I invite you to turn back with me, if you would, to the book of Isaiah, chapter 1. Isaiah, chapter 1. I want to read verse 19 and 20, if you would care to follow with me. Verse 19 and 20 of Isaiah, chapter 1. If you be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword. For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. I want to speak this morning on the last part of verse 20. For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. On the infallibility of the scriptures. The infallibility of the word of God. This was the word of God unto the ancient people, the Israelites, through the mouth of Isaiah the prophet. I want to talk to you this morning about the word of God, and I hope that the Lord will be pleased to give you hearing ears and receptive hearts and minds for the things that we have to discuss with you this morning, the things that we'd like to say to you. Now, the title of the most precious book in the world is Holy Bible. The title to the most precious book in all the world is Holy Bible. No other book can truthfully lay claim to being sacred, pure, perfect, and holy but this one book, the Word of the Living God. Now every word on every page in the Bible is there, I believe, by divine appointment. Every word, every word given by inspiration of God, there by divine appointment. There because God would have it to be there. Holy men of God, we read in 2 Peter 1.21, spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Now you and I have in our possession this morning the written word of the living God. The written word of the living God. Now this is not just a book. This is the book. Now this is not just a book about God, it is the book of God. if you please. Now let me tell you of some of the wonders of this book. I want to just go through about four things here very quickly. I'm not going to preach on them. I just want to give them to you. The Bible is, first of all, a universal book. It's a universal book. It speaks to men of all ages, all cultures, all ranks of society, all classes, and all sorts of people. It has crossed national boundaries, having already been translated into nearly 1,100 languages and dialect. The Bible is a universal book. Second, the Bible is an ageless book. Though its message began some 6,000 years ago, it is still as fresh and as rich and instructive as it ever was. Of nearly every other book, it can be said that as time passes, it pertains less and less to each new generation. But God's Word is as pertinent today as it ever was. The Bible is indeed an ageless book as well as a universal book. And also the Bible is a miraculous book. I say this because without human plan or forethought 40 different men who lived in different parts of the world over a period of 1500 years, spanning 60 generations of time, wrote 66 separate books in three languages, Hebrew and Aramaic and Greek, and most of the writers of scripture never knew each other, and they all wrote under different circumstances, and yet all 66 form one perfect and complete book. This is indeed miraculous to me. It's miraculous. It is a universal book. It's an ageless book, and it also is a miraculous book. Now, the Bible, number four, has one prominent theme. Many people have missed this, but the Bible has one prominent theme, and that theme is Jesus Christ, His person and His work of redemption on the behalf of His covenant people. This is the main theme of the Bible. You hear us talking about the oneness of the message of the Bible. And that's what we mean, that the Bible has one theme, and that theme is Jesus Christ our Lord. We learn from the scripture that Christ is both God and man. He's the creator of all things, for without Him was not anything made that was made. And when he came into this world, he joined himself to human nature to live and to die as the substitute of sinners. He lived to die and lived to die, say, came into this world appointed unto death. in order that those that God had chosen and give to Him in the covenant of grace that they might be saved. He would be their substitute, the one who would die and bear the wrath of God in His body on the tree for them. Now this same Lord Jesus Christ, He died and He rose from the dead, ascended and he's now in heaven and he's the object there of worship and of glory. Now the Bible tells us that this sovereign Christ is Lord of all and that sinners in order that they have a right relationship with God that they must be brought to bow down to the Lord Jesus Christ and must be brought to believe on him and to trust in him if they're going to be the saved of the Lord. Now I want you to look at the text here on what Isaiah said here was really spoken by the Lord because he says in the last part here of verse 20, For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. The mouth of the Lord. And in verse 2 it says, Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken it. The Lord hath spoken. Now then, it was audibly, I suppose we might say, the utterance of a man, because it was the utterance of a prophet. It was the utterance of Isaiah, the seer, the man who could see the will of God and the ways of God and could speak of them. And so it was audibly his utterance, but really it was the word of God, because God was speaking through him. For the mouth of the Lord, Isaiah says, have spoken it. Now all scripture being inspired of the Spirit is spoken by the mouth of God and it ought to be held in high esteem by us. And I believe that everyone who claims to know Christ everyone who claims to be in Christ, that they do highly esteem the Word of God, believing in its inspiration, and believing in the message of the Bible. However, this sacred book may be treated nowadays, and we know that in modern religion, and we know with the skeptics of our day, that the Word of God is treated ill, and the Word of God is not trusted and believed in, and the authority of it is shunned. But we know that it was not treated this way by the Lord Jesus Christ, our Master and Lord. Now the Lord Jesus, and I think this is very noteworthy, He reverenced the written word, and the Spirit of God rested upon Him personally, without measure, and He could speak out of His own heart, out of His own mind, the revelation of God, and yet He continually The Lord Jesus Christ continually referred to the Scriptures and quoted out of the Scriptures, out of the Prophets, and out of the Law, and out of the Psalms. I like this. In Luke chapter 4, if you could turn there in your Bible, let me read to you a few verses which shows how the Lord Jesus treated the Scriptures. And in verse 16 of Luke 4, it says, And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, as his custom was. And he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." And he closed the book. And he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all bear him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son? The Lord Jesus Christ took the people back to the word of God. Beloved, I want you to understand that Jesus Christ held in high esteem this book. this truth which had been revealed by the Holy Father through the mouth of the prophets and writers of Scripture. He always treated the Scripture with intense reverence, and that, I say, is strongly in contrast with the irreverence of modern skeptics. I'm sure, brethren, we cannot go wrong in imitating the example of the Lord Jesus in our reverence for the Word of God, which cannot be broken. Another thing I'd like to say is that the apostles also treated the scriptures as supreme authority. We never find an apostle raising a question about the degree of inspiration in any book in the Bible or any writing that was sanctioned by God. No disciple of Christ ever questioned the authority of the books of Moses or of the prophets. Now the New Testament writers, they sit reverently down, if you please, before the Old Testament, and they receive God's Word as such without any question whatever. And you and I, if we love the Lord, you and I, if we're in Christ, you and I, if we have the hope of the gospel in our hearts, belong to the same school. We reverence the Bible, and we reverence the inspired scriptures. Now as for us and for our house, this priceless book shall remain the standard of our faith and the ground of our hope as long as we live in this world. This book is our book. It's our home book, our closet book. It's our church book. This is our book. Now, I want you to notice there's some things here that appeal to me, and I believe they're true, and some things that I want to say to you about this text of Scripture. For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Number one, the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. This is our wart for teaching scriptural, biblical truth. This is our wart. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Now, it would not be worthwhile for me to speak what I or any other writer of scripture said if it was nothing more than their thought. Beloved, if I were to get up here and talk about something that some writer of scripture had to say, if I knew that it was just his thought, then it wouldn't be worth your time to listen. My opinion, if I were to give you my opinion, it wouldn't be worth the snap of your finger. And certainly your opinion is not worth a snap of my finger. But when it comes to the Word of God and comes to the truth of God, the important thing is that we are to expound and enforce what has been spoken by God. We have no authority to expound or enforce what is spoken by men. The mouth of the Lord has spoken it, Isaiah says. But since the mouth of the Lord has spoken it, then beloved we're to woe unto us if we preach it not. Woe unto us if we preach not the gospel if the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Now we come to you with thus saith the Lord. We have no justifiable motive for preaching away our lives My friend, if we have not his message, the true preacher, the man whom God has commissioned, he delivers his message. He delivers it, first of all, because he believes that it's from God. He believes that God gave it to him, and so therefore he delivers it with awe and trembling. because the mouth of the Lord has spoken it, and he trembles because he has in this earthen vessel a word from the living God, a message that he must preach to dying men and women, a message from the throne of God unto men. Now, Martin Luther, who never feared the face of a man, said that he stood up to preach, well, when he stood up to preach, he said he often felt his knees knocked together under a sense of the great responsibility that was laid upon him. Woe unto us, beloved, if we dare to speak the word of the Lord with less than a whole heart, with less than all of our soul and all of our strength. because the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it, and it would be better for us to dig ditches, it would be better for us to do anything else than to preach, unless the Spirit of God would bear us up and sustain us with this solemn burden which God has placed upon us, and that is to utter the message that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken. The heart and soul of a man who speaks for God will know no rest from the burden, because God has placed upon him a weighty burden. And, beloved, that warning and that admonition of the Scriptures is ever in his ears. If the watchman warn not them, why, then they shall perish, but their blood which will I require at the watchman's hand. Now, beloved, no work is so important and honorable as the proclamation of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And for this very reason, we have an overwhelming sense of our need of the great grace of God to preach the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Now, before whom we give an account, we must give an account before God, not only for what we say, but how we say it. Has the Lord give us a word? Have we got a word from Him? We shall give an account of what we preach. And our warrant for preaching scriptural truth is because this Bible is God-breathed, because God gave it to us, and this Word is the Word of the living God, and that's our warrant for standing up and preaching the old doctrines of the faith, because they're found upon the pages of this book, and that's our warrant. Some may say, why do you preach sovereign grace? Because the only grace spoken of in the Bible is sovereign grace! Somebody said, why do you preach election? It's a despised doctrine. We preach it because it's plainly taught throughout the Bible. It's not a doctrine that you can discard and throw into the waste can because it's taught in the Bible. And the doctrine of the atonement, the doctrine of God saving His people by irresistible grace and by effectual call, plainly taught on the pages of the Scripture. And the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. My friend, what a glorious, wonderful doctrine it is. And God has not left us in the dark. He showed us that He keeps us. He shows us that we are preserved forever, that the feet of the saints are preserved, and that they will forever, forever be His. And so these doctrines, we have scriptural warrant to preach them. And that's why we preach them. We must preach faithfully the Word of God. It's not ours. to correct or add to the revelation, but to proclaim it. Beloved, that's what our ministry is. It's a ministry of proclamation of what the mouth of the Lord has spoken. That's what it's all about. It's not our business to bring you new and original thoughts of our own, but rather to say, the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me. This message that you hear From week to week here is from God. It's God's Word. Now, believing that the mouth of the Lord has spoken it, it is my duty to tell you what I have felt and heard in my own soul. It's not mine to amend or to adopt the gospel. That's not my business. Somebody said, why don't you adjust your message to the day in which you live? My friend, I'm persuaded that the only hope for this generation, I'm persuaded that the only hope for this city, that the only hope for men and women about me is that they hear that ageless message, that message of Jesus Christ, His redeeming grace, His power to deliver, His power to resurrect dead sinners and to give them hope beyond the grave. That's the only hope that men have. And this message, my friend, is the message that we have to preach. Now then, he that hath my word, the Lord says, let him speak my word faithfully. God forgive us if we have ever altered his word just a little bit. I know of preachers that handle loosely the Word of God. What an indictment the Scripture has against them and what judgment is awaiting those who would alter God's Word just a little bit. And those who would sort through and pick through the Word of God and say this we can preach and that we can't preach. People don't like this so we won't preach it. People like this so we will preach it. My friend, what a terrible judgment is awaiting those who would alter that which has come forth out of the mouth of the Lord. Now an ambassador, when he represents a country and represents the power of a country, he has not the right to go into the presence of others and offer his own opinions and views. He must stick closely to that which he is told to speak and to say. Now then, we're to speak his word, beloved, faithfully, and not only faithfully, but we're to speak the word of God courageously, and we're to speak it with full assurance. Now, someone said modesty is a virtue. Modesty is a virtue, but hesitancy when we're speaking for the Lord is a great fault and it's a sin. When a man will say, well, I'd just rather not say. Somebody says, what does the Bible say? Well, I'd just rather not say because he feels that he'll be ridiculed or feels that somebody will make fun of him if he speaks up and speaks the truth of this book. But my friend, we must speak the Word of God with courage and full assurance and speak out because it's a great sin to stand back until death and we've been delivered and God has put his treasure in us and he's put us in trust with the gospel and his truth and his word and it's our duty to preach it. We preach not the gospel by human permission. I'm not standing here and preaching because you people have given me leave to do so. I stand here this morning because Jesus Christ has laid hold of me. God has been pleased to call me. And the message of the Lord, the Lord has spoken. And He has a word for your souls. We preach Christ crucified. And we speak boldly as we ought to speak because it's God's own word and not our own. I wouldn't get up here. You couldn't get me up here to talk to you out of my own heart. I wouldn't do it. But if I've got to thus say of the Lord, then I've got a scriptural warrant to get up here and to tell you what God says. We cannot use ifs and buts, for we're dealing with God's shalls and wills. And we've got a responsibility to be faithful. If He says it's so, it's so. And that's the end of it. Now, controversy ends when God speaks, and so when we get up, we got a final word. We got a word, and it's from the Lord. Now we're urged to be charitable, and we are charitable with our own things, with our own money. We can be charitable, but we cannot be, we have no right To give away. We have no right to be charitable with that which is put into our trust. That which is not at our disposal. A man has no right to be charitable with God's truth. If God's showing him the truth, if God's revealed it to him, he's got no right. To say out of charity, I won't preach this or I won't preach that. We are bold to declare with full assurance that which the Lord reveals, knowing that the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Listen to the word which the Lord here spoke to Jeremiah. It's in Jeremiah 1, 17 through 19. Listen carefully. Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee. Be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them. For behold, I have made thee this day a defense setting. an iron pillar and brazen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. And they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee, for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee. So, beloved, those who speak the Word of God must speak the Word of God faithfully, courageously, and with full assurance, because this is their warrant. God says, I am with thee to deliver thee, and those that would rise against thee shall not prevail against thee. I'm glad this morning to know that the glorious gospel and the glorious truths of God's grace will prevail and men and women will not be able to frustrate God's purpose, His eternal redemptive purpose in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the second thing that I want to talk to you about, I told you the first thing was that this is our warrant for preaching scriptural things and scriptural truth. And secondly, the mouth of the Lord is spoken, and this is the claim of God's word upon your attention. This is the claim of God's word upon your attention. Every word which God has given us in this book claims our attention because of the infinite majesty of Him that spoke it. Every truth. Every word, when you read this book, think about who it is that's doing the speaking. The mouth of the Lord, the mouth of Jehovah, the mouth of the living God has spoken it. Now what voice is like His voice? The voice of the Lord, the Bible says, is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars. Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness. The Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. The book of Hebrews says, See that ye refuse not him that speaketh from heaven. Let it never be said of you that you live your life and that God was speaking in his book to you and you refused to hear. Now it matters very little whether or not you hear me or not. But beloved, it matters a great deal whether you listen to God or not. It matters a great deal. I want you to turn with me to the book of Proverbs, if you will. The book of Proverbs, chapter 1. And I want you to listen as I read here some astounding scriptures. Listen to this. Turn you at my reproof, verse 23. Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you. I will make known my words unto you, because I have called and ye refused. I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded. But ye have set it nought, all my counsel, and would none of my reproof. I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you, then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer. They shall seek me early, but they shall not find me. For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord, they would none of my counsel. They despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from the fear of evil. Now, beloved, God's claim on you for hearing, it matters a great deal that you hear what God says and that you refuse not His counsel. That you listen to what God says because He made you and your breath. My friend is in his hand. Get the wax out of your ears and don't be rebellious against the word which the mouth of the Lord has given. Now there is an infinite majesty about every line of scripture. but especially that part of Scripture which sets forth His saving grace in the person of His dear Son, Jesus Christ. I say there is especially infinite majesty about the message of the gospel of God's grace. The cross of Christ has a tremendous message in it, and it has a claim upon you. Hear what he preaches from the accursed tree. There is a message that comes forth from Calvary's mount and from that gory tree there outside the city of Jerusalem. Hear what he preaches. He says from that cross God is holy. God's holy. You say, well, I don't know whether, I don't understand what that means. Listen, Jesus Christ was hanging on that tree because God's holy. God must and will, He must and will punish sin. And that's the message of the cross. God is holy and He must punish sin. You see, Christ is hanging on that tree because He's there representing those whom God chose and those whom God would save. unto eternal life and take home to heaven to be with Him. And somebody must represent them and die the death of a sinner. And Jesus is there on that cross dying our death. And so from that cross the message comes God's holy and God's going to punish sin. And also from that cross there's this message that God has given up on flesh. He's given up on flesh. He gave up on people saving themselves. Men and women are not able to save themselves not by works of righteousness, which we have done but according to his mercy He saved us through the washing of regeneration and the renewal that's brought about by the Holy Ghost My friend you cannot save yourself You do not have the ability. God will not listen. Hear that message. Hear God's word. And that is that God's give up on flesh just like mine and yours. And the only way that men and women can be saved is by laying down all their self-righteousness and their works and believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. All the doing's been done. He did all the doing that God respects. And until you believe on Him, you will not be a child of God. He says, incline your ear and come unto Me, and hear, and your soul shall live. Now when the Lord speaks, His speech is God-like. And it is worthy of one who is dwelling in infinity and eternity. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. And because this has come forth from his mouth, it is no trifle. God never speaks vanity. Never, never. God is not playing with you. Will you trifle with God. Will you trifle with His Word? God is in earnest when He speaks to you. Will you not be in earnest when you hear Him? Will you not be in earnest? God is not a vain thing, beloved, for you to hear because it is your life, your eternal existence, your happiness or misery For time and eternity hangs on that which the mouth of the Lord hath spoken. Do not act as if the Lord and his truth were nothing to you, because heaven and hell, I repeat, depends upon the mouth, what the mouth of the Lord has spoken. You must hear from God in his word. When I stand up here to preach the gospel, I do not ever feel that I can go about my business calmly and just inviting you to attend to a subject which is one among many. No. No, my friend, I do not feel that I may be in any way taking you away from something more important, some more important business by asking you to attend that which the mouth of the Lord has spoken. There is no business on earth as important as hearing the Word of God. No business on earth. Somebody said I've been awful busy. You may have been awful busy. I understand that. And some of us are often providentially hindered. But my friend, we'll all agree, every one of us, we'll all agree that there is no business on earth as important as hearing God's Word. It's your soul. It's your own soul. It's your ever-existing soul which is at stake here. And I'm telling you that The mouth of the Lord is spoken. It is the claim of God upon your attention. God has spoken. I'm not asking a favor of you when I request you to hear the Word of the Lord because it's a debt that you're bound to pay to the Lord your Maker and harden not your hearts as the ancient Israelites did in the time of the provocation. Don't harden your heart against the Lord but incline your ear and come to me here and your soul shall live is the Word. Now faith cometh by hearing, the Bible says, and by hearing of the Word of God. Now then, you and I, most of us here would say amen, we agree to the inspiration of the scriptures as a fact. Because the scriptures have God for their author and truth, or salvation for their end and truth without any mixture of error for its matter. And all of us would agree, though heaven and earth should pass away, yet not one jot or tittle of what God has spoken shall fail. We know this, and we rest in this. God cannot be mistaken. God cannot lie. If the mouth of God has spoken it, this is the judge that ends all strife where wit and reason fail. If God has spoken it, if God said it, Then, beloved, we must pay attention to it. Listen to what Isaiah 55, 10 and 11 says. For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, Mike referred to that this morning, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that he may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." Isn't that tremendous? That's a wonderful, a tremendous statement of the Lord concerning His Word. Now, if the mouth of the Lord has spoken it, then it means Listen to this, immutable fixedness. It means unchanging fixedness. Once spoken by God, not only is it so now, but it always will be so. The psalmist said, thy word is forever settled in heaven. That means that God's word is on, it's established and it's settled in heaven and it always reads the same. There's no need, my friend, to entertain the idea that the word of God is going to read a little different when we get before the Lord. It's not going to read any different. My friend, listen, if it be a word of cursing or if it be a word of blessing, it does not matter because it is fixed according to the fixedness of Him who spoke it. Now, It's fixed, I say, according to the fixedness of Him who spoke it. And the most fixed thing in all the universe is God. And that's not going to change. I want to say, let me say, God has never yet spoken. And this is very important for you to hear, those of you that are here outside the Lord Jesus Christ, that God has never yet spoken a threatening that has fallen to the ground. He never has spoken a threatened word that has fallen to the ground. He told Pharaoh what he would do, and he did it. He did it. He told the world in the days of Noah, Noah built on that ark 120 years, God preaching all the time through what he was doing, I'm going to judge this world. I'm going to bring judgment on this world. I got the will to do it, and I got the power to do it. And he did it. He did it. Now remember Sodom and Gomorrah? God woke old Abraham up early one morning, and he looked over there, and oh, there was that awful, awful smoke coming up. God said he was going to do it, and he did it. Depend on it, my friend. Remember the destruction of Jerusalem? God said he was going to destroy that city. He wept over it, the Lord Jesus did. But he didn't. Because he said, the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. And so he did it. Depend on it then. When Jesus says, thee shall go away into everlasting punishment. It shall be. So when he says, if you believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. Believe it, my friend, because it's the gospel truth. His word is not an exaggeration to scare you, my friend. It's not. It's not just to scare you. This is emphatic truth. There is emphatic truth in what the Lord says. We're dealing with a God who cannot lie. Cannot lie! Cannot lie! It's not that he won't. It's not that he may not, it's that he cannot lie. And our concept of a Bible and truth all depends upon our concept of the God that we worship. We're worshiping a God that's absolutely unable to err, unable to lie, unable to be deceived. Now he's always carried out his threatenings to the letter. So depend on it, my friend, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Now this makes the Word of God, to me, the reason, and it makes it the rest of our faith, of my faith. The mouth of the Lord has spoken it. It's been a long time since I had anything got a hold of me like this does. I mean, it affected me, it helped me, it done something for me. The mouth of the Lord has spoken. It don't take much. It don't take much, but there's a tremendous truth that the mouth of the Lord has spoken. It's the foundation of our confidence. The mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Now, you may be here this morning and you say, well, preacher, you know, I got problems. I got trouble with, you know, I've heard there's forgiveness. I've heard there's forgiveness for sin. And I'm a sinner. I'm a lost sinner. I've got a heavy burden upon my shoulders. Preacher, I know that I'm a guilty sinner before God, but you know I cannot believe, I just cannot believe it. I feel so unworthy. I just cannot believe that God will forgive me. Well, my friend, but the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. The Lord said if we confess our sins that He's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. My friend, the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. So believe, if you please, over the head of your unworthiness in what the mouth of the Lord has spoken. He said that I'll forgive your sin. I'll blot out your sin. I'll cast it behind my back as far as the east is from the west. I'll forgive it. Believe what God has spoken in his word. You say, well, I feel so weak, preacher, and I cannot even think, and I cannot pray. I can't do anything, preacher. Well, it is written, when we're without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. So, beloved, believe over the head of your inability. You say, I just don't have the ability, preacher, to do anything. Believe over the head of your inability that in due time Christ died for the ungodly and when they had no strength and when they were not able to do anything, when they were fainthearted and weak and were unable to lift themselves up, Jesus Christ has answered to God in their room and stand in place. The Lord said, I'll never leave thee nor forsake thee. But you say, Preacher, Preacher, I've got a lot of trouble in my life. And do you know, Preacher, that all the circumstances in my life contradict that statement of Holy Scripture? It contradicts it. It contradicts it. My circumstances, Preacher, tell me that God's abandoned me and that He's left me. well my friend listen we must believe God against the devils against all the devils in hell and we must believe God even against our own evil hearts our evil hearts of unbelief God said I'll never leave thee poor afflicted child of God I'll never leave thee I'll never leave you nor forsake you brothers and sisters I want to say that we have not followed cunningly devised fables. We're not on an inner tube that's about to burst under us. We're resting on firm ground. We're resting on what the mouth of the Lord has spoken. We're resting where heaven and earth are resting. We're resting, if you please, where even eternal things have their foundation. We rest on God. And if God fails us, I'll tell you what one old writer said, if God fails us, we will gloriously fail with the whole universe. Is that alright? Well, beloved, listen, that's enough. That's enough. We'll rest right here. This is the ground for our rest and for our confidence and for our faith is the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. I hope this morning after listening to this and I'm not the easiest fellow to listen to and there's a some people said one time after listening to me preach said they went away and they said I hope that nobody that was listening to him thinks that that's the way to preach. But listen to me. Listen to me, I hope that when you go out of here this morning, that you've got just a little more esteem for the Word of God, for what the mouth of the Lord has spoken. And when you read this book, when you meditate upon it, when you hear it preached and expounded, proclaimed, you'll say, well, it's what the mouth of the Lord has spoken. So I'll believe it, and I'll camp right there. and I'll trust to it and believe it. Is that all right? Amen. Amen. That's good to hear those amens. Amen. Well, let's have a word of prayer and then we'll sing a hymn closing. Father, thank you. Thank you for your word and thank you for the privilege of being here today and being able to preach your precious truth. Bless, we pray, this message that our souls might more highly esteem you and your precious word of truth, and may it be bound to our hearts in a new way. Grant us thy help. We are so needy. We are, in many ways, our Father, so weak. We need desperately to have your help. Do Thou help us, lead us, guide us, say things to us, and comfort us, and lead us, and deliver us, for Christ's sake. Amen.