Trusting in God to Guide You

Transcript

I want to start off just by just by promoting a couple uh podcasts um that I watched uh recently I don't know how many of you um watch good listen to uh good Chris adelphian talks

um but they really do a nice job of picking a wide variety of topics and a wide variety of speakers and I think they've done a particularly good job in the last month with a couple of the talks that they've selected they selected one talk by a brother by the name of Aaron McGee I I'm not really sure where brother Aaron is from uh but he gave an excellent talk on being perfect and blame and blameless I thought he had a really wonderful perspective on uh the challenging idea of what it means when God says be when the scripture says be perfect even as your father in Heaven is perfect

um

the idea uh that he that he uh talked about was that we're called

um to an impossible goal to be perfect and yet really it's it's not about being an annotated goal it's really about the father's relationship

um with us it's really about a reflection about the father and how he sees us

um Aaron does an excellent job I think in laying out

um his idea that being perfect is really just being imperfect in the eyes of a forgiving God

um so I would highly recommend um if you get the chance if you're a podcast listener uh-huh to give an air give Aaron a listen

um the other one was uh done about a month ago by Brother Jason Hensley and that was on the life of Elijah and I guess Jason gave those classes about uh last summer at Idlewild and they're really an interesting set of classes Jason's always a good Bible student and an interesting uh presenter uh but I would highly recommend those

um as well um the one that the one that I particularly like and that that kind of runs along with some of the things we're going to talk about tonight was the one where he talked about the drought you know how Elijah you know appears and says there'll be no rain until I say so and then disappears uh Jason lays out the idea and he lays it out strongly I'm not going to spend time laying out his ideas but he lays out the idea that Isaiah made that pronouncement without being told by God to do so

um and yet God still went along with it and what that does is it sort of changes your perspective on both the drought and on Elijah

um and I think in a really interesting way if you consider the life of Elijah

um his main focus was to teach the people that the Lord is God remember he has that great contest with um the priests of Baal where he's basically saying that Yahweh which of course we refer to as the Lord that he is God that he is the powerful God

um and that the other Lord which is what Baal means is no God at all and so that's really the essence of Elijah's calling especially early on but the life of Elijah is exactly the flip side of that it's God teaching Elijah that he is the Lord and the point that Jason makes was the reason that Elijah appeared and said there's going to be a drought is because it's spoken of in Deuteronomy that if the people are rebellious that they'll be a drought and and that was true the people were rebellious but what Elijah needed to learn was that God is in charge and that God is the one that makes these decisions and and I thought it was a really interesting class and I think it's a really interesting series of subjects so think about the idea and again uh Jason does an excellent job of laying out why He suggests the idea that Elijah gave this statement without being pre-told by God to do so but think about if that's true in the life of Elijah as Elijah comes to learn and this is one of the things that Jason brings out as Elijah comes to learn that uh he did this without without God's consent even though God allowed it to happen because God's will is always done

um then he's got he's got to re-examine his relationship with the people because a lot of people died in that drought because of the word of Elijah and so

um Jason makes the point that it was an incredibly humbling experience for Elijah to come to realize that in the eyes of God we're all in the same boat you know uh are there bigger Sinners between you and I sure but in the eyes of God once you're a sinner you're a slave to sin and so as I pointed out many times before there's two classes of people in the eyes of God there are sinners and there are people who don't sit and the number of people who don't sin is one and that's Christ now we can of course be saved by Christ and God can see us in a different he can choose to see us in a different way and that's one of the main lessons of Elijah he still works with Elijah even though Elijah does this he still works with him throughout Elijah's life and so it's the same with us you know he still works with us even though we're Sinners but he works with us because of Christ not because of of who we are and because of the righteousness and the mercy and grace of God so I would highly recommend um Jason's uh talk as well if if you're a podcast uh person it's called good chrysalphian talks I know probably most of you uh have heard of it before

um what I want to do this evening is take a look at a couple of really challenging chapters in the prophecy of

um Isaiah

and just for minutes just to consider for a minute this verse here

this is in Isaiah 29 verses 1 and 2. now imagine yourself you're doing your daily readings and you're you know Isaiah is there in the middle portion and you come upon this chapter and it says woe to Ariel to Ariel the city where David dwelt Addie year to year let them kill sacrifices yet I will distress Ariel and there shall be heaviness and sorrow and it shall be unto me as Ariel

now of course I know that everybody there can give me a full dissertation as to exactly what this is saying and of course we can't you know can we come to understand it of course we can't come to understand it but when we read it just on the surface and we see what it says I don't know about you but I would not have a single idea of what this is talking about save for one and that's why I highlighted uh that line about

um the city where David dwelt you know when we read scripture especially some of the more challenging passages of scripture there's not a lot on the surface that we're we're going to understand and God actually understands that and so when you look at this passage you know before I go digging I don't know what Ariel represents except for the fact that I can understand what the line means where it says the city where David dwelt well I know the city where David dwelt I know that that's Jerusalem so in the course of all this about sacrifices and about distressing Ariel and about shall be unto me as Ariel I might not understand what those things are but I can understand what it means by the city where David dwelt and for all of us I think we can all understand the basics of that one part of that statement

and so here's the fascinating thing if you can understand that statement you're already ahead of the game in comparison to the 99.9 of the world that we live in because most people have no idea what the city of David dwelt I can speak for myself before I started studying the Bible and and growing up I would have not known uh even Who David was I knew the name I knew that he had something to do with the Bible but that's all I really would have known so I wouldn't have known where he'd do out they certainly wouldn't have known that he was a king so so even just by the fact that you can know that one small little verse is you already one step ahead of the game but God actually understands that there's many things we don't understand and so he literally gives us instruction as to how to read his word consider what it says just one chapter back

and this is in verse 9 of Isaiah chapter 28. and it says Whom Shall he teach knowledge this is Isaiah's talking about the Lord God and Whom Shall he make to understand Doctrine

them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breast for precept must be upon precept precept upon precept line upon line line up online hear a little and they're a little and he's talking about so who am I going to teach understanding to

well I'm going to teach the person who is as it says weaned from the milk and drawn from the breast well because we know a little bit about scripture we know at least a hint of what that's talking about because we know that the writer of Hebrews actually talks about this idea of do I have to continue to give you the milk of the word you should be at the point of enjoying the meat of the work so what this expression means where it says weaned from the milk and drawn from the breast is people who are no longer babes in the truth what it's talking about is people that understand the basic first principles of scripture and if understanding Who David is sets you into a smaller percentage of people in the world understanding the first principles of scripture sets you in the absolute infinitesimal number of people in the world and yet here's the Lord saying it's to those people that I'm going to teach knowledge and give understanding those who are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breast those who have a basic understanding of the foundational principles of what God is talking about and we understand that what we know about scripture is not what most of the world knows about scripture all those basic principles about the nature of God and the nature of Christ and our own sinful nature Etc this is what it says

um in verses 11 and 13. but with stamina now he's going to talk about the other people he says for with stammering lips in another tongue that is those who say I can't understand God because he doesn't really want me to understand will he speak to this people that's disobedient that's that's to these people the quitters the people that that don't persevere because that's what God is asking us to do notice and I should go back to the to the previous slide there was one person who put him on to me this idea about a little here and a little there that's the way scripture works and we all know it because we've all experienced it we've all come to a passage and we thought I don't really understand anything about that passage like Isaiah 29 verse 1. but there's a little bit I understand I understand about Dave and then we go away from it and this is exactly what happened to me as far as Isaiah 29 verse 1 was when I first read it I didn't understand any of it we'll talk about what Ariel means in a minute I looked at that and I still didn't understand it but God knows that he understands that that's the way it looks he knows it's hard to understand these things and so he says to you listen this is what you do you read a little you understand a little you read a little more you follow it line by line You'll pick up a little bit here you'll pick up a little bit there and pretty soon these things that you pick up you'll be able to use for the next passage for the next books for the next thing and you your understanding of things grows and your understanding of things strengthens your faith it gives you the power to or the the motivation to continue and God understands that he wants you to know I get it you know it's gonna take you a while it's gonna take some time don't worry about it I'll work with you you already have the basic principles in in your head we shouldn't be re-convincing ourselves of who the devil is or reconvincing ourselves about the nature of Christ you already know that you already have it you already understand it so so don't find yourself always saying well I I need to make sure that this is correct you already know that it's correct you've already gone down that road now let those let that meat work build upon the little things that you come across the little things that you find and of course the other thing that it's talking about is you have to keep your nose in the book that's otherwise precept upon precept and the line upon line is meaningless because you're not there anyway and so you're not going to pick up a little here and a little there you might pick up some things in classes and that kind of stuff but the beauty of our our understanding of scripture is we can understand it for ourselves we don't have to go elsewhere to find somebody who supposedly got you know a seminary degree somewhere or some of that kind of stuff it's there for the the most basic of individuals myself uh you know to understand these things so then he talks about the people that don't want to understand that's really what this is talking about but with stammering lips and another tongue stammering lips is like mocking that is you know I can't understand this because God doesn't really want me to know and that's what the vast majority of people think about scripture God doesn't want me to understand it that's why it's so difficult uh he will speak to this people that is the Disobedience or the creditors the people that look at it and go you know I can never understand this I've told the story before about uh the guy I worked with a really nice God his name was Joe and I was talking to Joe one day about the Bible and he says oh I tried to read the Bible and I said you did and he's he said yeah I tried it's it's incomprehensible and so I said to him what did you read and he said I read Revelation and I was like oh dude you can't stop with Revelation and he's like yeah it's all the same I I of course he wanted nothing else else to do with it well you know you need to be intelligent about it needless to say which is basically what I said to Joe uh and to whom he said this is the rest wherewith you may cause the weary to rest and this is the refreshing in other words this is the way to do it

here's you know

and this is something that like it says that this is something he says throughout his word I'm offering you rest I'm offering you refreshing but you don't want to hear it yet they would not hear and to them but the word this is it's such an interesting passage the way it takes this phrase and gives it uh two meanings one on how to understand and the other on why people refuse to understand but the word of the Lord was upon unto them oh it's precept about precept precept the precept line upon line a little hair a little there drudgery right and we can all feel that way at times we can all feel like it's like it's drudgery you know sometimes you go through those Chronicles chapters you know and it feels like drudgery sometimes we do the daily readings and it feels like drudgery well we gotta we gotta press on we can't let that let that feeling you know consume us and let us go you know what this this is a waste of my time you know that they might go that is fall backward and be broken and snared and taken and that's just what happens that's exactly what happens when people need this idea that it's all just drudgery it's all just line up online and precept the bond precept you got to give it time and you got to trust in God and you've got to know that God understands that he's made it this way because he wants you to person he wants you to work through it he gives you these trials in your life so that you will work through it so that you will put your trust in him rather than in your other than in yourself

so I want to talk about the two chapters and again when you first get to these chapters when I first got to these chapters I didn't understand any other but you read it a little bit you you consider it you think about it you walk through it and sometimes it's easy to understand and sometimes it's more challenging to understand so take uh Isaiah 28 verse 1. and the two chapters by the way are really about Pride that's what they're about about two different aspects of pride chapter 28 is pride in what you've got pride in what you've accumulated in chapter 29 is pride of yourself pride of who you think who you think you are it's that self-righteous Pride which I'll get to in just a minute and I'll show you why I say that so 28 to start off if it's about pride is easy to say because it says it right chapter 28 verse 1 says woe to the crown Pride to the drunkards of Ephraim so you've got the northern kingdom of Ephraim and you've got the southern Kingdom of Judah and so in depth 2080 starts out he's talking about Ephraim and we understand what Ephraim represents we know that Ephraim was a worldly country it was a country that had wealth it was a country that had money it was a country that had opulence and it it trusted in those things it was proud of those of those things it says whose glorious beauty is a Fading Flower which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine and then it repeats this idea of being drunk with wine drunk with wine drunk with wine and it's all about that Spirit of you know in fact the word Ephraim means double blessing right and that's exactly what the people of Ephraim thought they had they thought they had a double blessing in other words we've got twice as much as everybody else and they were proud of it and of course it was going to bring them down it was going to bring them bring them way down which is exactly where 28 chapter 28 codes

it says in verse 2 behold the Lord hath Almighty and a strong one which has a tempest of hail and a destroying storm as a flood of Mighty Waters overflowing shall cast down to the Earth with his hand and I want you to recognize as we go through these two chapters please is the difference between God responds to the pride of Ephraim and the pride of the people in Jerusalem because he's going to he's going to

um it's going to work with both of them but in some some cases he destroys and in other cases he refines and we'll talk about why that is in just a minute but here with chapter 28 it talks about it's going to be a tempest and a hail and a storm and a flood and he's going to wipe it out and that's the way God sees this idea of pride of things pride of wealth pride of money pride of all those things that have nothing to do with God we live in a world that is proud of opulence but we're not the only people who ever lived in the world that's proud of oculus that world has been going on for a long long time it's just at least to me anyway more obvious today uh than ever so the Lord is going to come with a storm upon that kind of prod to just to destroy it notice it's a it's a destroying storm

now in verse 29 in chapter 29 you get something a little bit different notice first of all it's not so easy to understand it was very easy to see the pride of Ephraim in chapter 28 but then you come to 29 and I've said that it's about Pride well why do I say that well it's because of this word Ariel it says woe to Ariel to Ariel the city where David dwelt

now the word aerial means but actually it has two meanings uh the first meaning or the most uh common meaning of it is the lion of God

and so when you read this and and first of all I shouldn't say first of all again but one of the interesting things about this Chaplet and one of the reasons why as a Bible reader you might see it and go well this is interesting even though I don't understand it is because this word Ariel is very unusual in fact it's only found six times in scripture it's found five times in the first few verses of Isaiah 29 and it's found once as a name in Chronicles uh not Chronicles Ezra uh one of the people that goes back to

um back to Jerusalem with

um with Ezra is somebody named Ariel and you mentioned he's mentioned once or she's mentioned I know it's going to be he actually um so you get to the chapter and you go why all of a sudden is this word Ariel popping up in Isaiah 29 like I say it comes up five times in seven verses and yet you never saw it before you never see it afterward well the reason is because of the meaning of the word

the first meaning like I said is the lion of God now if you take the expression the lion of God and you read this verse which is exactly what I did when I first started looking at this chapter and tried to figure out what Ariel meant and why it's here it doesn't make a lot of sense when you think of the Lion of God for me I think of the line of the tribe of Judah the Lord Jesus Christ I think of David uh the King as a lion is the king of the jungle

but but this can't be those kinds of lions or or if it is it's in a different way because so replace the word arrow with Lion of God if that's what it means and we're sure it's it's about the meaning of the word because the word doesn't exist anywhere else so it's not about some guy named Ariel who pops up here and there it's not about a place named Arrow the only reason it's here is because Isaiah what the Lord God through Isaiah wants us to understand the meaning of this word so that it'll bring out what Isaiah is trying to talk about so it says woe to the lion of God to the line of God the city where David dwelt and I do year to year let them kill sacrifices yet I will distress the line of God and there shall be no heaviness and sorrow and it shall be unto me as the lion of God

now

I've probably repeated that line a dozen times and it doesn't help in any way shape or form and that's because there are actually two meanings to this word um Ariel in fact if you're watching Sunday school on Sunday uh Steve was talking about words that have double meanings this is a word that has double meaning and the other meaning for the lion of God the other meaning for Ariel is the altar of God and when you think about the altar of God then it starts to make some sense that this word is talking about the concept of being a lion of God that is you know a zealous for God

but the altar is talking about sacrifice and is talking about what happens on the altar the the thing that a lion has in common with the altar is the power involved a lion is a powerful animal the ultra is an altar of burning it's an altar of of fire the power of fire and we know that fire can do one of two things it can consume or it can purify

and so when you take this word and you understand that there's two meanings to this word in that Isaiah actually wants you to understand the concept of the two meanings then you then it starts to be a little bit clearer as to what Isaiah is trying to bring across in fact I think one of the reasons why he says Ariel twice here is so that you'll understand there's two meanings I don't think this says woe to the lion of God to the altar of God because you wouldn't say woe to the altar of God but think look at it this way when you look at it a different way go to the lion of God to the lion of God to the city where David dwelt okay Jerusalem is the city where David dwell it's the city where righteousness should Prevail it's the city where the great king is going to come but it's not about the king or it's not yet about the king now how do we know that well we know that because it says the city where David dwelt and you say yes David's the king and that's true but it doesn't say where King David dwells or where the King dwelt instead it just says where David dwelt

so you're not talking about the righteous King but you are talking about the lion of God you are talking about the strength of Jerusalem and as we know from the time of Christ the strength of Jerusalem was in their religious zealotry that's what they that's what they trusted in so you have the lion of God the lion of God the city where David dwelt add year to year let them kill the sacrifices yet I will distress the lion of God

and there shall be heaviness and sorrow and it shall be unto me as the altar of God in other words what he's saying here is you can be zealous but I'm going to distress you because you are going to take pride in that zealotry there shall be heaviness and sorrow there shall be struggles

and sorrow because of the idea that you take pride in your zealotry that you take that this is something that you think you're accomplishing and boy we can fall into that mistake ourselves we can think we're just so wonderful because we have this this truth and we are incredibly blessed to have it no doubt about it but it is not ours it is the Lord's and so we have the altar of God that adds these fiery trials that we all go through that we might be purified or

that we might be concerned and that goes right back to the precept and precept lying upon law how are you going to respond to these fiery trials that you go through how are you going to respond to the difficulty of scripture and the answer is you have to persevere and you have to put your trust in God

verse

a lemon of Hebrews says now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but Grievous nevertheless afterwards it yield the Peaceable fruit there's that peace there's that the very thing that he talked about uh at the beginning of the chapter about who about in chapter 28 about who can I give understanding to who can I teach about this piece

well it yields the Peaceable fruits of righteousness onto them which are exercised thereby that's that's our hope that that's that's that's what guides us or helps us through all the difficult trials that we go through we know trials in chastening is not is not joyous nobody enjoys sinning nobody enjoys guilt nobody enjoys feeling terrible for what for what they did yet if you persevere as we all understand this verse to be talking about it yields the Peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby that's the process that we're going through that's the purification on the altar on the altar of God I just lick my fingers to change to push the button as if I'm as if I'm turning a page in the in the book uh chapter 29 verse 3 and 4 says and this is now talking about uh how he will respond to to the lion uh who's proud of proud of himself he says and I will Camp against thee roundabout and I will lay Siege against thee with a knob and I will raise forth against thee and thou shalt be brought down or brought low and shall speak out of the ground and thy speech shall be low Out of the Dust and thy voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar Spirit out of the ground and thy speech shall whisper Out of the Dust well that's a hard verse but what's he what's he talking about we have a better idea now of what he's talking about because we understand of whom he's speaking remember back in chapter 28 you have this overwhelming flood that the northern kingdom is going to be wiped out and the people of Northern community be wiped out by a flood well the flood of course was a Syrian right and they were wiped out and and the ten tribes went away and you never heard from them again you're down in the South it was different Babylon came in right and the people were taken away like they were dead like they were buried like they were gone and yet there was still that small voice

and 80 years later they still came back it's like a whisper Out of the Dust and that's just that's the purifying process yes there is there is death and there is difficulty Isaiah even in this chapter is Whispering to us from the dust so it it's actually a beautiful voice verse about the purification process that we all go through

and but then it immediately jumps to those who those who persecute those who seek to understand moreover the multitude of thy strangers or enemies

shall be like dust and the multitude of the terrible one shall be as a chaff that passeth away ye it shall be as an instant suddenly thou shall be visited of the Lord of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and with great noise and with storming with Tempest and the flame of devouring fire and he's talking about those enemies that they notice there's no voice coming from them from the dust it says they will be as chaff passing away well that's exactly what happened to Babylon Babylon was gone never to be heard from again the principle we know is still there it'll be there till the end but the country itself is completely gone and that's just what God says and then he goes on I hope I think the next verse is

yeah this is fascinating look what he goes on to say and he's talking about the enemies of Israel or the enemies of of Ariel the enemies of Israel whether Israel is is the lion of God or is self-righteous or whatever it's still Ariel and he says this about the Nations that fight against Arrow that's what it says and the multitude of all the nations that fight against this Ariel whether you know good or or self-righteous or whatever even all that fight against her and her minions and that distressor shall be as a dream of a night vision and it shall be even as when a Hungry Man dreameth and behold he eat it but he awaketh and his soul is empty or as when a thirsty man dreameth and behold he drinketh but he awaketh and behold there is faint and his soul hath appetite so shall the multitude of the Nations be that fight against Mount Zion and that has been true throughout history throughout history these these nations whether it was Haman or the Romans or the Nazis or whoever they fight against Israel and they think well they've got the complete upper hand that they're going to destroy Israel they're going to wipe them out and then when they're done they look down and they got nothing they get nothing the the Haman had nothing he he was so sure he was going to destroy all the Jews and he took him on thinking oh this is going to be easy he ends up putting up the Romans Israel was just this tiny little offshoot of a country you know what let's just go down and wipe it out let's just go down and destroy it didn't work Nazis killed six million Jews didn't work and that's just what this talking about you think you got him you think you do and guess what you don't and of course the reason you don't is because God is working with the Jews not because the Jews defeated

um Haman not because the Jews defeated the Romans or or the Nazis or whoever because God's hand is involved and we should be putting our trust in God I love uh that series of voices what time we got 806. for the Lord hath poured out now he goes back and he's talking about about disobedient Israel again

and he says for the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep and hath closed your eyes and the prophets and your rulers the sea is hath he covered and that's just what he did he closed the eyes of the Jews because they wouldn't accept Christ because they wouldn't see

um the nature of their own character the self-righteous nature of their own character the Jews always see themselves as first uh in the eyes of God and they don't understand their Disobedience they don't understand their self-righteousness they don't under and so they're blind and so and we know they're blind they're still blind to this day Paul talks about Paul talks about that Veil that's been put over their eyes for a period of time Isaiah was talking about the exact same thing

and then verse 13 He says wherefore the Lord said for as much as this people draw near to me with their mouths and with their lips do unto me but have removed their hearts far from me now think for a second about how that's different from from

um Ephraim

Ephraim didn't draw near to God with their mouth he they didn't their lips did not honor God that's what the world does tell you the world today doesn't you know draw near with their lips to God

or honor God in any way shape or form they don't care and the Ephraim represents that's that form of Pride that form of of opulence I don't need God I don't care now the Jews were different because they were practicing their religion that happens way back in the beginning of chapter 29 right where it says you can keep killing your sacrifices year by year but I'm still gonna I'm still going to Humble you I'm still going to do it and he says but have removed their hearts From Me In Their Fear towards me is taught by the precepts of men in other words you think you're doing the spiritual thing you're not all you're doing is those same precepts those same precept upon precept line upon line roll out the sacrifice kill the sacrifice bring it out next year kill it again bring it out next year kill again precept the concrete blind upon line if we just keep doing that we're going to be fine with God but their heart is far from me that's what they don't get that's what they don't understand but verse 14 says this

I'll first of all consider what Jesus said when you go back I'm sorry let me go back to this verse again this verse actually should sound familiar to you because Jesus picks up on it about this idea of you know you speak to me with your lips but your heart is far from me and that's what this verse here is in uh Matthew you Hypocrites well did Isaiah the prophesy of you saying this people draw nigh unto me with their lips and honor Anatomy with their mouth and honor me with their lips but their heart is far from me but in vain do they worship me teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men and he called the multitude and said unto them here and understand not that which Goes Forth in the mouth to file of the man but that which cometh out of the mouth this defileth a man and there's a first principle right there always they're always part of the foundation of everything we believe but this is the verse 14. he says therefore behold

I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people that is among those Jews among those people that honor me with their lips but but their heart is far from me even a marvelous work and one day and we always know when you see this idea of a marvelous work that's Christ no no doubt about it for the wisdom of their wise men Shall Perish that's just what Christ did he destroyed the wisdom of the wise men with his words and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid so Christ always comes into the picture and and rightfully so because he's the Redeemer Verse 18 says and in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of Darkness the meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel for the terrible one is brought to not and this corner is consumed and all notice what it says here this is remarkable

and all that watch for iniquity are cut off

now think about what that means all that watch for iniquity

that's the self-righteous those that watch for iniquity and and boy we can fall into this trap ourselves we can just wait for it and just see it and just declare it and I'm just looking for you all just just looking for it that brother you know what he said on Sunday you're not going to believe it I'm just waiting for somebody to make a mistake that's what he's talking about that watch for iniquity that's just what the Pharisees were doing let's catch Jesus and what he had to say right they were watching for it just give us a chance and we'll tear you apart of course Christ never did that make a man an offender for a word

boy that's familiar too

you just wait for somebody to say the wrong thing the Pharisees just waited for Jesus to say the wrong thing and we can do the same thing in our wall even with people on the outside world the people who who don't know the truth we just wait for them to say their own thing so we can we can jump on God hates that mentality because none of us have the right to be self-righteous and lay a snare for him that reproveth at the gate and reproofeth that the gate is talking about the Gate of Justice that's remember you you took your problems to the gate and they would lay a snare for people Revenge

for bringing for bringing Justice to the gay and turn aside the just

for a thing of not in other words turn the truth into a lie

and that's just what God hates

and we should never fall into that trap now we're human we make mistakes God understands that he still works with our weakness but we have to pay attention to what we say and pay attention to how we treat others but we need to be the humblest of people and look what he says next

notice the difference between the pride and the strength of the Lion of God the self-righteous Lion of God and what he says here

but when he sees his children the work of mine hands in the midst of him they shall sanctify my name and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob and shall fear the god of Israel they also that urge in spirit

shall come to understand them now think about that expression for a minute which says that urge in spirit shall come to understand come to understand that remember back at the beginning he said who will I give understanding to

and he said those who are ready to be taken from the milk of the word and given the meat of the word and here it says those that feared in spirit shall come down to earth and spirit shall come to understand that

sorry about us

he's talking about those who are are taking of the meat of the word and yet are making mistakes just what the guy just what the writer of Hebrews was talking about about you know none of this is all Grievous however

this is how we learn

those that urge in spirit tried to do the right thing but did the wrong thing we do it all the time I do it all the time I shouldn't speak for you I do it all the time

and yet to us he offers understanding and they that murmured and I can do that too so I learned Doctrine so so what is this telling us

it's telling us that we can put our trust in God

it's telling us that he will work with us despite our weaknesses because of Christ he's always willing to work with us if we are willing to put our faith and our trust in him if we're willing to go precept Vice precept line upon line here a little there a little focus on our Readings By the way and in our walking Faith as well and in our relationship to others as well you hear a little there a little a little bit more a little bit more he's not asking you to turn into a saint tomorrow he's not asking me to turn into a saint tomorrow he's just asking us to put our trust in him and to let him work in our walk in in our walk in faith

you know who learned the lesson Was Elijah

you know Elijah was a man of of great understanding

and yet he went through a humbling process

and he actually learned

the end of the game look what happens in second chronicles 21. we know how Elijah crosses and he goes away

and then later on he writes a letter We Are All Amazed oh why did we hear from Elijah again I hate this reason why we heard from Elijah again

is because something he says in this verse he's talking about one of the Kings of Israel and it came at writing to him from Elijah the prophet saying thus saith the Lord God of David thy father and he Elijah's harsh in this writing there's some one specific line I want you to pick up on

and think about who Elijah was before that man who who had the the lion the zealotry to walk into and say until I say something it's not going to rain

because thou has walked has not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat they father nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah but has walked in the ways of the king of Israel and has made Judah in the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a horn like to the whoredoms of the House of Ahab and also has slain thy Brethren of thy father's house

which were better

than I sell behold of the Great Plague with the Lord Smite thy people and my children thy wives and all thy goods and thou shalt have great Sickness by disease of thy bowels until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day the line I should have underlined it I want you to notice is this line is of thy father's house

which were better than thyself

those two points I want to make about that line

the first is remember Elijah was the guy we said I am zealous for the Lord and I am the last one there's nobody else but me and the lesson that God taught him was no no I got seven thousand you're not the last one and now here he is later and he's talking to this uh terrible King

and he says you know what

your brothers were better than you and let me explain to you what that word better means because it doesn't mean Superior

it means really gooder but you can't use the Expression gooder because it's terrible so the right is the the the translate is use the word better but better gives the idea of superior it's not about being Superior it's about being kinder

it's about being nicer

it's about being a better person in general and I say I would have never seen that before damn everybody was disobedient everybody was terrible but he learned the lesson and God worked with and now here he is in his last writing saying yeah

yeah we can all be kind of

we can all be humbler we can all put our trust in our faith in God he's still condemning the king because the King was terrible but he's learned the lesson that God wanted him to learn so that's what we need to do 819 Jimbo actually I did better than I thought I would

um I hope that was helpful I think it's fascinating chapters when we look at it line by preset by precept line by line but it's really a lesson about pride and humility and that's the lesson we all need um each and every day certainly I do