Open your Bible, if you would, to 1 Samuel 1. The title of today's message is Dependent for Deliverance. I have you turning to 1 Samuel 1 because there's this great picture of Hannah, this woman, this godly woman, depending upon the Lord to give her a child. The context is this. Hannah is married to a man named Elkana. She's barren. She can't have a child. And Elkana is also married to another woman named Penina. Her name means coral. She is an abrasive woman, and she has this knack of needling Hannah. over this issue of not having any children. So that's the setup for this. We're gonna meet the text in verse three and see Hannah's desperation for her child. her great desire for a child, and how it's being aggravated by Panina. Verse three, now Elkanah, her husband, would go up from his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice to Yahweh of Hosts and Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests to Yahweh there. And the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, and he would give portions to Panina, his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters. But to Hannah, he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah. But Yahweh had closed her womb. Her rival, however, would provoke her bitterly, to irritate her, because Yahweh had closed her womb. And so it happened, year after year, as often as she went up to the house of Yahweh, she would provoke her, so she wept and would not eat. You can just hear the sadness and the despondency. And in a situation, she desperately wants a child. And that child has not arrived. In part because it's not time, but also because her husband hasn't given her a child. He's impotent, powerless to provide her with a child. That's something only the Lord can do. Verse eight, then Elkanah, her husband, said to her, Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat, and why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than 10 sons? You can see his desire to encourage his wife to provide a child, but only God can give. Only God can give kids. So here's the solution that the Lord provides, verse nine. Then Hannah rose after eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the temple of Yahweh and she, bitter of soul, prayed to Yahweh and wept despondently and she made a vow. and said, O Yahweh of Hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your maidservant, and remember me, and not forget your maidservant, but will give your maidservant a seed amongst men, then I will give him to Yahweh all the days of his life, and a razor shall never come on his head. The Lord hears Hannah's prayer, but isn't it interesting that Hannah had to get to this point of absolute desperation, of total need, before she would get to the point of vowing a vow to turn over this child, who would be born Samuel, who would be given by God, to anoint kings, to judge Israel, to be a prophet. It took all of that pain, all of that desperation for Hannah to release her own independence, her own autonomy, and turn over this child whom she desperately wanted to the Lord. And that's what happened. The Lord moved her to a place of dependence so that she would accept his goodwill. The Lord does that, doesn't he? He removes from us autonomy, independence. He puts us in points of need so that we'll call out to him and he will vindicate himself. As we see here, Hannah's desperation drove her to the Lord in faith. Have you experienced that? Have you come crawling to the Lord and said, I can't fix this, I can't change this person's mind, I can't fix the situation at work, my family is this, my health is this, help. And does the Lord prove himself? Yes, but it takes that point of absolute dependence upon the Lord before we start seeing his deliverance. And we're gonna see that played out as we go back to Genesis chapter eight, and we see Noah's dependence upon the Lord. And he's gonna ask through action. He's going to seek deliverance that the Lord can provide. And he's gonna be persistent about it. He's gonna be dependent on the Lord for that deliverance, and the Lord is going to provide it. The main point in today's message that I want us to get is that the Lord is gonna come again. Will he find that faith when he comes? Is that faith present now within us that we will depend upon the Lord for deliverance? I hope so. It's been made available by God. He gives it as a gift. He provides it. As long as God's grace is in play, I do believe that that faith will be present on the earth. If you get nothing else from today's message, it's this inquiry. Will the Lord find that faith when he returns? Is it present in us now? Are we dependent upon the Lord for deliverance? In a few moments, we're going to pray and then we're going to look at the context so that we get an understanding of the character of Noah before we get into the text. Noah is a unique individual. He has a unique relationship with the Lord. It's a relationship of action. It's also a relationship of dependence. And we can see that played out in select portions from Genesis 6 and 7. And then we're going to get into the text. We're going to get into Genesis 8, verses 6 through 12, where we see Noah absolutely dependent upon the Lord to make deliverance possible. Then we're going to look at ourselves a little bit. How can we cultivate, how can we develop our own dependence upon the Lord? And then we're gonna conclude by listening to Christ's words as he relays the situation with the Lord, how God looks at our dependence and when he will provide deliverance. So that's our roadmap. That's how you can trace through where we are in today's message. Let's ask the Lord for his blessing on our time. Dear Heavenly Father, It is true that we are dependent upon you for our very breath, for our next heartbeat. It's a lie that we are masters of our own fate, that we control our destiny. Oh no, Father, we are dependent upon you. Lord, would you make it possible for us to believe what your word says? Would we forsake every amount of striving, any inclination toward merit, to wholesale throw ourselves upon your grace and your mercy? Lord, please prove yourself through your word today. Open our eyes so that we might see and that we might do what we were made to do. depend on you, and honor you. We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, turn with me if you would to Genesis chapter six. Just a couple of texts to bring out as we get the context of what's taking place in chapter eight. I wanna bring out Noah's relationship with the Lord because it makes sense what he does in our text today when we look at who he is and what his relationship with the Lord is. In Genesis 6, verse 9, we hear that Noah is a righteous man, blameless among those in his generations. Noah walked with God. He had an ongoing daily relationship with the Lord. It wasn't a one day a week kind of thing. It wasn't a by chance relationship. He spent time daily with the Lord. And furthermore, verse 22 tells us that Noah is obedient to the Lord. What the Lord tells him to do, he does. It says, Noah did according to all that God had commanded him, so he did. And it repeats itself again in verse five of chapter seven. Noah did according to all that Yahweh had commanded him. This is a rare bird. This is a unique individual. He spends time with the Lord. He walks with the Lord. He obeys the Lord. Because of the faith that Noah has, he has been delivered by the Lord. And in Genesis six, or seven, verse 16, it says that the Lord closed the door of the ark behind him. And then we know what happened, right? The floodwaters came. The foundations of the deep were broken up. Water surged from underneath the earth's mantle. Water poured out of the sky. The Lord collapsed the waters together and wiped out every man, woman, and child, and every dinosaur, every bird, every beast off the face of the earth, except for Noah and his family and those that were in the ark, the animals. Now last week we looked at how the tidal surge of the flood had peaked, and there was after the flood a regression, right, that traced its way through the creation days one through three. Now we're gonna see that since the flood is finished, Noah, he hasn't left the ark. He's still on the ark. Although the flood is over, Noah hasn't gotten off the boat. He is waiting until the Lord makes it apparent it's time to go. Noah demonstrates dependence for deliverance. So, that's the context. Now we're gonna look at the text. Would you stand with me and we'll read Genesis chapter eight, verses six through 12. God's Word says, Then he sent out a dove from him to see if the water was abated from the face of the land, but the dove found no resting place for the sole of its foot. So it returned to him into the ark, for the water was on the surface of all the earth. Then he stretched out his hand and took it and brought it into the ark to himself. Then he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark, and the dove came to him toward evening, and behold, in its beak This is God's word, and for it we are thankful. You can have a seat. I've broken our text into three points. Our first point is just verse six, Noah's hope. The time has come. The ark has landed on the mountains of Ararat. Now, Noah is waiting to leave, and he's waiting on the Lord in hope. Verse six says, then it happened at the end of 40 days that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. What's the deal with this window? There's only one window in the ark. There's only one door. What's the deal with this window? This window is strange. It's set one cubit from the top of the ark. In Genesis 6, verse 16, the Lord's instructions were, you shall make a window for the ark and complete it to one cubit, that's about 18 inches, from the top. Now this ark is big. It's really big. What was it, 450 feet long? 75 feet wide, 45 feet tall, had three stories. This is a big barge. And there's one window. At the end of 40 days, as he's been waiting, as he's been waiting on the Lord for deliverance, Noah, he opens the window of the ark which he had made. He's like a prisoner. that has that one window that he can see the sky. It's not raining anymore. The ark is holding still. Is it time to go? Think of what's happening here. And Noah's posture of dependence. He could have seen it have stopped raining and said, let's get out of here. But he doesn't do that, does he? He waits and he waits. Noah's dependence is upon the Lord. He's waiting for the Lord to say when it's time to go. Think in your mind, that posture as he sits in that boat and he's looking up is a time. The Lord desires that we look up. Turn with me to Luke 21. Luke 21. In Luke 21, the Lord, he is explaining to his disciples of a judgment to come, much like the judgment that has already taken place in Noah's day. And he says in Luke 21, verse 25, there will be signs in sun and moon and stars and on the earth, anguish among nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear. and the expectation of things which are coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. It's gonna happen again, there's gonna be a judgment. Verse 27, and then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing near. It's easy to get distracted, isn't it? by the trials, by the materialism, by the relationships that are here at the horizontal level? And do we not strive with these people that we love? And we try in any way possible to work to achieve maybe things that are good. Our hope is in the Lord, we're to be looking When trials come, look up. Look up. Be like Noah. Be dependent upon the Lord and His timing. Let me ask, we all have relationships in our families that we would want to be improved, right? Have you ever looked up to the Lord and said, you have to fix this, I'm powerless. Is that possible? Has that happened? Have you done that? I have. Like, I'm out of ammo. I'm out of tools. I can't change anybody's mind. You have to do it. Oh, and the Lord does do it. Hey, but food for thought, is it possible that somebody has prayed that about you? That your mind would be changed? that somehow, some way you would agree with the Lord and do what is right? Oh, I hope so. There's a lot of prayer going around. And some of that prayer has been answered. And some of it will be answered. I would encourage you, look up. The Lord is the one who made the heavens and the earth. He's the only one who truly can deliver. He's the only one who can truly answer your prayer. Don't put your hope in yourself or in others. Put your hope in him. Let's go back to Genesis and we'll look at verse seven. Genesis chapter eight, verse seven. Noah, he sees the blue sky. and he's going to send out a bird, a raven, to see what the situation is on the earth. Noah's smart, and he enlists the help of a really smart animal to go and figure out, is it time? Is it time to leave the ark? Verse seven, and he, Noah, sent out a raven. The verb is an intensive, so he's sending out a raven. And it went out, flying back and forth until the water was dried up from the earth. But what this text doesn't say is that the raven came back. Why? Why didn't the raven come back home? Because there's food still floating in the water. Ravens are a carrion bird. They're a scavenger. And they're not really picky about what they eat. And we can tell that as we drive down Highway 47. That carcass has been there for a month. Those crows are still working. Corvids, ravens, ravens and crows, are amazing animals. They're super strong. They can carry a ton of weight. They can fly up to 20,000 feet in the air. So Mount Everest is 29,000 feet. These birds are smart. They're intelligent. It's no wonder Noah sent this bird out. When it doesn't return, there's still some danger out there. It's a good thing that the Lord hasn't sent Noah and his family and the animals out of the ark yet. Go with me, if you would, to Psalm 147. The Lord is wise. He knows the right time. He provides for his creation. It wasn't time for Noah to get off the ark. He knows what's best. I'm gonna read a couple of verses here from Psalm 147, verse seven. The text says, sing to Yahweh with thanksgiving. Sing praise to our God and the liar. He's the one who covers the heavens with clouds. The one who provides rain for the earth. The one who makes grass to sprout in the mountains. Who gives to the animal its food and to the young ravens which call out. The Lord is the one who provides. Check it out. This provision is in the throes of judgment. Isn't that interesting? He provided for Noah in the midst of the judgment. He provides for this bird, the first to leave the ark. It's food. Yeah, there's corpses floating in the water, and this bird, this raven, is being supplied with food. God is merciful even in the midst of judgment. I find that fascinating. That won't be the last time. Now, you don't have to turn here, but if you wanna do a follow-up and see more of this aspect, you can look to the future in Ezekiel 39, verse 17. There's gonna come again another great assault, another great judgment, as Gog and Magog come against Israel and perish. And then the animals and the birds, the ravens, they're gonna get their fill of flesh again. God provides for every creature, and sometimes that's in the midst of judgment. Now that's two sides of the same coin. Those animals are dependent upon the Lord. In the midst of that judgment, we can depend upon the Lord in the midst of judgment too. Okay, let's go back for our third and final point in Genesis chapter eight, and we're gonna see how Noah sends a dove from him three times. And this dove is gonna bring him good news. Verse eight, then he sent out a dove from him. Again, this PL intensive, he sent out a dove from him. to see if the water was abated from the face of the land, but the dove found no resting place for the sole of its foot. So it returned to him into the arv. Now what you might not know, I'll stop here, doves are apparently picky creatures. I'm not an ornithologist, I didn't know this, I had to look it up. A dove will not roost where it's wet. Noah's a thinker, he knows this kind of stuff. This is not a dummy. He knows these animals. He's been with them for more than half a year. He sends out a dove. Is it dry? That bird is not going to land on something that is wet. And it's not a carrion bird. It eats vegetation, eats seeds. So he sends out this dove, and it and it found no resting place for the sole of her foot, so it returned to him into the ark, for the water was on the surface of all the earth. Then he stretched out his hand, and he took it and brought it into the ark to himself. Verse 10, then he waited, Yet another seven days. And again, he sent out the dove from the ark. And the dove came to him the second time toward evening. And behold, in its beak was a freshly picked olive leaf. So no one knew that the water was abated from the earth. I'll just stop here. Let's talk about olives. I didn't know this either. This was a good study session for me, learning this. Olives will actually grow underwater. I did not know that. They will actually grow underwater. They'll put out leaves underwater. If they get flooded, they're not going to immediately die. They can actually put forth leaves. And so this olive tree is the first tree that this dove comes to. And it picks out a freshly picked olive leaf. Why is that a big deal? Think about what we were looking at in the context and what we learned last week from the creation narrative, how days one, two, and three were repeated. There's a new earth. that God created back in Genesis 1, a place of richness, a place of fatness. That is exactly what the olive tree and olives are associated with. In the Old Testament, richness and fatness is definitely associated with olive oil. And olive oil was critical to the people that are reading this First, who's the first audience? It's the Israelites, that Moses is leading out of Egypt. And what are those Israelites gonna do? They're gonna build a tabernacle. What's gonna be used in the tabernacle? Olive oil. Olive oil for the lighting of the menorah. Olive oil for making bread. Olive oil is used in their incense. Olive oil is used in anointing. It has a communication of richness. And this dove brings this olive leaf back as the first sign. So Noah waits, verse 12, yet another seven days, and sent out the dove, but it did not return to him again. So the sign has been given, there's richness out here, and he waits another seven days, and then he sends out the dove, and the dove doesn't come back. What does that have to do with anything, Mark? Why is that important? Those themes of the olive and the olive oil anointing and the dove both find their intersection in more than one place in scripture. Go with me to Isaiah 61. Isaiah 61. Now Jesus, he's gonna quote this right before he launches his earthly ministry. He's going to come to his hometown and he's going to quote these words that were written 700 years before Christ took on human flesh. It says in Isaiah 61, the spirit of Lord Yahweh is upon me. And is the spirit of the Lord affiliated with a dove? In each of the gospel accounts, the dove descends from heaven, is the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and he lands upon Jesus at the baptism. The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is upon me because Yahweh has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to captives and freedom to prisoners, to proclaim the favorable year of Yahweh. Jesus quotes this, and we find this intersection between his anointing by the Lord as the Messiah, that's what the anointed of the Lord means, it's the word Mashiach, where we translate it Christ. Jesus quotes this in Luke chapter four, these same words, and then he says, He closes the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down and the eyes of all the synagogue were fixed on him and he began to say to them, today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Why is this important? The Lord is the one who gives deliverance. People don't deliver themselves. God sent his son, anointed his son, the Messiah, The sign was given of the Holy Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven. All the evidence is there. And Jesus even like point blank says, this is about me. This has been fulfilled in your hearing. The unfortunate thing is the people in Nazareth, they try and throw him off a cliff at the end of that portion of the narrative. People have a bad habit of rejecting the Lord's Messiah. But he came. He came to deliver. He came to save. So for those who can read this, those that can trust in Christ, put all their faith in him, they can absolutely be assured that they will be saved. Think about what you just heard. 700 years before Christ came, The word was told to Israel, 700 years. There's an element of patience, right? You gotta wait seven centuries. Some of you have waited a very long time to be delivered from one thing or another. And you're probably gonna still be waiting at the end of the day. And you're gonna probably wait tomorrow. but God is the one who gives deliverance and he gives it right on time. Christ came right on time, according to schedule, according to plan. We can trust him. His deliverance is worth it to wait for it. We make ourselves so anxious and stressed out when we try and deliver ourselves, don't we? How worried was Hannah? How upset was Hannah? It was only after she turned to the Lord and said, you can have him. You can have your way. Let me take part, that God granted conception. She got a child, the first of several. and he was mightily used of the Lord. The Lord is the one who gives deliverance according to his timeline, according to his good will. So if dependence upon the Lord in his deliverance is something that is good, I think we agree with it, we see it modeled here, we see it rewarded. Is that something we should cultivate within ourselves? Is that something we should develop within ourselves? Absolutely. I'm gonna give us four small things, two of which I think are extremely profound. So, how are we to develop dependence? The first thing, turn with me to Psalm 130. This is not a novel or new idea. But those of you who have more gray on your head know the truth of it. It's with regard to patience. We are to wait and hope. Psalm 130, verses five through six. I hope for Yahweh. My soul does hope. And for his word do I wait. My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchman for the morning. The watchman for the morning. Oh Israel, wait for Yahweh. For with Yahweh there is loving kindness and with him is abundant redemption. The Lord is the one who delivers, right? We see that. But you gotta wait. Like what? Have you ever pulled a midnight shift? Being on guard duty out in the desert, you wait for dawn. And it takes forever to get there. And it's cold, and you wait, and you wait, and you wait. And when that sun finally rises enough that you can see your hand in front of your face, you're so grateful. Wait. Not just with a worried fashion, wait in hope. knowing the character of God. Noah knew the character of God. He walked with him, he obeyed him. You don't get a sense of anxiety with Noah. He waits in hope. So I would commend that to us all, that we are to wait in hope. Ask persistently. Go with me to Matthew 7. Jesus tells us how to pray. We're to pray persistently. So at the close of the Sermon on the Mount, he instructs about prayer. He says in Matthew 7, verses 7 through 11, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds. And to him who knocks, it will be opened. That's a solid promise. And he drives the point home. Look at verses nine through 11. What man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stump? Or if he asks for a fish, you will not give him a snake, will you? What kind of a parent do you think you are? You're an example of the father. Well, the father? bring about curses and hardship will he utterly deny? If your kids asked you for food, would you give them what can't satisfy? Oh no. Jesus says in verse 11, if you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask him? In a parallel passage in Luke chapter 11, This is explained a little bit further and says, how much more will your father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask for it? The best. But you gotta ask, you gotta seek, you gotta knock. There's a persistence element. How many of us have learned over time that the squeaky wheel gets the grease? Is it possible that the Lord has burdened your heart so greatly so he can show you that he's moving? Maybe it's gonna take a lot of squeaking before you're finally ready to truly and fully turn it entirely over to him and see him move. So ask. for that good thing, and keep asking for that good thing. The Lord will vindicate himself. He'll show his power, his glory, his majesty, his grace to us. A third way to develop dependence. In James chapter four, we are to acknowledge our own As I visit with some folks every once in a while, I'll get somebody that just says, I just, I don't know. I think that that's like really profound and wise to say, I don't know. When we're young, we think we know much, don't we? We know all the variables. We've seen all the information. We know, we know. Of course we know. As we get older, we realize we do not know. we're to acknowledge our ignorance. Look at James chapter four, verse 13, and following. James chapter four, verse 13. Come now, you who say today or tomorrow will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. Seems good, I know all the variables, the market's good, I'm gonna make moves. I'm gonna mortgage my house. I'm gonna buy a food truck, and I'm gonna make a mint. Ah, it can't fail. Everybody wants shrimp tacos. I'm gonna be rich. But yeah, everybody does like shrimp tacos, but there's only so many shrimp tacos you can eat, right? Verse 14, you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Your life is short. You don't know when that heart is going to stop beating. You don't know what tomorrow is going to be like. You don't know the future. Have you acknowledged your ignorance of the future? Instead, verse 15, we ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that. But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Do we actually know how little we know? That's a really profound idea, that actually I don't know all the variables. And when I assign motives and think of intent and start assessing things just on my limited, tiny, finite amount of information, I might get something wrong. And I might make a fool of myself. And I might break relationships. Has it occurred to us that our ignorance is not an asset? But since we're not omnipotent, we need to lean on the one who is. because we're not all knowing like he is. Know your own ignorance. Fourthly, trust in Christ alone. Now, when I read this for the first time with clear eyes, it shocked me. And I'm hoping that it is shocking to all of us as well. Jesus said, And this is worth pondering the depths of this. He says in John 15, five, the end of the verse, he says, apart from me, you can do nothing. Is that possible? Apart from Christ, we can do nothing. Is that true? Think of what that means. Apart from him, How much of our effort, our anxiety, our worry, our stress is because we think we can do more than we actually can. We weren't meant to be autonomous. We weren't meant to be independent. We weren't meant to strive on our own. No wonder we're worried. No wonder we're anxious. No wonder we're stressed out. We've taken on the mantle of godhood, assuming that we can do things that we can't do. We were intended always to depend upon the Lord, and Jesus, he makes it clear. Apart from him, we can do nothing. So as you run into that brick wall, of the issue, like Noah did. I can't get off this ark until the Lord says. If you're like, Hannah, I want a child, but I can't get one, until you relinquish all of that and say, Lord, your will be done. I don't know what your plan is, but you've burdened me in this way. Open my eyes, help me to see, and you ask him, and ask him, and ask him, and you wait. The Lord will vindicate himself. He will show his glory and his goodness to you. But think of how little stress and anxiety you can have if, like Noah, you have that unique relationship with God of spending time with him, of walking with him, of enjoying him, and understanding your deliverance by him, celebrating him. were made to depend upon him. Will he deliver you? I think we all know the answer. In conclusion, I want us to go to Luke chapter 18. I love this parable that Jesus gives. A parable is a story. The word means to cast alongside. It's the idea of giving a story that explains a deeper truth. So he's gonna tell a brief story about a widow who's caught between a rock and a hard place. She needs something, she can't get it. And eventually, she will though. Luke chapter 18, Jesus is going to commend patient faith. It says in verse one, now he's telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart. At all times they ought to pray and not lose heart. I'll think of that. At all times, friend, you are to pray and not lose heart. He's gonna tell this story, saying verse two, in a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. And there was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him saying, give me justice from my opponent. She's without recourse, she's without legal representation, and who does she have to confront? Who does she have to appeal to? An unjust, wicked God who doesn't even care of his own accountability before God, and he doesn't respect people. That's who she has to deal with. There's not a chance she's gonna succeed. But, she has something on her side. She's persistent. Look at verse four. And for a while he, the judge, was unwilling, but afterward he said to himself, even though I don't fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow is bothering me, I will give her justice, lest by continually coming, she wears me out. He gets wise. He gets smart. Now the Lord is going to translate this for us. He's gonna make it apparent what the deeper truth is. He says, Hear what the, and the Lord said, hear what the unjust judge said. Verse seven, now will God not bring about justice for his elect who cry to him day and night, and will he delay long over them? I tell you that he will bring about justice for them quickly. I tell you that he will bring about justice for them quickly. Maybe there's room in that acknowledgement of ignorance for us to understand that we don't understand time in the same fashion that God does. And that deliverance will come at the perfect time. I tell you that he will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find that faith on the earth? Do we trust the Lord? Are we dependent upon him for deliverance? Are we unwilling to lift a foot to make a move until the Lord sends the open invitation that makes it clear? Are we going to continually strive and strained to do things on our own, are we gonna turn it over to Him? God is not an unjust judge. He hears every plea. He hears every prayer. Let me prove it to you, okay? Let's go to Revelation chapter six. Let's see the Lord in His righteousness responding to the prayers of people even in heaven. Revelation chapter 6 verse 9. And in Revelation 6 verse 9 it's a picture of the throne room. And there's those who have been martyred during the Great Tribulation. It says in verse nine, when he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and because of the witness which they had maintained. And they cried out with a loud voice, saying, how long, O Master, holy and true? Will you not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? And a white robe was given to each of them, and it was told to them that they should rest for a little while longer. until the number of their fellow slaves and their brothers who were to be killed, even as they had been, would be completed also. They plead with the Lord. Now go to the next page over, go to Revelation chapter seven, and see in verse nine the answer to this prayer. After these things, I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands. And they cry out with a loud voice, saying, Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. And all the angels were standing around the throne, the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, Amen. the blessing, and the glory, and the wisdom, and the thanksgiving, and the honor, and the power, and the strength, be to our God forever and ever, amen. These prayers are going to be answered. Maybe there's more hardship that comes along with it. But that deliverance must come for the Lord's elect. It must come, otherwise, God isn't who he says he is, but he is who he says he is. We can depend upon him for deliverance. Let's stand and I'll close in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we're grateful that from A to Z in your word we can see how you deliver We marvel at your great plan of deliverance and that you are even willing to enter into our sorrowful state itself by sending your son to take on the form of a man and to live under all the hardships, all the miseries that humanity has suffered since the fall. Lord, we're grateful that your son died to pay for every sin. And that when sin and death were conquered, you raised your son from the dead. Lord, help us to believe this. Help us to put all of our confidence in you. Vindicate yourself, show yourself to be as gracious as you truly are. Please change our hearts and our minds. to embrace this truth, to delight in you, and to celebrate what you have done. Lord, I pray that if there's anyone here who does not know you and thinks that your goodwill could be earned, Lord, I pray that you would enable them to understand how limited their understanding truly is, and to put all of their hope in Christ. Lord, we depend upon you to open blind eyes. Please do so in your perfect timing, but please do so so that we can see and celebrate you. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.