 33 in those days,
and at that time I will make a righteous branch sprout from
David's line. He will do what is just and right
in the land. Does that sound familiar? It's
the same thing we're reading back in chapter 23. In those
days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.
Well, we read that back in that previous passage from Jeremiah
in chapter 23. But notice this, this is the
name by which it, what? Judah, Israel, Jerusalem. It's the name by which it will
be called, the Lord, our righteousness. God is the Lord, our righteousness,
and He's our place of safety. And we run to Him and are safe
there, and His name is given to us. Just as a wife takes the name
of her husband, So the people of God have taken the name of
their husband Savior. He is the Lord our righteousness.
And that's what they become. When bitterness of our sinful
selves produces a gall of bitterness, when we feel within ourselves
those awful motions of every wickedness that man can devise. You ever notice that about yourself?
Has it ever shocked you what can go through your mind? Aren't you glad other people
can't read it? I'm sure glad, you know, they don't know what
goes on inside my head. What things I would do if God
were to let me go, just let the restraints go. They shocked me. I bet you your thoughts shock
you too. And when we dwell on those, they can make us bitter,
particularly the child of God, because he doesn't want to be
like that. Having been born again, his spirit
is like Lot living in Sodom. And he was vexed by what was
going on there in the city where he lived. And so our spirits,
being renewed by the Spirit of God and loving and delighting
in righteousness and all that, lives in this body and says,
I don't like it here. But then, we run to Jehovah Rapha. the
Lord that heals thee. And he heals the sickness of
our soul. And there we find safety. Because you see, in that hour
of bitterness over sin, we're being tempted, we're being troubled,
we're put in danger, where will we run? And the troubles in life stand
before us as a great army. barring our way to God's promised
land. All the troubles in life, whatever
kind they may be. And we find in Exodus chapter 17 that there
were the Amalekites who came between, this is Exodus 17, I
may have given you the wrong book name, Exodus 17. But the
Jews are out there in the wilderness and the Amalekites are barring
their way. And Moses says to Joshua, you
go out there and you fight them. And he did. And he won. Why? Because he said, Jehovah is our
banner. When those fellows would go out
to fight, they had flags, they had banners or whatever. And
those banners indicated who it was they fought with or under
what name. Generally, it would be some indication
of the King. And the Amalekites, I don't know who their king was
at the time, but I'm sure his name was on their banner. And
Joshua says, our banner is Jehovah. And no army can stand against
him. When we're hungry and thirsty, when we're weary, when the wolf
pursues, we run to Jehovah-Roy, the Lord, my shepherd. David, who understood sheep probably
as much as any man alive in his day, he kept his father's flocks. And he'd stood between the flocks
and the lion, he said, and the bear on another occasion. And
he knew how to find a nice pasture for them to eat or to lie down
in and rest, quiet streams. I've never been a shepherd, but
I've been told sheep don't particularly like to drink out of running
water. They'd rather have still water, and so David wrote, the
Lord is my shepherd, Jehovah-Roy. I shall not want. He makes me
lie down in green pastures. He leads me by still waters. When the world makes war, and
when I notice the war within me, I run to Jehovah Shalom. Jehovah is my peace. When trouble makes me feel isolated
and alone, I run to Jehovah-Shamma. The Lord is there. And when I realize I have nothing
which I may give to the Lord and thereby gain his blessing,
and when I feel utterly empty, I run to Jehovah-Jireh. the Lord
will provide. The name of the Lord is a strong
tower, the righteous run to it. Now, one more name. It started out as Joshua. Over time, it got changed to
Yeshua. It eventually became Yeshu. It
means Jehovah is salvation. We pronounce it Jesus. He is
the name of the Lord. And when danger comes, the righteous
run to Him, and they are safe. They run to Him in His person,
because as Jehovah God, He is all-powerful, all-wise, They
run to him in his work because he did what was necessary to
save our souls from sin. He bore our sin in his body on
the tree. Nobody else could bear it and
survive, he did. All this that would distract
us from God is answered by this one name of God, Jehovah, my
salvation. Whether it be my need is righteousness,
or my need is peace, or my need is rest, or my need is healing,
whatever my need, it comes under that name, Jehovah, my salvation. The name of the Lord is a strong
tower. The righteous run to it and are
safe. And one little comment before
we're done, that word translated safe, also means to be elevated
or exalted. Of course, their safety line,
they're being high up, nobody could reach them. But the word
is also used when it talks about the name of the Lord, being exalted.
It talks about God in us, being exalted above our
enemies. And here's the thing, we run
to that tower, the name of the Lord, and in due time, He shall
lift us up. He shall exalt us to his side,
making us like him. And in that exalted position,
we'll be completely safe. Heavenly Father, bless your word.
We never feel as though we adequately spoke it, but then that shouldn't
surprise us. Who really can speak the word
of God but God himself? But we pray, Lord, you take these
things and comfort your people, that you'd make them powerful
to the salvation of anybody who's here and does not yet know you.
Lord, may your name be lifted up indeed. We pray this in Christ's
name.