The Lord willing, Brother Lance
Heller will be going to New Guinea in just a couple of weeks, so
I've asked him if he would tonight to bring our message, and we
look forward to Lance bringing the message, always a blessing.
I thought this afternoon, when I asked him, I didn't think about
this, but it occurred to me, that message you preached on
Hannah, I would have asked you to preach that again. But that
was such a great message, wasn't it? Such an encouraging message. And I know we'll hear one again
tonight. But Lance, you come and bring
the message to us. Good evening. Turn with me to
Isaiah chapter 43. Isaiah chapter 43. And you know there's times in all
of our lives, I think, that the Lord brings sometimes dramatic
events, climactic events, and Nothing is ever the same after
that. And I think you all probably understand what I'm speaking
about. And one of those, of course, for Robin and I was the fall
of our daughter last year. It's hard to believe, but it's
almost been a year since that occurred. And I can say for Robin
and myself that nothing will ever be the same. from that time. And I say that with thankfulness
to the Lord. You know, it was a season of
great distress for Robin and I. It surely was. I don't think I could adequately
put into words all that the Lord, in his good providence, brought
upon us. And I wanna speak a little of
that tonight from his word. And the Lord is so good. He's
so good all the time. And you know, it was, it was a devastating accident that
my daughter faced. But the Lord has brought about
so much good. And he's taught us. In His mercy,
He's taught us so much. And I think it speaks something
to the hardness of our hearts, doesn't it? That often it takes
things like this to teach us the good things of the Lord.
We have strong heads, don't we? And we're thankful that the Lord
deals with us so graciously and so mercifully. And he did that
with Israel, didn't he? And we speak, we will hear about
that some tonight. But I'm thankful too to speak
to you tonight. It's a great privilege for me.
And, you know, knowing of your love for us and your care for
Robin and I during that time was such a help and such a blessing
to us. And, you know, David and I spoke
together many times, many times, and we were so thankful to the
Lord for his grace and his wisdom. It was such a help to us. The reason I want to bring a
message from this passage is it's a passage. that the Lord
used so greatly to speak to my heart during this time. And particularly
as a minister of the gospel, the Lord brings these circumstances
into your life, not only for your benefit, but for the benefit
of those that he's given you the privilege to minister to.
And so let's begin in this chapter, Isaiah 43, and the title The message comes from verse
two, where the Lord says, I will be with you. And this message
is essentially the first part of a three-part series I brought
to the brethren at the Sovereign Grace Church in the Dalles in
Oregon towards the end of last year. Pastor Norm Wells asked
me once Claire had sufficiently stabilized and was off the feeding
tube and so forth. to come up and preach to the
folk there, and I had the privilege of doing that. And this message
is really the first message that I brought. I will be with you. When we pass
through the waters, the only thing that is important is the
person referred to continuously throughout this chapter. You
see, it's not the circumstances of our lives that are the important
thing. Nor is it you and me that are
the most important thing. The only thing that matters is
Christ. And the only thing which will
ever matter is Christ with you. That's all that matters. Every
rich blessing and promise flows from this wonderful source and
this source alone. The psalmist in Psalm 121 cries
out, I will lift up my eyes to the hills from whence comes my
help. My help comes from the Lord who
made heaven and earth. The Lord and all that he's accomplished
for his people is all that matters. Look, look in these verses, just
in these first four verses, how powerfully And insistently, the
word of the Lord comes to Isaiah and emphasizes these wonderful
truths. This is a magnificent passage,
and we can't look at all of it, but let's just read these first
four verses. But now, thus says the Lord who
created you, O Jacob, and who formed you, O Israel, fear not,
for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name,
you are mine. When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you. And through the rivers, they
shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire,
you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you. For
I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave Egypt for your ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba in your place. Since you were precious in my
sight, you have been honored, and I have loved you. Therefore,
I will give men for you and people for your life." Let me just give you the points
of this series of messages. I had five points. We'll just
look at two tonight. But let me just give you these
points so you'll see the flow of what I'm attempting to bring
to you tonight. The first is, we will pass through
the waters. We will. When you pass through
the waters, we will pass through the waters. At some time, in
some place, at some point in our lives, maybe more than once,
we will. We will. when you pass through
the waters. Two, the promise we have when
we pass through the waters, I will be with you. And what a promise
that is, isn't it? What a promise. The third point,
the reason given for the promise, it gets better. I am your savior,
the holy one of Israel. And it gets better. The foundation
of the promise. The fourth point, I have redeemed
you. That's a strong foundation, isn't
it? It's not something that he will do or something that he
might do. It's something that he's done.
I have redeemed you. Now that's a strong foundation.
And then fifthly, the certainty. of this promise, and that actually
jumped down to verse 11. Verse 13, we'll see the certainty
of the fulfillment of this promise. Who is it that makes this promise?
Indeed, before the day was, I am he. And there is no one who can
deliver out of my hand. I work, and who will reverse
it? You know, I think this promise
is a promise as sure and as certain as any promise could ever be,
don't you? I will be with you. And it's
an ointment for the souls of the Lord's people, isn't it?
In these times when we do pass through the waters, I will be
with you. What a promise. You know, one of the richest
blessings we have as the children of God is communion with God. In times of deep distress, he
brings us by his grace to a place where everything in life recedes. Have you experienced that? Where all the things that we
think are so important and we spend so much time thinking about,
some good things, but at times he brings us to a place where
everything in life recedes and our hearts and our minds become
focused on all that matters. And the Lord alone is before
our face. What a blessing. He makes his
presence known to us and his word becomes so rich and so precious
as he speaks to us. There's nothing to compare. There's
nothing When we pass through the waters, the Lord is with
us, and he speaks to us by his word. He's our help, not anyone
else, not anything else. He's our help. Any true help we receive flows
solely from him alone. He may use instruments to bring
this help to us, and he does. He does, as I just mentioned.
But he's the source. He alone is the source. As David
spoke to us on the phone and encouraged us, he encouraged
us with words of truth. But they weren't his words, were
they? They were the words of our Lord to us, comforting us
and helping us. How important it is for you and
I to understand this. Let me give you just a brief
illustration of this. Many, many years ago, I don't
even remember when, I preached a sermon from Psalm 42 at a church. And in that psalm, I think you
know, we find a man who is in deep distress. Deep distress,
great spiritual distress. He's fearful and he's perplexed.
He's in sorrow. feeling as if the waves and billows
have gone over him and that he's been forgotten of God. And he
cries out, why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art
thou disquieted within me? Where is help to be found? Well,
the psalmist, in God's grace, tells us himself. Later in that
psalm, he says, hope in God, for I shall yet praise him for
the help of his countenance. You see, help is found in knowing
God, in seeing him, seeing Christ by faith. Isn't that why we quote that
verse in 2 Corinthians? Chapter four, verse six, so often,
because it expresses that truth so powerfully when we read that
it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness has
shown into our hearts to give the light of what? The knowledge of the glory of
God. Now, I think you and I will be
helped by that. Wouldn't we? The knowledge of
the glory of God. And where do we find that? In
the face of Jesus Christ, knowing him by faith. And this is why our pastor has
been emphasizing the importance of the attributes of our great
God. Because the more we know him
and understand him, look upon his face as he's revealed in
his son, how richly blessed we are as a people of God. But I preached that message,
and I didn't know at that time there were three families in
the church who'd lost a child in the previous couple of years.
The one I do remember was so tragic, a 17-year-old, and one
of these arms that lift up to do work on an elevated location
just crushed this son and destroyed his life. So tragic, so tragic. I didn't know about that, nor
did I know anything by experience of what I was preaching about.
I thought I did, but I didn't. I think I know maybe a little
more, a little more. But the Lord graciously blessed
that word preached. Why? Because the Lord had a message
for those people. It was his word and his message. He was speaking to their souls,
binding up the brokenhearted, comforting his people to give
them beauty for ashes. the oil of joy for mourning,
and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. I was just the instrument through
whom God spoke to his people. And that's always the way it
is, isn't it? It always is. It's not my words. that the Lord
uses to speak to his people, it's his words. This is why the
word that he's given to us is so important, so important. When we are in times of great
distress of heart and soul, we look for a counselor, don't we?
We look for a counselor, all men do, all men do. They're in
trouble, they don't have answers, and they look for a counselor.
Well, who? is the counselor of the people
of God? You know, this is an important
question today. Did you know there's Bible college degrees now for
biblical counseling? A person graduates at age 21
with a biblical counseling degree. It's hard to believe, isn't it?
Who is the counselor of the people of God? You know, you don't need
to turn there. In Isaiah chapter 9, we know
that so well, so well. Those verses that are quoted
so often. Towards the end of chapter 8,
it speaks about the children of Israel being in trouble and
darkness, gloom and anguish. A great disaster has been brought
upon them, or prophesied of being brought upon them. And Isaiah
9 begins in this way, nevertheless the gloom, and that's a powerful
word, isn't it? The gloom, it connotes this hopelessness,
darkness and despair. The gloom, nevertheless the gloom
will not be upon her who is distressed as it was before. And why is
that? Well, you know, just a little
farther on in that chapter, it tells us, doesn't it? Why? Why
will this gloom not be upon her who is distressed? For unto us
a child is born, and unto us a son is given, and the government
will be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful
Counselor. He's our counselor, isn't he?
He's the counsel of the people of God and the Lord Jesus Christ
counsels the souls of his beloved. He will speak to us as only he
can. And it seems that in times of
deep distress that wherever you open his word, he's with you
and he speaks to you and the word just becomes so rich. And this was true of me. Do you remember when we spoke
about that? It seemed that every day that I would open the word,
it didn't matter where I turned, the word spoke to me in richness. And for Robin as well, and it
was the Lord, the rich, I can't even find the
words. It was heaven on earth. It was in the midst of this distress
and despair yet rejoicing because our Lord was with us and he was
speaking to us. He makes you to lie down in the
green pastures of his glorious gospel. He leads you beside the
still waters of His mercy and His grace, and He restores your
soul. He surely does. Well, we will
pass through the waters. We will pass through the waters.
This is the first point. When we pass through the waters,
not if we pass through the waters, we know from the Word of God
and from experience that we will pass through the waters. And
we will walk through the fires of this life. Note, this is a
promise. We like certain promises, but
this is a promise too. We will. We will walk past through
the waters. The promise isn't that we'll
be kept from that. This is a false message that's
preached everywhere today, isn't it? You know, if you give your
life to Jesus and all of this nonsense, that you'll be kept
from all of these trials and difficulties of life. No, quite
the opposite. The truth of the gospel says
we will pass through the waters, but here's the wonder of it,
that when we do, he'll be with us. He'll be with us. That the
Lord will be with us in the midst of these afflictions. Turn to
Lamentations chapter three. I don't think there's hardly
a book in the word of God other than that which speaks of the
great suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ that brings forth the
great despair that we can come to as a people of God. Lamentations, and that's the
title of it, isn't it? Because these are the lamentations
of the prophet Jeremiah as he looks upon just the utter destruction
and devastation of the children of Israel. And he weeps. He says, I think it's in this
chapter, how his eyes were like rivers of water for the daughters
of Jerusalem. And that's what this is about.
But turn there to Lamentations chapter three, and we will certainly
in this life face times of real trials and great discouragements.
When we pass through the waters, we're tossed by the waves of
affliction. We're weighed down with grief
and pain. And we try with all our strength
to get to that safe haven. But the winds are blowing contrary
to us in these times, aren't they? It seems that it doesn't
matter what we do. We're not getting there. We're
not getting there. And it doesn't end either. You
know, it's the storm rages unabated the whole night. I know many
of you have experienced this, haven't you? The whole night,
and maybe another night, and maybe another night. And we're exhausted with anxiety
and fear when this occurs. We know something of the experience
of the prophet Jeremiah, who we'll see cries out, my strength
and my hope have perished from the Lord. You know, we think
we won't get there, but sometimes we do. Here in Lamentations chapter
3, the Lord, look back up there in verse 20 of chapter 2, the
Lord has brought a great destruction upon the people of Israel and
upon the city of Jerusalem. And many have perished by sword,
the sword of the enemy, and famine. Look in verse 20, we read, see,
here's Jeremiah crying out, see, oh Lord, and consider, to whom
have you done this? Should the women eat their offspring,
the children they have cuddled? What a famine, what a famine. that the children, that women
would consider consuming their own offspring and did, and did. Should the priest and the prophet
be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? Young and old lie on the ground
in the streets. My virgins and my young woman
have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day
of your anger. You have slaughtered and not
pity." This was a terrible, terrible devastation that was brought
upon the city of Jerusalem. In Jeremiah in deep anguish in
verse three, look, he cries out, I am a man who has seen the affliction
by the rod of his wrath. He has led me and made me walk
in darkness and not light. Surely he has turned his hand
against me time and time again throughout the day. He has aged
my flesh and my skin and broken my bones. He has besieged me
and surrounded me with bitterness and woe. Jump down to verse eight. When I cry and shout, he shuts
out my prayer. Have you ever experienced that? He has blocked my way with hewn
stone. He has made my paths crooked.
He has been to me a bear lying in wait like a lion in ambush. He has turned aside my ways and
torn me in pieces. He has made me desolate. And
then in verse 15, he has filled me with bitterness. He has made
me drink wormwood. He has also broken my teeth with
gravel and covered me with ashes. You have moved my soul far from
peace. I have forgotten prosperity.
And I said, my strength and my hope have perished from the Lord. We will pass through the waters.
And it may be that in the Lord's good providence, he may bring
us to this place that he brought Jeremiah. We will feel like we're walking
in darkness, our strength failing, surrounded on all sides by bitterness
and woe. When Claire had her fall within
days of our return from Papua New Guinea, we were told that
The infection in her abdomen, this was after a series of surgeries,
the infection in her abdomen was a life-threatening infection
in that they were going to have to do a fourth surgery. We poured
out our, like Jeremiah, we poured out our hearts like water before
the face of the Lord for the life of our daughter. And a few
days later, Claire developed double pneumonia. In grief and pain, we cried,
Lord, help our daughter, for she is severely distressed. I prayed that. Do you recognize
those words? They're the words of the woman
of Canaan for her daughter. And, you know, I preached that
passage so many times. What a glorious gospel passage
is that passage of the woman of Canaan crying out for her
daughter. And she says, oh Lord, help. I think I know a little more
of what that means. I prayed it. I prayed her words
and many others. A day later, Claire developed
acute respiratory distress syndrome and suffered total respiratory
failure. That means that she was only
being kept alive by the respirator. It seemed then that she wouldn't
survive. And I understood a bit more of
those words of Psalm 42, where We read, all your waves and billows
have gone over me. Yes, sorrows like sea, billows
rolled. We might not put into words,
but we feel as if the Lord has shut out our prayers. He has
made us desolate. He's moved our souls far from
peace. It would seem that we're forgotten of God.
Like Jeremiah, we might not put it into words, but we might think,
my strength and my hope have perished from the Lord. Until Jeremiah remembers. Look
down at verse 22. Until Jeremiah remembers. Until
he remembers the truth of God's word to his people. Look there
in verse 20, my soul still remembers and sink, well it says there
sinks within me, but he's humbled. This is what he's saying. My
soul is humbled within me when I recall to mind, and this I
recall to mind, therefore I have hope. Listen to what he says. He recalls these glorious covenant
promises of God to his people Israel. Through the Lord's mercies,
we are not consumed. What mercies? What mercies? We deserve to be consumed, don't
we? Through the Lord's mercies, we're
not consumed because his compassions fail not. Here is this God full
of compassion and plenteous in mercy. And when do those compassions
fail? They never fail. They are new every morning. You know, you were playing that
instrumental before the service, weren't you? Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Did
you know it was in the middle of the book of Lamentations? Great is thy faithfulness. And
then look there, you know, in verse 22, and then you know,
The only thing that matters. The Lord is my portion, says
my soul. Therefore, I will trust in him. That's all that matters. Isn't
that all that matters? That we understand and recognize
more and more that the Lord is my portion. He's all I need. He's all I'll ever need. He's
all you need. He's all you'll ever need. And
with that knowledge comes peace. It surely does. It surely does. Turn back now
to our text in Isaiah 43. Here is this promise that we
have when we pass through the waters. When we pass through
the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers they shall
not overflow you, in verse two. When we pass through the waters,
we don't pass through alone, do we? The Lord, our God, Our
Savior and our Redeemer will be with us, and this is all that
matters. In Isaiah 49, we read these words,
but Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me. You know, isn't that you
and I, so often, how little our faith is. Something else comes
along. Well, the Lord has forsaken us.
But Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me and my Lord has forgotten
me. And here's the Lord's answer. Can a woman forget her nursing
child and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely
they may forget. And it's true, isn't it? It's
true and it happens. It's hard to believe that a woman
could forget her nursing child, the son of her womb. But it does
happen. But here is what the Lord says.
He says, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you
on the palms of my hands. Clare, can Clare be forsaken
of the Lord? is one of the Lord's, she's a
daughter of Jerusalem. Can Claire be forsaken of the
Lord? Can any one of his people? Can
we be forgotten of him? Yes, a woman may forget her nursing
child, but we'll never, never, never be forgotten of the Lord. The Lord will never forget, why?
Because he tells us himself. On that bloody day, the day of
sacrifice, the day of sorrow, the day of redemption, he himself
inscribed us upon the palms of his hands. He'll never forget
us. How can he forget Claire? There
she is inscribed on the wounds, the wounds of his hands. I will be with you. This is what
he says. I will be with you. I think you know that Robin and
I could not be with Claire in the very beginning. And even
when after a short period of time, the Lord worked so marvelously
to enable us to be at the hospital each day, we still could not
be with Claire other than being with her physically. She was
under deep sedation, unconscious to our presence. She couldn't
hear us speak. And she couldn't speak to us.
And she just lay there. There's no greater feeling of
helplessness for a parent than to be unable to help a child. No greater feeling. we couldn't be with her. But
the Lord was with her, wasn't he? The Lord was with her by
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was in her in his
mysterious way, comforting her, bearing witness with her spirit
that she is a daughter of God. Christ told his disciples when
they were afraid of the loss of his presence, you remember?
So well, and he was going to leave them and they're afraid.
They're concerned about that. And he says, I will not leave
you orphans. I will come to you. A little
while longer and the world will see me no more. Yes, that's true.
They'll no longer see his physical presence. But he says, but you
will see me. And we do, don't we? You will
see me because I live. You will live also. In that day,
you will know that I am in my father and you in me and I in
you. And the promise that the Lord
would be with his people is fulfilled completely, perfectly, fully
through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And with this promise
of this great comforter, the Lord Jesus Christ told his
disciples, peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. Fear not, fear not. When you
pass through the waters, I will be with you. Turn over to Psalm
139. Fear not, I will be with you. David just mentioned that message
I preached in 2019 on Hannah's Hope. And the Lord directed me to this
psalm and that message. And in looking back, I see the
grace of God to me in giving me that message. He was preparing
my heart and Robin's heart for this time of suffering in so
many ways. So many ways. Have you done that?
You know, at times you look back and you see how the Lord worked
everything so well to prepare you and to help you. And this
is what he was doing. That message I preached to you,
but I found later it was a message to myself. There were so many
things like that. You know of Samson, the pastor
who had the spinal TB and also suffered a period of great distress. Of course, during that time I
preached so many messages to help the churches there and help
the pastors for all of us to look at it in a right way from
the Word of God. And the Lord was using all of
that to prepare my heart for this time, this season of suffering
and pain that we faced with our daughter, Claire. He's so good. He's so good. But in that message, Hannah's
Hope, I referred to this psalm in verse one. Look there. Oh,
Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know my sitting
down and my rising up. You understand my thought of
far off. You comprehend my path and my
lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is
not a word on my tongue, but behold, oh Lord, you know it
all together. The Lord knows Claire. He knows her sitting down. He
knows her rising up. He knows of her massive injuries.
He knows of her suffering and the pain. He knows of our fear
and our anguish. He knows of the heartache. He
knows all of our ways. We poured out our souls to the
Lord in tears and supplications. And there's not a word on our
tongues, but the Lord knows it all together. He himself put
those words in our hearts and on our lips to cry to him, to
pray to him. And that's, he poured, I can't
describe it any other way. As we came to him, he brought
these things to our minds, words preached in this church, words
that I had preached, words that we'd read. Words that we'd fellowshiped
with the Lord's people about, messages that I'd heard. He brought
these things to our minds. And how important, consider that. As you're sitting here, don't
think, I know you don't. Don't think it's a waste of time,
I know you don't. But it's far more than not a
waste of time. It's a rich blessing to be sitting
here, hearing the words of Christ preached to you. Look in verse nine of Psalm 139. If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand
shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. Clare was
truly about as far away as anyone could ever possibly be in this
world in a natural sense. The Lord brought Claire down
into the depths of deep suffering, even to the place where she was
walking through the valley of the shadow of death. She had
come right to the edge of the precipice. Her surgeon described
it that way. She said, I don't know if she'll
move back or not. And the ground was beginning
to crumble beneath her feet. But she was never alone. Never
alone, never alone. Her great shepherd was with her
by his spirit, binding her up, caring for her with an indescribable
love, holding her by his right hand. Yea, though I walk, through
the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou
art with me. Thou art with me. That's all
that matters. It didn't matter, you know, the
Lord brought us to that place where we actually, he showed
us that it was better for Claire to die and go and be with the
Lord, if that was his will. It was better. It was better. He's the Good Shepherd. He gave his life for Claire,
as he did for all of his people. He's the Good Shepherd, and he
will never leave her. He'll never forsake her. Like
Jeremiah, we can be in an agony of suffering, an abundance of
grief, our souls overwhelmed with anguish and pain, and in
these times we can find ourselves dwelling emotionally, psychologically,
and spiritually in the uttermost parts of the sea, seemingly beyond
all help. And we've seen that, haven't
we? So many times. I know you have. Everything a
man can do to help has failed. dwelling in the outermost parts
of the sea. But even there, the Lord is with
you. Even there, even there, your
hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. The mighty
right hand of the almighty God shall hold me. Even there, even
there. Let us believe these things.
In our soul anguish we can come to a place of real darkness,
the night of sorrow, the night of pain and anguish, the night
of bitterness of soul, the night of fear and loneliness. It seems it never ends at times,
doesn't it? It's encompassing all around
us, falling in upon us. But look in verse 11. If I say, surely the darkness
shall fall on me, even the night shall be light about me. Indeed,
the darkness shall not hide from you, but the night shines as
the day, and the darkness and the light are both a light to
you. Yes, you will pass through the dark waters, but they'll
not overflow you. You will pass through the fires
of affliction, but you will not be burned. They'll not scorch
you. You see, the Lord makes the good
things of our lives good for us, and he makes the bad things
of our lives good for us too, doesn't he? He surely does. The Lord makes even the darkest
circumstances of his people to shine as the day. The darkness
and the light, they're both alike to him. Verse 16, your eyes saw
my substance being yet unformed and in your book they were all
written. The days fashioned for me when as yet there were none
of them. Claire's days and our days were
fashioned for us before we were ever formed. Think about that. Your days, every day, every day, every one
of your days were fashioned for you before you were ever formed. Yes, for us, these days of sorrow
and anguish, these days of bitterness of soul, these days of affliction
and suffering, fashioned for us by everlasting love. A love that has no beginning
and no end, an everlasting love. Not one thing is outside of the
knowledge, outside of the power, outside of the providence of
the Holy One of Israel. He works all things together
for good. You know, those verses just roll
off our lips, don't they? Believe them. He works all things
together for good, fashioned by him. according to his everlasting
love for his people. Oh beloved, our ways aren't his
ways, and our thoughts are not his thoughts. Here we are, here
you and I are, like Jacob, just worms, just worms. His thoughts are too high, they're
too broad, they're too deep for us. His thoughts toward us are
wise, And they're so gracious. Look at verse 16. What kind of
thoughts does the holy one of Israel think towards his people? Verse 17. How precious also are
your thoughts of me, O God. How great is the sum of them. If I could count them, they would
be more than the number of the sand. Think of that. Sit down there on any beach. on any beach and start counting
those grains of sand. More, more than the number, not
just of that beach, but of every beach in the entire world. This is not an exaggeration.
The word of God is not hyperbole when it speaks of this. If you
and I could understand, if we could see, all that God has done,
we would understand that they are his blessings toward us. His thoughts toward us are countless,
immeasurable, infinite, and eternal. Fear not. Fear not. When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you. You know, when we pass through
the waters, we feel as if he's surrounded us with walls of bitterness
and woe, as Jeremiah says. He's hedged us in so we can't
escape. That was the feeling of Jeremiah.
Where is there escape from this disaster? He's hedged us in. But it's the exact opposite,
isn't it? The exact opposite. In Isaiah 26, one, we read, He surrounds us with walls of
salvation. 26 verse 1 says, in that day,
this song will be sung in the land of Judah. We have a strong
city. And we have a strong city, don't
we? We have a city which has foundations, whose builder and
maker is God. In that day, this song will be
sung in the land of Judah. We have a strong city. God will
appoint salvation for walls and bulwarks. What has he surrounded
us with? He's surrounded us with salvation
on every side. Yes, it's true. We can get to
a place like Jeremiah when we feel that God has moved our souls
far from peace and we cry out, my strength, and my hope have
perished from the Lord. But no, but no, when we begin
to think right, when we dwell upon his word, upon his truth,
upon the gospel of his grace and his son towards us, when
we look upon his face, then from our hearts and from our souls
we cry like Jeremiah. Though through the Lord's mercies
we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not, they
are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion. The Lord is my portion, says
my soul. What a rich blessing to have
that knowledge. The Lord is my portion. He's all I need. He's all you will ever need.
He's my portion. Therefore, I hope in Him. Amen.