I want to continue from last
week's message in 1 Kings chapter 17. As you're turning to 1 Kings
chapter 17, I want to read to you from the book of Job, and
there's a reason for that. The book of Job is about a man
who suffered. I'm sure you know that in some
sense, but If you just casually flip through it, you see how
severely he suffered. And that's what's happening in
1 Kings chapter 17. And so when we look at 1 Kings
17, the last half of that chapter today, we're going to see what
I believe is the title of my message today, which is Trouble
and the Assurance of Faith. trouble, and the assurance of
faith. Now this is very apropos, this
is very applicable to our current situation, isn't it? Trouble. Who among us has no trouble? And this is what we're going
to see here. In the book of Job, in chapter
seven, for example, he says, in verse, I'm just gonna look
at Job chapter seven to start with. He says in verse 11, I
will not refrain my mouth. I will speak in the anguish of
my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness
of my soul. Am I a sea or a whale that thou
should, that thou settest a watch over me? People look out over
the sea to see if a storm is coming. They look at a whale. They set a watch over the whale
to hunt the whale. And so he asked, am I a whale? Am I a sea that God would set
a watch over me? When I say, my bed shall comfort
me, my couch shall ease my complaint. then thou scarest me with dreams
and terrifies me through visions so that my soul chooses strangling
and death rather than my life. I loathe it. I would not live
always. Let me alone for my days are
vanity. What is man that thou shouldst magnify him and that
thou shouldst set thine heart upon him and that thou shouldst
visit him every morning and try him every moment? How long wilt
thou not depart from me, nor let me alone, till I swallow
down my spittle? I have sinned, what shall I do
unto thee, O thou preserver of men? Why hast thou set me as
a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself? That's
pretty low, isn't it? If you were to also look at Job
chapter 16, He's telling his friends who were no comforters
to him. He says in chapter 16, verse
1, Job answered them and said, I have heard many such things.
Miserable comforters are you all. He's not joking. I know we laugh
at it, but he's not joking. He really experienced misery
and then his friends were miserable comforters. They added to his
burden. He said, shall vain words have an end? In other words,
are you ever going to stop talking in empty ways? Or what emboldened
of thee that thou answerest? I also could speak as you do
if your soul were in my soul's stead. I could heap up words
against you and shake my head at you. But I would strengthen
you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your
grief. Though I speak, however, he says,
my grief is not assuaged. And though I forbear, what am
I eased? If I say, if I speak out, if
God gives me the grace to say something, it doesn't help. If
I don't say anything, that doesn't help either. But now he has made
me weary, that has made desolate all my company, and that has
filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me. And
my leanness rising up in me bears witness to my face. He's skinny
and wrinkly because of God's hand on him. He teareth me in
his wrath, who hateth me. He gnasheth upon me with his
teeth, mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me. They have gaped
upon me with their mouth. They have smitten me upon the
cheek reproachfully. They have gathered themselves
together against me. God has delivered me to the ungodly
and turned me over into the hands of the wicked. I was at ease,
but he has broken me asunder. He also had taken me by my neck
and shaken me to pieces and set me up for his mark. That's pretty
low, isn't it? So when we read these verses
in 1 Kings 17, we see this isn't unusual. This isn't unusual. And I wanna read this scripture
from 1 Kings chapter 17 with you, beginning at verse 16. And
we're gonna read it to the end of the chapter. If you remember
what happened last time is that God had sent Elijah and given
him, put it on his heart to pray according to his own will to
have the rain withheld for three and a half years, which obviously
caused a severe drought and a famine. People were sick and dying without
food, without water. And this was a terrible tragedy
or terrible affliction on the whole nation of Israel. But then
in chapter 18, we saw that God sent Elijah at the end of three
and a half years to challenge the prophets of Baal, the false
prophets, and to set forth the one sacrifice that God accepted.
And by the acceptance of that sacrifice, he turned his people's
heart to himself again. And this is always the case.
God always, because of Christ, turns his people's heart to himself
again. In Acts 5.31, it says, God has
exalted him to be a prince and a savior for to give repentance
to Israel and the forgiveness of sins. So it was because of
Christ that we are turned. Everything is because of him.
But then we rewound and we saw that when God had told Elijah
to tell Ahab, he was going to withhold rain until he gave Elijah
the word. He then sent him into the wilderness
and he kept him alive by sending him to a place, the Brook Kirith
and feeding him with meat delivered to him by ravens, God directed
the ravens. Completely antithetical to the
nature of a raven to bring food to someone But God kept him alive
through that miracle. And he gave him water from this
brook. And in that we saw that God required his son to suffer
and to depend on him in faith just like we do, only much more
so. Then God dried up the brook in
his providence and he told him, teaching us that we don't depend
on knowing the will of God. We don't depend on his providence
alone, but by his word. His word has to instruct us what
his providence means. Otherwise, we would go crazy. We would look at our circumstances
and we would draw conclusions that were not true. but God sent
him to a widow. This great prophet, the greatest
prophet of the Old Testament, had to depend on God through
the supply of a widow woman. Amazing. Humility, what this
did to Elijah in his humility. And we saw in that, again, the
Lord Jesus Christ stooping in humility. and also independence
upon God. But he goes then and with the
widow woman, he and her are kept alive by God until the rain is
given again from heaven. The rain of God's word, the gospel.
Here in the midst of this famine and drought, God continues to
supply his word to Elijah and to this woman. And we learn from
Luke chapter four in the New Testament that this was the only
widow to whom Elijah was sent during this three and a half
year period because she was God's elect and she represents God's
elect in this world and how God provides for his people in the
wilderness and drought of this time in history until he comes
again, the Lord Jesus Christ will come. And during this time, it says
that God kept the meal, the bread, that this woman had. It didn't
waste, and the oil didn't fail. And we saw that the bread represents
the broken body of the Lord Jesus Christ, because the meal is produced
by grinding the wheat. And he's the one who is that
seed that fell into the ground and died in order that we might
live, that there would be much fruit brought to God. And he
gives his spirit, the oil of his spirit, in order that we
might live. In Zechariah chapter 4, There's a prophecy given by
the prophet Zechariah where there's a candlestick, and each of the
lights on the candlestick has a feeding tube that goes into
it from these olive trees. And the oil from these olive
trees feeds into these lights, and it lights the candlestick.
And God says, this is what it means, not by might, nor by power,
but by my spirit, saith the Lord. And then he goes on a little
after that in the same chapter, Zechariah 4, and he says, and
this is what will be the result of that, grace, grace to it. So that the spirit of God gives
grace to his people and points us to Christ. So that this woman
and Elijah lived on God's provision in the Lord Jesus Christ by the
word of God. Now that was last time, and I'm
just doing a recap for you. Now we're looking at this woman.
She represents who? the elect of God, chosen of God. God sent his prophet to her to
deliver his word to her, to provide for her in his word, and give
her from his word that provision in Christ and him crucified.
If you see that, then you understand the message here of the first
part of 1 Kings. Now in verse 16, we're going
to read here. It says, and the barrel of meal
Wasted not, neither did the cruise of oil fail according to the
word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah. Now, before God sent
Elijah to this woman, it says that God told Elijah he had commanded
a widow woman to sustain him there. God commanded her. Did
he have a word? Did he spoke to her directly
like he did to his prophet? No. But God moved upon her heart. He instructed her by placing
instruction in her without her aware of how. But she was compelled
by what God did before to provide for Elijah when he came. So that
when he came and said, bring me a little water. And by the
way, before you do that, bring me a cake. And she said, I don't
have anything except enough for me and my son. We're gonna eat
this and die. But he said, bring me first. So again, we saw in
that that the Lord Jesus Christ requires us to forsake everything
that we do in order to sustain our lives. Because as much as
we can do to sustain our lives, it's only going to be temporal.
It's only going to have a momentary effect. But when we look to Christ
alone, we have all things. We have an abundance that never
runs out. But he had commanded this of
this woman, so when Elijah spoke to her, remember he's the prophet,
he's speaking the word of God, what did she do? Well, she was
obedient. She was compelled to provide
for him. Now, it says in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 35, I'll
read this to you so that you hear it directly. I won't try
to quote it, I'm just gonna read it to you. In Hebrews 11, 35,
he says, women, by faith, women received their dead raised to
life again. All right, so Hebrews 11 explains
the Old Testament believers. They lived by faith, they walked
by faith, everything was by faith. Because the way we live, the
way we walk, the way we walk in the spirit is how? By depending
upon Christ. That's the way we live. When
God first gives us life, he gives us faith in Christ. And as we
live our life, he renews that life. He continues to provide
life to us through the same mechanism. That's a bad word, mechanism,
but he continues to supply his spirit that his word to us would
direct us to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when she, it says in Hebrews
11.35, by faith women received their dead raised to life again,
she was a believer. She was a believer. God had commanded
her to sustain Elijah through the meal and the water. She didn't
know exactly how, why she was compelled to do this. But when
she heard the word of the Lord from Elijah to do that, she complied,
she obeyed, because she was a believer. And it was because she believed
God that she received from the dead her son raised to life again,
which we're going to read about now. So the cruise of oil didn't
fail, the meal in the barrel didn't waste, according to the
word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah. It was God's word
that came to her. God proved himself faithful. It's very important. Faith, our
faith, depends on God's faithfulness. This is said, for example, in
Romans chapter 4, that Abraham, when he was without ability to
have children, he was fully persuaded that what God had promised, he
was able also to perform. That's what faith is, that persuasion
that God is able to do what he promised and is faithful to do
what he promised. Hebrews chapter 10 says, for
he is faithful who has promised. And this is the basis of our
faith. So what we're going to see here now is that God had
been providing for this woman. He had been providing for both
her and Elijah, both the prophet of God and the woman, dependent
upon the word of God. Thy words were found and I did
eat them, Jeremiah said. And so this is the way God says
that we live. Christ told Satan, man shall
not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out
of the mouth of God. And so this is true of our Savior.
It's no different for his disciples, his followers. What's good for
the master is good for his disciples. And we all live by faith on the
Lord Jesus Christ. She lived by faith. And so when
the word of the Lord came to her from Elijah concerning the
meal and the oil, she was a believer. God had given her that faith.
But here now, we see a turn. And this is very instructive
because as she represents God's elect, she therefore represents
all of his church. And so that God's dealings with
the woman is the way he deals with us. The dealings of God
with his elect are the same. We all partake of, what does
it say in Ephesians 4? There's one God, one father,
one spirit, one body, all these things. We're all partakers of
the same life, and we all have the same faith, the same gospel.
We don't have these different religions within the body of
Christ. There's not different denominations
of believers. There's only one faith, right? There's only one truth. There's
only one way. It's the Lord Jesus Christ and
him crucified, risen, reigning, interceding, saving according
to the will of God. But what we see here is that
that even though she was God's elect, even though she believed
God, what happened? Trouble. Trouble came to her. She wasn't looking for trouble.
She had a good portion of trouble already, but then she was walking
by faith in depending upon God's word that the meal wouldn't waste
and the oil wouldn't fail, and she was happy. Things were going
well. It was a steady state. It looked
good. Blessings seemed to be open to
her from heaven. But here's the issue. There's
something in the life of the believer that requires God to
send affliction. Trouble comes to us. In Psalm
119, he says, before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now have I
kept thy word. And this is the way it is. Let
me read this to you from Lamentations 3. which is the book after Jeremiah,
because it was Jeremiah's Lamentations. But in Lamentations chapter 3,
and I'm just going to jump in the middle, he says, thou hast
removed my soul far off from peace. Here's peace. I'm way
out there. There's no peace with me. I forget
prosperity. I said, my strength and my hope
is perished from the Lord. Now here's a man who sees only
darkness at this point. It's dark, isn't it? And yet
he's a believer. He says, remembering mine affliction
and my misery, the wormwood and the gall, notice, my soul has
them still in remembrance and is humbled in me." That's what
affliction does to us, doesn't it? It humbles us. And why? This I recall to my mind, therefore
have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed because his compassions fail not. So trouble
in the life of the believer is necessary Because even though
we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we still have doubts. And God has to purify our faith
and increase our faith. He has to rid us of the dross
in our faith, which is nothing more than our old nature, which
can only accuse God in unbelief. But the new man trusts Christ
and God is going to strengthen the new man in this so that he
increases our faith in trouble. He says this. I call these things
to my mind. I have hope. It's the Lord's
mercies that we're not consumed because His compassions fail
not. They are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion. Christ
is my all. He's my inheritance, my reward,
saith my soul. Therefore will I hope in Him.
I'll expect. I will look for Him. And then
in verse 25 of Lamentations 3, the Lord is good to them that
wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that a
man should both hope in trouble and quietly wait under the affliction
for the salvation of the Lord. And you can read on in that,
those things, Job, Jeremiah, Christ. Isaiah, all of these
men, the Apostle Paul, they all suffered. This woman suffered.
God's elect will suffer. Jesus told his disciples, in
the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. Why? Because
I have overcome the world. Our cheer, our joy is that Christ
overcame. He says, in me, you shall have
peace. In the world, you shall have
tribulation. So our peace, our rest from trouble is in Christ. And that's why God sends trouble,
is to rid us from the sin of unbelief and cause us to latch
onto Christ with all of the grace that God gives to us. And this
work of God in us is not a work that we can channel into a way
to shortcut the process. Jesus told Peter, you're going
to deny me three times. Satan has desired to sift you
as wheat. Peter knows, it's coming. Could
he get out of it? No, he actually had to go through
the bitterness of denying the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he was lifted up out
of that bitterness, according to Christ's word and promise,
because he prayed for his faith. So that the object of that trial
in Peter's life was to increase his faith. And that's what we
see here. She was at rest, she was eating
and had plenty, and then this trouble comes. Look at this in
1 Kings 17, verse 17. It came to pass after these things
that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick. And her son's sickness was so
sore that there was no breath left in him. Her son died. That seems harsh, doesn't it? Remember when Lazarus died? It
seemed harsh. Jesus heard about it. They sent
him word. When he got the word that Lazarus
was sick, he stayed in the same place for four days. And then
he told his disciples, I'm glad I wasn't there for your sakes. He told Martha, This sickness
came upon him for the glory of God, that the Son of God might
be magnified, glorified in him. And then he later told Martha,
I told you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God.
So God brings the trial in the case of Lazarus's death. for
his disciples and Martha and Mary to see his glory. And they
saw that glory when he gave them faith. The irresistible work
of God in the heart of his people causes them to see and believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Out of their trouble, through
the gospel, and in so doing, they're brought back to, they're
renewed in their life and their walk of faith. So here we have
the woman's son died. So she represents all of God's
people, the elect of God, the church of God. And Elijah is
God's word coming to her and preaching to her Christ and Him
crucified. Her son dies, a terrible affliction. God sent her in this trouble
to produce this increase of faith, to refine it, and to actually
give her a full assurance, which we're going to see in a minute.
Now in verse 18, it says, and she said to Elijah, what have
I to do with thee, O thou man of God? Art thou come to me to
call my sin to remembrance and to slay my son? So what is this? What is this she's saying now?
Here she's been receiving the endless supply of God's provision
with Elijah. Both of them and her son are
being sustained by God's miraculous supply. And as soon as her son
dies, what does she say? What? All that you've been doing
all this time, your engagement with me, everything you've said,
and this supply were a trick, weren't they? You really intended
in the very beginning and didn't make it known to me, you were
keeping me in the dark, that your purpose really was to bring
my sin to remembrance and to kill my son. That's all you do. The prophet of God comes through
and bam, people are destroyed. And here you're gonna wipe me
out. What is this? This is the voice of unbelief. This is the voice of unbelief.
How often are we tempted when things are bad for us to think,
I don't deserve this, I don't get it. If God really loves me,
if I'm really the Lord's, why are these things happening to
me? And we begin to accuse God, whether we mean to or not. She
couldn't help herself. What God does is through trial,
he brushes away and exposes what's underneath, which is this bitter
root of unbelief. And he has to refine our faith
through this. So she's naturally looking at this. Under the severe
trials, unbelief accuses God. of mocking us, of having an evil
purpose for us in all of His blessings. But she had begun
to depend on the things that she saw, so that the meal and
the oil to her, being blessings from God, are what began to give
her this confidence. And she needed, like we do, we
look at our evidences or we look at our blessings in life, the
ease that we have. You lay down in bed at night,
nice bed, nice home. No one's breaking in, destroying
you. You think, see, God has taken care of me. Everything
is good. But when things are taken away, God must be my enemy
now, like Job or like Jeremiah, like this woman. Trouble comes
to God's people, but notice this. All that God brings into the
life of His people is for their good. He says in Revelation 3.19,
Whom the Lord loveth, He rebukes and chastens. In Hebrews 12.6,
the same thing. Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth. God brings trouble that results
in an increase and a refining of faith in the lives of those
he loves. Trouble is not the evidence of
God's hatred or God's punishment. It's the evidence of his relation
to us as a father in wisdom who is refining us to bring us to
see that Christ is our all. So this is all she can think.
She can't see any farther than this. And it says in Hebrews
chapter 12 the same thing, he says, now no chastening for the
present seems to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward,
it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Because when
God deals with us in trouble, at the time, we can't help it. We can't control our doubts and
fears and this sense of gloom like Job. He grabs me by the
neck and he shakes me and throws me down. He lifts me up in order
that he might throw me down to destroy me. And that's the sense
of it. Hebrews, Psalm chapter 38, where
we were studying on Thursday night. God is, don't rebuke me
in your wrath, your arrows stick fast in me. That's the experience
that we go through, that's trouble. And it's a trouble, we feel it,
don't we? It's like that spanking you got
when you were a little kid. It hurts. Dad, stop. We're not
going to stop until your attitude changes. And that's what happens
here. The Lord changes us through this
trouble. He directs us to Christ. So,
she has this unbelief that rises up in her. He's going to show
that in her heart she had this doubt. These troubles serve to
humble us so that we might be fully persuaded that God is faithful
in his mercy and grace. And the trouble itself is a mercy
from God, a grace from God. Now in verse 19, after she said
this in her complaint, what did Elijah say? He said to her, give
me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom
and carried him up into a loft where he abode and laid him upon
his own bed. Now notice, who is acting here?
Not the woman. Elijah, the prophet. And a prophet
speaks God's word. A prophet's life is the evidence
of God's message. If you want to know what God's
saying, listen to what the prophet says and look at his life. What
is God saying? What God is saying is what Elijah
is doing here. What does he do? He takes this
woman's dead son from her. He takes him from her. And he
says, give me thy son. Now, who is this son to understand
this in a spiritual way? Well, the woman is who God is
dealing with here. The woman is all of God's people.
The way he deals with his people is the way he deals with her.
He gives her faith and then he refines it through the mixture
of trouble and the word of God applied by his spirit through
his prophet. But this trouble that God deals
with here, he's showing us that the woman's life was bound up
in the life of her son. When her son died, she as much
as lost all hope. You know, when someone is alive
and yet they're sick or dying, there's always that expectation
that they might get better or that you'll see them again. But
after they die, there's nothing left to do but mourn. So she's
mourning the loss of her son, as if she herself died in her
son's death. She had nothing else. She was
a widow. Now her son's gone. And so the prophet comes, give
me your son. The prophet takes her son, he's
dead, out of her bosom. He takes her dead son from her
arms, and he carries the son up into his own loft in the house
where he stayed. And he laid him in his own bed. And then in verse 20, he cried
to the Lord and said, O Lord my God, hast thou also brought
evil upon the widow with whom I sojourned by slaying her son? And then he stretched himself
upon the child three times. And he cried to the Lord and
he said, O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come
into him again. And the Lord heard the voice
of Elijah and the soul of the child came into him again and
he revived. What's happening here? You see,
when God sends his word to us in the middle of affliction,
represented here by Elijah, what happens? Well, all of our hope
is gone. It seems like our life is dead. We've died, and there's no hope. It's all darkness. It's as if
God is against us. But the prophet speaks the word
of God. What does he do? He takes that
of us that has died. He takes it into his own arms,
into his own place, and he lays it on his own bed and stretches
himself out upon the child. In other words, the prophet is
teaching us in doing this that God has made Christ to us all
things. He joined himself to us so that
all that he did, we did in him. He comes, He takes our dead body,
as it were, He takes all of our hopelessness and helplessness
and sinfulness to Himself, joins to us, He takes it on Himself,
stretches Himself out, and then He advocates for us, makes intercession
for us, and pleads to God His will for us. He takes what we
have lost in our unbelief, it seems a loss of all of the sense
of God's favor and blessings and life, and he brings that
up into his own loft. He lifts our eyes to where Christ
died, was buried, and rose again, ascended, and is now seated at
the right hand of God, so that he lifts our eyes to Christ on
his throne at the right hand of God. And all that was death
in us now is renewed to life. And she does nothing in this. Elijah does it all. So that even
not only his advocacy, his prayer, his intercession, but it was
Elijah's faith that took the dead son and brought him into
God through this prayer and intercession. So what is she left with? She
started accusing God, helpless and hopeless. Her son died. It was as if she herself had
died in this trouble. And the Lord renews her by lifting
her eyes again to see in the Lord Jesus Christ, you died,
you were buried, you rose, you ascended, and now you're seated
at the right hand of God. He is your life. You live. God's gospel comes to you, and
the Spirit of God, Jesus said, the words that I speak to you,
they are spirit, they are life. So that in our trouble, every
trouble in the life of a believer is designed for this purpose,
to refine our faith, increase it, grow it, mature it. through
the chastening of God's hand and the application of his word
in the gospel as represented here by Elijah, going through
what God did in Christ. Amazing grace, isn't it? Just
like Elijah prayed that the rain would be withheld three and a
half years, and then upon the sacrifice being accepted by God,
God turning the hearts of the people, then the rain fell. So
here, the woman is sustained, Trouble comes into her life.
All hope is lost. The gospel is preached to her
by Elijah in all that he does here with her dead son. And then
what? Well, notice what happens. The
Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and verse 22, the soul of the
child came into him again, and he revived. Elijah took the child,
brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered
him to his mother. And Elijah said, see, thy son
liveth. This is the proclamation. He
was delivered for our offenses. He was raised for our justification. What does that mean? It means
that God justifies us because of what Christ did, period. He justifies us because of what
Christ did and because He made Christ this for us, He made us
the righteousness of God in Him. We did it. God attributes it
to us because we did it in him. And then he gives us life by
his spirit and faith to see that it's true. And we become persuaded. Notice he goes on here. See,
your son liveth. And the woman said to Elijah,
now by this I know I have the full assurance that thou art
a man of God. And that the word of the Lord
in thy mouth is truth. This is what we come to the persuasion
of. The gospel is the truth. Christ spoke it. Christ fulfilled
it. And all of my hope is that what
Christ did, I did, by God's doing, I did it in him. In Hebrews chapter
10, I want to read this to you. In Hebrews chapter 10, it says, He says in verse Verse five, when he cometh into
the world, the Lord Jesus, he said, sacrifice an offering thou
wouldest not, but a body has thou prepared me. In burnt offerings
and sacrifices for sin, thou hast had no pleasure. Nothing
offered in the Old Testament sacrifices pleased God. Only
Christ sacrificed, offering himself to God in our place, to God for
our sins did. Then, verse seven, then said
I, lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of
me, to do thy will, O God. And that's what the prophet speaks
of. Above, when he said, sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings
and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein,
which are offered by the law, then said he, lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. O God, he taketh away the first,
that Old Testament covenant, that he may establish the second,
the gospel, the eternal covenant in the blood of the Lord Jesus,
by the witch will, God's will, we are sanctified, made holy,
how? Through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once. Now does that give you some peace?
Does that give you some assurance? Was it you there only in my Savior? I didn't participate, it wasn't
my faith, it wasn't my prayers. Notice, and every priest, in
the Levitical sacrifices, every priest standeth. He doesn't sit,
he standeth daily, not once, but daily, ministering and offering,
oftentimes, the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever
sat down on the right hand of God. This is what Elijah did.
He told her, in taking her dead son, that your life is hid with
Christ in God. from henceforth expecting till
his enemies be made his footstool for by one offering of himself
to God, he has perfected forever. perfected forever, than that
are sanctified. Whereof, notice, the Holy Ghost
also is a witness to us, for after that he had said before,
this is the covenant that I will make with him after those days,
saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts and their
minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will
I remember no more. She said, are you come here to
bring my sins to remembrance and kill my son? No. God has
remembered our sins no more. If God doesn't remember, it's
because there's nothing to be remembered. He searched, but
there was nothing. Christ put him away. Now, where
remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by
the blood of Jesus, not by mine work plus his work, but by his
work alone, By a new and living way, which he has consecrated
for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, and having
the high priest over the house of God. Notice, let us draw near
with a true heart in full assurance of faith. There you have it. She says, now I know, I'm assured,
I'm fully persuaded. The word of the Lord is in your
mouth. You are a man of God. Why? Because he preached Christ
crucified to her. And God applied it to her heart.
And God lifted her up and gave her life again in her Savior. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your gospel, for your Son, for this life that you've given
to us by your Spirit, making Christ and him crucified our
all. We have no other hope. We cannot come to you but by
him. He is the way. And no man can come to the Father
but by Him, so that our acceptance before you must be what He did,
and only what He did. And because it is only what He
did, therefore we have full acceptance, and we have this full assurance
of faith. Now we know because you said
so, and you demonstrated it when you raised Him from the dead,
and set Him at your own right hand, and preached Him to us
in the gospel by your messengers, and gave us faith in him by your
spirit. What a grace. We pray, Lord, that you would
renew this life that you have given to us, that you would keep
us by the power of God, though now, if needs be, we do experience
trouble and tribulation. Help us not to fall without faith. Uphold our faith, as you prayed
for Peter. And as we saw in Job, you kept him too. And all of
your people, you keep in faith. Help us to look forever to the
Lord Jesus Christ and to look nowhere else. And help us to
glorify God from the bottoms of our heart, for he is worthy. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right. Brother Phil, you
want to come back up and lead us in our last hymn, please? All right, if you'll stand with
me, we'll sing one more.