Seeking for the help of the Lord, I direct your prayerful attention to Isaiah 57. Isaiah 57, we'll read for our text, verses 15 and 16. For thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth, for the spirit should fail before me. and the souls which I have made. Isaiah 57 verses 15 and 16. It is a word for the contrite and humble ones.

The first part of this chapter speaks of what we are by nature, a people that are idolatrous A people that are far off from the Lord. And specifically, those that do not lay things to heart. In verse one, we have the righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart. Merciful men taken away, none considering the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. This is a real mark of the unregenerate of the world Things can happen, things in providence, things in their lives, people taken away, godly people taken away, and it doesn't affect them.

They don't lay it to heart. They don't think about it. It doesn't cause them any concern. You might think even with all of the wonders that God did in Egypt with Pharaoh, he didn't seem to lay it at all to heart, what the Lord was doing, and still went on in his way.

And we have again in verse 11, we have the same thing. And of whom hast thou been afraid or feared that thou hast lied and has not remembered me, nor laid it to thy heart. Things have happened, things have been going on, but no fear of God and not laying it at all to heart.

There's a reason why the Lord emphasizes this amongst the wicked. the ungodly and by nature, because it highlights where things are laid to heart, where things do affect his people, that it is not just natural, it is the work of his grace. It is a fruit of his work that causes the things that we pass through to really affect us.

It comes to our heart. We don't just pass over it as a thing of naught, but it causes us exercise, burden, prayers, cries to the Lord. And so we have a change that comes in the middle of verse 13, where we have, reading the whole verse, when thou criest, let thy companies deliver thee, but the wind shall carry them all away, Vanity shall take them. Then we have a but.

But he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain, and shall say, cast up, cast up. In one sense, it's pointing to God's people that put their trust in the Lord, but also it's pointing to our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. He is the one that puts his trust, put his trust in his Father, and it is Him that takes away the stumbling block out of the way of God's people. Joel's saying, verse 14, cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people.

The ungodly, and we are by nature, There are many things that will stumble us. And many times you hear people say, well, we're not going to seek after God because of this, because of what he does, because of his judgments in the earth. And there's so many stumbling blocks. But the work of God is to take them out of the way, the people of God, so that they don't stumble, so that they do come to the word, they do hear the word.

And then we have the beautiful words of our text, a setting forth of our God, the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy. And we are directed to him, directed above, directed before time, after time, to eternity that we can't comprehend, to holiness so very different than us, and then such a contrast. I dwell in the high and holy place with him also, that is of a contrite and humble spirit. What an amazing thing that such a great God, a God that inhabits eternity, comes into time and comes to those that not of the high and mighty, not of the proud, but of contrite, humble ones.

And he dwells with them, not just passes by, not just visits for an hour or two and then goes on, but he dwells with them. And he dwells with them for a purpose. And the purpose is to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart. of the contrite ones. If they need reviving, that means their spirit is dead, is lifeless, they're troubled, they're cast down, they're bowed down, they feel no life, and yet the Lord comes to revive them. We cannot revive ourselves. We cannot give fresh life to ourselves. But the Lord can and the Lord does and he shows the characters that he gives that life to in these verses. So this is a beautiful word. It is a gospel word.

It's a word specifically to these characters. described as contrite and humble. So on to look then this morning, firstly at what is meant by contrite and humble, to try and find the character first. And then secondly the blessings of being such, as in the present, remember our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount, he said, blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. They were blessed while they were hungering and thirsting. And these here, they are blessed while they are contrite and humble. And then thirdly, the way the Lord revives a soul. Our text says that it is to revive the spirit of the humble to revive the heart of the contrite ones. So firstly, what is it that describes one that is contrite, one that is humble? To be contrite is to be penitent, feeling remorse and sorrow, not wanting to offend.

It has the ingredient of a hatred of sin and past offences. Hymn writer says, past offences pain my eyes. And it is actually a key ingredient to repentance. Repentance is turning, turning away from sin and turning unto God. But it's not just a hard, cold seeing what is wrong and what is right and turning from one to another. There's that which really touches the heart.

You see this especially on the Day of Pentecost, where those that are crucified, the Lord Jesus Christ, when they were convicted under Peter's sermon, They were pricked in their heart. Men and brethren, what shall we do? You could hardly describe the concern, the sorrow, the pain that they felt, similar to what Peter himself knew when, after he denied the Lord those three times, the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. And he went out and he wept bitterly. That realizing the real painfulness of what we've done and what we've said, and it causes real sorrow.

Remember not the sins of my youth. The psalmist, he speaks of the same things. You think of psalmist in Psalm 38, my loins are filled with a loathsome disease. There is no soundness in my flesh. You think of dear David. In Psalm 51, against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. How the whole psalm speaks of his feeling sense of what he'd done. He'd been pardoned, he'd been forgiven. Thou shalt not die, the prophet had said to him, but that didn't matter.

He was sorry for his sin and he mourned over it and he was low before the Lord, contrite before the Lord. Then there is joined together here, humble, such opposite than what we are by nature. By nature, we are arrogant, we are proud, we are self-important, we're like as we read with the Pharisee in the temple, just speaking of all his good works. like Pharaoh, who is the Lord, that I should serve him. We are like Nebuchadnezzar, all this kingdom, all of these things that I've done, and they're all by my might and by my power. But the Lord dealt with him and brought him down, and brought him down humble so that he was able to clearly point to the Lord as giving him and adding unto him glory and might and that by the Lord he was what he was and the Lord had restored him when his mind was taken away.

To humble is showing a modest estimate of one's own value and importance, not just a mock humility. but one that is really felt. There are those real things that we see. And I think it is important to really notice that when we look at characters like this, those characters, they really feel what is describing them. Sometimes we might look at those who are blessed in the scriptures and think, well, if I was blessed like that, I'd feel really blessed. But those that are contrite and humble, there are real things in their lives that the recall of them causes them pain. There are real things that they've said and done, like Peter, like David, like Paul, who says that he was not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the house of God.

Sins that were put away. And we're told that God forgets those sins, and yet for the apostle, for David, they could not forget them. They were remembered in the sense that it humbled them. Paul is good where he said, forgetting those things that are behind, reaching forth unto that which is before. The pain that we feel behind, our own sin, our own shame, is not to keep us back. is not to make us to say we're not the Lord's, but it is to humble us, to bring us low, and to go forward. That is what Paul pointed to. Every sense of sin that is brought is not to condemn, but it is to encourage us to go forward, encourage us to look to the Lord who bore our sin and who suffered in our place.

These conditions here are painful to actually be. We really feel it and there are real things that come to our heart, our mind, that we really struggle with. Those characters, they need verses like this. They need to No, this does describe them, and know what the Lord will do for them.

I would just say here, and maybe I touch upon it a bit later, the verse 16, for I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wroth, for the Spirit would fall before me and the souls which I have made. There are real things that bring a soul down and humble them, but the Lord won't always be doing that. He won't always be crushing, always humbling, and always convicting of sin, lest that soul be completely crushed, completely destroyed. I want to look at, in our second place, the blessings of being humble, being a contrite, and we see perhaps more on this what is set forth in verse 16, because the Lord doesn't crush underfoot his people.

He does appear for them, will not lay upon them more than what they can bear. So I want to look then secondly at the blessings of being contrite and humble. The first thing is that they are so by God's own work. This is one of those things that we need to ascribe unto God, recognise as His work. Psalm 102, verse 23, he weakened my strength in the way.

And dear Job, he says to his friends, it is God that casteth down, not man. You might say, well, Job, but what about what Satan has done? But Job never is looking to Satan, he's looking to God being over all. But what about the miserable comforters, his friends?

Well, they're under God's hand as well. And Joe could see that. And though Joe got so low and he says, oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even unto his seat, all the time he was acknowledging the Lord's hand. And it's good for us to do that, to realize that.

With David, when he numbered Israel, we have two accounts in the word of God. One is that God, moved David to number Israel because he had a controversy with Israel they had sinned. The other was that Satan stood up against Israel and he provoked David. But when David was convicted of his sin, that it was wrong to number Israel in a time of peace, it was wrong not to take up the ransom money for those that were numbered, And so then the plague came on the people. David, he says, I have sinned. He doesn't blame the Lord. He doesn't blame Satan. He blames himself. And he is humble.

And a blessing follows. The blessing of the plague stayed. And the place where the temple was to be built was shown. And the Lord appeared for David in the threshing floor. answered his prayers, sacrifice was offered. That's where the temple was to be built. The blessing came of that time. But it was the Lord's work to bring this about, to humble David, to do something good by it, to appoint it, to bring down pride.

And of course, with David, even Joab, wicked Joab, He asked, why was it that he wanted to number Israel? Well, it's pride. Often it is with us, isn't it? We want to see how great we are, see how popular we are, see how blessed we are. And pride rises up when the Lord humbled him. And so it is, by the grace of God, that God humbles a sinner. He deals with them. He brings conviction of sin. He brings in providence those things that are used to humble and to bring down, to bring to remembrance our own sin. We think of when Elijah went to Zarephath and he was with the widow woman and the Lord worked a miracle day by day that oil didn't fail and the meal didn't fail. But they weren't used. She wasn't humbled by that at all. But then her son died. Art thou come to bring my sin to remembrance? And then the Lord worked the miracle, raised her son from the dead. And then she knew that he is a prophet of the Lord. Then it worked for good.

And the Lord mentions her that none in Israel were blessed, were favoured. Yet there were many widows in Israel, but of Zarephath, that's where he was sent to her. That enraged the Jews in their time to think that the Lord would go to a Gentile and bless them. But it was when the Lord brought that severe providence, the death of the son, that that worked for good. And that brought her sin to remembrance. The Lord has a way of doing this.

Joseph's brothers, it may be, had gone for those 20 years or 22 years and managed to blot out from their remembrance what they'd done to Joseph. But when Joseph began to deal heartily with them, and when he locked up Simeon, and when he required that Benjamin come, then all their sins were brought to remembrance. And they spoke one to another. Joseph heard them. saying about that we didn't listen to his cries when he cried, when we sold him, and those things were brought after 20 years.

And it is God that does that, that brings up things that we have done, that on account of those, we are humbled, we're brought contrition, we're brought sorry for our sin, and to really mourn over him. I believe that was one of the reasons that Joseph did that to his brothers. He wanted to hear them contrived. He wanted to hear them sorry for what they'd done.

He wanted to see real proof that they had changed, that they were not the same as what they were those 22 years ago. So we need to trace that blessing of the Lord's work The apostle says, I am what I am by the grace of God. And those that are humble and contrite can say that it is the Lord, though painful though it is, to recognise that this is the Lord's work, not to crush, not to destroy, not to discourage, but a preparation for blessing, a preparation for the Lord to dwell with them. But secondly, the blessing of a contrite, humble heart is that, as we mentioned in verse 16, the Lord will not always be bringing down.

Jacob, he came to the point, he said, all these things are against me. The brothers were frightened. They quite often said to Joseph, we will bring our father's grey hairs with sorrow down to the grave. And Jacob himself was saying that, as if things would get to such a point he could not bear it. But it is thus far and no further.

The Lord knows exactly what to do. He knows how far to go. Like the blacksmith, he knows how much heat to put on. Or the refiner, how much to do. To do too much, we destroy it. Someone that's making a cake, we know how much they need to beat to make it just the right consistency. How long to put it in the oven, right time is nice. Too much and it's burnt. And the Lord knows exactly when he is forming his people. When he's dealing with them, how much to lay upon them, how much he remembers that we are but dust.

And so with Jacob, just at that time when it seemed everything gone, then the Lord turns it and Joseph is yet alive. He's brought into Egypt and he sees Joseph. We think also of Jeremiah in the Lamentations of Jeremiah chapter 3 especially. We have in verse 32, but though he cause grief yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies for he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men to crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth to turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High, to subvert a man in his course, the Lord approveth not. Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not, out of the mouth of the Most High, proceedeth not evil and good. And we find that chapter is a very comforting, very good chapter. We read in verse 22 or verse 21, this I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not.

And Jeremiah knew something of the limiting of the hand of the Lord and be able to see what the Lord was doing in it. And of course, the Lord brought the children of Israel right down, temple destroyed, out of their land to Babylon, 70 years in Babylon, but he brought them back and he restored them and he strengthened them again. One of the beautiful passages that speaks of this as a limiting and repeating of it is Psalm 107. You see through that psalm the Lord's dealings with his people.

If you look at verse 5, hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses, led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation. Then it's repeated again, verse 12.

Therefore he brought down their heart with labour. Why? Because they rebelled against the Lord. They fell down, there was none to help. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble and he saved them out of their distresses. Verse 18 again. Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat. They draw near unto the gates of death. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saveth them out of their distresses. And it's repeated again and again.

The turning point is their cry, but what brings them to cry is the Lord's dealings with them, that which brings them humbled, contrite, bowed before the Lord, real prayers being offered up, So we have the limiting, and that is the blessing. That is what we are to remember where the Lord deals with us and makes us humble and contrite, that he will limit how much he does in our lives and in providence. He won't just keep going on and on with no relief. He won't crush us under, but brings us to the place that he will bless.

Well, the third thing is it's a blessing that the Lord dwells with such. Our text is an amazing statement. It's a great contrast. He dwells in eternity. High and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place with him also. that is of a contrite and humble spirit.

How would we believe it? How would we know it? unless it was stated by God himself and set before us by himself. We have this repeated in Isaiah 66, the first two verses. Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house that ye build unto me? Where is the place of my rest? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord.

But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my word. There's more description there, the humble and contrite ones. Poor, poor of spirit, contrite of spirit. and that trembles at my word, we may ask ourselves, do we have this blessing? As the Lord brought us and made us to be like that, that we are brought to tremble at the word of the Lord and to be humble before him.

Our Lord says in John 14, of those that keep his commandments and love them, that his Father would love them, that they will come and dwell and make our dwelling with them. Again, what a wonderful thing. that that is. If we turn to that, when our Lord speaks there in John 14, and it is verse 23, Jesus answered and said unto him if a man loved me he will keep my words and my father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings and the word which he hear is not mine but the father's which sent me. In another place He said, I've given them thy word, and the world hath hated them.

You might say, how does the Lord make his abode with his people? Our Lord is in heaven. Didn't he not promise, lo, I'm with you always, even unto the end of the world. He's with his people by his grace, the grace that is given to them. He is with them by his spirit. Remember the apostles, tarry in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high. The Holy Spirit has always been given. He always was. He's part of the Trinity. The Old Testament saints had the Spirit, but in the New Testament, in a very great way, a much more evident way, the Holy Spirit is given. And you see the effect with the preaching of the word at Pentecost, 3,000 believed, another time 5,000 believed.

Great work that even when our Lord was on earth, he couldn't preach himself crucified. The gospel that was being preached by the apostles and by our Lord is not the same as after he died and risen from the dead. It was a gospel, the Lord was on his way, Salvation was, it was the day of the Lord, the day of salvation, but like our Lord said with John Baptist, the least in his kingdom was greater than John Baptist. John Baptist never saw the Lord crucified, risen again. He never saw the day of Pentecost. He maybe saw it by faith, but those in the kingdom, those in this gospel day, We have the clear, revealed plan of God and what the Lord has done. For this cause came I into the world." And so it is by his providence as well that we realise his presence.

You know, Jacob, when he was with Laban, he served Laban. Laban changed his wages ten times. When Laban pursued after him, Jacob said to Laban, he said, If the God of my father Isaac, if he had not been with me, then I would have gone out with nothing. But he recognized God was with him, because as often as Laban was persecuting him, changing his wages, the Lord was taking his part. And Jacob could see this.

And it's a blessed thing if we watch providence and can see the Lord's hand going before. Remember the Lord says that when he puts forth his sheep he goes before them. When Moses wanted to see the Lord's glory, I'll make all my goodness pass before thee in the way. And Moses as well, accept thy presence, go not with me, carry us not up hence. And so the Lord's presence is greatly coveted by the people of God. And he's known in their providence, in their lives, in their spirit, in their souls, in those things that he does with them that convince them that the Lord knows where they are.

He knows all about them. Like the woman at the well of Samaria, come see a man that told me all things that ever I did is not this the Lord. Like Nathaniel, when he was under the fig tree, I knew they saw thee when thou'st under the fig tree. And Nathaniel realized that God knew him, saw him where man could not see him. He said, Thou art the Christ, Thou art the Son of God. It is those things that impress upon us. Thou, God, seest me, and knowest where I am. And sometimes that can change our sadness. Sometimes it can even be bad news that brings that. I know I've mentioned it before, but it's a time I never forgot, going out to preach at Ebenezer Luton once, feeling very low, very discouraged, very reluctant to go.

And as I got there and I turned off my car engine outside that chapel, and as soon as the engine died, my phone rang. And my dear one had phoned to tell me that my sister had phoned from Tasmania and my father had been taken into hospital. She feared it would cast me down even further. It had the opposite effect.

I thought, the Lord knows where my father is. He knows where I am. He timed this exactly to when I turned off the engine. No hands free in those days. I couldn't have answered driving. A second or two later, I would have turned that phone off and have been into the chapel taking the service, never got a call.

The timing of it, and it picked me up. Just the fact the Lord knew where I was and had a very good day, a really blessed day. And it had begun with sorrow and even the news that was sorrowful. I could leave my father with the Lord. Just the fact the Lord knew. And the Lord can use ways like that to impress upon us He knows us, He's with us, He knows all about our circumstances, and He comes to help us in it. And He changes, changes how we feel, certainly did with me.

Now Paul, when he writes to the Corinthians, both of his letters, he reminds them that their bodies, our bodies are the temple, of the Holy Ghost. The Lord comes when he begins with a sinner, and he dwells with that sinner, and he dwells with them for their good. This is one of the blessings that is set before us here in our text, the blessing on one that is a humble, a contrite soul, that the Lord comes and dwells with them. There is another for blessing as well.

And that is that he dwells for the purpose of reviving them, to give fresh life. We have that in our text, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. In one sense, it is saying the same thing in different ways to the same person. But to revive is to give fresh life. There's a poor fresh life upon the whole.

The Lord said, I am come that they might have life, that they might have it more abundantly. We think of how it was with the apostle Paul when the Lord dealt with him in Romans 7. The apostle was a Pharisee, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. And he says in verse 9 of that chapter, I was alive without the law once. He didn't need reviving then. He was alive.

But when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. That's one of the things that brings us all contrite and humble when sin revives. Sin is seen to be sin. Paul, he says this, the commandment which was ordained to life I found to be unto death. So here the Lord had used the law to bring Paul down. Paul discerns that the Lord didn't mean to just crush him and just to convince him as a sinner to destroy him. But it was needful, and as he says to the Galatians later, as a schoolmaster unto Christ, to bring all the world guilty before God. Unless we're guilty, unless we're feeling sinners, we have no need for the Lord Jesus Christ. We have no need for his precious blood at all. And so when the Lord comes and dwells, it is for a purpose, a purpose to revive and to bless, to give fresh life. On to look then lastly at how the Lord revives a soul.

How does he do that? We go back to our text and read that he dwells in the high and lofty place with him also that is of contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble, to revive the heart of the contrite ones. A soul that is needing something from the Lord, needing reviving, needing that which they cannot give themselves and cannot attain to themselves, Well, the first thing is, is his very dwelling with them. And that leads to Emmanuel, God with us. The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to this world was to give life. And the coming in a spiritual sense to a poor sinner is to give life.

Without me, he can do nothing. It is with the Lord Jesus Christ, then, There can be those things done, but on her own not. The Lord pictures this with the vine. I am the vine, ye are the branches. The branch cannot bear fruit of itself, neither can ye, except ye abide in me. And so we have the dwelling of the Lord is the way the Lord revives a soul.

Another way is to show their debt is paid. Our Lord came to this world that he might live a perfect life, be made man at the seed of Abraham, that he might be made then a sacrifice and an offering to pay the debt the people of God owed, to lay down his life for the sheep. I, if I be lifted up above the earth, will draw all men unto me. The whole message of the Gospel is the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, has settled the debt his people owed, that that sin is put away, that sin is pardoned and forgiven, that which pains their hearts, that which brings their sin to remembrance.

If we go back to the thought of Joseph with his brethren, one part of his dealings with them was to bring their sin to remembrance. The other part was to reveal himself so that they knew he was with them. He was with them when they were under conviction. He was with them when they were pained at what they'd done. But they didn't know him. They didn't know he was with them. You might be like that. You feel the pain. You feel the sorrow. You feel the wound. You feel that which makes you humble. and contrite, but you don't see the Lord is with you. You don't see the Lord's hand in it.

And they couldn't, until Joseph revealed himself, until he showed himself and spoke directly to them. But then it wasn't any more to reprove. As soon as he made himself known, be not angry with yourselves. It was not you that sent me. Hither, that was God, to save your lives by a great deliverance. And there's this great contrast. And we have this here, the contrite ones, what has made them contrite, and then the reviving of their hearts. This man is not going to crush us. He's to bless us. He's to watch over us, to keep us. His intention right from the very beginning to the end was to do us good and not evil.

And so showing our debt paid. revealing the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary, suffering for our sins and in our place. Another way that he does it is a life from the dead. Our Lord did not just die, did not just shed his blood, but he rose again from the dead. An empty tomb, a risen saviour, life from the dead, and that's exactly what's in this text, is life from the dead. It's a reviving again, a lifting again.

Because I live, ye shall live also. Our Lord's resurrection is what is spoken of as the first resurrection, and a blessing is pronounced on those that have a part in that first resurrection. Those that are called by grace are those the Lord begins to work in their hearts. He does so because they have a part in that first resurrection. The Lord died for their sins and he rose again for their justification. And because of that, he has sent forth his spirit into their hearts, crying, Abba, Father. It is then when the Lord gives to his people that life and they see it in a risen saviour.

It's beautiful. I love this time of year because after the winter when everything has seemed so dead, so dry, everything is bursting into life. You have the daffodils, you have the trees with the sprouting again. And it happens over a period of time, this constant reminder. And I love it because as if God will say to the whole creation, to the whole world, this is a type of the resurrection. This is what is going to happen at the end of the world. This is what is going to happen.

Like the bulbs of the daffodil bulbs, so nulled and looking dead and put in the earth. But then it rises up. And you think, that doesn't bear any resemblance to that dried bulb at all. It's beautiful green and beautiful yellow flower. But it is a daffodil. And it comes from exactly that bulb.

And dear Job, he said, though after my skin, worms destroy my body. Yet in my flesh shall I see God, and for myself and not another. He would be raised Job and not another person. And it's a beautiful reminder. Creation has a wonderful voice, reaffirming the truths and teachings of the word of God.

We think also of another way the Lord revives his people, giving them a hope beyond the grave. Paul says in Corinthians that we are all men most miserable if in this life only we have hope in Christ. But to give a hope beyond the grave. Though our outward man perish, and maybe through the things we pass through we find them, yet our inward man is renewed day by day.

That is the work of the Lord. The Lord says in John 6 verse 63, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. How the word of God and what a blessed thing it would be even this morning that these words, the Lord speaks it to you and his spirit and his life to your soul. These things he says at the end of Chapter 16, I have spoken unto you that ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation, great trouble, but in me ye shall have peace. Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. And it's those things that revive the soul.

Dear friends, may we be encouraged then. Where the Lord has brought sorrow, brought down, brought us into the character here of those contrite and humble, to look for the Lord's presence, to look for his reviving hand, to have a warrant from the very word of the text here, to expect this, to anticipate what the Lord will do, to see his pattern, not just in this verse, but right through the scripture, bringing down and raising up. And even when we come to our grave at the end, bring down to the grave, and then the resurrection, raising up again. No wonder right through Psalms 107 we have this pattern brought down and raising up.

It is a thing that the people of God know right through their lives. And each time the Lord does it, it's a token for good. Their life isn't in their own hands, it is in the Lord's. They have no strength of their own, but their strength is in the Lord their God. May this word then be an encouraging word to us. May we be held to look to the Lord to revive our souls and to speak to us that which shall lift us up and encourage us in the Lord Jesus Christ. Hear him say, because I live, ye shall live also. Amen.