Acquaint now thyself with him,
and be at peace. Thereby good shall come unto
thee. Receive, I pray thee, the law from his mouth, and lay up
his words in thine heart. If thou return to the Almighty,
thou shalt be built up. Thou shalt put away iniquity
far from thy tabernacles. Then shalt thou lay up gold as
dust, and the gold of Ophir as the stones of the brooks. Yea,
the Almighty shall be thy defense, and thou shalt have plenty of
silver. For then shalt thou have thy
delight in the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face unto God. Thou shalt make thy prayer unto
him, and he shall hear thee, and thou shalt pay thy vows.
Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto
thee, and the light shall shine upon thy ways. When men are cast
down, then shalt thou lift up, then shalt thou say there is
a lifting up, and he shall save the humble person. He shall deliver
the island of the innocent, and is delivered by the pureness
of thine hands." Here in Job twenty-two and verse
twenty-one, I'm going to go through these scriptures and make a few
comments on them. The title of my message is in
the 21st verse. Acquaint now thyself with him. Here's one of Job's three friends.
Back up in the first verse, it says he's Eliabas, the Timonite. That's who's speaking. And he's
talking to Job's other three comforters and Job himself. He
was a young man. And here old Eliaphas, he's talking,
and he's saying some things, and what he's saying to Job and
us is as true today as it was the day he spoke to him. And
Job's supposed to be the oldest book in the Scripture, the oldest
book in the Bible, written before any of the rest of them. And
here's Job, and what he told him is, after all these thousands
and thousands and thousands of years, says as much to us today
as it did to Job in those days. And here's a great, great need
that everybody has today. Acquaint now thyself with Him
and be at peace. Acquaint thyself with Him. Now,
when it talks about acquainting thyself with God, with the Almighty,
acquaintanceship means more than just a passing knowledge. We'll
meet somebody and say, I'm glad to make your acquaintance. But
when it talks about acquainting thyself with God, it's more than
just a passing knowledge. It's more than a theoretical
knowledge. It's more than just acknowledging there is a God,
more than acknowledging there is a higher power, more than
acknowledging that there's a supreme being. It's much, much more than
that. It's not a presumed knowledge.
It's not a knowledge that I presume to know God, that I presume to
know some things about God. But equate thyself with Him,
that means to actually know God, to come to know God, to know
God as He's made known in His scripture. It's to know God and
it's to enjoy the Lord. That's what it means. To equate
yourself with Him, to know Him, and to enjoy Him as He is. as He makes Himself known to
you. That's what our Lord Jesus said. He says, this is salvation,
is to know the one true God, and Jesus Christ to me is it.
And that's to know God. And there's only one God. One
God, one Father, one Lord Jesus Christ. And it's to know Him.
I mean, not know some things about Him, to know Him. To know
Him and actually be able to say some things that's right about
Him. and to enjoy Him as He is. And it says here, be at peace.
Here's the word. You can't be at peace with God
until you know God, and you can't know God. You know what separates
us from God? Why there's no peace with men.
Why men can't be at peace with God? Because sin, this horrible
thing called sin, separated everybody from God, from Adam. Right now,
everybody that don't know God is separated from God by their
sin. And sin is not so much what you
do, it's what you are. You do what you do because you
are what you are. You tell a lie because you're
a liar. You're an adulterer because you're an adulterer. You're an
adulterer because you're an adulterer. You're a thief because you steal.
And you see, you don't steal because you're already a thief
in your heart. And that's what sin is. Sin is a nature. Sin
is a principle that's in us. And it's something we're born
with. It's something, you know, from an infant. From an infant.
You can tell that an infant's born with this nature in them.
You can tell them no, and they just stop, and they look like
they're astonished that they can't do what they want to do.
And men are astonished to find out that they are separated from
God because of sin. Well, I don't seem like I'm that
bad a person. You don't have to be that bad
a person, but you're as bad off in the sight of God as you can
be. And that's where it counts. Be at peace with God. The carnal
mind is enmity against God. I mean, men are born with an
hatred, with an enmity in their heart and in their nature against
God. Now, not against the God of their
imagination, not against the God that they think about, not
against the God that they presume to know, but the God of the Bible
who has you in His hands to do with you as He pleases. He does
not owe you or me anything, and we're in His hands. He can save
us or damn us. He can call us to Himself or
leave us to ourselves. It's we the one that's got to
sin. God's the one that made the way
to save us from sin. And if there's going to be peace,
it must come by more than just walking in and out, or making
a decision, or deciding I'm going to turn over a new leaf, or deciding
I'm going to get a little jab of religion, or deciding I'm
going to buy a Bible, and deciding I'm going to start going to church,
deciding I'm going to start trying to live right. It's much, much
more than that. To be at peace, it means more
than that. I tell you, the Scripture says
God put enmity between Christ, the woman seed, and the serpent.
And, beloved, that enmity has been there, and there's only
one way in the world to make peace. You keep Job, and turn
with me now over to Colossians. I want you to look in Colossians
chapter 1 with me just a moment. This, this, oh, men, men and
women are so presumptuous about what they know about God. and
what they think about God, and how they can come to God just
any way. Everybody's talking about God. And then he talks about loving
someone. When the love of God's mentioned,
it's mentioned always in regard to a particular people, never
to everybody. And oh, here in Colossians 1,
19, look what he says. for it pleased the Father that
in Christ should all fullness dwell." All the fullness of salvation,
all the fullness of redemption, all the fullness of the Godhead,
all the fullness of salvation, all the fullness of sacrifice,
all the fullness that a sinner requires is in Christ. Now listen
to this, and having made peace How did He do it? Having made
peace. Something already done. Having
made peace by the blood of His cross. God said, if you want peace with
me, this is what it's going to take. If you're in such a sad
state, you're in such a miserable condition, you're so far away
from me, and there's no way in the world you cannot walk it
out and get peace. If you want peace with me, I'm
going to hang my son on a cross, and he's going to bleed out,
and he's going to suffer, and he's going to die, and he's going
to shed blood. And I'll smell that blood, and
that blood will be a sweet savor under me. And that blood will
make an atonement for sin. That blood will put away the
sacrifice, the sin. That blood will make peace. And
if you want peace, you're going to have to come to my blessed
son. By him, he said, to reconcile all things unto himself. By him,
I say, whether the things in earth Whether even things in
heaven, everything in heaven and earth, if they're reconciled
to God, they're reconciled through the blood of the cross of the
Lord Jesus Christ. You want peace with God? It was
already attained. Come make your peace called election?
Sure. I used to hear a preacher say all the time. You can't make
peace with God. God's already made peace. You
know what you need to do? Throw your guns down. Throw your
weapons down. Surrender. Peace been made. I mean, listen, you know, when
they got on that ship at the end of World War II, and all
those fellows got on that ship, unconditional surrender. You're
going to give up all your weapons, You're not, you're going to bow
down, you're going to give up everything. We whipped you, you're
defeated, and now if you're going to have anything, you're going
to give up everything. And God's already made peace,
now it's up to you. Now all you do is just put your
gunner down. Surrender. The war is over. Either you're still at war with
God, ought to be your best friend or your worst enemy. But look
what else he goes on to say here now. Verse 21. And you, that's
me and you, that know Christ, that were sometimes alienated
and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now have you reconciled. Oh, bless His name. Oh, God made
Christ to be sin, who knew no sin. Reconciling the world unto
Himself, not imputing those sins unto Him, but reconciling them
by making Christ to be saved. And, oh, listen, back over in
our text, there was a great need, acquainting ourselves with Him. Acquainting ourselves with Him.
And you know how to know God? It's through the Lord Jesus Christ.
You've got to, you know, this Oh, this is the most wonderful
knowledge anybody can have. It's to know God. To know God. To be at peace with God. To be
able to lay down and say, I know God. God knows me. And if I lay down or something
happens to me, when I face God, peace has already been made.
It's already done. And I tell you, God then and God now can
only be known one way, and that's through the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, why you say now, even then, go that I know that my
Redeemer lives. And I shall see him for myself,
and not another. He'll stand in the latter days
upon the earth, and I'll see him for myself. Now, if you want
peace with God and you want to know God, the only way to know
God is through the Lord Jesus Christ. I just read where all
the fullness dwells in Him. You see, Christ our Lord was
God manifest in the flesh. And He made peace by the blood
of His blessed cross. And as Scott used to say all
the time, kiss the Son. Kiss the Son lest He be angry. Reach out and kiss Him. Reach
out and say, Oh, yes, Lord. I'll kiss you. I'll embrace you. I'll say yes, Lord. The only
way in the world that I can know God is through you. I'm coming
to you. I'm coming to you. And I want you to know something
else about this business of knowing God. Look back up here in Job
chapter 22 and verse 2. You see, God is perfectly independent. He's perfectly independent. self-contained,
if I can say it that way. We as men have absolutely nothing
to it, and we as men take nothing from it. He said here in verse
2, Can a man be profitable unto God? As he that is wise may be profitable
unto himself. Is it any pleasure to the Almighty
that thou art righteous, or is it gain to him that thou makest
thy ways perfect? Huh? What in the world can we
do to make God any different than He is? And what that saying is, that
God is God before we ever were, and He'll be God after we're
gone. He is who He is. You can do all the righteous
acts you want to, and you won't add a thing in the world to God.
God don't need us, we need Him. He don't need our righteousness,
He has to give us our righteousness. He don't need our goodness, we
need His goodness. He don't need our strength, we
need His strength. He don't need our hair, we need
His. Oh how we need Him. Man's character
does not affect him. People say, well, I'm a good
feller, I know this. Listen, you're the best character,
the righteous, all of our righteousness as a filthy rag. The best deed
we ever done in the sight of God is as a filthy rag. Our character does not affect
him anyway. Even the Lord Jesus Christ, it
was because that God's Nature is the way it is and cannot change.
That's why even his son down here, coming down here, did not
change anything about God. It was because of his nature
that he sinned his son. It was because of his holy nature
that he made a way for sin to be put away by the sacrifice
of his son. And I'll tell you something else.
Our sin does not lessen his peace or his joy. It was ours. When you and I sin,
it will lessen our peace and our joy, but it will have no
effect whatsoever on God. And a virtue of morality cannot
add to His blessedness. People say, oh, boy, if you'll
do this, that, and the other, God will bless you. There's a
message, and I won't even listen to it because I know by the title
that the message is wrong. Much prayer, much blessings.
Little prayer, little blessings. If my blessings were dependent
on my praying, on how much I did or how little
I did, oh my! Wait a minute. Ain't everybody
ought to always pray and not to fake? Yes, they are. But I'm
telling you one thing, beloved. Your prayer ain't going to get
God to bless you. God blesses us and blesses us only for Christ's
sake. Anything we have is because of
what Christ did. Now, we love God. We serve God. We worship God. We bless God.
We praise His holy name. We call on Him, and we look to
Him, and we need Him. But, beloved, in all those things
add nothing to Him. Every desire we have that's spiritual
comes from Him. Every prayer that we pray, He
puts it in our heart. Everything we have comes from
Him. And I don't like it like that.
Oh, I spent enough of my lifetime to please God and try to get
to God on my terms. And every time I started, I hit
a brick wall. Every time I started, I lost
my peace. Every time I started, I lost
my religion. But then we come to God in Christ. We come with peace. We come with
joy. We come with thanksgiving. Because everything's already
been done. Huh? Oh, listen. He God's eternal. He's pure. He's blessed. He's unaffected
by any good or bad in us whatsoever. Ain't that right? Look with me
over in Job. I don't want to take too long,
but I want to look in Job 35 just a moment. Oh, this is the God we worship.
This is the God that can save a sinner. And Psalm means save
him all over. Save him of all the saving that
he needs. You know how many times you need saving in your lifetime? You know how much saving you
need from the day that God saved you until you enter into glory?
You know how much saving you need? How much saving do you need from
the time God saves you by His grace and you trust Him until
you really go? How much salvation, how much saving do you need?
Whatever how much it is, you got it. Where you got it at? You got it in Christ. Oh my,
look what He said here in Job 35 and verse 6. If thou sinnest, what dost thou
against Him? If thy transgressions be multiplied,
what doest thou unto him? Huh? If thou be righteous, what
do you give him, and what does he receive again? Sin or a saint? God does not change. Has no effect on him. Doesn't
do it. And I'm going to read you something.
I'll go over there myself and read it to you, and so you won't
have to turn there, but I'm going to read this to you. Over here
in the Book of Acts, in chapter 17, just a minute, I want you
all to hear this, talking about God, in order to know God, to
acquaint thyself with God. Paul's standing on Mars Hill,
and he says this, God that made the world, and all things therein,
seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples
made with hands, neither is worshiped with men's hands, as though he
needed anything. See, he giveth to all life, and
breath, and all things." All right. And I tell you what,
beloved, God absolutely needs no hands. Don't need our hands,
don't need our feet, don't absolutely. His works will carry on after
we're gone. His work was going on before
we got here. And I tell you, look back over here in Job 22,
verse 4, God does not explain Himself to any man. Will He reprove thee for fear
of thee? Will He enter into thee with
thee into judgment? You know, is God going to do
something because He's afraid of you? Going to enter into judgment
with you? Oh, He don't explain Himself.
Acquaint now thyself with Him." How? Through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, here's the way. Oh, what
a great need, acquaint yourself with Him. Here's the way it's
done. Verse twenty-two, "...receive, I pray thee, the law from his
mouth, and lay up his words in thine heart. If thou return to
the Almighty, thou shalt be built up, thou shalt put away iniquity
far from thy tabernacle." The way is plain. It says, Receive,
I pray thee, the law, or the word. The law there means the
word. The word from His mouth. Lay up His words in your heart. Receive His word. Take His word.
It's God that's speaking. Whenever we know we pick up a
Bible, it's the word of God. Whenever you hear a preacher
talking from the Scriptures, it's the word of God. Receive
His word. The Scripture says, They which
were born, nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man, nor the
will of blood, but of God, for as many as received Him, to them
they be the power to become the sons of God." You know, Paul
told the Thessalonians, he said, you know, he said, you received
the Word, not as it was from the Word of men, but as indeed
it was in truth, the Word of God. You received it as the Word
of God. Not just what Paul said, Not
just what Simon Peter said, but when I preach to you, you receive
what I said as the Word of God itself. And oh, I tell you, over
in John 8, 37, it says there, you know, he said, I know that
you don't know me because my word hath no place in you. Oh, where is the word, place
for the Word in your heart? Do you really believe the Word?
Receive His Word. This is God's Word. And I pray
you receive it. He said, receive. What did he
say? Receive, I pray thee, the word,
the law from his mouth, the word, and then lay it up in your heart.
David said, I've laid up thy word, hid thy word in my heart,
that I might not sin against thee. That's what we need in
our heart. I used to be very, very particular
about remembering things and quoting scriptures and tell you
where they were. And that, you know, made me look
good. But it didn't do anybody any good. Now, you know, I don't
care whether I remember what Scripture are or not, as though
I'd like to. I'd really like to. Just as long as I can turn
there and show you to them so they get them in your heart. Lay up the Scripture. Lay it
up in your heart. And then he says here, return. In verse 23,
return to the Almighty. And you know, back when an enemy
conquered somebody, and these fellas were still out, and the
king, you know, had the power to save them or kill them when
they come, what they'd do is they'd put a rope around their
neck. Put a rope around their neck, and they'd come back, you
know, just down like this here, you know, with that rope around
their neck to that guy that just conquered their nation. They'd
put that rope around their neck, and they'd go like this here.
I'm your servant. I've got the rope around my neck.
You can hang me or take it off." And he said, return with the
rope around your neck. Return with humility. Return
with repentance. And look what it says here also
there in verse 23. He says, return and put away
a nigger from thy tabernacle. Just like Israel put leaven out
of their house. And leaven was a type of sin.
And what he's saying here, lawlessness has to go. And I'll tell you
something, if you acquaint yourself with God, you want sin to go.
You want lawlessness to go. You want iniquity out of your
home. You want iniquity out of your heart. And that's why Christ
came to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And that's why Paul
says, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. Then look what he says there
again in verse 23. Then shalt thou be built up." Be built up. What do you need to be built
up to? God has to renew a man. Man is falling, falling, falling
in sin, falling into iniquity. And God has to take that man
and has to restore him, has to rebuild him. Sin broke down all
that's about him, and man can't build himself up. But God will
build you up in faith, in grace, in repentance, mercy, knowledge,
Christ, all in His Word, He'll build you up in all the things
that you need. He'll build you up in grace,
for by grace are you saved through faith, and that knowledge is
saved. He makes men new creatures in Christ. Old things are passed
away. New in their mind. New in their
motives. New in their life. New in every
way they'll start seeking God. And then look at the results
of this acquaintance with Him. Look what happens when you come
to know the Lord. In verse 25, oh my, look what
happens here. You get great riches. He says
in verse 24, Then shalt thou lay up gold as
dust, and the gold of the vultures as the stones of the brooks.
Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defense. Oh my, when you have
treasure, when you have treasure, I tell you, if you've got Christ,
you've got everything that you could possibly want in this world. Paul says Christ is all and in
all. The gold of Ophir, he says, is
stones of brooks. That gold of Ophir is the best
gold that there was. God said that Christ, He'd make
a man as the gold of Ophir. That's Christ. The best, the
most purest gold that there was, and there it was. He said it
would just lay like stones in the brooks. Just go out there
and pick it up. I was out in Colorado, I believe
it was last year, year before last, and stopped by this river. And several people parked there,
and I got talking to some of them. And there's a road, river
going down through there. And I got talking to this fellow,
and he had him a big old bar there with him. I said, what
are you doing with that bar? And he said, oh, I go down here in this creek,
and I take that bar, and I turn over these rocks and stuff, and
I'm looking for gold. He said, I'm down there in all
these rocks and among all this river and creek and stuff, and
I'm turning over rocks and things with this big old thing here.
I'm looking for gold. I said, here, if I said, oh yeah,
I'll find a little there once in a while. You see, God said
here, if you've got Christ, just reach down and pick up all the
gold you want. He said, what else did He say
about it? He said, you'll have gold as dust. Dust. Oh, that's what it is to have
Christ. You see, if you have the Lord Jesus Christ and know
God, you have true riches. And I know this, I know this
from experience. All things are truly worthless
compared to Him. Compared to Him. Not one of us,
not one of us is going to take one thing with us when we leave
this world. Not one thing. We're going to
leave our houses. We're going to leave our bank
accounts. We're going to leave the cash in our pockets. And you know what we're going
to have? We're going to have a wooden box and a six-foot hole
in the ground. But you know what will matter?
If you know Christ. Everybody can stand there and
say, Bless the Lord, O my soul, all that is within me. They close their eyes here and
open it in glory, and even the person that's left here will
realize then and there that everything they ever had ain't worth nothing
compared to what they just gave up, what they just lost. Oh my, material things can't
meet the needs of an immaterial soul. The scripture says, fill
with his fullness. Let men have things, we have
God. Let men glory in things, we have
Christ. Paul said we have this treasure
in earthen vessels. He says we have the riches of
grace, the riches of the glory of his inheritance, the unsearchable
riches of Christ. And then there's another thing
that says about riches, the deceitfulness of riches. You know, riches will
deceive you as quick as anything they are. Now, Lord, that's what he said
about that rich man. He said, God blessed him with
a great big bunch of stuff. He tore down his bars and built
some new ones and filled them all up. And he says, so now take
thy knees, eat and be merry. And that very night, God said,
Oh, you fool, this night thy soul is required to pray. Oh, the rich man, he said this,
he said, would you let Lazarus, that fellow that I ignored, that
had them sores all over him, would you, them dogs was licking
on him, and licking those sores, and licking that pus coming out
of his sores, and licking that old blood coming out of his sores,
would you let that man that I walked by him every day, and didn't
even give him the crumbs from my table, would you let Lazarus,
Go and dip his finger in some water and let him come here and
just give me a drop on my part, you dumb." He said, no, no, I
ain't going to do that. There's a great gulf between
you and here. And there ain't nobody can span
that gulf. He said, well, at least let him
go tell my five brothers. He said, I ain't going to do
that either. He said they got Moses and they got the prophets,
and if one rose from the dead, they wouldn't believe it. Oh my! Go ahead and enjoy yourself
if you don't intend to come to Christ. Go ahead and enjoy your
things if you don't intend to come to Christ. Go ahead and
spend all your money if you don't intend to come to Christ. Go
ahead and live in sin if you don't intend to come to Christ.
Go ahead and blow up your neck if you don't intend to come to
Christ. Go ahead and think you've got riches if you don't intend
to come to Christ. But oh, if you intend to come
to Christ, you'll find out this one thing, that the only thing
that's worth having is Him. When it's all said and done.
And everything, everything, when you come to Him, you'll realize
that everything you have in this world, He gave to you. If you're
an industrious person, He gave you that industrious nature.
If you're a frugal person, He gave you that frugality. If you're a good manager, God
made you that way. I mean, if you got a nice home,
God gave you the job, and I'm telling you that anything you
got, God gave it to you. You could have been born down
in New Guinea with a bone in your nose and a loin cloth around
you carrying a bow and arrow. That's what I'm saying, equate
yourself with God. Equate yourself with God. Oh,
my. This is it? This is it? I was talking to an aunt yesterday. I don't mean to take too long.
I was talking to an aunt yesterday about marriage, and this is what
happened. All my dad's, my dad and his
two brothers, all three are alcoholics. Bad drinkers. Oh, there's just
a mess. The middle son, he had a son named after him who got
AIDS, and he died. Just withered away to skin and
bones. Homosexual, got AIDS, died. It's a right picture. Well, his
dad, this boy's dad, mom, went up
to the funeral. Of course, he drinks. When he
gets out of bed in the morning, first thing he does, grab something
to drink. Been that way as long as I know
him. At my dad's funeral, got up before daylight and went to
drink. Mother of. But he's standing, he got up
right to drink at the funeral, at his old son's funeral, and
he said, I got to get out of here. I said, I can't take this,
this is a mess. He got home, standing in the driveway, and
he fell over. Somebody said, you better go out there and look
about Kenneth. They said, he's down on the ground out there.
They went out there. He's dead as a hammer. Two funerals,
father and son. Neither one of them cared anything
about God. Would you care about God? Would
you care about knowing about God? Huh? Serious business there. I hope, if I go, I hope I go
right here. That'd be a wonderful way to
go. Then over to praying, and then just, you know, somebody
say, boy, he's quit praying. What's going on here? Go up there
and you push me like this. That'd be wonderful. Oh, look over here, verse 26.
Then we'll have great delight in the Lord. Look what it says
here. But he said also there, I want you to see this, verse
25, Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defense. You know your best
defense against God is God Himself. You want to hide from God? Hide
in God. Oh, thou shalt then have delight
in the Almighty. That's what he said in verse
26. But then thou shalt have delight in the Almighty. Oh,
we'll joy in God. Enjoy God for Himself. Desire
Him. Love to have His presence. Delight
in Him. Rejoice in Him. Thank God for
Him. Mary, on the way to service this
morning, she said, Thank You, Lord, that I can breathe. That
I can take in a breath. Thank You for that, Lord Jesus.
Thank You for that. Oh, that I can come up here to
hear the Gospel. Come up here to hear the Gospel.
Herman Cole said, Is Mary going this morning? I said, Yeah. I
said, She wants to hear the Gospel. He said, boy, I do too. He said,
if I miss, I really miss something. That's what we do because we
delight in God. We delight in the Lord. We delight
in His Word. We have a great delight in Him.
And then look what he says there in verse 26 again. Not only do we delight ourselves
in Him, but we have access to Him. Look what he says there.
And thou shalt, that's part of the verse, thou shalt lift up
thy face unto God. Oh, when you delight in Him and
you know Him, Then you lift your face up to Him and say, Lord!
You lift up with confidence. You come with some great access.
We have access to Him. You lift up your face to Him.
You look at Him and say, Oh Lord, blessed be Your name. And He
looks back at you and His face smiles upon you. There was a
time when we hid as it were our faces from Him. There was a time
when there's no beauty about Him that we should desire, but
not now. Oh, how we delight in Him! How
we rejoice in Him! And oh, our fellowship is with
the Father and with the Son. Then look what else happens here.
It says that He'll even answer prayer. Look what He said here
in verse 27. Thou shalt make thy prayer unto
Him, and He shall hear thee. You have access to Him, and when
you call on Him, He hears you, and He answers you. He told Isaiah,
He said, I'll hear you before you call, and I'll answer before
you ask. Have you ever had that happen
to you? God's ear turned to us to hear us? Oh, to hear us when
we speak, to hear us when we call? And then, oh, I'll tell you something
else we'll have when we're acquainted with God. We'll have a fruitful
testimony. Look what it says down here in verse 28. Oh, you're
talking about, this is wonderful. Thou shalt also decree a thing,
and it shall be established unto thee. What does that mean? Thou
shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established. You
know what it means? A man's word becomes his bond. Whatever you
say, you stick to it. You'll swear to your own hurt.
And that man, that's true. His word becomes his bond. He
begins to speak according to, thus saith the Lord. Somebody
has to ask him for an opinion about something. He'll say, well,
this is what the Bible says. This is what the scripture says.
We'll say, and his words shall not return unto him void. It
won't do it. He said, oh, no. That's why it
says, lean not to thine own understanding. Oh, listen, if a man's got God's
Word, let him speak God's Word. If he's got a dream, let him
tell a dream. But, boy, watch the chapter of the wheat. And
then look what else it says about him. Oh, he'll decree a thing. He shall be established. He'll
tell the truth. He'll speak the truth. And what
he says, if he says, What thus saith the Lord? It will not return
void. It will not. And then look what he says. And
the light shall shine upon thy ways. Oh my, we ain't going to
walk in darkness here, boy. The Lord said, I'm the light. I'm the light. If that man that
walks in me, he shall not walk in darkness. Oh, no more walking
in darkness. We're walking in the light. Oh, it may appear dark. You know,
it's cloudy out there and it appears dark right now. But you
know, When the clouds separate, the clouds are gone, the sun
comes right out. You know, the sun was always
there. You know, the thing that hit it was the clouds. Sometimes
we'll have clouds, but the sun's always there, ain't it? Always
there. And, oh, beloved, He's guiding
us, He lights it, lights our mind, enlightens our heart, gives
light to us. And then He makes us useful to
others when we make ourselves acquainted with Him. Look what
he says there, verse 29. When men are cast down, then
shalt thou say, There's lifting up, and he shall save the humble
person. Oh my, God's got to do something
for us before we can do anything for anyone else. You've got to
experience something before you can really enter into what somebody
else is going through. God sends troubles our way. that
we may be able to comfort others who go through the same thing.
And, O Beloved, and they said, you know, you'll be useful if
you cast down, say, O God will lift you up. There'll be a lifting
up. You may be down right now, but
the Lord's gonna lift you up. You may be in trouble now, but
the Lord will hear you and deliver you out of your troubles. And
look what it says here, He shall save the humble person. And in
the margin, it said, He that hath low eyes, That means a fellow
that walks with, you know, he's got, his eyes are cast down. He's looking, he's just, he knows
that he ain't got no hope. He's like that publican, Lord,
I smote upon his breast, save me the sinner. You know, oh beloved,
not many people can be helped in this world. But there is some
that you can say there'll be a lifting up. And that man who
knows God, Who knows God is the only people that can do you any
good in this world. You know that? People that know
God. People who know Christ. People
who know the Word. People who are acquainted with
God. They're the only people that
can do you any good in this world. Tell you the truth. Tell you
the way. Tell you what you need to know. That'll do your soul
good. They're the only ones. The world
can't do you no good. No. Our Father, in the blessed, blessed
name of the Lord Jesus Christ, thank You for Your Word. Thank
You for the truth. Father, I pray You, blessed Lord
Holy Spirit, take the things of Christ today. Take the things
of Christ and show them unto us. Show them unto us. Thank you for what we've seen,
what we've known. And thank you, Lord, for making
Yourself known to us, giving us light, making ourselves to
know You, building us up in the faith. Oh, we bless You for it. In Christ's name, Amen. He's the Savior of my soul. Jesus, my Jesus, He's the Savior
of my soul. He's the Savior of my soul. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, He's the Savior of my soul. He's the Savior of my soul. See the night, God willing, six
o'clock.