your Bibles with me to Hebrews
chapter 4 Hebrews chapter 4 read 10 verses
here Hebrews 10 let us therefore fear lest a
promise being left us of entering into his rest any of you should
seem seem to come short of it For unto us was the gospel preached
as well as unto them. And this is what, you know, he's
talking about the people in the wilderness here. God swore in
his wrath that they wasn't going to enter into his rest, wasn't
going to go into the promised land. And he says the gospel
was preached unto them. There ain't ever been but one
gospel, just one gospel. And so they had the gospel preached.
They say the gospel didn't, the gospel's the death, burial, and
resurrection of Christ. That's the facts. But the key
to it is according to the scripture, according to the scriptures.
So they have the gospel preached as well unto them. But the word
preached did not profit them, didn't do them any good. Not
being mixed with faith in them that heard it, it never gave
them any faith, never produced faith in them. Now listen to
the difference here. For we which have believed do
enter into rest. as he said, As I have sworn in
my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although the works
were finished from the foundation of the world. For he spake in
a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, and God did
rest the seventh days from all of his works. God finished his
work, and it took six days he worked, and on the seventh day
he rested. And he didn't rest because he needed the rest, he
rested because the work was done. And so then he said again in
this place, verse 5, If they shall enter into my rest, seeing
therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they
to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief. Again, he limits a certain day,
he cuts it down to a certain day, saying in David, Today,
after so long a time, As it is said today, if you will hear
his voice, if you hear the voice of God, hear the voice of Christ,
hear the gospel, if you will hear his voice, don't harden
your heart, don't harden it. For if Jesus or Joshua had given
them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another
day? There remaineth a rest to the people of God. For he that
is entered into his rest He also hath ceased from his own works,
as God did from his. Now, Matthew 11, 28. This is
going to be my text in a little bit. Matthew 11, 28. Then we'll read this, and then
with Lord willing, we'll pray. Come unto me. all you that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon
you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and
you shall find rest in your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden
is light. Now open with me again now to
Matthew 11, and I want to read something to you. And by the
way, the stumper still in the hospital, Kathy's son. He's better and the surgery went
well, but he's wanting to go home and he can't. I want to
read something that Gary gave to me. A fella gave it to him,
and it says, old church beginning this Sunday. Gonna start a new
church, old church. Says, this Sunday, November the
6th, 2016, we will begin having a church like they did in the
Book of Acts. in the Bible at Lakemont in U.S. 27, do you know? No, no, no. Service at 10, Sunday school,
11, Bible study and testimony time. Bring your Bible or come
just as you are, no dressing up required. It will be a time
for you, capital letters, you in capital, and anyone else to
talk or testify as to what you see God doing. Or you don't have
to say a word. No collection plate will be passed
and prayer requests will be taken and prayed for. The first Bible
study will be A, capital all, the scriptures we will read and
talk about that pertain to being saved, capitalized again, going
to heaven. They were found in the Bible
by someone who read the Bible over 50 years. Found something,
found like they discovered something. saved, you know, and pertain
to be a saved one to heaven. They were found in the Bible
by someone who read the Bible over 50 years and showed Jesus'
doctrine, the apostles' doctrine. So you can compare what he said
to what you already know and what other churches may have
said. It'll open you more to your eyes
and call CB man. Can't make it up. Can't make
it up. You know the scriptures don't talk about heaven and hell,
it talks about being saved from sin. Don't talk about being saved,
it talks about God saving people. People talk about being saved
or I got saved, but in the scriptures the language is salvations of
the Lord. Would it please God who separated
me from my mother's womb. God hath saved us and called
us with the Holy Call. The Lord saved as many as such
should be saved. So it's salvation to the Lord.
And if you ever get saved, it'll be because God saved you. God
saved you. And if a fellow read the Bible
for 50 years and all he sought to have seen was saved and going
to heaven, he missed the whole message. Missed the whole message. But look here in Luke, excuse
me, Matthew 11, 28 with me. Come unto me. All you that labor and are heavy
laden, and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, for I'm meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find
rest for your souls. Our Lord Jesus said, come unto
me, come unto me. You notice there he said, come
to me. I come to him. I come to him. And he said, when
you come to me, I'll give you rest. I'll give you rest. And
then he says there in the last part of verse 29, and you shall
find rest. When I give you rest, you'll
find rest. And he says, you'll find rest
for your souls. When our Lord Jesus Christ gives
rest, you know, the only people he gives it to is those that
come unto him. He don't give rest to anybody
except to those that come unto him. And when we do come to him,
we find that we actually have rest. We really learned that
there is rest. And men are looking for rest
in this life, looking for comfort, looking for ease in this life. You remember our Lord talked
about the rich man. And he says, you know, after
he had labored much, he had so much stuff, he tore down his
barns and added many more barns. And after he filled all them
up, he said, soul, take thine ease. You have many goods laid
up for many years. Take thine ease. That's why he
labored for all of his life, just to have some ease, to have
some comfort, to have some assurance in his old age. But he never
had rest. He had ease. God said, you fool,
this night, your soul is required of you. But our Lord Jesus Christ,
when they're looking for comfort in this world, rest in this life,
ease in this life, our Lord Jesus Christ talked about rest for
your souls. Rest for your souls, not your
bodies, for your souls. Our bodies go through a lot of
things in this life, but that soul, that's what's eternal.
That soul, he said, I'll give you rest for your soul. And that
soul's what needs rest. If the soul's at rest in Christ,
everything else's all right. Ain't that right? And our most
important goal is an eternal rest, is an eternal rest. There's four things, four things
that time hasn't changed at all. We all just have one life to
live, just one, just one life to live. We all have a death
that we have to die. We're all gonna die. And then
after that death, we have a judgment that we have to face. And then
after the judgment, we have an eternity to spend, an eternity,
and that's a long, long time. And that's why he said in Hebrews
10, there is a rest. And he said, some didn't enter
into that rest because of unbelief. But you know who did enter into
rest? We which have believed. He said in Hebrews 4.3, We which
have believed do enter into rest. And what rest? How did they enter
into that rest? It said in Hebrews 10.4.10, it
says they entered into the rest because they ceased from their
own works. as God did His. You know when
you'll enter into rest? When you cease trusting yourself,
cease working, cease thinking you're something when you're
nothing, cease trying to get on God's good side, quit trying
to please God in your flesh, in your mind, in your heart,
in your works, or any other way. Just cease from doing anything.
Just cease. And there's two fears in scriptures.
two fears. There's a good fear, godly fear,
the fear of God, and an evil fear, a fear that John said is
a fear that hath torment. And the fear is why it causes
is the object of your fear. If your works and your faith
and the things that you've done is what you're going to face
God on, then you're going to have fear. Especially the older
you get and the closer you get to the end of time. You'll have
this fear. Have I done enough? Have I pleased
Him enough? Have I prayed enough? Have I
given enough? Have I attended enough? Have I changed enough? Oh listen, but then there's that
good fear, that godly fear, that fear that makes you look to God
and cease looking to yourself and cease from your works and
enter into that rest as God did here. Now I want to give you
six fears if I can this morning. I preached this in Cottageville
a few months ago. I want to give you six fears
we as believers are resting from when he says I'll give you rest
I won't give you six fears that we as God's people rest from
we don't they don't bother us they don't bother we rest from
fear of condemnation there is therefore now no condemnation
to who them that are in Christ Jesus You know, look, you keep
this and look with me in John 3, 16. This is, this is a, excuse
me, I'm going the wrong direction. Oh boy. You know, the scriptures teach
us that there is a condemnation. Our Lord Jesus says, verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth
on me, shall not come into condemnation shall not come if you believe
on me you'll not come into condemnation but you'll have everlasting life
hath everlasting life and he said he that hath the son hath
life he that hath not the son of god the wrath of god abideth
on him and look what he said here in john 3 16 and this is
where we start John 3.6, For God so loved the world, that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God, listen to this
now, for God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the
world, but that the world through him might be saved. Now listen
to it, he that believeth on him is not condemned, not condemned. But he that believeth not is
condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name
of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation
that men will face, that light is come into the world in Christ,
and men love their darkness rather than the light. And so listen,
I don't fear condemnation, do you? I rest, my soul rests, and
so does yours from the condemning power of the law. The law can't
condemn me. And when I mean the law, I said
love the first thing that God said was, and read it in Exodus
20 when you have time. He says, Thou shalt have no gods
before me. That's the first thing He said,
no gods before me. And the second one was, Thou
shalt love your neighbor. Second one is love the Lord your
God with all your heart. And third one is love your neighbor
as yourself. And so you see, beloved, if we
don't do that and do it perfectly, and we have failed in that, we
have any other gods, If we don't love Him supremely with every
ounce of our being, and we don't love our neighbors with all the
ounce of our being, we're under condemnation. But what God did,
He sent His Son into the world in the likeness of sinful flesh
and condemned sin in the flesh. And oh, listen, the law Cursed
is everyone that continueth not in all things written in the
book of the law to do them. But Christ was made a curse for
us to redeem us from the curse of the law. And let me show you something
in Galatians. Now you keep, well, you don't have to keep Matthew.
Look in Galatians 3. I want you to see this. Look
in Galatians 3. See, the law was the schoolmaster.
The law was the schoolmaster. You know, they say that you go
to Calvary, you know, these reformers and that, you know, and people
who believe in works for salvation say you go to Calvary, you go
to the cross to get your sins forgiven, and you go to law to
learn how to live as your rule of life. But the law was the
schoolmaster. I remember when you went to school
and you had a schoolmaster, you had a teacher, and you had to
learn. Well, he says, look what he said in Galatians 3.23. The
law was a schoolmaster. And look what it says here. But
before faith came, before God brought faith to us and gave
us faith, We were kept under the law. Now he's talking to
Gentiles here. We were kept under the law. No
way to get out from under it. Shut up under the faith, which
should afterward be revealed. And faith is a revelation. Faith
comes by hearing. Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster. to teach us and instruct us.
Now what did the law, what was it instructing us to do? To bring
us unto Christ. When you look at the law and
every ceremony and every ritual and every law and every offering
and every sacrifice, it pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ as the
end. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes. But now listen,
that we might be justified by faith in verse 24. But after
that faith has come, when God gives us faith, we're no longer
under a schoolmaster. Listen, for you're all the children
of God by faith in Christ Jesus. That's how you, we're children
of God by faith, not by law. And I rest, and I tell you rest
from the condemning power of the law. Rest from condemnation. And I tell you something else
in this condemning. We rest from condemning others. We rest from
condemning others. We rest from passing judgments
upon others. I don't pass no judgment on anybody
in here. Why would I do that? Why would
I do that? I know that there's people that
I pray for that I think they've converted. I know that I pray
for people who've never made a profession of faith. I say,
Lord, and I call them by name, and I mention them to the Lord.
But yet, you see, here's why we don't condemn others. And
we rest from condemning others and finding fault in others.
because I believe the Lord is big enough to take care of His
own. He can instruct them. He can teach them. He knows when to chastise. He
knows when to bring down. He knows when to bring up. He
knows exactly how to deal with every soul in this building and
everything that's in their life. And I'm not big enough to know
what goes on in people's life and don't want to know. Do know
this that there's a but one thing that'll straighten a man and
help a man and encourage a man and Rebuke a man and teach him
that's the gospel of the grace of God in Christ Jesus. Huh? you see God's the one that has
the power to condemn not me. He says the The Kingdom of God
is not in meat and drink, not in what you eat, not in what
you drink, but in righteousness and peace and joy of the Holy
Ghost. Huh? And that's why He says in
the fruit of the Spirit, this is how we, this is, the people's
got this, for the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, and there ain't nobody that's
against that. Are they? Let me give you another one.
So we rest from condemning power and we rest from being lost eternally. We rest from being lost eternally.
Do you know how many, how many people do you know, do you know
personally that believes that if they don't live a certain
way, they'll end up being lost? that they can be saved and lost
and saved and lost? How many people believe that?
Multitudes believe and think that you can be saved. And then
when you do some kind of sin or commit something, well, then
you're lost again. So you got to renew up and you
got to keep that up. And there's people that do that
all the time. But Paul said, you know, Hebrews says, we cease
for my own works as God did for his. God's work is done. God's
work is done. And there's no danger of anybody
for whom Christ died being lost. We were lost, Christ found us.
You know who he found? You know what he goes seeking
and saving what? The lost sheep, the lost coin,
and the lost son. He's the one that seeks and saves
that which is lost. And God's works done is finished
from the foundation of the world. And Ecclesiastes, you look at
this when you get home. I was gonna have you look at
it. But God, God, what he hath done is perfect and nothing can
be added unto it or nothing can be taken from it. Is that what
it says, Ecclesiastes 3.14? And look in Hebrews chapter nine
with me. Look at three eternals here.
We're talking about eternal salvation. I'm sorry, I'm truly, truly sorry
for folks that live in the constant state that they might be lost
again. If they don't, you know, if they
don't live a certain way. I don't know how many, I used
to go to funerals, you know, people that I knew go to their
funerals. And after I heard somebody get up and talk about how many
good works somebody had done, and how good a life they had
lived, and how they kept the golden rule, and so they were
in heaven based on that, I said, I'll never go to another funeral
where somebody's not preaching the grace of God. I won't. I'm
not gonna go listen to a man lie on God and lie about how
men get to glory and how men are saved. I'm not gonna do that.
And there's three eternals. Look here in Hebrews chapter
nine and verse 12. Neither by the blood of goats
and calves, but by his own blood, he entered into the holy place,
having, listen, here's the first eternal, having obtained eternal
redemption for us. Now, how long is eternal redemption? And then look down in verse 14. Here's another eternal. How much
more shall the blood of Christ, now listen to this, who through
the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God? Now look
down in verse 15, the last part. And for this cause he is the
mediator. Christ the mediator of the New
Testament that by means of death, he redeemed the transgressions
of them that were under the First Testament. that they which are
called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." Three
eternals. Nothing about time. All eternal. God's eternal. He loves with
an eternal love. He saves with an eternal salvation.
Our Lord Jesus Christ said, I give unto my sheep eternal life. Eternal life. No man is able
to pluck them out of my hand. No man's able to pluck them out
of my father's hand. And I and my Father are one.
And I tell you, beloved, and I tell you another thing why
we can't be lost. And nobody that Christ died will
ever be lost. And here's the reason is that
we were ordained to eternal life, predestinated to eternal life. Acts 13.48 says this, as many
as were ordained, predestinated, that's the same word, as many
as were ordained to eternal life. What did they do? Every one of
them believed. But people say, well, and the
fellow asked me this the other day. He asked me this the other
day. And he knocked on my door with a Bible in his hand. He
said, do you believe what's a man saved always saved? And I said,
well, it's according to who saved him. I said, if the church saved
him, or some preacher saved him, or a decision saved him, or they're
going on getting on an altar saved him, no, I don't. But if
God saved him, and I start quoting scripture, salvation of the Lord,
And he had never heard that before. He had always heard that once
you're saved, and I know folks, and you all know people who believe
this too, that you know you get saved in the church when you're
14, 15, 16 years old, and then you know you go back to the world
when you're about 16, 17. You go back out in the world,
but oh, you got saved in their church. You know, you got on
their altar, and you got on their old-fashioned altar. So you got
saved. You've been out in the world
for 20, 25 years living like hell, but you're still saved.
And then, you know, when you die, they say, well, I know you're
saved. I saw it. I saw it myself. I felt the witness
of the Spirit. There's no salvation in that.
God's people, when he saves them, he makes new creatures out of
them. He puts a new nature in them. He gives them a new mind.
He gives them new heart, new will. You can't run them away
from Christ, can you? How many of you all want to go
back? Go back to what? Being a dog wallowing in his
vomit? Being a sow wallowing in the mire? Who wants to go
back to that? Who wants to go back to being
an out-and-out rebel against God? I don't. I found rest here. I don't want to go back to laboring
again. Oh my. And that's why our Lord said,
you that are burdened, Oh, have you ever been burdened with your
sin, been burdened with your relationship with God, been burdened
with a false profession, been burdened with guilt, been worried
about what will happen to you in the future, been burdened
about that? Or you got a heavy, heavy, heavy
heart? Or you feel the weight of your
sins, the weight of your guilt? And that's what our Lord said.
He says, when you come to Me, I'll give you rest from the world.
I'll take that burden off of you. I'll take that heavy laden
off of you. I'll take that guilt off of you.
I'll take that fear off of you. I'll take that sin off of you.
Bless His Holy Name. Oh, bless His Holy Name. And
I tell you what, there's another rest that we have. A rest from
fear of sin having dominion over us. A rest of sin having dominion
over us. Now there was a time that sin,
there's two sovereigns in the scripture. God and sin. God reigns and sin reigns. But
where sin did reign, grace did much more abound. God's power, God's grace is so much more greater than
your sin. So much more greater than anything
you've ever done. that all the sins you've ever
committed that our Lord Jesus Christ took himself on the tree
and put every single one of them away. And then grace comes and
teaches your heart that sin is not your master anymore. And
you know what? Christ becomes your master. Paul
said it this way, said the flesh lusts against the spirit and
the spirit against the flesh and you cannot, cannot do the
things that you would. I still have the flesh, and you
do too, but I also have the Holy Spirit. And the flesh wants to
do certain things, but the Spirit won't let that flesh go as far
as it would. And then when we come to a service
like this, and we're in here, our spirit wants to really go,
you know, and enjoy what's going on, but the flesh enters in and
keeps us from being as spiritual as we would. But guess who's
going to win? Guess who has won? Oh, sin is a tyrant. It's a powerful,
powerful force. Look in Romans 6 with me. Sin
is a powerful, powerful force in man. It's a powerful force
in man. Sin is. Oh my goodness. Men are born with it. They live
with it. Shaped in iniquity, conceived
in sin, born with it, live with it. It's an awful, awful tyrant.
Awful tyrant. But thank God, those who have
come to Christ, they won't die with sin. They won't die with
it. Paul says here in Romans 6.1,
what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? Oh my, let's just keep on sinning.
The more we sin, the more God's grace will give us. Paul said,
oh no, no, no, that's not the way it is. God forbid. How shall we, now listen to it,
that are dead to sin. live any longer therein. Know
ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ
were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with
him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we walk in
newness of life. Now look what he says down here
in Romans 6.14. Look at what Paul says here. For sin, or the
scripture says here, for sin shall not have dominion over
you. Sin ain't going to reign over you. Why? Because you're
not under law, but under grace. And I've used this illustration
I don't know how many times. Now, if you want to start a fight
when you get home, Just lay down the law to your wife and say,
now you're not going to go here, you're not going to go there,
you ain't going to be able to do this, I want this, I want
my supper on the table at four o'clock, and I want beans, potatoes,
you know, and just lay down the law to them and see what happens.
Ain't that right? And that's why marriages, you
know, this is the thing. Law can't do nothing but make
you mad. You resist it. You fight against
it. Boy, grace comes and it kills that law. Kills it graveyard
dead. And that's why you're not under
law. But you're under grace. And that's
why sin don't reign over you. You know what reigns in our lives
now? Why we do what we do? Out of love. Out of love for
Christ. Out of love for His Word. Out of love for one another.
God don't need to pull the law on me to make me come to services.
He don't have to pull a wall on me and say, now, if you don't
go to church, this is what's going to happen to you. I remember
a fundamentalist preacher telling everybody, he said, boy, if you
don't pay your tithes, God's going to get it one way or another.
If he has to take it out of you, break your car down, he'll put
your engine out of business. The fellow told me one time that
because of what I was preaching, he said, God's going to kill
one of your children one of these days because of what you believe.
I said, good, that gets to go to glory. They try to bring you
under law, try to bring you under bondage. And Paul says, sin's
not going to have dominion over you. Why? Because law is done
away, fulfilled in Christ, and we're under grace. Oh my, ain't you glad it's that
way? Now I'll tell you something,
it doesn't say we have no sin, but that we're dead to it. It doesn't rule over us, and
we don't use grace as an excuse to sin. I've never, never needed
an excuse to sin, have you? How many of you all need an excuse
to sin? I sin because. Listen, we don't
need an excuse. We don't need an excuse. And
then let me hurry on. Arrest from ceremonies, arrest
from rituals, and like that fellow said in his little paper, old-fashioned
church from the old-fashioned way. I see all the time, oh,
I need some prayer warriors. Need a bunch of prayer warriors.
What's a prayer warrior? What's a prayer warrior? Somebody
know what a prayer warrior is? I like the old knee right way.
I wish they'd bring back the old-fashioned altar into the
services again so people could get saved. Oh, rest from these
ceremonies, these rituals, this old-fashioned way, the traditions
of men, long prayers, people trying to be religious, just
trying to be religious. You see folks out there. You
see folks out there, they just got to let you know they're religious.
Always trying to be something they're not. Their holiness,
listen, this is awful. This is awful, and I'm sorry
for people in this condition. That their whole holiness is
based on how they dress and what they look like when they go out
into the world. And I tell you, Paul says, you all that claim
wholes, don't you hear what the law says? If wholeness and salvation
is in how we dress and how much we pray in public, there's folks,
you know, and there's nothing wrong with it. But I do know
if you're doing it just to let folks know that you're religious,
you just as well save your breath to cool your coffee, so the fellow
said. Here's the thing. You know, if we all go out and
eat dinner, we say, well, let's just all reach out and touch
hands together. And let's all pray. And then
everybody prays, and everybody looks up and says, boy, them
folks, man, they're not ashamed of their religion, are they?
I'm not ashamed of religion either. But I'm not ashamed of Christ,
and I'm not going to make a show out of it just to let folks know
that I'm I'm a Christian. I go out in shorts and flip-flops.
So when I go to the place where they're dressed to let their
religion show, and I go in there to buy something, they say, boy,
there goes another heathen. Oh, my. Preachers have nervous
breakdowns, putting burdens on people they cannot bear themselves.
They go on sabbaticals and things like that. All right, let me
hurry up and tell you this. And then we have arrest from
the fear of opinions of men. Arrest from the fears of opinions
of men. How many of y'all fear what a man's opinion is when
it comes to the gospel? How many of you is interested
in men's opinion when it comes to the gospel? Look in Galatians
1.10, Galatians chapter 1. You know, rest from fear of opinions
of men, and we're talking about over the gospel. You know, I
care what people think about me, I really do. I care what
people think about my character and my conduct, my attitude,
my nature, I care. But when it comes to the gospel,
and of what we know of Christ, we know that all men are exactly
on the same level, on the same level. Paul said here in Galatians
1.10, for do I now persuade men or God? Now, what would you do
to persuade God? Paul said, I persuade men. That's
what he said. For if I do, or I do, or do I seek to please
men? For if I yet pleased men, and
worried about their opinions, and trying to please them, and
meet their whims, and make them all like me when it comes to
the gospel, I should not be the servant of Christ. I should not
be the servant of Christ. And that's why our Lord Jesus,
you know, His disciples told Him, He said, you know, the Pharisees
were offended at you. He said, let them alone. Every
plant which my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted
up. Let them alone. They're just blind leaders of
the blind. And that man that was born blind, that our Lord
Jesus opened his eyes, his parents were afraid of being put out
of the church and put out of the synagogue because they were
ashamed. And we're not going to be ashamed
of the gospel of Christ, no matter what anybody says. No matter
what anybody says about us, or anybody says what we believe,
it absolutely makes no difference. And then last of all, let me
tell you this. We don't fear trials. We don't
fear trials. Why don't we fear trials? Well,
first of all, because they come from our Heavenly Father. They
come from a loving Father's hands. They come from a loving Father.
He sends them. Every trial that we go through,
God sends them. They just don't come by luck.
They don't come by chance. Oh, if needs be, you are in heaviness
through manifold temptation. that the trying of your faith
being much more precious than of gold, though it might be tried
with fire, might be to the praise and honor and glory of Jesus
Christ. We know that all things, A-L-L,
all things work together for good to them that love God and
are called according to His purpose. And Paul said, I reckon that
the sufferings, the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed
in us. Now listen, trials is going to
come. They're coming. They have and they will, they
will keep on coming. And Paul, the apostle said they
were just light afflictions. are light afflictions which are
just for a moment. Why are they just a moment? Because
that's all our life is. In light of eternity, it's a
snap of a finger. In light of what Christ suffered,
it's nothing. In light of what we will enjoy
throughout eternity, our afflictions are very light compared to what
we'll enjoy throughout eternity. And here's the thing, God is
conforming us to the image of His Son, and don't we all want
that, to be conformed to His image? And look in Isaiah 43,
and I'll show you this, and then I'll wind it up here. Isaiah
43, and I'll tell you what, when we go through these trials, we're
never alone. We never go through them alone.
You see, our Lord said His strength was made perfect in our weakness. And He said His grace is sufficient.
We're never alone. We're never alone. Look what
He said in Isaiah 43. But now, thus saith the Lord
that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel,
fear not. For I have redeemed thee, I have
called thee by name, thou art mine. When thou passest through
the waters, I'll be with you. And through the rivers, they
shall not overflow thee. And when thou walkest through
the fire, thou shalt not be burned. Neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the
Holy One of Israel, thy Savior." We're not going to go through
these things by ourselves. And let me give you this. He
said, come unto me and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you
and you'll find rest. You'll find rest. And what a
blessed exchange. He gets our burdens, we get his
rest. He gets our sin, we get His righteousness. He gets our curse, we get His
blessings. He gets our death, we get His
life. He gets our shame, we get His
glory. Oh my, come unto me, I'll give
you rest. Our Father, in the blessed name
of Christ our Lord, thank you for allowing us to meet here
today, allowing us to come into the presence of our Lord Jesus
and God our Father. Thank you for the truth as it
is in our Lord Jesus. God bless it to the heart, the
mind, the understanding, for Christ's sake. Amen. Amen.