If you come here to our morning service at Calvary Baptist Church of Trihearne and also to those who are listening to our live streaming, welcome and be blessed. And please open your hymnals to number 213. 213, the light of the world is Jesus. 213. So, The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin The light of the world is Jesus Like sunshine on Monday, His glory shining The light of the world is Jesus Come to the light, it is shining for thee Sweetly the light has dawned upon me Once I was blind, but now I can see The light of the world is Jesus No darkness have we who in Jesus abide The light of the world is Jesus We walk in the light when we follow our guide The light of the world is Jesus Come to the light, it's shining for thee Sweetly the light has dawned upon me Once I was blind, but now I can see The light of the world is Jesus He dwellers in darkness with sin-blinded eyes The light of the world is Jesus Go watch how he's bleeding and light will arise The light of the world is Jesus Come to the light, it's shining for thee Sweetly the light has dawned upon me Once I was blind, but now I can see The light of the world is this eye No need of the sunlight in heaven untold The light of the world is Jesus The lamb is the light in the city of gold The light of the world is Jesus Come to the light, it's shining for thee Sweetly the light has dawned upon me Once I was blind, but now I can see The light of the world is Jesus Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful this morning for that light that we can come to. Thankful for Thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the light of the world. He shows us our need to be saved. He also shows us how to be saved. He declares, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Thankful that we can know the forgiveness of sin through the blood of Thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We can know Thy peace and have Thy blessing in our hearts. And we do pray for our country of Canada. We pray for our Prime Minister. We pray for our Premier, for our Councillors, our Reeve and others. Pray, Father, for their salvation, that they might see the need to know the true God. to know thy peace and blessing. We pray for Dr. Rusin and Dr. Reimer and many others who are spreading lies. Pray, Father, that they might see their need to repent and to know the truth. Pray for our country that is openly fighting against the truth, does not want the truth to be told. Pray for those doctors who are speaking out, who are telling us the truth. Many of them are lost. Pray that they might come to see their need to know thee. and to know thy peace in their hearts and to realize that, yes, they are telling the truth with the medical issue, but they still need to know thee as their God and Savior. We ask that thy will be done in the nation of Israel. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, that souls will be saved in that country as they are concerned about this war that's going on right now and how that Russia is also very influential in Syria. And that's a neighbor to Israel. We pray for Iran, which is looking for the nuclear bomb and getting close to having that and wants to use that against Israel and against the West. We pray for the Christians there. We pray for the Christians in Ukraine. Pray that they would be faithful to thee, know thy peace and blessing and honor thee. We pray for those that we meet with in the Philippines. Pray, Father, that they might see the importance of Thy truth in their lives, that we can be a help to them, and that Thy will be accomplished there as well. Guide us here that we would glorify Thee in all that is said and done. Help us to exalt Thy name and to serve Thee faithfully, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. And over to 259. Sorry. Yeah, 259. Sorry for that. 259, the rock that is higher than I. Though sometimes the shadows are deep, Are all zipped apart to the goal, And sorrow sometimes how they sweep, Like tempests down over the soul, Oh then to the rock let me fly To the rock that is higher than I Oh then to the rock let me fly To the rock that is higher than I Oh, sometimes I'm long since the day And sometimes I'm weary, my feet But toiling in life's dusty way The rocks, places, shadows, how sweet Oh, then to the rock let me fly To the rock that is higher than I Hold into the rock, let me fly To the rock that is higher than I Oh, near to the rock let me keep If blessings or sorrows prevail Or climbing the mountain we steep Or walking the shadow we veil Oh, then to the rock let me fly To the rock that is higher than I Oh then to the rock let me fly To the rock that is higher than I And over to 272 272, The Solid Rock. 272. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' plight and righteousness, and dare not trust the sweetest frame, but fully lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock I stand All other ground is sinking sand All other ground is sinking sand When darkness fills his lovely face I rest on his unchanging grace In every high and stormy gale My anchor holds within the veil On Christ the solid rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand. His heart is covenant, His blood support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. He shall come with trumpet sound, All mere then in Him be found, Rest in His righteousness alone, Faultless to stand before the throne. On Christ the solid rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. Take your Bibles and turn to Isaiah chapter 55. Isaiah chapter 55. We're going to be reading there from verse 8 through to the end of verse 13 this morning. of Isaiah chapter 55. We'll stand please for the reading of God's word. Isaiah chapter 55 beginning at verse 8. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it 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 whereunto I sent it. For ye shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing. and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fig tree, the fir tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree, and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful this morning that we have Thy Word. We're thankful for the truthfulness of Thy Word, thankful that we can read it, thankful that Thou has preserved Thy Word from this generation and forever, as the psalmist wrote, that Thy Word is inspired of Thee, and that we have the privilege this morning of reading Thy Word. and of studying thy word. I pray that thou would help us to be careful as we handle thy word, that we would not be careless, that we would not want it to fall to the ground, but that we would want to benefit from the handling of thy word. We would allow it to speak to our hearts, that we would remove any distractions that would hinder us from hearing from thee. so that Thy will would be accomplished. We pray for anyone that is lost that they might see the need to turn to Thee in repentance and trust in Thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, alone for their salvation. Help those of us that are saved that we would be faithful to Thee and honor Thee and allow Thee to direct us that we would grow in Thee to be a help to others. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. The title of the message this morning is God Will Bring Blessing to Those Who Believe in Him. God Will Bring Blessing to Those Who Believe in Him. We are living in interesting times in the time in which we're living now. I remember as a young boy, I would read stories about a man that was called Daniel Boone. And I would read those stories about the things that he did and the pioneering days of that time. And I always thought it would be so interesting and so nice to live during that time. when they could go into uncharted land and they could build a log cabin there and they trapped and they hunted. And yes, they had to deal with the Indians who sometimes were friendly and sometimes were not friendly. But to me, I always thought those were interesting times. And when I was a young person, I wished to live during those times. But right now, we are also living in very interesting times. We never know what's coming next because we're not able to see that far into the future. We have a general understanding for those that are saved. We know that there's a day coming when the trump of the Lord is going to sound and the Christians are going to be taken out of here. We don't know exactly how that's going to happen. There are all kinds of imaginations that people have of cars that are going to be crashing on the highway because the driver is gone all of a sudden. That may well happen. We hear of people that believe that airplanes will crash because the pilot will be a saved man and he'll be gone and the plane will be uncontrolled. And it used to be said, I don't think it's true, that they always made sure that if there was a Christian pilot, there was a non-Christian co-pilot in the plane so that someone could take the plane over in case of the rapture. Now, I don't know if that's true or not. I don't think the plane, the airline industries really even believe that there's going to be such a thing as a rapture. But we do know that we are living in interesting times. I was not alive during the time of the Second World War. I was born after that war was over, but I have read of the propaganda that was used both by the enemy and by the allies during that time. The enemies would have been Hitler, would have been Stalin, and people like that, who would have been trying to tell their people, just as we were learning this morning in King Saul's life, that they were giving the people a false narrative, a false reality, and trying to gain the support of the people through that false narrative. The Allied forces were also, so I'm told, they were dropping, instead of dropping bombs, they would fly over a certain area and they would drop leaflets. And they would want the people to read those leaflets, and they were trying to give a picture of the benefit of supporting the Allies and the hope that there was in their deliverance from the enemies they were involved with. We know that right now there's a war going on between Russia and the Ukraine. We know that there are other countries that are involved in that situation. We don't know exactly everything that's going on behind that. If you listen to CBC and CNN and all those, you're never gonna get the truth on what's going on over there. But we do know that there is fighting going on. We don't know exactly why Russia started it. They say that one of the reasons is because the West was warned over 10 years ago not to expand NATO into the Ukraine, but the West didn't listen. And they decided, we are going to expand NATO and we are going to get Ukraine involved in NATO. And Russia had warned, don't do that. If you do that, there's gonna be trouble. Well, just a couple of months ago, the Biden administration boasted of the fact that they were going to get Ukraine into NATO. And Russia decided, okay, it's time to act. Whether that's the full reason for it or not, I don't know. But we do know one thing. We know that this war in Ukraine right now is being used by the Western world as a diversion. Canada, right now, there are several bills that are being debated in Parliament that are very wicked bills. They're evil bills. One of them is designed to take away, for instance, the government has said in the last year or so that if you don't get your shots, you can lose your job. you're a doctor, a nurse, airline pilot, any of those kinds of jobs, even truckers, if you don't get the shots, you can lose your job. Well, in Canada, we have a system that says that if you lose your job, there's an opportunity to collect, it used to be called unemployment insurance, now it's employment insurance, but you can collect that for a time until you can find a different job. One of the bills that they are proposing is suggesting that if you lose your job because you don't want to get the shot, you cannot collect EI. And they want to use that same bill to stop people like my wife and I and some others here from being able to get our pensions even if we do not comply with what the government says. Now right now that happens to be the shot. But what if down the road it's something else? That bill is designed that if you do not comply with what the government says, they can withhold money from you. That's the same system that China has. And they are debating that right now. But that's not in the news because what's in the news? Ukraine and Russia. You see, they're using that as a diversion, and that's just one. There's another bill that they're proposing that if I think something against you that you think I'm thinking evil against you, I can be charged. I don't even have to say anything to you. You just think, oh, that man, he's got something evil against me. I'm going to report him. There's a bill right now that they're working on that. But are we hearing about that in the news? No, why not? Because Russia and Ukraine is what everybody is focused on. So we know that the devil is using that situation over there to distract from what's going on right at our own doorstep, things that are going to remove freedoms from us that we should rightfully have. You can't read my mind, and I can't read your mind. So it's foolish for me to think that I know what you're thinking. Now, sometimes we can give a hint as to what we're thinking because we put a frown on our face, or we put a smile on our face, or we yawn, you know, because we're not interested in what's going on, you know. We can do that, but we can't really. I can't read your mind, and you can't read mine. So we are living in very interesting times. And it is very important for us to know the Lord. That's the only hope that there is. That's the only hope that there ever has been for man. But in the time that we're living now, we are seeing that more and more. It's very interesting to me to see how careless professing Christians still are today in the midst of everything that's going on. They just don't care. They don't realize the situation we're in. You know, in the early church, in the book of Acts, we find that the Christians there, after Jesus was ascended to heaven, that the Christians, they saw the importance of the word of God and they were so concerned about God's truth that they were willing to sell everything that they had and pool their resources and live very frugally and very simply because they didn't trust the governments at that time, and they thought that Jesus Christ was coming back right away, and so they were not concerned about building an empire on this earth. Now, some people talk about Jesus returning, Most people even that talk about that don't really believe it. But most people are far too concerned about this world. I'm not saying that we should pool all our resources, sell everything we have, and we should live like they did in the first century. I don't even know whether they had personal houses yet then or not. I don't know. We know that some of them sold even their houses, but they still had to live somewhere. In Canada, you wouldn't do very well in a tent at minus 30. It wouldn't do very well. I know the Indians, they did. They had their teepees, but they also had them designed in such a way that they could put a fire in the middle of that teepee, and the smoke would go up through the hole in the top, and the skins that they used for that teepee were insulated to a degree, and so they kept warm. They wore fur clothing, and they kept warm. But nowadays, we're told that it's a sin by our world figures. It's a sin to kill an animal for fur. when God gave them to us for that. What do you think that God made Adam and Eve's coats out of? You think he had a weaving machine that he weaved together some cotton and made them a coat? No, he killed an animal. And he used the skins of the animals to make coats for Adam and Eve. And yet today, our world tells us it's a crime to go out and kill an animal and use that skin to keep yourself warm. So we're living in very interesting times. And it is very important to know the Lord, to pay attention. What does God say? What does God want me to do today? And if you're listening today and you're not saved, God wants you to be saved today. Not tomorrow, not next week, but today. Because he wants you to begin to know his blessing and to serve him faithfully. So as we look at our text today, there were several things again that God was trying to get across to the nation of Israel, and they were slow learners just like we are. And the first thing that we see is the importance of trusting God's thoughts. Trusting God's thoughts. In verse eight it says, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. In verse 7, we noted last time, it says, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. One of the things that we find today is that many people who claim to be religious, they would even claim to be Christians, and they think they know God's thoughts better than God knows his own thoughts. And so they look at the Bible and they say, well, I know this is what the Bible says, but that's not really what God meant. We have the Sodomites, for instance. The Bible is very clear on what God thinks of sodomy. He hates it. He hates it. And yet there are people today who want to call themselves Christians that are sodomites or they're sympathetic to sodomites and they say, well, no, God, when God judged Sodom and Gomorrah, it wasn't really because the men were in love with men. You see, they think they know God better than God knows himself. They're wicked people. And the nation of Israel at the time of Isaiah, they thought they knew God better than he knew himself. They thought it wasn't really all that important that they stay away from idols and serve only the true God. They didn't understand that. They didn't want to accept that. And so God reminds them here in our text that his thoughts are not our thoughts. We, as it says in verse seven, we need to turn. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. We need to change our thoughts and come into line with what God says. And what God thinks is what he says. He doesn't, he's not like our leaders today who say one thing to try to distract us from what they really have in mind. God is honest with us. And he tells us things because he's thinking those things. And he warns us of the importance of knowing him and following him. because he knows what's coming for those who don't follow him and don't know him. Then it tells us also in verse eight, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. God's ways are far superior to man's ways. You remember in the book of Jonah, that God had a way that he wanted Jonah to go, right? He wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh. He said, I want you to go there and I want you to preach judgment to the people of Nineveh. What did Jonah do? Did Jonah follow God's way? No, Jonah said, I'm not going to Nineveh. I hate the Ninevites. They're evil people. They have shown themselves to be wicked people. Why would I want to go to them and preach to them a message of warning from God? And so Jonah decided to go his own way. How far did Jonah get going his own way? Not very far, did he? No, not very far at all. See, neither are your ways my way, saith the Lord. In the time of Isaiah, the nation of Israel had decided, we're gonna make an alliance with the Assyrians. Hezekiah did some great reforms in the nation of Israel, but Hezekiah also decided that once the pressure came on, he decided, I guess I better bow down to what the Assyrians want from me so that I can be at peace with them. Instead of bowing down to God and knowing God's peace and trusting in God to protect him against the Assyrians, he decided that he was going to join the Assyrians. And how did that work out for Hezekiah? Not very good. His own son Manasseh was a very wicked king. The nation of Israel, the nation of Judah continued to fall. until eventually the Babylonians came in and captured them and took of the best of the people and took the vessels from the temple and took them back to Babylon. Seventy years Judah was in captivity because they had rejected God's ways for many, many years. And so God tells them, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. We look at all the trouble that Israel has faced since the days of Isaiah. All the trouble that Israel has faced in the recent past history, the trouble they're facing right now. Why is that happening? Well, it's happening because Israel doesn't want to turn to God. Well, we might say, well, why doesn't God just destroy all the people of Israel and start with a new people? Well, because God is faithful to his word, and he promised Abraham that his seed would be a great nation. His seed. Where's Abraham today? He's dead, right? He's in heaven. Yeah, his soul is in heaven right now. So can Abraham produce more seed? No. So God promised Abraham that his seed would be a great nation. God has to keep his word because he's God. He doesn't lie. And he didn't say to Abraham, well, you know, I'll bless your seed, but I might change my mind later on and bless somebody else's seed. He has to be faithful to himself. So that's the difference between God and man. Man makes many promises, but he doesn't keep them. Sometimes he can't because he's foolish in the promises that he makes, but we don't keep our promises. But God is not like that. And it is important, and that's why God is seeking to remind Israel, but he's also seeking to encourage them. that if they would simply listen to Him and follow Him, they would be blessed of Him, because He doesn't change His ways. And so, again, as we look at these passages, we know that the final fulfillment of them is in the millennium, when the nation of Israel, as we see in the last verses of this chapter, when the nation of Israel is going to know the blessing of God like they've never known it before. In verse 9, it says, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, You know, Nimrod, he tried to build a tower that would reach unto heaven. Now again, there are people that argue and say, well, he really didn't intend to ever get up to heaven. Well, the Bible says he built a tower he wanted to reach to heaven. That's what the Bible says. So I don't think God is lying. I think that was Nimrod's intent. just as it is with our whole space program. What's the intent of our space program? It's trying to find out where life began, getting out into outer space. And they're always trying to get further out, further away, further out, because they figure we got to find the source of things. Well, the Bible tells us the source of things. We don't need a spacecraft. Do you know that right now with this war that's going on in Ukraine and the sanctions that the West is putting against Russia, do you know that the United States does not have a spacecraft right now that can go up to the space station? They don't have one. They used to have the Challengers. They used to have those things that they could fly. They don't have it anymore. Those things were so poorly made that they eventually scrapped that whole program. Do you know who the United States relies on to get up to that space station right now? Russia. Russia has been sending food up to that space station. Russia has been sending new astronauts up there and bringing the old ones back. And do you know what Russia is threatening right now? They're threatening to leave the American astronaut up there if the United States doesn't smarten up with their sanctions. And what's the United States going to do about it? You don't build a spacecraft in a day. It takes time to build a spacecraft. So you see, the United States is not thinking very smart. First of all, relying on an enemy country for sending supplies up to one of their space stations, just like they've been relying on China far too much, not very smart. It's not that we don't have the raw materials, it's not that we don't have people that can think, but we're just too dumb to realize the importance of protecting ourselves against the enemies. First of all, we don't know who the enemy is, and secondly, we don't protect ourselves against the enemy. In Canada, our Prime Minister has said one of his biggest enemies is New Evangelical Christians. New Evangelical Christians are not his enemy. but he thinks they are, because New Evangelical Christians don't think the way he thinks. Most New Evangelical Christians are lost just like he is, but they don't think the way he does. But the heavens, God says, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways. God's ways are so much superior to anything that man could ever dream up. So much superior. And my thoughts than your thoughts. God's thoughts are so much superior to our thoughts. So much better. We would be wise to stop and listen to what God has to say. As a country, we would be wise but even as those that are Christians, we would be wise. This morning's devotional, let me see now. Yeah, this morning's devotional. We talked in that devotional a little bit about how that God says that we are supposed to, Jesus Christ was taken outside of Jerusalem to be crucified. He wasn't crucified next to the Temple Mount. They took him outside of the city gates, and that's where they crucified him. There's a picture that God is giving with that account. And in the book of Hebrews, we, those that are Christians, are told that we also are supposed to go outside the camp with Jesus and be willing to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus. But what have we done as Christians? We've stayed inside the camp, we've accepted the world's rock music, we've accepted the immodesty of the world, and we've even accepted for a long time the paganism of Easter, and we've crammed Jesus into Easter. Easter is a pagan festival. Even the Bible tells us that. Most importantly, the Bible tells us that. If you look in Acts chapter 12, you see that very clearly. And yet most Christians, they still, you know, it's very interesting. You'll drive around now, you see the signs that are up talking about Easter. Since when has the world advertised for God? They don't advertise for God. An Easter that the world talks about is you got to buy that new dress. I remember when I was a young boy, it was very common in church that the girls would all have their new Easter dresses. That was very common. What does that have to do with Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection? Absolutely nothing. But you see, when you look in the book of Acts, you find there in verse 1, it says, About that time, Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church, and he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. Then were the days of unleavened bread. When were the days of unleavened bread? After the Passover. Okay, so Herod, Herod was a lost man. But Herod understood that he didn't want a war with the Jews. He was a politician. And so as a politician, even though he wasn't elected by the people, he still knew that it was easier to govern over a country that was somewhat pleased with him than it was to govern over a country that was fighting against him. He understood that. It just makes sense. It's a lot easier to rule over people that kind of agree with you than people that are always against you. And so because it was the Days of Unleavened Bread, Herod, he's gonna wait until after that time, but it says in verse four, and when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him, intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people. Now, Easter is not the same as the Days of Unleavened Bread. See, if we would just read the Bible, Easter in our today's culture, Easter is suggested to be the time of the Passover. not the days of unleavened bread. Easter is supposed to be a reminder of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. What is that a fulfillment of? It's a fulfillment of the Passover. So even if we would think about that, the days of Easter in the Bible were the pagan festival that the Romans celebrated, that the pagan world celebrated, that was different than the days of unleavened bread. Now, it's interesting if you pay attention again, if you look at your calendar, you look at your calendar this year, and then go and get last year's calendar if you still have one, and go and look at the calendar from the year before, and if you have access to a calendar from next year, and just look on each one of those calendars at what day the world has for Easter. And see if it's always the same time. Is it? No. And what did God tell the nation of Israel? There was a specific day that they were to choose that land, the 10th of Nisan, and on the 14th day of Nisan they were to kill that land. And God said to them after they did that when they were escaping Egypt, every year they were to keep the Passover at the same time. Why on our calendars, why does it change? from year to year. They follow the moon, right? They don't follow the Bible. So are we moon worshipers or are we God worshipers? See, so if we would just think a little bit, but we have allowed tradition to take over and we ignore the word of God for the sake of tradition. And if we follow what God says, guess what? We're going to be a reproach. People are going to scoff at us. They're going to say, well, what's wrong with you? But you see, what we need to understand from our text is that God's ways are higher than our ways. God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts. And God wants people to turn their attention to him. God wants people to know Him. And we cannot, as modern Christianity has done, we cannot mix truth and error and come up with truth. Doesn't work. That's why I said in our devotional this morning that for the last hundred years, Christianity has really not been very biblical Christianity. We've come a long ways from what the New Testament teaches us about Christianity. And it's time to get back there. It's time to get back there so we have a voice. Why do you suppose that the governments today think that they can trample on churches? They can come and bang on our door and try to disrupt our service. They can tell us you can't meet because you might be spreading the virus. They can tell us you shouldn't sing hymns because you might spread the virus. Why do you think the government is so arrogant and thinking they're going to tell churches what they can do? Because most churches are state-run churches. Most churches are registered with the state. Most pastors have a license from the state. We have willfully said to the government, you are our head. When the Bible declares, God is our head. And the Bible declares that God's way is not man's way. God's way works. When people get saved, they're changed from the inside out. That's what the Bible says. The world says, yeah, you might be able to stop drinking, you might be able to stop swearing, you might be able to stop smoking, but you might still need to keep on doing that. That's why you have, especially in Vancouver, you have safe injection sites. They know that they can't get the people off the drugs. So instead of criminalizing that, they say, well, what we're gonna do is we're gonna give you a clean needle and a clean syringe, and we'll even provide a place for you to come to so that you can give yourself a safe injection, because we don't want you to die from taking your drugs. In Florida this week, a tragic event, six Cadets died of a fentanyl overdose. Four of them died directly from the overdose. Two of them died by doing CPR on those four. Because that drug is so deadly that even the person that breathes in, they can die from that. Six young people died. They're supposed to be examples. In the army, you're supposed to be clean, you're supposed to be tough, you're supposed to be ready for combat. And here they were, and probably more than just those six, but six of them died. That's a tragedy. That's because our world has said their way is better than God's way. We know better. We understand that there will be some tragedy with what we do, but we still know our way is better than God's way. And many professing Christians have bought that lie. Maybe not to the full extent that the world is promoting it, but we still bought that lie. And we've told our governments, you know better than God does. We'll give our authority to you. You can tell us when we can meet. You can tell us how many people we can have in our building. You can tell us if we should sing or we shouldn't sing. We'll let you tell us that. You can even tell us whether we have the permission to marry people, to officiate at weddings. We'll let you tell us that. Foolishness. all because we have decided we don't want to be a reproach. We want the world to love us. Well, what the Bible tells us is that we love God because He first loved us. So it's not natural, it's not logical to think that a person is going to love God until they receive God's love. It's just not going to happen. Why do you think people stay away from this building? They don't love God. Why don't they love God? Because they don't want to receive his love. They're not interested in God's love. They don't see the value of God's love. We've been trained in our society, love in our society today is defined by the rock and roll attitude. That's what love is. When the biblical love is that I want to do for you that which will make you a better person in Christ. That's biblical love. I want to help you to be a better person in Christ and you want to help me to be a better person in Christ. That's biblical love. But the world's love is, I want to feel good, and if I can use you to help me to feel good, that's what I want. That's the world's love. And God doesn't offer that love. He tells us, yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer what? Persecution. That's what he says. That doesn't sound very exciting, does it? You want to be persecuted? I don't. But the Bible says that's the reality. If I'm going to live for the Lord, I can expect that people are going to hate me. I can expect that. I can even expect that some of my own family might hate me. If they don't choose to follow God, they're going to hate me. That's what the Bible says. God's ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Because when a person is truly saved like we see in Saul who became the Apostle Paul, we see a man who was changed from being a persecutor to being one who was persecuted. We see a man who hated God's people changing to become one who loved God's people. We see a man who was willing to go into hostile territory and tell people the truth. Instead of going into places with letters from the chief priests to try to arrest and imprison God's people, he went to the enemy to try to help lost people to know the truth. So we need to come to the place where we trust God's thoughts and understand that it may not be rational thinking to do things God's way, but it is the right way to do things God's way. It's the way that works. It's the way that God has designed. And God doesn't make any mistakes. He knows what he's doing. So we're wise to listen to him. The second thing that we see is the certainty of God's word. The certainty of God's word. Verse 10. Says, for as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. I've never yet seen rain come up from the ground. Have you? You ever walk outside and you step on the ground and the water's coming up from the bottom up? I know if you walk where there's a spring, there's some water bubbling up. That's not called rain. Rain always comes down from the sky, right? That's where it comes from. Snow. I've never seen snow just all of a sudden coming up from the ground. Always comes down from the sky. It's what the Bible says. And what does it do? What's the purpose of it? Well, we know that this last summer, it didn't rain very much, did it? And some of us had gardens, and so we would put a sprinkler out there on that garden to try to water it, right? But did you ever notice that when God sent a little bit of rain, he sent how much better the plants did than all that sprinkling that you did? What a difference, eh? There's a difference when God sends rain than when we try to manufacture rain from the water that comes down from heaven. Same water, but it's just a different way of doing it. And God's way just works better. And so it tells us that when God sends the rain or this snow, when the snow melts, what's it going to do? It's gonna soak into the ground. It's gonna flow off into the rivers. The rivers are gonna be brought up higher, and that's gonna cause evaporation, which brings rain again. But you see, all of that is going to work for our benefit. We can be guaranteed. The Bible tells us there will never be another worldwide flood. So when it rains, we don't have to say, oh no, not rain again. Some people do that. but that rain is good for us. When it snows, we can sometimes get tired of getting the shovel out and shoveling snow, but we shouldn't be complaining because that's our moisture. That's our moisture for the spring and for the summer. So it tells us here in verse 10, God gives us a very practical picture, but what's he trying to teach us with that picture? Well, verse 11 tells us, The importance of that picture. Verse 11 starts with a two-letter word, soul. That two-letter word tells us that what God is gonna tell us in verse 11 is connected to what he's already told us in verse 10. It's a connecting word. See, for you children in school learning English right now, it's very important to pay attention to the words. And when you have the word so, it's a connecting word. When you have the word for, and so on, those are connecting words. So you pay attention. Well, what's the so for? What's it trying to tell us? So here we see, so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. Where does God's word come from? Where does the rain come from? Heaven. Where does God's word come from? Heaven. You see, the Bible isn't man's invention. It wasn't that some man sat down and decided I'm gonna write a story and I hope people will believe it. That's what Joseph Smith did, that's what Muhammad did, that's what the JWs did, that's what a lot of other groups did, and that's what many people are trying to do with the Word of God. The NIV, the New American Standard, the New King James, the ESV, and all the other ones, the CEV, all these perversions that are out there, all of them are trying to take that word that came from heaven and they're trying to diminish that aspect of it and make it man's word. But God says, so shall my word. be that goeth forth out of my mouth. That's the word that we need to have, the word that comes from God's mouth, not the word that comes from man's mouth. Forget about that. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void. God's word doesn't bounce off of the earth and go back up to heaven. It's not like a trampoline. You can go on a trampoline and you can bounce back and forth all day long and you never get anywhere, do you? You're still bouncing on that mat. You just get tired, that's all, but you haven't accomplished anything. God's word isn't like that. I'm not wasting my time here right now preaching the word of God. Some people might think so. But God promises that his word is not gonna return unto him void. So I don't know, I don't know who's all listening. I don't know what people are doing with what they're hearing. But I know that God says his word's not gonna return unto him void. It says here, but it shall accomplish that which I please. Now we know that the will of God is that no one perish. That's the will of God. He doesn't want anyone to go to hell. He wants all to be saved. That's God's pleasure, that all should be saved. But we also know, and we've looked at that before, that God's word is like a hammer. And if a person decides, I don't want to hear what God has to say, he's still going to hear what God has to say. It's going to be too late. He's going to regret it. He's going to be sorry, but it's going to be too late. It's not going to help him any. But God's Word is going to accomplish that which He pleases. See, right now, we talked already about the war that's going on in Ukraine with Russia. What's going on with that war? Well, God is showing us what happens when people reject Him. That's where war comes from. That's where war comes from. When people reject Him, there's war. That's what's going on in our country right now. Why did we have that demonstration on Parliament Hill there for three weeks in a row? What was going on there? Because people reject God. There'd be no need for that kind of a thing if people knew God. Absolutely none. So God is showing us the need to know him. The sad thing is that most people aren't paying attention to that. But God tells us, and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it. So God's word is going to accomplish its purposes. Those who reject God, they're gonna be walking away trembling. They're gonna be guilty. They're gonna realize they need to be saved. Whether they get saved or not is another thing, but they're gonna realize they're not right with God. Those that are saved are going to be blessed by the Word of God. Some of those that are unsaved will get saved by the Word of God. Not by man's trickery about the Word of God. There are a lot of people today that are professing Christianity, but they're not saved. A lot of people like that. They claim to be saved, but they're not saved. Why not? because they haven't trusted in Jesus Christ. They've trusted in a man. They followed somebody in a prayer, but it meant nothing to them. It's amazing how some of these great preachers talk about, yeah, we've got this many thousand people that we've saved. Where are they? Why aren't they in your church? What's going on here? You've got all these people that claim to be saved. Where are they? The Bible says that the Christian, the true Christian, loves the things of God, wants to be where the things of God are, wants to hear the word of God preached, wants to be with God's people. So how come all these people are supposedly saved, but they don't have any interest in the things of God? They show up once in a while when it suits them. But if there's other things going on, well, they're gone. They're not there. That's not biblical Christianity. That's a lie. The third thing that we see is the promise of blessing will be fulfilled. God promises man great blessings. He promised Abraham great blessings. He promised the nation of Israel, I'm gonna take you to a land flowing with milk and honey. Is Israel living in a land like that today? No, why not? Well, because they rejected God. But they're going to have that one day. They're in the right place, they're just not realizing the blessings of God because they rejected Him. But notice verse 12, it says, for ye shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace. Ye shall go out with joy. That's what the Bible says. There's a joy in knowing God. There's a joy in serving God. There's a joy in being blessed of God and being able to be a blessing to others. And the Bible says that ye shall go out with joy. That's coming for the nation of Israel in the millennium. They're not gonna have to worry about the Syrians lobbing rockets at them. They're not gonna have to worry about, you know, that one of the tactics of the enemy is that they take a balloon, obviously a big enough balloon, but they take a balloon and they have even their bombs on those balloons and they let that balloon put it up in the air and hope it will drift across the barrier into Israel and then drop and explode. Many different tactics that the enemy has. But the nation of Israel, those that are entering the millennium, those that are saved at that time, they don't have to worry about any of that. They don't need any bomb shelters then. You shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace. Peace, real peace. Not the phony peace that is offered today, but real peace. Jesus said to the disciples in John chapter 16, if you turn there in your Bibles, that he was offering them this peace, even in his day. Chapter 14, sorry, not 16, chapter 14, verse 27. He says there, peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. So Jesus was offering a peace to his disciples that the world couldn't give them. The disciples needed peace. Jesus had told them in that chapter, as he did elsewhere, that he was going to leave them soon. That troubled them. That bothered them. He's leaving us. How are we going to make it without him around? And Jesus said, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. That peace is what the nation of Israel is going to know in the millennium, because Jesus Christ is going to be there. He's the Prince of Peace. It says there, the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing. In BC, in the spring, they had major flooding. Wiped out some of the highways in BC, one of them being the Coquihalla Highway. They showed pictures over the time since that flooding has taken place of how they've been working to repair the damage from the flood. And this week, they showed a mountain that was gone. because they had blasted that mountain for the rock that they were using to build barriers so in case there's another flood that the flood can't wash out the road. Now, we've already learned even here in this part of the world that God can use water to move big rocks. He can just undermine and push them around. So, you know, but they have blasted this mountain for the rocks because when you blast them, it breaks the rock up and then they can truck it away and use it for what they needed. But God says that in the millennium, the mountains and the hills are going to break forth before you into singing. Because the trees, as the wind blows through the trees, it makes a sound. the birds singing in the trees, people in the mountains, and the mountains sometimes in the Bible are a reference of people, but there's going to be singing, not grumbling and complaining, not whining, but singing. Singing is coming because joy is going to be there. It says, all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. You know, when you walk in a forest and it's wind is blowing and you hear the wind or their leaves rustling and they kind of like a rustling against each other and makes a noise, right? And it's a nice noise. It's not a deafening noise. It's not a bad noise. It's a nice noise. And that's what the Bible says, that in the millennium, there's not going to be any rockets, no bombs, none of that kind of stuff, but there's going to be pleasant things happening. And notice in verse 13, instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree. You know, God said in Genesis chapter 3, when man sinned, that he was going to send thorns. There were no thorns before that. Man never, there was nothing in the garden that would harm man before the fall. There was a tree of the knowledge of good and evil that man was supposed to stay away from, not supposed to eat the fruit of that tree, but it doesn't tell us that that tree had thorns on it that would keep the man away from it because Eve went up to that tree and took from the fruit. But the Bible says that in the millennium, instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree. The fir tree grows tall. The wood of the fir tree is strong. Used to be when we were younger that you could go to the lumber yard and buy fir wood. You could buy spruce, you could buy pine, and you could buy fir. And if you're going to build a project like I built a trailer at one point, I didn't want spruce, I wanted fir. Because fir is a harder wood, it's a stronger wood, and it'll last better on the deck of that trailer. So I ordered fir wood. It's more expensive, but now it's hard to find fir wood in the lumber yard. But it tells us here that instead of the thorn, there's going to be fir trees. Strong. tall trees, instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree." You don't find much shade in a briar, but you do in a myrtle tree, and you do in a fir tree as well. And it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. So God, when God makes changes, they are good changes. And it's for His name, you see, and that's the thing that God wants us to do today. He wants us to exalt His name. And so when a person gets saved, it's very important for them to have that testimony and to be willing to tell others, I got saved. And when a person gets saved, they're changed. They're different. See, that's the thing today. People can tell you they're saved and they've still got their cigarette hanging out of their mouth. They still got their bottle of beer. They still got their rock music. And so unless they told you that they were saved, you'd never know it because nothing has changed. See, that's the difference. Biblical salvation changes a person. And we are told to go and tell others that we've been saved, but they'll see it as well in our lives. They'll see it because God changes those that he saves. He changes them. And people, it'll be obvious to people. You used to like to come and sit down and tell dirty jokes and say, what changed? I got saved. I don't want to do that anymore. See, there's a change that takes place. God makes that change. And God says that is going to happen. It's going to happen for the nation of Israel in the millennium. It can happen today for you if you're listening and you're not saved. It can happen in your life today. that you can be forgiven, you can be saved, you can know God's peace and truth in your heart and be blessed in knowing him. Because he still changes the lost sinner into a saint. It shall be to the Lord for a name for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. That's what we want to be here at Calvary Baptist Church of Trinidad. We want people to walk by here. We want people to drive by here. We want people to know this place is God's house. We want them to know that. And we want people to come to know the true God. We're not trying to keep people out. Right now, we have signs on our door. We have to lock our doors because of wicked government officials. But anybody that wants to come in and learn, they can come in. We'll gladly open the door for them. Someone comes pounding and say they want to shut us down. No, they're not welcome. But someone that wants to come in and knocks on the door and says, please let me in. I want to want to join your service. They're welcome to come in. God wants people to come to know the truth. And that's very important, to be that light, to be that blessing to those that are outside that need to hear, need to respond, need to know God's peace. It used to be, not that many years ago, it used to be, that the police showed respect for the house of God. But that's changed. It's not that way anymore. But we can still be thankful that in spite of that fact, we still have the God of the Bible as our God. And we can still preach his word. And we can still be a blessing to even those police that want to be hostile toward us. We can pray for them and we can encourage them to know God's forgiveness in their hearts. So again, if you're listening today and you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, that's what you need. You need to know him. You need his forgiveness. You need his peace. He's offering it to you today. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are thankful this morning that we have thy word. We're thankful that we have this passage, this promise that was given to the nation of Israel back in the days of Isaiah. It wasn't a lie. It was the truth. The nation of Israel at that very time, individuals could know that peace. We know that Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, they knew that peace. They were just young men, but they knew that peace. There were others like them that knew that peace, but there were many in the nation of Israel that never knew that peace. But we know that there's a day coming when Israel will be saved. The nation of Israel, those that are on the earth, at the end of the tribulation, they will recognize thy son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as their Messiah, as their King. And they will be welcomed into the millennium, and they will know thy blessing at that time. They will have thy peace and thy joy. I pray that thou wouldst help those of us that are saved today, that we would have that joy. We would not be walking around with long faces, but that we would have that joy and be able to help others to see the joy of the Lord in their lives, that they get saved. Know thy peace and blessing. So may thy will be done here and through the preaching of thy word here that people would be saved. Know thy forgiveness and blessing. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.