If you have your Bible open to
the 40th chapter of the book of Isaiah, I'd like to read the
first nine verses. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith your God. It is the business of God's preachers
to comfort the Lord's people. Their aim is to comfort the living
family of God, those who've come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
to speak a word to them that would comfort their souls. Speak
ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare
is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received
of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. The voice of him
that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare you the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall
be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and
the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. And
the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall
see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. The
voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the
goodness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth,
the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon
it. Surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower
fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever. O Zion,
that bringest good tidings, get thee up. into the high mountain,
O Jerusalem, that bring us good tidings. Lift up thy voice with
strength, lift it up, be not afraid. Say unto the cities of
Judah, Behold your God. This is a great chapter indeed.
We read some verses here, first of all, where the preachers of
the gospel are instructed to comfort the Lord's people. Now, to speak to the Lord's people
in a comfortable way, one must tell the Lord's people as to
what the Lord has done with their sin. They must be told that their
warfare is accomplished, that God has dealt with their sin
and God has put it away. One of the great enemies of our
soul is our sin. And to know what the Lord has
done with our sin is indeed to be comforted. To know how the
Lord has dealt with it, will comfort our hearts. And then
when we get a little further down here in these verses, it
tells us that the voice said cry in verse 6. He said, well,
what am I going to cry? Here's the crier. Here's the
heralder of the gospel. Here is the bearer of good tidings. What is he to cry unto the people? Well, he's to say all flesh is
grass. He's to tell them what is their
true state. All flesh is grass. He says,
and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field.
The grass witherth, the flower fadeth, because the spirit of
the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. The
grass witherth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall
stand forever. Here he's talking about the fickleness
of flesh. Here he's talking about the flesh
of men and women and how that when the Spirit of God blows
and does a withering work, upon them, and it is indeed one of
the awfulest works of the Holy Spirit to wither the flesh of
men and women to the point where that they would lose confidence
in their flesh, where they would come to the end of themselves,
where they would recognize that out of them can come no good
thing, where they would recognize that they must have another to
intervene and intercede for them. And then, as we go on, we read
in verse 9 It says, O Zion that bring us good tidings, you get
up into the high mountain, get up on a high spot, get as high
as you can. O Jerusalem that bring us good
tidings, lift up your voice with strength, speak loudly, declare,
herald forth, lift up your voice, don't be afraid, and say unto
the cities of Judah, behold your God. Behold your God. Look to your God. Behold the
Lord God will come with a strong hand. His arms shall rule for
him. Behold his reward is with him
and his work before him. Now with the reading of those
verses, I'd like you to turn back with me if you would to
the book of Job chapter 14. The book of Job chapter 14. We
read here at the outset this morning that man that is born
of a woman is few days and full of trouble and he cometh forth
like a flower and is cut down. He grows like a flower grows
in the spring of the year. It won't be long before you'll
see the wildflowers. If you go out into the foothills
of the mountains you'll see the wildflowers coming up And then
it won't be but just a little while before they'll be cut down.
And it says that man, he fleeth also as a shadow, and he continues
not. And dost thou open thine eyes
upon such a one? Job said, Are you going to open
your eyes upon such a one as man? Are you going to bring such
a one as we are into judgment with thee? Verse 4, Who can bring
a clean thing out of an unclean? Now all of us, we know we came
into this world. We came into this world with
a nature contrary to God. We got that nature from our unclean
parents. Our parents were unclean. Regardless
of what we have to say about our parents, we know that they're
unclean in that they're sinners, and that they passed on to us
a nature that is sinful, a nature that is corrupt, a nature that
is defiled, a nature that is contrary to God, a nature that
will in every way as it matures, it will show its uncleanness
and imperfection. He says, who can bring a clean
thing out of an unclean? Not one. There's no such thing
as anyone born of a woman who is clean in the sense that they're
born without sin, without a sinful nature. They're born in such
a way where they're perfect. There is no such thing as a man
or woman, boy or girl, who is perfect in this world. We're
all sinners. And maybe we should mention the
verse that we were to memorize. Anybody here memorize Romans
3 and verse 23? Alright, Stephen? That's excellent,
excellent. Brian? Okay, somebody else? Mitchell,
did you have your hand up? Okay, somebody over here, Garth. All right, Romans 3.23, for all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. All have sinned.
Now not just one or two of us, but all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. Now we've sinned because our
nature, we receive that fallen nature that were passed on to
our fathers by their fathers and on back, clear back to our
father Adam in the Garden of Eden. And so beloved, when we
think of our situation, We think of our sin, we think of our condition,
it brings us to, as we begin to read on further here in this
chapter, to begin to despair. It talks about, for there is
hope of a tree. if it be cut down, that it'll
sprout again. But man, he dieth, in verse 10,
and wasteth away, yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? And then it talks about man lying
down, in verse 12, and rising not, till the heavens be no more,
and they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.
Oh, that thou wouldst hide me in the grave, Job says, that
thou wouldst keep me secret until thy wrath be past, that thou
wouldst appoint me a set time and remember me. If a man dies,
shall he live again? He says, all the days of my appointed
time will I wait till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I
will answer thee. Thou wilt have a desire to the
work of thine hands, for now thou number'st my steps. Dost
thou not watch over my sin? My transgression is sealed up
in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquities. But then again,
he says in verse 22, but his flesh, that is the flesh of a
man, upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall
mourn. Now let me, as I've tried to
reveal to you that man is a sinner, he's born of a woman, he's unclean,
men are born into this world, and according to the first verse
of Job chapter 14 here, he's born, he's a few days, and he's
full of trouble. Man is full of trouble. And I
thought about how the Lord's people, how would I comfort some
of God's living family here today in the light of what we read
out of Job 14 and Isaiah chapter 40. How would I administer a
word of comfort? Now, beloved, we're living in
a world that is a very difficult world to understand. We're dealing
with various theological truths that are sometimes most difficult
for us to figure out with our proud minds. Many, many times
we look at the Word of God and we say, well, I don't understand
about what the preacher is talking about, about the withering work
of the Spirit. I don't understand that we have
to live in a world where the Spirit of God will come and,
as it were, take the wind out of our sails, where the Spirit
of God would come and rob us of our human dignity and bring
us low and bring us down so that we would see what our condition,
what he says is our condition before God. Now we know that
the natural man is ignorant of the things of God and he cannot
receive the things of the Spirit of God because they are foolishness
unto him and he cannot discern those things unless and until
the Spirit of God is in his heart. But every man who comes to Christ
will come with empty hands. God must bring him there and
bring him there in the way that he would be pleased to do it.
But there is a work that goes on in an individual's soul before
God saves them, and God must bring them low. God must deal
with them and bring them to the end of themselves so they'll
look away from themselves and look unto the Lord Jesus Christ. God uses various things in this
world to humble men, to humble the pride of men. Many, many
times it's those situations that men and women run into every
day. Sometimes it's their own health. Sometimes it's the problems
that they encounter on life's journey. Sometimes it's the various
situations that occur in the raising of a family. Sometimes
it's the burdens that come from the children that you bear and
bring into this world. Many, many things that God uses
to bring a man to the place where that he is unable to deal with
life himself, unable to handle life, and he looks away from
himself. He must do so because he finds
that Jacob's well, as it were, that it's empty, that there's
an emptiness in here. There's nothing in here, that
all is vanity in this world and vexatious to the spirit. And so he looks away from himself
finally. That is after God has done a
work in his heart. I thought about this world that
we're living in. and how that I would administer
a word of comfort to the Lord's family, to the Lord's people,
those who have been brought low, those who come this morning,
mourning, as it were, in their hearts over who they are and
what they are, because once the Lord has taught us that truth,
we never again can get to the place where we can cast it off.
It remains with us. When an individual knows themselves
to be a defiled sinner before God, knows themselves to be vile
in the eyes of God from a human standpoint, or from God's standpoint
as far as our human nature is concerned, then we never get
over that. When the Spirit of God has done
a work in us, brought us low, humbled us, opened up our eyes
to see our desperate need of a Savior, we don't get over that.
We do not come back to the place where we have that flower blooming
again, that flower of our own nature, where we think we're
somebody. We don't get over it. We remain
the same. So you may come here this morning,
and you may be a believer, but you may be afflicted. You may
be tried. You may be at your very wit's
end. You may have come here this morning not having any idea as
to how you're going to deal with the problems that you must deal
with in your life. And you may be in that sort of
a situation this morning, and you need some comfort. Well,
we're living in a world where, when we look at mankind as a
whole, we find them not having the answers to the problems that
are arising in our day. We just heard recently how that
there was hundreds of young people in one of our eastern states
that marched on the city council building last week to cry out
for help. They needed help. And the reason
that all of these young people were marching and were crying
out for help was because there's been an abnormal amount of suicides
among the teenagers in their area. Many, many of the teenagers
there, much more percentage-wise than in other parts of the United
States, have committed suicide recently. So they were crying
out, their city councilman, can you give us some help? Can you
tell us what's going on? Can you explain life to us so
that we can understand it, so we can know why all of these
problems exist that we don't have the mental capacity to deal
with and the depth of soul to deal with. And then just recently,
all of you have probably been following this story, there was
an Air Force captain that was flying in formation with some
other planes, and he took his A-10, he flew out of formation,
he flew about 800 miles away from the flight plan, and he
flew into the side of a mountain. in Colorado. A young man, I think
he was 32 years old. He was a captain in the Air Force.
He was an intelligent man. He was a trainer of other pilots. He was an individual that had
spent a great deal of time, undoubtedly, in as far as his education and
for his knowing the ins and outs of this computer age. He probably
understood it just about as well as anybody. But for some reason
or other, this fellow, the Air Force is trying to figure out
why he did it. But it looks like that the man
was just committing suicide. That he flew this airplane up
there and flew it into the mountain. And that it was just to commit
suicide. Now then, let's think a little
bit about this. I'm going to try, if I can, to
give you some comfort. But look here. Let's look at
these young people out in this eastern state that have committed
suicide. And let's look at this fella,
if that be the reason why that he flew up there and flew into
the mountainside just to get out of this world. I want to
ask you a question. Here's somebody that commits
suicide. I mean, what is it that they
know that you don't know? Is there something that these
people know that they say makes it impossible for them to go
on and live? They cannot live any longer because
they know something that other people don't know. Or let's say
it in the other way. What is it that you know that
they don't know? that keeps you going in the way
of life? What keeps you getting up in
the morning and going to your job? What keeps you getting up
in the morning and tackling the responsibilities of your household,
the obligations that are placed upon you by life? What keeps
you going? What is it that you know that
these young people out there do not know? And what is it that
you know that this fella flying into a mountainside in a nine
million dollar airplane does not know? Or what do they know
that you don't know? Now these are questions that
I think that deserve an answer. I think we must deal with these
things. I think there are certain things in life that will drive
an individual to the point. I think there's a thin line between
being sane and being insane. I think there's a very thin line.
Now if you were to go down to Warm Springs this morning and
you were to go through Warm Springs and everybody that you would
meet in the hallway or if you were to knock on a door and go
in and visit with people, there wouldn't be a person there that
would tell you that they were insane. Everybody would tell
you that they're sane because insane people don't tell you
that they're insane. They do not. Now what I'm leading
up to is this, beloved, that there is a very thin line in
this world. Men and women can be brought
to the place in just a while to where they have absolutely
no bearings under them. And they have nothing to fall
back upon. And they feel that their life
isn't worth living and putting up with and dealing with everything
they must deal with. Now, I would like, of course,
to be of help to those kind of people. I would like to speak
a word in the ear of these people that are having these problems.
I'd like to be able to speak to them. I recognize that we're
very frail. Life is very frail. The human
mind is very frail. And I realize that something
could happen here in this room this morning, that we would have
to have somebody to lead us out of the building. We couldn't
find the door to get out. And when we got in the parking
lot, we couldn't find our car to get into it. Our minds could
snap just like that. You could go home, you could
get evil tidings on the telephone, you could get such news on the
telephone, such things could happen in this country of ours,
in this environment, and you would lose your way. You would
not know what to do, and you would be dumbfounded to the point
where if somebody didn't come along pretty soon, get a hold
of you, that you'd just be broken, as it were, by all of the difficulties
that just suddenly sprung upon you. And Job one time cried out
and said, Lord, will you break a leaf that is driven to and
fro? We're all like leaves hanging
on a tree that are dried and brittle. That's how we are. And
the Lord can break us. It's in His power to do it. It's
in His power to break us like a leaf that's blowed about in
the wind, a dried leaf. And we all are depending upon
God to keep us with a sound mind, to enable us to go on with a
sound mind and to be able to press on in the ways of God,
to live to His glory, live to His praise. We're all dependent
upon God. That's what I'm trying to tell
you now. Now, beloved, there are some things that I believe
that God has done. I think a lot of the problems
and the trouble that people have that drive them to a place where
they're unable to deal with life, where they're unable to deal
with the complications that they have in their lives, number one
is sin. I think sin is what it is that
people are dealing with. They don't understand it. They
don't know what it is. They don't know how to get rid
of it. And sin brings guilt, and it brings death, and it will
bring into your heart such despair that you won't know what to do
with it. Now beloved, there are three
things that are very simple. that I want to mention to you
this morning that I believe that God will use to comfort our hearts. They're very simple and I wanted
to make them simple so that you would be able to remember them
as long as you live. So when you got into a tight
and into a difficult situation that you'd be able to recall
them very easily. Now the first thing and now I'm
presuming that most of you know what I'm talking about when I'm
talking about sin and the halting effects of sin and how that sin
works. how that sin works, how that
Satan, in his accusatory way, how that he deals with men and
women about this sin issue. All of us are sinners. Stephen
quoted it, others quoted it, all have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. Everyone is born with this problem
of sin. and it must be dealt with, it
has to be dealt with, and you will never be able to live in
this life if the Spirit of God blows upon you and you don't
have a way to get rid of your sin. If you don't have a way
to deal with your sin, you're not going to be able to live.
A man, if he was suddenly, the Spirit of God was to enlighten
him as to who he is How defiled and corrupt he is, and what his
abilities are, and the seeds of sin that is in him, and then
he not have a place of refuge, if he have not a hiding place,
if he has not one to go to, if he has not one that will stand
between him and a holy God and mediate his case, one who will
stand up for him before God, one who will take his sin and
do something with it and rid him of his sin and his guilt,
that man That man is going to despair until he despairs of
life. And so I want to point out three
things to you that are very simple. I want to talk to you a little
bit about a bag. I want to talk to you about a book. And I want
to talk to you about a bottle. These three things. And if you
get these three things, I believe they'll help you to deal with
life's problems and the problems that come our way. And they will
comfort your soul. A bag, a book, and a bottle. Now right here in Job chapter
14, Job said, For now thou number'st my steps, dost thou not watch
over my sin? My transgression is sealed up
in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquities. Now Job said
that the Lord had made a bag and that he had sewed up his
iniquities in that bag. Now it was the custom, and still
is I suppose at times, But at least in ancient times when men
died at sea, their bodies were placed in a weighted bag which
was sewn together and sealed up. Then they were cast into
the depths of the sea. They were buried in the sea and
that weighted bag would take that body to the bottom of the
ocean. And beloved, listen to me. That's what God has done
with our sins. That's what God has done. Job
said, my transgressions is sealed in a bag. You put them in a bag.
And he said, you sewed up my iniquities. Now beloved, unless
you understand what God has done about sin. Sin is a problem. Sin will reap havoc in your mind
and in your heart. Sin makes ruts, deep ruts in
your mind and your soul. Sin will drive you to despair. Sin will drive you to say, I've
got to get out of this world. I've got to get away from this
mind that is tormented. I must get away from it. Beloved,
if we know what God has done with our sin, If we can picture
this morning our sins sewed up in a bag, and if we can picture
this bag to be weighted, and if we can picture that bag being
put in the sea of God's forgetfulness and God's forgiveness, and that
bag going to the bottom, and that bag never again rising to
the top of the ocean. It can never come to the surface.
Our sins are put away. Now, beloved, that's the sins
of God's people. God's people are, the Bible says,
we all like sheep have gone astray, and the Lord has laid on Him
the iniquity of us all. The Lord laid our iniquity on
Christ, and the Lord Jesus Christ suffered our sin debt And it
is I, even I, he says, that blocks out your sins and your iniquities
and will not remember them against you anymore. I'll put away your
sin. I laid your sin on your substitute
and he paid the price of your sin and I buried your sins in
the depths of the sea and they will never float to the top.
They'll never be remembered against you anymore. Now, beloved, when
Christ died by His one sacrifice for our sins, our sins being
imputed to Him, He put away our sins. He put them away. Now,
I couldn't deal with my sins. I have sins, many of them, many
of them, too numerous to count. I'm not able to fathom the depth
of my inward corruption and my failings as a man, as a human
being. And the only way you're ever
going to deal with it, you say, well, I can handle sin. No, you
can't. Your mind will not allow you
to handle it. You're not able to handle it.
And you must deal with it and look at it from the standpoint
of your God and how He's dealt with sin. He put it away. Remember
that bag. They were buried in the sea of
God's infinite forgiveness, put away, never to be brought up
again. God Almighty will never charge us with sin. He will never
impute sin to us anymore. He'll never remember our sins
against us or treat us any the less graciously because of our
sin. That, beloved, is forgiveness.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not charge reckon with
sin anymore. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute it. It's in a bag, sealed, weighted,
cast to the bottom of the ocean, and that's where our sins are
gone. And when the old accuser comes around, Just tell him,
your sins are in the bag. They're sealed up and they're
in the bottom of the ocean of God's forgiveness. The blood,
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ has cleansed you from all sin
and you cannot be further cleansed. You cannot be cleaner because
God has cleansed away your sin. Alright? Then you can remember
the bag, can't you? You can remember that bag, can't
you? And you can remember it. You can remember it and don't
let the old accuser get you down and put his thumb on you and
push you down. Don't let him do it. Say the
bag, it's all of the iniquities are in it and they're sealed
and they're down and they'll never be found and they'll never
be charged against me. The Lord will not allow his elect
to be charged with sin. Okay, the next thing is the book.
I said the bag and the book. Okay, now this book is for our
names. Take heart, child of God, because
your name is written in God's book. It is written in the Lamb's
Book of Life. Before the world was made, the
Lord God inscribed the names of His elect in what is called
the Lamb's Book of Life. It's Christ's book. In that book,
God has recorded not only the name, of the chosen heirs of
heaven, but God has also recorded many of the things that pertain
to them. I don't know all that God has
in his book about me, but we read in Psalm 139 and verse 16
in the book, all my members were written. They were all written
there and God has in his book everything that pertains to his
children. But most especially in the Lamb's
Book of Life is their name. And it was penned there before
the foundation of the world was ever laid. Look with me first
of all to Philippians 4 and look at verse 13. Philippians 4 and
verse 13. Listen to what this says. Did
I say verse, what was that? Philippians, I want to find Philippians
chapter four, yes, in verse three, it is, verse three. And I entreat thee also, true
yokefella, help those women which labored with me in the gospel,
with Clement also, and with other my fellow laborers, whose names
are in the book of life. Their names are in the book of
life. Now why would Paul mention such
a thing as this? Had Paul been to the throne of
God? Had he looked among God's books?
Did he know whose names were in the book of life? Well, he
said here that these that had been his fellow labors that these
that were his yoke fellows in the gospel, these that had come
to believe his gospel and believed on Christ, that their names were
in the book of life. Their names were written down
there. And then in the book of Revelation, let's turn to a couple
passages there. Revelation chapter 13 and let's
look at verse 8. Revelation 13 and verse 8. And all that dwell upon the earth
shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of
life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Now,
beloved, it tells us here about some whose names were not written
in the book. And so we have some whose names
are, Paul said their names are in the book of life. But now
John says there's some whose names were not written in the
book of life. Now let me clear this up to you
this morning. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
lamb that was slain in the mind of God before the foundation
of the world. The Lord Jesus is our representative. The Lord Jesus stood as our substitute. He stood before God as our representative
man. And our sin was charged to Him. He went to the cross and bore
our sin in His own body on the tree. He died the death of sin
for us in our place in our room instead. And before He ever come
into this world, Before He ever left Heaven's glory, before He
ever came down here to this world of sin and woe, He wrote our
names. Our names were written down.
We were gods, we belonged to Him by election, and then our
names were penned in that book of those for whom the Lord Jesus
would be slain. And so if we're believers on
Christ, somebody said, how can I know my name is in the book,
preacher? You said the book was a, you explained how the bag,
how that it was a comfort, but explain how the book is a comfort.
Well beloved, if your name's in the book, if you're a believer,
on the Lord Jesus Christ, if you've trusted Christ, if you've
leaned on Christ, if you've accepted Him into your soul, if you believe
that He died for you and your room and stead in place, then
beloved, your name's in that book. That is the evidence. Faith
is the evidence. Your name is in the book. And
not only that, but if your name be in the book, that is a guarantee
that you will Most assuredly, without doubt, regardless of
what the devil or the preacher or anybody else would tell you,
you are going to be saved if your name is in the book. There
is no possibility that you will ever be lost. Let the devil do
all he can. Let the old flesh do what it
can. Let man, who is very ingenious,
let him do as he wants and pleases. Let him come up with whatever
he can contrive. You are going to be saved if
your name is in the book. And your faith is the evidence
that your name is in the book. Now, beloved, if this life that
is to come is all the Bible testifies it to be, and I believe it is.
Oh, I believe heaven is a glorious place. I believe it is. I believe
it would be wonderful to be up in glory, to be with God and
to enjoy the blessings of God forever and ever, to be in the
fellowship of holy angels, to be in the fellowship of men and
women of whom we'll not be ashamed because we're going to be in
a body like the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. and he sinned not
in the body he was in and we're gonna have a body like his I'm
not gonna have any guilt feelings when I'm on heaven's streets
and when I'm saying the praises of God I'm gonna be in a body
that is sinless that's absolutely sinless and I'm gonna be able
to enter in to all the joys of heaven because I've been redeemed
by the blood of the Lamb brought back from all the curse of sin
and everything that sin can do my name's in the book and because
it's in the book I shall be saved and I'll be there I'll be there
that's what it means and so don't let the devil give you any trouble
tell him to go on back as old Barney used to say spit tobacco
juice in his eye and tell him to go on back to hell where he
belongs because your name's in the book I believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ somebody said well I don't know whether I believed
or not Well, somebody said, I don't know whether I believe yesterday
or not. I'm not too concerned about what you believe yesterday.
What do you believe this morning? What do you believe right now?
What do you believe? Did He die for you? Do you believe
that? Does thou believe on the Son of God? That's a question
that must be answered in your soul. Do you believe on the Son
of God? Do you believe that He died for
you? That He shed His blood for you? That your name was penned
in that book? before the foundation of the
world. I've often said the Lord did all of His knowing before
the world began. He did it all, He did it all,
and He knew the names. The Bible says, The foundation
of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them
that are His. How could he not have wrote their
names in the Lamb's Book of Life? How could he have done that if
he didn't know who was his? He knew who was his. He wrote
their names down there. The book. The book! And any time
you're plagued by the devil, troubled, and you're at the point
of despair, remember the book! The book has it down that your
name is there and you're a believer on the Lord Jesus Christ. The
book is a blessing to my soul. I believe my name is written
there in that book. Somebody said, well, but there's
a lot of John Mitchells that lived since that book was written. maybe some other you know all
my members were recording that book god has my fingerprints
down there they're already down there all my members are there
somebody said well I mean how's God gonna know he knows he knows
he knows because he we were his and he chose us and he knows
all there is to be known about us He knows all there is to be
known about you. and do you know that there's
equipment in Great Falls that could track you and I mean there's
there's there's enough equipment in this world today ain't nobody
can get lost anymore I mean they'll find you sooner or later they're
gonna find you because they've got the equipment to do it they
know about they know what much at all about you you don't listen
you think men know about DNA and God don't know anything at
all about DNA Why? He knew about DNA before men
and women knew about A, B, and C. He knew about it. God knew
all about DNA. He knows who you are and He knows
who I am. And I don't care how many John
Mitchells have lived in the world, when God calls my name, I'll
know who He's talking about and He'll know who He's talking about. And the book, right there it
is. Right there it is. And so the
bag and the book. be comforted by the book all
right and then I said the bottle the bottle not the kind of bottle
a lot of people looking at say oh yeah preacher I've tried that
bottle business and that don't do much for it surely don't it
surely don't do anything for you but the Lord God keeps a
bottle And it keeps a bottle for our tears. You see, we got
to come down. Our feet's got to touch here.
We get high when we go talking about the bag that our sins were
buried in, and when we talk about the book that our names were
written in, the foundation of the world. But then tomorrow
morning, your feet's got to touch the floor. You got to get up
in the morning. You got to start dealing with
this thing again. And I'll tell you what, every day, oh, listen,
there's tears in our hearts. tears in our eyes. There's tears
that we shed because of the complications, because of the trials and the
tests that are brought upon us by different and varied and sundry
situations in this world. Trials and tests. But I want
you to look at Psalm 56 and let's read verse 8 and 9. Psalm 56
verses 8 and 9. Now tell us my wonderings. Put
thou my tears into thy bottle. Are they not in thy book? It's
another thing that's in the Lord's book, our tears. But he's got
a bottle too. When I cry unto thee, then shall
mine enemies turn back. This I know, for God is for me. Now, it was a custom in ancient Egyptian
funerals, when mourners came in they were handed a small cloth
or a sponge to wipe away their tears when they were mourning
over this deceased loved one. and then they took these cloths
or these sponges and they squeezed them into a little vial or into
a small bottle, what they called a tear bottle and then they placed
that bottle in the tomb with the dead and this symbolized
the care and the love that they had for the one who had died. Even so, the Lord our God, our
Heavenly Father, our Almighty Savior, our Holy Comforter, tenderly
cares for us. In all our afflictions, He is
afflicted. We are the very apple of the
Lord's eye. Now, beloved, there are many
tears, as I said, that will be shed in this world, but you can
have this comfort that the Lord cares about those tears. And He has provided a place for
you where there won't be any more tears. There will not be
all the former things the scripture says gonna be passed away. Death
and tears and all will be gone when we get over into that other
land. But it symbolizes God's care
of these people that he knows even their tears and that he's
got a bottle for them. And he knows what it is that's
breaking your heart. He knows what it is that's disturbing
you. He knows what it is that is confounding
you and making you feel the way that you feel and what's breaking
you. He knows what it is and He catches
every tear in His bottle. and he knows, and he cares. The
hairs of your head are all numbered. The Lord cares for his people. Now what we need to do is to
behold our God, think again, think of these things whenever
we're depressed, when we see the world falling apart around
us, when we read about the educated uh... killing themselves and
those who are high places doing away with themselves uh... somebody says well what did they
know that we didn't know it's more like this what do we know
they didn't know and the truth is if the lord as uh... I don't know, there's somebody
going around, I don't know who it is, but anyway, the Lord knows all
of our situation, and He's put our sins in the bag. I know what
He's done with them, and I know that's the only thing I have
to fear, is sin. That's all we have to fear. And
God said, I put that in the bag, and I buried that bag. That bag
has been buried in the depths of the sea. And my name's in
the book and is guaranteed. Election guarantees that I'm
saved and will be saved and that in eternity to come I will be
with the Lord. And I know God's care for me
right now demonstrated because He got a bottle and catches every
tear that comes out of this eye and every tear that comes out
of this heart, He catches it. I know God cares for His people
and for His own. I want to comfort you with these
words. May the Lord bless you this morning.
Father, in the name of Jesus, remember the word to our hearts,
enable us to receive it, to plant it there deeply into our souls,
and may we be greatly encouraged thereby. Father, have mercy. upon a generation of lost, perishing
souls, upon a generation of young people that do not know what
is going on. They know nothing about their
feelings, very little about what's going on in their minds day to
day. God have mercy. on this generation
of young people, and upon this generation of heathen folks that
live all around us. God have mercy. And Lord, we're
reminded that you've made us to differ. And if we have a hope,
an ounce of hope, if we can see and visualize that bag and our
sins in it going to the bottom of the ocean, if we can visualize
our names in that book, if we can visualize you catching our
tears, and we've wept a many of them, Lord, we know that this
generation can't see it, but we know that if we do, it's because
you've made us to differ. Accept our worship, our praise,
and our thanksgiving this morning. In Jesus' name, amen.