Chapter 6, please. The world we live in sure seems
to thrive on fear these days, does it not? You know, in the days of old,
When kings and queens were tyrants over the people, the best way
to control the people was through fear. You don't do this, we'll
come down and beat you or do whatever is needed to be done.
They do it in fear. We are a frail people, you and
I. This humanity, There is much
that brings fearfulness to our hearts. Our Lord tells the prophet in
Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter 40, you don't
need to turn there, at verse 1, He says, Comfort ye, comfort
ye My people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare
is accomplished. All the battle that she's going
through right now and that she's going to go through over here
has been accomplished. You don't have to worry. It's
going to get bad. It's going to get bad. God has
never promised us a rose garden. It's a reason why the scripture
calls it the valley of the shadow of death, because to those who
are outside of Christ, to those who are not to be saved by God
in the death of His Son on the cross, those who will go to hell,
this is the valley of death. But to those who Christ died
for on the cross, to those who He shed His blood for, to those
that He came to this world and became flesh, you and I, who
have been revealed the truth of His word, it's nothing more
than a shadow because death has already been experienced for
us. Our Lord died for you and I so
that you and I would live in Him. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity
is pardoned. For she hath received with the
Lord's hand double for all her sins. What can I bring before
you this morning to bring comfort to your heart. I can't tell you it's going to
get any better. That would be a lie. Our Lord says this world
will wax worse and wax worse. My thoughts, when I thought about
that, what can I bring this morning to comfort your hearts. I remembered
a recent study that we did here in Mark chapter 6. Mark chapter 6, begin at verse
47. Mark chapter 6, verse 47. And when evening was come, the ship was in the midst of
the sea, and He alone on the land." The Lord had sent His
disciples onto a ship and told them to go on across the sea,
and I'll join you there later. This is the Lord who was alone
on the land, and He, speaking of our Lord in verse 48, saw
them toiling, saw His disciples out in the sea toiling and rolling. That means that they were out
there doing everything they possibly could. Everybody on the boat,
get a row. Dump everything out that you
don't have to have, because we're going to try to keep from sinking
in the boisterous sea that's coming up around us. And he saw
them toiling and rowing, for the wind was contrary unto them.
And about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them,
walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them. But when
they saw him walking upon the sea, they supposed it had been
a spirit. Now listen folks, listen to what
they do here. These are men who just saw our
Lord feed 5,000 people on a hill. They just witnessed the miracle
of God. And they cried out, verse 50,
for they all saw Him and were troubled, disturbed. They cried out. And immediately he talked with
them. And he said unto them, be of good cheer. It is I. Be not afraid. And he went up unto them, in
verse 51, into the ship. And the wind ceased. And they
were sore amazed in themselves, beyond measure, and wondered. Be of good cheer, he said unto
them. It is I. Be not afraid. Folks, there's
only one place, only one person, only one person that I can tell
you about that can bring peace to the hearts of a soul that
sinneth. And all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. The word of God tells us the
heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it? When Adam sinned
against God, the whole world, the whole earth was cursed. Cursed
is the ground, saith the Lord. What message can I bring before
you this morning that Christ might touch your heart and bring
you peace in this troubled and wicked world? I can only think
of one. Turn, if you would, back to the
book of Genesis. You see, this book that we hold in our hands
called Scripture is a book about the Lord Jesus Christ. It begins
with Him and it ends with Him in Revelation 21. For now, though, we're looking
at the third chapter of Genesis. And I want to take you through
this entire chapter. It's not very long. But it shows
us the fall of man And then our Lord takes us to the only peace
there is. Look at verse 1. Now the serpent
was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God
had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea,
hath God said, Ye shall not eat of the tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent,
We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, But of the
fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God
hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it
lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the
woman, Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the
day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman
saw that the tree was good for food, and it was pleasant to
the eyes, and the tree be desired to make one wise, she took of
the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband
with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both," now
get this, folks, and the eyes of them both were opened, and
they knew that they were naked. What did they do next? And they sewed fig leaves together
and made themselves aprons. We see our sin. We see our sin ever before us.
And the first thing, the very next thing we do is we try to
cover that sin. It's no different today than
it was then. You and I do exactly the very same thing. Oh, how we make up excuses for
what we do in this world. Oh, how we weigh things out to
balance them in our favor. Verse 8, And they heard the voice
of the LORD, God walking in the garden in the cool of the day,
and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord
God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called
unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said,
I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was
naked, and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that
thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof
I commanded thee, that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, the woman whom
thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did
eat. And the Lord God said, unto the
woman, what is this that thou hast done? And the woman said,
the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. Do you hear all the
excuses? Do you hear all the dressing
with the leaves, trying to hide what we've done? Verse 14, And
the Lord said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this,
thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the
field. And upon thy belly shalt thou go, and the dust shalt thou
eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. And to the woman he said, I will
greatly multiply thy sorrow, and thy conception in sorrow
thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy
husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said,
because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast
eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not
eat of it, curse it. Cursed is the ground for thy
sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it
all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall
bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat of the herb of the
field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou
return unto the ground, for out of it was thou taken, for thus
thou art, and unto thus shalt thou return." And Adam called his wife's name
Eve because she was of the mother of all living. Unto Adam also,
to his wife, to the Lord God, make coats of skins and clothed
them." That's the entire gospel of God's sovereign grace right
there. Right there in those words, we
see the fall of man, the depravity of man, the inability of man
to do anything in the sight of God and God coming to his people. They tried to clothe themselves.
It didn't work. It wasn't good enough. But the
Lord showed a picture of His Son and the blood that was shed
on the cross and clothing His people in His righteousness. Today is no different. We go
about trying to cover up our sin, making our excuses for what
we do. Even now, as children of the
Most High, the old man is always at war with the new man, the
new creature. We battle our way through this
valley of the shadow of death we call life, and all of its
troubles, all of its trials, and that will not change. It
will not change until the Lord deliver us from this body of
death into His presence in the fullness of His glory. What peace
is there for me in this world? What peace can I have? There is much in this world to
bring great sorrow to us, isn't there? Great sorrow to our hearts, natural
troubles, diseases many have lost loved ones to this virus,
wars, outright open wickedness, all these things in the world
around us. We can get great sorrow from our members of our family,
from people at work, even from people just crossing
our path for a moment. Oh, what things of this world
bring us great sorrow to our hearts. But we can also see that much
of our sorrow within us is brought on by our own weakness. Oh, for
the pain our weakness brings to our hearts because of the
consequences of our actions, Oh, how I pray the Lord will
bring comfort to you this morning as you walk through the fears
of this world. What comfort can I bring to you?
The only comfort there is, behold. Behold, said John the Baptist,
behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. I echo His words with these.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full on His wonderful face. And the things of this world will turn strangely dim in the light of His glory and
grace. The longer we walk through these troubled times of our world
looking to our Savior for all things, the stronger we look
to Him The more reliant we become looking to Him in our troubles,
turning to the only One who can say, I have it. I've taken care of it. It's finished. You might think to yourself,
would the Lord of all creation, a perfect and holy God, One who
is so perfect that He cannot even look upon sin? Would He think of me? And what I am? Would He consider me? Would you turn over to the 49th
chapter of Isaiah? Would He think of me? Would He who created everything
that is perfectly look down upon this poor sinner, this one who
is unworthy of anything from Him? Hear the words of 1 Timothy 1.15. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation. In other words, teaching that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save senators. Paul thinks he's the one who's
the chief. I would beg to differ. And I'll bet you would too. God's people is the only nation
ever to walk this earth where every single one of them is the
chief. Jeremiah 31.3, we read these
words. The Lord hath appeared of old
unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting
love. Therefore, with loving kindness
have I drawn thee. Our Lord God has loved a people
from before the foundation of the world, a people that will
be brought to know Him. A people that will be brought
to see. A people that will be brought
to hear. A people that will believe His
truths. You see, faith in the Lord Jesus
is not something that you can read about in a book and say,
okay, I'll start doing that. Faith in Christ is not something
that you can go down to the store and say, hey, I need a box of
faith. How much is it going to cost me? Faith is only given. It is a
gift of God. Otherwise, man would take that
faith and boast about how, see how I bought it, see how I've
done this for it, see how I've done that for it. No, we have
nothing to boast in. Our God has given us the faith
to believe in His Word. He brings this people to Himself
to believe His truths. A people, though they ran from
Him, folks, God didn't come to us when we were looking for Him.
We were never looking for Him. He came to us when we were running
from Him. He came to us when we hated Him,
when we would have nothing to do with Him. No, we wanted to
have a relationship with some little Jesus that was working
everything out according to the way we wanted it to work out.
Or no, we wanted to follow some other kind of religion, like
the religion of John. I'm out doing whatever I want to do today.
We were running from God. And if you belong to the Lord
Jesus and He has saved your soul, you know it. Even though they ran from him,
though they hated him, though they despised him, they would
be brought to love him. I'm thankful he brought me to
love him because I know I wouldn't have if it had been for him.
He loved them so, or in such a way, in other words, that He
gave them His only begotten Son, Christ Jesus, to be their sacrifice,
to be their substitute, Himself in their stead, to lay down His
own life to die for them that they would have eternal life
in Him. Folks, our Lord became man. He left His glory in heaven for
you and I so that He could walk this earth. See, God can't die. He's spirit. He had to become
flesh. There is no remission of sin
without blood. God had to become flesh and blood
as you and I so that He could go to that grave. He could go
to that cross and shed His blood in our stead. And that's exactly what He did. But aren't we thankful that death
couldn't hold the Creator of everything? After dying in our
stead, He who laid down His own life took it up again and is
now sitting on His throne in heaven for us. Look with me if
you would at verses 13 through 16 of Isaiah chapter 49. Sing, O heavens, and be joyful,
O earth, and break forth into singing, O mountains, for the
Lord hath comforted His people. How can I bring a message to
bring comfort to His people? By speaking of my Savior, pointing
you to Christ. O mountains, for the Lord hath
comforted His people, and will have mercy upon His afflicted. But Zion said, now listen, this
is talking about you and I, even though the Lord has done this,
oh how often we get to a point in our lives where we say these
words, the Lord has forsaken me. Have you been there? Can you express those words as
yourself? David did, a man after God's
own heart, many a times go into the Psalms and read how many
times David cries out, my Lord, my God, why hast Thou forsaken
me? Those were personal things to
David. Yes, they're a picture of our Savior, absolutely. They're
pictures of what our Savior would go through, but they were also
things that David went through. My God, my God, why hast Thou
forsaken me? But Zion, you and I, God's people,
the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Listen to the words of God. Verse
15, Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should not have
compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, yea, they may forget. Yet will I not forget thee. Behold." Are you crying out? The Lord hath forsaken me. My
Lord hath forgotten me. Hear the words of the Lord. Behold,
I have graven thee. on the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually before
me. Would my Lord think of me? Would
the God of all creation look upon this poor sinner? My God, where are you today? Today my heart breaks. He says, I'm there. Forget not that you are engraved
in my hands. He says this about all of us. Forget not that you are engraved
in my hands, that I went to the cross and men stuck nails through
my hands into the wood, that I would shed my blood and die
for you. How could I forget you? Sometimes the grace of my God
overwhelms me, folks. Sometimes it overwhelms me with
emotions because I just... I'm just amazed. I'm amazed that
God would look upon me and consider me. No matter what we have to deal
with, you and I, no matter what our trial is, no matter what
kinds of tribulations our Lord puts before you and I, He considers us. He's considered us from before
the world was. Everything about this world is
for you and I. Every bit of creation has been
put in place so that you and I would walk the exact path that
we are in. And we're going to continue that
walk all the way through eternity with Him. The pains that you and I endure,
we endure through Him. We are Zion. We are the church
of God. Many a times in this life, we
will cry out, Lord, are you with me? Lord, I see you not. My pain and my fear is greater
than I can bear. Lord, art thou with me today? And then our great and faithful
God, faithful to His promises, will remind us of these words,
Jeremiah 46, 28, Fear thou not, O Jacob. Fear thou not, O Jacob,
my servant, saith the Lord, for I am with thee. Or we read in Hebrews 13.5, let
your conversation, let your life, let your walk be without covetousness. Don't go about wondering, well,
I sure wish I had that over there, or I wish I didn't have this
problem. Let your life, your conversation
be without covetousness and be content with such things as ye
have. For He has said, I will never
leave thee. Turn over to 2 Corinthians chapter 12 if you would. Folks,
I apologize, but we're going to go just a little bit long.
Not too much. But I want to get through all
of this. Our Lord tells us that everything,
that all things are for our good over in Romans 8, doesn't He?
Isn't that what it says? Don't we quote that verse often?
Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote these
words for our learning. Look at verses 6-10 of chapter
12. 6 through 10, for though I would
desire to glory, I shall not be a fool, for I will say the
truth. But now I forbear, lest any man
should think of me above that which he seeth me to be or that
he heareth me. And lest I should be exalted
above measure, First off, Paul addresses what people may think
of him. There were many in the days, and they do it in today's
world, too. You've seen Pastor Gene put up on a pedestal by
some people. You've seen Don Fortner put up
on a pedestal by some people. Don't ever put other men up on
a pedestal. Have reverence for them. Respect
for them for what they do. But no man is any better than
you. And we are no better than other
men. And then he addresses what would
happen if he himself was to be puffed up. And lest I should be exalted
above measure through the abundance of the revelation, there was
given unto me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan,
to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this
thing it besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
And he, speaking of our Lord, said unto him, My grace is sufficient
for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Paul
goes on to write, Most gladly therefore will I rather glory
in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore,
I take pleasure in the infirmities, and reproaches, and necessities,
and persecutions, and depressions, and distresses. For Christ's
sake, for when I am weak, then am I strong." Our Lord, how many
kinds of trials, I wonder, did Paul go through before he learned,
before he could write these words? before these words that the Spirit
inspired him to write permeated in his heart. Turn over to Hebrews
12 now, if you would. Hebrews chapter 12. Folks, the
troubles that we suffer in this world compare to nothing to the
sufferings of our Lord and Savior. Consider the suffering of God
when He humbled Himself and became flesh. when He humbled Himself
in the glory that He was in heaven, and He was manifest in the flesh,
and He became our servant. Have you ever stopped to think
about that? Have you ever stopped to really consider what it must
have been for God to leave all that and come to a cursed earth? An earth that rejected Him? Have you thought about what it
was like for God and the flesh to be made sin? You know, Jesus
walked this earth and there was never a sinful thought in His
mind. The Lord Jesus did everything
perfectly. All that He did pleased the Father. There was never any sin in our
Lord when He was on this earth. Think of how that must have been
when the Lord of Glory was made sin. You and I know how bad sin
is. We know what it is to be sinful.
We know what it is to be sin from the top of our heads to
the tips of our toes. Because that's all that we are.
Think about this. What it was for God in the flesh
to die. He who is life, He who gives
life, died. I can't even wrap this little
mind of mine around it. God in the flesh was separated
from God the Father. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? That means why have you turned
your back on me? Because you are sin now. Because
God made Him to be sin that you and I would be made righteous
in Him. The Lord of all glory engraved
in His palms, you and I. Do you know what that means?
That means that in His palms, in the very being of our God,
everything about us, our name, our nature, every detail, Our very being, even the troubles
that we suffer, as a consequence of the sin that is in us, He
has made them all part of Him. He knows our infirmities. He
knows our despair. He knows our temptations. He personally experienced every
trouble that we have gone through and will go through, and He has
conquered that trouble for us. Does that mean the trouble is
going to go away and we're not going to experience it? No. But we can have peace in it,
knowing that He has covered it. Look with me if you would at
verses 1, beginning at verse 1 of chapter 12. Wherefore, seeing we have also
compassed about With so great a cloud of witnesses, speaking
of all the witnesses listed in chapter 11, let us lay aside
every weight and the sin that does so easily beset us. Let
us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking
unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for
the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising
the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne
of God. For consider him that endured
such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied
and faint in your minds. Consider the things that he went
through. Then he tells us in verse 4,
ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation
which speaketh unto you. And as unto children, my son,
despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou
art rebuked of him for whom the Lord loveth. He chasteneth and
scourgeth every son for whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening,
God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom
the Father chasteneth not? Now, I want you to go... Folks,
we don't come to a mountain that we cannot touch. As Israel did
in the wilderness, the mountain that even Moses feared and quaked
at. As it is stated over in verse
21 of the same chapter, and so terrible was the sight that Moses
said, I exceedingly fear and quake. That's the mountain that
Israel had come to, that nobody could touch. That's not the Jesus,
that's not the God that you and I come to. No, look at verse
22. But ye are come unto a Mount
Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an unnamable company of
angels, to the general assembly of the church of the firstborn,
which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all,
and to the spirits of just men made perfect. And to Jesus, the
mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling
that speaketh better things than that of Abel. Folks, do you seek
to be comforted this morning? Is there trouble anywhere? Again,
I say, turn your eyes upon Jesus. He will give you solace there. Look over at Romans chapter 8,
and we'll bring this to a close here. Romans chapter 8. We all know these are so familiar
words. I quote them almost every message. But we're talking about
peace in troubled times. We're talking about peace in
good times. You see, a child of God, we don't
just look to our Lord when things are bad. We look
to Him especially when things are good. Lord, You're blessing me. Lord,
thank You for all You give me when I don't deserve it. Look with me at verses 31 through
the end of the chapter. What shall we say then to these
things? What things? Well, the things
that we know that all things are for our good. For the one
who did foreknow us, predestinated us, be conformed to the image
of his son. that he might be the firstborn of many brethren,
or more of them. So he did predestinate them also called, he also called.
And whom he called, him he also justified. And whom he justified,
him he also glorified. What shall we say then to these
things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not within him also
freely give us all things? Now I want you to drop down to
hear verse 36, for it is written, For thy sake we are killed all
the day long. We are counted as sheep for the
slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him that loved us. I skipped there. Who shall separate
us from the love of Christ? And then it goes through the
whole list. For I am persuaded, writes Paul. For I am persuaded,
says John. For I am persuaded, says every
child of God who knows the truth, that neither death nor life,
no matter how painful these things in life can be, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to
come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature. shall
be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus, the Lord. When trouble comes my way, when
inward pain is greater than I can stand, I have learned over time. It's not something we learn right
away. You don't go from being a babe
to a full-grown man that quickly. We learn over time. We learn
through the trials that the Lord brings into our life. When troubles come our way, when
inward pain is greater than we can stand, we need to learn over
time to come to Christ. Not a lesson to be learned once,
but a continual lesson. Have you ever thought about this? Our heaviest burdens, our deepest
sorrows, come to us when we stop coming to Him. Folks, He knows our deepest thoughts.
He knows our deepest feelings. We were in Him before the world
was, we are in Him now, and we will be in Him forever. Let me
read these words again to you. Can a woman forget her suckling
child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her
womb? Yea, yes. They may forget, yet will I not
forget thee? Behold, I have graven thee upon
the palms of my hands. Thy walls, thy troubles, thy
sinfulness are continually before me." Brothers and sisters, would
you stand with me please?