My pastor Henry said to me one
evening before going out into the pulpit, he wanted me to read,
he said, it's hard to rise twice in the same day. And he was about the same age
I am now when he said that to me. So I'm at the point now where
I understand what he was saying to me. But we know that the Holy
Spirit makes us sufficient ministers of the Gospel. There is no time
in a preacher's life where he becomes sufficient. He's learned,
he's aged, he's experienced. Without the Holy Spirit, we will
fall on our face. Nothing will come of it. You
and I will have wasted time But we depend on Him. Now, this portion
of Scripture here in Jeremiah 31, I don't think I've ever preached
from it. I looked for old notes and I
couldn't find them. I looked on the Internet to see
if I had a message up on the Internet and I couldn't find
it. I thought, I've never preached from it. But this has been on
my mind for weeks. Weeks. And for the most part,
the Word of God here in verse 31 is my outline. That's something
else I've learned as time has gone by, is the Word of God makes
the best outline that you can have. And that's what I did. I actually just copied, my outline
here is basically a copy of the Scriptures. See, I can make them
larger, and that way it's easier for me to see them. But the Scripture
The Scriptures are my outline. And there were so many places
here that I could have taken a title from. The everlasting
love. I've loved you with an everlasting
love. Everlasting love and its results. In verse 17, there's
hope in thine end. And then another verse, in verse
8, a great company. A great company shall return.
You know, heaven is called, it's referred to in the scriptures
a lot of times as a country. Hell is referred to as a place.
Often it's referred to as a place. But heaven is referred to as
a country, a city. Don't think of just going to
be sporadic, you know, Empty seats in there. It's going to
be a number that says no man can number. You know, God is
God. God is great. We ought to expect
great things. You know, one of the saddest
things on our part is how little we expect of God. It shouldn't surprise us when
a sinner is saved. This shouldn't surprise us. You
know, in the next chapter, well, in Acts chapter 3, you remember
that lame man sitting at the gate, and he's healed, and he
goes into the temple, and the people marvel, and Peter says,
why do you marvel? Why do you marvel at this? Nothing's
impossible with God. There's not one hard nut in here
for God to crack. Not one. You know, listen, salvation
is never, it's never, and not only salvation, but the trials
we are going through, it's never a matter of the power of God,
but the will of God. It's a matter of God's will.
And salvation, and in my trials, the duration of it, the intensity
of it, it's not a matter of His power, it's a matter of His will. Let's look at this, and then
I'll just go as far as I feel like I have liberty. Now, first
of all, he speaks here, and it's a continuation of what he's saying
in chapter 30, but he speaks here of Israel. Now, there is a historical fact
here and lesson. Israel is going to go into captivity,
into Babylon. And he's telling them here they're
going to be restored. They're going to come back to
Jerusalem. They're going to be restored. The temple's going
to be rebuilt. This is going to be so. But this is not the
Israel that he's really speaking of. We're not here for a history
lesson on Israel over there in the Middle East. This is the
true Israel of God. This belongs to me and you. This
belongs to us. Look over in Romans chapter 2
and Philippians 3, then we'll come back to this. In Romans chapter 2, look in verse 28 and 29. Paul says, for he is not a Jew,
which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision, which is
outward in the flesh. He is a Jew, an Israelite, that's
what he's talking about, which is one inwardly, and circumcision
is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter,
whose praise is not of men, not in our ancestry, but of God. Now listen, over here in Philippians
chapter 3, Philippians 3, Paul says this
in verse 3. For we are the circumcision. We are the true Israel of God. We are the true Jews. We are
the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice
in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. We do not look
back to Abraham. We look to Jesus Christ. Now, that's the true Israel.
Now, in light of that, let's receive these blessings of, Brother,
we have a good future. I'm preaching to the church this
morning. We have a good end. You remember that verse there
in verse 17, how it ended? Listen. And there is hope in
thine end. You and I need to quit looking. of what's going on out in the
world. And you and I need to look into
the Word of God and we need to see what's coming. We need to
see that our future is in heaven and that our God Our God is ruling
and reigning over all things. Our God, right now, is making
everything work together for our good, conforming us to the
image of Jesus Christ. And in a little while, this is
all going to be over in a little while. Do you believe that? I believe that. I believe that. My hope, my interest, my investment
is in heaven, my treasure. My treasure is in heaven. It's
not on this earth. The kingdom I serve is heavenly. It's a heavenly kingdom. Thy
kingdom come. That's the kingdom I pray for. Now I do pray for
all sorts of men, kings and leaders. I pray for them that you and
I might lead a peaceful life. We might be able to gather like
this. But I pray for the prosperity of God's kingdom. I don't pray for the prosperity
of man's Man, he's in darkness, not the kingdom of men, it's
in the kingdom of darkness and always will be. It always will
be. But the kingdom I'm interested
in, the kingdom my heart set on, the kingdom I live in, is
the kingdom of God first. Now he says here, at the same
time, and you'll notice this all throughout this chapter,
it'll say, thus saith the Lord, or saith the Lord. That means
you can take him at his word. That's what that means. Thus
saith the Lord. That's all I need. But I don't
need that either. I just need thus saith the Lord.
I don't need anything. If thus saith the Lord, that's
it. That's it. At the same time, saith the Lord,
will I be the God of all the families of Israel? Not all the
families of the earth. The families that God has in
elect people. That's what he's saying. At this
time, Israel was divided. You had the ten northern kingdoms
and the other two kingdoms, the southern kingdoms, they were
divided. In Christ, we are not divided. In Christ, we are one. And he said, when I bring Israel
together, it's going to be one family. There's going to be no
division in the family. It's going to be one in Jesus
Christ. You read his High Priestly Prayer
in John 17. A whole lot of that prayer is
about our oneness. Our oneness with God and our
oneness with one another. That's a real identifying mark
of God's children. They are one. They are one in
God's glory. They are one in aim. They are
one in focus. They're one. And he says here,
Will I be the God of all the families of the earth? And they
shall be. I like that. There ain't no maybes
with God. We don't have a maybe God. They
shall be. This is certain. You count on
it. They shall be my people. I have
a people. I have an elect people on this
earth. And one day they're all going
to be on the new earth. And they're my people. I chose every one
of them. God chose every person that's
going to be in heaven. You know that? If He hadn't,
nobody would be there. Just like the elect angels. You
know, it's amazing nobody gets upset over the elect angels.
And then you have the fallen angels. God did not provide them
a Savior. The fallen angels had no Savior.
Nobody gets mad at that. You know what people get mad
at? When we speak of election, and
we make God sovereign over your house, and over whom He saves
in your house. A man said to me one time, I
was speaking to him about election. He said, you mean God might not
save my children? I said, that's right. He said,
no, that's not for me. I'm like, you think your children
are going to accept Him? You think your children are going
to choose Him? left to himself, nobody will have anything to
do with him. He's despised and rejected of men, even of your
children and my children. I thank God Almighty for election. Thank God He chose me because
I wouldn't have anything to do with Him. He's light, I'm darkness. He's holy, I'm sin. That's amazing. That's amazing
grace. Thus saith the Lord, Thus saith
the Lord. We have it on God's authority.
The people which were left of the sword, and he's speaking
there in Egypt, the people who were left of the sword, they
didn't die at the hand of Pharaoh, found grace in the wilderness. You know, I had a friend that
died at 19 years of age, drunk, ungodly, had nothing to do with
God whatsoever. And here I am, 65 years old,
I found grace in the wilderness. In the wilderness of this world,
and that's what this world is, it is a barren, barren wilderness. Before I heard and understood
and believed the gospel, before God saved me, when I was young,
the world was a playground. There was a lot of toys out there. A lot of sparkly things. But
how do you see it now? How do I see it now? It's a wilderness.
It has nothing for me. And many, I'm looking at right
here, have found grace in the wilderness. God spared you from
the sword of justice. And you found grace in the wilderness.
And listen, even Israel, he's not talking about everybody.
You notice how he identifies? Israel, he said, I'm talking
about Israel. There's a lot of people out here in the world
that are religious. They haven't found grace. They've not found
rest. But you have. You have. You found grace in the wilderness,
even Israel, the Israel of God. When I went to cause Him to rest,
when I delivered Him from His slavery, when I delivered Him
from His servitude, when I delivered Him from the curse of the law,
when I did that, when did He do that? When He went to the
cross. God Almighty in human flesh came into this world and
God Almighty went to the cross as a man. And He did that, you
know why? To cause us to rest. To rest
from our labors. There's a rest that remains for
the people of God. And that rest is Jesus Christ
Himself. He is my rest. He's my Sabbath. And God says here, I went to
cause Him to rest. You know what one of the hardest
things under the sun is? It's to rest. We are the most
restless people on earth. In this country especially. We're
the most restless people on earth. You know, we are so restless,
the scripture says we have to labor to rest. What a paradox. We literally have to labor to
rest. We have to labor to shut up and
sit down and rest and quit reaching for this or reaching for that.
We still have it in us. That old nature is still there.
We've got the labor to rest. Thank God for hours like this,
when we can open the Word of God and learn to rest again. I went, he said, to cause them
to rest. The Lord hath appeared to me
of old. This is the church speaking. You know, God has made Himself
known to His church since the beginning. He made Himself known
to Abel. He made himself known to Abraham.
Abraham saw my day and was glad. He made himself known to David. David said, I saw the Lord always
before me. He was always before me. David
spoke of Christ. David knew that. He has appeared
of old unto me. God, listen, to know God, he
must reveal himself. Who by searching can find out
God? No one. God's too immense. God's too great. He's too glorious. He's got to reveal Himself. We
search for Him. Yes. Seek me. Seek me and you'll
find me. But I tell you what, if you find
Him, He's got to be standing there in front of you and make
Himself known to you. Or you'll walk right past Him. Job said
once, he went by me and I perceived him not. How many, how many sitting even
under the gospel this morning? Christ said, where two or three
are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst. How
many will be there that don't even know it, won't even know
it? That's sad. That's scary. That
the Lord can be here and not know it. We don't know it. Some will not know it. Thank God some are going to know
it. Oh, thank God for that. But he said, I appeared of old
unto me, saying, and here's what he said, I have loved thee with
an everlasting love. Now, we're in deep water. I'm a top swimmer. I've never
been able to dive very deep. I have loved you with an everlasting
love. There's never a time that I didn't
love you. And there's never a time that
I will not love you. God's love to his people never
diminishes one iota, whatever an iota is. I heard that growing
up. But it does not diminish one
iota. Now our love, our love is up
and down, isn't it? Would a mother forget her sucking
child? The Lord said in Isaiah, you
know what He said? Yes, but I'll not forget you. His love can't
diminish and be God. Someone said, you know, Jacob
have I loved, Esau have I hated. Someone made the statement he
loved Esau less. God can't do anything less and
be God. Everything God does has to be perfect. He can't love less and be God. And this is mind-boggling to
me. For God to be God, there can't
be a time He didn't love me. If He loves me, there can't be
a time He didn't love me. I said, we're in deep water here.
What a mystery. What a mystery. The things that
you and I are going to understand when we have the mind of Christ
and we lay this sinful body down. We barely scratch the surface.
Paul said, I preach in part, I know in part. And I mean little
part. But to understand someday that
God has always loved me. He knows all about me and still
loves me. You know how many people would
not be married if they knew everything about each other? I'm glad we
don't. I don't want to know everything
about my wife and I think she probably hasn't done anything.
And I don't want her to know everything about me because I
can't say that. I'm a sinful man. She's a sinful
woman. You're sinful men. You're sinful
women. I mean sinful. We are sinful. And our God knows everything
about us, every sinful thought, and loves us anyway. Loves us
anyway. Love is the nature of God, and
it must be expressed. It must be expressed. God's love
is perfect, and it must be expressed. He expressed it on the angels.
He kept a multitude of them from falling, didn't he? He tells us, don't love in word
only, but in deed and in truth. Perfect love must be expressed. It says over in 1 John that He
first loved us. He first loved us and He first
loved us with an everlasting, undying, undiminishing love. And those whom He loved, He has
always loved. And the evidence of His love
is this. I have loved you. I have loved thee with an everlasting
love. Therefore, because of this, I have drawn thee. I have wooed
thee. I have pulled you to me with
cords of love. I have lassoed you with a rope
of love and I'm pulling you to me. And you think those convictions
of sin is terrible. You think God is against you,
don't you? If you have real conviction of
sin, you think God's against you, you think God's going to
kill you, and you don't realize He's pulling you with cords of
love. You don't realize that chastening is a cord of love. That's what it is. The chastening
rod of God is a cord of love. He takes from you like He did
Job. He took his ten children. He took everything he had. He
took his health. Would you call that cords of
love? Would you call that cords of love? I bet you Job does now. You know,
in Job, Job said in one place, he said, I'm full of confusion. He's not now. You know, there's
been times I'm full of confusion. But there'll be a time coming
I won't be no more. And I'll understand that all
all my life, even back into eternity, before I came into this world,
that God was... He devised that covenant of grace
around His love. He devised everything, my whole
life, around His love for me. You know, we think expression
of love is giving gifts, toys, and you know, just loading them
up with that. God's expression of love is not
just giving, but it's also taking. It's also taking. When you and I have hard thoughts
of God, when He's taking something that hurts so bad, you know,
and that old nature rises up in us, it's there. Remember this, it's a cord of
love He's drawing you with, and that cord never gets shortened,
and it never gets thin. It's lassoed around, it's tied
around you. It's like that red string out of Rahab's window. It's the blood. He's drawn us
with that cord of love. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore with loving kindness. God didn't save me because he
had to. It's like I've got to save him. I'm obligated to save
him. I made him so I'm going to. No. No, God's sovereign. We're obligated to Him. He's
the sovereign. I'm not. He's the potter. I'm
the clay. It's with loving kindness, loving
kindness, have I drawn thee to myself. It doesn't get any better than
that. Over in Romans 8, it says, Who could separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus? Nothing. I mean, He names all these things. Nothing can separate us from
the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. And He's always loved
us in Christ Jesus. You say, but I don't understand.
We can't comprehend most of what we believe, but we can believe
it because God said it. Thus saith the Lord. I don't believe everything because
I understand it. I believe it because God said it. God said
it. Christ said to His disciples,
He said to the disciples, you don't understand what I'm saying
now, but you will. You will. And I've learned in
reading the Word of God. I look at things and I thought,
I don't understand that. But you know what? Maybe 20 years
from now I will. Maybe 20 years from now and a
few heartaches have gone by and life experienced and He's led
me down that road that He has scripted for me. I'll understand. I'll understand. I've drawn thee, and with loving
kindness have I drawn thee, by His Spirit, by His Word, by His
preaching, by providence, God has drawn you. And every bit
of it has been in love. We can't comprehend and begin
to scratch the surface of the love of God in Christ Jesus to
us. But now listen to this, and because
of this, listen, again I will build thee and thou shalt be
built. You know, when they went into
captivity to Babylon, they lost everything. When Adam fell, we
lost everything. But he says, I'm going to build
you again. I'm going to build you. Listen, I will build thee.
You know what's going on right now? You and I are being built. being built as a habitation of
God. We are called a building. We
are a building of God. God is building us. He's bringing
us together. His whole church, His whole Israel,
and God's going to dwell in us. He said, I'll be their God and
they will be my people and I'll dwell with them. I'll build you again. They were
crumbled The Babylonians took them over. Sin has taken us over. Satan has taken us over. But he says, and this is a promise,
I'm going to build you again, I'm going to make you like my
son, and I'm going to dwell in you, and you're going to be my
people. There's not any better noose than that. And listen,
listen to this. Again, I will build thee, and
thou shalt be built, and thou shalt be built. Say it like,
thou shalt be. Be built. O Virgin of Israel. Now you and I know how sinful
we are. We know something about it. We don't know how sinful
we are. We know something about how sinful we are. We know that. We know we are sinful. We know
we sin daily. We know that. But you know how
God sees us? Without sin. Israel is in Babylonian
captivity because of their sin and their sinfulness. But God
speaks of Israel here as a virgin, untouched, spotless. This is exactly how we are in
Jesus Christ. Right now. And this is how God
sees us. As Don Fortner said one time,
the way God sees us is exactly the way it is. That's the way
it is. O Virgin of Israel, thou shalt
again be adorned. Listen, adorned in the righteousness
of Jesus Christ. That's whose righteousness we
are adorned in. with thy tablets, and shall go forth in the dance
of them that make Mary, mourning turned into joy, dance." David danced before the Lord
one time. Have you ever felt like doing that? I can tell you
in spirit I have danced before the Lord. I have sat under such
great preaching over the years that I have sat in the pew and
danced before the Lord. My heart was just leaping like
Elizabeth when Mary walked in the room and John the Baptist
leaped in her womb. Have you done that sitting there?
It just leaped within you. You just wanted to dance. Old
David's wife said, oh, you just made a fool out of yourself.
You bare yourself to these women. She got real angry about it.
And David said, I'm going to be even more foolish. If you
don't like dancing, that's your problem. I'm going to dance before the
Lord. There's a holy dance before the Lord. And thou shalt yet plant vines
upon the mountains of Samaria. He's speaking here... See, this
is what they did before they were taken into captivity. They'd
plant vines. And the planter shall plant and they will eat
them as common things. This was the law. They would
plant these vines, grape vines, they would plant fruit, fruit
trees, but they would not eat of them for the first three years.
The fourth year, it was dedicated to the Lord. It wasn't until
the fifth year that they could eat the fruit as common things. But here he's saying, your planters
are going to plant and it's going to be fruitful. And when the
fruit comes up, you can go ahead and eat of it. You can eat of it. He says here
it has common things. I thought of this this morning,
and I think I can make some application to this. I thought of the fruit
of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, kindness, long-suffering. That ought to be common things
among us. That shouldn't be rare things.
The fruit of the Spirit ought to be common things. And the
fruit of the Spirit, you know, love, joy, peace, kindness, it's
not just for me, it's for you. You eat of my kindness, I eat
of your kindness. I eat of your love and you eat
of my love. We feast on it. Because it's the fruit of the
Spirit. But you're going to eat it, but it's common things. I
never hit me until this morning not thinking about that. And
I thought about it. I thought the fruit of the Spirit
shouldn't be things that are just rare. Should it be rare? It should
be common. Kindness ought to be common among
us. We ought to be known for kindness. We ought to be known
for longsuffering. And you shall eat them. You will. You shall. I love that. You shall.
For there shall be. Here's another. There shall be
a day. We're in it. It's called Gospel
Day. There shall be a day, the Gospel Day, that the watchman
upon the Mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye. Arise ye and let
us go up to Zion unto the Lord our God. God's going to give
pastors and teachers that will lead in worship, and the watchmen
are going to say to the people, let's worship the Lord this morning. That's what I'm here for. I'm not here because Paul's somewhere
else. Paul's in Montana preaching because
God's given him a message at this hour for that people. And
God has me here because He's given me a message for this hour
for you. We're not just musical chairs. There's a purpose in
all this. And the watchman is me this morning,
and I'm saying to you, let's worship the Lord. Let's sing
unto the Lord. Because he says here in the next
verse, for thus saith the Lord, sing with gladness, sing with
gladness. John said to me this morning,
I was glad when they said, let us go to the house of the Lord.
I said, that's a great verse to start with. You glad to be
here this morning? Let me throw this out. This will
change your singing forever. Let's not ever sing about the
Lord no more. Let's sing to Him. It'll change
your attitude. We're not here to sing about
the Lord. We're here to sing to Him. We sing unto the Lord. We sing unto Him who is in our
presence, and we are in His presence. If you sing unto Him, you're
just going to pick a book up and sing some words, and your
heart being neutral. You get in a car, you put it
in neutral, I don't care how good that engine is, you're not going
anywhere. And the same thing with worship. If your heart's
in neutral, if it's not engaged and you're not singing to the
Lord, worship's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. We sing unto the Lord, we praise
Him with that heavenly host that's doing so right now. We are joining
in with them this morning. We have a privilege right now
at this hour to join with the heavenly host, worshiping the
God of heaven and earth. It doesn't get any better until
we die. Then we're there without sin.
Thus saith the Lord, sing with gladness for Jacob, for God has
redeemed him. God saved him. There's a bunch
of Jacobs in here this morning. There's a bunch of crafty deceivers
in here this morning, whom God has saved. A bunch of Jacobs. And they said, Jacob have I loved. Let me be Jacob. Lord God, let
me be Jacob. A shout among the chief of the
nations, publishing Praise you. Make the Lord's majesty known. Make His power and character
known. And say, O Lord, save Thy people.
You know, we're not just praying that the Lord just save anybody. Lord, save Thy people. Save Thy
sheep. Bring Your sheep in that's in
this community. Who are they? They're sinners. Sinners. Christ died for sinners. He died
for the ungodly. If most people who call themselves
Christians understood what that really means, what it is to be
a sinner, they would say, I ain't going to go quite that far. But
to be a, as John Bunyan called it, a Jerusalem sinner, a dyed-in-the-wool,
ungodly, worthless wretch. Paul said, Oh, wretched man that
I am. He didn't say that until God saved him. He didn't live
like a wretch anymore, but he knew he was one. Behold, he said, I bring him.
I bring him. I will bring him. Who brought
all those animals to the ark? Did you think Noah went out with
a whip and just walked all through the the earth, you think he walked
over the globe with this earth? Think about it, you know, probably
years before, years before the flood came, and this was my thought,
I hope it's the Lord, but animals start migrating toward the earth, on the other side of the earth.
Noah's not on the other side of the earth, but I'll tell you
who is. God is. It's God's earth. And these animals,
for what you and I would look at and say for no obvious reasons,
are migrating and they're migrating toward the ark. That's exactly
what's going on. God's sheep are migrating toward
the ark. All those different animals that
God saved. You know God saved the animal
world? He didn't save every animal in the world, but He did save
the animal world. God's going to save the world,
but He's not going to save everyone in it. He's not going to save
everyone in the world. Our Lord said, I pray not for
the world. I pray for them that was given me. They are thine. They've always been yours. I'm way over my head this morning.
Way over my head. Behold, I'll bring them from
the north country and gather them from the coast of the earth.
Because you know why? God knoweth them that are His.
I don't. If I went to another country, if I went to the north
country, I wouldn't know who to look for. God does. He knoweth His sheep by name. He knows them by name. And with them... Listen here.
This is good news. I'm going to gather them from
the coast of the earth with them, the blind and the lame, spiritually
blind and spiritually lame, and a woman with child and her that
travails with child together. Great company is going to return. There's going to be no excuses.
They're going to come. They're going to come. The lady
who's close to having a child, she's coming. Pain? Pain? What's a little bit of pain for
an eternity of peace and rest? He's going to bring them. He's
going to bring the blind, the lame, and those who travail.
They're going to come with repentance. And they shall come weeping with...
Listen. They shall come with weeping
and with supplications. Listen, will I lead them? This
is how I'm going to bring them. I'm going to bring them weeping
and praying. Weeping and seeking. Weeping
and calling upon the Lord. That's how I'm going to bring
them. They're not going to come down an aisle and grin and laugh. It's not
a Billy Graham concert. This is God saving sinners. And
this is how they're coming. All the way home. Weeping and
praying. Now, listen. Let me find out where I was at.
I need to move through this. I'm going to go ahead. I'm not
going to get to where I thought I'd get to. They'll come weeping,
and with supplications I'll lead them. I'll cause them to walk
by the rivers of waters in a straight way. I'll make the gospel plain
to them. You understand the gospel, don't
you? I am not confused over the gospel. I'm confused over a lot
of things. Sometimes I confuse what day
it is. But I'm not confused on how God saves sinners. I know
that. wherein they shall not stumble.
You will not stumble in the gospel. I am a father to Israel. Ephraim
is my firstborn. Hear the word of the Lord, O
nations, and declare it to the isles afar off, and say, He that
scattered Israel will gather him. God scattered Israel. You
know, when God scattered the nations of the earth, He scattered
them according to the tribes of Israel. He said, I scattered
Israel. I know where Israel is. You say,
well, it's over there in the Middle East. Well, you'd be wrong. If that's all you think, I don't
know what God's going to do with that little country over there
right now. That's His business. But I know
that God knows where Israel is because He scattered it. He scattered
them all over the earth. He has the people out of every
tribe, kindred, nation, tongue under heaven. We are a purchased people. Therefore they shall come and
sing in the height of Zion. We'll sing in that new heaven
and new earth. We'll sing. Boy, will that be singing. Will
that be singing. Now listen to this. This sounds
so beautiful. And they will flow together. And they're going to
say, well, I don't know about that. And another one, I don't
know about that. No, they're going to flow together. Harmony. Unity. Oneness. They will flow
together to the goodness of the Lord. The Lord is good, isn't
He? And we're going to flow to His
goodness. For wheat, and for wine, for oil, and the young
of the flock, and the herd, and their soul shall be as a watered
garden. That's what your soul is this morning. It's a watered
garden. The Lord is watering you this
morning. You know that? You don't even realize it. Showers
of blessing falling all over us. And sometimes it's hard to pay
attention, isn't it? It is. The Spirit's willing,
but the flesh is weak. But the Lord is watering His
garden. Every time Vicki goes away to Asheville and spends
a few weeks, she says, water my flowers. And she comes back
and they're usually dead. Because I forget to water them. He never forgets to water His
garden. He comes into His garden often. He comes into His garden
here every week and He waters it. You're not just listening
to Paul. If you are, you hear him every
week. But you hear the Lord. The Lord speaking through his
man. He's watering his garden. And they shall not sorrow any
more at all. I'll wipe away all tears and
all sorrow. Notice how he speaks of her now. He speaks of her as a virgin.
No sin. She'll rejoice in the dance,
the young and the old men together, eternal youth. He will make them
rejoice from their sorrow, rejoicing in Christ. And I will satiate
the soul of the priest with fatness. I'll fill the preacher with the
gospel and his study, and he'll come out and give it to you. I know I've got to stop here,
but this is not usually me. I hope
it's not me. But thus saith the Lord. Listen,
well, first of all, back in verse 14. I will satiate the soul of
the priest with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied
with my goodness. You're satisfied this morning.
Can you honestly say you're satisfied with Jesus Christ? You know,
I've learned that discontentment comes with being dissatisfied
with Christ, His lot that He's given me today, what He's brought
my way, where He's put me. If I'm dissatisfied with that,
I'm dissatisfied with Him. Oh, we're satisfied with the
goodness of the Lord, His goodness, saith the Lord. But thus saith
the Lord, listen, we're not always on the mountaintop, are we? We're not always happy. Not always. A voice was heard in Ramah. Lamentation,
bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children. We have our
trials and our heartaches. We're going to weep. We're going
to laugh. We're going to weep. We're going
to laugh. And we're going to do it until we go home. Remember this, everything you
go through, everything is part of the journey home. You just
mark it down. It was ordered for you today,
back in eternity. And there's hope, and I'm going
to quit here. And there's hope in the end, saith the Lord. Oh, there it is again. Now you can take him at his word.
There's hope. There's hope in the end. When
you and I, we grow older, we're getting, you know, and I'm getting
older. I'm old. Henry said one time, if you're
past 40, you're not young no more. I'm past 40. Paul turned 66 Friday, last Friday,
on the 1st. I turn 66 tomorrow. We're old. Now, we can get older. But if
I don't, I'm old. It don't matter. You can't get
what you got. But there's hope. I'm going to
die in hope. We get to die in hope. The Lord
has given us a sure hope, a solid hope, an eternal hope. There is hope in thine end. Those who die without Christ,
I can't comprehend dying with no hope. When He says depart,
there's no arguing. It's it. That's it. But I'm dying
with, listen, I'm not dying with a wish. I'm dying in hope. I'm dying in expectation that
thus saith the Lord is going to be exactly as He said. Paul said, I believe that God
is going to be just as God said when He hit that shipwreck in
Acts. He said, it's going to be just
as the Lord told me. You believe that? Well, then I'm going to
stop. I ain't going to ruin it.