CCS Sermons
Isaiah 43:18-21
You know, I'm trying but you got them so riled up makes it difficult. We are good. We are good because the Lord dwells within us. Amen. Amen. All right. I'm just getting started, Jim. Just getting started, brother. All right. So we're going to be in Isaiah chapter 43 tonight. And my text will be verses 18 through 21. But we're going to read from verse 1 all the way up to that point. So let's turn there and start out. It says, "But now thus says the Lord who created you O Jacob, and he 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 Sabbath in your pleas. Since you were precious in my sight you have been honored, and I have loved you. Therefore, I will give you men, give men for you, and people for your life. Fear not, for I am with you, I will bring your descendants from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north give them up, and to the south do not keep them back. Bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who was called by my name, whom I have created for my glory. I have formed him, yes I have made him. Bring out the blind who have eyes, and the deaf who have ears. Let the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled. Who among them can declare this, and show us former things? Let them bring out their witnesses that they may be justified, or let them hear and say it is truth. You are my witnesses, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he before me, there was no God formed, nor shall there be after me. Even I am the Lord, and besides me, there is no Savior. I have declared and saved you, are saved, I have proclaimed, and there was no foreign God among you. Therefore you are my witnesses, says the Lord, that I am God, 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. Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, for your sake I will send to Babylon, and bring them all down as fugitives, the Calvians who rejoice in their ships. I am the Lord, the Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, and a path through the mighty waters, who brings forth the chariot, and horse, the army, and the power. They shall lie down together, they shall not rise. They are as extinguished, they are quenched like a wick. Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth. Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. I give drink to my people, my chosen. This people I have formed for myself, they shall declare my praise. Lord, we thank you for your word, we pray that you would unfold it to us tonight, speak to us through it, show us Lord what you desire for us in our lives today. And Lord, we thank you for this work of your spirit. And Lord, I want to lift up Phyllis' mom tonight, Lord, Phyllis Dallin, that you would bring healing to her body, Lord, that you would strengthen Phyllis at this time too, as she deals with her mom and all that she is going through right now. Lord, I thank you for the pastor Paul and Teresa, and I pray you bless their time away. Give them refreshment, renewing, strength, and encouragement, Lord. And most of all, Lord, let them find rest in the midst of all that's going on in their life right now. Lord, we love you, we praise you, and we lift all this before you in Jesus' name. And everyone said, Amen. All right, Isaiah, as the English say, right, that's how they say it, Isaiah, not Isaiah. And as you can tell, I forgot my iPad tonight, so I'm making do with my computer instead. All right, now let's see here. Take a little brighter so I can see it. Here we have in the book of Isaiah promises that God has made to them through the prophet of returning back to the land at this point in time, they're in captivity. And this word that Isaiah has is a word of real encouragement to them as they are in bondage, their slaves, they've been taken away from their land and God is making a promise one to gather them back, to bring them back to the land. And not only that, he also promises that what he will do is that he will make provision for them in any of the circumstances that they may encounter. Isaiah is mentioned by name 22 times in the New Testament, more than any other Old Testament prophet. Isaiah's primary purpose was to remind the Jews and the 10 tribes of the North and the tribes of Judah as well as they were all in captivity at this time. To remind them of the special relationship that they had with God as members of the nation of Israel and his special covenant community. The Israelites were really bad about looking back often. When they got to the Red Sea, they asked Moses why he had led them out into the wilderness to die when they were instead of remaining there in Egypt. And then while they were in Egypt, they began to long for Egypt once again when they were walking through the wilderness and had times of want, if you will. And so they were always looking back to something else in their history and their time rather than looking forward. And Isaiah's purpose in this section of his book is to, as he says, their in verse 18, do not remember the former things nor consider the things of old. And then in verse 19, it says that God is going to do a new thing. And so here you have the people who are in bondage and as you can imagine, they're probably pretty bummed out about the fact that they are. But God wants them to, it's kind of a little bit of a dichotomy in verses 18 and 19, Isaiah tells them not to remember the former things, but yet in verses 16 and 17, they are encouraged to remember the former things. But here's the thing, what holds back them and also oftentimes us in our progression with the Lord is that we stumble over our past and the forgiveness at times, even the forgiveness of God in our life. We stumble over it because of the fact that we can't let it go. You see, when God forgives and restores his people, he wants them to forget the failures of the past and to witness for him in the present and claim his promises for the future. And that's what we see here in verses 18 to 21, his promises to the future. So why should we remember that which God has forgotten? You realize that, right? When you come to the Lord, you confess to your sin, it says that God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now if you turn around and say, "Lord, do you remember that sin I just told you?" He says, "No, because I have cast it as far as the east is from the west." He says that, "I have cast it into the sea of forgetfulness." Because he chooses not to remember that. He's forgiven us and that slate is clean and we can go forward from there. Now there are times that our sin has led to consequences that we have to live with, but the one consequence we don't have to live with is to carry the burden of sin. Christ came to deliver us from that burden so that we would not have to carry it. We're incapable of carrying it. As a matter of fact, it will crush us. It will absolutely crush us. And so we have no right to hold on to that which God has forgiven. And it's funny because I think when we first come to the Lord, that whole concept is kind of easy in the beginning because of the fact that, you know, I'm a sinner, I've come to that realization, I confess, God has made his promises. He forgives me of that, "Oh my gosh, how wonderful it is." As a matter of fact, you guys have heard me say that that night when I got saved, I literally felt like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. But it didn't take me too long in my walk with God and in my failures to put the weight back on my shoulders. And Jesus says that anyone who would come to, if you are, oh gosh, if you labor and are heavy laden, come to me and I will give you rest. And that's not just at the time of salvation. That's not just in the beginning. It's all the way throughout our walk with Christ. And so many times I have seen believers who, even as they walk with God, they have failed in their walk with God and they take it and carry it as a burden upon themselves. And that's the very thing that God says that we do not remember the former things. Now the dichotomy to that is it's okay to remember the former things that God did and that it was good. In other words, you know, it's all right for me to remember the times that God delivered me, that God, you know, changed my heart, changed my life. And all these great works that God did in me, it's okay that I remember that, but it's not okay for me to remember the past things that I did wrong unless I haven't confessed them. If I've confessed them, then I need to let it go and go forward. And understand that God doesn't want me to carry it and I cannot because if I do, what happens is that it begins to stymie me in my progression forward. At best, it stymies me. At worse, it stops me. It keeps me from going forward. In this case here, we also can understand this is that when he says don't remember the former things nor consider the things of old that we have to understand that it's both the good and the bad, that God doesn't want us to look at the good things he did and yearn for the good old days, right? Some of us in here have been walking with the Lord long enough to where we remember way back when. And it's easy for me to think of that and to yearn for that time and that experience that I had with the Lord which is behind me now. There's new experiences to have with the Lord. There's a new thing that God wants to do in my heart and in my life. And I don't look back at those things thinking to myself, oh man, I wish that we had what we had back in the 70s. Man, that was a great time. Lord was doing a mighty work. Spirit was moving. It was exciting. It was wonderful. But boy, everything around us has changed. And if we're trying to live in the 70s and here we are in 2020s, then we're going to find that we're going to become very disappointed very quickly. The world's not the same as it was back then. The Lord never changes. But the one thing about the Lord that is so precious is that if you look throughout the history of mankind, God has always come down to a level wherever men were to reach them for himself. In the 60s, God used that era, that time when our country was in disarray, when people were messed up and looking, searching, that kind of thing, and the Lord raised up people to meet them right where they were. I don't want to sound braggadocious about Calvary Chapel, but I will say this. Chuck Smith was a guy who was willing to accept these young kids who were coming in with long hair and dirty feet and everything else and accept them just as they were to welcome them in and to feed them with the Word of God and then watch the Holy Spirit change them. Now I'm not saying that God can't do that today and I really yearn for that, that God would, indeed, make us, those people, to be able to reach this generation. I mean, it's kind of crazy what we see going on today, you know, 40 years ago, if you had had told me I'd be living in a day like I am right now, I would have said absolutely not. There's no way. Especially at that time, 40 years ago when we were at the height, actually, towards getting towards the end of the Jesus movement, man, and I mean, there was all kinds of great, there's no way that I ever thought that I would see a day, like the day we're living in today with all its absurdity, you know, the way that on one hand, when they want to bring control over you, they say this is the science, but when you want to look at the science about some other things, I'll use this as gender dysphoria, you know, we don't look at the science, the science is, it doesn't matter what you think you are, your chromosomes determine what you are, but that's science, but we don't listen to the science with that. And it's a crazy time, and it's a time when evil is declared good and good is declared evil. Isn't that something? I think the Bible kind of talks about that. But the truth is that God wants us to be going forward in the days in which we're living in. When we break it down for us personally, it is that God wants us to be growing and changing and moving in that path that's taking us toward Him and becoming more and more like Jesus Christ. Anything that would keep us from that, God wants to remove that from our lives, no matter what it is, whether it's good or bad. God wants to take it out because He has a purpose for our lives and that is to be transformed and changed in the image of Christ because He wants us to be a witness, a testimony for His good name in the world in which we're living in today. And when you're thinking about Israel and how they were looking back, I want to give you an example of a way that they looked back that was harmful to them in their relationship. In the book of Ezra, in Ezra 12 to 13 it says, "But many of the priests and the Levites, the heads of the Father's houses, old men had seen the first temple and wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this temple was laid before their eyes, yet many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not discern the noise of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people for the people shouted with a loud shout and the sound was heard far off." Well, when Ezra had come, they started rebuilding the temple that was there. And that temple didn't compare to the grandeur of the one that Solomon had made. And they began to weep over the fact that it wasn't as good as the one that Solomon had made, but therein lies the problem because it wasn't about the temple, it was about the God who filled the temple. Before the temple, there was a tabernacle. And if you go through and you look and you see the construction of the tabernacle, I can only imagine what it would have been like inside there with badger skins and all that kind of stuff. It may not have been that pleasant of a place to be, but yet what made it pleasant was the glory of God. His presence there is what made it, and they were all happy with that. And then they got the temple, and once they got the temple, well, hey, let's face it. That was a beautiful edifice to the glory of God. And so I can understand why they liked it, but the problem is, is that their focus went from worship of God to the worship of the temple. That became the very thing in their life that was so important, rather than the God who inhabited it. They were like that. It was like that, too, in the book of Haggai, chapter 2 verses 1 through 9, it says, "In the seventh month in the 21st year of the month, the Word of the Lord came by Haggai, the prophet, saying, 'Speak now to Zerubbabel, the son of Sheltiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehoshua, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, saying, 'Who is left among you who saw this temple in his former glory?' And how do you see it now in comparison with it? This is not in your eyes, as nothing. Yet now, be strong Zerubbabel, says the Lord. Be, and be strong Joshua, the son of Jehoshua, the high priest, and be strong in all people of the land," says the Lord, "and work for I am with you," says the Lord of Hosts. According to the word that I coveted with you when you came out of Egypt, so my spirit remains among you. Do not fear, for thus says the Lord of Hosts once more. It is a little while. I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land, and I will shake all nations and they shall come to the desire of all nations. And I will fill this temple with glory, says the Lord of Hosts. The silver is mine, the gold is mine, says the Lord of Hosts. The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of Hosts. And in this place I will give peace, says the Lord of Hosts. So as far as God was concerned, the temple was fine. He said, "I will fill it with my glory and it will be greater than the old one." But yet they looked at it and they mourned because it wasn't as good. And so it is a lesson I think for us to make sure that we don't become guilty of that, that we complain about what the Lord is doing in my life now compared to what He was doing back then. I am not the same person as I was back then. I am a different person. God has to work with me differently. Like I said, God really does. He lowers Himself, not the standards, not His word or anything like that, but He brings Himself down to a place of relativity for us all. He meets us right where we are. And so I need to always be looking forward, not looking back, not yearning for those days that I did have, but looking forward to what God has for me in the future. We need to let go of the past, whether good or bad. If we yearn for the good old days or regret the past, we can be held captive instead of going forward and we can become stagnant and even going backwards. We need to let it go and to press on. Jesus, speaking of that, says in Luke chapter 9 verse 62, "But Jesus said to Him, 'No one having put His hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.'" So it's very clear that for us as Christians, no matter where we are, it's not about looking backward, it's about looking forward. And if you've ever been around, you know, we live in a pretty agrarian area, there's a lot of farming that takes place. And if you've ever noticed, man, they got these straight furrows when they're plowing and getting ready to plant and everything, they got these perfectly great furrows. Nowadays, they have a GPS and the tractor literally, they put in the coordinates and everything, they punch a button and the tractor goes by itself and it never goes off course. Well, before that ever came about, if you weren't looking forward when you were looking backward, when you looked forward again, you'd be off track and you'd look back again and your furrows would be going like this. And so for us, we have to understand, don't think of modern tractors today, but think of old tractors, or even better yet, when you had a mule, you had to look forward all the time. And if you didn't and you'd look back, that old zigzag furrow would be back there. And so in order to avoid that, we have to look forward. And even if it's the good things, don't yearn for that, that it would be such as that again. Let me just put this caveat in there. If your relationship with Christ has diminished, yearning for a renewal and getting back to a place that you once were, is not wrong, okay? So that we understand that. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about our life, our situation, just as it was with the Israelites. They were in a circumstance and, well, as a matter of fact, I know that they were crying out to God. They were writing songs about having to be on the banks of the Babylon River, the river of Babylon and how grieve they were, they said, sing us a song, well, how could we sing a song when we're all bummed out about being here, right? So we don't want to do that. If you're yearning for a deeper relationship, if you once had one that was more meaningful, then call out to God and do that for sure. It's okay to examine myself against where I am with the Lord and where I've been. And if I'm not where I have been, then it tells me I've gone backwards and I need to go forward. It's the same thing that Jesus told the church and Ephesians, you know, you got all these great things going, you know, but there's one thing I got against you, you've lost your first love. If you've lost the first love, get back to that. That's your starting point, right? But don't worry about anything, really. We need to just continue to go forward with God in Luke 9, 23 and 24, Jesus said, then He said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me for whosoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it." So we got to not only not look back, but we got to be all in, right? I've quoted this to you guys a couple of times, but man, this is a nugget for me, finding this quote from Tozer has just really been something that's impacted my own heart, my mind and my thoughts about this idea of taking up that cross. It says, "The old cross is a symbol of death, it stands for the abrupt violent end of a human being, the man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said goodbye to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing, it slew all of the man completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more. When Jesus said, "Take up your cross and follow him in order to be his disciple," which God, he has called us all to be disciples. He has not called converts, he's called disciples. And in that being a disciple that means that we have to be all in completely dead, a dead man, dead to our flesh and alive to God. That's what he calls us to. And we can't do that looking back. We've got to be going forward and this helps us to press on and press in. When we're thinking about this is, "Am I really do I desire to come after the Lord?" And I love the way Luke puts it. He says, "To take up his cross daily and follow me," because it's a battle from the moment we wake up until we go to bed again, the flesh is always trying to get control. And sometimes even in the night, I don't know about you guys, but I have absolutely horrible dreams sometimes. And boy, they're just straight out of the pit of hell. So I wake up with that. So I immediately have to get on my knees and go forward with God. That's the whole thing. That's what God wants for us. Then he promises them. He says, "Behold," in verse 19, "I will do a new thing. Shall it not spring forth? Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." Now earlier in this chapter, and also in, yeah, Haggai, what I read in there, the Lord says, "Fear not." It's interesting, fear not, the Lord tells the nation of Israel to fear not 365 times in the Old Testament. So that's one for every day. Every day you get one, fear not, fear not. And it's not an idea of, "I'm living in a law land and I'm not aware of my circumstances or anything like that." And I just go along and go, "Oh, hey, everything's good, I'm fine. There's no worries. Don't worry. Be happy. Join Bobby Farron on the island or whatever you want to do." It's not that kind of thing. What it is, is that no matter what the obstacles are in our life, we have nothing to fear. Fear is not from the Lord. Fear is not from God. And we have to understand that God wants us to walk in His promises. He says here to them, "I'm going to do a new thing." God, the promise of God is that He will do a new thing. And that's the same promise that He gives to us, too, if we'll let Him. There's only one thing that gets in the way of God working in our lives, and that's us. We're the ones that get in the way. Because God has the ability and the power to be able to whatever comes our way to deal with it, to navigate it, and to safely take us through. Let me define safely through. My safely through is when I leave this place and enter into His presence. It doesn't mean that I won't have difficulty in my life or troubles or disasters in my life. No, guaranteed, because God has ordained those things in my life in order to change me. Because I'm just as hard-headed and as hard-hearted as the Israelites were. You know, God had to take these extreme measures because for many years, I can't remember exactly how many prophets it was before they went into the captivity that God sent, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and a couple of other ones of the minor prophets and stuff. All these guys were warning them about going into captivity, and they had been warned earlier than that, that they had to make sure and honor God by every 70 years giving the land rest. And they are seven years, I'm sorry, every seven years giving the land rest. Because they didn't do that for 490 days, they went into captivity for 70 years. God was trying to show them that this is important. What He says to us is important. It's not optional. It's not multiple choice. It's His way or the hard way. That's your choice. And you, you know, make up your mind whatever you want to do. And I'm a knucklehead of enough, enough of a knucklehead that I, you know, many times chose the hard way rather than His way. All right? I bet you we could all say amen to that. But I love the fact that He encourages them and He says fear not, and He told them over and over again and He says that to us, and He gives us the promises that He will do a new thing, 2 Corinthians 5, 17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation, old things have passed away, behold all things have become new. I don't need to look back. I need to keep looking forward. All things have become new, right? Leave the past behind. Let it go. Walk on. Hey, you know, I just tell myself all the time. It's the same. Just don't do the same stupid thing over. I did it. I'm forgiven, but don't do it again, right? But the glorious thing about God is that even if I do, if I confess and repent, He says, now go forward. Don't let it, don't let it bring you back down again. Don't let it stop you and hold you back. John 836, wonderful promise of the Lord. He says, therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed, right? Yeah. Great promise of the Lord and, you know, when I first got saved, the Scripture was brought to me by the Lord in my reading time, and I realized how free I was in Christ and how much bondage I had been to, been in in my life before Christ, in a short period of time. Because of the people that I was associating with, I had to really put on a persona, that I was some tough guy, I was a skinny little 135-pound guy, and I had to convince them and I was a tough guy, and I had to live that persona because if I didn't, then I wouldn't survive. Like a pack of wolves, whatever one is weak, they will destroy it. And so you had, I had to live this lie continuously. Now don't kid yourself, I convinced myself it was the truth, and it wasn't until after I met the Lord, and I was set free from that, that I realized how deceived I was, how I deceived myself, and how I was living that way, and now that it was gone, I could just be me. I didn't have to be anything to anybody, I didn't have to prove myself or demonstrate how tough I was or anything like that, I could just be me, how freeing it was. And that was just that portion of it, of course, and then there's that being set free from the sin in our lives. The promise that God says that we can have deliverance from our sin, right? Teaching us how not to practice sin, so that we're not asleep to sin, being transformed and changed by the word of God. Jeremiah 29, 11, he says, this is what God says, he says, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you," says the Lord, "thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope." What a glorious promise that is, glorious promise. You see, the problem that we have with making something new is that we can also take that and make that into an idol as well, right? We can err, as the people of Athens did, who in Acts 17, 21, it says, "They spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing." Oh man, why did you have to say that? Because boy, that's how, that's the world we live in right now, isn't it? I want to hear some new thing, which is really ironic. I don't care for the news that much, but I never once will like to see what's going on in our neighborhoods and that kind of thing. And in actuality, I remember when I was in school, they said that if you're reading a newspaper, the first paragraph of the article will tell you everything you need to know that's in that article. You don't need to read the rest of it, because all they do is they re-elaborate over and over and over again the point that they made in the first paragraph. Well, our news companies, they haven't figured that out. And they say the same thing over again and over again and over again, right? If you watch a half hour of it, you've got it all, except for they'll tantalize you with one that they hadn't had, and so you hang around and hear that one and put up with the same stories over and over again, right? And that's because we want to hear something new. When we do that, I mean, the Internet is probably one of the worst for that purpose, in that everybody's on there always looking for something new. If somebody's given you something new about the Word of God, then you probably should run because it's already been said, it's already been written, and it doesn't need to be changed. We can be tossed about by every wind of doctrine, but we can also err on the other side of the balance that work against the new thing God wants to do. I'm always concerned about that, about what is it that you want to do differently, Lord, in my life and in the church? What is it that you want to do? This is a good example of this whole thing about looking back and looking forward, because I know how our church services used to go back in the 70s, and man, I loved them. They're great. Our church service is nothing like it. No, I wouldn't say nothing like it. I would say it lacks in some of the things that we were doing. I wouldn't say nothing like it, because back then we were receiving the Word, we were praying, all those kind of things. That's all true, but there was a freshness and a newness of the Holy Spirit that we don't have today. So I'm always asking the Lord, what is it that you want? I would love to see us experiencing the moving of the Holy Spirit and the things that took place back in the 70s that made it so special, but I'm not going to conjure it up. I'm not going to make it happen. I'm not going to stand up there and dance and shout Hallelujah and throw my hanky up and all that kind of stuff in order to get everybody all wound up, but if God wants to do that, not my hanky throwing up, but if God wants to do something, then I want him to do it. Right? So I have to be careful not to look back and say, "Okay, this is what we got to do because this is what we did," and that we got to go forward looking at it and actually not judging what we are today by the past near as much as it is, seeking the Lord and His Holy Spirit is what do you want to do now? That's the whole thing. I don't think God's done with the moving of His Holy Spirit, and as a matter of fact, I see it that we need it more and more today than ever before. And here Isaiah tells them, he says, "That the Lord is going to do a new thing," and he says, "Shall we not know it?" And speaking of the Holy Spirit, of course, that's what the guarantee that we have in our lives in 2 Corinthians 1-22, he said, "Who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee," and again in 2 Corinthians 5-5, "Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is gone, who has also given us the Spirit as a guarantee." Ephesians 1, 13 and 14, yeah, 13 and 14, "And Him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and whom also having believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchase possession to the praise of His glory." "Shall you not know it?" God asked that same question today. "Will you stay in step with my Spirit," he says, "when He leads into something new, shall you not know it?" As we're following the Holy Spirit, I believe that there is going to be that freshness and that newness that He brings it about. John 14, 26, Jesus said, "But to help her, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all the things I said to you, the Holy Spirit, we need that fresh, that fresh anointing, that fresh outpouring of God's Holy Spirit." And then he tells him he said that he would make a road in the wilderness and streams in the desert. We can trust that God will make a way in the impossible circumstances in our life. He will, between the captivity in Babylon and the return to Israel lay hundreds of miles of wilderness. God's people didn't need to be afraid because God would make a road in the wilderness and provide rivers in the desert and even protect His people from animals because the beast of the field will honor me, the Lord says. I love that promise when you think about it and if you, when you consider when He says that the fields, the streams in the desert and the roads, that the wilderness and the rivers in the desert, the road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, think of something like north of Barstow on highway 15. That's what you want to think of, desolate desert. No hope of water, you know, anytime they get water there, they figure they've done something wrong. God's punishing them and giving them water, you know, it's bad. So when you're thinking of this wilderness experience, don't think of going up to Tahoe and hiking John Muir's trail. We're talking about a hot, nasty desert and God says, "Guess what? I'll take care of you." And that's the whole thing and sometimes I think in our own life we can compare our own life in that way, it's like, it's a hot, dusty desert without water, without a pathway, but yet God promises that in our lives when we come to those places that He will indeed take us through and make sure that we get to the other side. When God makes a promise we worry about the details or the obstacles for the fulfillment of the promise, God replies to us, "Don't worry about it at all." He says, "I will even make a road in the wilderness and streams in the desert." And that's how we are sometimes. When God speaks to us and tells us to do something, we say, "Okay, and then what about this and what about that and what about this and what about that?" And oftentimes the Lord says, "Trust me and just go," you know? It's okay to ask God for that certainty. And I do, I encourage folks often that what they need to do if they feel that God is moving them to something to pray and ask God to give them a Scripture to move on. His Word to know that this is what God wants them to do. Now I'm not talking about whether or not to use Colgate or some other, you know, toothpaste on your toothbrush. I'm talking about major decisions in your life, but God does make promises. But there are times that the Lord will tell us, "You just need to trust me and I'll work everything out." Because even with that promise, you know, then we can find ourselves in that place. When I went out from Bible school, one of the things I realized is that I really don't have the gift of evangelism. And I wondered, "How do you start a church without having a gift of evangelism?" You know, it's kind of tough. The Lord had given me the Scriptures to go and it had given me the promise that He would have begun a good work in me, would not quit until the day that we're done. He would see it through. I just butchered that one up. But anyways, and I asked the Lord that question, "Lord, well, how am I going to do this when I don't have that gift?" And the Lord really, He just spoke to me, He says, "Just trust me," and I said, "Okay." And it was amazing what the Lord did. And I was blown away as all the pieces fell in together to make up what God wanted to do. And He knows me. If He gives me too much information, then I get way too ahead of Him and I'm always trying to figure things out. And so He gives me a little piece. He says, "Choo on that for a while and come with me." And so I've learned to do that. And Psalm 36, verses 7 and 8, it says, "How precious is your loving kindness, O God, therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of your wings. They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of your house. And you give them drink from the river of your pleasures." Roads and streams. Psalm 46, 1 through 4, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help and trouble. Therefore we will not fear, even though the earth be moved. And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though its waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling, salah, there is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High." And then in Revelation 22, 1, it says, "And He showed me a pure river of water clear as crystal proceeding from the throne of God and the Lamb." So that word, the word of God, is a stream in the desert for us. It refreshes, it renews, and it cleanses. We have so many places that we could look at, but one of my favorites is Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the ungodly nor stands in the path of centers nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night, and here's the promise, he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like chaff, which the wind drives away. Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment nor centers in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Of course, Psalm 119, verse 5, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Proverbs 18, 10, the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run into it and are safe. Titus 3, 5, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5, 26, that Jesus, it says that he might sanctify and cleanser with the washing by the water of the Word. If we need cleansing, all we have to do is take the Word and it will cleanse us. So let's keep moving forward, looking to the author and the finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ. Philippians 3, 12 through 14, it says, "Not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on, that I may lay hold, that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize, of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus, tremendous encouragement. And then in verse 21, he gives us this, he had mentioned it earlier in the chapter when he had said that they were his witnesses in the world, right? They were the ones that would declare the truth about God because God had worked in their lives. And so they were now to be the witnesses. And verse 21, he says, "This people I have formed for myself, and they shall declare my praise." I'm going to give you a little quote from Warren Wiersby on this particular section here. And when he says that you are my witnesses, they're in 10 and verse 12, he says, "For it is in the history of Israel that God has revealed himself to the world." Frederick the Great asked the Marquis de Argens, I guess it's I say it, I'm not French. I don't want to be either. Can you give me one single irrefutable proof of God? And the Marquis replied, "Yes, Your Majesty, the Jews." They are still today a testimony that God exists. The fact that they're a nation again right now, although they're becoming one of the most hated nations in the world right now, that fulfills prophecy. But the point is, is that God, just as he had promised here in this chapter, he was going to bring them from all four corners of the world. He is fulfilling that. He's not done because there's still more of them. And it's interesting because every time you see something in, oh gosh, what's the other countries that were the checklists of, no, it's, who's a war with Russia? Ukraine. Ukraine, thank you. Did you notice that when that war broke out in Ukraine, they had a massive migration of Jews to Israel? God uses all these things around the world to bring his people to the place where he has called them to. And it's like I always say, if God doesn't fulfill his promises to Israel, what makes us think he'll fulfill the promise to me? If he renegs on that, when he says throughout his Scripture, when the sun stops coming up, then my promises won't be for you. He means it, and he'll see it through, and so it will. He will with us too, right? They shall declare my praise, and even their existence does it, even if they don't want to. Isn't that amazing? And this is part of the fulfilling of the purpose of God that he created us for. As mentioned in Isaiah 43, 17, or 7, I'm sorry, whom I have created for my glory. That's what the prophet said to the people that God had created him for his glory. When we declare our praise for God, we are giving him glory and fulfilling one of the purposes that we were created for. We are called to be witnesses for God everywhere we go, whether we go out to witness or we're just living life wherever we go, we are called to be witnesses. And if we give God the opportunity, he will give us the opportunity in order to be able to do that. If you're praying and asking God to bring conversations around so that you can talk about his son, he's faithful. He will make sure it happens with somebody that day. If you just trust him and step out in faith and be willing, then God can use us all. It's not optional. It's what he's called his to. He hasn't called converts. His called disciples and disciples are to go out and to make other disciples. So discipleship is an obligation that all of us have to take unto ourselves and to give others as well. And all we have to do is trust him. Don't look back, look ahead, go forward, listen to his voice, and he'll do a mighty work in our hearts and lives. Amen. Amen. Lord, we come before you, and we thank you so much for this time in your Word. I pray for all of us, Lord, that you would just bless the remainder of our week. Lord, that we would draw near to you, Lord, that you would just provide everything that we have need of pretending to life in Godliness as you have promised in your Word. Lord, we love you so much. We're so grateful for all that you do. And Lord, thank you for saving us, for directing us. And Lord, never giving up on us. What a blessing. And we ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen.