In verse 5, I suppose the title
of our message would be, There is none else. There is none else. And look for the repetition of
that statement as we read. I am the Lord and there is none else. There is no God beside me. I girded thee, though thou hast
not known me. that they may know from the rising
of the sun and from the West that there is none beside me. I am the Lord. Here it is again. And there is none else. Without going into detail, as
I did at the beginning of our Bible class, I'll just say that
this past week, It's been one of the most unusual weeks of
my life and unexpected difficulties. And am I complaining? Absolutely
not. I say that simply to say that
my mind and emotions have been greatly exercised and occupied
with, with having to chart some unfamiliar territory. And we have the question at times
like this, am I to read God into all this
or am I to read God out of all this? Many would say the devil's really giving me a hard
time. I could have said that this week. And others under the same circumstances
would say the Lord is really giving me grace. Well, I want to be part of the
latter crowd that don't waste one breath giving the devil one
ounce of credit. Oh, no. Oh, no. He don't deserve
it. But I want to live and die saying
the Lord is really giving me grace. He has really been good. And it's in times like these
that I turn to the scriptures, scriptures like we've read and
many other scriptures Declaring the greatness and the goodness
of our God. I know how ungreat I am and how
unworthy and undeserving of his goodness that I am. And so do
you, but our help is to meditate on how great our God is, how
good he's been and how good he is. God's word is comforting. to God's children. It doesn't
mean anything to anybody else, but it's very comforting to God's
children. And come what may, the 90th Psalm
is still in here. From everlasting to everlasting. Come what may, thou art God. So that's not to say that we
smile all the time. And I've known many people in
life so religious till it's just a smile and praise the Lord every
time, all the time. I'm sure it's not when nobody's
listening, but you know, they're just on top of it all the time
to hear them tell it. And that's just not the story
with any of us. And I don't think we ought to deny what would commonly be known
as downtime. I don't think we ought to deny it. I don't think
we ought to wallow in it and whine and pout and complain,
but we ought not deny it either. I mean, there are times when
we're all are pretty close to feeling what Job's wife felt. I think it's time to just curse
God and die. Give it up. Nothing's going to change. Oh,
but it is. It is. It is changing. It is changing. God's word never grows old. It's older than anything in the
world. But it never grows old. And the scriptures are so very
healthy to God's children to meditate on this glorious thought
that there is but one God. He is Lord of the universe. He
is Lord of eternity. And there is none else. This is a restating of the commandment.
Exodus 20 and three, thou shalt have no other gods before thee
before me. I am God and there is none else.
Now we'll, uh, turn over a page or two, one page, the next chapter,
chapter 46 verse nine. Again, look for this repeated.
Statement, there is none else. Isaiah 46, nine, remember the
former things of old for I am God. And there is none else. I am God. And there is none like
me declaring the end from the beginning. He's never gotten
in on anything already in progress. Sometimes the news media will
break in and say, we joined this story already in progress. God has never joined anything
already in progress. Anything that I've started and
tried to get him in on, he said, no, no, I start things. I don't
join. So here's the statement of that
declaring The end from the beginning. And from ancient times, the things
that are not yet done saying my counsel shall stand and I
will do all my pleasure. Now I want to read again. First
Chronicles 29. Turn back a few pages. First
Chronicles chapter 29. We really can't do better than
to just read God's word. First Chronicles 29. And this is King David speaking.
He he's about to pass off the scene and he's about to pass
the reins to his son Solomon for the kingship of Israel. And
here in first Chronicles 29, David speaks with great wisdom.
As an old man, he's seen it all. He's heard it all. He's experienced
it all. He's been there. And you want
to listen to somebody that's been there. He's been there. And he says here in verse 11
of first Chronicles 29, he says, it all boils down to this. Thine
O Lord. is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the victory and the majesty. For all that
is in thine heaven, in the heaven and in all the earth is thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord. And thou art exalted as head
above all. Both riches and honor come of
thee, and thou reignest over all. And in thine hand is power
and might. And in thine hand it is to make
great and to give strength unto all. Now therefore, our God,
we thank thee and praise thy glorious name." David wasn't
the only one that knew this about our God. I think of godly King
Jehoshaphat. He knew it. In 2 Chronicles chapter
20 and verse 6, here's what he said, O Lord God of our fathers,
art not thou God in heaven? And rulest not thou over all
the kingdoms of the heathen? And in thine hand is there not
power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? Art
not thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land
before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham
thy friend forever? Even King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon knew it. Daniel chapter 4. Listen to what he said. The king
of Babylon. In verse 34. At the end of the
days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and
my understanding returned unto me. And I blessed the Most High,
and I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion
is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation
to generation. And all the inhabitants of the
earth are reputed as nothing, and he doeth according to his
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth, and none can stay his hand or saying to him, what doest
thou? I'm reading to you the words
and the minds of men that believed God is as big as he is. It comes natural to fallen man
to believe that God is slightly greater than we are. In other words, he's there and
he's able to lend a helping hand. He's able to give you just a
little shove in the right direction. And of course, proud humanity
would say that's about all we need is just a little bit of
advice now and then, just a little shove in the right direction,
just a little push. No, no, he's greater than we
can imagine. Pulled us out of the pit. Martin Luther, the 1500s was
under constant attack and criticism by the noted freewill promoter
Erasmus. And Erasmus was critical of Luther's
strong conviction and consistency concerning the sovereignty of
God. And finally, Luther's statement
to Erasmus was, your thoughts of God are too human. Boy, wouldn't he have to say
it again today. Your thoughts of God are too human. He's not nearly as small as you
think He is. He is bigger, wiser, holier,
more powerful than you think he is. That mind of Erasmus lives
on today. The attitude that God is struggling
to survive in a world that wishes to exclude him altogether. Well, Luther knew better and
he believed better. and experienced the power of
God in his generation. I think of another man, William
Cooper. Some pronounce it Kapper Cooper,
the hymn writer. He knew something of the greatness
of our God. He wrote, my favorite, there is a fountain
filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's vein. And sinners
plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. But
he also wrote this, Cooper did, about the majesty and the greatness
of our God. God moves in a mysterious way,
his wonders to perform. Mysterious way in that you hadn't
figured it out and won't figure it out. God moves in a mysterious way,
his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the
sea and rides up on the storm. Doesn't matter what kind of wind
or weather he's God in it all. You fearful saints, fresh courage
take. He says, I know you're fearful.
And I know you don't know what's going on, and I know you fear
for the future and what's going to happen. But he says, you fearful
saints, fresh courage take. The clouds you so much dread. Are there any clouds this morning
that you so much dread? The clouds you so much dread
are rich with mercy. You say, I don't see it. Neither
do I. That don't change it. The clouds you so much dread
are rich with mercy and will break in blessing on your head. When God is ready, he can. And when God is ready, he will. People who don't exercise their
minds in these great things about our God. People who don't exercise
the mind and heart in these great truths about our God. Folks like
that don't worship God at all. No. You see, we're not here to participate
in some shallow form of religion. I have no interest in that. And
I hope you don't. But we're here to seek the Lord
in our own hearts, in our own experience. We would ask Lord,
what is it you're doing? He's not going to tell you everything.
Probably not going to tell you much. But Lord, how is it with
me? What am I supposed to learn here? Guide me, Lord, teach me, help
me, show me. And he would remind us, he would
remind us of our heart condition before him. I'm not here to talk
about frivolous things. And I don't mean some of these
things are necessarily frivolous, but I'm not here to to jump on you about that attitude
you had, or that bad word you might've said or didn't say,
or that pencil you might've stolen. You ought not have done those
things. Or that stop sign you ran. You
ought not have done that. But I'm not God's police. I'm
not here to pester you and convict you about that. But I do want
you to know this, in everything, in everything, There is a God
that saw it. There is a God that heard it. You said, well, nobody was around.
I made sure nobody was listening. I made sure nobody was watching.
Did you? Did you? There's a God. And that bitterness, that feeling
towards some person, I can't fix it for you, even
if I knew it. But there's a God that knows. See the greatest sin we're guilty
of is denying how big God is and ignoring his all seeing eye. We act as if he's not there.
He didn't know. He didn't hear. Oh, but he did. You know, it's hard for most
folk to believe what the Apostle Paul believed, Ephesians 111.
They'll quote it, but it's hard for people to believe it, that
God worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will. And if you're going to get very
far in studying God's words, you've got to get a hold of that.
He let men moved and motivated by Satan,
crucify his son. Imagine that. God letting it go that far. But in so doing, in that death,
in the shedding of that blood, in that sacrifice, he conquered
death and sin. and hell and accomplished salvation for
his people. God uses the bitter to create
the sweet. But now we don't think like that.
We, we think good people should only experience good and bad people should only experience
bad. I could name you a whole bunch
of people that I think deserved for their water line to break
and their basement to flood, deserved it more than I did this
week. But see, wouldn't that be, wouldn't
that be sorry of me? Yeah. No, I'm going to tell you
the truth, folks, is nobody deserves it any more than I do. Nobody
deserves to be in hell any more than I do. But I'm so grateful. That the Lord's took it another
way. He said in, in, uh, I believe
one place, the 50th Psalm, you thought I was like you. The Lord said, you thought I
was all together as you are. That's Luther talking to Erasmus
also. Your God is too human. And the
Lord reminds the Psalmist, reminds us, you thought I was like you. And he said, well, if I was hungry,
I wouldn't tell you. He said it like this in Isaiah. My ways are higher than your
ways. As high as the heavens are above
the earth, so are my ways above your ways. and my thoughts above
your thoughts." But we look around at what happens
and say, well, I guess God's thinking this. No, you don't
know what God's thinking. He said, my thoughts are so much
higher than yours, you'd never dream in a million years what
I'm thinking. He's God. He's God. And He would say to us, my good,
Might not appear good when it's happening, but it'll work together for good in the long run. And God would say to us, my good
for you today might not taste good today, but it will on down
the road. Job, other than the Lord, Jesus
suffered greater loss in a single day than anybody else has ever
lived. And I guess we'd have been standing
there watching it. We'd have thought how cruel, how awful,
how unfair, but it wasn't about Job. It was
about God. And it would be good to learn
this morning, and I hope I am learning it, that your life is
not about you. God is running this thing. And we've been studying Astoria
Jonah. He's going to run it and he's going to do it with your
cooperation or without. You do so well to say, Lord,
if I can't drive, at least let me jump on the wagon and let's
go. Don't be so stubborn as to walk.
Ride with him. Ride with him. And you need not listen to a
bunch of this religious rattling in our generation telling you
to be careful not to leave God out of your life. That'll never
change, folks. People live and die with that
story that I'm going to work God in a few days before I leave
here. Yeah, well, that don't work. But if these great scriptures
about who God is, divine sayings, inspired of the
Holy Ghost, if these things ever grip your heart, cause you to tremble to the bone in fear that God might leave
you out. It's not a question of you leaving God out. But will he leave you out? Why
shouldn't he? Why shouldn't he? A character like you. Say, well, you're pretty mean.
Yeah, I know it. Somebody asked Brother Wade Huntley one time,
how did he stay at the same church so many years? We're marking
28 this morning. He was down there over 50. I
asked him, how did you stay at the same church for so many years,
preach the same people? He had a good answer. He said, well, you love them
like they're all going to heaven. And you preach to them like they're
all going to hell. And he stayed nearly 60 years. Well, I hope you don't think
this morning I don't love you. I do. And it thrills my heart
to see you here and to have you here. But as I said, we're not
here just to play games. We're not here to play religion
and leave after a while and say, well, that's it, Lord. I've done
my duty this week. I know you're thrilled because
I came. No, we need to do business with
him right in here. Right in the heart. In the end of Job's experience,
God's name was vindicated. Satan was silenced and Job was
rewarded double. God wins. God wins. Where was God when Joseph's brothers
sold him? How awful that was. Wow. We'd have been a bystander. We'd
have said what everybody else says. God should not have let
that happen. That's just too much. It's too wrong. God shouldn't allow it. God's
wrong in this, but God is never wrong. God is never wrong. And when it's over, the story
is over ends. They all knew. And you remember
what Joseph said to him? You thought evil against me,
but God made it under good. You was doing one thing. God
was doing another. God sent me on before you in
Egypt to save much. people alive. You was doing one thing, God
was doing another. Wouldn't it be good to somehow be doing the
same thing God's doing a time or two in life? It would. To
get on the same page, we say, with the Lord. What about the
Apostle Paul? Faithfully, faithfully preaching
the gospel of Christ. He was rewarded by men by spending
much time in prison. And the people that laughed at
him and mocked him, they never spent any time in prison. Didn't the Lord get it wrong? No. He's going somewhere with
Paul. He's not going anywhere with
that other crowd. And don't, don't you ever be
jealous. Don't you ever be envious of this world out here that everything
seems to be rosy. God's not going anywhere them, but if you, as his child, are wading through hell, so to
speak. As I was wading in water this
week. God's going somewhere with you.
Hang in there. Hang in there. Oh, brother, Joe Parson said
one time, don't matter what's happening in your life. How rough it is. how torn you
are, and you think you can't live another day. And God spoke this to my heart almost
40 years ago now, when the man said it. I heard him with my
own ears. He simply said, he'd lean like this, big old tall
man. He said, if you won't quit, God will work something out. If you won't quit, God will work
something out. What wisdom that was. God's going somewhere with his
children. Is he going anywhere with you? Does the word of God
affect you? If it does not, maybe you don't
understand this morning. This is the only hope for you
is for God to change your heart. He's in charge here. He's not
just in charge of what happens to you. He's in charge of what
you do apart from him. You won't seek him another day. You won't seek him till the day
you're dying. People always say later, later,
later. No, there'll not be any later
if it's left up to you and I. He takes the initiative and I
praise him for doing so in my life. Proverbs 16, you say, well, I
didn't know that. Listen to this, Proverbs 16.1, the preparations
of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue.
In other words, the thoughts of your heart, the preparations
of the heart, and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. On the Isle of Patmos, can you imagine John writing
to the fellow believers and saying, I guess if I hadn't messed up somewhere
pretty bad, instead of being here in exile, I might have been the pastor
of the first Baptist Jerusalem or first Baptist somewhere. No,
he didn't say that. He said to him, it's evident
And it's well known why I'm here for the testimony of Jesus Christ. My preaching Christ got me here
and I'm your brother and I'm your companion in tribulation. Christ said in the world, ye
shall have tribulation. He wasn't talking about seven
years. He was talking about every year. Paul said, yea, and all that
live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. You say,
where are you going with this? I'm still talking about God being
bigger than any crisis you've ever had or any crisis you ever
will have. Anybody can find fault and say,
well, I think I'll quit. Anybody can roll over and play
dead and float downstream, but it takes a real soldier to stay
in the battle and just keep on shooting. Keep on shooting. If
you'll keep on shooting, God will keep giving ammunition,
I promise. I promise. That King of Nineveh, I can't
get him out of my mind. I swear I'm saying a lot not
to have anything to say, aren't I? That King of Nineveh, I can't get him out of my mind. He hadn't been a godly man. He
was a heathen. And he wasn't a genius either.
But what happened? What changed him?
God got a hold of him right in here. God touched him. And out of nowhere, faith shines
like a spotlight. And he comes out with this profound
statement, who can tell what God will do? That would be pretty good for
you to quote to the devil next time he's got you about ready
to give up. Who can tell? What God will do. He can do whatever he pleases
and we'll do whatever he pleases. He's God most high in Romans
eight, I'll read this. And then we'll stop Romans chapter
eight. And I know you're all familiar
with verse 28, Romans eight, 28. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God. Well, who are they? Them who are the called according
to his glory. He don't call them that loves
him. Them he's called love him. That's the order. And that's
exactly what Paul's saying here. Now I want to show you how confident,
how confident Paul is of that, about how things work. Everybody
quotes it, partly quotes it or misquotes it, but how much do
we really believe it? Here's how confident Paul is.
Here's how much he believes that God will take care of his own. Verse 35, who shall separate
us from the love of Christ? And what he's asking is not who
can get us to quit loving Christ. He's asking, who is it that can
get Christ to stop loving us? Shall tribulation do it? or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or sword. Will any
of these things change anything? No. Verse 37, Nay, in all these
things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. Now, verse 38, Paul says, for
I am persuaded, I'm certain of this, not a doubt in my mind
about this, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nothing that's
ever happened, nothing that ever will happen, nor height, nor
depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Paul, how can you be so sure
of all that? Because God alone is God and
there is none else. We need not count on luck. We need not count on flipping
a coin or drawing straws. We need not look for four-leaf
clovers or carry a rabbit's foot. None of that's got anything to
do with it. I, even I, am the Lord. You don't need to impress the
boss man. You don't need to impress the mayor. You don't need to
impress the governor. Of course, most people have not
even tried to impress the preacher. Who cares? But I am the Lord. There is none else. And he's the one we'll all meet
the very moment breath leaves this body. I want to know him now. Don't
you bless his Holy name. Let's stand together.