[0:00] We'll turn now to the portion of God's Word that we have read. Prophecy of Isaiah, chapter 43.! And we'll take for this morning verses 1 and 2.
[0:16] ! For now, thus saith the Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel, Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name.
[0:29] You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned.
[0:41] And the flame shall not consume you. Well, truly, these two verses are wonderful verses in the Word of God.
[0:58] And many encouragement for the people who follow the Lord. There are, and time will not allow me, but there are six things in that first verse that I intend to say something about.
[1:13] And to make it the seventh, in verse 2, there's another thing. The first thing is, He created you. He who created you, O Jacob.
[1:28] He has created all things by the word of His power. And He sustains all things by the word of His power.
[1:39] It is in Him that we live and move and have our being. They created you. They created you. He creates, and when we think how bones grow inside the womb of a mother, how these things are, and God is behind it all, creating.
[2:06] But this is particularly to the spiritual Israel. He created them as well. And if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The former things have passed away. Everything has become new.
[2:29] And I think it's in Galatians chapter 6, it tells of the fruit of the Spirit. And there are 17 things that have to go out. But there are nine things that have to come in. The fruit of the Spirit.
[2:50] And they are usually spread in three different groups. The first group is love, joy, and peace. It is like doing a renovation of a house at the hands of God.
[3:10] He does all this. He loves, you find them all of course in Christ, the nine. And it should be only him to be Christ-like in this world.
[3:24] Love. He loved you. He loved you. He loved us. And he went to the cross. And we have to love him as well.
[3:36] And joy, in spite of the fact that he was in the Garden of Gethsemane, and seeing what the Father was placing in his hand, what was in the cup, and sweating there, the sweat was falling like blood onto the ground. Yet, we read in Philippians, for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross. A joy that there would be a number that no man could number to be with him finally in glory and perfect peace.
[4:13] And then he says, who formed you? Now, if we stay at the spiritual Israel, he forms you.
[4:25] And every time I read that, I think of Jeremiah. I think it's Jeremiah 18. And the potter and the clay. That God is the potter, and we are the clay. And as we have sung, he took us out of the mighty clay, set our feet upon our rock, established our way, put a new song in our mouths, a new song that we never had before.
[4:57] Praising God for what he had done for us. And the first thing that the potter, and you can see pottery today just down the road in Paul.
[5:10] The first thing that the potter does with the clay, he puts it on a flat board, and he gets a mallet, and he hits it with the mallet. And the idea for that is to take out any air bubbles that are in.
[5:29] Because if there are air bubbles in, when the vessel that he is going to do, and he's put into the fire, it will break. And the great aim that the potter has for his church upon the earth, is that they will bear the image of Christ.
[5:52] He reshapes them as the great potter. When the potter, even down in the board, when he puts the clay on the wheel, and the wheel is turning round, he is shaping what he is doing.
[6:08] And that is what God is doing daily with his people. Reshaping them and reboulding them, so that they will bear the image of Christ.
[6:21] And then he says, Fear not. Fear not. Well, I don't suppose that there is anyone here who is a Christian that at some time or other had fear.
[6:45] We have three great enemies out there. There is the world.
[6:57] And the world is trying to draw you to himself. And there is Satan trying to draw you back from the way that you are done.
[7:12] I am quite sure that he knows that he won't be successful in that, but he tries to make your witness here upon the earth as awkward as possible.
[7:26] But he won't succeed. And then there is what you find within yourself. The sin that is within us.
[7:38] The sin that so easily besets us. Two people at one time met each other. Two Christians. One asked the other how he was keeping.
[7:55] And he said, I am going about just now with two dogs inside me. And the other asked, And which one of them is winning?
[8:08] And the two dogs were the spirit and the flesh. Which one of them is winning? And his reply was, When I feed the flesh, it is the flesh that is winning.
[8:23] But when I feed the spirit, it is the spirit that is winning. But we thank God he did not send us out to defend ourselves.
[8:38] He keeps us. He keeps our feet from falling. It to him that is able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before his glory with exceeding great joy.
[8:54] That's what he does. Now, some people, they have this fear from time to time that they didn't come in the right way to God.
[9:09] Well, if I'm saying there's a right way, there must be a wrong way. What is the right way?
[9:20] If me and you have come to the feet of Jesus in faith and in repentance and holding on to what he has done on the cross for our behalf, that is the right way.
[9:37] The old people, they used to talk about the old people, they had waistcoats on. There were many buttons in there. And if you began with the wrong button down at the bottom, it would be wrong up.
[9:53] Now, what what is the wrong way? Is there a wrong way that we can come? The wrong way is to come to God and putting in front of him all your goodness.
[10:12] And you must admit me because how good I am, my prayers, my Bible reading, my attendance, all these things are beautiful things, but they will not take us into heaven.
[10:25] The only way is through coming with nothing. We've got nothing. Sin has left us bankrupt before the Holy God.
[10:36] We've got nothing to take to him. And some people fear some people fear death.
[10:53] And who doesn't at times think about especially as you're getting older? fear. We have to meet with death as we met everything else on the way in faith.
[11:06] In faith. And it looks very, I haven't never sat down to try and count how many times this has appeared.
[11:20] Fear not, let not your heart be troubled. how often it appears in the word of God. Even from the lips of the Saviour, even in the New Testament, let not your heart be troubled or be afraid.
[11:38] You believe in God. Believe also in me, in my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. And he was going to prepare a place for them.
[11:57] And he said on another occasion, fear not, little flock. It is the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
[12:11] He's not going to give it to you reluctantly. It is his Father's good pleasure. Fear not, little flock.
[12:23] Now, the next thing that we have here, he has redeemed us. Redeemed us. Well, one of the things about redeemed, whether it is what is meant here or not, it is to buy back work.
[12:50] Where was I? I was with the Father of Seda. I was following Seda. And that's where we were, whether we admitted or not, that was our plight.
[13:04] Doing his will in known to us. So, he has taken you away from there.
[13:15] And only the power of God could do this. The power of God. Why? Because before, we were blind.
[13:29] We were dead spiritually. spiritually. And we were dead, in fact, spiritually. And it is only the power of God that will open the eyes of the blind and then stop the ears of the deaf.
[13:53] I have redeemed you. Now, there was a redeemer, what they called goal in the Old Testament.
[14:08] And that redeemer was pointing ahead to the coming of Christ. And there were two particular things, there were maybe more, but there were two particular things that the redeemer of God's elect, the goal that he was pointing to, pointing to the redeemer of God's elect, that had to be true.
[14:33] And the first one of them was, he had to be a near kinsman of you. Now, how near did Christ come to us, us as his believing people?
[14:53] what he took, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. And we can, as the children of God, come to him and say that he is the elder brother.
[15:11] He is our elder brother, that he is. And part of the work of the goal in the Old Testament also was that if somebody that you were a sort of a near kinsman to, had fallen into any trouble or fallen into debt, he could go in and pay these debts on your behalf.
[15:42] And when you see the connection from that to Christ on the cross, that is exactly what he did.
[15:59] He paid a debt he did not owe. And we owed a debt that we couldn't pay. but he paid these debts himself on the cross.
[16:17] And that is wonderful that God laid on him the iniquity of us all, paid our debts.
[16:31] Now it says, I have called you. I called you. Of course he called us.
[16:45] And we heard him. We heard the voice of God in the scripture. And it is a personal call.
[17:02] And it is a irresistible call. And whatever you do, if you are feeling strivings of the spirit of God, don't resist these strivings, for I did it.
[17:18] And it wasn't to my benefit, but I thank God that he came back. And it is not the God that you called on.
[17:31] No. It is the God that called on you first. first. And it is the God that you loved. No, it is the God that loved you first.
[17:45] And because he loved you first, and you are aware of that, you now love him. And it is not the God that you chose, he chose you before the foundation of the earth.
[18:01] And now you choose him. there are two kinds of calls. There is the universal call of the gospel that goes out today to everyone at yearship throughout the land where Jesus Christ is preached and him crucified.
[18:26] And it is saying this, the universal call, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. But there is another call.
[18:39] And it is called the effectual calling. And what actually happens in effectual calling is that the universal call of the gospel that you are hearing begins to be effectual in your life.
[19:02] You begin to be aware of that. What is it? Well, the first thing that you are conscious of, you are conscious of your lostness, you are conscious of your sin for the first time in your life.
[19:20] That is, there are three things in effect you are calling, and that is one of them, convincing you of your sin and misery.
[19:35] And the second one that happens, he renews your will, he renews your will.
[19:47] What does that mean? it means that the things that were so precious to you and me before, and so sweet to us, he made them sour.
[20:05] Made them sour. You don't want them anymore. And the things that were so sour to you, reading the Bible, praying to God, going to church, he has made them sweet in your life.
[20:21] Wonderful. And only God could do it. Called. And then, the final one of the three.
[20:36] He persuades and enables you to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as he is freely offered to us in the gospel. that is effectual calling.
[20:51] Now, what kind of a people is he calling? Well, I think Christ made that quite plain. He didn't come to call the righteous, those that they thought they were good themselves, but he came to call sinners into repentance.
[21:11] People who were enemies of God. People who were children of wrath like others for many years. And they have been adopted now into the family of God.
[21:33] Taken from the lowest place on God's earth, out of the body clay. What's the highest?
[21:44] To be united to Christ by faith, and you can't get anything higher than that. And we are not being called to be lazy.
[22:00] We are called to be witnesses to him. We are called to be the salt and the light in this evil world. And then the sixth thing here, you are mine.
[22:26] You are mine. Well, isn't that wonderful that God has put this into his word? you are now mine as a believer and as a follower.
[22:44] As I have said before, we belong to Satan. But you don't belong to Satan anymore. You are mine.
[22:55] You won't belong to the grave, even if you closed your eyes in death. You will be united to him, even in the grave, and your soul will be perfect in holiness just immediately pass into glory.
[23:09] You are mine. And he will be with you in going down into the valley of the shadow of death, taking you over to the other side.
[23:25] The sheep of Christ. will be lost. I will give them everlasting life. And none shall perish.
[23:39] Notice that. None shall perish of these sheep. What does it mean to perish? It means that none of these would be thrown into hell at the end.
[23:53] None will perish. And he says then that none is able to pluck them out of the father's hand.
[24:07] They shall be mine. I think Malachi talks about that. They shall be mine in the day that I make up my jewels.
[24:21] And none shall pluck them out of the God. Oh, that doesn't mean that there will be times in the hands of God when we will be rolling this way and that way and backsliding and coming back.
[24:34] But none will, why, why will none of them be lost? Because it's the work of God. And he is not going to turn his back on his own work.
[24:48] They will be mine in the day that I make up my jewels. And then in the second version, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you.
[25:07] If you have not noticed it before, I want to bring before your eyes. It does not say if there will be times in the experience of the people of God when they go through water and when they go through fire.
[25:27] I will move with them. But he says, when? Showing us that there will be times in the experience of the Lord's people upon the earth when they will go through such situations.
[25:41] things. And he says, I will be with you. I will be with you. You know full well that there are in many homes in this island what they call the footprints in the sand.
[26:02] And there is Christ and the Christian and they're walking together. Come into me all ye that labour and I will give your eyes.
[26:15] Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. There they are yoke together going through the wilderness. And all of a sudden the Christian went through difficult situations.
[26:28] And then he saw that there was only one set of footprints. And then the question was where were you? Where were you when I was going through that particular situation?
[26:41] And the answer was these were the times that I carried you. And I am convinced of that that there are times whether we are aware of it or not when he has helped us in dire straits.
[27:02] I will be with you. now if you would ask somebody in the world in Barvers today such and such says that God is with him.
[27:19] He's got a promise that God will be with him. What do you think he will be like? Well he would be able to say that there would be no trials and no tribulations and no pain and no sickness that there would be none of these things.
[27:39] But that is not what God says. In this world you will have these things but be of good cheer I have overcome the world.
[27:53] And one of the best examples I think that we find in the world of God of God being with his people is in Joseph.
[28:09] The ancient patriarchs sold Joseph into Egypt but God was with him. God was with him. He was with him when he was sold.
[28:22] He was with him when he was sold in the marketplace. He was with him when part of his wife said something against him that was right and he was put into prison.
[28:33] He was with him in prison. He was fulfilling what he had said to Joseph as a young boy. In all these steps and you would have thought well God can't be with you but he was with him in all these things.
[28:52] When you go through the fire you shall not be harmed. And what water and what fire does the Lord's people go through?
[29:17] Ah well they are many. They are many. The dealings of God with us at height in providence. Who can understand it?
[29:29] The attacks of the evil one. Fire. And if I give an example of Joseph I I am now going to give an example of the people of God being in an actual fire.
[30:06] There was three people there in the book of Daniel and the role at no time has moved on. the rule was that if they wouldn't bow down before the idol that the king had set up 90 foot high 9 foot wide and when they would hear the sound of the musical instruments they had to bow down before this idol and these three people refused to bow down.
[30:40] They were taken before the king and it was told them again what he had said initially that anybody that wouldn't bow down they were going to be thrown into the fire. Got the strongest people in the army tied their hands tied their feet made the oven seven times hotter than it was before everything against these three people but God was with them and it was so hot that the people that were throwing them into the fire they dropped down dead because of the heat but the king looked and he was astonished at what he saw it wasn't three people there was four!
[31:31] and they weren't being burned and in fact when they came out of the fire not even the smell of smoke of them what was going on here who was this fourth person well if I remember rightly it said likened to the son of man the king said Shatrak Abed Meshach and Abed Mekor that was the name of them come out come out but he didn't say anything to the other one in fact the other one had authority over him and I believe and you can have your own view but I believe that that was an appearance of
[32:34] Christ before he took a human form and there are quite a few of them in the Old Testament what they call theophamies God but it must have been wonderful there is an example of God being with them in the fire and in the water amen and may the Lord bless to us these few thoughts on his holy word let us pray oh gracious and eternal God we thank thee for thy goodness we thank thee for thy help over thy word and we are able to say in thy presence hitherto the Lord has helped us we thank thee that thou art the God that gives strength to people that are weak those that wait upon the
[33:39] Lord they shall renew their strength and mount upon wings as eagles and run and not be weary and walk and not faint bless thy word to us here and was preached and bless thy word wherever it was preached on this day and all these things we ask for in his name but for his sake!
[33:59] Christ's sake! Amen! Our final singing is in Psalm 121 Scottish Psalter Psalm 121 I to the hill will lift mine eyes from whence doth come my aid my safety cometh from the Lord who heaven heaven and earth has made thy foot he not let slide nor will his slumber that he keeps behold he that keeps his slumber shnt nor sleeps we'll sing the whole Psalms in closing I to the hills will lift mine eyes from west leader his my leader my leader take come through his leader
[35:26] Farewell, his humble handly keeps. Behold, he that keeps Israel, his clamber's short nor sleeps.
[35:51] The Lord he keeps, the Lord thy shade, on a white and a day.
[36:11] The air by nightly shall not hide, nor yet the sun by day.
[36:28] The Lord shall keep thy soul, he shall bliss have thee from all hell.
[36:45] As for thy calling out and in, God keep forever well.
[37:03] Let us throw near to God in prayer. O gracious and eternal God, we thank thee for thy goodness, and we pray for the world that we are on.
[37:16] Where there are wars, we pray that there would be peace in our time. And as we now part one from another, we pray that thou would not part with us, that thou would bind us together with the cords of love that cannot be broken.
[37:35] Bind us together in Christ. For Christ's sake, amen. I pray for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word for this word