Okay, let's turn our Bibles to Isaiah chapter 40. We're going to talk about the glories of Jehovah God this morning. And I'd like to link it to Father's Day. We think about our earthly fathers, not only about what our fathers were to us, but also what we as fathers may be to our sons and daughters. We're going to link that to this passage. We're going to kind of have an exposition of Isaiah chapter 40 this morning. But I'd like to focus on two verses to start out. Let's read verses 28 and 29 of Isaiah chapter 40. The Bible says, Do you not know? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary. And to him who lacks might, he increases power. Let's bow for word of prayer. Our Heavenly Father, dear Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you, Lord, for this day. We thank you, Lord, for the privilege and the opportunity to come to the house of God and to worship our great God and Savior. to serve the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, to fellowship with believers of like precious faith, to hear the Word of God taught and preached, to enjoy good music that honors the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you, Lord, for this church. We thank you, Lord, for the gift of life We thank you for the privilege that we have to live in this country and to be able to express our religious convictions freely. And Lord, we just pray now that you'd bless this service, bless this message, anoint the lips of this preacher that I might preach the truths of God and not the precepts of men. And help us all to be receptive to the truths of God's Word, to be responsive to take these truths and to put them into practice in our own lives. that we might always live in such a way that would bring glory to the name of Jesus. For I ask all these things in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. The glories of Jehovah God. This is a phenomenal chapter and I encourage you to, after the service, if you get a chance sometime today, if not throughout the week, read this chapter on your own. We're going to look at four Simple points that I have found in these verses. Number one, the Lord provides comfort to his people. And find that in the first two verses. The Lord provides comfort to his people. Number two, the Lord always provides a way to him. Verses three through 11. The Lord always provides a way to him. Verses three through 11. Number three, the Lord is omnipotent. All powerful. And that's verses 12 through 17. And then finally, number four, the Lord is incomparable. Incomparable. Nobody compares to Him. Amen? Verses 18 through 31. Those four things, I believe, are interwoven in these verses, and we're going to take a look at them as we move along. You know, we had a discussion in Sunday school on fathers and some of the duties of fathers and the duties of mothers and the duties of parents, and we linked that together with our celebration of Father's Day today. I don't think I'm too bold in stating that we live in a time today where, unfortunately, the father figure is a little bit aligned, misaligned, I should say. The father figure is, as the family has become weaker, And the divorce rate has become higher. There's more and more single moms raising their children without the father figure. And it has become a problem because the family is intended to be a unit together with the father, with the wife, the mother, and the children. And they all have their roles. And under the scrutiny of the scripture, there's principles and methodologies that we can put into practice to have a happy and enduring home. Well, today, this morning, we're going to look at this passage, how our Heavenly Father takes care of us. And then by doing that, we can maybe draw some conclusions and some parallels and see how we, as fathers and mothers, or fathers that will be fathers one day, amen? This should be applicable to everybody is what I'm saying. So let's look at the first couple of verses. The Lord provides comfort to His people. Notice what the Bible says, Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak kindly to Jerusalem and call out to her that her warfare has ended. That word warfare could also be translated hard service. That her iniquity has been removed. That she has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. Isn't it amazing that many preachers today preach a very negative message Woe is me. We're going to hell in a handbasket. Things are getting worse and worse. What in the world are we going to do? That's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that we are on the winning team. Amen? Forget the Lakers. We're the winners. Amen? Christians are the winners. The Bible says that Jesus has already won the victory over death. The Bible says that victory defeated, that Satan defeated the devil at the cross. It's over. We are on the winning team. And so the Bible says, Comfort, O comfort my people, says the Lord. The job of the preacher is not only to admonish and to correct and to help and mold his congregation to being right with God. It's the same as the role of a father and a mother, right? It's to mold and nurture and train those children so that they go in the right direction. But it's also the job of the pastor and the leader and the teacher and the father and the mother to comfort one another. How often do we comfort? Words of comfort reassure the believer, do they not? Sometimes we don't comfort, but we judge. You know, some people think, well, if you're sick, you must have sinned. You're out of a job, you must have sinned. You don't make a lot of money, you must be a sinner. This guy makes a lot of money, he must be really doing good for the Lord. I don't think so. Not necessarily. You could be rich and be as lost as a goose. Hmm? You could be poor and be the best Christian on the planet. Now that doesn't mean that you can't be rich and be a good Christian. It didn't say that at all. The Bible doesn't say that money is the root of all evils, does it? It says the love of money is the root of all evils. In other words, when you put money in front of God, then it's a problem. So there's nothing wrong with making money. There's nothing wrong with supporting your family. But we need to be as the Lord is to us. The Bible says he comforts his people. We ought to also comfort one another. Turn quickly over to Isaiah chapter 12. Isaiah chapter 12. Just turn over a few pages. Let's look at these words of comfort. Isaiah chapter 12. And let's look at the first two verses. Isaiah chapter 12, the first two verses. Then you will say, on that day, I will give thanks to thee, O Lord, for although thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou dost comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation. You see, the Bible gives us a positive picture, amen? When you come to Christ and accept His provision for salvation, your sins are forgiven, you now have a comforter, you have security in the Lord, and you have a positive reason and purpose for living. The Bible says, O comfort my people, says your God. It is our job as fellow Christians to comfort other Christians. Amen? It is our job to comfort other people. If someone's down and out, we need to comfort them. Don't judge them. Comfort them. Amen? In the inner Noah, you might want to judge them, and all of a sudden you might be in the same boat they were. But then who are you going to judge? Huh? So we need to be careful and loving. That doesn't mean we compromise, amen? We stand firm for the Word of God, but we need to, I'm kind of, I have the Mary Poppins approach, Brother Sam. I believe that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Amen? And there's nothing wrong with standing firm for the Bible, but being compassionate and loving at the same time. That's what the Bible says we ought to do. That's the way Christ was, amen? That's the way Christ was. He was loving to all the unlovely. And that's what we need to be. We need to be comforting and loving. And so, you know, we can have peace and we can have rest in the Lord. You know, it's something that took me, Brother Don, it took me a while to figure out in my Christian life. I was going around in my Christian life and me being, you probably can't tell this from my personality, but I tend to be a little bit of a worrier and I tend to be a little bit of a control freak. I like to have everything just right. I'm a neat freak. I like everything just right. And it took me a while to figure out, wait a minute, sometimes things aren't going to work out just the way I think they ought to. And I better let it go and let God take care of it. Amen? And so we can have peace and we can have rest in the Lord. I've learned to rest in the Lord. John Quincy Adams had a good saying and he said this. He said, it's my duty to do the best I can and I'm going to leave the results with God. That's powerful. I'm not going to worry about the results. Whatever I do, whether it's the ministry, whether it's my music, whether it's my engineering, whatever I do, whether it's at home, when I'm dealing with people, whatever it is, I'm going to do the best I can, and I'm going to leave the results with God. Just like the pastor. No pastor should ever be upset if he's only got 50 in church. You see, some people think, well, a successful church is a big church. Not necessarily. Some of the biggest churches in the world are as carnal as you can imagine. Huh? They're entertainment centers. And so it's not just numbers that count. There's nothing wrong with growing. But the pastor needs to do the right thing, preach the truth. and leave the results with God. If He gives you 50 in church, praise the Lord. If He gives you 50,000, praise the Lord. That's up to Him. It's not up to us to worry about, right? We do our job. We go and win souls. We preach the gospel. We train and nurture. We do the things that we're supposed to do to fulfill the Great Commission, but we leave the results to God. Well, the believer knows the assurance of pardon and iniquity, it says in these verses too. Not only do the words of comfort reassure the believer, but we know the assurance of sin's pardon, right? Of iniquity pardoned. You know what? There's no better peace than that, is there Brother Sam? There's no better peace than knowing that your sins are forgiven. How would you like to have the threat of one day either the Lord's coming or your life is going to end, and you're going to meet your Maker, and you're going to have to answer for everything. But thanks be to God, if you're a Christian, you don't answer for nothing, except for the way you lived after you were a Christian. Amen? In other words, all your sins are cancelled. They're washed away. You've been saved by the blood of the Lamb. He paid in full. He came to this planet 2,000 years ago. He fulfilled the law. He lived a perfect life. He died in our place as our substitute so that he could set us free from the bondage of sin. And now we're free. And you know what? That freedom gives us peace. Amen? We have peace with God. You might call that vertical peace. We have peace with our fellow man. You might call that horizontal peace. And we also have peace even with ourselves. Inward peace. Upward, outward, inward. And I don't think you can have any of those pieces without Christ. Amen? You can't have it without Christ. And so we have the assurance of pardon and iniquity. Turn over a few pages in Isaiah again to 55. Isaiah 55 and verse 7. The Bible says, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to the Lord and he will have compassion on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. Did you know that all you have to do is come to Christ and confess your sins and he will abundantly pardon? Can you imagine that? Now, think about this. How many human beings do you know, if you did something wrong to them, or you got on their bad side, whatever, you did something, and it offended them, how many people do you know that would just, if you went up to them, hey, I'm sorry, please forgive me, and they would just forgive you, and it's forgotten, they'll never bring it up to you, it's over. They may not bring it up to you, but how many of them, really, it's over in their mind. It's not going to fester like a cancer. A lot of people are not like that. Amen? You offend them, and boy, they'll never forget it. That's it. How dare you offend me? Right? Well, think about what we, I'm talking about all of us, what we did to Christ. If you know some, there was an argument. I think it was between someone that believed in the works of salvation and someone that believed in salvation according to the Bible. And they were saying, you know, what did Christ do? How are we saved? And so forth. And then they went on to say that it was the Jews that put Christ to death. And someone else said, no, it was the Romans that put him to death. And finally this wise theologian said, no, it was me. It was me. It was you and I. We put him to death. Because if he didn't die, we wouldn't have life. And so he came to die in our place. Amen? It's because of our sins that he came to die. to free us from the bondage of sin. So these verses are powerful. The Lord provides comfort to his people. Words of comfort reassure the believer. The believer knows the assurance of pardon and iniquity. We can have rest. Isn't rest wonderful? The busier I get, Brother Richard, the more I like rest. I like sleeping in on Saturday morning. That's just the way it is. We work so hard, we're so busy, and we've got to sleep in once in a while. And when you get into bed, it's so nice. The unfortunate thing is, Brother Richard, sometimes I've got so many things on my mind that I've got to do. I can't fall asleep! I'm sitting there, here's what I've got to do tomorrow. I like to release it so I can just go to sleep. But you know what? Jesus provides rest. He gives us rest. We need to rest in the Lord. And here's how you can do it. Sometimes we worry. How are we going to make a living? How are we going to pay the bills? How are we going to do this? How are we going to do that? Oh, what if I'm sick? What if I'm... whatever. I'll tell you what, you can rest in the Lord because He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He is so powerful, He is the sovereign. What does sovereign mean? That means He is the absolute ruler of the universe. He knows everything that's going on before it ever happens. Amen? He knows the end from the beginning. 2,000 years ago, He knew that I'd be standing up here this morning preaching this message. Did you know that? He knew. Sister Alma, that you'd be sitting there, right there, right now, nodding your head right there, just the way she's doing that. He knew that. 5,000 years ago. 10,000 years ago. He knew everything from the beginning. Amen? So if He is that wise and that smart and that powerful, Why don't we just rest in Him and let Him take care of everything? Huh? Our burdens are heavy, right? They'll be light if we put them on the Lord. He'll take care of us. You know, I've found one thing, and I tended to be a worrier, and I'm learning to be better because I used to worry about things. But I found out, wait a minute, and I thought back to history and found out why the Lord always took care of me. Well, there have been little, you know, hard times. There's been trials. There's been different things. But the Lord is always taking care of me. You know? And I bet you can think of the same thing. The Lord will take care of you. He comforts His people. You know, and the only other point I want to make here, before we move on, is this thing about a clear conscience. If you do right, you can have a clear conscience, and there's nothing better than a clear conscience. I believe, especially if you're really a Christian. Isn't that right, Brother Mondo? If you're really a Christian, you've got a conscience. And if you do wrong, if you lie, or if you steal, if you cheat, If you disobey the principles of the scriptures, you have a conscience and it's going to eat away at you. Amen? So how do you avoid that? By living according to the principles of the scriptures. Amen? If you do right, you don't have to worry about your conscience. If you don't lie, if you don't steal, if you don't cheat, if you don't do things in violation of the word, you don't have to worry about it. You've got a clean conscience. Amen, preacher? I see we didn't have our coffee this morning. Huh? You don't have to worry. You can have a clear conscience. That's what it's talking about. Words of comfort. Let's move on to the next verses. Let's go on to verse 3. The Bible says that the Lord always provides a way to him. Look at verse 3. It says, a voice is calling. Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness. Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. You know there are always appointed messengers that deliver the word. Did you know that? There are prophets and preachers and ministers and missionaries, pastor teachers, Sunday school teachers, singers that proclaim the message through song. There are messengers that God sends to deliver the message of God's word. Amen? And these people clear the way to Him. Amen? It's like when Brother Don and Brother Stan, when they go out soul winning, knocking on doors. If they find someone who's willing to be shown how to come to the Lord, they really didn't win them to the Lord. They didn't give them salvation. They showed them the way. But it's crying. They have cleared the way, like it says here. See, a voice is calling, clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness. They've cleared the way. They've shown the way. And the Holy Spirit does the work. You can't make someone get saved. You can't do it. All you can do is share the truth. The Holy Spirit will bring that person to Christ. Amen? The Holy Spirit will do the work. We leave the results to Him. And so the Lord always provides a way to Him. Well not only that, let's look at verse 4. Not only are there appointed messengers to deliver the word of God, but His glory shines forth as obstacles are removed. Look at verse 4. Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low, and let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley. Then what happens? Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. And a voice says, call out. And he answered, what shall I call out? All flesh is grass and its loveliness is like the flower of a field. Loveliness could be translated constancy in the Hebrew. Constancy. So what is it saying? It says, his glory shines forth as obstacles are removed. Let me remind you of when the temple, when they built the temple, what happened? when they were about to put it into practice, implement the services in the temple. What happened? The Holy Spirit came, right? And it endorsed the temple as the meeting place, as God's house. The Holy Spirit, the Shekinah glory came down. Well, the same thing happened with the tabernacle before that. The same thing happened with the church at Pentecost. What happened when the church was started by Christ and then at Pentecost, what happened? The Holy Spirit came down on the day of Pentecost and authenticated and empowered the church, attested to the truth that it is the meeting place, the mechanism of God to spread the news of Christ throughout the world. So not only did the Holy Spirit come down, The glory of God shone and empowered the tabernacle and the temple, but He also did the church. I believe that the power of the Holy Spirit that endorsed and authenticated and poured out His power at Pentecost is the same God we have today. Amen, preacher? It's the same God we have today. And so that Holy Spirit power is still possible today. It's continuously effectual. And so, the Lord always provides a way to him as glory shines forth, his obstacles removed. Notice the verse we said about all flesh as grass. You know, mortals are as grass. You know, down here we live in the South Bay, we're a little bit spoiled, right? It's a little bit cooler, and things stay greener a little bit longer. But you know, you go up to the valleys, or you go out to the desert or something, and things turn brown pretty quickly. Unless you water them a lot. My mother-in-law over there, she's got a green thumb. She can take something that's been dead for 40 years and bring it back to life, just like that. Now we do the opposite. She can bring us a nice plant, it'll die in two weeks. That's just the way it is. We got brown palms, see? Brown palms. But the point is, is that what the Bible is saying here is that mortals, us human beings, we're as grass. We're going to wither away. Our bodies aren't going to live forever. We're not going to live forever, right? You say, well, I want to live forever. Well, you're going to live forever, in a sense, if you've been born again. Amen? You have eternal life. And when Jesus comes again, you'll get a new body that's going to be a lot better than this one. Amen? Won't have to put on glasses anymore, brother. Won't have any more aches. No more pains. No more problems. It'll be perfect. Isn't that wonderful? But you know what? This body isn't going to live forever. And so the Bible says that mortals are as grass, but what's permanent or constant? The Word of God. The Word of God. Look over in verse 8. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever. Amen? I'll tell you what, there's only a few certainties in life. One of them, you know, some people say death and taxes, you know, that's what they usually say certainties are, you know. Well, I don't know about taxes, I guess some people avoid them, so it's maybe not a certainty. There are people who don't pay taxes, right? But death is one, right? Unless the Lord should come, I guess, before we die. So that's a general principle that affects everybody, right? But here's another principle that is a absolute, irreversible, irrevocable truism. The grass withers, the fire fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Amen? Like Brother Stanton said the other day, when we were teasing, did you know if this book was good enough for Paul and Peter, it's good enough for me. If this book was good enough for Moses, And if it was good enough for Elijah and Elisha, if it was good enough for David, then it's good enough for me. Now, you say, well, they didn't have the whole Bible. I know they didn't have the whole Bible. I'm saying they had parts of the Bible. They had at least some of the Bible at different periods in history. And it was the Word of God then. It's the Word of God now. Now we have the whole Bible. Amen? And it is the absolute Word of God. It is unchangeable. Did you hear that? It is unchangeable. Look at it. Public opinion changes, doesn't it? Oh, yeah. A few years ago we voted in a left-leaning president. Now recently we've voted in a president further to the right than that one was. And before that we had a more conservative president. Before that we had, you know, liberals just go back and forth. And we have different public opinions. There was a time, I remember, when I was growing up that most people were against the death penalty. Now most people are for the death penalty. What's wrong? Did the word of God change? There was a time when I was a kid that would have been unheard of, Brother Don. to slaughter and murder and abort the unborn baby. It would have been unheard of. Public opinion, it would have been not a chance. Today, a slight majority actually favor abortion. Although it's shrinking. It'll one day die, the more people find out. But the point is, is that public opinion changes. The word of God never changes. It is absolutely constant. It is infallible. It is perfect. It is the one thing we can always trust. We've got to move on because, Brother Don, we only have three more hours. We've got to move on. So, His glory shines forth as obstacles are removed. God's Word is constant. And not only is it constant, but it is the only thing that provides lasting solutions. Think about that. If you go to some psycho-dribbler, you're not going to get lasting solutions. Amen? You're not going to get it. You can go to some person at work, unsafe person, you're not going to get lasting solutions. But you can get lasting solutions from the scripture. Now listen to me. Sometimes when you're young, I mean when I was young, I didn't get saved until I was older, Brother Mondo. I didn't get saved until I was 22. And some of you here are a lot younger than 22 now. And you've already been saved. And praise the Lord for that. You've got a wonderful life ahead of you because you got saved earlier. But you know, when you're younger you don't think about things like that, if you're not a Christian. You don't think about death, you don't think about eternality or eternity, you don't think about the constancy of the word of God, you don't think about dying, well I'm just going to enjoy my life, I'm having fun! I'll tell you what, you never know when it might be your last day. And I'm not trying to scare anybody, believe me, that's not my style, but you never know. I had a supervisor one time at Honeywell, And his 13-year-old boy, right near their house, was run over by a drunken driver and killed. You never know. 13 years old. Just at the start of his life. So you never know. So what am I saying? Take hold of what's important now. Live for God. Do right. Because you never know. Hopefully you're going to live to be 100. Amen? But you never know. Maximize every moment. Make every moment count for Christ. That's what's important. We've got to move on. Point number three, beginning in verse 12. The Lord is omnipotent. Not only does the Lord provide comfort to His people and always provides a way to Him, but He is omnipotent. What does omnipotent mean? All powerful. You know, I have to admit, the carnality in me comes out a little bit, and I did like George Foreman quite a bit. I'm not a lot into sports anymore, or especially boxing, but George Foreman I really liked because I was just amazed with his incredible power. He took a guy like Joel Frazer, who beat Muhammad Ali, and Joel Frazer was a great fighter. And George Foreman came around, I don't know if you remember that brother Stan, in 1973, I showed you how old I am, huh? He came around in 1973, George Foreman, he took the great Joel Frazer and swatted him around like an insect, floored him six times in less than five minutes on the route to a two-round knockout. No one could believe it. He said, what is this guy? It was sheer, unbelievable power. And you know what? As powerful as he still is to this day, because he came back, remember, at 45 and won the title again, and an old man, and beat the best guy around today, but you know what? As powerful as he is, he's nothing compared to God. God is all powerful. How many of you remember the Superman movies? You know, I have to admit, I like science fiction. I love the original Star Trek. And I like the, I like Superman. I love the, especially remember the one of the three villains? Those ones that came from the same planet, Krypton, or whatever it was? And there was the evil woman, you know, and the evil leader, and the one dumb-dumb that couldn't speak a word, just muttering and everything, right? You know? And so they come by and they're going to take over the planet Earth. And I was amazed at all the different special effects that they could use and the power that they had. But you know that if someone was really as powerful as they were depicted in that show, they would still be less than an amoeba compared to God. God is all powerful. Look at what it says in verse 12, Isaiah chapter 40 again. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the heavens by the span, and calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, and weighed the mountains and the balance of the hills in a pair of scales? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or has his counsel informed him? With whom did he consult, and who gave him understanding? And who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and informed him of the way of understanding? You see, all of us have had teachers, right? All of us have been shown the way. But who taught God? No one taught God. Amen? He is all-powerful. He is all-knowing. I believe He is omnipotent and it's reflected in His creatorship. Amen? Genesis 1, 1 says what? In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Right? In the beginning God created. It doesn't even speculate whether there is a God. It just, it assumes there is a God and He created. It's his direct fiat. And he spoke the world into existence. In the beginning, God created. That's what it says. And so the Bible says that God is omnipotent because of his creatorship. You know what? I told you this before. That's why it's hard for me. I lost some good weight, but I'm trying to lose 30 more. It's tough when my wife makes those chocolate chip cookies, brother. You know, when you asked that question this morning, you said, what makes life great or something, I was almost going to say chocolate. You know, I can't help that. I mean, I love the Lord, but I love chocolate too. And he made chocolate, right? And if we weren't supposed to eat it, when he made it, it's so good, right? So it's tough. But you know what? My wife takes some flour. She takes some flour, right? And she takes some eggs. Right, sister? She takes some eggs and some oil, and she puts some chocolate chips, that's the best part, some chocolate chips in there, and she puts some toffee chips, adds a little extra flavor, and she puts all kinds of things in there, and she mixes them all up, and she puts them in the oven for a certain amount of time at a certain temperature. And out comes these cookies. Praise God! Huh? But you know what? She had to have pre-existing materials to make those cookies. She had to have some flour, she had to have some eggs, some oil, and some sugar, and some baking soda, and some vanilla. Don't forget the vanilla, brother. Okay? She had to have certain things, and she put them together, and she made some delicious cookies. You know what? God spoke the worlds into existence, brother Stan, with no pre-existing materials. Nothing. He spoke the universe into existence out of nothing. Did you hear that, my friends? He spoke the universe into existence out of nothing. If you just examine the human body, or even just the human eye, more complicated and diverse than any camera that we've made. The human mind is more complex than a computer. Think of the RAM memory. Where's brother Richard? Think of the RAM memory, if the computer was able to scan all the visual images that we scan in just a moment, just in a day, how much RAM memory would it take? Is God not a great designer and creator? Nothing is more complex. And yet, God spoke everything into existence out of nothing. So the Lord is omnipotent because of his creatorship. He's also omnipotent because of his wisdom. It says in verse 13, who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as his counselor has informed him? He's absolutely wise, he's omniscient, he's all-knowing. You know, when I was a kid, Things are a little bit different now. I think school's a little harsher than when I was a kid. When we were kids, the biggest thing you got in trouble for in school was maybe talking out of turn or chewing gum in class. Someone bringing out a knife or something, that would be unheard of. I never heard of anything like that. I never heard of a gang. I never knew where it was when I was a kid. And we just got along, whether you're white, black, purple, blue, oriental, came from Fontana or Gardena. We're all just people, right? We love one another. That's the way it was. And maybe I lived in a fictitious world, but I never referred to anybody as different races or anything. We're just people. We're just kids. I never even looked at someone that they had maybe a different nationality or something. That's what we ought to get back to. Amen? God made one race. The human race. That's it. I don't care if you're dark or light or tall or short. We're all sons of Adam. Amen? We're all sons of Adam. So in His wisdom, He created mankind and the earth. And so the Bible says, according to this wisdom, He is omnipotent. And who can compare to God? Who can compare to God? You know, if we think about that for a moment, there's nothing wrong with liking heroes. I mean, George Foreman was an admirable athlete. Wayne Gretzky was a clean-cut, admirable athlete. At least he didn't bite someone's ear off like Mike Tyson, amen? Right? I mean, there's some good role models out there, you know, that we can follow. There's some good people out there, right? But how much more if God is all-knowing and all-powerful and all-loving? Shouldn't we give Him our best? Shouldn't we worship Him? And He's not the man upstairs, amen? We need to worship God in reverence and in a worthy manner because He is absolute. Can you imagine His power? I don't believe, Brother Don, we can even understand how powerful He is. I don't believe we can even understand how great He is. Don't you think, Walter? I don't think we can even fathom it because of the limitations of our mind. Well, we've got to move on. Before we move to the next point, the last point, what is wisdom? You know, let me put it this way. It's the easiest I can, in my little mind, come up with definitions. Intelligence is something you're born with. Some people use to call it IQ. Intelligence is your ability to think. So God gives everybody a certain amount of intelligence. Not everybody's an Einstein. Not everybody's a Mozart. But then everybody's not mentally handicapped either, right? So everybody is born in a different way, okay? And whatever God gives them, you're not required to be smarter than someone else necessarily, but you're required to do the best with what you have. That's what a manager does, right? So you may not be as smart as the next guy. He may get straight A's, but you don't have to be as smart as him. You need to do the best you can with what you have, right? And so intelligence is what you're born with. What is knowledge? There you go, that's what you learn through time and life. You acquire that, right? You are born with a certain ability, that's intelligence, also talents. You're born with a musical talent, or an artistic talent, or an athletic ability, or whatever. You're born with those things, and then you develop them. Well, knowledge is something you learn, but what's wisdom? Wisdom is taking all of that. It's taking your naturally gifted abilities that God gave you, and it's taking your knowledge acquired through time, and it's then putting it into practice. Have you ever known a lot of quote unquote Christians, and they can read you verse after verse, and they can tell you everything, but they live like the devil. Because they're not wise. The wise person practices what he preached. Wisdom is practical knowledge. It's knowledge put into practice. That's what wisdom is. We've got to move on to point four. We said that the Lord provides comfort to his people, and that he always provides a way to him, and that the Lord is omnipotent, but verse 18 starts a section that the Lord is incomparable. We won't read the whole section, but it starts out by saying, in verse 18, to whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare with him? As for the idol, a craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith plates it with gold, and a silversmith fashions chains of silver. Back in those days, people had little icons or molded images that they would actually use as gods. Can you imagine that? They would worship those things as gods. And they had these little statue things, and they would bow down to them as gods. You'd say, oh boy, we'd never do that today. Really? Really? How about the TV? How about your car? I'm not your girlfriend or your boyfriend. Or even maybe your wife or your husband. What am I saying? If anything or anybody comes between you and God, that's a false god. That's an icon. That's an idol. Amen? But the Bible says that the Lord is incomparable. It says there's none like Him. There's absolutely none like Him. Turn over to Psalm, please. Psalm 89. Real quickly. Psalm 89 and verse 6. Psalm 89, verse 6. Notice what the Bible says. For who in the skies is comparable to the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty is like the Lord? Nobody is like God. Nothing is like God. Now here, I want to bring this point out because it's Father's Day. Wouldn't a good father, wouldn't a good father want the best for his children? A good father wants the best for his children, right? So, sometimes you're, can you imagine, let's say you're a three year old little girl now. Three year old little girl, okay? And you're curious about fire. You have a gas stove, right? And the flames come up on the burner, you know, and your three year old daughter finally got tall enough she can look up there and have things going and she can see those blue flames. Oh, that's pretty, I want to play with that. Right? When you slap her hand and you say, honey, I don't want to play on the flames. It hurts you. Right? Now, you're doing that for her own good. Right? Just like God, our Heavenly Father, teaches us and tells us to do certain things and not to do certain things for our own good. Amen? The reason the Bible says that we ought to save ourselves for marriage I don't think I have to be any more descriptive than that. To save ourselves for marriage is because that's what's right and it's best for us. If you don't save yourself for marriage, you may well get some sexually transmitted disease. There may be all kinds of things. You need to save yourself for marriage. There's a reason God says that we ought to be faithful to our spouses, that we ought to stay married once we're married. There's a reason that the Bible says we ought not to lie. Do you know that if you always tell the truth, you never have to remember what you said before? Just tell the truth. Huh? If you lie, oh, what a tangled web we weave. Right? When at first we practice to to see, that's a little cliché, but that's the truism. Huh? If you said a bunch of lies, Brother Don, can you imagine, okay, what lies did I say? How do I cover that? Huh. Cool boy. Gotta remember all those little lies, right? And then pretty soon someone's gonna get ya. They're going to catch you, right? So just tell the truth. There's a reason that God... God is not some cosmic killjoy. God isn't a bully saying, I don't want you to have any fun. I don't want you doing this. God wants us to enjoy life, right? He wants us to have an abundant life, but He's given us some principles to abide by for our own good. That's what it's all about. So the Bible says there's none like Him. And then, finally, helpless men find solace in Him. Let's be honest, most of us men, we like to think we're big macho men, right? We're big macho men, especially when you're younger, you know. I remember when I was a kid, I'll tell this story. I used to think when I was about 17, Brother Stan, I thought I had arrived. And I was working out, I was getting buffed. Man, I thought I was bigger and tougher than my dad now. That's right. I'm gonna beat him up. Huh? I thought I was tough. You know one time we were working on the car and I was tightening some bolts. Those were the days when we had carburetors in the car. You young people would know this. We had carburetors in the car and I was tightening the bolts and everything. I was tightening as tight as I could. It was supposed to be real tight. And my dad said, well, did you get that real tight? Let me check. And I'm thinking in my mind, right. Like you're going to be able to tighten that tighter than me. Get real. And sure enough, he comes over there and shh, shh, shh. I was totally humbled. I was totally humbled. When you're young, you kind of think, you know what's funny? How the older I got, Brother Victor, the older I got, the smarter my dad got. Isn't that funny? He must have got smarter later in life. I don't know what it was. You'll get that in a minute. The older I got, the smarter they got. But the point is... Helpless men find solace in Him. What we need to do is forget the machoism. Let's be honest. Sometimes we don't have all the answers. Amen? And sometimes we just need help. We need help from our wives. We need help from our friends. We need most of all help from the Lord. And there's nothing wrong with asking for help. Amen? You can't ever fix a problem until you admit you have it. Right? If you've got a drinking problem, you can't get it fixed until you admit you have it. If you've got a problem in life, if you want to get saved, you can't get saved until you get lost. Right? You can't accept the Lord unless you realize you need Him. The helpless man or woman finds solace in Him. Well, throughout these remaining verses, we've got to close, but throughout these remaining verses it talks about God as never tiring. He renews our strength. He is the source of all strength. Just like the sun, S-U-N, the sun and the sky is the source of all life, in a sense, in this solar system. Obviously this planet is the only place where there is life. Okay, so the sun is the source of all life. Now, ultimately, of course, God is the source of all life, but the sun is the source of all life because it is the mechanism that God has designed to give the energy that produces all life. If there was no sun, there'd be no life. Did you know that? There'd be no life. And yet, the Bible says that God renews our strength. I mean, who do you think is providing the resources and keeping the sun going? Think he's just on his own? Do you think the Earth and all the planets rotated exactly the right amount like a fine wash by accident? I don't think so. The Bible says that he never tires, he renews our strength, he meets our needs, and let's think about a couple of closing comments. Just like I talked in Sunday school, I said that when I was a kid, when I was short enough to be able to lie in the front seat, lie down on the front seat of the car, with my head in my dad's lap and my feet in my mom's lap. Remember how I was actually that small at the time? Can you imagine that? And I felt such security, Brother Richard. I felt security because I knew my parents were in control. And that's what we need to feel with God. Amen? Just rest in the Lord. He's in control. We can be secure in Him. He is sovereign. He's the King and Lord. What we need to ask, is He our King and Lord? Is He your King and Lord today? Think about it. Maybe you've even been saved, but He's not your King and Lord. Maybe you've gone astray and you're doing your own thing. You need to let go and let God. I like that little saying. I didn't get it until recently, probably the first of the year. I finally downed on me in full what that really means. God take care of it. Amen? Rest in the Lord. Let Him carry your burdens because we are too fragile to do it ourselves. God, our Heavenly Father, will take care of us just as our human fathers should take care of their sons and their daughters. Amen? Let's stand. We're going to have a closing song. Number 355. Let me ask you these questions before we close. Are you saved today? We won't have a long, prolonged invitation, but have you been born again? Do you know for sure that if you die today, that you go to heaven? This is a very important thing. I'm not trying to scare anybody into salvation or anything or anybody to come to Christ. We are a loving church. I don't believe in coercion. Amen? I believe in simply gently and lovingly presenting the gospel. And if you come, you come. If you don't, it's not yet your time. Right? We don't believe in having a hundred imitation stanzas. We don't believe in forcing someone to be saved. But, worker, come and help you and show you how to be saved. Maybe you're saved, but the Lord isn't your Lord and King at this time. Maybe He's not your Lord. Maybe you're not being subject to Him. Maybe you haven't rested in the Lord. Let Him carry your burdens. Maybe you're saved and you are living right, but you came in this era, you want to join the church. Maybe you're not having the scripturally baptized. Whatever your need. Maybe God spoke to you about the glories of Jehovah God this morning, who cares for His people. If God spoke to you this morning, why don't you come?