Well, by the way, thank you for
those of you out there that have told me that everything's working
this morning. It's very good to know. Thanks
for that. Okay, so let's make a start. Right. Well, we're back
in Isaiah. And we're coming this week to
Isaiah chapter 32 and just the very first few verses. You might wonder, why am I missing
out chapter 31? It's because chapter 31 is very
much a précis of chapter 30. Now, you have to remember the
historical context of this because, as I said last week, God seeks
to reveal his truth in different ways and One of the ways is through
history, and he tells accurate history in the Word, but gives
a message of gospel grace. before Christ. In the days of
Isaiah, the Assyrian kingdom was very much in the ascendancy.
It was before the time of the Babylonian kingdom, just, but
the Assyrian kingdom was very much in the ascendancy. The great
world powers were Assyria and Egypt, and Assyria was very much
in the ascendancy. And the northern part of Israel,
the ten tribes that had gone away on their own, that had disobeyed
God's command about where acceptable sacrifice could be made, only
one place, Jerusalem. In the temple in Jerusalem. That
was the only place. And the sins of Jeroboam was, like so many
do throughout history, they say, I don't need that. I don't need
the Lord Jesus Christ. There's got to be other ways
of salvation. There's got to be other ways of being right
with God. There's got to be other ways of having a good eternal
future. than just this. And the message of God is, no,
there isn't. Him alone. The northern tribes had neglected
that and they had been intermingled with Assyria. They had been overrun
by Assyria. They had become the Samaritans.
Their place was a lovely place. Samaria was a lovely city. It
was in a a fertile area. They were blessed in so many
ways, but the truth of God was taken away from them. There was
a famine in the land, not of food, there was a famine, as
Amos says, of the word of the Lord, a famine in the land. And
Judah, from which the Lord Jesus Christ
would come, because that's what Jacob said to his sons. Judah,
Judah, the lion of the tribe of Judah will come from him.
Until Shiloh comes, the scepter shall not depart from Judah's
hand. That would be where the rule
would be. And it's in Judah, in Jerusalem, where the temple
would be, and where the picture of the gospel of grace and of
Christ would be. There it would be. But these
people were terrified. Those living in Judea, they were
terrified of the Assyrians, because they'd seen what had happened
to Israel, their brethren in the north. And many of them disbelieved
God. And look what they did. They
went down to Egypt for help. Look at verse one of chapter
31. I said we're not going to look at it, but we'll just dip
in there. God says, woe to them that go down to Egypt for help
and stay on horses and trust in chariots. There's a psalm,
what is it, isn't it Psalm 21? Something like that. Psalm 20
says, many trust in chariots and horses, but we, the people
of God, will trust in the name, everything that our God is. He
is the one who will help us. Unbelief. makes those who nominally
say they are the people of God seek the help of the world. Doesn't
it? Look at religion, so-called Christian
religion around us today. Why is there so much compromise?
They don't believe God. They think that God will not
save his people unless they adopt the methods of the world, unless
they adopt the marketing of the world, unless they adopt the
approach of the world. They think that. They go down
to Egypt. Because Egypt is a picture of
the world. What did God bring the children of Israel out of?
He brought them out of Egypt, out of bondage, out of the bondage
of sin in Egypt. That's the picture of it, as
to what he does for his true people. He brings them out of
the bondage of sin into the liberty of the truth of the gospel of
grace. And yet the flesh always tends to want to go back. It
disbelieves God. Let's go back to Egypt. And he
pronounces woe upon them. But then at the same time, God
still says, yet there will be salvation. There will always
be a remnant according to the election of grace. There will
always be, that's what God's word says. Here in Judea where
the people were terrified and wanting to go down, to Egypt
for help. He's always got his people, and
he will bring salvation. If you read the rest of chapter
31, you will see that message. There's a promise of salvation,
and you might say, well, how is that salvation going to come?
Look at verse 1 of chapter 32. Let's just read the first four
verses. Behold, a king shall reign in
righteousness. and princes shall rule in judgment,
and a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from
the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow
of a great rock in a weary land. The eyes of them that see shall
not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. The
heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the
tongue of the stammerers shall be shall reign." And do you know,
God raised up a man, a king, for that very day. God raised
up King Hezekiah. In the list of the kings of Israel
and Judah, if you read through them again and again, you will
see, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord. And he did evil
in the sight of the Lord. And he did more evil in the sight
of the Lord than any that were before him. But very occasionally,
you get a Josiah. Very occasionally, you get a
Hezekiah that did right in the sight of the Lord. And Hezekiah
was raised up as king in these days. A king did reign in righteousness
in Jerusalem. The man that God raised up for
the very moment. You see, God works through true
history. And we don't discount this. We
don't discount this. In our own history, you can think
back, you can choose many examples, but think of the 1500s when there
was such a threat of the papacy and the Roman Empire overrunning
this country and taking away its sovereignty. It's very, very
interesting how it resonates with the debates that are going
on today regarding Brexit and coming out of the European Union.
But in those days, God raised up a splendid man. And that splendid
man was a woman, Queen Elizabeth I, who just down the road, three
miles down the road from here, in the grounds of Hatfield House,
when her sister, Bloody Mary, the one who was responsible for
so much bloodshed, the news was brought to her that her sister
Mary had died and that she, Elizabeth, was now Queen. And there's an
oak tree in the grounds of Hatfield House, as I say, about three
miles away, where you can go and stand, and that's where they
say Queen Elizabeth was brought the news that she was the Queen.
God raised up a splendid man who happened to be a woman for
those days. She did wonderful things, obviously all in the
providence of God. A hundred years later, Oliver
Cromwell was raised up and did wonderful things for the liberty
of religion, the freedom, the freedom of this country, the
freedom from foreign tyranny. In the days of Napoleon Bonaparte
at the start of the 1800s, the Duke of Wellington was raised
up as a man of history for those days. In the days of Adolf Hitler
in 1939, going into 1940, and God raised up a man who you would
look at his life and you would say, that's not, that's not a
man of God. But, oh, was he the man in history
for that time? Winston Churchill was raised
up for those days. God works in history to accomplish
his purpose. But, you see, the purpose of
this book is not to teach us history. Its primary purpose
is, via true history, to teach us spiritual allegory, spiritual
story, spiritual truth too. Just as we saw Judah aimlessly
wandering in chapter 30, and then an elect remnant waiting
upon God, and then hearing the truth of God and walking under
divine guidance, so now God's people wander as children of
wrath until the Holy Spirit brings them under conviction and brings
them to wait upon God and to speak salvation. You see, the
reality, the spiritual reality of waiting for God and Him speaking
is echoing that which actually happened in the history of those
people. And so it does here again. Hezekiah is the king that is
spoken of here, but oh, if we stop there, how much we miss.
This is not really what it's about. God didn't write this
book. God didn't have this book inspired
and written to teach us about Hezekiah. No, no, no. It was
a picture of something much more important. Hezekiah was only
a picture of God's king of righteousness. A king shall reign in righteousness. God's king shall reign in righteousness. Which one? The one of whom he
says in Psalm 2, you know, the psalm that talks about why do
the heathen rage and imagine a vain thing against the Lord
and against his anointed. He says in verse 6 of that psalm,
I have set my king on the holy hill of Zion. Who is that king? that God the Sovereign has set
on his holy hill of Zion. Is it not the one of whom verse
2 speaks, the man? A man shall be as a hiding place
from the wind. This man shall be a covert, a
shelter from the tempest. This man shall be as rivers of
water in a dry place. This man shall be as the shadow
of a mighty rock in a weary land. This is the man. Who is it speaking
of? Who is it speaking of? A very
special man. The one man above all others
that you need to know, that we need to know. The one man above
all others. The one who is a hiding place. The one who is the Lord Jesus
Christ. The one who is God's saviour
that he has given for the salvation of his people. Many have preached
and written on these two or three verses that we just read. So
why another sermon? Why another sermon? Can't you
just go and read them again? Well, yes you could. But maybe,
just maybe, Via either now or via this recording, today perhaps
God will speak to someone in their heart and reveal gospel
truth to you, reveal gospel truth concerning the hiding place,
what this means. what it means in our reality,
in our experience. Secondly, the man who is the
hiding place. And thirdly, very briefly at
the end, the discovery of the hiding place. First of all, the
hiding place for whom? Who is this a hiding place for?
A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind. Who is this a
hiding place for. You know children love, you know
our grandsons, well all the grandchildren at various stages, but particularly
the three youngest of our grandchildren who are all here this morning,
when they come and stay with Grandma and Grandad, the game
that they seem to love to play above all else Maybe not see,
don't you? You love finding a hiding place,
and going and hiding there, and then the job is for us to find
you, and then we have to go and hide, and you have to find us.
A hiding place, the idea of a hiding place, very, very interesting
to young children. Well, here is a man who will
be a hiding place. A man shall be as a hiding place. Who is he a hiding place for?
It's those who are made to feel their need of a hiding place.
You see... If you play hide and seek with
us, and I'm the one that is coming looking for you, and there's
four or five of you, each one of you needs a hiding place. Where can I hide? Where can I
go? He's going to find me. Where can I go? Where can I go?
I must find somewhere that I can go. You see, you have a need
for a hiding place. Well, let's bring that into the
relevance of what it's saying to us regarding the gospel and
the man who is the hiding place. What is your view of this world
in which we live? This world which is full of news
of turmoil and political uncertainty and all sorts of things going
on, strife and fires and earthquakes and all sorts of things like
that. What is this world to you? What is your view of it? Perhaps,
like it is for so many people, it is nothing other than a playground
of opportunity. It's a place where you want to
go and have fun. It's a place where you want to make money.
It's a place where you want to get things, where you want to
have amusement, where you want to have your senses stimulated.
That's what it is to the world. It's, oh, it's great, yeah, go
and make the most of it. Go and sow your wild oats, as
it were, out in this world. Go and get the best out of it
that you possibly can. Or is it to you, is it to you
the kingdom of Antichrist? Because that's what this book
describes this present world as, the kingdom of Antichrist,
the kingdom of all that is against God and his Christ. It's bankrupt. As the kingdom of Antichrist,
it's bankrupt, absolutely empty in terms of the righteousness
that God requires. It's not a city buzzing with
life, but a wilderness of godlessness, a wilderness in which, look what
we have in this world. We have a wind which is blowing. We have a tempest which is raging. We have a drought. We have a
terrible drought. We have a dry place. We have
a weary land. What are these things speaking
of? spiritually. What are they speaking to us
about? It's a wilderness in which blows, firstly, a wind, a fierce
wind, and this man shall be a hiding place from the wind. A fierce
wind. The idea here of this fierce
wind is like a desert wind, the sort of wind that you get in
the deserts of Arabia and North Africa, the Sahara Desert. You
get a wind that is called a simoom, a simoom. A simoom is a hot,
dry, deadly wind. Why is it a deadly wind? Almost
a poison wind. Because if you're in it, and
you're exposed to it, you're probably going to die. You know,
it is still true. We think that we're so preserved
from any danger, but you know, you could go to the Sahara Desert
this very morning, and you could be let loose 20 miles from civilization,
and people disappear from you and leave you there, and within
a day, maybe two, you'd probably be dead. because it is such a
dry, hot, barren place. This wind blowing will sap all
the moisture out of you. This wind blowing will bring
death to you. It's a wind-bearing death. What
is it picturing? What brings us death as spiritual
beings? Is it not sin? Is it not sin? We're all sinners, all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God. All have sinned and that
sin is like a wind blowing, like a simoom wind, a hot, dry, poisonous
wind. Because we read in the scriptures,
Romans 6, 23, the wages of sin, what do you get for sin? What
does it pay you? The wages of sin is death. The
wages of sin is death. Ezekiel says, the soul that sins,
it shall die. It shall die. For mankind in
general, the wind of sin that is constantly blowing in this
wilderness world of godlessness is a wind that brings death.
It's a simoon wind, a wind that is hot and dry and poisonous,
sapping the life. Sin does that to the natural
man. For God's elect, we are still
subject to sin. But it isn't a fatal one. Because,
why? Paul writes to the Colossians,
your life as the elect of God, as the people of God, the people
who believe God, is hid with Christ in God. And it's been
like that from before the beginning of time. But in the flesh, sin
remains present. And where it doesn't actually
kill, it weakens. It's always present. Religious
exercise doesn't improve it. Progressive sanctification doesn't
subdue it. It's like, if ever you've been...
in the south of France in the Rhone Valley when the Mistral
wind has been blowing. And that wind can absolutely
wear you down because it just blows relentlessly for day after
day after day. It doesn't seem to swirl and
change direction. It just keeps going as the warm
Mediterranean causes the air to rise and the cooler air from
the north comes rushing down that Rhone Valley. I was there,
we were there once in such a wind and it just about feels like
it's going to rip the hair off your head. It just blows and
blows and blows. and it's just a constant nagging
thing. This is the sort of thing that
is pictured. This is sin in our experience. Paul says, as a believer
in Romans 7, he says, when I want to do good, I find that evil
is present with me. And when I want to subdue evil,
that's the only thing that I ever seem able to do. Who shall rescue
me? Who shall release me from the
body of this death? Because it's just a constant
nagging wind, is this wind of sin. You see, the world has no
problem with sin, but to the one made sensitive by God's Spirit,
sin is a nagging, relentless wind. But there is a man who
shall be a hiding place. Secondly, this man shall be a
covert from the tempest. A tempest, what it's talking
about here is a thunderstorm, a lightning storm. And do you
know, I mean, You have to admit that however clever and sophisticated
we might think we are, that all men, from the cleverest and the
most resourceful down to the weakest and most timid, when
a thunderstorm comes and starts clapping its thunder and flashing
its lightning all around us, it is a violent, deadly, threatening
thing. We love it when we get a really
good thunderstorm, so long as I'm in a safe place. You know,
they'd say that there's so little probability of being struck by
lightning. Don't you believe it? Schoolchildren used to say
to me that it was perfectly safe to play out on the school field
in the open area in a thunderstorm. And I said to them, well, your
parents might think there's only one in a million chance of you
being struck by lightning, but out on that field at the moment,
it's probably about one in 10. I remember Stephen telling the
story of climbing a mountain in the Alps with a friend and
a guide. and suddenly the sky blackened and the thunder was
coming closer and the guide said, we've got to get out of this
place because it's dangerous to be here. And you had to hurry
down the mountain to find shelter because the probability of being
struck by lightning was becoming almost a certainty. And when
you're in that situation, I don't know if you have been in such
a situation, but you have a desperate feeling of exposure. You need
shelter. It says in Proverbs 22 verse
3 that a prudent man, a wise man, foresees the evil and hides
himself. Prudent man, foresees evil, but
the simple pass on, not thinking about it, and are punished. You
know, the simple say, oh, it's not going to touch me, flash,
bang, lightning strikes. No. the prudent, they foresee
it and they hide and they get out of the way. What does this
thunderstorm picture spiritually? If the wind pictures sin, the
thunderstorm pictures God's He pictures his wrath that he
rains down on sin. Psalm 11 verse 6 says, upon the
wicked, which is those that disbelieve him, those that trust in themselves,
on the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible
tempest. This shall be the portion of
their cup. The law of God comes as dark thunderclouds, just as
it did on Mount Sinai with the flashes of lightning and the
wrath of God as seen there. The people, they said, were absolutely
terrified. They were terrified. It was felt
by all those around the mountain. They were terrified. They said,
please tell God not to scare us anymore. They were terrified
of it. And Job knew what this was about.
Job 6 verse 4, the terrors of God do set themselves in array
against me. That's this tempest, this thunderstorm
of just judgment. Do you believe it? Do you believe
it or do you ignore it? Do you believe that God will
judge? Do you believe that God is just to judge? Listen, in
the plagues in Egypt, in Exodus chapter 9, there was the plague
of hail. The hail that was so big it was
like rocks hammering down on you. If you were out in it, it
killed you because here were rocks coming down at 200 miles
an hour out of the sky and these were rocks of ice and they would
kill you. And it says in verses 20 and 21 of Exodus 9, it says,
he that feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh,
what are they? They're the ones that say, I
believe God, I think this is going to happen. I've seen what
he's done. He, those that feared the word
of the Lord, those that paid attention to the word of the
Lord regarding his justice and his judgment, they made their
servants and their cattle flee into the houses for safety, for
shelter. And he that regarded not the
word of the Lord left his servants and his cattle in the field and
they were destroyed because he didn't believe God. Do you believe
God about this? There is judgment coming. Believing. Faith. Belief, faith, that leads
to salvation. Unbelief leads to destruction. Thirdly, what is there here?
Rivers of water in a dry place, a dry place. We're talking about
an absolutely parched place, a parched place. Like in the
summer, that verdant green lawn out there was just a patch of
parched, dead roots of grass. It was just completely dry. It
was drought. It was complete. We had weeks
and weeks when we had no rain. There are places where it never
rains. It's rained now and it's all green again. But there are
places where it never rains. The wilderness is a dry place.
It lacks the basic necessity for quenching the thirst. This
is talking about soul thirst. What does the child of God, what
does the object of God's grace thirst for? The object of God's
grace, the person who is an object of God's grace thirsts for the
knowledge of God, for the fellowship of God, for the companionship
of God. When you lie down in your bed
of a night, you say, I will both lay me down and sleep in peace,
for thou, Lord, only make me dwell in safety. It's that relationship
with the living God. Psalm 63, verse 1, O God, thou
art my God. Early will I seek thee. My soul,
listen, my soul thirsteth for thee. Do you know what it is
to have soul thirst for the living God? Oh, I long, I long for that
fellowship and that comfort of the living God. My flesh longs
for you in a dry and thirsty land. This world provides nothing
of this water that the soul requires, this spiritual water that the
soul requires. There's no water in this world.
There is no knowledge of God. There is no peace with God. There
is no comfort from God. In this world, it's a dry and
thirsty land. But the one who is the object
of God's grace, God gives him a thirst. My soul thirsts for
you. Psalm 42, verses 1 and 2, as
the heart, that's the deer, the stag, as the heart panteth after
the water brooks. You know when a big stag is being
chased by the stag hounds in an old hunt that they used to
have with their bows and arrows and their stag hounds and it's
being chased and it's being chased to destruction and the poor animal
in its utter exhaustion the one thing it wants when it's galloping
across the moors being pursued it wants cool water to refresh
it. The child of God, the object
of the grace of God, longs, has a thirst for fellowship with
God. My soul thirsts for God, the
living God. This is the psalmist's experience.
It's the experience of all who are the objects of God's grace.
When this world around stops sparkling, stops glittering in
your experience, have you felt a thirst for the living God? if you have. You say, oh no,
I'm thirsty. No, it's a blessing to know thirst, soul thirst for
the living God. You desire a thirst-quenching
hiding place, somewhere where that thirst can be quenched.
And it says that this man shall be as rivers of water, rivers
of water in this place. Fourthly, The shadow of a great
rock in a weary land, a weary land. It's a weary land. Those
who are weary of this world, this world produces weariness
in the speaks to, produces weariness there. In the wilderness, the
sun is described as a terrible sun, for it's, you know, we seem
to think, oh, we'd love to go where it's hot and blue skies
all the time so that we can sunbathe, but I tell you, if you're subjected
to it all of the time, the thing that you delight in more than
anything else is some shade, some shade from the burning,
blistering sun. You're desperate for some shade.
You're desperate to get out of that blistering sun with its
burning heat. It pictures that of the world
which causes weariness to the people. sin in our experience. The tempest
is there of the law and the judgment of God threatening just retribution. The lack of water is the sole
thirst of the one who has a sense of the living God and longs for
that fellowship with the living God. But the weariness here is
the weariness of temptation, because constantly temptation
comes to sin. causes the flesh, which is too
weak to resist, to fall into sin? Are you conscious of any
or all of these conditions, of the wind of sin, the tempest
of judgment, the lack of fellowship with God that your soul thirsts
for, the weariness of this world without Christ? And the verse
speaks of a hiding place from all of these, who is a man. A
man shall be as an hiding place. So let's look at the man who
is the hiding place. Where will your immortal soul
find protection? from the drought, from the weariness
of flesh in this world. Will religion help you? Many
people say, oh yes, let's get into religion, let's let that
speak to us, let's go and go on some pilgrimage somewhere,
or let's go on a retreat somewhere, or let's wallow in the the mysticism
of this beautiful old building and the beautiful music and all
of that sort of thing. Let's try and be extra special
good. Let's just, I tell you what we have to do, we just have
to keep the law of God. You know, you know what the law says. As
that man came to Jesus and said, what must I do to inherit eternal
life? And Jesus said to him, you know what the law says? What
does it say? Oh, keep the law, keep the 10
commandments. And then you will have eternal
life because the law says do this and live. But in our experience,
we cannot do this and live. We cannot do what the law requires. And others delude themselves
into thinking that they are righteous in their own strength. And others
know that things are not good, but they look around and they
say, but look at the size of the crowd that's with me. Oh,
how many young people say this. Look at the size of the crowd
that's with me on the broad way that's leading to destruction.
And it's bound to be all right for us in the end, because God
can't really deal with all of us. So I'm just going along with
the crowd. Oh, beware of taking comfort
from the crowd that is heading the same way, down the same broad
way to the same destruction. None of these provide any shelter
or comfort, but there is a man There is a man, a real man. We sung of him in the first hymn.
A man there is, a real man, with wounds still gaping wide. A man
who is the Lord Jesus Christ. God who came in a body that was
prepared. This man is infinite God. This
is who he is. This man is real man. Born of
a woman, made of a woman. He's real flesh and blood. The
blood pumped through his veins by a real human heart. But this
man is God. Very God of very God. As that
other hymn says, God contracted to a span. Incomprehensibly made
man. He is the one that David knew.
David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, Psalm 32, verse 7. Thou
art my hiding place. Who? David's Lord. David's Lord. The
Lord said unto my Lord, said David. David's Lord, the Lord
Jesus Christ. He says of him, thou art my hiding
place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble
when the storm comes, when the wind blows, when the desert place
exerts its force, when the sun beats down in that wearying land.
Psalm 119 verse 114. Thou art my hiding place and
my shield, I hope in thy word. Because you see, this man is
unique. He's unlike any other man. This
man is the sinless man. This man is the man without sin,
the only one. And he is the one who says, come
to him for rest. Rest from what? From the dominion
of sin. He is the sinless man, he's able
to give that rest from the dominion of sin. For in him and in all
that he is and all that he has accomplished, the people of God
are preserved from the consequences of that sin. You feel a need
for Him. You hear Him declared. You believe
on Him. But then you must enter in. You
must come into Him. You must believe in Him. You
must trust Him. You must come into that intimate
relationship with Him. Still a sinner, yes. Still subject
to the ravages of sin as long as we're in this flesh, but confident
that that sin cannot condemn, because we're in Him. We're in
all that He has done. And that storm, that lightning
storm of divine wrath that is coming, that divine curse that
is coming for law-breaking, for what does the law say? Galatians
3 verse 10, Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all
things that are written in the book of the law to do them constantly,
perfectly, without ever ceasing. Not have a good day and then
a bad day. No, perfectly, never failing. Cursed is everyone that
doesn't continue. If your hope for favor with God
is on the basis of how good you are, that's how good you have
to be. 100% perfect with never, ever, never, ever a failure. But the Lord Jesus Christ came.
And in that body, when he went to the cross to defeat death,
when he went to the cross to defeat death for his people,
he blotted out, says Colossians 2.14, the handwriting of ordinances
that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out
of the way, nailing it to the cross. All that would condemn
us to eternal hell, he's taken it out of the way for his people.
And the result of it? Romans 8 1 there is therefore
now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus does
that not rejoice your heart if you're a believer this morning
you think what is it when I meet God am I going to be good enough
for God and there's a verse here that tells you that in the Lord
Jesus Christ there is no condemnation for those that are in him who
walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit it
says later on in that same chapter, who shall bring any charge? Who
shall say this one or that one is guilty of offending the law
of God and therefore worthy of hell and of death? And it says
there, who shall do that? They will be able to, because
why? For the people of God, Christ. and he has died. And the penalty
that he paid has cancelled the debt of those people. There is
therefore now no condemnation, no debt. And then that thirst
for the knowledge of God. How am I going to come into a
living relationship with God? Oh, show us the Father and that
will suffice us. Show us the Father and that will
suffice us. Give us peace with God. Do you
hear what Jesus said? We read John 7 earlier. In the
temple, with them all there listening and debating whether he was the
Christ or not, and the Pharisees and the rulers all seeking how
they could kill him and destroy him. And there, boldly in the
temple on that last day, that great day of the feast, John
7, 37, he says this, if any man thirsts, thirsts for what? thirsts for fellowship with God.
If any man thirsts, let him come to me and drink. For in coming
to Christ, coming to Christ believing, he that believeth on me, as the
scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water. That is the spirit of God within, welling up inside. That is the spirit of God. It's
exactly what he said to the woman at the Samaritan well. He said,
if you'd known who I was, you would have asked me for a drink.
And I would have given you spiritual water, living water, and it's
rivers. It's not just a river. Rivers,
plural, abundance. This world is a dry desert to
those who are given the thirst for God. But this man, look what
he says in In Isaiah 41, verse 17, let me read this to you.
When the poor and needy seek water and there is none and their
tongue faileth for thirst, I, the Lord, will hear them. I,
the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high
places and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the
wilderness a pool of water and the dry land springs of water. You see, it's exactly the same
message. quenching, and then shade, the
shadow of a mighty rock in a weary land, shade from the fierce sun
of God's just anger. Christ is the rock. In Exodus
17, God told Moses to smite, to strike the rock, and out of
it came water for the quenching of the thirst of the people.
And in 1 Corinthians 10 verse 4, Paul tells us that that was
a picture. He says, that rock was Christ.
He doesn't mess about. He tells it absolutely as it
is. That rock was Christ. And when Moses asked to see the
glory of God in Exodus 33, God said to him, come here. This
rock beside me, stand in the cleft, the crack, the break. Christ is that rock of ages,
cleft for me, the child of God. He's that mighty rock in a weary
land. If you would know God, He alone
is the way. I am the way, the truth and the
life. No man comes to the Father but by me, he says. He manifests
God to his people. Philip said, show us the Father
and that will suffice us. And he said to Philip, Philip
have I been so long with you and yet you have not known me.
He who has seen me He bore their penalty as substitute. He made infinite eternal satisfaction
to the demands of God. And He hides His people from
judgment, and He communicates all the goodness of God. brief. One minute left. Discovering
the hiding place. Look at verse 3. The eyes of
them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear
shall hearken. Awakened souls have dim eyes,
not blindness. Their eyes are dim, blurred vision.
Hearing ears, but not deafness. They hear sounds, but they don't
understand what they mean. There is something there. They're
like the man in Mark chapter 8, the blind man that Jesus healed.
And he says, what do you see? And he looked up and he said,
I see men as trees walking. In other words, I see a very
blurred image. And so he came again and clarified
his vision. And this is what it is like.
When you come into a knowledge of the truth, you've got some
vision, but not clear vision. You've got some hearing, you
can hear sounds, but you don't hearken clearly to the message. You're like that man when Jesus
said, do you believe? And he said, Lord, I believe.
Help thou mine unbelief. Help thou mine unbelief. In chapter
33, verse 17, see the King in his beauty. Chapter
35, verse 5, the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the
ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. What's it talking about? It's
divine revelation. How does it come? Only by the
Spirit of God sovereignly giving that gift of spiritual sight,
of spiritual hearing. Are you seeing dimly? Are you hearing something but
not hearkening clearly? Then pray this, Lord, help my
non-belief. Lord, help my non-belief. Bring
me to embrace this glorious man who is God.