Isaiah 36 and verse 1. The prophecy of Isaiah said,
Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib
king of Assyria came up against all the defense cities of Judah
and took them. And the king of Assyria sent
rabbi Shekiah from Lachish to Jerusalem, and stood by the conduit
of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field. Rav Shekiah said unto them, as
he's speaking outside the wall, say ye now to Hezekiah, your
king, thus sayeth the great king, the king of Assyria, what confidence
is this wherein you trust? I say, sayest thou, but they
are but vain words. I have counsel and strength for
war. Now on whom do you trust? that you rebel against me and
the king of Assyria. Lo, thou trustest in the staff
of this broken reed on Egypt, wherein if a man lean, it will
go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to
all that trust in him. But if you say to me, we trust
in the Lord our God, is it not he whose high places and whose
altars Hezekiah hath taken away? and said to Judah and to Jerusalem,
you shall worship before this altar. Now, therefore, give pledges,
I pray thee, to my master, the king of Assyria, and I will give
thee 2,000 horses if thou be able on thy part to set riders
upon them. And so as we continue on in this
chapter, this Reb Sheki, he continues to mock the king of Judah. He continues to mock the people
so much so that he begins to speak in their own language.
And they come up and they said, we understand the Assyrian language.
Don't speak in the Hebrew tongue. Because he's trying to intimidate. He's trying to get the army who
was left with Hezekiah to lay down their arms. And he's promising
them certain things. So he begins to speak in their
Hebrew tongue. They're saying, we understand Assyrian. And so
he goes and does it anyway. He's mocking the God of Israel
and he's mocking Hezekiah and he's mocking all those who he
thinks are putting their trust in the Lord. But then we see
this in chapter 37. It came to pass when King Hezekiah
heard these things that was spoke by his enemies, he rent his clothes
and covered himself with sackcloth And went into the house of the
Lord. That's very good, very good instruction
for us. Verse 5 through 7. So the servants of King Hezekiah
came to Isaiah. So the king is praying, and now
the king says, go get Isaiah. And Isaiah said unto them, thus
shall you say to your master, your king, King Hezekiah, thus
saith the Lord, be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard
wherein the servants of the king of Assyria has blasphemed me."
We just heard about the reproaches of them that reproached thee
fell upon Christ. So when people reproach you for the gospel,
they're reproaching Christ as well. That's what he's saying. Behold, I will send a blast upon
him, and he shall hear a rumor and return unto his own land,
and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own hand. Verse 10. Thus shall you speak
to Hezekiah of Judah, saying, Let not thy God, in whom thou
trustest, deceive you, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given
into the hand of the king of Assyria. So he's blaspheming
some more. Now look with me at verses 14
through 20. And Hezekiah received the letter
from the hand of the messengers. So now he's writing them letters
and read it. And Hezekiah went up unto the
house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. And Hezekiah
prayed unto the Lord, saying, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel,
that dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone. of all the kingdoms of the earth,
and thou hast made heaven and earth. Incline thine ear, O Lord,
and hear. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see,
and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which has sent to reproach the
living God of a truth Lord, the King of Assyria, they have laid
waste to all the nations and their countries, and they have
cast their gods into the fire, for they were no gods, but the
work of men's hands, wood and stone, therefore they have destroyed
them. Now therefore, O Lord, our God,
save us from this hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth
may know that Thou art the Lord, even now only. I get my message in verse 5 of
chapter 36 this Rev. Shakir he said now on whom do
you trust on whom do you trust the enemies of our God this for
this question was posed by the Lord's enemy yet it is brought
up to each child of the King daily I say at work at play or
even sometimes with family or secular friends or neighbors.
This question is brought up frequently. They may not say it specifically
like this. On whom do you trust? Why do the church that you go
to you think is the only church or why do you say that it is
the gospel? There's other gospels. Why do
you say this? Why is it not... So you're saying
all these other folks are wrong. You're saying all these... How do you address such a pointed
question? Do you compromise and say, well, we don't think we're
the only ones? Even though the scripture says there's one gospel,
one faith, One Lord, one baptism. What is our answer? What is our
answer to this gay and sane world, be it an acquaintance or a stranger
that we just meet for the first time at a restaurant or wherever? What do we say? In whom, on whom
do you trust? Well, I've got this outline from
Spurgeon. It's a threefold answer. First,
we trust God the Father. And we agree with Hezekiah in
chapter 37 in verse 16, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel that
dwells between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone,
of all the kingdoms of the earth, thou hast made heaven and earth. their gods are no gods. Their gods can be made to feel
pity and sympathy and side with rebels against the grace of God.
Their gods are not our gods. Their God is not our God. Neither
is their Savior our Savior. He tries to save if you'll let
him. He leaves the final work of redemption
and into your hand of decision, you're being riding on a decision
car, or being baptized, or being sprinkled, or whatever it may
be, but we, whom do we trust? We trust God the Father. We trust
in the God of this whole universe. His dominion is an everlasting
one in which he rules and answers to no one. We submit to you that
He chose us from before time and He, with His choice, will
see to it that every single solitary elect will be brought safely
home. He will guide us and teach us
and even correct us until we are finally and everlastingly
brought before Him by His infinite grace and love and only the God
of Scripture. He doesn't consult our will.
He doesn't ask us our opinion. He is not furthered by our agendas. He is God alone. Thou art God
alone, creator over heaven and earth. We know that this God,
our God, cannot fail or be thwarted and He alone is totally and completely
sovereign over all things. Amen. It's the end of it. It's
the end of it. This is the God that we trust. Look with me at Isaiah 40. Just
a very, very few passages. Isaiah 40, verses 9 through 11. O Zion, that bringest good tidings,
get thee up into the high mountain. O Jerusalem, that bringest good
tidings, lift up thy voice with strength. Lift it up. Be not
afraid. Say unto the cities of Judah, behold your God. Behold the Lord God will come
with strong hands, and his arms shall rule for him. Behold, his
reward is with him, and his work before him. He shall feed his
flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with
his arms and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead
those that are with the young." Chapter 41 of Isaiah, verses
8 through 14. But thou, Israel, art my servant
Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend, thou
whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee
from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, thou art my servant.
I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away. Fear thou not, for
I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God. I will strengthen thee, yea,
I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand
of my righteousness. Behold, all they that were incensed
against thee shall be ashamed and confounded. They shall be
as nothing that strive with thee shall perish. Thou shalt seek
them and shall not find them, even them that contend with thee.
They that war against thee shall be as nothing and as a thing
of naught. For I, the Lord thy God, will
hold thy right hand, saying to thee, fear not. I will help thee. Fear not, thou worm, Jacob, and
ye men of Israel. I will help thee, saith the Lord
thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. I like this one. Turn
to Deuteronomy chapter 30. Deuteronomy chapter 30. One of
these days you need to go through Deuteronomy. There is so much
in this. My, my, my. Deuteronomy chapter
30. Look at this verse. Deuteronomy
chapter 30 and verse 6. And the Lord thy God will circumcise
thy heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God
with all thine heart and with all thy soul that thou mayest
live. Who is in control of every single
thing, including most importantly to us, our personal salvation. I will circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy seed. Every single one of God's elect
shall hear his voice through the preaching of the truth and
be brought unto eternal salvation. This is the one in whom we trust,
God the Father. We trust God the Son. He's called
the Anointed One, the Way, the Truth. He's styled in scriptures
as the Life, Emmanuel, the God-Man, our Savior, our Redeemer. He
it is whom we trust to literally save those whom the Father chose
from before time. Them He must also bring with
Him into glory. We trust that he, the second
person in the sacred trinity, took upon himself our nature
except sin, bore all our iniquities, and thoroughly purged away our
vile corruptions, and placed upon us his pure robe of righteousness. And that, we trust, will make
us kings and priests unto our God. We can approach him, for
we are like him. He it is, the Son, that has sacrificed
His life for ours. He it is that left His heavenly
abode to fetch His sheep, even though we, from birth, were leprous
and hated Him without a cause. And we trust that He will intercede
for us. He will plead our cause and justify
us in God's sight. We not only singularly trust
the Son, but we love Him because He first loved us. We adore Him
because He is worthy of adoration. We worship and praise Him for
this He commands us to do, and we readily obey Him. We readily
obey Him. We trust Christ, the Son of God. And as Bruce read this morning,
In 1 Peter, Christ Jesus, whom ye have not seen, ye love, in
whom, though ye now see him not, yet believe. That's trust. We
trust the Son. Psalms chapter 2, he says, kiss
the Son, trust the Son. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry,
and you perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but
a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust, put their
trust in Him. Kiss the Son, trust the Son,
bless the Son, and we do by God's sovereign free grace. I told
them I was going to use this as an example, and I found a
place to use this. If you've been to Niagara Falls
and you read a bunch of the history there, there was the first person
who ever crossed Niagara Falls. A Frenchman, I can't remember
his name, it doesn't matter. A Frenchman. And he crossed it,
I don't know how many times, it's all documented. He crossed
it, he sat down, he laid down, he lowered stuff down into the
falls, he would get a cup of water, drink a cup of water,
he walked across it on stilts, He walked across it blindfolded,
forwards, backwards. He pushed a wheelbarrow across
there. He put up a table and chairs and had a sandwich right
in the middle of Old River Falls. And the whole time his manager
watched this and he said, you have seen me do this. Tens and
tens and tens of times, he said, yes, I have. He said, do you
believe that I could cross that any way I wanted to? He said,
yes, I believe you can. He said, do you believe that
I could do backwards, forwards, I could crawl? He said, yes,
I do. He said, do you believe me? He said, yes, I do. And he
said, get on my back. And he walked across there with
his manager on his back. Now, I don't know about you,
but not this fella. That's a poor example. But he
put his trust completely in that man and lived to tell it. And so we more so trust God the
Father. We trust God the Son. And lastly,
we trust God the Holy Spirit. We cannot help but trust this
our guide, our companion the scripture says, our enabler.
He's the one that grows us up in grace. He will show the things
of Christ to us from his word. That's why his word can't separate
the gospel, the salvation of his elect from the word. He uses
this book, he uses his truth, not our imagination of who we
think God is, our speculation. This book tells us who God is,
who God the Father is, who God the Son is, and tells us who
the Spirit is. He is our blessed helper. Turn
to John chapter 14. John chapter 14, 15, 16, and
17. If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray, says Christ,
pray the Father, that He shall give you another comforter, that
He may abide with you forever, even the spirit of truth. whom
the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth
him. But you know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall
be in you." The Comforter, our Helper, blessed Helper indeed. He started this lovely work of
growth of grace, and we'll see it through. We trust Him. We put all of our belief and
all of our trust in everything we are. Because the Father said
this was going to happen. The Son actually did that which
His Father said He was going to do. And the Holy Spirit, we're
not left to ourselves, the Holy Spirit will gather us and we
trust Him. Like we trust the Father, we
trust the Son. We trust Him to do what He said He would do.
He would bring every one of His lost sheep back into the fold. He enlightens our darkness. He
lightens our day and our night by shining forth Christ into
the heart and soul. He dwells in us, shaping us,
molding us to be conformed to the image
of His Son. Isn't that what, I mean, that's the believer.
The believer has some basic desires. The men were talking about, we
have some basic desires. to continually be shown our weaknesses
so we can lay that all at Christ's feet. But we continue to desire
to see Christ glorified in our lives. We really desire to honor
and glorify Him. And we feel convicted when we
are more concerned about ourselves and are looking to ourselves
instead of looking outward into helping the brethren. If you're
a believer, this bothers you. But rest assured which He started
this good work, He'll perform it and He'll finish it. He will
shape us and mold us to His own blessed image. Then He will take
us up to be with the saints in glory, for He is called our blessed
comforter. In every situation, every struggle,
every trial, He is His who comforts His people. He it is that compasses
people. So you ask, whom do we trust? We trust God the Father. We trust
that He is not taken by surprise or anything happens by accident.
I was reading some author the other day about the sparrows
and the hairs on our head. Everything is under his dominion
and control. Every atom, every molecule. Even
things that we can't see yet, we have a powerful microscope.
Everything we see out in the universe is under his dominion
and control. We trust that. He has chosen
us. The Father chose us before time. And we trust the Son. But the
Son came and fetched. He fetched all of us Mephibosheth.
Though we were lame, though we were blind, though we were half,
though we had no eyes to see, we hated Him. There was no beauty
in Him that we should desire. We trust the Holy Spirit. to
take the things which Christ has done, and place them in our
heart, and make us a peculiar people. Yes, oftentimes you look
at us, our interests, our cares, our concerns. A lot of things,
there's no difference in the world. But when you get a believer
down, and you sit him down, and somebody dies, and you begin
to talk to him about death, or somebody gets sick, and you begin
to talk to him about sickness, or you've been promoted at a
job, or been demoted at a job, And you begin to talk to them.
Woe is us if we do not differ, because we are different. We
are peculiar people. We're set aside. We're separated
unto Him and the Holy Spirit. There's not an ounce of self-righteous. When the Holy Spirit is dealing
with us, if it's self-righteous, if it's holier than thou, it's
us. It's sin. It's the flesh. But that's not
the Holy Spirit's work. He makes us more like Christ.
And all we can do is own up. I didn't have anything to do
with it. Actually, I was running the other way. Actually, I was
seeking to get better by physicians and physicians. And finally,
I just grew worse. And then by the Spirit of grace
and supplications, He showed me that unless I can touch the
hem of Christ's garment, if I can see Christ, if I can look to
Christ, if I can look and live, but it's if He will. Lord, if
You will, You can make me whole. That's who we trust, God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And this is
what we say in closing. Now unto Him that is able to
keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before the
presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To the only wise God, our
Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now
and ever. We trust in anything else. It
is sure death, sure judgment, and sure damnation that may we
trust by His grace. and the triune God who is able
to do far more exceedingly than we can ask. Lord bless the preaching
and reading of this word. Bruce, would you close us?