Our precious Saviour, the Lord
Jesus Christ, was always ready to help and comfort and direct
and support His people throughout His ministry. There was an empathy
with the Lord in His nature, with the disciples and His church. And one of the greatest blessings
that the Lord Jesus Christ left with his people was the promise
that the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would always
be attending when his people prayed. Prayer is a wonderful
privilege for the church and for the Lord's people. And our
Saviour encourages His people to come boldly before His Father
and frequently in order to pray to Him, to bring our needs and
our requests, our doubts and our fears, the difficulties that
we face to Him. and to explain them to him, to
set them before him. As Hezekiah laid out the letter
before God in the temple, so the Lord Jesus Christ directs
his people that we are to lay out our problems and concerns
before his father. Indeed, he commands us to do
so, and by injunction, and with encouragement and by the personal
example that the Lord Jesus Christ left us, he who himself was frequently
resorting into that quiet place that he might pray to his father. He taught us thereby, his church,
the importance of praying, the value of prayer. He taught his disciples to pray. He said, "'After this manner,
therefore, pray ye, "'Our Father, which art in heaven, "'hallowed
be thy name. "'Thy kingdom come. "'Thy will be done in earth as
it is in heaven. "'Give us this day our daily
bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and
lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine
is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. He taught his disciples
to pray after this manner. Our father What a beautiful way
to begin our petitions. What a wonderful relationship
God has forged with his people. All the wonders of adoption and
the plan of salvation and grace that we should be called the
sons and the daughters of God, our Father. It's a privilege in this world. Sadly, a privilege that not everyone
has to have a good father. You men who are fathers, be good
fathers. There are many, and perhaps some
here today, who do not have good memories of their fathers. The Lord God is a good father. And we can go to him and we can
say to our good father, these are our needs, these are our
concerns. Our father, hear our pleas. Our father, which art in heaven. seated in his glory, surrounded
with praise, worshipped by the angels, there sitting in all
the splendour of his majesty and yet accessible in the quietness
of our own hearts as we pray to him, our father, which art
in heaven. Hallowed be thy name, holy Honored,
cherished by his people, loved by his angels as they honor him. and His people brought into that
relationship of love with Him, for He first loved us. And as we see that which He has
done and understand something of His person, something of His
nature, something of His glory, well might we come with a humility
and with a desire to solemnly honour His holy name. He is the great I am. That is the name that he takes
to himself. That was the name by which he
revealed himself to his prophet Moses. I am that I am. It speaks of the eternal God,
the one who existed in the majesty of his splendor from eternity
to eternity, and he fills the heavens. And we go to him as
our father. Thy kingdom come. The Lord says,
After this manner pray thee, Thy kingdom come. And what is
the kingdom of our God but His church? And here immediately
in our prayers and petitions to God, we are directed by our
Saviour to pray for the church. to pray for one another, to pray
for the gathering in of his people, to pray that soon this world
will be over because the church will be gathered, to pray that
soon we will see the manifestation of the power of God in the hearts
and lives of sinful men and women as he, through the preaching
of the gospel, gathers them one by one into that family, into
that fold, into that kingdom, over which he rules as the sovereign
king of glory. Thy kingdom come. Let there be
an end, a speedy end to this great work of the Lord Jesus
Christ as he gathers in his people. And soon we will rise as the
Lord Jesus Christ comes for us again and takes that kingdom,
that people, his church and bride to himself. I think it's a wonderful, it's
a lovely thing that the Lord Jesus Christ taught us when we
pray to bring this petition first, the priority of the workings
of grace in the hearts and lives of sinful people. Thy will be
done. The sovereign will of God is
being done, the decretive will of God, His decrees, His commands
that go forth from His lips. The judicious will of God, as
He judges through the providences of this world, those things which
are His plan and purpose, and He executes and pursues His plans
relentlessly, stopped by none, hindered by no one as our eternal
God fulfills his purpose and achieves his end in this world. Men think that they do their
own thing and they go their own way and they live their own lives
and they rejoice in their freedom and little do they know that
thy will is being done. God's will is being done and
the people of God pray for it. Every day they pray for it. The
gathering in of the church, the accomplishment of the will of
God. That's the reason why the church's prayers are always answered. Because these are our prayers
and the church is being gathered and the will of God is being
enacted in this world. Thy will be done in earth as
it is in heaven. God reigns supremely in both
places. Mitch was preaching last night
at the rescue mission and he quoted that verse from Daniel
about God moving in the armies of heaven and upon the face of
the earth and his will being accomplished in both places. Does God rule in heaven? then
God rules upon earth. Give us this day our daily bread. See, we should pray every day.
If we get hungry every day, we should pray every day. Give us
this day our daily bread. The Lord's people are encouraged
to pray for their immediate needs. Forgive us our debts. And that
brings to mind, does it not, our indebtedness to him? Forgive us our debts, forgive
us our sins, forgive us our trespasses. We are but sinners. And though
we go to God, who is our Father, and rejoice in the accomplishment
and fulfillment of His will as He establishes His kingdom here,
yet we are reminded by the very testimony of our own lips that
we are merely sinners, only sinners. And we need forgiveness every
day. as we forgive our debtors. Thereby we are patterns of the
living God. And yet we manifest such graces
as the Lord has taught us, because we learn to be sympathetic and
empathetic, even with those who have done us wrong around and
about. And then the Lord said, pray
like this, Lead us not into temptation. Lead us not into temptation. Sometimes when you go to the
zoo, you see signs up on the wires that says, don't feed the
animals. Don't feed the beast. Lead us not into temptation.
Don't feed the beast. Because in our hearts and in
our souls, the old man still rages. People say, I can't come
to terms with these problems. I have so many difficulties with
my sin. I'll tell you what is one good
step towards not following relentlessly the patterns of our old way of
life. Don't go there. Don't feed the
animals. If there's something that snares
you in your life, change it. Stop going to that place. Stop
meeting those people. Don't do that thing. These are the ways by which temptation
is dealt with. Ask the Lord to help you to change
those circumstances in your life. Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Day by day, the Lord's people
pray for this prayer, because our flesh, as we have learned,
will run to it constantly. for thine is the kingdom and
the power and the glory forever. We are your people. You have
the power. We have the need. The glory is
yours. Lord, help us. Then the Lord
Jesus Christ runs it all off with this lovely word, amen. So let it be. Or another way
of saying it is, for thy sake. Whose sake? The Lord Jesus Christ's
sake. Because in the book of Revelation,
the name Amen is taken as the personal name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And so we end all our prayers
with, let it be so. precious Saviour. Let it be so,
Lord Jesus Christ. In John chapter 14, verse 13,
the Lord says to us, Now every time we put Amen at the end of
a prayer, We are saying, Lord, do it in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. But in the pattern that we have
been given, in the manner, after this manner, pray these, says
the Lord, in the manner in which we pray, what is there in there
that we would not eagerly, enthusiastically put an amen to? Our Father in
heaven, hallowed be thy name, amen. Thy kingdom come, amen. Thy will be done on earth. Amen. Lead us not into temptation.
Deliver us from evil. Amen. And thus we pray. This is the pattern that the
Lord Jesus Christ has set for us. We remember these principles
when we get into that quiet place, when we engage perhaps in personal
communion with our God. when we draw near to Him for
those particular personal, private things that He lays upon our
heart and shows us our needs, or when we gather publicly to
pray together in our services. These are the things that we
think of. This is the pattern that we follow,
the principles that guide us in our thoughts. We pray for
the work of the gospel. We pray for the good of the church,
for one another and the needs that we have for ourselves. That our journey, that our journey
be not too hard. We pray for our leaders in the
church and we pray for our leaders in the state, the civil powers. We use an old word sometimes
in the old confessions of faith, the word that's used is the magistrate. I don't know whether you have
magistrates here in the United States, but we have magistrates
back in England, and the civil magistrate is the leaders, the
political leaders that we have, and that was always a key thing
in the doctrinal statements of the old churches, that they prayed
for the civil magistrate. We pray that we will have peace
in their rule, that the Lord's people will be secured and safeguarded
under their rule. And we ask that the Lord will
be merciful to them also. Do we pray for our leaders? Not
that they'll be hung, drawn and quartered, but that they'll be
saved. that the Lord will be pleased
to minister to them too, because they've got a long time in hell
if he doesn't. And the Lord assures us that
even as we pray for our enemies who despitefully use us, we have
a prayer hearing and a prayer answering God. Philippians 4
and 6 says, be careful for nothing. That means don't let the cares
of this world overwhelm you. Don't let anxieties beset you
to the point of causing you to be incapacitated in the way in
which you get on with your service and your work. Be careful for
nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication. Supplication
is just asking for a supply, so it's asking for help. In our
prayers and in our supplication, With thanksgiving, let your requests
be made known unto God. Listen to what Paul says. And
the peace of God, when you pray, when you actually go through
the pattern of praying, and speaking these things and thinking about
these things and remembering who it is that you pray to, our
Father, and who He is that these words are being heard by. When
you actually do that process, the peace of God, which passeth
all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus. What a promise. What a privilege. What is it the hymn writer says?
Oh what peace we often forfeit, oh what needless pain we bear,
all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. What a blessing the church has
to be able thus to run to our Saviour. Isaiah. brought news of the prayer-hearing,
prayer-answering God to Hezekiah. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
what thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib, king of Assyria,
I have heard. What a wonderful, wonderful response
to get to a prayer. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
what thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria,
I have heard. No matter how powerful, how fearsome,
how overwhelming our difficulties appear, our Sennacherib might
be, Our God is in control and he
has his glory and his people's well-being close to his heart. I want to draw attention to a couple
of things in this little passage that we've read together from
2 Kings chapter 20. I'm sorry, 2 Kings chapter 19
from verse 20 through to the end. I want to draw your attention
to this. Very often when we pray, the
Lord has a way of showing us that our troubles are not as
bad as they first appeared. Now doubtless, Hezekiah's problems
seemed bad to Hezekiah and no doubt to the rest of Jerusalem
at that time. He prayed to God about all the
nations. I think if we look back at verse
18 of chapter 19, that the king of Assyria, they have cast their
gods into the fire, all the nations, for they were no gods, but the
work of men's hands and stones. So that there had been this complete
destruction of all the nation. by Sennacherib and the Assyrians. But the truth is that we never
see the whole picture. Hezekiah didn't see the whole
picture and neither do you, neither do I. We see a little bit, we
see a little glimpse and invariably it causes us and our minds to
run to all manner of terrible things. But we've only seen a
little bit, that bit that confronts us. We can't see as the Lord
sees. Now I understand why that is,
and I understand why the Lord has designed it purposefully
to be so. Because he will have his people
go to him for help. He wants his people not to walk
by sight, but to walk by faith. He doesn't give us the whole
picture because then we would be self-assured. We would think to ourselves,
well, you know what? I can handle this. I can fix this. I can sort it. This isn't beyond
me. It might take a bit of work,
but I can do this. So the Lord says, well, you know
what? I'm not gonna let you see the way in which I'm going to
fix it. I'm not going to let you see
the steps by which you will go through this. I'm not going to
let you see the benefits that will accrue to you as a result
of this experience that you're about to have. I'm going to keep
all that hidden. You won't get sight of that so
that you will trust in me. So that you will see the ways
in which my goodness and my grace and my power will be exhibited.
Otherwise you'll just get presumptuous and pretentious and you'll think
that you're the one who's fixing all these problems. And you'll
walk by sight and not by faith. The Lord will have his people
walk by faith and not by sight. Look at verse 26. Here's a lesson for us. When the Lord brings to pass his purposes. He ordains even the successes
of the wicked. to accomplish his own purpose
and glory. The successes of the wicked are
the ways in which God accomplishes his glory. This is a tremendous
verse. This is a verse we could probably preach a multitude of
sermons out of this one verse alone. He's speaking about, the
Lord is speaking to Hezekiah. Let's go back to 25. The Lord
is speaking to Sennacherib. He says, hast thou not heard
long ago how I have done it? Don't you understand that I am
the prime motivator? Don't you understand that I am
before all things? That my plans and purposes were
established long ago? Hast thou not heard? long ago
how I have done it, and of ancient times that I have formed it,
now have I brought it to pass that thou shouldst be to lay
fenced cities into ruinous heaps. Sennacherib, don't be so puffed
up with your own self-worth. I put you there in order to do
the judgments on the wicked nations around about. All you are is
a hammer in my hand. You think you're so smart. You're
a tool to me. That's all you are. Now think
about that in your own life. The problems that we have to
face, the difficulties that we have to encounter. What is that?
They are tools in the hands of God, even the successes of the
wicked. Therefore, the inhabitants were
of small power. They were dismayed and confounded.
Why? Because the Lord made them to
be so. They were as the grass of the
field and as the green herb, as corn blasted before it is
grown up. The Lord brings his judgments
upon the wicked of this world, and he uses the wicked of the
world to bring his judgments upon them. Now in the passage
that we read, we had variously an angel, we had an army, and
we see a man's own sons fulfilling the purpose of God and exacting
justice in this world. Times gone by, the Lord used
his own people to do that. For example, Moses or Joshua
or David or Samson were used to bring judgment upon the wicked
people around about them. And the Amalekites and the Canaanites
and the Philistines suffered at the hands of these righteous
men, these men of God, these men that God used, men of his
church. But there was an end to that
pattern. Because the Lord Jesus Christ
now calls his church a people of peacemakers. Peter was told,
put up thy sword into the sheath. And Paul wrote, if it be possible,
as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. The Lord
is not going to use his church in these days to enact judgment
upon the world. That's not how it happens. Rather,
the Lord uses the wicked to enact judgment upon themselves. And
that's how he acts. We are not, as his church, to
take up arms. in order to defend our rights,
or to sort our problems, or to exert our influence in this world. We are a meek people. We are
a people like the conies that live amongst the rocks, like
the little rabbits that hide in the crevices. And the Lord's
purpose, he has taken that to himself. God is still a God of
judgment. He is still the God of vengeance. He visits the iniquity of sinners
by such means of choice as befits the circumstances. And the church
observes these things happening. Isaiah 63 verse 4 says, the day
of vengeance is in mine heart and the year of my redeemed is
come. Sennacherib's pride conceived
that he was more powerful than all the nations around about,
and he destroyed those nations. But in truth, God had merely
raised him up to fulfil God's own purpose of judging the wickedness
of those nations that were idolatrous and despised him and troubled
his own people, Hezekiah and Judah. The Lord even weakened the enemies
to the very end that Sennacherib would be able to destroy them. I say this, who can harm the
Lord's people? Who can touch the apple of his
eye? Who will separate us from the
love of God. Isaiah says, verse 37, 35, for
I will defend this city. I will defend this people. I
will defend my church. I will defend this chaste virgin. And no one will lay a hand upon
her, but for her good and for her help. I will save it for
mine own sake. and for my servant David's sake. Look at verse 28 and 29 with
me, please. Because thy rage against me and
thy tumult has come up into mine ears. The rage that Sennacherib expressed
with Hezekiah and with Judah, Jerusalem, is rage against God. Rage against the Lord's people
is rage against the Lord. And this speaks to us of the
union that we have together with Him. I was a big brother. That meant
I had a, well, I guess it could have meant I had a little sister,
but I had a little brother. And it was always my job to look
after my little brother. So if somebody was giving my
little brother a hard time, it was as if they were giving me
a hard time, because that was my job to look after my little
brother. Well, he's my big brother now,
so maybe he'll get a chance to reciprocate someday. But the
Lord takes rage against his people personally. He says, you come
out against my people, you come out against me. You lift up your
hand against my people, you lift up your hand against me. And He has vowed to protect them,
to build a wall around them, to be their fortress. Fortress, I've said this before,
I love the picture that it gives us. Fortress is where our comfort
comes from. The Lord Jesus Christ owns His
people. And he owns their debts, and
he owns their dues, and he has taken their protection as his
own charge and responsibility. And he knows the motives of men's
hearts. He knows their purposes. He knows
why they've come out against us. He knows why they speak in
the way that they do. He knows the things that are
going on in the depths of government, in the commercial realm, in all
of the ways in which this world, as it is dominated by wickedness
and evil and the ragings of the prince of the power of the air,
we are so inadequate. And yet the Lord is so fulsome
in his defence and deliverance of the people that he loves.
There's a beautiful picture in the Gospels of the Lord Jesus
Christ defending his people. The Pharisees and the scribes
and the soldiers that they had, their guards, their officers,
they'd come out in order to take the Lord Jesus Christ to judgment. They were armed. They were masked. They were determined to arrest
the Lord Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, in Gethsemane. They had even
managed to bribe one of his closest followers to identify him in
the darkness so that they would know that they'd got him. In John chapter 18, verse 8,
the Lord Jesus Christ speaks. And he speaks to this masked
guard that come to arrest him. And he says this, if therefore
ye seek me, let these go their way. You've come out to take
me. Let these, his disciples, go
their way. These people had come mob handy. They had come to do as much damage,
to do as much trouble as they could. In the darkness there,
a massed group of soldiers. They would have been beating
the disciples, they would have been kicking the disciples, they
would have been doing whatever they could to those disciples,
that armed band of men. But the Lord Jesus Christ stood
in front of them and he says, you've come for me, take me.
I am he, but let these go. And there's a picture of the
way in which the Lord Jesus Christ defends his people, safeguards
them. Now that picture has a greater
fulfilment in the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as God,
the righteous judge. judged the transgressions of
his people in their substitute, as the ferocity of the broken
law reached out against the Lord Jesus Christ, as it entered like
an unsheathed sword into his breast. He says, I am he, let
them go. I'm the one that you're looking
for. I'm the representative. I'm the lamb of God. Let them
go. The Lord Jesus Christ became
that propitiatory sacrifice on behalf of his people. He was the one who became the
man from among them. that should make up the hedge
and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not
destroy it. And John 18 verse 9 says that
the saying might be fulfilled which he spake of them which
thou gavest me. Have I lost none? Have I lost none? Sennacherib
sought to take Hezekiah. Satan desired to sift Peter. The broken law would take us
all to hell. But the Lord Jesus Christ takes
up our cause, and he saves. He bore the wrath. He satisfied
the justice. He defeated Satan. He rose supreme. And Paul declares, who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? You got a problem
with the Lord's people? Take it up with the Lord. You
got a problem with someone in your congregation? Take it up
with the Lord. Now look what sign the Lord gave
to Hezekiah to encourage his faith. In verse 30, he says that
there will be a sign well it's not verse 30 it's verse
29 There are two passages that run
together, one from Kings and one from Isaiah, and they're
exactly the same, these passages, verbatim. And I've got the verses
written down from Isaiah instead of from Kings, but I think it's
verse 29 here in Hezekiah, in 2 Kings. And this shall be a
sign unto thee. Ye shall eat this year such things
as grow of themselves, and in the second year that which springeth
of the same. So this was a sign that the Lord
gave to Hezekiah. What was the sign? Well, that
was easy. It was free food for two years. That was the sign that Hezekiah
was given. Free food for two years. Do you
see the goodness of the Lord in this? The bountiful provision
of his hand. Now he might have said, I'll
send you a star in the sky and that will be the sign that I'm
going to do this. Or he might have said, I'll put
a rainbow across Jerusalem and that will be the sign that I'm
going to fulfil my purpose. Or he might have had something
to do with a wet or a dry fleece or something like, like, but
he didn't. He said, you know what I'm going
to do for you Hezekiah? I'm going to give you food for
no work for the next two years. The Lord knew what the people
needed. An army was encamped outside
the city. They had already probably consumed
all the food. They destroyed the fields. They
had been making their way from lashes. They had been going systematically
from city to city. Jerusalem needed the produce
of Judah in order to survive. That's the nature of cities.
You can't grow fields of crops inside city walls. the people
would have starved, even if that army had turned around and walked
right back to Assyria that very day, the people would still have
had no food. And so the Lord says, here's
the sign I'm going to give you to prove that I will deliver
this city. I will make the earth Produce
food without being sown or tilled. I will make it produce food year
one and year two. And after that, you go out and
start planting your fields and planting your vineyards and eat
of the good of the ground. You see why the Lord teaches
his people to say, give us this day our daily bread? Because he's ready to give us
everything that we need. And the sign of getting our daily
bread is a testimony to the fact that the bigger promises will
be fulfilled as well. None of us are hungry this morning.
Not one of you. I dare say all had breakfast
before they left the house. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Matthew 6, 8, the Lord speaking,
he says, Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before
ye ask him. Our Father, which is in heaven,
is able to do exceedingly above all that we ask or think. The Lord God provided for the
children of Israel in the wilderness. He dropped manna from heaven.
The widow's cruise of oil did not fail while there was yet
need in her family. And the Savior provided food
for 5,000 hungry souls in the wilderness. He is all our sufficiency. He is the bread of life. He is the living bread. And the Lord feeds the souls
of his people day by day with manna from above. We are a spiritual
people and we need to be spiritually fed. And the picture that he
gives us of the feeding of our body, give us this day our daily
bread, is an ongoing parallel to the fact that he sustains
our spiritual life and he is accomplishing his purpose of
our eternal salvation, even as we watch our bodies consuming
the food that makes our daily activities possible. The answer of the Lord's to our
prayers will often be surprising, will certainly be bountiful.
And the signs that he gives his people of the fullness of his
eternal promises cause us or should cause us every day to
thank him for his faithfulness. Just want to note in passing
here that the giving of the sign was coterminous with the fulfilment
of the promise of the city being delivered. So it was as they
ate the food day by day that they saw God's work. of defending and fulfilling his
promise to safeguard the city. And that's our experience too.
We don't see the end while we're going through the process, but
he gives us enough grace for the day. And that grace for the
day is his sign to us and his promise to us that that which
he has promised for the future will be fulfilled and will be
accomplished. Finally, Hezekiah has promised
that a remnant will escape and will be fruitful. Those who fled
to Jerusalem as the other cities were being destroyed would go
back to their homes and there would be a re-establishment of
the fruitfulness and lifestyle in Judah when Sennacherib turned
and returned to his own country. Verse 31 and 32, it says, The
remnant shall return. The zeal of the Lord of hosts
shall do this. Hezekiah would see it with his
own eyes. The remnant in scripture is always
a picture of the elect. They represent God's chosen people. They will take route downward. They will deepen their experience
of the grace and goodness of God. And through the manifold
trials that they experience, yet the evidence of God's care
upon them will be evident and seen. It will be manifest. They
will find the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, through all the trouble
and bitter experiences that they have to encounter, the remnant
will take route downward into the goodness of God. And in taking
route downward, the church, the Lord's people, will be fruitful
upward. They will praise God. They will
express their gratitude and thanksgiving. They will serve the Lord. They
will be a sweet savour in His nostrils. The Lord has promised
that it will be that through their trials, His people, His
church in this world will grow down deeper into His grace and
His love and His mercy, and they will flower. and they will be
beautiful and they will smell delightful in the nostrils of
their God. What an amazing thing. We look
around and we see one another and we think, In many ways, how
would anybody think that this was such a wonderful group of
people? How would anyone think that this
group of people were in any way to be aspired to, or emulated,
or praised, or glorious? And yet that's exactly what the
Lord says. He makes his people beautiful.
He makes us fruitful. He makes us to achieve and accomplish
things in this world that are beyond our own abilities. And yet he rejoices to dwell
amongst us in the beauty of holiness. There is sometimes to be encountered
a quiet confidence in aged saints who've lived a life of trusting
in the Lord and seeing all the troubles and the problems that
have come their way in life pass by with the realization that
the Lord has been faithful to them and they are still here. Aged saints who have nothing
left to prove but are content to rest upon their Lord and Saviour
and face life's challenges. A single angel comes in the night
and an army is destroyed. A messenger of extraordinary
strength and power. One angel alone came and that
army was put to death. 185,000 men slain in a moment. Now we do not celebrate the death
of any man but we stand in awe of the Lord who for his great
love to his people and for the greatness of his own name will
exact such a price in order to safeguard his beloved. Soon judgment
comes to Sennacherib as well, and that is at the hands of his
own sons. He is slain as he kneels in the
temple of his God. 2 Samuel 1.27 says, How have
the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished? Let us listen to a few verses
from Holy Scripture as we bring our thoughts to a conclusion.
Hear, friends, what the covenant Lord God says of his people and
of his purpose. But now, thus saith the Lord
that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel,
fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by my
name, thou art mine. When thou passest through the
waters, I will be with thee. And through the rivers, they
shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the
Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour. I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Since thou wast precious in my
sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee. Therefore
will I give men for thee, and people for thy life. Fear not. For I am with thee. I will bring
thy seed from the east and gather thee from the west. I will say
to the north, give up, and to the south, keep not back. Bring
my sons from far and my daughters from the ends of the earth. Well, here is a God worth trusting
and a saviour worth following. Hezekiah found that to be true. What about you? Amen.