Address—Don Rule
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We'll begin this afternoon's meeting by singing together #4.
Ere God had built the mountains or raised the fruitful hills.
Before he filled the fountains that feed the running rills.
In thee from everlasting the wonderful I am found. Pleasures never wasting, And wisdom is thy name #4 Could someone start it please?
Ere God has built.
Over hills.
Before.
Our own dangerous.
Yeah.
God's blessing.
Our God, we ask for thy blessing and making the Word, Thy Word good to our souls each one this afternoon.
We ask that thy own thine own majesty and the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ might shine.
Brightly through the Word into our souls, and that we may receive our Father, the benefit, the thoudest purpose for us each one this afternoon.
And so we ask in the blessed and worthy name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
We'll begin this afternoon by reading in Job.
Chapter 12.
Most of us were here yesterday.
And our time together over the word in the afternoon was.
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Concerned with the subject of comfort.
And this afternoon it's on my heart before the Lord to continue with that subject. I know we'll be continuing with it, the Lord willing, in the afternoon Bible reading.
I'd like to, I trust bring before you the root.
Basis of God's comfort.
Perhaps in a way that we sometimes don't think about it, but I believe if we're able to listen, we can see God's way bringing comfort to the soul.
And I'd like to begin here with Job as an example of a man whose friends could not bring comfort to him. We're not able to, even though they wanted to. They were friends. And also that Job himself could not find comfort. And he ends this little part of his book with a question that I think illustrates why Job could not find comfort for himself at that time that you and I can have today that he could not have then.
Since we're not going to look at the whole book of Job in any sense, and most of us know the story of Job, this is a part of Job having conversation with his friends who are there seeking to be a comfort to Job in his trial. And one of them is just finished speaking so far. And now Job is giving what I suppose we would call a rebuttal to what has been said to him.
And in this particular case, Zofar has presented to Job some things, and the foundation on which he has presented them is wisdom and age. And he's sort of saying, Job, you ought to listen to me, to us, because we have wisdom. We're old. And Job is now answering them. So chapter 12, verse one, we'll read just a little bit. Job answered and said.
No doubt, but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.
He's a little sarcastic, but then he goes on and he says but I have understanding as well as you.
I'm not inferior to you. Yeah, Who knoweth not such things as these?
So he's not comforted by what they say because he says, I know that too. And sometimes in the subject of comfort, we say that we're in a trial, we're in a situation where we feel the need of comfort and someone says something to us and we respond. I know that.
And you're not telling me anything I don't know. And we don't derive any particular comfort from what that person is saying. Then Joe goes on to say verse four, I am one mocked as one mocked of his neighbor who calleth upon God, and he answereth him.
The just upright man, me Joe, his laugh to scorn, he that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease at verse is not immediately obvious what I believe God means by it, or Job meant by it. But Job is saying you know the person that circumstances are OK for them. Like you three friends of mine.
You're at ease and you look at somebody like me whose feet are about to slip and have into trial.
And you don't appreciate it. You look at it and you say, well, you know, if Job had only done this or if Job had only done that, he wouldn't have had the problem.
It says, you know, like the lamp that shines, you wouldn't have fallen if you had just taken a lamp job for your feet and followed wisdom slam. Everything would have been all right for you and.
When our thoughts go in that direction, we in some sense disqualify ourselves from having a Capacity to be a help to somebody else.
So then Job goes on. He says the tabernacles of robbers prosper and they that provoke God are secure into whose hand God bringeth abundantly. Job looks around and he says, here's me. Why is it happening to me? I'm an upright person. I do right. And look at that, that man that's got a he's a robber just essentially in his business and he prospers and here's me and I, I get into this terrible state of sadness.
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Trial and in his heart he's saying I think it's not fair so then he goes on and we I this is just by way of introduction so I don't want to spend too much time in this chapter but.
Then he goes on and he says.
Verse nine who knoweth not in all these things that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this. Now Job says God's hands in these things. I know it, you know it. Somehow, someway, God's got his hand in, I'm going to say the trial of my life. And he says.
Verse 13 With him, with God, his wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding.
Now verse 14, behold, he breaketh down and it cannot be built up. He shutteth up a man and there is no opening. God's got all control and when he does something, what can man do? It's going to happen. And so he's somewhat turning away from his friends here and he's saying it's not you really, it's God that has this matter. And then he says verse 15, use a little present day analogy.
Behold, he holdeth the waters like he did in Northern Illinois this summer, so that there was number rain.
And they dry up.
He also sendeth them out.
To Baton Rouge, LA, and Biloxi, Ms. and elsewhere, and they overflow the earth.
That is, God does things and man looks at it and says, well, someone told me the other day in connection with insurance companies and what's happened down South. He says, you know, they call it an act of God and in truth it is such things are an act of God.
With him his strength and wisdom.
The deceived and the deceiver are his, and so on. Well, Job goes on quite at length here, talking about wisdom and God and his hand in the circumstances of life. He gets down into the 13th chapter and the 15th verse, and he says, though He slay me, yet will I trust in him, but I will maintain my own ways before him.
For quite a few more chapters, Job takes this position. I'm upright. I'm righteous.
No matter what God does to me, I'm not going to give up that righteousness which I have. And in fact, I'm not going to look at man in it. At least I'm going to look away from man and I will trust in God. If there's going to be any deliverance for me, if there's going to be any comfort for me, then I'm not going to find it in man. I'm going to find it in God.
Chapter 14. Verse One man that is born of a woman is a few days and full of trouble, becomet forth like a flower, and is cut down a filth also as a shadow, and continueth not. He turns to the brevity of man's life. Verse five. Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee. Thou hast appointed the bounds that he cannot pass. God has control of life, and the length of it, and the circumstances of it, and Job's recognizing this fact, although he doesn't particularly find any comfort in it.
Nor do you or I.
And then he says.
Verse 13 Oh, that he would hide me in the grave, that he would keep me secret until thy wrath be passed, that thou wittest appoint me a set time and Remember Me. This is something we'll see several times if we have the time. How a person in such circumstances says.
Either God's forgotten me.
He doesn't see me anymore. He's lost track of my suffering and my life.
Or sometimes it's such that man gets to a state where he says, I wish God would leave me alone.
And forget about me and things that probably be better than they are.
Then he raises this question, and this is part of the point of going here, verse 14.
If a man die, shall he live again?
If a man die.
Shall he live again?
I know elsewhere in Job it says. I know that in my flesh I shall see God.
Job is a person who had like a little Flash of lightning and he could see beyond for a moment, but he didn't have any teaching from God.
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And consequently it, it was dark again and in the same book. And you know, that takes place over a period of a few months. At times he he sees and at other times he doesn't. He, he goes from one side to the other. It's a little bit like John the Baptist who looked at the Lord Jesus and John one and he said, behold, the Lamb of God. But a little bit later in the trials of his own life, he said he wasn't so sure. He lost a little bit of the assurance that Jesus was really who he thought he was or.
God had revealed him to be and he said, Art thou he, or do we look for another?
And job here is a little bit in the dark side of things. And he says if a man die, shall he live again?
Joe couldn't really see beyond the grave.
And if you don't see beyond the grave in your trial, if you have one.
If you can't get beyond that the present, you will not find the comfort that God wants for your soul.
You need.
To have answered in your soul with firmness.
But you know, doctrinally, I'm sure, but in the conscious sense, at the moment, in the soul, to get beyond a trial, to get comfort from God, you have to see, as Job could not. If a man die, shall he live Again? I want to illustrate this now in the life of the Lord Jesus.
We know with respect to man and turn with me to Hebrews chapter one.
In Hebrews, the Lord Jesus in his life it says, and we read it often and with profit to our souls. He says he looked for comforters and he found none.
That's true among men.
He found none.
But with God, he found a comforter.
And He brings before us a comfort that is available to us.
That will sustain the soul in any trial that it may ever pass through in this life.
In Hebrews chapter one.
We read these words in verse.
10 Hebrews one and 10.
And thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth.
And the heavens are the work of thine hands.
They shall perish.
But thou remainest, and they shall all wax old, as doth a garment.
And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed, but thou art the same.
And thy years shall not fail.
The desire of my heart that if you only remember 2 words.
In this hour you remember these two words. Thou remainest.
Thou remainest, perhaps, at the moment. Why desire that you remember them isn't yet revealed, I suppose, but thou remainest.
And we find here it says he also says thou art the same.
Thou art the same.
To me, these words really are the key.
Through the foundation of comfort to the soul with God.
To see that in the life of the Lord Jesus, let's turn back to the Old Testament, to the 102nd Psalm, and we will see how God comforts His Son the Lord Jesus as a man here on earth in the greatest difficult circumstance or trial that is a man has ever had.
You're going to have to read most of this. We won't comment on very much of it, but Psalm 102 verse, the heading of the Psalm is inspired. We're going to start there.
A prayer of the afflicted when he is overwhelmed. Ever been there? Listen to this prayer. A prayer of the afflicted when he is overwhelmed. And I believe it is in some aspects. While we may apply it to others, it is in some ways can only be applied perfectly to the Lord Jesus.
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A prayer of the afflicted when he is overwhelmed and poured out his complaint before the Lord.
Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto Thee.
Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble.
Incline thine ear unto me do you hear those words, Incline?
I near unto me last night those words were used.
In God appealing to you if you're in this audience, a Sinner and your sins, God saying listen.
I want to say something to you here. It's the Lord Jesus saying the same words to God. God, listen.
They incline your ear to me. I have something to say to you, Was he heard?
Incline thine ear unto me in the day when I call, answer me speedily, For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth. My heart is smitten and withered like grass, so that I forget to eat my bread.
By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin.
I'm like a Pelican in the wilderness. I am like an owl of the desert. I watch and him as a Sparrow alone upon the housetop.
Mine enemies reproach me all the day, and they that are mad against me are sworn against me.
I have eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping.
Because of thine Indian nation and thy wrath. For thou hast lifted me up and cast me down.
My days are like a shadow that declineth, and I'm withered like grass. But thou, O Lord, shalt endure forever, and thy remembrance unto all generations.
They shall arise and have mercy upon Zion for the time to favor her. Yeah, the set time has come.
In order not to take too much time, verse 17, he will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.
This shall be written for the generations to come, that the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord.
For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary from heaven did the Lord behold the earth to hear the groaning of the prisoner, to loose those that are appointed for death.
To declare the name of the Lord in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem when the people are gathered together in the kingdoms to serve the Lord.
He weakened my strength in the way.
He shortened my days.
I said Oh my God.
Take me not away in the midst of my days.
These are the last words of the Lord Jesus here.
Take me not away in the midst of my days.
Suppose you were to comfort the Lord Jesus at this point. Suppose you had the opportunity or the privilege.
Outside the circumstances that the others were in that were not able to be comforters to the Lord. And you came, and He had said these words take me not away in the midst of my days. What would you answer this perfect man?
To give him comfort.
Notice well, brethren, fellow creatures.
God's answer.
In the King James, it's not obvious. If you have Mr. Darby's translation, you'll notice at this point in this verse, there's three little dots.
Those little dots indicate that there's a pause here.
And there's a change of speaker.
And now the Lord answers him.
And he gives this answer to his request.
Thy years speaking to the Lord Jesus, he says to him, Thy years are throughout all generations.
Of old. This is the quotation in Hebrews One of old Thou hast laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens, or the work of thy hands.
They shall perish, but thou shalt endure.
They also remain. Thou shalt continue.
Yeah, all of them shall wax old as a garment, as a vesture. Shalt thou change them?
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And they shall be changed.
But thou art the same.
And thy ears shall have no end.
A little difficult for me to try to explain this, but.
It's a tremendous blessing if the Lord helps you get ahold of it, if you haven't already.
God.
Is a God who is unchanging.
God exists outside of time.
If we have time, we'll look at it Isaiah 57 and it says he inhabits eternity.
God inhabits a sphere of things.
He lives in. He is in.
Things over which time has no claim.
And what is always connected with time is change time itself. I remember reading one time an article on issue of National Geographic devoted to the one subject. The title of the issue was Time and all the articles were on the one thing.
And when it was all done, it was very obvious man had no clue what time was.
Not easy to define.
You try to define time.
You go to the dictionary.
It will say something like this time.
Is a sequence of events that means anything to you find.
You look at it, this thing measures the sequence of events as far as passage of something, but it doesn't really convey to the soul.
And realities of what time really is. But time is a place, a sphere where nothing stays the same.
Everyone of us inhabit time right now God inhabits eternity and with connected with time is constant change and many times in trial we're looking to God to change something that we think we need or we do need in some way to have what we call comfort.
And God, to give comfort, directs the thought of the heart.
Outside of that sphere of things to a world or a place.
Permanence or nothing changes.
And where all is according to the character of God himself.
Comfort often comes to the soul as it enters into the sense of the character of what God is.
His heart.
Is love is holiness. Holiness gives comfort too.
The minute, the mind, the heart, the thoughts are right here and now in a sphere where everything has to change in order, can I say to comfort? Oftentimes, there isn't comfort.
Small little example.
What I'm trying to say in that regard?
I go a couple of times a week to a detention center of young people.
And very often they'll ask you to pray for them.
And there's one prayer that they ask for 10 times as often as any other prayer.
And it goes something like this.
Monday night of this week talking to a boy and he said will you pray for me?
I can almost tell him what he's going to ask.
He says.
I'm going to see the judge on Tuesday.
Would you pray for me that I'll get out of here?
Comfort to him.
Was getting out of there.
I'll stop here, lest I forget to say it a lot of times later, because maybe you're not in jail and that way.
But I'll say this about comfort and a lack of it sometimes.
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Often our desire to have comfort.
It is to satisfy something in us that is not according to God's character.
And God will not grant it.
Or if he does grant it, it won't bring comfort in the long term.
Bring sorrow.
What do I mean by that statement?
Sometimes you ask the boy the question, well, do you want to get out so you can continue your life as it was before the life that brought you in here?
In other words, do you? Are you asking something of God to give it to you?
So that you're relieved of the very thing.
That you brought yourself into.
And yet the basis of your anticipated comfort from God doesn't deal with what God's hand was on you in the first place.
Try to confirm it as time allows. But one of the biggest root difficulties that hinders us from and ourselves having comfort is pride.
And sometimes my desire for comfort in something is to satisfy my sorrow. That or the bruising of my pride. And if I get that problem taken care of, what does the end result for me? My pride's restored.
To the state it was in before I lost that thing.
And consequently, we'll see that often in Scripture comfort.
From God is connected with humility.
God gives us comfort to the humble.
But the Lord Jesus here in this chapter had no.
Pride was the most humble of all men.
But he was in a great trial in his life and I want to say at this point too, he wasn't discouraged.
That is discouragement is is that in us that where we lose our courage and we say what's the use and we might be inclined to give up and not go forward in our lives with God.
Lord Jesus never ever went there.
So this is not a Psalm of discouragement, really.
But it is one in which the pressure of the trial on the heart of the Lord Jesus was that which He was asking for comfort from His God.
And when he gets the measure, what he asks for, God brings before him the eternity, the sameness of his own person.
Now that answer won't be directly to us. Our answer will be in God himself and in the Lord Jesus.
And this requires a little more explanation in this way.
In the first creation.
Everything is connected with time. In the beginning, God created and since that time there's been seed time and harvest in it. The creation goes on and it's getting older and older and older. And God says, as he said to him here, it's it's going to have its end. It's going to wear out. God will have served the purpose of it and it will finish and it will be no more.
This creation of which we belong.
And if our hearts are taken up unnecessarily with anything that you can see that you can put your eye on, if your heart is wrapped up in that, you're ripe for sorrow.
Guarantee.
Because the heart is taken up with something that will not last. And like Job, he had it good.
Job had a nice family job. He was a rich man. He had the honor of his neighbors. He had a good. But he gives us a little insight and we're not going to spend time on Joe, but he gives us a little insight on to what he was thinking because he says.
That which I feared came upon me.
In other words.
He had everything, but there was still something in him that said I might lose it. And he was afraid that God might withdraw his protective hand over him and he might lose it. I don't know him.
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Any real sense of the word, But I can almost guarantee you without knowing the man, that Bill Gates, the richest man in the United States, and perhaps the world, has that fear.
It's natural to man.
What if?
Somebody takes my company away.
Or my family or something. And so the stability, the security that man has, he's not sure he can keep. And it leaves him at least deep down inside, somewhere afraid that it might be gone. And then he thinks my happiness depends on it. How can I get it back if I don't get it back, I.
I can't be comforted.
You can't give me back. Can you give me back what I lost?
The Lord Jesus.
Had something and God brings it before him, that could not, would not change.
God who exists in eternity.
Associates, our hearts, our thoughts and everything with that realm of things which cannot, will not ever change, and in the measure in which my heart is in that sphere of things.
I will always find comfort.
Regardless of what it is.
I want to go back a little example that just comes to my mind of that.
For many years when I was younger.
I used to think this way.
What about somebody I love in this life?
What if they die in their sins?
How can I ever be happy in heaven if they're not there?
That used to trouble me quite a bit.
And I thank God.
Think a brother that may be associated with the first Kentucky conference? I don't know. Least of the modern era. Brother Paul Javiden answered that question for my soul at a Wheaton conference many years ago.
This way, he said. You know when we get to heaven.
We'll all have the sense.
That the family of God.
Is complete.
There isn't going to be a soul missing in God's family.
That will not be there.
Tremendous answer to my soul.
Gave comfort to myself.
When my perspective is heavenly and final, there won't be anybody missing.
I belong to natural families here on earth, and so do you.
And those families get separated by death, everyone of them.
But God is forming a family that will exist outside of time.
Will endure for eternity.
And in that sphere it is going to be perfect.
And complete.
Every circumstance of your life and mine that is in this present scene of things.
Will have an answer in the character of God to accomplish his purposes.
For that time when time shall be no more.
God has purposes in all that He allows in our lives.
That will make eternity richer to our souls.
And he is going to accomplish that purpose.
His purposes are from eternity. They started in eternity and they end in eternity. And time is only the sphere in which He accomplishes certain things that are going to satisfy His own heart in that day to come. And if my soul rests in that fact, I find comfort.
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But if I struggle to sometimes understand or change or overcome in my own efforts and energy instead of what is another thing that's often associated with comfort and we read it stand still.
Stand still.
That is, let God work. Let God have the last say for us to stand still.
And God will accomplish the purposes that He has in eternity.
Now.
In connection with the original creation of the Earth, the first creation, the first Adam, it says all die. That's the end of it. Everything in it's going to die.
And it's, it's for time. The first creation is just for time. And it's going to have its course and it's going to be done in there. It's gone. And everything associated with it is gone. Everything.
That's only connected with the first creation as far as before the eye and the work of God is going to be done.
That's why it says as to souls, I cannot comprehend. I was thinking about this afternoon. I can't comprehend how awful.
It is to die in your sins.
Because you will never enter into the second the last creation.
You die a second death.
Or you suffer a second death. You'll be conscious forever.
But you'll be conscious forever and a creation which God is done with, or a state of things at least that God is finished with, and you will have no ever.
Connection with love or.
Light.
And yet you will still exist in that state of.
Flesh in which sin rules the desires of sin cannot be satisfied. It's an awful thing.
Russell to.
Die in their sins.
But for us?
As was read.
Or some forget it was in prayer this morning, the breaking of bread.
This part of this verse was quoted. Hath brought life and immortality to light.
Through the gospel. That's what Job didn't have, that's what Job couldn't see, and that's what changes.
Perspective of a soul.
This is life eternal. What's the definition of it? That they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
We get to know our God outside of time and outside of things of the first creation, and that's what's really, really life for us to enter into that which is eternal, to leave that which is connected with time.
That's what it is to know God. His heart is who he is. That's life eternal. It isn't the idea of just living on when Martha was at the grave or at the time Lazarus, her brother died and the Lord says, do you believe? And she said, well, yes, Lord, I believe that there will be a resurrection in the last day. She wasn't thinking about life eternal as the Lord Jesus, as God has now revealed it. She was thinking, I get people are going to live again in time.
Connected with the things of Earth.
And that's true. So that's as far as her understanding went.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us that God of eternity might reveal Himself to us, that we might come by new birth to have eternal life, that God would take us out of a creation of time into that which is eternal with Himself.
And the last one of the last acts of God is in Revelation 21. He shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. That is the last thing that would bring. Sorrow is only connected with this creation. And when God brings us fully and forever in every respect into that which is eternal, won't be any more tears, won't be any more sorrow. That's connected with time and change.
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We say, why do I have a trial now?
If you didn't have a trial, now there are things in eternity you could never know about your God.
There are many things you would never know about God.
If you didn't pass through time.
If you were created and as a creature and simply brought into eternity, you would never know.
That God is a God of comfort.
Because you've never experienced anything that would bring forth discomfort to your soul.
Do you know something of compassion? You'd never know it if you didn't have this life.
You can make a list and it can go on and on. The things that are valuable to your soul and the circumstances of your present life that would be lost to you if God, in his perfect wisdom and way, didn't do things the way God does things.
But hear the Lord Jesus.
He says he weakened my strength in the day, shortened my days. Oh my God, take me not away the midst of my days, but what does God give him comfort in?
You're from eternity.
From eternity.
You're in that sphere of things that will never change and.
Don't worry as it were passing out of time.
Out of this life.
Or dying as a young man.
Well, we better go on. We're going to cover any more points. Let's turn over to Isaiah.
Chapter 40.
Isaiah chapter 40.
Verse one Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
Verse 8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever.
Verse 26 Lift up your eyes on high and behold, he who created these things.
That bringeth out their host by number. He calleth them by names, by the greatness of His might. For he that is strong in power not one faileth. What sayest thou Jacob, and speakest thou Israel? My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God. Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fadeth not, fainteth not, neither is weary. There is no searching of His understanding.
He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increases the strength. Even the use shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fail. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They that shall mount up with wings as Eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.
All these words were given to an earthly people without the light of the knowledge of eternity that we have, without the light of immortality revealed to them. But still they give the principle. And now we can go back to them within the in the light of what we know and apply them as God would have us. And so he says, verse 40 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. Now he's going to give comfort to these people in the circumstances in which they were.
And as is often the case in such situations, verse 7, the grass wither at the Fowler faded. That is the feeling, you know, everything is going burn up. Everything is where is it going to end? There's there's just nothing left.
Things keep going as they are, then in a little while there'll be nothing left. That's how they kind of felt. And he's here to encompass, comfort them with his strength and his arm. But then they said.
And verse 27 my way is hid from the Lord.
And my judgment is passed over from my God. It's as if they hear some things, but there's kind of like.
God isn't listening. She doesn't see.
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He doesn't care. It seems like he he's not doing anything. If he really cared about me, he'd be doing something. I need something done to take care of this situation.
And without it, it just seems like God isn't.
God isn't doing anything for me.
What's God say?
Hast thou not known? Is his answer.
Hast thou not heard at the everlasting God? The Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary. There is no searching of His understanding.
The God who is the same from eternity to eternity, Does he forget? Does he not see?
Time is just a little thing in the middle. Is that where it's not really that I don't know how to extrude it, but he's, he reassures us and he said I'm the God of eternity. I don't forget. I do have understanding. You don't.
I can act in ways for your good that you can't understand, but still, it's for your good and I just ask you to trust me.
He giveth power, He increases strength to endure.
In Two Corinthians.
We use in the King James is the God of comfort and Mr. Abby's translation is the God of endurance. He knows how to give us the endurance to get to the end of it without even taking it away, if that's according to his ways of good and blessing for us. But in my with the energy of youth, even youth faint, young men faulty, they can't handle it. No matter what strength we have in nature, it's not going to be good enough.
But what is it He says, they that wait upon the Lord?
That's something about time that's hard waiting.
I was ready for this meeting to start my soul at 1:30 and it didn't start till 2:00.
And it was hard to wait. I sat in my seat for two minutes and half watched my watch. I don't know if anybody else experiences that or not, but it's just the fact that even little bits of time, when we're ready, can I say we're ready to go? Why isn't God?
We want to have it now and one of the things that if we see eternity.
If we respect the God who working from that perspective, then he says wait and we wait. We wait whether or not, but we can wait with comfort if we wait with him.
Verse 41, he goes on and we'll just notice a.
Verse 10 Fear thou not, for I am with thee. Be not displayed. I am thy God. I will strengthen thee. I will help thee.
You don't have time to turn to it, but if you go over to Hebrews 13, what's the context?
Of the statement.
The same yesterday and today and forever.
It's a statement of his eternal being and his unchangeableness. But if you go back to chapter 13, he says, I'll provide.
I'll provide, and here he says, I'll provide. I'll be with you. The God who inhabits eternity says I'll be with you.
And if we're there with him, we find comfort.
As long as our will isn't at work. As long as we're not wanting something that ministers to our flesh.
He was a man, our Lord Jesus, who had no will of his own.
Consequently, he was found comfort.
In the greatest, most difficult circumstance through which any person ever passed.
Isaiah 57.
Verse 15. For thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place with him also, that is, of a contrite and humble spirit.
To revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
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I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wroth, for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made for the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and I smote him, and I hid me, and was wroth, And he went on forwardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and I will heal him. I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners.
I create the fruit of the lips. Hebrews 13 by Him. Therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of our lips.
Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord. And I will heal him.
But the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God the wicked.
The God who inhabits eternity.
Promises His presence in the present circumstances of time, to the soul, that is.
Contrite and humble.
And if we lack comfort in our souls, sometimes we may need to be in the presence of the Lord.
That we might be humbled, That we might let him humble us and make us contrite. That's where Job went.
And he found, in the end, the comfort of God.
But Even so, and to me this is a comfort.
He says Iowa verse 16. I will not contend forever.
Suppose I'm not contrite and humble.
I'm not going to find the present comfort from God, but God's eternal purpose is concerning me are going to go right on and he's going to have the last word for my blessing. He's going to go right on and accomplish. He says I won't be forever. It's not eternal matter. It's it's it's something I'm working out in time. I won't contend forever. I won't always be Roth.
He said if I was the soul, the spirit of man would fail him.
You couldn't handle it if I stayed angry.
Without an end.
He said the covetous I was angry with. I was wroth with the covetous.
He went forward in the forwardness, the willfulness of his own heart to have money or have things that he wanted for himself for this life that I didn't have for him.
But what does he say? I've seen the end. I will heal him.
Oh, brethren, we can have confidence in God and we see somebody going on in forwardness or willfulness. It's always easy to I can see it easier in you than I can in myself. You can see in me better than I can see in myself.
But whatever while I may not enjoy the comfort of it, God still inhabits eternity and still has a purpose. And He will see that His purpose is it. Well, it still has a length, and it still will accomplish, and He will create the fruit of the lips, even praise unto our God.
And in the end, whatever it takes on God's part, He is going to tune you up.
To sing his praise for eternity.
What a comfort.
You can find comfort in God, even if there's a sense of, well, I don't measure up, that God will have the last word and create the fruit of the lips.
The only serious warning to anybody in this room is if you're wicked. That is, if you don't have a relationship with God. You're like the troubled sea that casts up mire and dirt, and there's never going to be peace for you. You'll go into eternity without peace.
And be thirsty forever. Don't be like that. Is there anyone here that still in your sins?
Don't go into eternity thirsty.
Needing comfort, that man. And Luke, he wanted comfort. He wanted a drop of water for his lips and he didn't get it. He never will. There was no comfort for him.
And there is no comfort. The wicked are like the troubled sea. There's no peace, saith my God.
To the wicked, time is up. Let's pray.
Our God and our Father.
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We thank Thee for sending thy Son, the Lord Jesus, into time.
That we might be taken out of it.
To inhabit with the eternity.
To be part of a creation.
A perfect and eternal peace and happiness for thee.
We know, our God, that in the present state of things thy heart grieves.
So we look forward to that day when my heart will be satisfied and the results of the work of our Lord Jesus.
And we thank the Lord Jesus that.
The one thing that.
Will remind us.
The present state of time, the only thing we believe, Lord Jesus, that will ever see an eternity to remind us physically of it.
Is the marks in my hands.
My feet.
Of the sin.
That was in this world. We thank thee too. We shall fly over sea in thy side, the marks of that spear.
Brought forth.
The blood.
Of redemption.
We thank the Lord Jesus and Thy precious name, Amen.