with me if you will in your Bibles
to the book of Exodus chapter 33. The book of Exodus chapter
33. We take note in verse 9 of Exodus
chapter 33 that the Lord talked with Moses. Yes, that's what
the Bible says, the Lord talked with Moses. And all the people,
in verse 10, saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door.
And all the people rose up and worshipped every man in his tent
door. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And in verse
12, and Moses said unto the Lord, as the Lord was speaking to him
in this conversation, Moses now is saying to the Lord, see thou
sayest unto me, bring up this people, and thou hast not let
me know whom thou wilt send with me, yet thou hast said, I know
thee by name. And thou hast also found grace
in my sight. This, Lord, you've said to me.
You've said, I know you by name. I know your name. And certainly
the Lord knows all of his elect. Known unto God are all things,
all of his works from the foundation of the world. And the Bible says
the foundation of God standeth sure having this seal the Lord
knoweth them that are his. And so the Lord knows Moses and
the Lord said also Moses you found grace in my sight." Now
you remember Noah had found grace in the eyes of the Lord. All
of the elect of God has found grace in the eyes of the Lord,
just like Noah and like Moses here as the text speaks. And
what a wonderful thing it is if a man or a woman can say,
I found grace in the eyes of the Lord. The Lord has dealt
with me favorably The Lord has dealt with me in mercy. The Lord
has been pleased to forgive my sin and to blot out all of my
past. The Lord has been pleased to
reconcile me unto Himself. The Lord has been pleased to
bestow upon me all of the benefits of the death of His Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's what it means for
a man to find grace in the eyes of the Lord. It means for the
Lord to bless him and to bestow upon him his free gifts, the
gifts that he's pleased to give to sinners that were purchased
by the Lord Jesus Christ in his bloody sweat and in his death
on Calvary's tree. Now as we go on here we read
in verse 13, now therefore I pray thee if I have found grace in
thy sight Lord, if you have dealt with me favorably, if you have
had mercy upon me, then He said, show me now thy way. Then you
show me your way, that I may know thee. Now to know the Lord,
we remember Paul the Apostle over in Philippians chapter 2,
or in chapter 3 it is, in verse 10, he prayed after he had been
converted many years, He said that I may know Him and the power
of His resurrection. Now to know the Lord is to walk
with the Lord. To know the Lord is to have His
presence with you. And as you travel in this world,
in your pilgrimage, to have the Lord's presence abiding with
you and God dealing with you, sustaining you, performing that
which He in His providence has predestinated or determined or
ordained that He would do for you. That's what's involved in
our knowing the Lord. It's walking with Him. Now then,
He says as He goes on here in this verse of Scripture, He says,
if I have found grace in your sight, then you show me your
way that I may know you. I'll know you as I walk in your
way, that I may find grace in your sight, that I may continue
to be dealt with favorably by the Lord, and consider this nation
is thy people. Moses here is praying. He's the
great intercessor. He's a type of the Lord Jesus
Christ who is our great high priest and our intercessor, the
one that is our mediator. You know the Bible says that
there is one mediator between God and man and that is Christ
Jesus the Lord. And so here Moses being a type
of the great intercessor the Lord Jesus, and says, Consider,
this nation is thy people. And he said, the Lord said to
him, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And in verse 15, which is our
text, And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me,
then carry us not up hence. If thy presence go not with me,
then carry us not up hence. For wherein shall it be known
here that I and thy people have found grace in your sight? Is
it not in that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated,
I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face
of the earth. The Lord being with a man, The
Lord being with a people, the Lord being with a church, separates
them from all other peoples on the earth. The presence of God
with His people. Now, we know that Moses was mildly
concerned about the Lord's presence. You remember that in the first
verse of this chapter, the Lord said to Moses, He said, You depart. I want you to get up and leave,
and I want you to take these people with you, those that you
brought up out of Egypt." But he said in verse 2, he said,
I will send an angel before you. I'm going to send an angel with
you. And in verse 2 here, as we go
on, he said, this angel will drive out all the heathen before
you. This angel will do a great work. The angel will go into that land
that I promised Abraham and to his seed, and this angel is going
to drive out and give you the victory. But the Lord said in
verse 3, I will not go up in the midst of thee. I'm not going
to do it. I'm not going to go up with you. I won't go up. Well, this greatly burdened the
heart of Moses. And when the people found out
that the Lord was not going to go up with them, he was going
to send his angel. Now, most of us probably said,
that'll be all right. Lord, just send an angel before
us to drive out all of our enemies and to open up the way before
us. If the Lord will just send an angel, that'll do. But you
see, these people were used to having the presence of God. They were used to having God
with them. God blessing them. God protecting
them. God going before them in the
pillar of cloud and the fire. God was with His people, opening
up the way before them. But the Lord said, I'm not going
to go up with you. So Moses was mildly concerned
about that, and then when the Lord said down here in verse
14, after Moses had been speaking to him, he said, My presence
shall go with thee. I will give thee rest. I will
go up with you. I'll go with you. Beings that
you're concerned about this, and burdened about this, and
you're mourning about this, and the people are mourning about
it, they're stiff-necked, and they're very difficult people
to lead. They have tried my soul and my
patience as a people, and I have been about to consume them, but
you've interceded on their behalf, and I will go up with you." And
so then Moses, he said, he prayed this prayer, if your presence
go not with me, Lord if you're not going to go with me, then
he said, then you don't carry us up hence. I don't want to
go either. If you're not going to go, an
angel won't do. I've got to have your presence.
Now then, this is a prayer which has been used hundreds of times
on many different occasions by the Lord's people. Moses, as
we said here, is in the wilderness when he prays it, and he's about
here to lead the people into the land of Canaan, that land
that flowed with milk and honey, yet he felt that he would rather
continue to endure the inconveniences of the wilderness than to go
out of the wilderness over into this good land without the presence
of God. He wanted God's presence to go
with him. Now throughout the history of
the church of our Lord Jesus Christ, there have been particular
places where men of God have been compelled to fall on their
faces, to get on their knees, and to pray this prayer of Moses. Now on one occasion I was reading
recently about the Puritans when they were about ready to leave
England and come to America how they would have prayer meetings
and they would gather those going and those that were staying behind
and they were coming to America to seek their liberty. to seek
religious freedom. And they would cry to God and
pray this prayer of Moses. If thy presence go not with me,
then carry us not up hence. Don't take us over to this new
land, Lord, unless you are going to go with us. unless you're
going with us, unless you're going to bless us and favor us
in that new land, then don't take us over there. Now John
Bunyan, after he was in prison for 12 years, he had almost come
habituated to this place, so that when the time of his imprisonment
was over, looking at those cold, damp walls of the prison on Bedford
Bridge, he prayed this prayer. Now, you see, the Lord had been
with old John, the tinkerer, and the Lord had blessed him
there. He wrote Pilgrim's Progress while he was in prison. He had
had many visits from the Lord. And he'd been blessed of God
mightily there in that prison. God had favored him and been
with him and encouraged him. And he prayed this prayer, if
thy presence go not with me, then I don't want that door to
open. If you don't go with me out here, back out to preach
and back out into the world, then Lord, I don't want to go.
And that's the attitude of the Lord's people, the true people
of God. They value the presence of the
living God. He would rather have stayed in
prison with his God than to go forth into the world and leave,
as it were, his master behind. He wanted the Lord's presence
to go up with him. Now there was a time, and there
have been several times in my own life, when I have prayed
this prayer. when I've had to pray this prayer,
Lord, if you're not going to go with me, then you don't carry
me to that place. You don't take me to that place.
Because it's so important, if we're on the Lord's mission,
that the Lord's presence and blessing be with us. Now when
you, brothers and sisters in Christ, have to pass through
the vast changes in life, When in God's good providence you
are removed, maybe from one place to another place, when the Lord
lays it upon your heart, when the Lord shuts you up to it,
when the Lord hymns you in, and you have to remove from one place
to another, then you ought to pray this prayer. If thy presence
go not with us, then carry us not up hence. Now when we're
about to die, and die we will, When that hour comes for us to
leave this world behind and when we're called upon to wade through
the cold stream of death, what prayer could be more appropriate
than this one? We all want the Lord to be with
us. in life, and certainly we want the Lord to be with us when
we come to die. To go anywhere without God is
terrible, but to die without the presence of God would be
awful beyond expression, would it not? It certainly would be.
Now to go down into death's dark river with no helper, with no
voice to say, fear not for I am with thee, my rod and my staff
will comfort you, this would be sad indeed for any soul. And so we need to pray this prayer,
we need to become acquainted with it, we need to become very
familiar with it, and we need to use it and to pray this prayer
because it certainly is one that is scriptural. Now it must be
a solemn thing to meet death alone without the presence of
God to cheer us in that last dread hour. And so let us learn
to pray this prayer in life and then in the time of our death. Well, first of all, I want to
talk a little bit about our greatest need. Our greatest need as the
Lord's people, as the Lord's church, is the presence of God. Now, it would be better for us
to be meeting out in the snow this morning, out in the wind
this morning, than for us to be meeting in a sealed building
like this without the presence of God. It would be better for
us to meet out there and have the presence of God than it would
to be meeting in this warm, comfortable place this morning without it.
We need the presence of the living God. The one great need of this
church and every believer is the presence of God. God's presence
with them. There are many things perhaps
that this church and that individual members of this church may or
may not need, but certainly there is one thing that none of us
is going to dispute about. Every one of us, collectively
or individually, we all need the presence of the Lord to go
with us. We need God's blessing and every
morning when we arise we want to pray the Lord's blessing upon
our life and the Lord's presence to be with us. The Lord to go
with us in our day. Now it is the presence of God
that makes the church victorious and makes the church glorious.
God must dwell in His church. The Bible says that the church
is the place of habitation for God through the Spirit. And God
must live in His body. He must live in His church. And
God forms the church and He adds the members to it. And God lives
in that body. And it is the presence of God.
It's not the preacher, and it's not that if you happen to have
a preacher that is an orator or a preacher that is very skilled
in dividing the Word of God, that's not the glory of the church.
The glory of the church is the presence of the living God. And if the Lord is not with us,
then, beloved, we're wasting our time. We're just, as it were,
spinning our wheels if God be not with us. Now you see, the
God of the Bible is a God of purpose. And He has a purpose
for His church. He has a mission for His church. And the Lord in that church will
enable that church, will bless that church to fulfill the commission
which he has given to the church. But now where he is, there is
glory, because the Lord is glory. The Lord is glorious, and where
he is, there is glory. What a wonderful thing it is
to be involved in the work of God if God be with us, and if
we see the hand of the Lord. If the Lord is with us to encourage
and to provide and to bless, and to lead and to bring the
results that he would purpose to bring, what a glorious thing
it is. But I want to say this, is if
God is there, the glory is there. The glory is there because God
is there. The presence of the living God. And every believer Wherever you
find him in this world, if the Lord's presence is with him,
then the glory is upon him. The Shekinah glory of God is
there, because the presence of God is with that soul. Now, where
he is not, Ichabod can be written over the door. It doesn't make
any difference how beautiful, how wonderful, how well furnished
the room is. Ichabod can be written over the
door. The glory has departed. And so you see why that I say
it'd be better for us to be out in the snow or out in a barn
someplace, meaning that it would be for us to be in a sealed building
where God isn't. because the glory is not there
if God is not there. And I hope that we can understand
this, that we may seek the presence of God and desire that we not
be anywhere, wherever we are and wherever we find ourselves
today in whatever decisions we may be about to make. as the
people of God, whatever decisions we as individuals are about to
make in our life in regards to where we're going, in regards
to what we're going to do. If we say, well we're going into
a certain city where we're going to buy and sell and get gain. You better remember this, that
it's if the Lord wills, then you'll be able to buy and sell
and get gain. If God goes with you, if the
Lord is for you, and if He favors you with His presence, then all
will go well. Now, the number one concern for
us as the Lord's people is will the presence of God go with us? Is the Lord with us today? Is
the Lord with us and will God go with us wherever we go as
his people in this world? How can we be assured of the
Lord's presence? Well, I think that we must walk
with him, I think that we must trust Him, I think that we must
do His will, we must do His bidding, we must find His will. Now there's a couple of scriptures
that I'd like to share with you. One of them is in Colossians
chapter 1, and if you would want to turn there with me, I'd like
to read this scripture here to you. It's in verse 9 of chapter
1. Paul is writing this letter to
the Colossian Church, and he says, for this cause we also,
since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and
to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will
in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you might walk worthy of
the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work,
increasing in the knowledge of God. Now here the Apostle Paul
says, I'm praying for you. This church at Colossae, he said,
I'm praying for you that you might be filled with the knowledge
of His will. That you might know the will
of your God. That you might walk worthy of
the Lord. unto all pleasing, being fruitful
in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God. As you
walk with God, as we said earlier, we come to know Him, and we come
to know Him better. We know His faithfulness, we
know His ways, we know the way of the Lord. And so, when I ask
this question about how do we know His will, how can we know
His will so that we might so walk with Him that His presence
would abide with us, then I believe that we can see here that it
is as we seek the Lord and ask Him to bless us with the knowledge
of His will. And then here in Ephesians 5
and 17, Paul said, Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding
what the will of the Lord is. That's Ephesians 5 and 17. Be
not unwise. That word is to believers. That
word is to the children of God. Don't be unwise, but be understanding
what the will of the Lord is. Find the will of God and walk
in it, that the Lord's blessing might go with you. It was God's
will that the children of Israel go over into the land of Canaan. It was God's will that they go
in and possess the land. And the Lord said, I'll go up
with you into the land. I will do it. And so it is God's
will that we seek His will and seek an understanding of His
will. How can I know God's will? When
it comes to the place where there's two paths set before me, both
which are morally right, Two choices to be considered, neither
of them involving sin. How can I know which is the will
of God and which is not the will of God for me? How am I going
to know? How am I going to know God's
will? I'm conscious that I need Him. I'm conscious that I can't
live without Him. And be successful, do that which
is glorified to Him, honor Him, be a Christian. You can't be
a Christian without God being with you. The only way you can
live and honor Him is for Him to be at your side, for Him to
be with you, for Him to be blessing you. Now then, when making decisions
about my life and my service for Christ in this world, how
can I deserve the will of God that I can be assured that He's
going with me? That the Lord is going to go
with me. That when I get up to preach, God's going to be there.
God's going to be in the pulpit. God's going to be in the service.
God's going to be with the people. The hand of the Lord's going
to be visiting the hearts of the people. The Spirit of the
Lord's going to be visiting those that I preach to. How can I know?
I believe that there is nothing more important than knowing God's
will for the reasons that we've stated already this morning. We know that God's eternal purpose
and His will and His decree That which He has sovereignly predestinated,
that it must be fulfilled. We know it will. We know it is.
We know that God has a secret purpose and will. We know that
God has a determinate counsel. Isn't that right? God has a determinate
counsel. And we know that God has a secret
will that is unknown to us. We don't know anything about
tomorrow. We don't know anything about next week, next month,
next year. We don't know anything about
the future. That's in God's hands, but He knows all about it. Known
unto God are all of His works from the beginning of the world.
and God is fully apprised as to His purpose and what He intends
to do. And now it is my business and
my responsibility to seek the Lord that I might with a humble
heart, a submissive heart, that I might just walk in His way
and do that which He would have me to do. It is immutable, that
is the will of God, and the will of God is irresistible, that
is the secret will of God. Now then, it must come to pass. I'd like for you to look at Isaiah
chapter 46 and listen as I read here beginning with verse 9.
I want to read verse 9 through verse 11. Here the prophet says,
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 and from ancient times
the things that are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand
and I will do all my pleasure. calling a ravenous bird from
the east, the man that executes my counsel from a far country. Yea, I have spoken it. I will
also bring it to pass. I have purposed it. I will also
do it. Hearken unto me, you stout-hearted. that are far from righteousness.
I've got a purpose, I'm going to do it. And you stout-hearted,
you stiff-necked folks, you people that are rebels in your heart,
you that want your own will, you want your own way, you've
got a desire of your own. And you're going to do what you
want to do. You say nobody's going to tell me what I'm going
to do. Well, you people are, listen,
the Lord said you hearken to me. You listen to me. I've got
a purpose and I'm going to bring it to pass. And we know that
all men do serve his will and they serve his purpose. We know
that even the wrath of man praises Him, and the remainder of wrath
He restrains. We know that even if a man is
in rebellion, that God's going to overrule him, and even at
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, this was very evident in that
the Bible says He was delivered up to the cross by the determined
counsel of God, but He was slain by the hands of wicked men. but he was delivered up there
by the Council, the Detroit Council. This is the will of Him, Jesus
says, that sent me that everyone which seeth the Son by faith,
everyone that sees the Son as the one sent by the Father, the
only commissioned, the only Savior of sinners, everyone that seeth
the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life. And
I will raise him up at the very last day. Now that's the will
of God. And as far as you're concerned,
that's whenever this thing happens. That's when you begin to feel
the presence of God. You know you have a living relationship. with the Lord. Now He's been
around all along. Before that, even before you
were conceived in the womb, the Lord's knowing you. And the Lord knows His own sheep.
The Lord knows it. But now here's another verse.
And this is His commandment. You want to know His will? You
want Him to be with you? Believe on His Son. Trust His
Son. And then this is His commandment,
that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ
and love one another as He gave His commandment. We read that
verse last week. That's 1 John 3 and 23. Now this is our warrant
for believing. This is His will. that you believe
on His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust Him! Believe on Him! This
is what God would have you to do, because this is the plain
revealed will of God, and then you'll know something, maybe
a little later on, about the things I've been talking to you
about already this morning, about the prevenient grace. Now listen
to me. Charles Spurgeon, He said that
when he got converted, he thought he had everything to do with
it. He thought he did it all. He come to the Lord. He heard
the Word of God and he come to Christ. He believed on the Lord. But he said as he began to hear
more and more and read more and more about the Scripture, he
said he could see that he had less and less and less to do
with it. and that the Lord had more and
more and more to do with it, until finally he discovered that
it was all of God, it was all a work of grace from the very
beginning, and he actually didn't have anything to do with it.
He just was there and had become a recipient. of what God had
purposed and what God had given. And that's the way it is. You
know, it's kind of like the wind blowing. Now, children sometimes,
they may look at a tree, and they see that tree just going
this way and that way. And they'll say, well, that tree,
you know, maybe the trees get to moving that way, and that
fans the air and makes the wind. Maybe that's the way it is. But
that's not the way it is. That's not the way it is. No,
so the wind starts blowing and then them trees get to moving.
Is that right? That's right. Well, listen to
me. That's the way it is. God must blow on your soul. God
must visit you. God must come to you in His sovereign
grace and power. And this, my friend, is what
we need to recognize. That the will of God and God
being with us is His gift, but it's a matter of us believing
His Word. Now that which He commands you
to do, believe on His sign. You are responsible to do. I am here today, and my ministry
involves telling men and women to do something that they cannot
do. Now that's right, that's what
my ministry involves. I'm here to tell the blind to
see. I'm here to tell the deaf to hear. I'm here to tell those
that are dead to live. That's what I'm here to do. And
you can't do any of this. Nobody's able to do any of it.
You see, beloved, only God can make the dead live. Only God
can give hearing ears. Only God can give eyes that see. The Bible says that, doesn't
it? It says both the hearing ear and the seeing eye of the
Lord has made even both of them. And so I'm here to tell you it's
your responsibility to get with God. It's your responsibility
to draw up near God. It's your responsibility to reach
out to God and to believe on Him and to hear His Word and
to see Him. But you can't do it. You can't
do it. It's up to God to give you those
eyes, give you those ears, and to give you the ability to rise
from your death in sin to new life in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you can't do it on your own. So that's how helpless we are
as a preacher. We can't do a thing for you.
Not a thing. We can tell you what you ought
to do. But only God can enable you, and the commandments of
God are the enablements of God. When we command you, and we command
you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's what it means
to preach in the name of Christ. is that we command you in His
name. One time Jesus walked up to one
that had a withered hand, a withered arm, and He said, stretch forth
thine hand. And do you know that one? Hadn't
been able to ever do it before, but stretched it right forth
because the commands of God are the enablements of God. Poor
sinner, do you want life? Do you want to hear? Do you want to see? If you do,
then obey the commandment. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And as God has commanded you
to do it, He'll enable you to do it. He'll enable you to do
it. I trust that you'll do that.
Trust His righteousness for your acceptance with God. Now the
will of God is revealed, I think, to those who seek it. To those
who seek it, the Lord said, I've not said to the sons of Jacob,
seek ye Me in vain. I didn't tell them to seek Me
in vain. If they seek Me, they'll find
Me. And the Bible says if you seek the Lord with your whole
heart, you're going to find Him. You're going to find Him if you
seek Him with your whole heart. And the Bible says that everyone
that seeketh, findeth. It said seek and you will find,
and then everyone that seeketh, they find. They find. So seek
the Lord. And there's many verses in the
Bible. For an example, there's a psalm. Turn back to the book of Psalms
and chapter 25. Oh, the time is getting away,
isn't it? Chapter 25 of the book of the Psalms. And I want to
read verse 8 and 9. Good and upright is the Lord,
therefore will He teach sinners in the way. The meek will He
guide in judgment and the meek will He teach His way. The Lord will teach you His way.
Just seek that. Now in Psalm 32 and verse 8 and
9, listen to what this says, I will instruct thee and teach
thee in the way which thou shalt go. The Lord said I'll instruct
you and I'll teach you in the way which thou shalt go. I will
guide thee with mine eye. I'll guide you. I'll direct you,
I'll teach you, I'll instruct you, and I'll guide you with
my eye. Now God reveals His will to those who seek it by the revelation
of His Word, the inner witness of His Spirit, and the acts of
His providence. Now when God reveals His will,
or His way, You'll know it. You'll know it. In Psalm 86 and
11, David said, Teach me thy way, O Lord, and I'll walk in
thy truth. Teach me thy way, and I'll walk
in your truth. Now, you'll not need the counsel
of men to know God's way. God said, I'll teach you. I'll
instruct you. I'll lead you as you seek me. And that goes back to what Paul
said there in Galatians 1 and 16. When he said that the Lord
had separated him from his mother's womb to reveal Christ in him,
he said immediately, I conferred not with flesh and blood. I didn't
have to go ask anybody whether I ought to preach or whether
I oughtn't to preach. He said, I didn't ask nobody. I didn't
take counsel with anybody. I knew what God had laid hold
of me for, and I went on out and done it. And now so, listen,
you won't need someone else to tell you whether God is directing
you to do this or that or not. When God by His Word and His
Spirit and His Providence tells you to do something, then you
will know it. Because as we said earlier, God's
more interested in you doing it, His will, than you are in
doing it. And God never called anyone to
do anything to whom He would not give the confidence and assurance
of His will in the matter at hand. God gives confidence and
assurance. You can see how that when old
Moses was going to go over in that land, there's going to be
a lot of trials over there, a lot of tests over there. A lot of
times when old Moses is going to sit down, And you know what
he faced. You know the story. But here's
you and I, and we're in this world, and we're asking God to
lead us and his presence to go with us. And there's going to
be times, and I said this to my family before I ever moved
to Montana back in 1970. I said, there's going to be times
we're going to sit down and we're going to say, well now, how'd
we get here? How'd we ever get in this place?
How did we ever come to this place? And I said, one of the
things that we must know, without a doubt, and that is God said
go and I'll go with you. And if He goes with us, then
everything will be alright. It'll be alright. It's the presence
of God that's made it possible. You don't operate in this world
as the Lord's people in the Lord's way without His presence. You
just can't do it. You've got to know that the Lord's
with you, that God's blessing is with you. And when you know
what the will of God is, then you must do it. Now, I want to
give you this text. I'm not going to read it to you
because I don't have time. Genesis chapter 22 verses 1 through 13. There's a great lesson there
about Abraham and God tempting him and telling him to go off
for his son Isaac. And Abraham obeyed the Lord and
faith, the poet said, must obey the Savior, the Savior's will,
as trust is grace. Faith must obey the Lord's will. as well as trust His grace. Faith must do that. And sometimes
you might write that down and read that portion of scripture,
how Abraham was tempted by God there and told, you go and you
offer up your only son Isaac. You go do that. And Abraham marched
right out there, didn't he? He went right on out there, took
Isaac, went right on up there and bound his son on that order
and was about ready to put the knife in him. And God said, Abraham,
Abraham, Abraham! Hold it up! I know now that you
fear me. I know that you'll do what I
tell you to do. I know you will. And then God
provided himself a lamb. A lamb got caught in the thicket. God provided himself. And that's
a picture of Christ, whom God has provided as a sinner's substitute. Now if I'm doing the will of
God, trusting Him, I have no reason to fear man in this world,
to fear hell or to fear failure. God's going to protect His people.
Now those who walk with God and have the presence of God are
often looked upon by the world as being failures. Often. But those, generally speaking,
I know if a man is truly walking with God, he's a success. Whatever the world says. If God's
with him, he's a success. If the Lord's blessing him, if
he's found grace in the eyes of the Lord, he is a success. Let the world say what they want
to. Banks says according to our standards, you're not a success.
Let them say what they will. If God's with us, it's alright. We are a success in the eyes
of the Lord. There's a poem by William Cowper
that I want to close with this morning. Listen to these words. God moves in a mysterious way
his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the
sea and rides upon the storm. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage
take. The clouds ye so much dread are
big with mercy and shall break with blessing on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble
sense, but trust him for his grace. Behind a frowning providence
he hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast,
unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flower. Blind unbelief is sure to err,
and scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter and
he will make it plain. That's been a blessing to me
for many years. May the Lord bless you this morning with these
thoughts and may the most important thing to you be what was important
to John Bunyan and to the pilgrims or to the Puritans, the presence
of God. What was important to old Moses,
God's presence, God with me. When John Wesley was ready to
die, after a life of walking with God, he said this, he said,
the best, the best, the best is God with us. That's the best. Talking about Emmanuel, that's
the meaning of that word, God with us. He said that's the best,
God with us. Father, in the name of your loveliest
Son, our blessed Redeemer, our spotless Redeemer, would you
please bless the hearing of your Word this morning? Would you
please use this message to your glory and honor? Would you please,
Lord, edify the hearts of your people, lift the heavy burdens
off the hearts and souls of your people? Will you quicken somebody
to life? Would you bring someone to yourself? We pray it in Jesus' name, for
His sake. Amen.