Well, good evening. I have to say it is really a
blessing for me to be here, particularly in the circumstances that the
Lord has brought about in these past few months. Just to be able
to be here, just as a reflection on the Lord's goodness to us. And it's just been such a blessing
just to have the time here and have the fellowship that we've
had. It's just an encouragement to my heart. And I've said more
than once that I wish Robin could have been here. I know it really
would have been a blessing to her. But anyway, tonight I'd
like us to turn to Isaiah chapter 43. Isaiah chapter 43 and The reason I've chosen this passage
of Scripture is because it was a passage that the Lord particularly
used to teach me during this time in these last few months. To teach me, to encourage me,
to bless me, and Robin also. And I trust that some of what
the Lord is has blessed us with, I might be able to do the same
for you. If not now, but for time in the future. And so, look
there in Isaiah 43, and when I began to prepare this message,
which by God's grace will be a series
of messages tonight and tomorrow morning for two messages. When I first began to prepare
it, I titled it, When We Pass Through the Waters. I normally
don't title messages. I typically reference scripture. This, of course, is taken from
verse 2 of this chapter 43. But as I began to prepare it,
I realized that that suddenly undermined the focus that I wanted
to have. And the reason I say that is
it's not the circumstances of our lives or you and I that matter. It's only the Lord that matters.
And so what I chose to title this message with is what follows,
I will be with you, because that's all that matters. And it's something
that We all understand, we know, but how quickly we are in forgetting
that truth. The only person that matters
is the Lord. In times of difficulty, when
we pass through the waters, the only thing that matters is what
he says here, I will be with you. Every rich blessing and
promise flows from this source, this wonderful source, our Lord
and our Savior, Jesus Christ. In the Psalms, the psalmist cries,
I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence comes my help. My help comes from the Lord who
made heaven and earth." The Lord and all that he's accomplished
for his people is all that matters. And in this chapter here of Isaiah,
we see how powerfully and insistently the word of the Lord comes to
Isaiah and emphasizes this truth, that he's the only one that matters. Now, just consider, now as we
read through some of these verses, we're not going to cover this
whole chapter, but we're going to cover, Lord willing, portions
of it. So, just read with me, beginning
in verse 1, and notice the emphasis on who is the person highlighted? Who is the person acting? in everything that is being discussed.
Just consider that as we read through this, and then we'll
begin to look through it. But verse 1, But now, thus says
the Lord who created you, O Jacob, and who formed you, O Israel,
Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your
name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow
you. When you walk through the fire,
you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you. For
I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave Egypt for your ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba in your place. Since you were precious in my
sight, you have been honored, and I have loved you. Therefore,
I will give men for you and people for your life. Fear not, I am
with you. I will bring your descendants
from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to
the north, give them up, and to the south, do not keep them
back. Bring my sons from afar and my
daughters from the ends of the earth. everyone who is called
by my name, whom I have created for my glory, I have formed him,
yes, I have made him. Jump down now to verse 10. You
are my witnesses, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.
Before me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after me.
I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no Savior. I have
declared and saved, I have proclaimed, and there is no foreign God among
you. Therefore you are my witnesses,
says the Lord, that I am God. Indeed, before the day was, I
am He, and there is no one who can deliver out of my hand. I
work, and who will reverse it? Then verse 16. Thus says the
Lord, who makes a way in the sea, and a path through the mighty
waters, who brings forth the chariot and the horse, the army
and the power, they shall lie down together, they shall not
arise, they are extinguished, they are quenched like a wick.
Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing. Now it shall spring forth, shall
you not know it? I will even make a road in the
wilderness and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field
will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I give
waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give
drink to my people, my chosen. This people I have formed for
myself. They shall declare my praise."
Well, how could you miss it? I. This is God, the Holy One
of Israel speaking, and He says, I will do. I will be with you. I have redeemed you. I am the
Lord your God. I am your Savior. I have loved
you. I have formed you. I have chosen
you. I, even I, am the Lord. And one of the richest blessings
we have as the people of the Lord is the communion we have
with God. In times of deep distress, He brings us, by His grace, to
a place where everything in life recedes. when you'd pass through
the waters, He does that. He does that for you. All these
things that so dominate our lives, our thoughts, our cares, our
concerns, our joys even in this life, they all just recede away,
recede away. And the only thing that's before
your eyes is your Lord and your Savior. he makes his presence known to
us in these times. That's what he means when he
says, I will be with you. And his word becomes so rich
and so precious when he speaks to us. There's nothing that compares,
nothing. It seemed during this time that
wherever I opened the word, then the Lord spoke to me. It's something you wish could
always be. You truly do. He speaks to you, and He comforts
your heart, and He guides you in the way that you should go.
When we pass through the waters, the Lord is with us, and He speaks
to us by His Word. He does. We know that. He's our help, not anyone else. You know how it is, don't you?
When we're in trouble, we start looking for help. And if you're
like me, we generally start looking in all the wrong places. He's
our only help. When we pass through the waters,
when we don't pass through the waters, in all times, in all
places, in all circumstances, He alone is our help. He's the source of all help,
all true help to us. And how important it is for you
and I to understand that. Let me give you an illustration
of how the Lord speaks to us through His Word. Some, at least,
ten years ago, I would say. I preached a sermon from Psalm
42 to a church, and in that psalm, many of you no doubt know, in
that psalm we find a man who is in great spiritual distress. He's fearful, perplexed, in sorrow,
feeling as if the waves and billows have gone over his head. He feels that he's been forgotten
of God. And he cries out, Why art thou
cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within
me? Where is help to be found? Well, in that psalm, the Lord
leads him to the only help that matters. And he himself is given
the answer when he cries, Hope! in God, for I shall yet praise
him for the help of his countenance." And as I preached from that psalm,
I had no idea that there were three families in this church
who had lost a child in the preceding few years. Two in very, very
tragic circumstances. And, you know, Preaching from
that passage, Psalm 42, I have to say I knew little, little
about what it was really speaking about. I didn't know it at the
time, but I didn't. But the Lord greatly blessed
the word that was preached. Why? Because the Lord had a message
for His people. It was His Word and His message,
and He was speaking to their souls, binding up the brokenhearted,
comforting His people to give them, as Jeremiah says, beauty
for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise
for the spirit of heaviness. I was just the instrument through
whom God spoke to His people. And that's always the way it
is. That's always the way it is. As God speaks to His people. Who is the counselor of the people
of God? Think about that. You know, there
is so much today about Christian counseling. And people in all
of their great needs and all of their great distresses needing
counsel. Well, who is our counselor? Who
is our counselor? Isaiah 9 begins in this way. Listen. Nevertheless, the gloom
will not be upon her who is distressed. And why is that? What's the reason
given? For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given, and the
government will be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince
of Peace. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
Counselor, the Counselor of His people, and when we're in these
times Isaiah, the prophet, is speaking about when we pass through
the waters, He's the one that is with us and He's the one that
counsels us. He's the one that speaks to us
and gives us all the words, all the truth, all the comfort, all
the help we need as we pass through those waters. He's our help and
He's our hope. The Lord Jesus Christ will counsel
the souls of his beloved, and he'll speak to us as only he
can. It seems in these times of deep
distress that wherever you open his word, I know all of you have
experienced this, wherever you open his word, he speaks to you. His word just is so precious,
so pure, He makes you lie down in the green pastures of His
glorious Gospel. He leads you beside the still
waters of His mercy and His grace, and He restores your soul. He
does. And I pray as we consider the
words of the Prophet Isaiah that the Lord will speak to us tonight
and tomorrow, as only He can speak to us. Well, I've broken
up these messages. Let me just give you the points
that I hope to bring out. What I'd like us to see is one,
we will pass through the waters. It doesn't say if you pass through
the waters. It says, when you pass through
the waters. So that's the first point I want
us to consider. The Lord's people will pass through
the waters. Secondly, I want us to see the
promise we have when we pass through the waters, and that
is, I will be with you. When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you. What a promise. Thirdly, what's
the reason given for the promise? Look there in verse 3. For I
am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour. That's the reason. That's the
reason for the promise because He's our Saviour. Then fourthly,
the foundation for the promise. We have that in verse 1. He says,
But now, says the Lord who created you, O Jacob, and who formed
you, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed you. That's the
foundation of the promise. He's redeemed his people, this
glorious Savior. Then fifthly, well, how certain
is this promise? Well, it's as certain as the
one who makes it. And who is that? Well, he says
in verse 11, I, even I, am the Lord. The promise is certain. The fulfillment of the promise
is certain. So those are the five points in these next three
messages that I'd like to bring before you and trust that the
Lord would bless these things. So let's consider the first then. When we read, when you pass through
the waters, as I said, this is, in a sense, a promise of the
Lord to His people. We will pass through the waters,
but when we do pass through the waters, He'll be with us. We
know this from the Word of God. We know it from experience, that
we will pass through the waters, we'll pass through these fires
of this life, but the promise isn't that we'll be kept from
those. See, so many people believe this. They surely do. They believe,
well, if I give my life to the Lord, well, I won't I won't face
difficulty, I won't face trials, everything will be wonderful.
But how false a picture of the Christian life that is, isn't
that so? Here we're told, when you pass through the waters,
and we will, we will, the promise isn't that we'll be kept from
passing through the waters, the promise is that he'll be with
us when we do. Turn with me to Lamentations
chapter 3. Now if you're like me, Lamentations is probably not
a book that you've spent a lot of time in. But I did in these
last few months. And what a blessing. What rich
blessing is found in this book of tears, book of sorrows, book
of afflictions, as Jeremiah laments the state of the Lord's people,
the people Israel. We'll certainly in this life
face times of great discouragement. I know all of you have. All of
you have. And in a lot of ways, I'm sure,
you could come up and do a more effective job than I can of speaking
about the things that we find here in the Lord's Word. But Jeremiah faced a time like
this, a time of great sorrow and discouragement, and he lamented. We often find ourselves, as we're
passing through the waters, tossed by the waves of affliction, weighed
down with grief and pain, with the winds of life just blowing
contrary to everything that we do. And the storm just doesn't
seem to end, does it? It rages unabated the whole night. and we become exhausted with
anxiety and fear. Well, when this time comes, we
know something of the experience of Jeremiah when he cries here
in this passage, My strength and my hope have perished from
the Lord. Well, how How is it that Jeremiah was brought
to this place? Look in verse 20 of chapter 2 first,
just to get a sense of the terrible destruction that had been brought
upon Jerusalem and upon the people of Israel. In verse 20 of chapter
2, he says, See, O Lord, and consider, to whom have you done
this? Should the women eat their offspring? So great was the famine that
this was... We can't even comprehend it,
can we? The children they have cuddled. Should the priest and
the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? Young and old lie
on the ground in the streets. My virgin and my young men have
fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the days
of your anger. You have slaughtered and not
pitied. And Jeremiah, as it were, looks
around at this utter destruction, the affliction that had come
upon the people of Israel, and he cries out in chapter 3 in
deep anguish, and he says, I am a man who has seen affliction
by the rod of your wrath. He has led me and made me walk
in darkness and not light. Surely he has turned his hand
against me time and time again throughout the day. He has aged
my flesh and my skin and broken my bones. He has besieged me
and surrounded me with bitterness and woe. Look in verse 8. Even when I cry and shout, He
shuts out my prayer. He has blocked my ways with hewn
stone. He has made my paths crooked.
He has been to me a bear lying in wait, like a lion in ambush. He has turned aside my ways and
torn me in pieces. He has made me desolate. Down
to verse 15. He has filled me with bitterness. He has made me drink wormwood.
He has also broken my teeth with gravel and covered me with ashes. You have moved my soul far from
peace. I have forgotten prosperity and
I said, My strength and my hope have perished from the Lord."
Well, there will be times when we pass through the waters. And
when we do, there'll be times when we feel exactly like Jeremiah. Our souls are cast down. They're
disquieted within us. We feel like we're walking in
darkness. Our strength failing, surrounded
on all sides, with bitterness and woe. You know, within days of our
return from Papua New Guinea, we were told that the abscesses
in Claire's abdomen were life-threatening and would require that forced
surgery. And we poured out our souls like
water before the face of the Lord for the life of our daughter. And a few days later, Claire
developed double pneumonia. In grief and pain, we cried out
like that woman of Canaan, Lord, help our daughter, for she is
severely distressed. And a day later, we found out
that she had developed acute respiratory distress syndrome, and had suffered total respiratory
failure. It seemed then that she wouldn't
survive. Then I understood a little more
of what the psalmist in Psalm 42 says when he said, All your
waves and billows have gone over me. Yes, sorrows like sea billows
rolled. We might not put into words,
but we feel as if the Lord has shut out our prayers. He's made
us desolate. Here is the cries of Jeremiah. They were our cries too. He's
moved our souls far from peace. It would seem that we're forgotten
and forsaken of the Lord. And like Jeremiah, we think,
my strength and my hope have perished from the Lord. Until Jeremiah remembers. Until
Jeremiah remembers. Until we remember. Until he remembers
the truth of God's word to his people. Then, what does he say? His soul is humbled. Look there,
we'll look at this more later. But he says in verse 11, Lamentations chapter 3, sorry,
not 11, verse 20, My soul still remembers and is humbled within
me. This I recall to my mind, therefore
I have hope. Through the Lord's mercies we
are not consumed. because his compassions fail
not. They are new every morning. Great
is your faithfulness. And here, listen now. The Lord
is my portion, says my soul. Therefore, I will hope in him. His soul is humbled within him. Why? Because he remembers the
truth of God's word, the truth of a covenant God, the promises
of the Holy One of Israel, and he knows that all that he's thinking
is wrong, is in error. The Lord will never, never leave
his people. When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you." And so what does Jeremiah say? Therefore,
I have hope. I have hope. Well, secondly,
tonight, let's just consider that this promise that we have
when we pass through the waters, that the Lord will be with us.
Turn back there to Isaiah 43. When we pass through the waters,
we won't be alone." Now, isn't that a wonderful truth? When you pass through the waters,
in verse 2 we read there, "...I will be with you, and through
the rivers they shall not overflow you." Who is it that will be with us? Our Lord. Our Savior. Our Redeemer. And that's all that matters.
That's all that matters. This is something that the Lord
teaches us. In His Word, He teaches us through
the experiences of life. And He teaches us especially
when we pass through the waters. That's the only thing that matters.
It's not the circumstances. It's not passing through the
waters. What matters is this promise that He will be with
us. You know, in Isaiah 49, we know
these words, don't we? But Zion said, the Lord has forsaken
me and my Lord has forgotten me. And what's the answer of
the Lord? Can a woman forget her nursing
child and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely,
they may forget. And they may. They may. A woman may forget her nursing
child. Surely they may forget, yet I
will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on
the palms of my hands." What a comfort to us to know
this with our daughter Claire. Can Claire be forsaken of the
Lord? Can any one of his people? Can
we be forgotten of him? Can a woman forget her nursing
child? Yes, a woman may forget her nursing
child and not have compassion on the son she had labored and
born. Yes, that's true. Unimaginable
as that is, she may forget. But not the Lord. Not the Lord. The Lord will never forget. Why? He himself has inscribed us on
the palms of his hand. How can he forget Claire? There
she is, inscribed in the wounds of his hands. You know, Robin and I couldn't
be with Claire in the beginning, as I've told you. Even when the
Lord worked in such a marvelous way to open the door and enable
us to go into the hospital and be with Claire each day in the
midst of this virus, we still couldn't be with Claire
other than being physically present. She was at that place where she
was struggling for life. And she was put under deep sedation
and given a paralysis drug just so all of her body's energies
could be directed toward just surviving. So she was unconscious
of us even being there. She couldn't hear us or speak
to us. But the Lord was with her. The
Lord was with her by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. What a precious promise we have
as the Lord's people. He'll never leave us or forsake
us. He was with her. The Spirit was with her in that
mysterious way that only the Lord has. comforting her, bearing witness
with her spirit that she is a daughter of God. You see, the spiritual realm
is wholly different than the physical, isn't it? He'll never
leave her or forsake her. He'll never leave you or I or
forsake us in any circumstance, in any time, in any place. Christ told his disciples, I
will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. A little
while longer and the world will see me no more. And they don't
see him, do they? But you and I do. But you will
see me. Because I live, you will live
also. In that day you will know that
I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you." The promise that the Lord would
be with his people is so fully, perfectly, completely fulfilled
by the indwelling of his Spirit. And with the promise of the Comforter,
Jesus tells his disciples, Peace I leave with you. My peace I
give to you. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid." And that's the only peace we find,
isn't it? Our counselor, our comforter is the only one who
gives us peace in all times, in all places, in all circumstances,
especially when we pass through the waters. Through the waters. Fear not! When you pass through
the waters, I will be with you, is the promise. Turn over to
Psalm 139. Keep your place here. Psalm 139. Now last year, when we were here,
I preached a message on Hannah's hope. In doing that, the Lord
directed me to this psalm. And in looking back, I recognized
the grace of God to me in that. Not just in that message, but
I looked back in this past year of all the things that the Lord
was doing to prepare my heart for this time. And one of them
was, of course, Samson. And all the word I'd shared with
him, all the encouragement that he'd been to me, And another
just of some of the many things was that message that I preached
on Hannah's hope. It was a message that the Lord
had for me. I just didn't realize it at the
time. But this psalm and preaching
on that message of Hannah's Hope. The Lord directed me to this
psalm, so let's just consider some of the words that we find
there. In verse 1, O Lord, you have
searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and
my rising up. You understand my thought afar
off. You comprehend my path and my
lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is
not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, you know it all
together." The Lord knows his people. He
knows Clare, her sitting down and her rising up. He knows of
the massive injuries she sustained. He knows of her suffering and
her pain. He knows of our fear and our
anguish. He knows of the heartache. He
knows all of our ways. We poured out our souls and tears
in supplication, and there wasn't a word on our
tongues that the Lord didn't know it all together. He himself put those words on
our lips. The Spirit of God, this was our
experience. I know it's your experience,
too. The Spirit of God poured out into our minds and into our
hearts the words, His words, that we'd heard preached, the
words that I'd preached, the words that we'd heard. And He put them on our lips,
and they overflowed. And these were words that he
gave us, words to pray, to entreat him. And in doing that, he comforted
us with those very words. How important, just consider
this, how important it is for us as the Lord's people to be
gathered together, to be hearing his word. The Lord prepares us,
not only for this, but for all circumstances of life in exactly
this way. Look at verse 9. And if I take
the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts
of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right
hand shall hold me. Clare was about as far away as
anyone could possibly get in this world in a natural sense.
The Lord brought Clare down into the depths of deep suffering.
even to a place where she was walking through the valley of
the shadow of death. We could say she'd come right
up to the precipice and the ground was crumbling beneath her feet.
That's how dire her circumstances were. But she was never alone. She
was never alone. Her great shepherd was with her
by his spirit, binding her up, caring for her with an indescribable
love, holding her by his right hand. So she, too, if she could
say it, would have said, yea, though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with
me. He's the good shepherd. He's
given his life for Claire, and he'll never leave her. He'll
never forsake her. And he'll never leave you, and
never forsake you as one of his people. Like Jeremiah, we can be in an
agony of suffering, an abundance of grief, our souls overwhelmed
with anguish and pain. And two, we can find ourselves
at times, as the Lord's people, dwelling emotionally, psychologically,
and spiritually in the outermost parts of the sea, seemingly beyond
all help. What does the Word say? Even
there, even there, your right hand shall lead me. your right
hand shall hold me." Look at verse 11. In our soul anguish,
we can come to a place of real darkness. If I say, surely the
darkness shall fall on me. Here's the psalmist, and he's
at this place like Jeremiah. He's at this place where, at
times, we as the Lord's people can be brought to. This is a
night of sorrow, a night of pain and anguish, bitterness of soul,
and this fear and this loneliness encompassing us and pressing
down upon us, falling upon us. And we say, surely the darkness
shall fall on me. Well, even the night shall be
light about me. Indeed, the darkness shall not
hide from you, but the night shines as the day, and the darkness
and the light are both alike to you. You will pass through the waters. You will. but they will not overflow
you." This is the promise. You will pass through the fires
of affliction, but you shall not be burned. The flame will
not scorch you. You see, the Lord makes the bad
things in our lives good. Do you hear that? He makes the
good good, and he makes the bad good as well. The Lord makes even the darkest
circumstances of our lives good for us. Even the darkest circumstances
of our lives to shine is the day. The darkness and the light
are both alike to him. Verse 16, your eyes saw my substance
being yet unformed. And in your book, they all were
written. The days fashioned for me when there was as yet none
of them. And Clare's days and our days
were fashioned for us before we were ever formed. Yes, these
days of sorrow and anguish, these days of bitterness of soul, these
days of affliction and suffering, these are days fashioned for
us by the one who loves us, fashioned by an everlasting love. Not one thing. Not one thing
is outside the knowledge, outside the power, outside the providence
of the Holy One of Israel. He works all things together
for good to those who love Him, to those who are called according
to His purpose. All things. All things. His ways are not our ways, and
His thoughts are not our thoughts. His thoughts are so wise, so
merciful, and so gracious to us. Look at verse 17. It tells us the thoughts that
the Lord has towards His people. How precious also are your thoughts
to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they would be more in number than
the sand. Fear not. When you pass through
the waters, I will be with you. We feel at times like this, that we're
surrounded with walls of bitterness and woe, like Jeremiah cries,
hedged in so we can't escape. But it's the exact opposite,
isn't it? Isaiah 26 tells us, In that day this song will be
sung in the land of Judah. We have a strong city. God will
appoint salvation for walls and bulwarks. we can get to a place
like Jeremiah, where we feel that God has moved our souls
far from peace, and cry out, my strength and my hope have
perished from the Lord. But when we begin to think aright,
like Jeremiah, when we recall to mind the truth of God's promises,
and we remember the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, then we
too come to that place where Jeremiah came, where he said,
through the Lord's mercies, we are not consumed. Through the
Lord's mercies, we are not consumed, because his compassions fail
not. They never will. They are new
every morning. Great is your faithfulness."
Isn't that remarkable that the words of that song that we sing
would come in lamentations? Great is thy faithfulness, and
we too. echo his words, the Lord is my
portion, says my soul, therefore I hope in him. Amen.