Isaiah 43, verse 1. Isaiah 43, verse 1. 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, and thou art mine. I preached a message a few weeks
ago on fear not. And these basically are the three
fear nots I had left, and I want to just give them to you quickly
this afternoon. Verse 1 here, it says fear not. And I remember telling you when
I preached the message to you, on fear not, that there is a
gracious fear not, I would imagine for every fear a saint of God
has. And we have a bunch of them,
don't we? We have fears of the past, we have fears of the present,
and we have fears of the future. And that's my three fear nots
tonight. And I think these fear nots dispel
the fear of the past, the fear of the present, and the fear
of the future. And the reason the Lord tells
us this and gives us these fear knots is because fear has torment. It's paralyzing. Not a good fear. There is a holy fear, a holy
reverence of God, but there is a fear that will just paralyze
you. And that's the fear that we're talking about here this
afternoon. There's probably a lot of saints, a lot of dear saints,
that can't shake some of the fears of bondage that they have.
But you know something that's very comforting about that? Those
fears won't keep you out of heaven. A dear saint may fear all his
way to heaven, but if he's a saint, go to heaven, he will. And there's
a day when he will quit his fears. But the Lord has given us these
fear nots for a reason, because He knows something has to dispel
our fears, and what better to do it than this fear not? The
first one here is found in verse 1, and it is obviously a fear
of the past, because He is speaking of the past. Fear not, for I
have redeemed thee. I have redeemed thee, and he
must have been speaking of some fear they had of the past, so
he comforts them with this word, I have redeemed you from that.
There is a dear old man, I don't know very much about him, his
name is Alexander Smalley. He wrote this in 1907, and this
is what he said about his past. My past brings me trouble. The sins I have committed, the
duties I have neglected, the guilt I am chargeable with, the
penalty I merit, these make the retrospect of my days and years
sad and extreme. I have wrecked my own life. I have injured others. I have
sinned against God. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by
self-contempt." Can you relate to that? I'm just
stopping there because it just hits you, doesn't it? Sometimes
you see so much in your life that the sadness of it just almost
overwhelms you. The Lord has saved some of us
out of open and profane religion. He saved some of us out of open
and profane sinful lifestyle. Others may be more moral, but
if you are here tonight and you are a saved sinner, I bet you
there are times that you look back in your life and you are
made with sadness to self Loathe. Aren't you? David said, Shannon
just read it to us, Lord, remember not the sins of my youth. Why
would he say that? He probably began to see the
sins of his youth in a deeper light than he had ever saw it
before. I remember how I treated my mother. I thought nothing
of it then, the wretched teenager that I was. Lord, but now, when
I look back and see The words that I spoke to her sometimes.
The attitude that I had. Honor your father and your mother. Boy, that breaks my heart. And sometimes I made the same
thing. Lord, remember not the sins of my youth. I had a fellow that used to tell
me, one or two times he told me, he was my buddy when many
of them used to run around together before the Lord saved me. One
time he told me, he said, well, Bruce, you never were that bad
of a person. Now, if you want to get a fight
out of me, you just tell me that you think I have some kind of
merit before conversion or after conversion. God knows, doesn't
He? And, buddy, we look back sometimes
on a life. I often tell people about my
Christian life. And some people are shocked by
this. But I remember when we first went in, maybe it was Desert
Storm. One of the times we went into
Iraq and started bombing and they fled out of that city on
one of the roads. And they showed that road, it
was cluttered. Everything from mattresses to
clothes to burned out cars to bodies decayed, animals dead. And when I saw that debris and
the filth, I thought, that reminds me of my life. I see that in
my life. Do you see that sometimes in
your life? I tell you, Job, he made some statements before the
Lord and finally he said, Lord, I abhor myself. I am vile. I'm vile. Peter mistrusted the
Lord. When the Lord proved Himself
in His goodness, He said, Lord, depart from Me, for I am a sinful
man. I'm a sinful man. That's what
I'm talking about, brothers and sisters. You may be here today,
and unlike some of us, you may have never went off into open
and profane sins. And thank God if you didn't.
But I tell you, there's two sins that are horrible. And every
last man is guilty of them. and their infinite sins. Here
is how Horatius Bonar said it. All my iniquity crimson has been. Infinite, infinite sin upon sin. And he mentions these two, doesn't
he? The sin of not loving thee. The sin of not trusting thee. Infinite sin. We think of fornication,
we think of adultery, of drunkenness, of blaspheming God, and those
are horrible sins. But is there any more horrible
and infinite sins than these two? Not loving God, our Creator,
and who did until He was converted? And whoever spent his young days
not trusting in Jesus Christ the Savior, what an infinite
sin not to trust Jesus Christ. And we were all born into this
world hating God and with an absolute mistrust to the Savior. Infinite sin. And I tell you,
sometimes we are filled with self-loathing if God has saved
us. But oh, we hear this word here.
Fear not. I have redeemed thee. I have redeemed thee. You look
back over your life, the trash and the mess and the devastation,
but the cross of Christ has cleansed it all away. And now when you
look back, what do you see? It's quieter than the driven
snow. One man said he observed a battle
in this huge field. And there was blood and bodies
laying everywhere, stinking. And he went back a few years
later and he was amazed. There was nothing there but a
beautiful green pasture. And he said, Oh, what grace does! What calvary does! He takes the
mess of our past, the sin, whatever it is, and it washes it whiter
than the driven snow. I tell you, you may look back
on your past, and you'll have regrets, and you'll be ashamed,
but I tell you, you must look at your past in the light of
the cross, because in the light of the cross, it's washed away.
Listen to what Isaiah says. The Lord says, I have blotted
out thy transgressions for my own sake, and will not remember
thy sins. I have blotted out as a thick
cloud your transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins, return unto
me, for I have redeemed thee. I tell you, it's bad enough to
look back over your life and see what a shame and mess it
is. But I tell you, when you look at the cross, when you look
at the blood of Jesus Christ, there is no sin left. It's cleansed. Such were some of you, but you
were washed. You were justified. That's what
Christ does for our past. Isn't that wonderful? Doesn't
that remove the fear of it? You'll regret the past. Sure
you will. And the longer we live, the more
we see the depths of the sin that we were in. But I tell you,
we must look at it in the light of the cross. It's gone. It's
purged away. Fear not. I have redeemed thee. The past is gone. Here in chapter
43 and verse 5, He gives us another fear not. Look in verse 5. Fear
not. For I am with thee. There's a
fear not for the fear of the present. Fear not. I am with
thee. You know the Lord is everywhere,
isn't He? The Bible says He fills heaven and earth. But He's with
His people in a special way. He abides with His people like
He abides no place else. And there is no place they can
go or will go that His presence is not with them. No matter where
you go, brothers and sisters, you can take this fear not with
you because I am with you. Listen to Psalms 139. I will
quote it to you, but you can read it sometime at your leisure.
Listen to this portion of it. David said, Where shall I go
from your spirit? And whither shall I flee from
your presence? If I ascend up into heaven, you're
there." Well, of course she's in heaven. But listen to this.
If I make my bed in hell, behold, you're there. If I take the wings
of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even
there shall thy hand lead me, and your right hand shall hold
me up. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night
shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not
from thee, but the light shineth as the day. The darkness and
the light are alike unto thee." Christ is with us. He's with
His people. But I tell you, He's with them
in such a special way. He's not with us physically,
is He? He was with His disciples physically. But He says it's
expedient for you that I go away. If I don't go away, the Comforter
won't come. But if I go away, I'll send Him
unto you. And this is what He said. He's
with you now, but He shall be in you. And this is the wonder
and encouragement of Christ being with us. He's with us in such
a special way that no mere mortal can be with us. He's with your
spirit. Paul was writing to Timothy one
of the most precious verses to me, and sometimes I think in
all the Scripture. He was writing to Timothy to
tell him to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Fight the good
fight of faith, he tells him. You're going to face some obstacles.
Here was this young preacher. And here's the closing line of
that epistle. He says, Timothy, the Lord Jesus
Christ, thee with thy spirit. Now that's wonderful. That's
wonderful. What is the cheapest comfort any of us can have? Is
it not spiritual comfort? If a man is comforted in his
spirit, you can't disturb him. I don't care what you do. You
can't disturb him. I will give quietness and who
is he that can disturb? Nobody when he quietens our spirit. I am with your spirit. There
is no greater encouragement or strength that a poor man can
obtain than to have his spirit encouraged and his spirit strengthened. When Christ's Spirit or His presence
encourages your spirit, nobody can discourage you. When Christ's
presence strengthens your spirit, nothing can weaken you. When
Christ's presence has won your heart, this world cannot entice
your heart. And when His presence gives you
quietness, nothing, nothing can discourage you. I am with your
spirit. I know of nothing more encouraging
for this whole congregation when you get up in the morning and
you go your way in this world to your job or whatever you have
to do. This is the most encouraging
thing for you to remember and believe that Jesus Christ, by
His Spirit, is with you. He's with you. He's with your
spirit. That's wonderful, isn't it? Fear
not. Fear not. I am with you. And here in chapter
41, look in chapter 41, verse 13, we see this last fear not
is this. There's a fear not that will
dispel our fear of the future. All of us fear the future, don't
we? In some way or another, I do. Aren't you glad you don't have
foreknowledge? If I had foreknowledge, it would scare me to death. What's
going to happen to me next year? What if I had foreknowledge and
then I looked out a year and there I was in the hospital bed
hooked up to all these machines? I'd be miserable for the next
year because I know what's coming. Aren't you glad you don't have
foreknowledge? That's why we live by faith in Him who holds
the future. And here is how he says it in
chapter 41 in verse 13. I, the Lord thy God, will hold
thy hand, saying unto thee, Fear not, I will help you. That is the futurist. I will
help you. I know your past. I have washed
it away. I am with you in the present,
and concerning the future, don't fear, I'll be there to help you. I'm with you now, I'll help you
now, and I'll help you in the future. I will help you. I love the Lord's I wills, don't
you? We talk about His shalls. He
has some good wills too, Glenn. He said there in verse 10, look
at this. Fear thou not, I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God. I will strengthen thee. Yea,
I will help thee. I will uphold thee with the right
hand of my righteousness. I will, I will, I will. I'm worried about the future.
I'm concerned about what's coming on my home, on this church, on
this country, on the world. I don't know what it is, and
you don't either, but that concerns us, doesn't it? But you know
something, brothers and sisters? We know this, and this dispels
our fear. Whatever comes on us, He will
help us. And boy, that's enough to keep
you. We don't have to fear what man can do unto us, for the Lord
has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. I want you to turn over to a
closing psalms. Look over in Psalms chapter 46. Luther used to read this psalm
to his congregation. I guess he did it especially
when the Turks were coming against him. He lived right in the midst
of that Islam religion, and they often threatened Germany. And
boy, they'd cut your head off. And Luther said, we have no defense
against them. He said, we can't take up arms.
The church can't take up arms and start cutting their heads
off. We basically have no defense against them. He called them
the Turks, and boy, they were cruel. And so he would gather
his congregation together sometime, and he'd read to them Psalms
chapter 46. And look here what he says. God is our refuge and
strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, will not
we fear? And then he imagines this scenario. What's coming? He said, let's
imagine the worst scenario that we can. Let's imagine this. Though
the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried unto
the midst of the sea, and when that happens, though the waters
thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with
the swelling thereof, so long that all that happens, and still
there is a river, a pure river of grace and life." For who? for his church. It's flowing
from his throne. The streams thereof shall make
glad the city of God, the church of God, the holy place of the
tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, and
she shall not be moved. God shall help her, and that
right early. The heathen raged, the kingdoms
were moved. He uttered his voice, the earth
melted. The Lord of hosts is with us.
The God of Jacob is our refuge. Salah. Come and behold the works
of the Lord, what desolations He has made in the earth. He
makes wars to cease unto the ends of the earth. He breaks
the bone. He cuts the sphere and sunder.
He burns the chariot in the fire. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the heathen.
I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us,
the God of Jacob. He is our refuge. I don't know
what may come in the future, brothers and sisters. I don't
know. But it's knowing our Redeemer,
our sovereign God, holds the future that dispels our fear
of it. Let's pray.