I want to continue along the
same theme that I introduced to you last week on the great
things, considering the great things that God or our Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ, has done for us. I would like for us to
look at, in particular, the twelfth chapter of Isaiah. to begin with. This is a short chapter, but
I think you will hear this theme as we go through this. God Almighty,
through Jehovah, the name for the Lord in the Old Testament
that's most often referred to. It's comprised of three syllables
that communicate He who is, was, and always will be. And from
what we have revealed to us from the New Testament, it's obvious
that this is the pre-incarnate person of Christ. the very Spirit
of Christ. Whenever you read in your Bibles,
typically, the word Lord, it's coming from that Hebrew root.
Well, it could also be Adonai, Adonai, Yah by itself, just the
first syllable, or Yahweh, which is translated as Jehovah. These all comprise the Lord. There's even a name for the Lord,
Adonai, which is plural. It's the Hebrew plural for that
word, which would communicate to us the presence of the triune
in that person of the Lord. And I say all this to you because
This particular chapter brings all three of these terms to the
surface as we go through this. God says through the prophet
Isaiah, And in that day thou shalt say, O LORD, and there's
Jehovah, He who is, was, and always will
be. I will praise Thee. This is almost like a psalm,
but here it is in the very beginning of Isaiah's prophecy. And in that day, thou shalt say,
O Lord, I will praise Thee. Though Thou was angry with me,
Thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me. You can almost
hear echoes of John 14, 15, and 16, where Jehovah is now in the
flesh. And he's telling us, he's telling
the disciples and he tells us how he's going to be sinned and
he's got to go away. But it's good that he goes away,
because if he didn't go away, he wouldn't be able to send the
Comforter in the capacity that he would be as the Comforter.
He'd be an exact representation of himself, but omnipresent. And we find the Comforter here
in the effects of his turning away his anger. He was angry. but his anger is no more. He's
turned it away and it's now become comfort. Verse 2, behold, God, E-L is
a singular word for God. This isn't Elohim. It's the first
syllable of that. And this is a reference to the
Father, the Son, and the Spirit. But here, in a singular fashion,
it's really the Father. And it's significant to us as
the Lord Christ in the New Testament to us reveals to us who the Father
is. In fact, He makes that point.
Nobody knows fully who the Father is but the Son. And when He reveals that to us,
the Father, that's when, by the Holy Spirit, We address Him like
we're one of His children. That's the relationship that
He constructed, that He cut in covenant with His Son before
we were even here. He ordained our existence, our
coming into existence. He raised up as if we were stones
and He's performed what John the Baptist told the Pharisees
He said, you hypocrites, you call yourselves Abraham's sons?
God can raise up from these stones a son of Abraham. And it's as
if He's done that. When you look at the big picture,
because before all of this takes place, where we're concerned,
where we are on this timeline of human fallenness, God's already
laid the course. He's already established the
destiny, the trail that we're going to walk through this world. And then we come into being.
We come into the being of sinners and we walk our own way. We like
sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way and the Lord has laid on Christ the iniquity of us
all, and He arrests us where we're at, and enters into the
equation of our life, and makes us to see that through Him, we
have been called to be a child of His. And He enhances that relationship. He gets intimate with us, and
we personally address Him as Father. as a result. Behold, yell, Father is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. For the Lord Jehovah is my strength
and literally song. My strength and song. He, it
says, also is become my salvation. Therefore, with joy shall we
draw water out of the wells of salvation. We hear John 4 in that, don't
we? Jesus and the woman at the well.
They're at Jacob's well. Jacob whom I love. That well
became a well of salvation for that woman. But she saw that
Christ was really the well of living water. And in that day, shall ye say,
praise the Lord, call upon His name, the very
nature and character and authority of His being, Declare His doings
among the people. Make mention of His name. Make mention that His name is
exalted. That's giving the gospel. That's
what the good news is. The nature, character, And authority
of the Savior is exalted. It doesn't say, make mention
that His name is available to everybody or anyone who wants
to choose Him. It is exalted. Why is it exalted? He has done it. He has saved. It's important to catch the tense
that the scripture uses in describing these great things. And it says,
Sing unto the Lord, for he hath done excellent things. Now we want to get a glimpse
a little further at what these excellent things are. What they
consist of. This is known in all the earth. Now for the prophet Isaiah to
write this phrase here, when he lived on the earth in the
context that he as a Judean lived on the earth, the ten tribes
had already been destroyed. As far as a nation is concerned,
they were no longer a nation. God got fed up with their idolatry. The sin of Jeroboam had infected
them so poorly that he had handed them over
to the Assyrians and they were scattered. They weren't a nation
any longer. The only semblance of a nation
of Israel, so to speak, was Judah. And when Isaiah, who lived as
a Judean, writes this, this is known in all the earth, that
hints at blasphemy almost. It's like he's not maintaining
the integrity of the condition that the Judeans, the Jews, This
is where the Jews become known. That the Jews held to having
an exclusive hold upon God. Here he's made all these grandiose
statements about God. He brings in Jehovah as it's
revealed to him. But the interpretation of the
unregenerate Judean is they're looking at this from the standpoint
of the way that we sometimes how God gets is the opinions of many people
of the higher being or a higher power. God has this impersonal
place and you bring Jesus into it and that offends a multitude
of people. They'd rather just think of God
in the abstract fashion. And Isaiah has made this statement,
inspired by the Holy Spirit, that His name, this wonderful
name as a Savior, is known in all the earth. Cry out and shout,
Thou inhabitant of Zion. What has He done here? He is
placed in the context of the whole earth. the inhabitants of Zion. There's an exclusivity that the
Jews want to hold to being an inhabitant of Zion. It can only
be a Jew. For great is the Holy One of
Israel in the midst of thee. In Isaiah, the prophecy of Isaiah
brings the Gentiles in graphic fashion He articulates the importance
of showing that God has intended that his people be made up of
even the Gentile nations, the other nations of the earth. And
at this time in history, this was unfathomable for the Orthodox,
the upright and uptight Jews. But this little chapter at this
portion in Isaiah, now he begins to prophesy against Babylon,
against Moab, and the greater flow of the prophecy as a whole
begins to unfold from here. There are so many good things.
But this chapter 12 magnifies these excellent things that the
Savior has done. Now last week we concluded with
a look at, or I think I just read it to you. You didn't turn
to it. Maybe you did. Romans 11, 33
and 36, which tell us, Paul tells us he becomes overwhelmed. And he says, oh, the depth of
the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable
are His judgments and His ways past finding out. For who hath
known the mind of the Lord, He says, or who hath been His counselor,
who hath first given to Him and it shall be recompensed to Him
again. For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things,
all the excellent things of our salvation. To whom be glory forever. Amen. And I want to go to, it's a passage
in Isaiah that I'm sure inspired the Apostle, under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, to reiterate these questions. Because very similar to this
is Isaiah 40, verses 13 through 15. So if you were in Isaiah
12, just turn a few pages over to the 40th chapter and look
with me at verses 13 through 15. This portion of Scripture
also asks us some obvious questions. Verse 13, Who hath directed the
Spirit of the Lord? Now I want to point out to you
that it's the work of the third person of the triune that's being
focused upon, but he is looked at as being the Spirit of Christ. Where we have the Lord, we know
that is by description, divine description, From the New Testament,
Jesus, who's the same yesterday, today, and forever, Jehovah,
He who is, was, and always will be. There's a direct connection
there. There's a cohesive connection
there. By definition, by descriptive
definition. And now we're looking at the
Spirit of the Lord. And the question is, who has
directed the Spirit of the Lord? Or being His counselor, have
taught Him? Jesus brings this point up to
Nicodemus in John 3. That particular portion of Scripture
has been so misappropriated, mistaught today. Our Savior introduces to Nicodemus
the work of the Son, the Father, the Spirit, And he begins with
the work of the Spirit where regeneration is concerned. And
it's regeneration that we should be concerned. We should know
what the Scriptures teach of this. And isn't it amazing how
so many people claim to be a Christian and they look back on an experience
that primarily is comprised of their coming to the Accept the
faith, the Christian faith. They've entered into it. They
chose it. And that's how they became a
part of it. And Jesus tells Nicodemus, the Spirit, that's the word that
He uses when He says, the wind blows where it wills, the Spirit
goes where He wills. You hear the sound thereof, but
you can't tell where it's coming from or where it's going. So
is everyone that's born of the Spirit. that accepts you be born
from above by water and the Spirit. Water is a Semitic symbol for
the Word of God and also for the Spirit of God. But the Word
and the Spirit are synonymous with one another. The Spirit
always uses the Word of God when He regenerates a chosen sinner. of His own will begat He us by
the Word of Truth." He's a spirit of revelation.
The very first thing that He does is He comes to us and reveals
to us we're sinners, reveals to us Christ is our only hope,
and He also quickens in us the grace of faith whereby we can
even embrace Christ our Savior and feel the embrace of the Savior
around us. Never ever realizing arrogantly
anything except what we are as needy sinners. Humble. God gives grace to the humble.
When Peter wrote that phrase, And when James writes that same
phrase, they use the same word that Jesus used when he said,
take my yoke upon you for I am meek and lowly of heart. That's the same word for humble
in those epistles. So the very character and nature
and authority of the humility of Christ becomes our clothes,
becomes the garb that we wear when we come to Him. That shows
that He is accepting us. So, Isaiah 40.13 brings to the
foreground the Spirit of the Lord. And it asks the question,
who hath directed Him? Or being His counselor, hath
taught Him? with whom took He counsel, and
who instructed Him and taught Him in the path of judgment."
In the path of judgment. That's the wind blowing, the
Spirit blowing, but you can't tell where He's coming from or
where He's going. The path of judgment. Remember we talked
about judgment, that it's an innocuous word definitively. It doesn't necessarily have to
be, when we hear a judgment, it's not always condemnation
or something unfavorable. It can be a favorable thing that's
a judgment of God as well. The fact that we're healthy,
that's a judgment of God. And when, as Carl's learned,
when you're not so healthy, and it can happen real fast, you
can be healthy one day and then slip so quick. to even be on
your back and needed somebody's arm to
get him out of bed. That's a judgment of God. And
it seems like that's an unfavorable judgment, but God knows how to
give us unfavorable things that turn out to be favorable things,
because it draws us closer to Him. David said, My soul breaks
for the longing for thy judgments at all times. I know he's not
talking about unfavorable judgments. My soul breaks for the longing
that it has for thy favorable judgments at all times. And who
hath taught the Spirit? Who instructed the Holy Spirit
in the path of judgment? He is there as an omnipresent representation of God in whatever judgment the path
is leading us to. and taught him knowledge, and
showed to him the way of understanding. Behold, the nations are as a
drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance."
Now, keep in mind contextually when Isaiah is writing this. There's Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
Daniel, these prophets mark the milestones of the generation
of the decline and the history of the fallenness of that nation,
which ultimately God destroys. There's no semblance of any nation.
What we have today, the nation of Israel, it really is, it's
totally different than what we look at here. It's a make-believe
nation at best. A nation is not declared because
Harry Truman declares it. 1948 is when Harry Truman
said, okay, Israel is a nation once again. And everybody took
that as some divine declaration. No. These are not a people that
are seeking Christ. They absolutely don't. won't go off into this, but ethnically
they're not even of the same stock that the ethnic heritage
is represented here in the scriptures. When Isaiah is writing these
things, he's displaying, there's being revealed a much greater
God than even the Jews themselves. recognized. Their concept of
God was so far short of how powerful He was. And this is true of us
today. But the nations, the whole entire
earth, the nations of the world, the Holy Spirit chose this metaphor. They're like a drop. of a bucket
and they're counted like the small dust of the balance. You
might pull the scales out and you want to weigh something quickly,
you may not even bother to wipe the dust off because the weight
that it has isn't going to mean one thing or one iota of a difference
of what you want to weigh. But then again, you say, well,
just wipe that off. That's us. That's this earth. That's the pride, the pinnacle
of the pride of the nations of the world. Look at verse 17. All nations before Him are as
nothing. And they are counted to Him as
less than nothing. and vanity. And it's in the face
of these eternal truths, before God, eternal God, this truth,
we take so much pride because of our planet, and our place,
and man's intellectual achievements. Before God, that is meaningless. It's less than meaningless. And
verse 18 comes to us now in the face of these contacts. To whom then will ye liken God? Or what likeness will ye compare
unto Him? Do you see why Paul wrote what he
said in Romans 11? Then look at verses 21 and 22. These two verses reveal something
very important to the context of these statements. Have ye
not known, God says, through Isaiah? Have ye not heard? Hath it not
been told you from the beginning? Have ye not understood from the
foundations of the earth? It is He that sitteth upon the
circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof of the earth
are as grasshoppers, that stretcheth out the heavens
as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in." The
heavens are like a tent to God that He spread out above our heads. The glory of
the heavens. Not even a permanent dwelling.
A tent is at best a temporary dwelling. Something that you
sleep in overnight or for a few days. The nation of Israel lived
in tents when they were in the wilderness. They weren't fixed
in any one place. God taught A huge lesson there
about our walk today through this world, which is attributed
to the metaphor of the wilderness. And our behavior is so much like
that nation of Israel. That as we grow in grace, I hope
we become more like Joshua and Caleb. The only two that came
out of the bondage of Egypt. that God didn't judge to their
death. These things are so parallel. You know, when
it says, Have you not known? Have you not heard? This is particularly
a scathing rebuke to the Judeans. I've given you the oracles. You
were at one time a part of the glorious nation under Solomon
and David, but especially Solomon and his reign. The prophets that
I have chosen to be the spokesmen for the Holy Spirit, I've given
to you. That's why you've heard these
things. You've known these things. From the beginning of this whole
thing, from the creation, I've ordered that you hear these things. You become familiar with these
things. These are the things of God's
Word. Nevertheless, even though they
have heard these things, what is going on? Why Isaiah's message
was not received in his generation. Why ultimately he was slain. Because of what he told his people. The same happened to Jeremiah. The same happened to Ezekiel. Daniel was in captivity. Ezekiel went into captivity too. They're not receiving. is because
they propagate and promote that God is something less than what
He really is. In fact, in this same chapter,
from verses 24 through 26, look down at these verses. Here's what God says He's going
to do with their intellectual, arrogant pride of the best of
them, The smartest of them. And he shall also blow upon them. Verse 24 reveals. And they shall
wither. And the whirlwind shall take
them away as stubble. And once again come the questions.
To whom then will ye liken me? Or shall I be equal? Saith the
Holy One. And when it speaks of the Holy
One in the capacity of the context, like it comes forward from here,
the New Testament reveals to us this is Christ. This is Christ. Jesus Christ, the righteous.
The Holy One of Israel. For we must all stand before
the judgment seat of Christ. Isn't it true? Saith the Holy
One, to whom then shall ye liken me, or shall I be equal? Lift
up your eyes on high, and behold, who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host
by number? That's a reference to the stars.
The fourth day of creation. the firmament is made the second
day. It's just a vast expanse. If we didn't have the stars,
we'd have no sense of direction. It would just be a huge, empty
sky. That night we'd be in bewilderment
because of the darkness that would prevail. that He called
out their host by number. We can only surmise the vast
millions and billions of stars that are in any one galaxy. And there are a million or billion
galaxies out there. And God has called out their
host by number, the Creator, On that fourth day, called out
their hosts by number. This is mind-boggling as I contemplate
and try to comprehend what's being said here. It says, He
calleth them all by names, by the greatness of His might. My dad was the first one to reveal
this to me when I was but a boy. And he was commenting to me on
this verse. He says, you know what that means,
son? I said, what, Dad? That means each one of the names
that he has for the stars, and he's got a name for every one
of them, but each one of their names is an adjective of his
greatness. That's mind-boggling. We could go back to last week
and to Moses and Deuteronomy 32 and it starts out, ascribe
greatness unto God. Utter forth greatness, words
of greatness to God, about God. How far short we would fall to
what His greatness really consists of. Now, all this host, we know from
the Gospel record in Genesis, that the fourth day is when he
performed what he's referring to here. Think of this. A lot of times I walk the campground
at night, on a clear night, and I become mesmerized by the clarity
of the stars. the glory of viewing them. Teresa and I sometimes, when
we were early in our marriage, we had moved out here and would
take a blanket and go up to the ball field and throw it out on
the ground and then lay on our backs out there and just love
to get lost in the wonder of viewing the stars. And then God
would send shooting stars and it would even become more exciting,
you know, but just the grandeur of it. You know that Adam and
Eve walked under those same stars in the Garden of Eden before
they sinned? Think about that. out there viewing the heavens. Man wasn't made till what day?
The sixth day. So all of these were up there. The same stars. The Bible speaks of the constellations
that we even know to be there today. In fact, there's a lot
that we attribute to our understanding of astrology to the Bible. So these stars, they surpass
us. Abraham looked up at these same
stars when God drew his attention to the host and he says, can
you count the number of the stars? So shall your seed be. Can you
count the sand of the sea? But he pointed to the stars. Isn't it something? There's a
connection there that you have. It's a slight one, I grant you.
It takes some imagination. But you're looking at the very
same scene that Adam and Eve did. And each one of those things
up there that you recognize as stars and the ones you can see
with your naked eye, you can't even count those and there's
even more than that. Now with Hubble telescope we
discovered even more vast, how vast the universe truly is. And
how many billions of stars, trillions of stars, we can't even number
them. He calls them all by the greatness,
by names, according to the greatness of his mind. For that he is strong
in power. Not one phalant. Not one phalant. Now look at verse 28. Once again. Hast thou not known, Judean,
this God has revealed Himself to you? Hast thou not heard? It's been declared to you. I've
sent my prophets to you. that the everlasting God, the
Lord, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth
not, neither is weary. It's no wonder that the Apostle
is inspired of the Holy Spirit to write, for of Him, through
Him, and to Him are all things. to whom be glory forever. Amen. Now turn to 1 Corinthians chapter
2. I prayed a little long this morning
so I'm going to save some of this for next week when we come
back together. But I want to at least make this
transition that is very conveniently made for us. A good sedge way, contextually,
can be made right here. 1 Corinthians 2, verses 9 and
10. It says, but as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard
eye of fallen man has not seen, the ear of fallen man has not
heard, neither have entered into fallen man's heart the things
which God hath prepared for them that love him." Now the clarification
that is made by the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul that
contextually refers to these that haven't got the eyes nor
the ears nor the heart of man, of these it says that love him. There's a direct tie there. There's
got to be something that's happened to these persons with their eyes
and their ears and their heart to be where they feel the description
of one that loves him. This too is a quote from the
apostle of the prophet Isaiah. This comes from Isaiah 64. You
don't have to turn to it. But the phrase there in Isaiah
64 says in essence the same thing. But the phrase, this last phrase,
prepared for them that wait. for Him, Isaiah says, which also
teaches us something of what it is to love God. See, there's a certain connection
with our circumstances that when we want something as believers
or whatever, as fallen sinners, our flesh enters into the equation
and there's no good in it. There's no good in the flesh.
And we become anxious. And we want what we want when
we want it. That's how we describe a spoiled little child. When you're raising your kids,
you probably had that conversation with them at some time. All you
want is you want what you want when you want it. You just have
to wait. And I don't want to wait. We're
like that. We're like an incorrigible child
with God. And it really expresses our intimacy
with God and our love to God when we become Because we know
Him to be God. And He has control, and the magnitude
of His control, over every little detail, that even in this particular
circumstance, we wait. What do you wait for? Lightning
bolts? We wait till it happens. It unfolds. It becomes revealed.
This is the way. You walk in this. This is the
direction. And it will come. It will come. You can trust God. In all thy
ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your path. Trust in the
Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding.
Oh yeah, I understand. That's what it says. Do it. Try to put your own understanding
out of the way. Shove that aside. You can shove her understanding
out of the way, and she can shove yours out of the way, but you
can't shove each other's out of the way. That's the way we
are. That's natural. Being natural is not a good thing.
The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God,
neither can he know them. They are spiritually discerned.
They are foolishness damned. So, what's revealed here is our ineptness. Says, how can we know these things? How can we be directed by this
greatness, this great God? Okay, you've drawn such a wonderful
picture of Him, using the stars, I mean, each one of those are
A name for God that describes His greatness. And that's just
beyond, that blows my mind. That's incomprehensible. Now
how does He direct my life? How do I respond to that? What
can I have to hold on to? How can I leave here with something
that's pragmatic? The flesh cries out for that
practical stuff. The answer is in verse 10. God
hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. God has revealed
them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God. This doesn't satisfy the flesh,
this kind of answer. God has revealed them unto us
by His Spirit. Give me something I can sink
my teeth into. We are totally dependent upon
Him. We must understand the relationship
that He has cut in Christ, in the covenant that's everlasting,
from everlasting to everlasting. The same Spirit that works in
regenerating the chosen works in the same fashion in leading,
guiding, directing the circumstances of each one of those chosen.
The things of God and of Jesus Christ and His eternal kingdom, these are the things. Jesus says,
seek first, what? The kingdom of God and His righteousness. You think you found that? You
think you own that now? Hopefully it owns you. But in
every abstract turn in the road that goes on in this life, I
mean every abstract turn, And I say abstract. It doesn't seem
to have any relationship at all with these spiritual things over
here. But it does. It absolutely does. Because every course, every path of judgment
that God leads you on, that the Spirit of God reveals to you
to take in this world, or puts in front of you and you're
at a crossroads and you don't know which way do I go, what
do I do, you wait on the Lord and it will unfold. It will circumstantially
unfold. The sovereignty of God always
does that. I didn't know when my mother
suffered cardiac arrest And I'm, she's in the car and I'm driving
her to, I knew, okay I'm going to Lee's Summit, but I'm thinking
St. Luke's Hospital or Lee's Summit
Medical Center. And the ambulance guys, she absolutely
wouldn't get in the ambulance, circumstantially. I said well
if I drive, okay I'll go if you drive. So they helped her into
the car. God unfolded that. I mean, she's
a strong woman. She wouldn't about to get in
an ambulance. Didn't want to ride in an ambulance. I didn't
know, and I'm praying silently to myself, Lord, where do I take
her? Do I go to St. Luke's? I think St. Luke's is
more sophisticated. It's a bigger hospital. They've
got different branches. You know, that's logical. So,
she'll get better care. And medical center, that seems
small, but suddenly she had another event right in the car. Right in the car. And I'm right there at the exit
to Lee's Summit Medical Center. I turn right there. I said, that's
where we're going. It unfolded. It unfolded. And the Lord was in the decision. Obviously, the care she received
and the fact she's still here. History proves that that's exactly
where... And the fellowship that we had
in there. I mean, there's just so many different things that
occurred. The conversations in the waiting room with people.
They were Christ-centered. The prayer times around her. God constructs this whole thing. I couldn't do that. I was just,
I was gauging everything from a standpoint that was logical, sound, but I still had so much
uncertainty. The event forced me into it. That's the
unfolding. That's an example. And everything in life comes
to, there is that one indicator that happens. That shows that you've made the
decision. And if you're a child of God,
and you're trusting in Him, is He trustworthy? Is He? He's trustworthy, is He not? Isn't He? You can make mistakes. I wish
I hadn't made a decision to mow in front of my house Thursday. I could have parked the mower
or I probably wouldn't have made it because I didn't realize how
close to being out of gas. I had to run out of gas before
I got down there. But the mower had been fine. I put some gas
in it and the next day, the course that I ended up on, I laid awake at night. I did. I felt terrible about
that. And I knew Sherry was going to
come home and see the moor over there. I didn't want to tell
her what I did. She could probably see it. Why
did that happen? Well, I don't know all the ins
and outs, but I know that Jeff told me two things. Well, John, I learned something
from you, and I wouldn't even know how to take this part off.
I figured that, and for me to figure something out mechanically,
I don't even know what the part's called. He says, I wouldn't even
know how to do that if you hadn't done that. And you know, I told
you about Matt, and you calmed me down and said, well, let's
pray about that. I said, I did, too. I prayed
immediately for you. Because I was afraid you were
going to quit your job. He says, the next day he was
a totally different guy. He was just as nice as he could
be. I said, well, see, the Lord can
turn the king's heart withersoever like the rivers of water withersoever
he wants. He can do the same thing with the peasants. So there was a lesson, a spiritual
lesson. Everything in life, for the believer especially. We still have the same flesh
harboring its residency in this body. And while it's present
with us, it's going to plague us. And we're going to have the
anxieties and the stubborn, childlike, I want what I want when I want
it. Reactions to whatever comes our
way in life and these things. God, our ear, fallen ear hasn't heard,
our fallen eye hasn't seen, neither has it entered into our fallen
hearts the things that God hath prepared to those that love and
wait for Him. He's revealed them unto us by
His Spirit. These are the eternal things.
The things not seen. That's why they're a faith. That's why you wait for God.
Your connection is with the eternal God who is a Spirit. Jesus tells
us that, doesn't He? Told that to the woman at the
well. God is Spirit. And He seeks for those to worship
Him in spirit and in truth. We look at the things not seen
and wait. That demonstrates our love to
God. And except we be truly regenerated,
genuinely born by the Holy Spirit from above, And the Word of Truth
will never see them, know them, believe them, love them, or receive
them. Now these things have a particular
culmination point that is glorious. And we're going to touch on that
at another time. But these things are constantly
being referred to in the Scriptures. for our benefit. And I trust that the Holy Spirit
will grant us the eyes to view it. Well, I hope this has been
edifying to you.