than one that's treatable. Went
through his first chemotherapy yesterday. Okidoki. Well, Jim Poe's sick. Got the flu and some kind of
virus. The stomach virus. Uh, and he has a friend named
Shane Masterson. Is that right? And Shane Masterson's
dad, pastor, and he asked for prayers for the family, the Masterson
family. Also, Herbie Lossie family, uh, the loss of Herbie, so, uh,
remember those folks in your prayers. Seek the Lord's help
for them. Any other prayer requests I need to know about? Yes? Did
they tell you that Fred's cancer's gone into his bloodstream? No, they didn't tell me that. That's not good. Blood cancer is the worst kind.
That's what Sarah had. That's basically what Sarah had. I hope we don't have to do that
whole thing where they kill all his blood cells and get a transfusion.
That would be something. bone marrow transplant. I hate
to hear that. I really do. Do they say anything
about curing it or anything like that? Or treating it? Okay. Well, continue to hold Fred up
before the Lord. Hurts my heart to think about
that. Hymn number 226. 226. Lord to God hath willed, Lord
to God hath planned. I only know at His right hand
is one who is my Savior. I take Him at His word indeed. This I read, for in my heart
I find a need of Him to be my Savior. That He should leave
His place on high and come for sinful land to die, you count
it strange. ? Before I knew my Savior ? And
oh, that He fulfilled, may see ? The travail of His soul in
me ? And with His work contented be ? As I with my dear Savior
? Yea, living, dying, let me bring my strength from this spring that he who
lives to be my king was died to be my savior. Exodus chapter 15. You can read
verse 14 and read through verse 19. The title of my message tonight
is the people shall hear The people shall hear and be
afraid. Sorrow shall take hold of the
inhabitants of Palestine. Then the dukes of Edom shall
be amazed. The mighty men of Moab trembling
shall take hold upon them. All the inhabitants of Canaan
shall melt away. Fear and dread shall fall upon
them. By the greatness of thine arm they shall be as still as
a stone. till thy people pass over, O
Lord, till the people pass over which thou hast purchased. Thou
shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of thine
inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee
to dwell in, in the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have
established. The Lord shall reign forever
and ever. For the horse of Pharaoh went
in with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea, The
Lord brought again the waters of the sea upon them, but the
children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea. Let us pray. Our Father, we come
before you with thanksgiving and praise
for your great mercy. We come beseeching you for mercy
for those who've lost loved ones, the Lossie family, for this friend of Jim Poe's
that you would be pleased to meet with that family and be
according to good pleasure to draw them to Christ. Pray for
our dear brother Fred. As there's news of the blood
cancer, we ask Lord you'd be with him and be with Arlene as
she ministers to him. Our hearts are tenderized, Father,
and we love him and we desire his healing. We know that he's
in your hands to do with as you see fit. It is our desire, Lord,
and you know our hearts, that he be healed from this cancer.
Thank you for the good news about Christi's baby. We ask, Lord,
that you continue to minister to them. Help us, Lord, tonight
as we look at your word to see the glory that is set before
us. Oh, that we might see the majesty and the honor and the
glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, who's worthy of all praise and
honor. He's the chiefest among 10,000, the bright and morning
star, the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley, the King
of kings and Lord of lords, the savior of his people. What a
redeemer is he, having accomplished salvation, having satisfied your
law and justice, and made to be to his people righteousness. Where they can say from their
heart, the Lord is my righteousness. We thank you, Father, that such
things are allowed to be spoken by these old, tired, sinful lips. We praise you that you do not
see our sin, that you remember it no more. You've forgiven us
and cleansed us We know that in and of ourselves where there
is no good thing, we know also that you have made us your children
where we can cry because of the spirit of adoption. Abba, Father,
help us, Lord, to worship you tonight in spirit and truth.
We pray in Christ's name, amen. There's an old adage that says
bad news travels fast. In the 13th verse of this chapter,
which says, Thou and Thy mercies led forth a people which Thou
hast redeemed. Thou hast guided them in Thy
strength into Thy holy habitation. Now, they were not there yet.
They were on the edge of Egypt. They had traveled a little ways,
but not very far. That 13th verse of the chapter
has a prophetic tone to it, suggesting that the overwhelming, brutal,
and miraculous defeat of the Egyptians was only the beginning
of the terror that awaited those who stood in the path of Israel's
sojourn to the promised land. Many nations stood in their path,
and the news of the wholesale slaughter of the great Egyptian
army surely took even greater meaning as the tale was told
and retold of Pharaoh's army drowning in the sea and the children
walking across the bottom of the sea on dry land. The song of Moses had become
the number one on the playlist of the enemy and they trembled
at the thought that the powerful God of Israel was headed for
their neighborhood. their locales stood in the path
that led to the Lord's holy habitation. And if the mighty Egyptian army
was destroyed with the breath of his nostrils, what hope had
they against such power? This is the testimony of verses
14 and 15. The people shall hear and be
afraid. Sorrow shall take hold of the
inhabitants of Palestina. Then the dukes of Edom shall
be amazed. The mighty men of Moab, trembling,
shall take hold upon them. All the inhabitants of Canaan
shall melt away. They've heard the story and they're
full of fear. The Lord's holy habitation is
Zion's holy hill. It is the church, it is the temple
of God, the body of Christ. And He is in the midst of them
and is mighty to save. In Israel's history, it is the
land of Canaan. In the history of those elected
unto salvation, it is Emmanuel's land, the church of the living
God. And though the church at any
given time in history, for the most part, seems to the world
a thing of little significance, it is yet the holy habitation
of the Lord. And the Lord said that this very
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. The kings of the
earth may boast of casting the Lord's cords of control from
them, but God declares and decrees that he will set his king on
Zion's holy hill, given to him the heathen for his inheritance,
the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession. And it says
he shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them to pieces
at a potter's vessel. And when in the end time the
enemies of God hear the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, they
will hide in terror from the wrath of the Lamb and beg the
mountains to fall on them and crush them to dust. When David
heard the Lord speaking to his Lord, in Psalm 110, the Lord
said of his son, Sit thou on my right hand until I make thine
enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of
strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine
enemies. This week, a senator in the Midwest
put forth a bill to make it illegal for parents to bring their children
under 12 years old to church. Can you imagine? A senator, a
state senator, actually coming up with a bill saying that? But
that's just a puny pismire threatening the powerful pachyderm. It is
a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God, saith
the scripture. The word is out, and the people
are full of fear. The gospel of God's sovereign
grace is published, and the people shall hear and be afraid. Sorrow
shall take hold, the dukes shall be amazed, the mighty shall tremble,
the inhabitants shall melt away, and fear and dread shall be the
order of the day. The reason is that all this will
come to pass by the greatness of thine, that is, the Lord's
arm is what it is. By the greatness of the Lord's
arm. That arm, as we have seen in
scripture, is analogous with the salvation of the elect. and
always entails two things, the destruction of the enemy and
the deliverance of the captive. The so-called gospel that is
propagated in the pulpits of useless religion strikes fear
in no one's heart. The way it's presented strikes
fear of rejection in the ersatz God's heart. He after all cannot
act unless the will of man empowers him to do so. And their poor
feckless deity is held in limbo ever fearful that the creature
he supposedly made will prevent his desires of saving them. But
the gospel, the true gospel, the gospel that is the power
of God unto salvation, the Word of God which by the Gospel is
preached unto you, that Word that goeth forth out of his mouth,
it shall not return unto him void, but it shall accomplish
that which he pleases, and it shall prosper in the thing whereinto
he sends it." That Gospel, the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ,
is unstoppable. It's making its sojourn through
this world, and it's striking fear in the hearts of men. It
may be opposed by the world in its religion. It will be as if
the enemies will be as stone And I've seen it happen many
times. People are just shut up and said, please don't talk about
that in our midst. Don't don't speak about it at
all. I remember many years ago, in fact, the very week I was
called as pastor here in Cherokee, which was October was 45 years
ago. The chief at that time had a
girl working for him that was attending church here. She didn't
stay long, but she did attend for a while and She told the
chief that she was attending Sequoia and I'd never met the
man. He'd never met me and he didn't know me and hadn't heard
me preach. But he told her, he says, don't go up there. He says,
cause that man preaches predestination. I don't know how he knew that,
but he did. And that's what he told her.
And she came and told me about it. I said, well, how does he even
know me? What happened? He heard about the gospel of
God's grace. The thing is, that the people who despise the truth
of God's grace, it's not because they don't understand what it
is. They understand completely what it is and it means that
what they're believing is false. I can't number the times that
I've preached the gospel and people have said, well, you're
saying I'm not saved. I've never said that to anybody.
I never told anybody they're not saved. It's not my business
to tell them one way or the other whether they're saved or whether
they're not. I don't know. I don't know. But what people
hear when they hear the gospel, having believed a false gospel,
they know that if what that man who's preaching the true gospel
is saying is true, then they are lost. They have a real problem. They have a real problem. The gospel strikes fear in the
heart of the enemy because it is guaranteed to absolutely prosper. It's guaranteed. There's no ifs,
ands, or buts about it. I was at this meeting this last
week, and one of the preachers asked if I gave an invitation.
I said, I haven't in 45 years, and I'm not about to give one
to start with. Why? Because I know the gospel will
do its work. It will bring people to Christ who it's supposed to,
and it will drive away people who it's not supposed to bring
to Christ. It's just that simple. That same
gospel is always victorious, Paul said in 2 Corinthians. God
has put his hand to it, you see, and who shall turn it back? Who
shall stay his hand? It will be a saver of life to
the elect and a saver of death to the enemies of the gospel.
That's the way it's always going to be. The gospel of sovereign
grace causes trembling and dread to any and all who think that
they can hinder the hand of God by the exercise of their puny
will. But people believe that. I believe in free will. Well,
you believe a lie. Free will doesn't exist in the
universe except in the power to perform, and that is only
one place. That's in the hand of the Almighty
God. He has power to perform His will. What He has purposed
shall come to pass. You and I purpose a lot of things
and we don't get nothing done. We can't. We've never done anything
perfect. Everything he does is perfect,
but he has power. And what most people think when
they talk about free will is it is equated to power of humanity
to actually accept or reject God. The whole notion is utterly
foolish. First of all, to think that you
accept God is to put yourself in a place of acceptance, therefore
exalting yourself above God and making him the one whether you
deem acceptable or not. That's the most audacious matter
of hubris you'll ever come across that humanity would think such
a thing. And for people to say I can reject God is saying that
they're greater than God. It's just that simple. It's just
that simple. Men say what they want to say.
They can talk about their free will all they want to. The only free will in this universe
is the power to perform and that's God's will. God's will. God's will as far as what He
desires and what He intends to do is not free in the sense that
He never acts in opposition to His own character. There are
things that God cannot do. God cannot lie. It's simply not
in His character to do so. What if He wills to lie? He won't
will to lie. He won't. He will not will what He will
not. God is sovereign, but he has a character. He's holy, pure,
perfect, always intended for the good of his people. All of
that. He'll never go against that. So every act he has has
that as the motivator and the mover. And as far as men go,
every act that they will to do comes from their character and
their nature. They will only act according
to what they want. They will not do what they don't
want. Unless it's by duress, and that hardly smacks of freedom,
does it? They'll only do what they want.
They'll never do what they won't do. So the will is not free,
it's subject to their nature. Just as all of God's will is
subject to his character. Always is. But men don't have
the power to perform the will, but God does. Thy will be done,
the Lord said. Not my will, but thine be done.
That doesn't mean that Christ's will was separate from God or
against God. It simply means that Christ,
as a human being, who was very God of very God, but also very
man of very man, as a human being, did what men must do and will
do. They will all submit to the will
of God. That's what a man is to do. The
gospel of sovereign grace always works. A salvation that lies
solely in the will of the sovereign and neither applies to or considers
the desire and inclination of men, that's scary business for
men. A salvation that's sovereign. and does not inquire of men,
it does not consider the thoughts and the will of men, doesn't
do any of that, and yet it saves the people from their sin. That's
a scary business because that leaves men out of the picture.
And men don't want to be left out of the picture. Men want
to have something to surely preach, something men have something
to do, nothing. Salvation is by the will and
the power of God. The father loves the son and
has put all things in his hand, it says in John 3.35. And those
hands, those very hands are the hands of the one who will save
his people from their sins. That's the promise given. The
very one who shall see of the travail his soul and shall be
satisfied because he will justify many for he will bear their iniquities
and make intercession for them. And when he makes his soul an
offering for sin, the Father has given him authority over
all flesh that he would give eternal life to as many as given
him. These people whom God has chosen from the foundations of
the world, they are his purchased possession. He owns them. They
are bought with a price. The price is the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and they are his. Over in Acts chapter 20,
In verse 28, after Paul says he has preached all the counsel
of God to those men at Ephesus, in Acts chapter 20, he says this about the men he's
told to stay behind at Ephesus and make sure they take care
of the flock of God. In verse 28, he says, take heed
therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock. over which
the Holy Ghost has made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which
he hath purchased with his own blood." Why do you have the Holy Spirit?
Why does the children of God have the Holy Spirit? Look over
to Ephesians chapter 1. verse thirteen and fourteen verse
thirteen says in whom you also trusted after that you heard
the word of truth the gospel of your salvation in whom also
after you believe you were sealed with the holy spirit of promise
which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the what?
the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory when
you see the word peculiar in scripture god's peculiar people
It means they are purchased. That's what that word peculiar
means. They are a purchased people. They are bought by God. And it
says back in our text that God will bring them in. God will
bring them in. In Deuteronomy chapter 6 and
verse 23 he says, I brought you out to bring you in. I brought you out of Egypt to
bring you into the promised land. Now he was saying that as they
were on the banks of Jordan getting ready to cross over into the
promised land. Moses said, You remember, God brought you out
to bring you in. That's the only reason He brought
you out. Scripture says also that He shall plant them. He
shall plant them in the promised place. It says in verse 17, back in
our text, Thou shalt bring them and plant them in the mountain
of thine inheritance into a promised place. Plant them. What does
that mean? I'd say whenever the Lord plants them, they're going
to take up roots. They're going to stay where they're planted.
And we know that mountain of His inheritance is Mount Zion. But look at a few passages of
Scripture over in Isaiah chapter 61. This is what our Lord quoted
or read from in His first preaching assignment in Luke chapter 4
in his hometown. He was back in his hometown,
he was preaching in his hometown synagogue and he read from this
passage of scripture in Isaiah 61 and said in their hearing,
he said, this day is this fulfilled in your eyes. Here's what it
says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord hath
anointed me, the word anointed in the Greek is Christos which
is Christ, hath anointed me to preach the good tidings to the
meek, he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim
liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to
them that are bound." That's why Christ came. He said, that's
why the Lord sent me and has anointed me to do that. and to
proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. That's the age we're
living in right now called the gospel age. The day of vengeance
of our God, that's the judgment that is yet to come. And to comfort
everybody that mourns. Now he's not talking about general
mourning, though he does comfort those who mourn generally about
things they've lost, about loved ones they've lost, about sadness
in their heart. But he's talking about those
who mourn over sin. to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion,
in the church, to give them beauty for ashes. Their ashes are things
that says the fire's gone out, there's nothing left. I had to
clean out the stove yesterday before it made a fire, and I
took up a whole coal hod full of ash. Wasn't no heat in them,
not a lick of heat in them ashes. Now, they had been hot, and they
burnt that fire while I was gone. And then ashes at one time, they'd
been coals and they'd been wood, they'd been hot, but now they
were nothing, just cold. He says, there's nothing to them, but
I'm gonna give them beauty for that. That's what the Lord came
to do. I'm gonna give them beauty for
that in place of that, I'm gonna give them all of joy for mourning. When they're mourning, I'm gonna
give joy in their heart. I'm gonna give them the garment
of praise for the spirit of heaviness when they're down. and beaten
up. God's going to give them a heart
full of praise for His goodness and His mercy that they might
be called trees of righteousness. Trees of righteousness. Evidently,
He's planted them. The planting of the Lord that
He might be glorified. The planting of the Lord. If
you're in the church, if you're in Mount Zion, if you're in the
habitation of the Lord, it's because He's planted you there.
Look over at Jeremiah chapter 32. the same kind of language is
used. Beginning with verse thirty-eight,
it says, And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and
one way, that they may fear me forever for the good of them
and of their children after them. And I will make an everlasting
covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do
them good. But I will put my fear in their hearts, and they
shall not depart from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them
to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with
my whole heart and my whole soul." Now God's going to use his whole
heart and his whole soul. to plant his people in that mountain. They are brought to the mountain
of God's inheritance, that's Mount Zion, the church, the place
that God has made for them. It is his sanctuary, the abode
of the sanctified. That's what the sanctuary is,
the abode of the sanctified. How are they sanctified? God
has made Him to be unto them wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. It is the place that He has established
and He has done it all. That's what it says in Isaiah
44, 23. The Lord has done it. He hath redeemed Israel. The
Lord hath done it. That's what it says in verse
17. Thou shalt bring them and plant them in the mountain of
thy inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made
for them to dwell in the sanctuary of the Lord, which thy hands
have established. The Lord has built his church. at the consideration there is
but one possible and reasonable response for realizing what the
lord has done by and through his gospel for his people set
forth here and it simply says this in verse eighteen the lord
shall reign forever and ever that's the only conclusion you
can come up with he's done it all that he might be glorified
if he's done it all then he shall reign forever and ever and at
the destruction of the final enemy which is Babylon the great
whore the final and full salvation of all the elect this will be
the song of the saints look over at revelation 19 verses one through six and after
these things I heard a great voice what things he's destroyed
Babylon the smoke her smoke is rising to heaven I heard a great
voice in heaven saying hallelujah salvation and glory and honor
and power unto the Lord our God for true and righteous are his
judgments for he hath judged the great whore which did corrupt
the earth with her fornication and it's a binge the blood of
his servants at her hand And again they said, Alleluia. And
her smoke rose up forever and ever. And the four and twenty
elders and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that
sat on the throne saying, Alleluia, Amen, Alleluia. And a voice came
out of the throne saying, Praise our God, all ye servants and
ye that fear him, both small and great. And I heard, as it
were, the voice of a great multitude, as the voice of many waters,
as the voice of mighty thundering, saying, Alleluia. for the Lord
God omnipotent reigneth reigneth. Verse 19 we see them Moses rehearse
again what the Lord has done and it is a picture of the gospel
the destruction of the enemy and the salvation of the people
back in our text it says for the horse of Pharaoh went in
with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea and the
Lord brought again the waters of the sea upon them, but the
children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea. And all that can be said of that
is to Him be glory forever and ever. Amen. Let us pray. Father,
we thank You that such a thing is set before us in such clear
and wondrous language. We praise You and we thank You
for teaching us the truth. Help us, Lord, to seek your face
in all things, we pray in Christ's name, amen.