Good morning. Let's all turn
to Psalm 39. Remember our pastor and his wife, Shirley, is their
way. I hear Jim's doing better. Is
that right, Debbie? Just continue to improve. So
we're surely thankful for that. Peggy's not able to be with us
this morning. There are others. Let's remember
one another in prayer, as I know we always do. Let's read Psalm
39 together. I said I will take heed to my
ways that I sin not with my tongue. I will keep my mouth with a bridle
while the wicked is before me. I was dumb with silence. I held my peace, even from good,
and my sorrow was stirred. My heart was hot within me while
I was musing the fire burned. Then spake I with my tongue.
Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what
it is that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou hast made
my days as in handbreath, and mine age is as nothing before
thee. Verily, every man at his best
state is altogether vanity. Surely every man walketh in a
vain show. Surely they are disquieted in
vain. He heapeth up riches and knoweth
not who shall gather them. And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee. Deliver me
from all my transgressions. Make me not the reproach of the
foolish. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth,
because thou didst it. Remove thy stroke away from me.
I am consumed by the blow of thine hand. When thou with rebukes
dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume
away like a moth. Surely every man is vanity. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give
ear unto my cry. Hold not thy peace at my tears,
for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers
were. Oh, spare me that I may recover
strength before I go hence and be no more. Let us pray. Oh, our kind and gracious and
merciful Heavenly Father, we join our hearts together this
morning as one. We praise you for that great
goodness to us. We praise you for that great
salvation that's in Christ Jesus, our Lord, whom we seek to honor
this morning and set forth and lift up and worship. Help us, enable us to do that.
He is worthy. He's worthy of more praise than
we could ever give him. We thank you for the gathering
of your people. What a blessed privilege to be numbered among
your people in this body of believers and that we can come together
and be as one and be in agreement. And we all fall down at your
feet. And we look to you to supply
our every need. We all have needs, physical needs,
needs of the body, needs pertaining to this life. But Lord, we all
have one thing in common. We need a savior. We need your son. we must have Christ. Help us
to see him this morning. Help us to see him in his beauty.
Help us to love him. Help us to trust him. Help us to embrace him. Give us a heart to do so. And may your word speak to our
hearts, enlighten our minds. May you guide us and instruct
us this morning. Oh, we need you. Lord, we need
you. Please be with us and leave us
not to ourselves. Save the lost among us. Remember
our dear children and our grandchildren. Forget them not, we pray. and leave them not to themselves. Go with us through this service,
honor your son, honor yourself, and encourage and uplift your
people, we pray in Christ's name, amen. So good. Favorite song. Isaiah chapter 45. I read Psalm 39 a minute ago. Verse 4 says, Lord, make me to
know mine end. In the measure of my days, what
it is that I may know how frail I am. Have we given that much thought
lately? You know, we in this world, All
of our earthly comforts lies in continual uncertainty. There's no rest. There's no peace
to be had, to be found in this world, in this life. There's no sure foundation. There's
no eternal lasting thing in this world. And all of our comforts that
we enjoy in this world and all that we have and all that we
are lies in continual uncertainty. We don't know what the next moment
holds, do we? We don't. And we know there's
coming a time when those things will be taken from us. Our loved
ones and even our own lives will be, this body will go back to
the dust from which it came. And you know, it's important
to be reminded of these things. It's important to have God's
word teach us the truth about things, the truth about ourselves,
the truth about God, because the world doesn't teach us these
things. The world teaches perverted thinking. The world teaches error. The world would take our eyes
off the truth, never confronts us with the truth. That's why
it's so important, so important to be often found looking at
the word of God and looking to God and looking to Christ to
buy his spirit, teach us these things and plant them in our
hearts and our minds that we may live by them and be guided
by them, be instructed by them, be helped and encouraged the truth, to know the truth
about myself, to know the truth about God and Christ and salvation. What a blessed thing. And we
only find that in God's Word. And as we look to God's Word
in Isaiah 45, I want to encourage us this morning, though we live
in a world of uncertainty, continual uncertainty, in a world that's
against God, that's against Christ, I want to encourage you this
morning. And I want to look at Isaiah 45, beginning of verse
20. Assemble yourselves and come,
draw near together ye that are escaped of the nations, They
have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image
and pray unto a God that cannot save. That's what this world
is doing. Tell ye and bring them near,
yea, let them take counsel together, who hath declared this from ancient
time, who hath told it from that time, have not I the Lord? And there is no God else beside
me, a just God and a Savior. there is none beside me. Look
unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I
am God and there is none else." I was led to this scripture by
another scripture and I'd like you to turn to it for just a
moment here at the outset. Turn over to the book of 2 Chronicles
chapter 20. In verse 12, here we have Jehoshaphat praying
to our God. He says this, he said, O our
God, wilt thou not judge them? For
we have no might. against this great company that
cometh against us, neither know we what to do, but our eyes are
upon thee." Now, if you read this story, you find that Jehoshaphat
and God's people, Jerusalem, Judah, are surrounded by a great
company of enemies that's come to war against them. In verse
2, there cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the
sea on this side Syria, and behold therein hath a Tamar which is
in Gedi. And Jehoshaphat feared and set
himself to seek the Lord. And what we find is, he prays
to God in verse 6, and he said, O Lord God of our fathers, art
thou not God? in heaven? And rulest not thou
over all the kingdoms of the heathen? And in thy hand is there
not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? And then look over in verse 15,
and he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of
Jerusalem, and thou King Jehoshaphat. Thus saith the Lord unto you,
Be not afraid, nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude,
for the battle's not yours, but God's." And verse 17 says, you shall
not need to fight in this battle. Set yourselves and stand still
and see the salvation of the Lord with you. Oh, Judah and Jerusalem, fear
not, nor be dismayed. And then down in verse 20 we
read where Jehoshaphat tells Judah, he says, ìO Judah,î towards
the end of the verse, ìHear me, O Judah and ye inhabitants of
Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established. Believe His prophets, so shall
ye prosper.î Believe God, believe His Word, believe His promises.
And what happened? 2221 Jehoshaphat says he consulted
with the people and he pointed appointed singers unto the Lord
and that should praise the beauty of holiness as they went out
before the army and To say praise the Lord for his mercy Endure
forever they were praising God and singing to God when they
began to sing and to praise the Lord the Lord, set ambushments
against the children of Ammon. The Lord fought for them. And
what happened? These enemies of Judah, the children
of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, it says in verse 23, for the
children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of
Mount Seir utterly to destroy, let's see, the inhabitants of
Mount Seir utterly to slay and destroy them. And when they had
made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, everyone helped to destroy
another. God apparently sent confusion. And Judah's enemies killed one
another. And God's people didn't lift
a finger. They didn't fight. All they did
was sing praises. Went out before the army and
sang praises. And God slew the enemy before
them. And it says, And when Jehoshaphat and his people, in verse 25,
came to take away the spoil of them, they found among them in
abundance both riches with the dead bodies. God slew their enemies. There it is again. Free grace. Sovereign grace. God doing for
his people what they cannot do for themselves. God providing
and making a way for his people. Believe God. And that's what
led me to this scripture. Look unto me and be ye saved. You know, I've often found myself
saying what Jehoshaphat said in verse 12 over in 2 Chronicles
20, that I have no might and I don't know what to do.
And truly, such is our case. I would venture to say you're
not much different than me. You know, I have no might to
taste my next breath. I just hope God gives it to me.
He may not. He may withhold it. And I'm sometimes
alarmed at my weakness, my inability, my frailty. But He knows our
frame. He remembers what we are, that
we're dust. You know, we often forget and
we become puffed up in our pride and our arrogance. We forget
God. And we like to think that we
control everything. And we're making the right choices.
And we're taking the right path. And we have wisdom. And we have
discernment about things. And we can do the right things.
And we make ourselves to differ from others. We like to think
we know what to do. We like to think we control everything. And we're making the right choices.
And we're building something lasting, something important. The truth of the matter is we
control nothing. And all that we build is going
to be brought to nothing. All that we have, all that we
supposedly have built in this life will be brought to nothing.
The truth is the matter is we control nothing. I heard Joe
Terrell say this in a message here a while back recently that
he said, I have no idea how I ended up where I'm at in Rock Valley,
Iowa. He said, he said, everything I have has
been thrust upon me. Don't know how I ended up with
what I have, but everything I have has been thrust upon me. And
every situation I'm in, I've been thrust into that situation.
It's not that I was behind the scenes making all these choices
and knew exactly where I was going and why I needed to be
there and had the wisdom to make that come about. It was thrust
upon me. And such it is with us. I know
that to be true in my case. I don't know how in the world
I ended up here in Crossville, Tennessee. Wasn't born here.
I don't know how that happened, but it did. I was thrusted into
every situation. And you know, I've sometimes
thought, you know, our flesh clings to this earth, clings
to this world, the things of this life. Our old man, if we're
regenerated and renewed, that old man, it clings to the things
of this life. And I found myself sometimes
thinking, boy, if I could just slow down time. It just feels
like that that I'm holding on to is just slowly and gradually
slipping from my grasp, my grasp. It's as though as I can feel
it being pulled from me. If I could just slow down time,
You know, I want to stay young. I want my family to stay young
and healthy. I don't want to see my family
grow old and die and get sick. You know, I want to hold on to
these things. But time marches on, and I have no control over
anything about it. I'm reminded of what Greg said
at our conference some day very soon. We'll be laid out here
in a casket. We'll be gathering much like
this, and it's coming very shortly for a lot of us. And that's the
truth. We don't hear that in the world.
Everything is designed to keep our minds from thinking on eternal
things and dwelling on eternal matters, life and death things. But the Word of God reminds us
what we are. This life is coming to an end.
All that we have is being brought to an end. It's going to be dissolved
and it's being dissolved before our very eyes. We see death and
decay everywhere we look. We live in a huge cemetery. This earth is a huge cemetery. Everywhere you look there's cemeteries.
It ought to remind us that the end of all flesh is coming. Now this is the outward, the
outward things. the fleshly things, the worldly
things, the things we can see and touch. Turn with me over
to Ephesians chapter 6. These things that are against
us, these things that troubles us, these things that disturbs our peace, these are
the outward things. I'm in the wrong book, bear with
me. Ephesians. In there in verse 11, put on
the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against
the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood. That's not where the real battle
is. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities.
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places. We wrestle against
these things. Do you know how to deal? Are
you strong where you can deal with that, where you can win
the battle against these things? We wrestle not against flesh
and blood. We wrestle not against things that we can see. But with
those things we can't see. We can't see these things. They're
not physical. They're spiritual. And here is where we can especially
say, as Jehoshaphat did, we have no might against this great company
that comes against us. Neither know we what to do. I
confess that. I confess that. We have much
against us. Much against us. Death is coming. Hell is moving, we sing. Sin
is working. Sin is working death. And it's
active. And when it's finished, it brings
forth death. That's the truth. The truth that
we need to be reminded of. Sin is working death and decay.
And it's working evil and error. In verse 16 there in Ephesians
6, look there at verse 16. Above all, taking the shield
of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery
darts of the wicked. That's another enemy, the fiery
darts of the wicked. Satan is behind that. Satan is
against us. He's active and he shoots these
fiery darts at us. We have no might against Satan. And you know, we sometimes are
made aware to a degree of our sin. Sometimes more than others. We get a keener sense of it.
And it's evil. It's utter evil. And there's
been times that I've said something or thought something or done
something and, oh, it slays me. God brings it to my mind And
I say, what can I do about this? What am I going to do with this
sin? How can I not be tormented with guilt and shame and fear
of condemnation? What am I to do with it? How
can I make myself feel better? I have no might to put it away. And when it's finished, It brings
forth death unless Christ puts it away. And it's a heavy burden to bear,
the burden of sin. And I have no might to do anything
about it. I have no might to bear it. Can
I do better? Well, I'll resolve to do better,
never do that again. Well, how many times has that
failed? How many broken promises have
we all broken? Can I try to do better? My sin's
still there. It cannot be undone. I can't
go back and undo it. It's there. It's got to be dealt
with in justice. Oh, that puts you in a hopeless
situation, doesn't it? I'm helpless. I'm hopeless. What
am I to do? Have you all been there? I know
a lot of you have. A lot of you have. And we say,
what a terrible place to be. And in some sense, that's true.
But consider this. It's when all hope is gone that
hope suddenly appears. That's the gospel in the face
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our text says, look unto me and
be saved. And we'll look a little more
into that. Jehoshaphat said in 2 Chronicles, he said, our case
is helpless. It's hopeless. Prepare to die. We're going to die. They're a
much more number than we are, and they're warriors. We're going
to die. It's a hopeless case. We're helpless. We have no might against this
great company that comes against us. Neither know we what to do,
but our eyes are upon thee. And were they delivered? They
were delivered. And that's what I want to encourage
us this morning in this. Look unto me. The promise is,
look unto me and be saved. They lifted up the serpent on
the pole in the wilderness. They that look, if they were
bitten and they looked, they'll be healed. Were they healed?
There's life in a look. There's life in a look. Did it
turn out well for Judah and Jehoshaphat? They didn't even have to fight.
We mentioned that a moment ago. And their enemies were utterly
destroyed. Everyone was killed. What a thrilling thing to hear
when we hear our Savior say, look unto me and be ye saved. I'm God. There's none else. What a thrilling thing to hear.
You know, God teaches us in this way that there is none besides
Him. He brings us, He backs us into a corner where there's no
hope and there's no help. And we are constrained by Him
to look to Him. What a blessed thing when we
are brought to that point. When hope is gone, then hope
appears. And He makes us look entirely
to Him. and utterly away from ourselves. But did you know that it's the
hardest thing in this world to turn a man's eyes off himself?
To take our eyes off of ourselves can only be done by God through
the Spirit, bringing us to the point where we see our hopelessness
and helplessness in our condition before God, our inability to
do anything to save ourselves, to commend ourselves to God,
then and only then will we look to Him. And God's got to bring
us there. God's got to teach us that by
His Spirit, by His Word. It's the hardest thing in the
world to turn a man's eyes off of himself. And you know why
that is? It's because of self-love. We are head over heels in love
with ourselves, aren't we? Be honest, we are. And that's
one thing we've done consistently our whole lives, is loved ourself. We love to look at things from
our viewpoint. We love to have attention and
we love to be recognized. We love to have our opinions
valued. We're the center of our own universe. We love ourselves. We love to
gossip and talk about people and look down on other people.
And in so doing, exalt ourselves in our own minds and in the minds
of others if we can sway them to show them what great folks
we are. That's us by nature. Oh, if we could look to him.
Oh, if we could look to Him and take our eyes off of ourselves. May God enable us to do it. And
then you know this, we by nature cannot bear the simplicity that
is salvation. Look unto me and be ye saved. And I mentioned this a moment
ago, it's over in Numbers 21 verse 8, and it says, And the
Lord said to Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon
a pole, and it shall come to pass. I declare this, it shall
come to pass. That everyone that's bitten,
when he looketh upon it, shall live. And you look down at verse
2 and it says, And it came to pass. The Lord said, it shall
come to pass, and it came to pass. Scott used to say, and
it always does, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld
the serpent of brass, he lived. And that's salvation, looking
to Christ. Where are you looking this morning?
Are you looking to Him? There's life in a look. Charles
Spurgeon talks about Isaiah 45, 22. Most of you know this. Being instrumental in his conversion.
He was caught in a snowstorm and went into this church and
sat in the back and the preacher read this scripture. Look unto
me and be ye saved. All the ends of the earth for
I am God and none else. And he said God used that scripture
to teach him that salvation was not all the complicated things
that men make it to be. And you know this to be so, that
there's so much flesh and outward show in religious services today,
most religious folks could not bear a service like we have.
The preaching and the praying and the singing. Gotta have an
altar call. You've got to have songs. You've
got to have men in robes and different offices and programs
and entertainment and all this. So much flesh in it that Christ
is rarely, if ever, mentioned. And it's designed this way. Men
make these programs. They design these programs and
they set up these institutions and these organizations. They look at The eye of human
reason, they look at Christ. They don't look to Him like we
do. They look at Him. And they reason,
how shall just the bare looking to this man cure the soul of
sin? How can it be that simple? I've
got to have a part in it. I've got to contribute. I've
got to add to that. Oh my, that's damnation. That's the way of death. That's
looking to self. We're either looking to ourself
or we're looking to Christ. It's one or the other. We can't
look to both. We look to Him for all things,
to provide for us, to do for us, to save us, to be our substitute,
our representative before God. We look to Him. We see Him in
His beauty to a degree. and we love Him and worship Him
and fall down before Him. Religion's got to have other
things. You know, and it truly breaks my heart to see many that
I know and love, and you have relatives and friends, the same
thing, that insist on man's part in salvation. Got to have a part
in it. Free salvation is so wonderful,
so beautiful. Why would you want to have a
part in a perfect salvation? that's provided. And they say
this, they say, your salvation depends on your faith. It depends
on your faith. Brothers and sisters, we depend
not on faith. We depend on Christ, and by faith
we lay hold of Him. And faith He gives us, it's a
gift of God. But they make faith a meritorious
work and state that my faith made the difference. My faith
made the difference. God died for everyone. And if
I believe I made the difference, I added to what Christ did on
the cross. And it leads a man to look to
himself, and he controls his own salvation, his own destiny. It's up to me whether I'm saved
or not. And we hear talk like, you know,
20 people got saved today. And religion will even go to the
point that we congratulate somebody that's so-called got saved. What
a fine fellow he is. He got saved. When he was rescued,
if a man's truly saved, he's rescued. He's not to be congratulated. God is to be thanked that you
rescued that sinner from hell. But especially they pull on young
people to come to the altar and make a profession. Oh, what fine
young Christians they are. It's not a time for congratulations.
It's a time for thanks. If a child is saved, if a man
is saved, we're to give thanks to God that he was rescued. But
that's how man thinks. But they place merit on faith. And Scott used to say, true saving
faith never takes credit for itself. True faith is the faith that
God in His grace gives to those He died for. Those He died for,
He'll give them faith and they shall believe. We depend not
on faith, we depend on our object of faith. 2 Timothy 2.13 says,
if we believe not, yet He abideth faithful. He cannot deny Himself. That's where our trust is. that
he bides faithful and he cannot deny himself. That's why we trust
him. You know, men and women will
never look to Christ until constraining grace makes them. I said that
to somebody one time and they were so highly offended. I don't
believe God makes us do anything. We're not robots. We must of our own will and our
own power accept Jesus. What is that? It's looking to
self. It's looking to self. But we look to Him in faith and
for faith. We look. We look to Him. God does not look to us for one
thing. Did He look to Jehoshaphat and
the people of Judah to fight? It's not your battle. stand still
and see the salvation of the Lord. So my prayer for each of
us this morning is that we may be encouraged to look. If we've
never looked before, let's look this morning. Look to Him. And if we have looked, may we
continue to look. May we always be looking. But I ask this question, how
am I to be encouraged and why am I to be encouraged in looking
to Christ? Hopefully we already have been. First of all, look unto me and
be ye saved is a command of God. God doesn't give advice and He
doesn't make suggestions. When He proclaims a thing, it's
a command. He proclaims, He purposes, and
He commands. Look unto Me, for I'm God, and
I've got authority over you. I'm God and you're not. I am
God and you're not. You know, we sometimes say, I
just don't feel I'm sinful enough. I just don't feel like I can look to Christ. You're commanded to look to Christ.
And with the command comes the permission. Would God command
a thing and not allow you to do it? You know, there's the
story of the man with the withered arm. He said, stretch forth your
arm. He couldn't. His arm was withered,
but he did. The same thing with looking to
Christ. I can't look to Christ. It's
a command. Look to Him. Look to Him. With
the command comes a permission. All ye ends of the earth, all
people throughout the world, look unto me for I'm God. And
then there's no other options. There's none else. Where are
you going to look for salvation? For sure, eternal, true salvation. You must look alone to me. Don't look to me for something
and you for something else. Look to me. He alone can save. He alone has might and power
and authority to save. You know, most men are seeking
the favor of a God that cannot save. We look to God alone who can
save. Our God is God and He has saved
His people. And then secondly, why How are
we to be encouraged and why am I to be encouraged to look to
Him? There's no God else beside me, a just God and a Savior,
because of who I am. Number one, I'm a just God. I
will punish sin. I must punish sin. I'm holy and
righteous and right. But He says I'm a Savior. I'm
a just God and I'm a Savior. And that's something that should
grab our attention. We need a Savior, don't we? We need a Savior. We
must have a Savior. And guess what? He is a Savior.
What encouragement is that? God Almighty, God the Son, came
as the Savior of men. He came into the world to save
sinners. Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
Savior, for He shall save His people from their sins. His very
name is Savior. He is one. And you know, this
is the theme of the whole Bible, the summation of the whole Bible,
a just God and a Savior. It's summed up in that, isn't
it? I believe that's so. Our God, our Lord Jesus Christ,
He's a just God and a Savior. He's holy and cannot look upon
sin. So what are we to do? We are
nothing but sin, but He's merciful to sinners. He not only punishes sin, but
He forgives sinners. You know, we see Adam in God's
anger cast out of the garden. The justice of God demanded that
Adam be put out of the garden. for his rebellion according to
God's justice. But Adam left the garden with
the promise of mercy, didn't he? The seed of the woman. He
left the garden with the promise of mercy. God's justice and wrath against
sin flooded and drowned the whole world, but there sits Noah's
ark on the floods. God gave his law on Mount Sinai
to Moses, and it pronounced judgment to those who fall short of that
law. While in the temple, there was a mercy seat, in the Holy
of Holies, sprinkled with blood, shouting, there's mercy. I'm a savior. Then behold Calvary. Here we have the dear son of
God, our Savior, enduring the wrath of God for the elect, for
the elect's sins. God the Father is just. He said,
I spared not my own son, poured out my wrath upon him. Spared not his own son, but he
delivered him up for us all. And as our Lord, he suffered
there and he prayed, Father, forgive them. Mercy. Scripture says there is forgiveness
with thee. I'm a just God and I'm a savior. I remember what Bruce said when
he was at our conference. What kind of God do we serve? Oh, my wonderful, wonderful,
wonderful God. Job asked this. He said, how
can he be clean? It's born of a woman. by the just one who satisfied
justice and makes a way for mercy. He's just and the justifier of him which believes in Jesus.
He's a just God and a Savior. Why should I look to Him? He's
a Savior and He's justice and He's a just God. It says in Romans, Paul says,
who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God
that justifies. It is Christ that died, yea rather,
is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God. Satan
comes in and says, you let him get by with that one, and God's
replied, no I didn't. I punished it in my son. He can
get by with one sin. Justified. He gained us the victory. He
rose from death. Christ died. He laid down His
life and He took it up again and He arose from death. And
He came back from hell. He suffered hell and the vengeance
of God against sin. He came back from that. He put
an end to it. He put an end to hell's punishment
and its sentence against us. Just think of what He accomplished. What manner of man is this? Our
Lord Jesus Christ. No wonder Jehoshaphat said, Our
eyes are upon Thee. It's a good place to fix your
eyes on Him. We need a Savior. Do you need
a Savior? He's a Savior. Consider Him and consider what
He's done. He's done the work of a Savior,
being made a sacrifice for sin. He's saying, well, I just don't
feel worthy. I don't feel like I can hold
out. I just don't feel like I can
trust Him. I don't feel like my faith is strong enough. If
you don't have faith, come to Him for faith. Look to Him for
faith. If you can't hold out, look to
Him to keep you. Look to Him for everything. Look
to Him now. No reason to wait. He fills all
of our needs. But you will not come to me,
scripture says, that you might have life. Oh, think how foolish
that is. Our first inclination is always
to look to ourselves, but I need to be this, and I need to be
that, and I need to think this, and I need to know more about
that. Look. Look. I'm a just God, and I'm a Savior.
All that you need is found in me. It's not found in you. There's no reason to look within. And then thirdly, we're to be
encouraged because He was raised from the dead and He's seated
at the right hand of God having all power and authority over
all flesh and all things, having put all things under His feet.
And I'd like you to turn with me to Ephesians 1. I'll try to
wind this up. Let's begin there at verse 15. Wherefore I also, after I heard
of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,
cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in
my prayers. that the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of Glory, may give unto you the spirit
of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of
your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the
hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His
inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness
of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of His
mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him
from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly
places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion."
Flip over there a couple pages. We looked at this a minute ago
in chapter 6, verse 12. For we wrestle not
against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places. And look back at chapter
1 and verse 21. God had set him at his own right
hand in the heavenly places and he's far above these things,
far above all principality and power and might. These things
that we wrestle against, He's far above these things. And He's
far above every name that is named, not only in this world,
but also in that which is to come. And hath put all things
under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things,
to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth
all in all. Can you look to Him? Boy, I can. I can. Thank God I can. I'm striving to look to Him.
Are you encouraged this morning? Boy, I'm encouraged. At Him,
at the thought of Him, at the sight of Him, by looking to Him. My trust is well placed. Isn't
yours? Oh, it's delightful. Delightful.
Salvation begins with a look, and it continues with a look,
and it will end with a look. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith, Psalm 25 verse 15 says, Mine eyes are
ever toward the Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the
net. And Psalm 105 verse 4 says, Seek the Lord in His strength,
seek His face evermore. Evermore. Here's where we find
peace. and hope and certainty. Our world is uncertain, our life. There's a sure salvation in Him. Here's where we find hope and
joy and peace and salvation and light and life and love and all
things are in Him. Look nowhere else. And then Isaiah 31 says, Woe
unto them that go down to Egypt for help to the world. Woe unto
them. Woe that go down to Egypt for
help and stay on horses and trust in chariots because they are
many and in horsemen because they're very strong. But they
look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord.
Woe unto them. I hope We've been helped to look
to God our Savior this morning. May He turn our eyes to Himself,
wholly. May our scene be filled with
a view of Him. May we have a single eye looking
to Christ. And then last of all, Isaiah
chapter 40, read two or three verses there. Verse 28, Hast thou not known, hast thou
not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of
the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary, there
is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint,
and to them that have no might, he increases strength. Even the
youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly
fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings
as eagles. They shall run and not be weary, and they shall
walk and not faint." Thanks be to God for our great Savior.
Look unto me. In good times and bad times,
in the midst of trouble, Look to Him. Lots of trouble. Lots of trouble to come. May
we be found looking to Him. For I'm God, and there is none
else. Gary, come and lead us in the
closing hymn. Let's stand together, turn in
our hymnals to song number 195. 195, we'll dismiss with song.
195. I've a message from the Lord,
Hallelujah The message unto you I'll give It is recorded in His
Word, Hallelujah It is only that you look and live Look and live,
my brother, live. Look to Jesus now and live. It's recorded in His word, hallelujah. It is only that you look kindly. We'll sing the third stanzas
as the last, but notice a couple words there. It says life is
offered. He never offered us life. He
gave us life. Life is given. Life is given
unto you. Hallelujah! Eternal life thy soul shall have. If you'll only look to Him. Hallelujah! Look to Jesus, who alone can
save. Look and live, my brother, live. Look to Jesus now and live. It is recorded in His word, hallelujah. It is only that you look and
live. We'll meet again this evening
at six o'clock. Lord bless you.