Isaiah, Chapter 4

Good morning. We're proceeding through the book of Isaiah here. It's a different kind of adventure, isn't it, than some of the books we've looked at in weeks and months and years past. But still, there are just marvelous truths that are brought forth, and that's just really a neat thing. Because the passage here is only taken from a chapter where there are six verses, we'll be doing five of those verses. We won't spend a lot of time summarizing. other than to say that the first verse of chapter 4 really belongs with chapter 3. It is a verse that summarizes kind of the final response of the women of Judah. So it ties into that. What we'll do is we'll look at these verses from 2 through 6 and split them in two as we do from time to time in order to take it in smaller bites.

We want to start by asking the question, what language do Hebrew prophets speak? It's kind of like, what language do English authors write in, right? But there's a reason for doing that. As we go through our study of Isaiah, we've looked at things like this Hebrew poetry pattern.

One of the things that comes out is that they use phrases in common. If you look at Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Zechariah, and you look through the Hebrew prophets, we find that certainly each of them has a unique character, but they also tend to use phrases in common. They speak with similar words. And that's worth noting because then we kind of catch on to how they talk. Have you ever had that experience where you've listened to somebody and you kind of get a sense of, oh, that's the way they speak, that's the jargon that they use, the phrase, the clichés even.

One of the things that we'll run into, we'll see it in this passage today, we'll see it again as we go through, is that day or the day, speaking of some future time, says the Lord God. It's communicating These are not just Isaiah's ideas or Jeremiah's ideas, but these are in fact things that the Lord is communicating through these people. The day of the Lord, speaking basically of that future time that includes everything from the tribulation to the end of the millennium. It is a sweeping phrase about a coming day.

Sometimes it's characterized in ways that are frightful, other times it is characterized as profoundly hopeful, but you'll see both. We'll see other phrases and point them out as we go through. They also use lots of Hebrew poetry patterns. So, let's take a look at the first few verses here, verses 2 through 4. And what do you know? Here's that word pair that comes up in that day.

That day is pointing to a future time as we see the phrase. In order to say what part of the future are we talking about, we look at what's described. So that although we know it's a future time, we don't know which future time until we look at What does it say in it?

Is it a time of difficulty? Is it a time of judgment? Or is it a time of hope? Is it a time to look forward to? Is it a time of promise? That day is used as a future time, but in this particular instance it refers to the tribulation, or the end of it, in the millennium.

That is, there's a period of time when the world, the entire world, will go through seven years of great trauma. being the Lord's judgment upon the earth, and then follows that, the coming of the Lord, and what we call the millennium, the thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth. That day is sometimes used in passages that we're going to see as we proceed through Isaiah, chapter 11, verse 10, 12, 1 through 6.

We'll see those, obviously, in just weeks to come. It refers to a time in those passages and others that we'll see when Christ will reign over Israel and over the whole earth from Jerusalem. Right now, certainly, Jerusalem makes the news. That will be the time when Jerusalem makes the news. It doesn't just make the newspaper. It'll be a time when what is happening will be what the Lord determines from Israel.

Now, then there's this phrase that comes up, the branch of the Lord. Now, you may feel like you're a branch of the Lord. But he's got a particular term here. It refers to the reigning Lord Jesus Christ, the one in whom we are as believers, the reigning Lord Jesus Christ as the descendant of David. That's a connection that's made very clearly as we go through passages of scripture. It is Christ the descendant of David reigning over Israel and the entire earth from Jerusalem. It is a fulfillment of the promises to David. That is why we see the Son of David, or the continued reference to David.

I'll show you some passages here in a minute. David was told, there will be a descendant from you who will reign over the earth. And the Old Testament from that point on continues to point to it. And, say a New Testament reference there, Luke 1, 26-33.

Imagine, here's Mary being told she is going to be the one, a descendant of David, who would bear the Lord, the promised Messiah, about a thousand years after David had been promised. The use of the term branch here is to mean the Messiah. It's the future reigning descendant of David.

It's also found in Isaiah 11, as we'll see when we get there and study it, in Jeremiah and Zechariah. It is used in several different passages. In each case, it's clear this is the Messiah, just like we see in this passage here. So it's confirmation that we've got the right understanding.

One of the things that we notice too, and this is one of those passages, the Old Testament was written at a time when people were largely agricultural. We're at a place now in our culture where people who make their living by agriculture is a small percentage of the population. In those days, it was something closer to 90%. It was only a small percentage of people who were scribes, a small percentage of people who were involved in blacksmithing, a small percentage of people who were involved in commercially making things. Most people were involved in agriculture, and even if you were not involved in agriculture, there was so much of it around that everyone could relate to it and understand it.

So he draws from these agricultural words frequently. We see in Isaiah 11-1, then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse and a branch from his roots will bear fruit." Continuing references to agriculture, Jeremiah 23.5, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David, here's a reference to David, and by the way, Jesse is the father of David, right? When I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he will reign as king and act wisely. This is this coming time of the millennium, the time when Christ, the descendant of David, will reign. Then it says, it'll be beautiful and glorious, this branch of the Lord. This Hebrew carries the idea in a lot of our English translations, it's this and this. You could combine those, dazzling beauty, glorious beauty, conveys a similar idea. So what does this glorious beauty mean? It is not a beauty that's just superficial.

Our culture is really into, what does it look like? And frankly, that's the way a lot of the people during the time of Isaiah were becoming. They were beginning to ask the question more, what does it look like? And our culture is very much into that. We'll show someone on the front cover of a magazine after they've had the airbrushing, after the scars have been removed, after they've kind of fogged out some of the blemishes. are very much addressed in terms of what do they look like.

That's a beauty, of course, that only goes skin deep. One of the things that he's pointing to here, this is a basic beauty. It is a beauty that is intrinsic. It's a beauty that's a fundamental character. It's a glorious beauty that is basic to who the Lord Jesus Christ is now and will be as he comes again. It's a glory that not only has infinite depth, but has infinite extent of time.

We were looking this morning, in the apologetics elective, at Christ's claims to deity. And one of His claims, He says, as we pointed out here, He says, Ego eimi. He says, I am the one who lives in the eternal present. I am the one who is self-existent. The existence of the Lord doesn't start at some point in the past. but is from eternity past into eternity future.

It is a beauty that extends through all time and beyond time. Glory, as we saw when we studied the book of Revelation a few years back, is the radiant essence of who He is. It is not just a glory that sort of attaches to Him. It's not a glory that just sort of is around Him. from who He is. He is glorious to the very depths of His being.

A glorious beauty. People, when they see the reigning Messiah, will be in awe. They will say, wow. And not just once. And not just for a little bit. They will be in awe, even to the point where they will, as we saw before, they will come to a Jew and they will say, Take us to Him. We've got to see Him.

This is amazing. It is, as we mentioned in our study of Ephesians in chapter 3, it is a fulfillment of His eternal purpose. That glorious beauty, that dazzling beauty is fulfilled in the declaring and sharing of His glory and glorifying Him. Now, God's eternal purpose is fulfilled in multiple ways. We'll look at three, particularly this morning.

Israel was the human source of Jesus Christ. Obviously, Mary was the instrument that the Lord chose. The land that Israel is in will be the center of that focus on the Messiah. And it will be through Israel that the Gentiles, that is the nations, will come to behold Him and glorify Him forever.

It's the picture we'll get through as we go through Isaiah. It's the picture you get as you proceed through the Old Testament prophets and into the New Testament, even to the last chapters of Revelation. But we who are in the church, something we won't see in Isaiah, consists of Jews and Gentiles, both. Those saved from the day of Pentecost, Acts chapter 2, to the time of the rapture.

This is the third body of people. who will be reigning with the Lord Jesus Christ forever as his bride. Now, we have to take a detour here. I put up this kind of graphic here and it's been brought to my attention that when I show it not everybody has had the background to know what I'm talking about. So let's step through it. It's from our study of Ephesians chapter 2 and the basic message there in verses 14 through 16 of Ephesians chapter 2 is that the Jew and Gentile had parted ways over the Law of Moses, and Christ brought peace between them.

So, what did he do? He made both groups, in creating the Church, into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall. So, what did he do? He didn't just leave things the way they were, and he didn't just make everybody Jewish. Not everybody became Jewish. So, what did he do?

Here's this group, the Gentiles, coming from the time of Adam, and then you have Israel, at the point we see at the end of Genesis, here are the tribes, here is Israel brought about. He didn't just lump them all in one group and say, from then on, that's it. No. Instead, what did he do? He took the Gentiles, who would continue to be recognized ethnically as Gentiles, and he took the Jews, Israel, who would continue to be recognized as that, and he created a third body of a spiritual character rather than an ethnic character.

And in doing so, we have the question, how did he do that? Well, it tells us he broke down the barrier of the dividing wall. The law is what separated the Gentiles and the Jews. The law is what put them in different groups. The law made a difference. What kind of difference? You imagine, you go to a store, and here is the Jew who follows the law, and you have mixed fibers in your fabric. You try to sell him a t-shirt that's 60% cotton and 40% something else. Can he buy it? Can he wear it? Nope. Sorry, he can't buy your clothes. You go to the market, and you say, boy, I've got some wonderful meat here. Look at this. I've got lobster and crab. And he goes, yuck, can't touch it.

It divided the two of them. The law made a separating wall between the Jews and the Gentiles. The Gentiles were outside of it. They were without hope and without God in the world. And it actually says at the end of Ephesians 2, they were atheos, atheistic, in the world. They were far off. So this dividing wall, the law, what happened to it?

Christ died for our sins, and we recognize that as Christians. But what we fail to see is that this passage says that the law was put out of commission with respect to Jews and Gentiles in order to create the Church. In order to create the Church. I, the believer, in Christ, this is in the Church, I died to the law.

I died in relationship to the law. I'm not under the law. I don't live by law. I don't live by rules that I come up with that are a substitute for the law. I don't live by a Christian law. Having been identified with Christ in His death, I died completely in relationship to the law. Not just I felt bad about it. Not that there was a little bit of separation or parts of it fell away. Complete separation. I died in relationship.

The law itself, as Ephesians 2.15 says, was put out of commission with respect to those in the church. And when Christ died on the cross, the law was put out of commission in order to form the church. That's how he made the church. He put the law out of commission.

Colossians 2.14, the law was nailed to the cross and blotted out. How thorough is that? And blotted out along with the debts declared by it. You want to pull some law back in? There's no basis for it.

When you ask the question of a Christian, what did Christ die for? Did He die for my sins? Yep. But what else did He do? To put the law out of commission. To take the law out of relationship with me. I died in relationship to the law. Do I believe it? Do I believe it? If you believe that Christ died for your sins, if you believe that He rose again, to give you new life. If you believe that he died to put the law out of commission, those all go together.

OK, now we're back. If we look at this, what Isaiah is going to tell us about is only the things in this first column. He is going to write because it hadn't come about yet. The church had not come about until the New Testament in Acts chapter 2. Isaiah is writing about seven centuries before that. So he's going to tell us about Israel and the Gentiles. What Isaiah is telling us continues to be true. on into even things that haven't happened yet. He simply is not going to tell us about the church because he hasn't heard of such a thing.

Now, look here at Isaiah 49.3 that we looked at.

Israel is indeed the Lord's. You are my servant Israel in whom I will show my glory. That is the fulfillment of His eternal purpose. He will show His glory, reveal it through Israel. He will declare it through Israel. It will fulfill God's eternal purpose in Israel in the future.

The real Israel, not a fake, not a substitute, not a replacement. And that's kind of amazing when you look at the news about Israel today. Here's another one we'll see in Isaiah 62, one and two, for Zion's sake, Zion is an alternate name for Jerusalem. I will not keep silent. And for Jerusalem's sake, I will not keep quiet. Hebrew poetry pattern there. until her righteousness goes forth like brightness and her salvation like a torch that is burning." Is Israel that now? No. Truth is, there's been no time when Israel's been like that.

But it will be. It'll happen when the Lord comes again. The nations, that's the Gentiles, will see your righteousness and all kings your glory. The glory of the Lord shown through Israel. All right, now, the fruit of the earth will be the pride and adornment of the survivors of Israel. We've got to ask the question, what does he mean by that? Certainly the earth will be fruitful during the time of the coming millennium, but does he mean that the Jews will wear lots of fruit?

Is that what he means? Is this what he's talking about? Oh, that must be a Jew. He's wearing grapes. Is that what he's talking about? Well, let's see. Their fruit will win first prize. Is that what he means? They'll put it in county and state fair exhibits and win all the prizes. Is that what they're talking about?

I would suggest to you this, that the fruit appears to be a word picture for the glory and beauty of Christ who will reign in Jerusalem. Why do I think that? If we look at the way Isaiah uses fruit bearing, look at the way he uses it. Then a shoot will spring forth from the stem of Jesse, a branch from his roots. Who's the branch? Christ, and bear fruit. It's fruit bearing. It has to do with bearing fruit from Christ Himself.

And let's look at Isaiah 37, 31. The surviving remnant, here's the surviving group, the remnant group again, from the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward. This is, I think, a verse we should look at real carefully. Take root downward. What does that mean? Israel is to be sharing and declaring God's glory in an earthly way. And they will be happy as can be to do that. Where will the fruit bear?

Upward to the Lord. Marvelous statement. And that's a really important thing for us to center on and keep our mind about. Look how these words are used in Isaiah 45a. Drip down, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds pour down righteousness. Let the earth open up in salvation. Bear fruit. and righteousness spring up from it, for I, the Lord, have created it."

Look at the things that are physical, like fruit-bearing and other things, and what is the character of it? The intent is to convey things that are spiritual with those kinds of words. So the way Isaiah continues to talk about bearing fruit, I believe it's pretty clear that he's talking not about going around wearing fruit, not about them just being fruitful. Certainly the land will be fruitful, but far beyond that. It will declare the spiritual fruitfulness that comes from Jesus Christ. Israel will be fruitful because Jesus Christ will be in their midst.

Then, notice these phrases popping up. The survivors of Israel. He who was left in Zion remains in Jerusalem. Now, there's this idea of a remnant. Is this what he's talking about? Even Jewish remnants. Is that what he's talking about? Well, no. Let's take a look at what he's talking about. These are speaking of the remnant.

It's a principle that we're going to see throughout the study of Isaiah, and you'll see it in other books as well. The principle of the remnant is this. We see throughout God's Word, as we proceed through Isaiah, we'll study it, the remnant is going to mean one of two things. It's going to mean those who physically survive a difficult time, or it will be those who are believing continuing to believe even though small in number. So there's physical survival, it is used in that respect, and it is used for spiritually continuing even though small in number. Both ways, we'll see that as we continue through our study of Isaiah.

Now, this passage addresses the survivors in Israel and especially centered in Jerusalem. Notice Jerusalem is focal here. At the end of the tribulation, they will all believe. Isn't that something? All believe and proceed into the time of the reign of Christ during the millennium.

Scripture makes repeated reference to a difficult time that certainly the whole world will have, but Israel specifically, the people in Jerusalem, the people in the nation of Israel will have an extremely difficult time at this period of time we call the Tribulation. And that will be an immense relief as those who survive that time and who believe continue into the millennium, the time when Christ will reign. The time of the tribulation in Jeremiah, and we'll take a look at this in a minute, is called the time of Jacob's trouble or the time of Jacob's distress. Time of Jacob's trouble is the way you'll see it in the King James Version there. The people of Israel will finally come to recognize that only God is their Savior. The number of Christians among the Jews in Israel now is exceedingly small. Even those who believe in the Tanakh, the Old Testament portion, is small. Less than 10% are really devout. The great majority are rather agnostic. So the Lord will indeed make it clear to them that they only survive these traumatic experiences because God is their Savior. They will come to recognize that clearly.

If we look at Jeremiah 31-11, we certainly won't look at it all now, but it's in the middle of that that we see the reference to the time of Jacob's discress. Notice also that that sandwich between references to that day, which we also see in our Isaiah passage here.

Even as we look at Orthodox Jews, and basically up to around 1600 all Jews were Orthodox if they believed at all. They didn't have the Reformed and Conservative groups like we have now. But Orthodox Jews, even now, and this is a collection from the sayings of the Jews from early times, things will come to such a head that people will despair of redemption. This will last seven years, and then unexpectedly the Messiah will come. Even today, the Orthodox Jews expect this to be the scenario. And as I told you a week or two ago, this is what my rabbi friend believes. That there will be this time of trauma, seven years in length, although he doesn't like to talk about it. And then the Messiah will come.

Then, look at here at the end of verse three, everyone who is recorded for life in Jerusalem. Recorded for life is a reference to the Book of Life. the names that are recorded there. Basically, throughout biblical times, and you'll see this starting in about Exodus, the reference to the Book of Life was used in the common culture as a list of living citizens for a city. That was how it was used. So, what happens here?

The cities had a role of those citizens living, and that was called the Book of the Living, or the Book of Life. It is the citizens who are living in the city or who maybe had left but maintained citizenship. Notice as we look at the New Testament even, here's Paul and although so far as we know he had not been there when he spoke of it, he claimed Roman citizenship. He was on the list of those living and having citizenship in Rome.

Similar idea here. The roll was called the Book of Life or the Book of the Living. The name of its citizens were said to be recorded for life, just like we see here in the Book of Isaiah. And when a citizen died or committed a serious crime, then their name was blotted out of the city's roll. And we have record of city rolls where they put a line through it or blotted out.

Citizenship in biblical times, interestingly, was in a city. We usually think in our culture of citizenship in a nation. In those days, it was in a city. And that's why Paul was not a Roman citizen of the empire, but a citizen of the city of Rome. Here we notice that the focus is on recorded for life where? Not in the nation of Israel, but in Jerusalem. That was the city where they wanted to have their names recorded. There is a handout here that comes from our Revelation study.

Specifically, this is the Isaiah 4.3 passage that we look at. It is looking at recording in that passage millennial life with the assumption that it would go on into eternity. Israel and the church have a difference of hope. Notice as you read through the passages, we're looking at Isaiah. Isaiah is alternating. Have you noticed that?

He says, things in Israel and Judah right now are really, really bad. But in the future, there's this hope. And then he switches back to, they're still really, really bad. And then he switches forward and gives them hope. And we'll see the book of Isaiah alternating like that, telling people, this is how awful it is, but here's hope. Here's hope. And this is one of these flashes of hope that he keeps looking at here.

For the Jews, the hope is the Messiah's coming. As my rabbi friend would say, he looks forward to messianic times. The Jew has been told by the Lord to look for hope in that time, to look for hope in Jerusalem and in Israel, in the time of the coming Messiah. And where is their citizenship? Recorded for life in Jerusalem.

Now, look at the Church. The Church, what is our blessed hope? The Christ coming for us, and taking us to be in heaven with Him. Our encouragement is in the Lord's coming. This is what Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5. Encourage one another with these words.

And it's going to take us where we now, and notice what Paul wrote in Philippians 3.20.

He didn't say where you will be citizens, but where you are now citizens. If you're a believer here this morning, you are a heavenly citizen. You've got that citizenship. It's a done deal. Your name's written down. It's recorded. You're in the book of life as a heavenly citizen. What Isaiah is referring to, writing for the Jews, is citizenship in Jerusalem. Different place. The church and Israel have a different hope. Is theirs any better or worse than ours? No. It's just different. The Jews will not be the least bit disappointed, and neither will we. Not at all.

Here's Philippians 3.20 and 21. We studied this not too long ago. Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who will be the Messiah during the coming millennium.

Philippians 1.27, it says to conduct your life. It's the same word as citizenship in the verb form, and it's conduct your life as citizens. in Philippians 4, 2, and 3, and the book of life, heavenly citizenship.

The names are on the roll of the city, which is the heavenly city. Now, Isaiah 4, 4, and the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the bloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst by spirit of judgment and spirit of burning. Notice there, the daughters of Zion are mentioned at the end of chapter 3.

Those are the ones who look for superficial attractiveness. Notice what happens now. There will be a purging. There will be a cleansing. Previously, they were completely superficial. Now, he says, I'll wipe away all that. Now you will be cleansed, and here's how it will be.

The spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, these are the things that, spiritually speaking, judgment will come upon Israel. Remember one of the things we pointed out in Deuteronomy 18? Israel is blessed as they obey and cursed as they disobey. There is judgment, there is burning to bring them to a point of cleansing so that they can be blessed all the time.

In the Church, we are different in that we, as we've been told, Ephesians 1, 3, we are blessed right now with every spiritual blessing in Jerusalem, in Israel, and you're not blessed unless you have a plane ticket, right? No, you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places right now, already, if you have put your trust in Jesus Christ. You're a saint, you're already there. The bloodshed of Jerusalem is both the bloodshed of injustice between those in Israel and the bloodshed of those who attacked her.

During the end of the tribulation, it'll be the latter that will have the focus. And finally, the Lord will create over the whole area of Mount Zion, over the assemblies of cloud by day, even smoke, and the brightness of the flaming fire by night, even over the glory that will be a canopy." This Hebrew word create is the word used for create in Genesis 1-1. He will bring into existence. As He speaks and it stands forth, it will come about. It will be a fulfillment of His eternal purpose.

Now this cloud by day, smoke, and brightness of the flaming fire by night, these phrases are phrases that up to this point we see showing up in the early chapters of the Old Testament. There was a cloud by day and a fire by night as Israel went through the time from the Red Sea and the parting of the Red Sea into the time just as they crossed the Jordan and entered into the Promised Land. During that time, they had a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. and not before and not afterwards. When they entered the promised land, these disappeared.

For Israel, these were the visible evidences of God's presence. So when we see this in Isaiah, some would take this literally, and I think there's reason to think this would be taken literally, but one thing is absolutely certain. It will be abundantly clear God is with them. Everybody will know it. There'll be no mistaking it.

If you look at it, here's where they crossed the Red Sea from Egypt as they exited Egypt and went into the Sinai. This is an artist's rendering of what that might have looked like as they crossed over. And just because the Red Sea parting is kind of an amazing event, you've got to see this. At any rate, we won't get too distracted from that. Here's an artist's rendering of what it would have been like, for example, to have the pillar of fire by night over the tabernacle as the tribes of Judah were encamped around, or another artist's rendering of what that might have looked like during the day as the tribes encamped around.

They were told by tribe which area they were to dwell in, and so That continued until they went and crossed over into the promised land. As soon as they stepped across the Jordan River, that ended. They went into the promised land and it disappeared. What's going to happen here is there will be a visible presence of the Lord. Everybody will unmistakably know the Lord is here. The Lord is present.

What's different here is in Isaiah 4, the cloud by day and the fire by night It doesn't mean the Lord's going to continue to move them, but it's going to stay there. There will be visible evidence of the Lord's presence, unmistakable, and it won't be because they're moving. It won't be because they're headed to somewhere else. And it won't be something that happens because they're disobedient, or when they're disobedient.

Israel will walk in the land according to the law. There will be a visible temple, visible evidences of the Lord's presence. Protection from physical harm? Our relationship with the Lord will be different, however. We walk by faith, not by sight. We are the Lord's temple. Paul writes that twice to the church at Corinth. Our guarantee is the seal of the Holy Spirit. So do we get to look at a Shekinah cloud? Do we get to look at visible evidence of the Lord's presence? We walk by faith. We walk into this building, and I'm glad we have it. It's a very convenient place to meet. But the Lord dwells among those who believe. For the church, that's our temple.

As we look here at this last part, so over the whole area of Mount Zion, her assemblies, all her glory will be a canopy, be a Lord's cover. The result being there will be a shelter to give shade from the heat by day and a refuge and protection from the storm and the rain.

Notice that the visible expressions of the Lord's presence didn't guarantee that they would obey the Lord in the past. And in truth, we find out that they didn't. Here we see that the visible presence of the Lord is a protection, and it can't be at a time when they will obey, at a time when they will indeed all put their trust in the Lord. As we look at this, we say, well, okay, I'm not going to have this visible presence. But there are things we can learn from this passage. One of them is that the Lord is always faithful. The Lord has taken time to carry out. Here, remember, was the promise to David, you will have a son, and that son will be a descendant from you who will reign over you.

How long before Jesus was born of Mary? Almost a thousand years. Was the Lord faithful? Yeah. It's been 2,700 years since these words were reading from Isaiah. Would the Lord be faithful to those things? Yes. The Lord was faithful to the promises He made to Abraham, Israel, Moses, David. We can count on Him to be faithful as well. Whatever He has promised, it's going to happen. And we see that repeatedly, like we have in these references here in the New Testament. In everything, He is the promise keeper. He is the one who keeps His promises. We can count on Him. Our place is not to make promises back, but to count on the promises He's made. The Lord is not ignorant of or neglectful of the troubles we go through. The Lord loved Israel, and yet did they go through trouble? Yeah, they did. He had and will have a purpose for every one of them. It's true for us as well. A different purpose perhaps, but a purpose nonetheless. As we go through various things, the Lord is not ignorant of them.

I was chatting electronically with my brother last night, and he mentioned that the British atheist, Flew was his last name, had changed from being an atheist to a deist, which still is not quite biblical Christianity. But it was quite a thing, and apparently a lot of the atheists are severely rattled by this. The thing is, while he has made a change in belief, he is still not saved. Believing in God is not sufficient. But, unlike Anthony Flew's conviction now that God created everything and sort of walked away, we have the assurance from the Lord that every trouble we go through has purpose.

It is not without His purpose and intent. That He will fulfill His promises and stay with us through all those things. It's really important to know at the times we go through, times like this. And finally, His eternal purpose will be fulfilled in us. And the same as we see here in Israel, the same as we see in the Gentiles in the church, His eternal purpose will be fulfilled. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to His power that works in us, not our best efforts to try to impress Him, His power that works in us. To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever. Why in the church and in Christ Jesus? Where are we? In Christ Jesus. In the church which is in Christ Jesus. We can count upon that, can't we? Let's pray.

Lord, as we look at these things, You have done marvelous, marvelous things. You have done wondrous things. We can count upon your character and who you are and what you've done, your faithfulness through all times. Whatever is happening or has happened or will happen in our lives, we can depend upon you to be faithful to what you've promised. Thank you for your faithfulness in all things. In Jesus' name, Amen.