[music] >> Dr. Charles Stanley: Somebody hurt you badly and you can't get over it, and they don't even seem to care. Or maybe you've been injured and you're having a very difficult time with pain and you don't quite understand why God doesn't do something about it. Or it may be one of your close friends, very close friends, and maybe one of your loved ones passed away, been very difficult for you. You don't understand what God's up to. You feel depressed. You feel sort of having a setback in your life and you can't quite get through it all. You went to work; they told you when you got there you weren't needed anymore and told you goodbye, and you went home and you began to think about it. You owe on your mortgage, for your automobile, you have children in private school, you've got food and clothing and insurance and all the other things, and suddenly you don't have a job. They didn't even thank you for doing a good job at what you were doing. It just all passed by. Maybe your dreams got shattered. You had some big dreams, they got shattered, and now you look at your future and it looks like this long, dark tunnel, and at the other end of it is a big shadow. You don't know what's going on, you don't seem to have any real hope for anything exciting in your life. Well, no matter who you are, whether young or old, and no matter what you're going through in life, there are times when all of us need the same thing because whatever the situation may be, there are times in our life when we need to be comforted, we need to be encouraged, we need to know that somebody cares, that somebody's sort of looking out after us and that we amount to something and we're important to somebody, somewhere, somehow; especially when this distress has brought us down to the point of almost depression. Then who do you turn to? Who do most folks turn to? Where do they go? Most folks turn to whatever seems to be the quickest fix. And without stopping to ask what are the consequences if I go this way, they just choose to go this way because that seems to be the shortest route to the end of their pain and their hurt or their sorrow or their heartache. Who do you go to? Well, there are a lot of things you can try, but there is one sure help for your pain and hurt and difficulty, and that is Almighty God Himself. He is the comforter of all comforts. He's the eternal comforter, there's no one like Him. And He promises to comfort us in any and every circumstance of life. And that's what I want to talk about in this message, "God Our Comforter." And in a few moments, I'm going to have you turn to a chapter; but before we do, I want to remind you of what Jesus said the night before He was crucified. He was encouraging his disciples. He said, "I'm not going to leave you as orphans, now." He said, "I'm going to send you Halos," in the Greek, that means one just like. "I'm going to send you somebody like Me. I'm going to send you a helper," and the very word He uses for helper is the same word in the Greek of Paraklatos, which means one who walks beside us, one who stands beside us. He said, "I'm going to send you the comforter." That is the same word. And then if you'll recall, in second Corinthians chapter one, the third and fourth verses. Paul is talking about God being our comforter, the God of all comfort. And He says that God comforts us, and one of these primary reasons for comforting us is that fact that you and I can be comforters to others. And I think all of us will agree that we've been through some circumstance or situation in life where we needed somebody to come and hold us up a little bit and to assure us and to comfort us. And no matter how long you've been a Christian and no matter what you believe about the Word of God, no matter how long you've been to church, there are times when everybody needs comfort, depending upon the nature of the cloud and the shadow they're living in and living under. Well, there is one chapter in the Bible that exceeds all the rest of them when it comes to a description of Almighty God who is our great comforter. And that chapter is sort of almost in the middle of a great prophet in the Old Testament. So, I want you to turn to Isaiah chapter forty, and what I would like for us to do is I would like, in the light of what we have just said, I would like for us to look at this chapter in the light of who God is because if I were to ask you who He is, you could give me some reasonable or explanation from your mind who He is, but the issue is this: what is He really like? So, I want you to follow me, and if you happen to be at home or wherever you may be with a Bible, get your Bible out, turn to the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, get a pencil, if you might, and I want you to go through this with me because you will need it. And what you and I need in times of hurt and pain and sorrow and distress, we need to know who is this we're going to and can He truly help me? And when you read this passage and you understand who this God is, you can come to Him with confidence and assurance in your life, this God of mine is going to see me through this. So, let's begin in verse one. He says--Isaiah speaking to the people of God, and he's already given them some pretty tough prophecies of things that are going to happen, and then God says at this point to him, here's what you'd say, "'Comfort, O comfort my people,' says God. 'Speak kindly to Jerusalem and call to her that her warfare's and their iniquity has been removed that she has received of the Lord's hand, double for all her sins.'" And then he goes on, and what I want you to do is to move all the way down to verse eight, to a verse of Scripture that you ought to underline in your Bible or circle the number or something because it's a very important verse, because it relates to the fact that our God is eternal, when he says, "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever." Now, once in a while, somebody will ask me, "Well, why are you always holding that Bible?" One simple reason: this is the authority, not me. And no matter who's talking to you and who's preaching to you or who's teaching you, this is the authority; not man, but the Word of God. And the Word of God is the eternal Word of God. When we say that God is eternal, that means that there's no time in the past when He was not. There will be no time in the future when He is not. There's no time right now that He is not. And when Moses said to God, "Now God, you want me to send my people this message of who gave me this message, that I'm to go and talk to pharaoh, who shall I say sent me?" And God said to him, "You tell them I Am that I Am has sent you." Well, it was interesting this past week, and I was sitting in a doctor's office that I enjoyed being with, and he's a Jewish man and very, very smart about most anything that I've ever heard about in life. And oftentimes, he'll ask me something about the Scripture, and he brought up that passage. He says, "What does it mean, I Am that I Am?" And I could say to him that the God in whom you believe, and I called his name, the God in whom you believe is a God who has no beginning and no end, that at no time in the past did He not exist and no time in the future would He not exist, and I Am that I Am. He couldn't say I was, I am, or I shall be; but I Am that I Am, the eternal God. Every man, every woman, every person will one day bow their knee and admit and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, God Almighty, the great I Am. He is the God that is the subject of this whole chapter, this is all about Him. It's not all about man. It's all about Him, so that when you and I get into those issues and difficulties of life, we understand who it is that we're going to. So, he says, "The grass withers, the flower fades, and the Word of our God stands forever." That's why the very idea of departing from the Word of God is suicide. Because listen, all of man's wisdom and knowledge and understanding, think about this, think about all the hundreds and thousands and thousands, probably millions of volumes of books have been written about this one. And no person who's ever preached the message, no person who's ever written a book, no person who's ever written a commentary about any one of the books of the Bible or all of them would ever say, "Well, finally, I've got it all down, I understand it all, I know it. Don't need to read anymore because I have discovered what it's about." Never, because what this is is the infinite mind of God. By His grace that He's spoken through men and guided them through the Holy Spirit to do what? To write, to record who He is and how He has dwelt among and acted among men all these years. This is the book. When a nation departs on this book, they are headed for great trouble. When a person departs from this book and lays it aside, they're headed for trouble. I have never met a person who is a member of this fellowship who backslid; that is, they were coming and then they decided not to come for some reason, next thing I know, I mean, "Well, what happened?" "Well, hum, hum." Every single one of them admits when I say to them, "Did you at some point sort of stop reading the Bible?" "Well, yes." When you stop reading the Word of God, you lay aside your compass, you tear up the map of life, and you're headed for trouble. You're going to sin against God, you will suffer the consequences. This is God's road map for life and, listen, there are no wrong turns in here. There are no mistakes in here. It is absolutely God's Word. So, if--with that in mind, let's look at this God that he describes here. So, he says, beginning in the latter part of verse 9, "Here is your God." So, Isaiah is saying, "This--here's the comforter." And he begins by saying, "Behold the Lord God will come with might, with His arm ruling for Him, behold His reward is with Him." And so, here's what he's saying: that God is sovereign. He is in control of all things at all times and all situations and circumstances. Somebody says, "Well, I don't believe that." Well, why don't you believe it? Because your mind cannot reason why God allows certain things to happen; and because you don't understand it, you want to bring God from lofty position of being sovereign down to something or somebody you understand. He's greater than that. He's mightier than that. He's higher than that. He is the God of this universe. He rules and reigns. He says He's established His throne in the heavens and His sovereignty rules over all. So that when you and I come to Him with our heartache, our burden, our trouble, our trial; remember we're coming to one who is in absolute control. He has the power to fix. He has the power to change. He has the power to heal. He has the power to uplift us, no matter what's going on. Then He says, "Behold the Lord God will come with might, with His arm ruling for Him, behold His reward is with Him and His recompense before Him." Then He says--I want you to understand the heart of this awesome God of sovereignty, and so He says--here's His heart. "Like a Shepherd He will tend His flock, in His arm He will gather the lambs and carry them in His bosom. He will gently lead the nursing ewes." What does a Shepherd do? A Shepherd provides for the flock. A Shepherd guards, watches over, cares for, protects the flock. The Shepherd leads the flock in the right direction. Here's what he is saying: this God of ours whom you and I say we believe and we trust and worship, He says I want you to see Him as a Shepherd, so that when--if I'm going through some difficulty or hardship or problem in my life, I know who to go to. I go to the one whose heart is that of a Shepherd and who says, "He picks them up in His arms," and what does, "He carries them in His bosom, He will gently lead the nursing ewes." What kind of awesome God is that? Now, then He says I want you to notice something else. He says I want you to notice who this God is in the light of the following things, because we see here the fact that He is the creator, and then if you go back over to on over to verse twenty-eight just for a moment, "Do you not know and have you not heard? The Everlasting God," no beginning and no end, the everlasting I Am, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth. So, back to this twelfth verse, listen to this, "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hands, marked off the heavens by the span, calculated the dust of the earth by the measure and weighted the mountains in the balance and the hills and a pair of scales." He says this God of ours, now watch this, God is transcendent; that is, that is not only is He the creator of it all, but transcendent means He is above and beyond it all. So that when God looks upon this globe of ours out in space, He looks upon it and sees it all. He sees it in every single perspective. This is the God who created it. And so, when He says here that he's measured the waters in the hollow of his hands. When we think of the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, we think, "What vast, vast, vast expanses of water this is. Miles deep and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles long and wide. He says, "In the hollow of his hand." He says from God's perspective, He's got it all in the hollow of His hands. That's how great He is. And then He says, "And marked off the heavens by the span." How do you measure the heavens? How--in other words, well, you and I can just see from horizon to horizon, He sees it all. It's all within His grasp because He is above and beyond it all because His might, His power, His wisdom, His knowledge, His understanding is beyond man's comprehension. And so, He simply says, "That he's calculated the dust by the measure and weighed the mountains in the balance." Now, think about this: calculated the dust. For example, we say if, for example, if you had all the sands in the world, piled them all up and took one grain off of that pile of all the sands in the world, then eternity would just begin. Think about dust. Dust doesn't weigh anything. And what he's simply saying here, listen, that God is knowledgeable, listen, He is knowledgeable, in control of, aware of, sees, listen, and He is enabled to know exactly what's happened in your life and my life. That is, when He says, for example here, when He says that He has, "Marked off the heavens, calculated the dust, weighed the mountains in the balance and the hills and a pair of scales," what He's just done is said, "Look, anywhere you look, in the heavens, which I have created, the waters are in my hand. The--I know so much about every single thing, it's like the dust. You put it on the scales, it weighs absolutely nothing." There is nothing that He does not know. In other words, you and I would never come to God to inform Him about anything because He knows it all. Now, sometimes we get in a--maybe a tough place in our life and we want to say, "Well now God, haven't You seen what I'm going through? Don't you understand, God, where I am? Where are you, God?" And of course, we have to work through that till we finally admit the fact, yes, God, I know that you do know, please forgive me for acting like you don't. What He's saying is this: when I need comfort, look who I'm going to. He has it all in such control, He's so mighty and so powerful and so awesome. All the water, He says, in His hands. He weighs the mountains and the hills and scales. He knows all about everything to the point of dust. That is, you can't think about anything He doesn't know everything about. And He knows things about things that man will never be able to comprehend. So He says, beginning in this 13th verse, "Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord? Or as His counselor has informed him." So, let me ask you this. Have you ever informed God about your life, anything about your life that He didn't already know? Absolutely not. Because He's omniscient. And listen, He is a God who is adequate to guide us and lead us in every circumstance of life. And so, then He says, "With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding?" And what He's doing is simply saying to us look, here is the comforter of comforters. He doesn't need any guidance. He doesn't need anyone counseling Him. He doesn't need any information. This is omniscient God. And when you and I, for example, even take the Word of God and we think, "Lord, there are so many things here I'd like to understand, I wish I could remember it all. I wish I had a photographic memory so I could quote every verse and understand all of it." God has put so much in this one volume that man will never be able to comprehend it all and no man in his right mind will ever say, "Well," as we said before, "I think I think I have that down." And so therefore, if He is that awesome in His knowledge, think about this: you and I may come to Him and confess our sin. Do you think you are informing Him about it? Oh no, He knew all about it. He knew about it before you sin and, listen, sometime we come to Him confessing, and by the time we get it polished up and the time we get it sort of camouflaged, it doesn't even sound like sin from our perspective, but He sees the heart and the nature of it. He, listen, the reason He hates it is because you and I are His prized possessions. Think about this: there's not a single thing God has ever created that, listen to this, there's not a single thing He has ever created or you could put it all together and weigh it on divine scales, you weigh more than everything in this chapter. That's who you are from God's perspective. Because think about this: you're the only thing, you're the only part of creation that can worship Him, that can sing to Him, that can praise Him, that can adore Him and can obey Him. Everything else works in this way in which God has fixed in the very beginning. So, when we come to Him, I want to come to somebody who knows it all. I want to come to someone who knows my hurts. I want to come to somebody who can help me, who knows why I hurt. I may think I know why I hurt, I may blame it on somebody else, but God may know it's all inside of me. I want to kind, listen, when you are going to have an operation on your brain, who do you want to go to? Somebody who finished high school? No. You want to go to someone who not only has finished medical school, but who has operated on a lot of other brains before they got to you, amen? Because you want knowledge and understanding to be there. When you and I come to Him, we come to Him with someone who has full knowledge. And then if you'll notice, He says in verse 15, behold, now watch this, this is awesome, He says--because here is His omnipotence again. "Behold the nations are a drop of a bucket, like one drop of water in a bucket." He said, that's what all the nations are like. Then He says, and, "Are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales." God is so awesome and so great. Think about this: let's take this continent and Europe and all the east and all the south, all the continents that we know about, let me just say this: He says, "They are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales." That is, in light of who He is and His awesomeness, and at the light of who you and I are and our importance to Him. He said, "All those nations are like a speck of dust on the scales and that doesn't even move a scale." Then He says, He goes, "Behold He lifts up the islands like fine dust." And we think about all the islands of the world, He said, "It's like fine dust." Our minds cannot comprehend the awesomeness, the greatness, the power, the wisdom, the knowledge, the understanding, and the love and devotion that this indescribable God has for us. And when I think about how people act sometime and they talk about this and that and so forth, strutting around, and then I think about, my, my, my, as soon as you get the message, you're going to realize one grain of sand, one grain of sand in the eyes of God. Then if you'll notice He says, "Behold He lifts up the islands like dust." And then, verse 16, "Even Lebanon, this whole nation is not enough to burn, nor is beast enough for a burnt offering." What He is saying is Lebanon with those giant trees, He says if the whole nation were a forest, that would not be enough to sacrifice adequately for Him because of who He is. "All the nations are as nothing before Him, they are regarded by Him as less than nothing and meaningless." That doesn't mean He--they don't count. But it means this: that in light of who He is and His greatness and His power and His genuine love for us, notice how He started this chapter: comfort ye, comfort ye my people. That is, in light of who He is and His love for us and devotion to us and willingness, listen, in all of His power, He's willing to answer your prayers. He's willing to hear your hurt. He wants to hear you cry, and He wants to hear you call out to Him. In other words, personal interest in you. If you didn't believe that, then you wouldn't worship Him. And He says what He wants us to see is who He is. Then He says--He asked this question, He asked many questions here, He says verse eighteen, "To whom then would you liken God?" For example, who else, who in your life is like God? And the Israelites and the other nations around them, they built all these statues and gold this and silver that and high places where they worshipped. How absolutely ridiculous to turn away from the God of the Bible to anything else or to anyone else. And so, He says, "Now look, to whom then would you liken God?" What likeness will you compare with Him? And so, then He says, "As for the idol, a craftsman cast it--goldsmith plates it with gold and the silversmith fashions chains of silver. He who is too impoverished for such an offering, selects a tree that does not rot. He seeks out for himself a skillful craftsman to prepare an idol that will not totter." How useless, think about this, when you turn away from Almighty God, you are making the biggest mistake in your life. You are turning away from the One who rules and reigns, who owns, possesses, who knows you perfectly, who knows every need before it come about, who can heal you of all diseases, who can strengthen you, provide for you, every single thing you need, far more than any of us could ever deserve. That's who He is. Why would you even think about turning away from Him, for what? Something you drink, you can spill on the ground and be gone forever? Money that comes and goes? The Bible says, that money is like a bird: it's here and it's gone forever. That is, why would you want to serve yourself? When you are so limited and so minute, why would you want to serve anything or anybody else? Some cause that you think is so great, you turn away from God for some cause that will absolutely finally just disappear and I want to show you that in a moment. So, He says, in verse 21, "Do you not know and have you not heard, has it not been declared to you from the beginning?" Reminding us, listen to this now, "Have you not understood from the foundation of the earth?" Listen to this, "It is He," God, "who sits above the circle of the earth. And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers." God isn't impressed by man's pride and arrogance and accomplishments. And He says, "Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in." Then He says, "It is He who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Think about this: I think about--go back to the pharaohs, who ruled and reigned the greatest civilization in the world. You know what, the pharaohs came and the pharaohs went. And all through the Old Testament, you know, Nebuchadnezzars came and Nebuchadnezzars went. Alexander the Greats came and Alexander the Greats left. Napoleons came and so forth, Stalins, Hitlers, you name it, listen, God hates pride. And here's what He says if you'll notice here, he says He reduces rulers to nothing. So, here's what happens. Oftentimes people, you know, they start out with a humble spirit and then, watch this, and then they begin to be successful and God begins to bless them and more and more success, until finally they get where they are no longer useable. God hates pride, and what does He say: man has no reason to be prideful because God removes the prideful ones. He removes rulers. And then, watch this, He says in verse 25, "'To whom then will you liken Me, that I would be his equal,' says the Holy One. 'Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars.'" You know, I love being out in the wilderness because I love--not too close to the fire, but far enough away from it, that I can look up in the sky when there is no light anywhere around, and here's what happens: when you do that, it's like at first you see some stars, then a few more, and then the longer you look, the more you see; and then at some point, it looks like they are all coming down on you. There are millions of galaxies where the stars are all together and billions of stars. Anytime you think you're somebody, you just walk out and lie down and look up and you'll realize, you know what? One drop of water in the ocean may be more like what I really am. That's this awesome God. And He says He's put them out there. It's interesting, in the creation story, when He talks about the sunlight, and He says, as if it were an afterthought, and the stars, He made the stars also. And look how He uses the stars. Another world says, "Well, you know, if you're this or that and your horoscope," that's a bunch of stuff. There's not--you can't put your--you better put your faith into God who made the stars, not in those who are trying to interpret them and use them for something that God never intended. Now, listen to this, He says, "He created these stars and the One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name, because the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one of them's missing." God says, "Every single star is numbered and they're all in their place." Now, listen to what He says, He says not one of them is missing. "Why do you say, O Jacob and assert, O Israel, 'My way is hidden from the Lord, And the justice due me escapes the notice of my God?'" He said, in light of who He is, how could you think that didn't hear you? How could you think that somehow you can keep some secret from God? You know why? Because oftentimes we don't realize where God is. We think about God being up yonder or out yonder. Let me ask you a question: if somebody said to you, "Where is God?" What would be your first reaction? You'd say what? He's in heaven, right? Now, you think I'm going to trick you; come on. If somebody says, "Where is God?" What would you normally say? He's in heaven. Is that the correct answer? Yes, it is. Now, watch this; yes, it is. He is in heaven, but he's also in my heart. You can't limit God. For example, when somebody says, "Where is God?" That's not the right question. The issue is this. Everything is in the presence of God. Everything is in the presence of God. Now, God is on His throne in the heavens, Jesus sitting at His right hand; but you remember God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, person of the trinity just like the Father and the Son, different responsibilities, different tasks on earth. And what I'm--He lives in the heart of every single believer. So, think about this: living within you is this God whom we are in the process of describing, and you're afraid of what? You're worried about what? What can affect you apart from the knowledge and the power of God? Nothing on the face of this earth. Does that mean that He'll not let things come our way that hurt us? It doesn't say that. But He's there as God. "Do you not know and have you not heard," listen to this now, verse twenty-eight, "that the Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, He does not become weary or tired and His understanding is inscrutable." Think about this, watch this, God is never, listen, He's never without a job. He's always employed, doing what? Working in your life, my life, and the life of those who are wicked and the life of those who are believers. And notice, He says He's never weary or tired. And have you ever thought to yourself, I'm sure I've said this, "God, I know You get tired of hearing me come to You, come to you with this same situation or whatever it might be." God does not tire. He, listen, if He is infinite, He is infinite in wisdom and knowledge, energy, strength, power. You have to--you--something has to go on that there's an energy leak. Not with God. And so He says, "He does not become weary and His understanding is inscrutable." Which means you'll never be able to fully comprehend. Now, with that in mind, listen to the promise that He gives us on the basis of who He is. So, we've spent most of our time talking about who He is. Now, listen to what He says, He says, for example, verse 29, "He gives strength to the weary. And to him who lacks might He increases power." That is, when we get into those distressful, painful times in life, He says He's the one to give us strength. And you think about this: pain de-energizes us, stress, depression, those things, they sap our energy and our strength. We don't have the getup and go that we'd like to have because of whatever that may be going on in our life. Now sometimes, God may take away your strength in order to teach you how to replace it with His strength. Sometimes God takes away material things in order to give us spiritual things. And sometimes, because He doesn't react to my instantaneous request, "God, here's what I'm needing and I need it now, Lord, and you know, the calendar says this and the clock says this and the watch says this," and you know what? He's unmoved by that. And what's He doing? He's waiting for His timing, and sometimes He's waiting for us to get so desperate, we can't depend upon ourselves or anybody but Him. That's when He does His most awesome work in our life. It's not that He's tired. It's not that He's not listening, it's not that He doesn't care. It is the fact that He wants, in the process of teaching us and growing us up because remember, we are the only ones who are going to worship Him. His followers, He's not concerned about mountains and trees and fish. And He's not concerned about oceans and lakes or anything else. He's concerned about you and me worshipping Him. So, he's going to work in our life in such a fashion, to do what? To bring us to Him and to recognize that He's the source of our strength. And so, He delights to do that, and because He doesn't answer every time we think He ought to, we say, "Well, where's God?" And then, listen to this, the next time you have a feeling of saying, "God, where are you?" Open your ears and see if you can't hear Him say, "Right where I've always been, right in your heart. If you will listen to Me, if you will seek Me, if you will ask why I'm allowing this to happen in your life." And so, what happens is He delays for His own benefit. The second thing I want you to notice, God gives strength to the weary. To him who lacks might, He increases power so that if I'm down for whatever the situation may be, I have Him to go to and He's ready to do whatever we need for Him to do for us. "Though youth grow weary and tired," we all do, "vigorous young men stumble badly. Those who wait upon the Lord will gain new strength." Now, when He says wait for Him, what does that mean? It means I must be patient while I persistently pursue whatever He's calling me to do, persistently pursue that, be--listen, be patient for Him to work in His way and His timing because He will. God will never show up late. He's never going to show up tired. He's never going to say, "Oh, I'm not answering the phone today." He's not--doesn't have to pull out a calculator and find out how much you and I owe or what we're going to do financially. None of that. But listen to this next phrase. He says, "Though youth grow weary and tired, vigorous men stumble badly. Those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They'll run and not be weary, walk and not faint." Somebody says, "Now, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, this eagle business. I heard what you said about eagles having wings 6 to 8 feet, they can dive at a hundred miles an hour and eyes that can see 40 miles away, I've heard all that. I don't have any wings. So, what do I do? So, is that a mistake?" No. Because the truth is every single child of God has a set of wings. Now, I'm not talking about flaps, like this. Here's your set of wings. Your set of wings is your faith in this God. That's your set of wings, because here's what happens: you rise in your life on the basis of your faith. You succeed on the basis of your faith, you're able to accomplish and to achieve on the basis of your faith. God works in you, for you, and through you on the basis of your faith. And what happens? When you are down and you're tired and you're worn, and maybe it's physical pain or whatever it might be, and what happens? You begin to exercise your faith and you begin to trust God. What does He do? He lifts you, He gives you energy, He responds, listen, God is a responder to our faith. He's the responder to our faith, and the next thing you know, what? We're not down in the mouth about anything, we're not complaining and moaning and groaning, and we're up and moving and God is blessing, and what happens? You just began to fly. And now what are you doing? You are maybe in the same circumstance, but you're not hindered by it. And what are you doing? You are soaring above it, and that's why He used this phrase, He says, "You'll mount up with wings like eagles and soar above it all." And you know what, storms, for example, eagles love storms, and here's the reason. Storms enable them to do what? To fly higher and higher and higher. They're just floating on those air currents, and the stronger they are and the higher they are, the higher they can fly and the stronger they can be and the faster they can fly. And sometimes it's the storms in your life and my life that God uses to do what? To build our faith, to get us, look, up on a higher level of living than we've been living. He lets us go through something to demonstrate His awesome power in our life and to teach us to trust Him and to follow Him. And then if you'll notice what He says, He says, "They will run and not get tired and they'll walk and not become weary." Now, what is He talking about? There are situations and circumstances in life that are sort of monotonous. In other words, listen, as long as there is excitement and as long as there's pressure, it's amazing how we can keep going, but when there is no excitement and there is no pressure and you're doing the same thing day after day after day after day, here's what He says: He will enable us to pursue what he would have us to do in life, whatever it might be, and the monotony is gone. Listen, He says, "We will run and not get tired, we'll walk and not become weary," which means we will walk and not faint. We won't give up. We won't give up because things aren't exciting, we won't give up because we're not being complimented, we won't give up because we're not making as much as you ought to make. We're going to keep moving because we have the capacity to exercise our faith and do what? To soar above it all. And listen, what causes the eagle to lift his wings and soar out? He sees something with that eye that he wants. And so, what does he do? He sets his eye upon it, and even while he's circling around, getting into the right wind, just like an airplane when he comes to land, He's got his eye on it, he's looking at one thing: what is the goal. God wants us to soar, not sit. He wants us to rise above whatever we're facing. Why? Because look, in most of those verses, we talked about how awesome He is and He gave us all the truth about Himself, the most truth about Himself of any chapter in the Bible. It's awesome. God says, "Here's who I am. And because I'm who I am, you can run and not be weary. You won't give up, doesn't mean you won't be tired. You won't give up, you won't quit; and besides that, when you exercise your faith, you'll come out of it, you'll soar above it, and you will succeed at whatever I've called you to do." Now, that's living, and that's believing in the one true God, Jehovah whose Son is Jesus Christ who went to the cross, and from the beginning of time and before--all the way past anything you and I can imagine. The most awesome act in human history is God taking upon Himself human flesh, coming to live in this world that He created, to demonstrate who the Father really is and to demonstrate the Father's love and His tender care for us to die on the cross and to shed His blood to pay your sin debt and mine in full and willing to say, "All who believe in Me, those who placed their trust in Me, those who are willing to confess their sin and surrender themselves to Me become a child of God, heaven is their home, and I will live within them for all eternity, beginning here and now." There's nothing to match that. And if you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, there's no other way to live. You're just keep on going through things and you may scratch your way through and buff your way through, but you're not going to enjoy life. You have a conscience that continues to bother you. You may smile on the outside and tell people it's all so wonderful. God knows it's not. You're not going to get by with it. Consequences of sin are consequences. It's not that I'm being critical, I'm just telling you the truth. The wages of sin is death, death to your heart, death to your spirit, death to your body; the wages of sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is my prayer that God would give you the wisdom to ask Him to forgive you of your sins. Surrender your life to Him, look what you get. Look what you get. You get God in all of His power, all of His love, and all of the things we just described in His Word. And my prayer is that you'll be wise enough to do that. Father, how grateful we are, when we think about this book, what You have placed in it that is so absolutely indescribably awesome. I pray that you'll increase our love for it, all of us, that we will begin to meditate upon it more than ever before, and that we will bow daily before you in recognition of your Lordship in our life. And while compared to Your whole creation, we seem to be nothing; when we look at the cross, we recognize that Your value upon us is more than all the oceans and all the mountains and all the rest of creation. What an awesome love. We say thank you in Jesus's name, amen. [music]
