you to turn back if you will
with me to the book of Isaiah chapter 35. Chapter 35 of the
book of Isaiah. I'd like to read verse 3 and
4. Verse 3 and 4 of Isaiah 35. Strengthen ye the weak hands
and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful
heart, be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with
vengeance, even God with a recompense. He will come and save you. Now these two verses that I've
read to you here out of Isaiah chapter 35 this morning be our
place of beginning and our message here today. I want to talk about
what to do, what the people of God can do in the day of trouble. What they can do in the day of
trouble. Now these verses here that I've
read, this is God's command to all his preachers. To all his
preachers in a gospel day, in the day in which you and I are
living, in a day of trial, in a day of trouble, in a day of
difficulty, in a day when the people of God are struggling
to live for the glory of God and for the praise of Christ
when they're attempting to live out the Word of God in their
lives and are experiencing difficulty and trial, these words are to
be spoken by the preacher unto God's poor and afflicted family. Strengthen ye the weak hands
and confirm the feeble knees. Now in a state of nature, every
one of God's poor children, they have this weakness They have
weak hands when it comes to doing those things that God would have
them to do. Now we often experience in the
time of trial, in the time when we are oppressed from without
and within, from an old nature that we have, every one of us
are carrying about with us, we find that our hands are weak.
What was it that our Lord told the disciples when he told them
to watch with him? He said, the spirit is willing,
but the flesh is weak. And the flesh is indeed weak.
And then he said, you confirm the feeble knee. And we often
experience a weakness, as it were, in our knees. How many
of you would say this morning, I have often trembled at some
of the trials that have come into my life. Some of the unexpected
problems that have arisen in my life. Some of those difficult
situations that I just didn't have an answer to them and I
trembled as it were. I shook in my boots. I had feeble
knees. Well, the command of God to the
preacher is, you strengthen these weak hands and you confirm the
feeble knee and you say to them that are of a fearful heart,
be strong and fear not. Behold your God. Behold your
God. Look and see. Your God will come
to you and He will come to rid you of your enemies and He will
come to save you. He will come with a recompense
for the enemies of the gospel and those that would disturb
those and weaken those that are his children on their way to
glory. Beloved, there is a time when
the ransomed of the Lord shall return, as verse 10 says, and
come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. they shall
obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee
away." I believe this is a gospel blessing, and it's a blessing
that the people of God will enjoy in this life, and they will enjoy
it even in Zion. They'll enjoy it in the fellowship
of the saints, in the household of God, joying and rejoicing
because of the goodness of the Lord which is upon them, and
sorrow and sighing, yes it will happen, shall flee away. It shall
flee away. You may think that you will never
experience the fulfillment of verse 10, but it will come. And I know many times when we're
plagued and weighted down with problems and troubles and struggles
in this life, with losses and crosses and bereavements, that
we think never again. will we ever experience real
heartfelt joy and rejoicing, but the time is coming. You wait
upon the Lord and trust Him. Now, beloved, our commission
that we have as preachers of the gospel to say unto the Lord's
people, be strong, fear not, behold your God. This is a most
blessed commission, and it's a most needy, most needful commission. Because, as we've tried to explain,
where is there a soul among the sheep of Christ today that does
not need some encouragement, that does not need some comfort
in our day? Isaiah 40, verses 1 and 2 says,
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably
to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished,
that her iniquity is pardoned. And so these verses, they lead
us to believe and lead us to see that as preachers of the
gospel that we're sent to preach the gospel of peace unto God's
children. We're sent to tell them that
Jesus Christ has brought our peace and that our warfare is
accomplished. Now all of the real deep peace
and the settled rest that the people of God enjoy in these
days on their pilgrimage to Zion, all of their rest is based upon
the Lord Jesus Christ, His finished work, what He accomplished on
Mount Calvary. Now to comfort God's people,
we must encourage their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We
must continue to appoint them to the Lamb of God. We must say,
behold your Savior, behold your God. In Romans 5 and 1 it says,
therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ. This, beloved, is the basis,
this is the foundation for all peace. We have it through faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if your soul this morning
is not at rest, if you have no peace in your soul, but your
soul is like the troubled sea that casteth up dirt and mire,
and there's no rest, saith my God unto the wicked, then, my
friend, you need to look to the Lord Jesus Christ. You need to
consider this morning His sufficiency as a Savior, and you need to
rest your soul in His saving efficacy and power. He is our
peace. He is the God of all comfort.
And those to whom Christ becomes all in all, they find comfort
as He is preached in His saving ability and power. Oh, listen,
it's only when we are able to rest our souls securely upon
the Rock, Christ Jesus, that we have a foundation for some
comfort and some rest in this world. When we have an opportunity
to rid ourselves of the fear and of all of the apprehension
that comes over us here in this world as we face the various
plagues and the trying times of life. Now the Bible says that
God's spirit, not his own son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not also through him freely give us all things? Paul said those words in Romans
8 and 32. And what that leads me to believe
and to see is this, that God has went, beloved, to great lengths
to supply His people with comfort to the point where that He gave
His own Son. God spared not His own Son, His
own beloved Son, the Son of His love. He spared Him not, but
hung Him on Calvary's cross on that glory tree outside the city
of Jerusalem that His people might have peace. and rest and
reconciliation and justification and sanctification that his people
might find in him all that is required of them and that their
souls might be at peace in this world. And so certainly this
morning it's the preacher's job to convey that comfort, to convey
that comfort to the Lord's people and to tell them that their warfare
is accomplished their sin is pardoned, and that Christ has
bought for them everlasting salvation, and that they are at peace with
God, and that there is nothing between their soul and the Savior
as they stand in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. in Isaiah
chapter 43 in verses 1 through 5. Let's turn there quickly in
our Bibles. I want you to look at these verses
with me and see here the promise of peace. Isaiah 43 and verses
1 through 5. But now thus saith the Lord that
created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, fear
not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name,
thou art mine. Thou art mine. How many souls
today would give their right arm to be able to know that they
truly are the Lord's and the Lord is theirs. How many people
today are in a state of where they have no assurance whatsoever
as to where their soul stands with the Lord? Well the Lord
says, I've called you by your name. He calls His own sheep
by name, you know, and He leads them forth. And He gives unto
them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any
man pluck them out of the Father's hand. He said, I have called
thee by thy name, thou art mine, and when thou passest through
the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall
not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the
Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Since thou wast precious in my
sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee. Therefore
will I give men for thee, and people for thy life. Fear not,
for I am with thee." These are the words of our God unto his
ancient people Israel, and certainly these words are applicable to
our own lives and to our own souls. God is with his people,
and we're to say unto them, fear not, be strong, behold your God. Now, beloved, the word fearful
in this text, I want to mention that to you. Here in verse 4,
back in Isaiah 35, where it says, say to them that are of a fearful
heart. This word fearful here is hasty. Say to them that are of a hasty
heart. Because, listen, fearful men
and women are always, it seems, very hasty. They're very hasty. They jump to conclusions based
upon their present circumstances. And you know, how many times
do we judge God and judge the providence of God? How often
do we judge our own situation by the immediate circumstances
at hand? And this is wrong to do that. Listen to me, fear is never wise,
fear is never patient, and fear is never reasonable. It never
is. And all of us are plagued with
this. We seem to have been born with a double dose of fear, with
being hasty, with not having by nature the ability to wait. upon our God and to trust in
the living God. Now the fearful heart says with
Jacob of old, they say all these things are against me. Every
time something happens in our lives or happens around us to
one of our loved ones or every time we have a downturn in business
or something, immediately we judge and say all these things
are against me. Men and women forget the promises
of God. They forget the providence of
God and the power of God. God's providence is always good
toward his people. And we act on impulse and we
get into trouble. Because we feel that some way
or another we've got to immediately address our situation and we've
got to get busy and change the circumstances of our lives. And we do not wait upon the Lord. We forget God's truth. We forget
that God is an all-wise God. that He is a wise God, able to
control, able to lead, and has the wisdom, and He's designed
all things for your good and for His glory. And we forget
the faithfulness of God. God is an absolutely faithful,
dependable God. And so they judge the Lord by
feeble sense. And we all are guilty of this.
And we fail to see His grace. We fail to see that God has favored
us in the past, and that is a token and proof and evidence that He
will continue to favor us. We fail to see His grace. They see the cloud of providence,
but not God's smiling face, as the poet said. Fear and unbelief
fill the hearts of the Lord's people and it seems at times
that it just increases by the hour. They taste the bitter,
the bitter bud but never the sweetness of the flower of faith
and the flower of joy and contentment. Unbelief and fear, it robs. And I'm here this morning to
say unto you, listen, get away from this fearfulness of heart
and be strong and behold your God. Fear not, but behold your
God. Now I do not mean to imply when
saying this this morning, that fear and faith cannot live together
in the same heart, because I know that it does. In the Psalms,
in Psalm 56 and verse 3, David said, What time I am afraid I
will trust in thee. So David did have fear and he
had trust at the same time in his heart. But fear, listen,
is terribly inconsistent with faith and as we mentioned, it
will rob the child of God of much of the comfort and joy that
comes from just believing God and trusting God and relying
upon God. Behold, your God is the cure
for fear. Look to the Lord and trust in
the Lord with all of your heart and that is the only cure I know
of for fear. Now if you trust the Lord Jesus
Christ, that God who rules the universe in total sovereignty
is your God. He is your God. Now it's wonderful
and you can almost hear the people of God say hallelujah that the
God in which we trust is that God who rules in the army of
heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay
his hand or say unto him what doest thou. This God is our God
and we trust in this sovereign God who is able to control and
he runs the universe. Now there's never a cause for
God's people to fear, really. Never is there a cause for us
to fear. Let us look just a moment. Your
salvation is finished. Christ has redeemed you. He has
both put away your sins forever and given you an everlasting
righteousness with God himself, which God himself cannot find
fault with. So why should you be fearful?
You say, I don't know whether I'm going to go to heaven or
not. I don't know whether I'm going to at last be with God
for all eternity. I don't know whether I'm going
to be able to get to heaven or not. My friend, let me say that
Jesus Christ finished the work of redemption. He has brought
in everlasting righteousness on the behalf of His people. And this righteousness which
God imputes To His people, not even God Himself can find fault
with. And so you most surely, if you're
trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, you most surely are accepted
with God and you most surely will be with Him for all eternity. Think of it. Think of it. God
Himself cannot find fault with your substitute. Now He could
find plenty of fault with us if we stood in ourselves. But we don't stand in ourselves,
we stand in a substitute. And that substitute is the Lord
Jesus Christ. And beloved, God said concerning
Him, He said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. I'm well pleased. with the Lord
Jesus Christ. He didn't say that about me,
but he said it about his own son. And if you get in him, he
is made the righteousness of God unto you, for you. And we have this righteousness
by faith. And then too, As we think about
this, we think about God and His absolute, complete control
of the universe and everything in it. I mentioned this briefly
a moment or two ago. I don't think we believe it.
I think we know it as a doctrine, but I don't think we really believe
it and believe that it's true. Listen, God is too wise to err,
He's too good to do wrong, and He's too strong to fail, and
He is at work. working on the behalf of His
people, and He will fulfill His Word on their behalf. And then
the glory of God, which you and I desire above all else, is certain. When you look at religion, and
when you look at world conditions, you wonder how that the God of
the Bible is ever going to glorify Himself. You know the Bible says
the wrath of man shall praise him and the remainder of wrath
shall he restrain. The Bible teaches that God Almighty
is going to bring glory to himself in and by and through all things. That God is going to receive
the glory. Now, would it rejoice your heart
to know that the God of the Bible is going to be glorified in everything
that goes on in his universe? My friend, it rejoices my heart
to know it. You say, preacher, how do you
figure it out? I can't figure it out. I just got to believe
what God said. And he said unto him and through
him would be glory forever and ever. And I believe that God
will get the glory to himself. And then another thing that I
think should encourage us is that our troubles will soon be
over. And we're going to be with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the
day of trouble is just like any other day. It will be over. It's
coming to an end. I mentioned that in regards to
verse 10. There will come a time when sorrow
and sigh will flee away and be replaced with joy and gladness. The time of trouble, the day
of trouble is going to end and we need to believe that. Now
be strong then and fear not. Behold your God. In Hebrews 13
and verses 5 and 6, I'd like for you to turn there because
I believe you should get acquainted with these verses and know right
where they are in your Bible. Turn to Hebrews chapter 13 and
listen to verse 5 and verse 6. It says, let your conversation,
and that word there is behavior, be without covetousness. and
be content with such things as you have, for he hath said, I
will never leave thee, nor forsake thee, so that you may boldly
say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall
do unto me." Now this He has said is very very important here
in this verse because this is the promise of the eternal God
to his beloved covenant people. He has said, I will never leave
thee nor forsake thee. This is a remarkable, it is unlimited,
unconditional promise given in the most emphatic language that
is possible to give it. And so He has said, I will never,
never leave thee nor forsake you. Believer, God means this
morning for you to understand and be comforted of His absolute
faithfulness to you. He means for you to focus in
on Him. He means for you to look at it.
He means for you to be assured of it, be confident of it, that
God is faithful toward His people. Now this promise from God assures
us of His constant help. He said, we may boldly say, the
Lord is my helper. The Lord is my helper and also
it secures the supply of all of our needs. He said you don't
need to be covetous. I will not forsake you. I will
not leave you. You don't have to be greedy and
covetous and become an idolater seeking after the things of this
world. Your Heavenly Father knoweth
what things you have need of and you don't have to be like
the heathen You can trust God and wait upon God and seek first
the kingdom of God in His righteousness and all these things will be
added unto you. Now this is a promise here that
is substantiated by God's immutability and His faithfulness and His
love. Do you agree with that? It certainly
is. Now listen. God is unchangeable. God said, I'll never leave you
nor forsake you. God said, you can boldly say,
incline me to be your helper. God said, I'll supply your need.
You wait on me. You trust me. And I'll fulfill
that promise because this promise is a promise of faithfulness.
I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. And these not the words
of a mere man. These are not even the words
of an angel. These are not the words of any
creature. These are the words of the living
God. And Paul said of this God, he
said, if we believe not, in 2 Timothy 2 and 13, listen to this. Paul said, if we believe not,
if the day comes and this is a terrible thing that we're faced
with and afflicted with, But we're all afflicted with it,
are we not? We've been talking about it, we become fearful and
unbelieving at times. And Paul said, if we believe
not, yet he abideth faithful because he cannot deny himself. Even if you don't believe, God
is faithful And that's how far you can believe this and carry
it is that it's not a conditional promise as far as our situation
is concerned. God cannot lie. God cannot die. God cannot be deceived. And God
cannot deny himself. And once you are in union with
him, God will, you, your soul united with Him in this holy
wedlock marriage in Christ that God will never deny you. and
he will not, he will not turn and be unfaithful to you. Now
these things that I mentioned, God cannot lie, God cannot die,
God cannot be deceived, God cannot deny himself, these impossibilities
do not limit his power, but they magnify his majesty. Now these would be infirmities
and infirmity can have no place in the infinite and ever-blessed
God. God, He would not be true to
His character if He changed. His word cannot alter. Christ
loved His church and His eternal purpose embraces His people,
His church, and He cannot change because He cannot deny Himself.
He will fulfill His purpose toward His people. He will. God will
have his people and he will have them and they shall be his for
all eternity. Now the fulfillment of his promise,
I say it again, is not conditional. It is not conditional on you
being perfect. It is based upon the fact that
God has no infirmity in His character. And the fact that God Almighty
is not going to fail. He's going to be faithful to
His people. Fear not. Now the Father will
never lose His children. He will never leave His children
for any reason, nor forsake them for any cause. Did you get that? he will never forsake his people
for any cause. And God the Son will never leave
the people that he loves nor forsake the souls that he has
redeemed by blood. And God the Holy Spirit will
never leave those in whom he dwells nor forsake those whom
he sanctifies, those that he sets apart unto himself. He never will. McShane Robert
Murray McShane wrote these words. Eternity alone, he said, in talking
about these words, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. He said eternity alone. will
unfold the riches of this promise. He who died for us will be our
eternal friend. And he who sanctifies us will
forever dwell in us. And then God who loved us will
ever be with us. And then, he says, we'll get
into the meaning of this promise when all of this is unfolded
and we see it in reality in eternity. Now, then the songwriter said,
how firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your
faith in his excellent word. What more can he say than to
you he has said, to you who for refuge to Jesus hath fled. My friend, fear not. Fear not. Be strong. Behold your God. Now I would like for you to turn
with me back to the book of Isaiah again and we will have a few
things here to say before we wrap this message up this morning.
I want you to turn to the 37th chapter of the book of Isaiah. And here in this chapter we have
a story of a godly king who had a very serious problem and he
described it. He sent his servants to Isaiah
and in verse 3, thus saith Hezekiah, this day is a day of trouble. This day, the day that they had. Now, why I have you turn here
is because in a practical way I want to try to show you what
we must do in the day of trouble if we would be delivered and
if we would glorify God in our trouble, what we must do. Now
when Sennacherib, and I'll try to give you a rundown here of
what this chapter is about quickly, the Assyrian army surrounded
Jerusalem and threatened to destroy Jerusalem. Hezekiah the king,
he sent this message unto the prophet Isaiah, this day is a
day of trouble. And these words describe, they
describe the day in which Hezekiah lived, Isaiah lived, and they
also describe many of the days in which you and I find ourselves
in this world. These are days of trouble. The Bible says as sparks fly
upward, man is born into trouble. And trouble seems to come into
our lives, it's uninvited, But it comes and it comes sometimes
one upon the heels of another. What are we to do then in the
day of trouble? How can we find help? How can
we really be delivered from this trouble? How can we glorify God? in our lives whenever the armies
are surrounding us and we are pressed, as it were, and greatly
troubled. Well, if we would know the answer
to these questions, I think we ought to notice four things quickly
that Hezekiah here teaches us in this chapter. And there again
I want to say that Hezekiah is a godly king. He was a godly
man. He was a man who knew the Lord.
He was a man that was faithful unto God. And so we can learn
some things quickly here by what he teaches us in this chapter. Now, number one, in verse one,
in the day of trouble, we're taught here that we ought not
neglect the house of God. Now notice this in verse 1 here. It says, And it came to pass,
when King Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and
covered himself with sackcloth, and went in to the house of the
Lord. Now there are many, many people
that when they have trouble, When they have problems, when
they are set back in life, and things happen, flesh fails them,
their loved ones disappoint them, and they have all kinds of problems,
first thing they do is they go to church. Just stop. I'm not
going to church no more until I get this trouble straightened
out. I'm not going to the house of God no more until I get my
life straightened out. And until this whole thing is
smoothed over and something happens, I'm just not going to church
anymore. How many times have you ever
heard that? I've known people that lost a loved one. A loved
one died and they just quit going to church. They quit. Well, beloved,
that's the wrong thing to do. And the first thing is when you
have trouble, don't neglect the house of God. You will not find
real help for your soul by ignoring God and His people. You will
not find help for your soul by ignoring the house of God and
walking away from it. And so that's the first thing
that we learn to do in the day of trouble is don't neglect the
Lord's church. Number two, in the day of trouble
we ought to seek a word from God. Are we spiritual minded
enough? Do we trust the Lord enough to
where we believe that God can give us a word our day of trouble
that will encourage us that will help us that will hold us up
well notice in verse 2 here that Hezekiah sent his household servant
and the scribe and the elders of the priest unto Isaiah the
prophet and they went there to get a word from Isaiah to get
a word about this situation to hear something that would relieve
them and that would help them with this awful situation that
they were then in. And so they come here to the
house of God and you and I should do the same thing. Come to the
house of God and pray as we come that God would give his servant
a word for our hearts a word speak a word to our hearts to
encourage us and to comfort and to strengthen us and to direct
us in the way that he would have us to go in these awful circumstances
whatever they be that we find ourself in now when Hezekiah
sought a word from God he found it and so will you listen to
verse six And Isaiah said unto them, that is, unto the servants
that were sent from Hezekiah, he said, thus shall you say unto
your master, thus saith the Lord, be not afraid of their words
that thou hast heard, wherewith the servants of the king of Assyria
have blasphemed me. Don't be afraid, because I'm
going to send a blast upon them, and they'll hear a rumor, and
they'll return to their own land, and I'll cause him to fall by
the sword in his own land. I'll take care of Sennacherib.
Well, beloved, what a word that was from the Lord. What a word. And you and I, that's what we
needed when we're in trouble and we don't know what's going
to happen and we don't know how this thing's ever going to work
out. We need a word. from the Lord. And God will give
it. He'll give it. As we go to the
house of God and as we open the Bible and as we read it and as
we study it, we'll see that the Lord has something to say to
us. Now in the third place, and I
said there's four things here that he would teach us, and the
first thing is don't ignore the house of God. The second thing
is look for a word from the Lord when you go that will sustain
you and cause you to stand in that day of trouble. The third
thing is in the day of trouble you should spread your trouble
before the Lord in prayer yourself you ought to pray about your
trouble in verses 14 through 20 and I won't read all these
verses but here what you have is you have as you read and reread
this prayer carefully you'll learn I think something about
how to pray Hezekiah simply told God what his troubles was just
laid out the trouble before the Lord And then he prays God for
his greatness and his goodness and asks God to do what he had
promised he would do. You see Isaiah said the Lord's
going to, there's going to be a rumor that's going to rise
and Sennacherib is going to take his arm and go home with it.
And Isaiah is praying or Hezekiah is praying that the Lord will
do what he promised he would do. Fulfill that word that he
had given him in his heart. And so then, listen, and then
he offered an argument here in verse 20, that God could not
resist. Now therefore, O Lord our God,
save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may
know that thou art the Lord, even thou only. Now you see that
argument? Beloved, listen, God will not
resist an argument like that. God will exalt himself in the
earth. He will be exalted among the
heathen. God will get a name for himself
by delivering his people. And he will get the glory and
the praise and all will know that the Lord has done this. And so, listen, this is very
important that we see this. That God will deliver and he'll
get the glory for the deliverance. Now the fourth thing is that
in the day of trouble, We're taught here to wait upon the
Lord. Wait upon the Lord. Hezekiah had God's word in his
heart and things were about to change. They had not as yet changed,
but they were about to. God was going to bring to pass
the victory. But it was a time of waiting,
and if you were to read verse 33 through verse 35, you would
have, I think, what I'm talking about here. And what we are to
do as God's people, to recognize that God has an appointed time
to deliver us. He has an appointed time The
day of trouble for Hezekiah was going to be over. It was coming
to an end. And the Bible says, in patience
possess your soul, wait for God to perform His word. Wait for
Him to do what He said He was going to do. Now these are lessons
we need to learn. You say, well, Preacher, I don't
know that I've ever been in the kind of trouble where I have
to go through all of this. If you haven't been, you will
be. You will be. The day is coming.
There's no way you're going to live in a world Like the world
you and I live in, and I won't try to describe it, but we're
not going to live in this world long without having some trouble.
And some of it's going to be severe. And we need to know what
to do in the day of trouble. Okay? In Psalm 46 and 10, it
says, be still and know that I'm God. I will be exalted among
the heathen. I will be exalted in the earth. Be still. and know that I'm God. Wait on me. Wait on me. I'm going to do it. I'm going
to deliver you. And Psalm 50 and 15 says, and
call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver thee and thou
shalt glorify me. In the day of trouble, you call
on me and I'll deliver you. And then I'll get the glory.
Now after reflecting upon the many deliverances of the Lord,
in my own life back through the years, I thought of the words
of this old hymn. Listen to these words. Were the
whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small,
love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. You know, when we think and reflect
upon God's relationship with His people and His faithfulness
toward His people, does it not, if we claim to be one of His,
does it not demand our life, our soul, our all? Does it not? It really does. And I hope this
morning that we've learned something about what to do in the day of
trouble. what we're to do, how we're to handle it, how we're
to deal with it. It's my job as a preacher to
say unto you, fear not, be strong, behold your God. May the Lord
add his blessing to the message. Larry, would you lead us in prayer?