If you'll turn with me, we will go back to Isaiah 32, in verse number 2, verse 1 and 2, I will read. This is picking up where we left off this last Lord's Day. Isaiah 32, and I would like to speak with you on A man shall be a hiding place. A man shall be a hiding place. Before we read these two verses, would you bow with me as we seek our Father's face? Our Father, We do acknowledge this to be thy word. Inspired, holy men of old wrote as thy spirit directed them. And though kings and nations have tried to destroy, rid the world of your word. yet you've kept it and shall do so until we meet the living word. Father, as we come to this passage, it can be no man other than thy son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray you might grant help in rightly setting forth this truth and that ye might fix hearts to be receptive to what thus saith the word of God. Guide and direct, honor your word, give us thy spirit, and for what you do for us, we'll be certain to give thee the thanks for it. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Isaiah 32. Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as a shadow of a great rock in a weary land. There is coming a time when all men will need that place to hide. One that might take them out from what's coming, keep them in, hide them in the time that is coming in the tribulation time. Now most in Christendom today teach that the rapture occurs prior to the tribulation period. Certainly that's a subject for another time and another day. But the scripture does affirm. Our Lord said, in the world ye shall have tribulation. We must, through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God, Paul told us. Another one of the writers said this, tribulation worketh patience. And the question is asked, who comforted us in all our tribulation? For man to ever have a need of a savior, the spirit must work convincing that man of sin making him well aware that he is a sinner. and that has come short of God's glory, and that being a sinner he can in no wise inherit the kingdom of God. To enter into that blessed place where all saints shall at the end of all things be gathered there in the presence, the physical presence, of our Lord Jesus. Now, prior to salvation, man has but one nature, only one. And that nature, as all of you are well aware, seeks only those things in this life that will bring gratification to his natural senses. the mother of all living, without sin, a perfect woman, no nature of sin. But when she looked at the fruit at the serpent's bidding, she saw that it was good for food. It was pleasant for one's eyes, and that a desire to make one wise. Now, if he did a perfect woman like that, and in his temptation caused her to eat of the forbidden fruit and to give unto her husband, surely He is the master. He is the servant that keeps all of us bound in sin until in grace we're brought to meet the Savior. And then when and through grace one is born into the family of God, within is a new nature, created, born that instant, that he receives Christ for the forgiveness of sins. But the one thing that did not happen when a man or woman receives the Lord Jesus as their Savior is that their old nature was retained. All that it was, its behavior, its actions, its desires, And that's what begins, for the child of God, a lifetime of warfare. There's a good example of this. Rebecca, Isaac's wife, she was with child, and the twins were struggling within. And she did not know why, and she said, I will go inquire. Why am I thus? I will inquire of the Lord and see if I can have an answer. And the Lord was gracious to answer her and said, two nations are in thy womb, two manner of people. The one shall be stronger. And so up until the birth of these two, Jacob and Esau, and after their birth, There was always a struggle between the two for mastery. Saul of Tarsus, like all human beings, knew nothing of a warfare until one day he met the risen Savior. Then you begin to read when God has taught him and through life he's experienced. You begin to read of his inner struggles, especially in Romans 7. I know in me that is my flesh dwelleth no good thing. To will is present. I'm always wanting to do right. To walk pleasing unto my Lord, But how to perform that which is good, I find not. It's not in me. I can't find in me that power enabling me to do good that I want to do. So the good that I would, I do not. But the evil which I would not, that I do. And he said, it's all because there's a law within me. And when I would do good, evil is present with me. And he makes that cry, oh, wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from this body of dead? That warfare, though not as great because we have not the knowledge that Paul had God carrying him to the third heaven and showing him things which must be hereafter. Revealing to him things that had been secret from the foundation of the world, especially the relationship between Christ and his church. For the first time ever, It is now known that marriage teaches us the relationship between the man, Christ Jesus, and his bride, the church, the born-again ones. Now that warfare that Paul encountered, that all Christians have, it cannot exist in an individual that has but one nature. And it isn't long after salvation, first of all, when one finds that they are forgiven, then the peace of God settles within their soul and they go in that joy and that peace for some time. But not long after salvation, something changes about that. And the peace that they knew, it's gone. And the joy that they had in reading the scriptures and in praying, seeking to walk with the Lord, they get up one day and that's not there. And then the young Christian thinks, what have I done? Where have I sinned against God? How have I grieved or offended the Holy Ghost? that I no longer have the peace that I did last week or even yesterday. But it's God just bringing us on, teaching us, training us, and bringing us into the realization that as long as you are in this flesh, you live in a body that is opposed to holiness and righteousness and the very will of God. when I would do good. That desire is always within us, but we, as Paul, how to perform that, I find not. I don't know how to do that. And now the language of the Christian writes something like this. Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. That's our warfare. When we would do good, evil is present with us and Satan can have a big sway over our old man, the old flesh. The divine life of God dwells within a fallen, fleshly nature of his children. And then we can read Hosea 11, my people are bent. They're growing up in the direction that their old nature is bent, like a young sapling of a tree. When it is young, you can stick it and tie it off and shape it into different figures, different things by a force applied to it. Hosea said, are God saying to him, my people, they are bent on backsliding. The nature in which I implanted a new man, gave him a new heart, wrote down my laws, yet in that old nature, they are always bent towards backsliding. The great king of Israel, not the Lord Jesus, but the one that prefigured him, David, he said, hold thou me up, and I shall be safe, knowing that his nature was prone to depart, knowing that he must be held up at all times. His nature in Adam was very weak, and so is yours and mine. Paul writes, take heed brethren, lest there be in you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the Lord. Do you know of many today that are very concerned about departing from the Lord? They're living life to the fullest here. No troubles other than that of natural man in life. Let not sin, let not presumptuous sins have dominion over me, was the prayer of that Old Testament saying. Now all of this I know. I know my nature. I know the warfare that I face continually in striving to please Striving to walk with the Lord for over a half a century, I'm well aware of the two natures. One longs after God, the other has no desire to bend the knee. One longs to find in scripture God speaking, the other has no desire whatsoever to open the book and spend time there reading and meditating. But this also I know that it takes the work of God to fully convince one that he or she is a guilty sinner. No one will ever seek the Lord for salvation until it has been brought to their understanding, spiritual mind and heart. Now, I am a sinner. See, God always gave life before a sinner ever wanted life. And it was that that cried out, oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Forgive me of my sins, my shortcomings, my rebellion, my life I've been living in the flesh to please the old man. As to man seeking a hiding place, that I read to you here. A man shall be as a hiding place. That man can be no other than the man Christ Jesus. A man seeking a hiding place will only do so because the wind is so strong that he fears that he will not get through that alive. No one will ever seek that hiding place until the wind becomes strong enough that within he thinks, I can't survive this. This is going to destroy me. The disciples were satisfied with the master being in the ship asleep. Everything's okay until there arose a great storm of wind and the waves beat into the ship. Now because of that and their fear, they go back and wake him up. Master, carest not that we perish, Mark 4, 38. Who is it that needs a hiding place in a culvert until the tempest, the downpour, the flooding passes on? only one that thinks the rising water will destroy him. Our nature, warring against the life of God in the soul, the very fact that we do, and this is a lifetime, it keeps us as near unto this man, as our hiding place, as possibly we can ever live here. A thirsting, hungering soul, or one bowed down with sin, needing help Then and only then will he begin to seek the Christ of Scripture. It is only this one that is proclaimed throughout the Word of God, he himself being the Word, only this one that'll ever run to Jesus Christ. Finding in him is all the help I need. In him is the strength to overcome. In him and in him alone can I have peace in the midst of a great storm. But dear soul, it is the Jesus Christ as declared in scripture. It's not this Jesus that is presented today in almost every place. I must have one greater than my sin and greater than the power that sin exerts on and over me. only the Christ of Scripture, only the Son of God as the Son of Man. I've got to have one more powerful than any force on the earth to help in time of need, to provide sufficiently all my needs, especially considering how wise Satan is, and how weak my flesh is, and the warfare. I am pressed together. The tempest, the tribulation, that's what it does. It brings upon us that which would put us in a vice, and the pressure continues to increase as one turns that vice, pushing harder against each side of us. I'm pressed together, I'm under great affliction, more than mere man on earth is able to provide help for me. That's when one flees to God's man, the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord shall never be a stream. No. He'll never be as rivers of water Until you get into that dry, dry desert climate and you've gone days without water, it takes one being brought there. before ever a need for the rivers of water that flow from the fount of God to refresh my soul. Oh God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee, for my soul thirsteth for thee, as in a dry land where there is no water, to appreciate a shadow that the Lord becomes, the man becomes the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. I don't know what it is like walking through the desert and the water having given out a day before. I don't know that kind of thirst. I do know that in the spiritual realm. out working the crops and the fields in the mid-July sun, bearing down. How welcome was that dark cloud that came over and blotted out the sun for a little. How cool and refreshing was that. But my friends that were off swimming in the river, or sitting on the bank under a shade tree fishing there, they never had an appreciation for that cloud that provided shade for me, that cloud that meant so much for me. And until you are in this place, God's island, you find no water, and you've been without food, though you've continually sought the Lord, and open the book, you've been without food. How welcome then becomes that little nugget, that little crumb that falls from the master's table. See, folk that weren't out in the open working, they couldn't appreciate as I did. Those that did not have to work could not appreciate the water as I did in those days. They just didn't have an appreciation for a cloud providing a shadow as a gray rock in a weary land. Unless the Lord Jesus actually accomplished his purpose in coming into the world, unless this one, and unless the writings of the apostles and holy men of God are true, and they are accurately setting forth Christ Jesus, the man, then I don't have these things. I'm still a thirsty soul. I'm still a hungering soul. I have no hiding place from the justice of a holy God. One that I am speeding now quickly into His very presence. But if on Calvary his work was completed and all he came to save, to do, to work out salvation for his children, if that was completed and all that he came to save have been or will be saved, then I have hope. But unless he has done that, or is in the process of doing that, wherein can I hope? The Bible is declaring a Jesus different than what I hear today. And yet the one I hear broadcast so often today is the one so many are following after. is the one so many are following after. What will be the end result? Oh, my soul. If his work only left me with hope so that maybe he accomplished what he came to do, There's no comfort in that. The angel told his mother, I shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Now that being true, the cross cast this gray shadow from Genesis, when Adam and Eve sinned and God slew those two animals, to every true Israelite throughout the old economy, to everyone that believed in the Lord Jesus when he was here on the earth, and to all who have believed on him since, from the cross that great shadow was cast over the earth, over mankind. You know what I'd like to hear, I really would love to hear today some of the leading evangelists and pastors well known say Jesus Christ came into the world to save his from their sin. I wish they would leave off their introductory words of Jesus loves you and begin preaching repentance to them and forgiveness of sin only in and through the shed blood of the Lamb of God. That would be so refreshing today. Now, dear soul, until Jesus Christ becomes to you personally, I'm not interested in what your neighbor thinks about him. I'm not interested in the average churchgoer, what they think about him. You, until Christ becomes to you what the scripture declared him to be, you have no hiding hole, no place, no shelter. from the great storm that is arising even in our land. Well, God's going to take the church out before the tribulation. Well, I would like for you to show me the place and prove that to me. And I know you're going to carry me to 1 Thessalonians 4, but from there you could not prove to me that there's going to be a rapture of the church. Look with me to 1 Corinthians 15, 17. 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Well, let's begin with verse 15, 1 Corinthians 15, 15. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ, whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, and ye are yet in your sins. Well, we know that it was raised. How do you know that? Well, I've read in the Bible. My preacher has told me, church history has told us about this event. How do you know? This is not one reading history from some writer of the Jewish history. This is not even you reading in Holy Scripture that God raised him from the dead, God declaring him to be raised. That's you, because he was raised, Find in salvation you who were dead in trespasses and sin have been raised to newness of life, a new walk, a holy walk. So it goes beyond. I'm glad we have our Bibles. I thank God time after time. I appreciate his keeping his word and keeping it pure down through the centuries. But the written word does me no good unless God by the Spirit brings me into application of what is said in this book. Did Jesus die? Sure. How do I know that he died? because he rose from the dead, because that tomb was empty. So Christ becoming my hiding place from an all-seeing, all-knowing God has done so to me personally upon the confession of my sins and asking forgiveness and a peace flooding in my soul, a peace that could only come from God. I know that he rose. I know that he lives. Not because someone told me, but because I commune with the living Savior. I can go to the very throne of God and from my father have prayers answered because I go through the blessed son of God, son of man, sitting there as the intercessor for his people. And because my sins have been forgiven, I know that he was God. I know that he does have power to forgive and I know that I am forgiven because of faith given pointing directly to him. And so the resurrection became a reality by experience. I was dead. I was without hope and without God in this old world. One day I was raised to newness of life. Raised from death unto life. And that could only be because the Son of Man rose from His grave. No man will ever seek a hiding place until the danger begins to approach. But surely you are seeing the signs. Everywhere you look and about all you hear today is manifesting or speaking about the coming disaster or that that is already here. It just not is fully budded yet. But it will. And as fast as it has fallen, our old land has fallen just shortly. How quickly that has happened. Children of God are beginning to sense, I need that hiding place. And who he is must become a work of the Spirit in me. that I meet him, I see him, I have been introduced to him, and from the introduction and walking with, striving to live with, I am becoming as a wife learning her husband after 10, 20, 30 years of marriage, and the two becoming one. In repentance and true saving faith, both are which the gifts of God The Christ of Scripture in every aspect is the one that you must come to know, not the one that your natural mind describes unto you. For we've been told and warned that the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit. Why won't he receive the things of the Spirit, their foolishness unto him? Natural man's looking, where can I invest my money to gain more? Where can I do this that I might have a safe place when there's a complete collapse of democracy in our land? And we look forward in every place except the Lord Jesus, except God work of work in our hearts. So the natural man, we do not receive the things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness unto us. Neither can we know them, for they are spiritually discerned. All being the work of God. I can only know by the Spirit of God that dwelleth in you, in me. Romans 5 verse 15 following, but not as the offense, so also as the free gift. For if through the offense of one, Adam, many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift of grace, which is by one man, Isaiah said, one man, he's going to be as rivers in the dry land. He's going to be as a great shadow of a rock when you're weary in journey. He will be all to you that God declared him to be before he ever got here. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift of grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many." Now, Paul, didn't you mean to write here, for if through the offense of one, all are And writing about this man, through him, the gift of grace, of mercy, of forgiveness, of eternal life. Paul, didn't you mean when you were writing about this one man, Jesus Christ, didn't you mean That grace abounded unto every man. Isn't that really what you were trying to say? That's about all I get today if I would take the time to listen to the majority on the scene calling themselves the ministers of Christ, the servants of God. So the gift of grace is by one man, one man fulfilling the law of God, one man dying in the place of the guilty, and this one man becoming the substitute of many. Well, preacher, don't you mean the substitute of all men? Verse 18 and 19. Therefore, as by the offense of one, Judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. Now you see that preacher? That says the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, But now I direct your attention to this verse, dear listener. Many were made sinners. But I can show you in scripture that in Adam, all men die. All men are born into this world as sinners. This says, by one man's disobedience many were made sinners. So by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Now you think on those verses for a little. The grace which is by one man abounded unto all. Well, that's what's presented in the majority of what's preached by the majority in pulpits today. But listen, folks, apostles have also transformed themselves into the apostles of Christ. And far greater has been the number in the last hundred years that have preached that the grace of Jesus Christ hath abounded to all men. than have not. But I have a question to ask that I would like for you to ponder, folks. If one holds to that, that the grace of Jesus Christ by Jesus hath abounded to all men, if we hold to that, then of necessity it must be and you must admit that the grace of Christ fails at times. You ponder over these. Many are on the broad road that man's Jesus could not save. They just wouldn't let him. Their will was more powerful than his will that had determined to save them. Well, very briefly, and I won't get into this, except briefly. Those that have proclaimed common or universal grace. Same as saving grace. Came to all men, will come to all men. Now I will admit that the general common grace of God is toward all mankind. The sun shines on the just and the unjust, the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous, and the compassion of the Creator is manifest for all his creatures. But the Philadelphia Confession of Faith that we got from the London Confession with some changes, a few changes. That confession distinguishes between the common grace and the saving or irresistible grace of God, grace of this man that you and I are looking to. And that grace refers to the effectual workings, effectual power, and the effectual grace of God in giving faith to some, enabling them to believe. If there's one member that's making up the bride of Christ, and that member is not with him throughout eternity, he fails. There's no if or ands about that. They all must be with him or he cannot be who he said or who the scripture declares him to be. John 6, all that the Father giveth me. John 6, 37, he said, shall come unto me. and him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out. John 17, 9, I pray not for the world, but for them that thou hast given me. Was this man that claimed to be the Son of God that you and I are looking for in times of tribulation, great distress, Is he who he said he was? Did he speak the truth when from the cross he cried, it is finished? Did he do what he came to do? Or he almost did all that he intended on doing? But there were some that slipped through the cracks that he failed to save. Folks, there can be no hope or security, no assurance if he was not who he said he was and did not do what he came to do. You think that that Jesus could be a rock, cast a great shadow for you to rest in? Do you think that he could be as rivers in a dry, barren land? He cannot be any of these things if he was not who he said he was and did not accomplish that that he came to accomplish. Christ Jesus came into the world to redeem all that his father in eternity had given him. Now Jesus said they that are whole need no physician. Well, all are sinners. All come short of the glory of God. That's what your Bible tells you. Then why did Jesus say, I came not to call the righteous? Because there are a lot of people that the Holy Spirit of God has never worked in their hearts, convincing them that they are sinners. But if God determines to bring one to Christ, then the Holy Spirit will so work that they cease to be self-righteous. And under condemnation, they flee to the man, Christ Jesus. And if he came to save his people from their sins, then they must of necessity be saved. or he ceases to be everything that Isaiah 32.2 said he was, or that any other portion of Scripture teaches that he is. Of them that thou gavest me, I have lost none. So the one that announced, who are you? I am. accomplished his purpose in coming. For God cannot fail at anything he's determined to do. All who come unto God by him can rest in times of tribulation, affliction, and distress, but you must have the Christ of Scripture or That rest is not going to last. Just the Christ here in this book. That man is a hiding place for the weary. Come unto me all you that labor and heavy laden. That man is a hiding place. He is one throughout the Old Testament that the holy men of old wrote about and waited for. He was the one that the New Testament people of God met and found in him forgiveness. And he is to his people today, and we all with the apostle. Now unto you who are troubled, rest with us, because I know him." Now, children, I have no desire, absolutely none, to, after one split second, a fraction of a millisecond, Be in the presence of this Christ, this God. I have no desire in being there to meet an unknown Christ. That's why I bow to the scripture. I give credit to God for being truthful in everything that he's written about his son, and I give credit to the Lord Jesus Christ as having accomplished everything he came to accomplish. Now listen, if John 17 3 is correct, and this is eternal life, that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. If that's eternal life, then I want to know, I will know God's Christ as the one that came into the world to redeem his people from their sins. And bless your heart, dear ones, that's exactly what he's doing today. May God help all of us to come and rest our weary head on the bosom of the Lamb of God that accomplished that wherein he came. Lord bless you, my prayer in Christ's name, amen.