Isaiah chapter 58, this morning we'll read one verse, that's verse number 11 for sake of time. Isaiah 58 verse 11, notice that he says plainly, and the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfy thy soul in drought. and make fat thy bones. And thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. Father, thank you for the Word now. Use us this morning as a spokespiece for you. I pray, Holy Spirit, you give grace to think and to speak and to be guided by your Word and by your Spirit this morning. I pray that The people that are here will be the beneficiaries of your message, that we might learn, that we might be guided, that we might give our complete faith and trust into your hands and be joyful as a result. Forgive my sin this morning, give preaching grace in Jesus' name, amen. Be seated, please. I might remind you that chapter 58 is part of a prophetic ministry and word that begins back in chapter 40 of Isaiah. And from Isaiah chapter 40 through chapter 66 we talk about the post Babylonian exile, they come back. And so what we're reading and what we're studying from chapter 40 all the way through the 66 verses is future to Isaiah, but God has given him directives. And Israel and Judah as well. Primarily he's writing to Judah, but then we find the program of both Northern and Southern Kingdom combined as he speaks about the nation of Israel as a whole. They've been very rebellious in their worship of Almighty God. They had been idolatrous. They had been very rebellious as far as coming back to God. He had to deal with them time and time again and spank them literally. So oftentimes he brought Gentile nations in to conquer them. And it was the ultimate slam. It was the ultimate ridicule to the Jews to have the Gentiles come across their land and then to conquer them. But God used the Gentile nations as a whipping rod to spank and to try and bring them back into the fold. Here in chapter 58 at the present time God is giving conditions of happiness and peace. God is giving conditions of his blessings upon them. If they will do this, he will do that. And it's a conditional thing. And so you find verse number one, notice that he's saying here, cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet and show my people their transgression in the house of Jacob, their sins. He said, you seek me daily and delight to know my ways as a nation that did righteousness. But you're not a nation that seeks righteousness. You're not a nation that does right. And so he says, I want you to be in the right directive. I want you to notice that we're talking this morning about fat bones. And in particular, we brought this over as examples of what happens to Israel. Paul says, what happened to them, church. You don't have to go through the same things that the nation of Israel, who was God's chosen people. Hey, remember, you and I are God's chosen people. His church is his chosen people. A chosen generation, a royal priesthood before God. And so he says, look, So in 1 Corinthians, Paul writes and he says, everything that happened to Israel can be used as an example to you and me. Don't do what they did. You'll get the same thing that happened to them. Stay right with God is basically what he's saying. So then God says, if you do these things from verse six through 10 in this chapter, God says, then the Lord shall guide thee. and continually, and satisfy thy soul in severe droughts, plural. We noticed last week that these droughts are a plurality, not just a one-time thing. And then I will make fat thy bones. I had people wondering what that means, and I'm going to give that to you this morning. Brother Carter, would you check that air right there and make sure it's turned off? I don't want it blowing. I'm having a hard time keeping my Bible where it's supposed to be, all that air coming down on here. Please help me. Turn it up to where it will shut off. Okay, let's start over. Not completely over. Let's turn to Isaiah chapter 40. Let me show you something. Isaiah chapter number 40. The happiness and conditions upon God's people is conditional and made upon the verses six through 10 as he talks to us here in Isaiah. And I'm so distracted this morning. I'm ready to get it right. So, this is very important. Let me tell you this much first off. If you've never been born again, you're on your way to hell. If you've never trusted Jesus Christ, you've never been saved, you're headed for a pit. It's not anything you've done, it's in your nature already. Adam passed on the sin nature to us and we're already sinners born into sin, born as sinners, only saved through grace of Almighty God. So young and old today, I want you to note something and I want you to listen to me because I'm basically talking to Christian people this morning, but I want you to understand that you're not a Christian simply because your mom and dad are Christians. You're not a Christian simply because you go to church in a Christian church. You're not a Christian because you've been baptized. I talked to people in the past. I said, hey, if you died right now, would you go to heaven? And they started in, well, I'm not sure, I don't know, I think so, I hope so, maybe so. And I said, what do you base that on? Well, I don't know. Have you ever been saved? Well, they didn't know what I meant when I talked about being saved. And we had some relatives present that piped in and said, oh yeah, you know you're going to heaven. Surely you were baptized when you were 12, remember? Please don't tell anyone that because it's not baptism that saves you. It's the blood of Jesus Christ and only the blood of Christ. And you must be born again. Jesus himself said, except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. And so Jesus said that which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the spirit is spirit. You must have a spiritual new birth or you'll never enter into the gates of heaven. No matter how good a person you are while you're down here, no matter your parents are or your family is Christian, no matter what, it's a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Listen to me. It's faith, it's trusting him and what he did for you on the cross personally. That being said, we have Christian people who are miserable. Why? Because they're not living the life to the fullest potential of what Christ has given to them. They've been born again for some period of time and fallen back into the world and they're not happy. They're not joyous. They can't sing the song. They can't walk the walk. I just wanna remind you that outward religion is what Jesus is talking about in Isaiah chapter 40 through 66 when he talks about, and in particular, chapter 58 where we are, he's talking about the Jews who were ritualistic outwardly and keeping the fast, but they had a selfish motive for keeping the fast. They wanted God to do something for them individually. Maybe it was a monetary thing. Maybe it was a place to live as we think about today, but they fasted and prayed in order to get something from God rather than to have a relationship with God. I hear people talking about those kinds of things and that's not the motive for fasting and pray. You fast and pray when you're upset about the lost soul that's in your family and you want them to be born again before it's too late. Listen, friend, Jesus may come at any moment and that daughter, that son, that grandson, that granddaughter, that husband, that wife, it'll be too late after the rapture takes place. We must work the work while we can and give the influence of Jesus in the hearts and lives of our loved ones while we can because the hour's coming very rapidly. We don't know when exactly, but it's coming very rapidly that when Jesus comes, it's all over. Those who've sat under preaching and those who've been in churches, quote unquote, prior to that time have had the opportunity, they will not be given a second opportunity after the rapture resurrection happens. God will give them strong delusion to believe the lives of the one world ruler and people like the president you just elected that's up there now that doesn't even know his name half the time, to believe those people. Listen. Isaiah gives us an outlook in chapter 40 of the book of Isaiah. I want you to notice it talks about John the Baptist. It talks about Jesus Christ, the Messiah. It talks about the fact that there would be preaching of the word and things going on. Notice Isaiah chapter 40. Look at the first eight verses. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith God. speaking comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her that her warfare or her appointed time. Actually, if you're in war, you have a moment of time when the shooting starts, then you know you're really in the battle. Here he's using this word warfare, but it means your time, your moment, your appointed time. Remember that God is never early or never late. Do you remember that he said in the fullness of time, he sent Jesus Christ into the world. In the fullness of time, he was born of a virgin. Remember that? Here's what he's saying in chapter 40. speak comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her that her warfare, her appointed time is accomplished and that her iniquity is pardoned. For she hath received of the Lord's hand double for our sin. He's speaking prophetically in the future, before the Babylonian captivity has happened to Judah and Jerusalem, he's speaking about her return when it'll be all right. And now he's about to tell you of John the Baptist coming, and you shall know that it's all right. And here's a great time and a great moment, the fullness of time, the Messiah that we prophesied, the Messiah we talked about. In chapter 53 of Isaiah is the same as John chapter 3 in the New Testament. It's called the John 3 16 of the Old Testament, Isaiah 53, where it talks about the suffering of Messiah for the sins of his people. Notice chapter 40 of Isaiah. Verse 3, the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness. Guess what? You find that also in Matthew chapter 3 verse 3. He's talking about John the Baptist. John the Baptist was a forerunner of Jesus Christ and he was the announcer, he was the He was the voice in the wilderness that would proclaim the Messiah, the anointed one. The Christ has arrived, and you need to repent of your sin. Don't bring to me your law-keeping. Don't bring to me your goodness. Don't bring to me your hypocrisy, Pharisees and Sadducees, you bunch of vipers, you bunch of poisonous snakes. You're not fit to walk and talk about God, he says. Bring to me evidence that you've repented of sin and you've turned to the Messiah and I'll baptize you, else go your way. Hypocrisy abounded in the days of Christ. They are back from the Babylonian captivity. They are no longer worshiping idols. God whipped them and whipped them and whipped them double, he says to Jerusalem. And Jerusalem is no longer worshiping the idols of Baal and Ashtoreth. They're no longer worshiping the idols. But they'd gone just as bad in the other direction of being so legalistic. We're keepers of the law. The black robes and the phylacteries around had portions of the Word of God in it. Oh, they looked the part. They were outwardly religious. They were outwardly so holy looking as they'd stand in the marketplaces and bow and weave as they prayed their prayers and others would see them and say, oh, how holy this man is. And God says, it's as bad as those false fasts that you were involved in. Notice, the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord, Jehovah God, Jesus the Christ, look at the spelling, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. The voice said, Cry, and he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodness thereof is as the flower of the field. Oh, there's none good, no, not one that's good enough to get to heaven on their own merits, by their own righteous. Not even the Pharisees and Sadducees are good enough that all men are like flowers and grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever. Notice, notice verse eight, the word of our God shall stand forever. If you didn't get it from the word of God, you didn't get it. If it's not from God's word, it's not truth. God made a promise that his word would stand for all eternity. Do you understand that the probably the only thing you and I are gonna take to heaven with us when we go is the word of God and it'll be there when we get there. The word of God. Notice that tradition of men will not stand or last. We find all the grand pomp and ceremony of the Romanist crowd. The great robed priest and the incense that is being spread abroad. The great ceremonies they have and all the trappings and the color and all the garbs and all of the sayings and all of the things they go through with all the gold and splendor. And yet they worship and bow before images. And all their traditions are only traditions of men. Now they have little booths that are ornate and made with the finest of woods, the most expensive of coverings. And they go into those little booths and they confess to a man their sins that they've committed. And that man says, go your way. I've absolved you of all sin. But I find in the Bible that the Bible says no man can forgive sin except God himself. The traditions of men. From Isaiah 40 through the end of 66, you find the beginnings of traditions taking the place of idol worship in Israel. And then it became vitally important that no one did anything except the traditions told them to do so. And here you find that John is crying aloud future. Now we turn to Matthew and we see John on the scene crying aloud, a voice crying in the wilderness about the Messiah and prepare you the way of the Lord. The very same thing that was predicted several hundred years beforehand here in Isaiah chapter 40. They had lost the real meaning of the sacrifices in the temple. They lost the meaning that these were pictures pointing to the Messiah that would come. And when the Messiah came on the scene, they didn't recognize him as the true Messiah, yet they preached to him about the traditions of their fathers and begged him why he differed with those things. I'm going around, but I'm bringing you back to Isaiah 58, 11, and the fatness of the bones. Hang on. I've not lost my mind. You find the happiness of God serving Christians, not wrapped up in tradition, but wrapped up into the word of God. Give and it shall be given unto you. Ask and ye shall receive. Seek and ye shall find. Knock. and it shall be opened unto you. Jesus said, men ought always to pray. And James says, you have not, you wear a fret, you pull strings to get it, you look in your index to try to find contacts to call, who am I gonna call now in order to get what you want? And James says, you have not because you ask not the right person. You find, I want you to recognize, here's John the Baptist in chapter 40. I want you to recognize that God says, the grass withereth, the flower fadeth. Man comes and man goes. All of man's works, he says, all the doings of man is as the grass or the fruit of the flower that eventually falls apart and is blown away by the wind. It amounts to nothing. Are you listening to me? And so then when we get to the New Testament and we get over in Matthew, you find that the reality is the preaching of God's word is the only thing that will last and will do us real good. But realize all of our anxieties, all of our frustrations, all of our worries, all of our cares is as the grass and as the flower that is blown away and it doesn't last. I want you to turn to Matthew chapter 15 very quickly. I have a purpose for this. It's about the traditions of men. And I want you to see it. In Matthew chapter 15, I want you to look at verse number one. This was a hard passage for many to understand until you understand it along with Isaiah 40 and Isaiah 58. Isaiah's prophesying of Israel's return back to the land and to Jerusalem and prophesying of their hypocrisy. We still find in Jesus' day a great amount of hypocrisy. Oh, this is a picture that a Christian should not have in their own life. Outwardly, I'm right with God, but inwardly, there's so much sin. I sit in a pew, you look at me, I look at you. We think everybody's okay. We're here in the house of God, but we can't see what's on the inside. Oftentimes people serve God so he won't burn their house down, literally. Oftentimes people try to show up at church just to keep God off their back, hypocrisy. from the inside out. And that's what we find now on the picture while Jesus has come on the scene, this hypocrisy in Israel. It's no longer idolatry. It's no longer wooden statues covered in gold. It's no longer bowing before Baal and an Ashtoreth. Now it's the traditions of the fathers that we keep. May I say to you, That religion will send more people to hell than the drunkard on the corner of the street. Religion. Religion and all of its... It must be right. Look how beautiful it is. Well, it must be right. Listen to the sincerity of them all. Well, it must be right. Theirs is just as right as ours, right? No. the hypocrisy of it all. In Matthew chapter 15, notice, then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, the religious crowd, which were of Jerusalem saying, listen, why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? Oh, did you get it? Why do they transgress, not the word of God, the tradition of the elders? I have a word for you, if I can find it. Tradition, tradition. Listen, here's what it literally means. Tradition means a delivery, the act of delivering into the hands of others, a tradition. A deed that takes effect only by the tradition or delivery. The delivery of opinions, doctrines, practices, rights, and customs from father to son or from ancestors to posterity. The transmission of any opinions or practice from forefathers to descendants by oral communication without written memorials. that which is handed down from age to age by oral communication, traditions. The Jews pay great regard to tradition in matters of religion, as do the Romanist crowd, the Catholic crowd, but the Protestants reject the authority of tradition and sacred things and rely only on the written word, the Bible. Traditions may be good or bad, true or false. Paul writes, stand fast and hold the traditions which you have been taught. whether by word or our epistles in 2 Thessalonians 2. What does tradition mean? It means to hand down. Paul was handing down the word of God. Remember, in Paul's day, when these things came up, there was no Bible completed. In Paul's day, there was no New Testament completed. He was in the process of writing it as God gave it to him. Notice that he said, literally, stand fast and hold the traditions. which have been taught, whether by word or our epistle." Great. So there is a place for tradition, but not as the Jews were yet. They made it law. Tradition is law. It's law. Notice, why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? Jesus speaks to their outward religion that is without their religion of tradition. Their religion was without mercy. Their religion was without compassion. Their religion was without love. And especially their religion had no place for faith in the Messiah. So what's the deal? I'm bringing this to Isaiah 58. There was no strength in them. They had lost their strength. Notice, notice please, in verse number two, why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they wash not their hands when they eat bread. Oh, but he answered and said unto them, why do you also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? to us. For God commanded, saying, Honor thy father and mother, and he that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, it is a gift by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, and honor not his father or mother, he shall be free from this obligation. Thus have you made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition, you hypocrites. Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments, of men or the traditions of men. Isn't that what the Romanist crowd is doing? You don't find places in the Bible for transubstantiation. You don't find places in the Bible for the what is it, the consistent sinlessness of Mary? You don't find places in the Bible where we have a mother God. You don't find places in the Bible where your sins can be absolved by an earthly priest if you pay so much in penance and so on. There's no places like that in the Bible mentioned at all. Yet they do that by tradition of men, don't you see? Jesus says, let me explain. He says, look, you hypocrites. He said, you say, whosoever shall say to his father, his mother, it is a gift. Here's the thing, under the law, you're supposed to provide for your mother and father in their old age. You're supposed to take care of them. And a lot of these Jews were, you know, kind of beside that law. And they said, this is not right. And we should have to fork out money to the old man and the old woman. I mean, they're almost gone anyway. What's the difference? Let's just keep it. Well, how can we do that? Ah, let's give it, let's dedicate it to God. But ye say, whosoever shall say to his father or mother, it's a gift. In other words, sorry, mom, sorry, pop. We don't have any money to help you out in your need here. We're exempt from caring for you because all our wealth has been dedicated to God. It's a gift. All our money has been dedicated and given to God. Therefore, we have nothing to help you with, notice. So by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, verse five. And honor not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Oh, we're free from that because we gave it all to God. You change the meaning of God's word by tradition, see? And verse seven he says, or verse six he says, thus have you made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition, ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you. Look in, keeping that thought, if you'll look in Matthew 23, the Jews, this came out of the Jews' oral law, and not the law from God. There's so many new oral laws now, and they did not come from God. Only the written word came from God. They stopped worshiping idols after the Babylonian captivity, but now they're self-centered. They fast outwardly, with forms of religion and the commands of God, but they deny mercy to the poor. They deny compassion. They deny love. It's all about themselves and their traditions and their form of religion benefited themselves individually more than anyone else or even God. Are you with me? You understand? Lots of people go to church for their own selfish reasons. But here we find this. Then you turn over and I want you to see quickly Matthew 23 verse 13. Matthew 23 and verse 13. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. That's what we're dealing with in the time period of Jesus Christ. I make mention again, we're done with idolatry. We've come back from Babylon. We're in Israel. We built a Herod's temple and we're worshiping in the temple again. Boy, we've got it going, but we're just as bad off as we were back when we were worshiping Baal and Ashtoreth, because now we're worshiping the traditions of fathers, not thus saith the Lord, but now we're worshiping how we feel, what we feel, what we want to feel like, and so on. Woe unto you. The word W-O-E means divine judgment. Grass, it's about to fall. Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites. For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisee, hypocrites, for you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayer. Therefore shall you receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisee, hypocrites, for you compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. Woe unto you, blind guides, which say, whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing, but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor, ye fools and blind. For whether it is greater the gold of the temple, or he that sanctifieth the gold, and whosoever shall swear by the altar, it's nothing, but whosoever swears by the gift, that he is guilty, ye fools and blind, for whether it is greater the gift, which is Jesus the Lamb of God, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift. Now I want you, I dropped down. We go to verse 23. Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites. Jesus was not slack when he called them hypocrites. For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin and have omitted the weightier matters of the law. Oh, here we go now. Thou shalt not, right? The law, the weightier matters of the law, which are what? Judgment, mercy, and faith. These ought you to have done and not to leave the other undone, you blind guides, which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, for you may clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Listen, thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within you're full of hypocrisy and iniquity. I got it. So what Jesus is saying here is now we're not dealing with idolatry. Now we're dealing with self-value, self-importance. Now it's all about you. What the law can do for me and how I use the law to my advantage to get what I want. And you appear so holy and so righteous. Yet outwardly you might appear holy, but inwardly you're full of dead men's bones, dead men's bones that are brittle and return under the dust of the earth and the stench of the flesh that covered the bones inside the tomb. He said, you stink on the inside. Okay. So what do I get from all of this? Exactly what I've already told you. Jesus speaks to their outward religion. And then oftentimes we make exemptions of ourselves based upon certain things. Here, look. The whole thing that we're speaking about, Isaiah 58, the happiness of God serving Christians. The Lord shall guide thee continually. He shall satisfy thy soul in severe droughts, plural, and he shall make fat thy bones. I want you to notice the definition of fatness we're headed there, but I want you to keep in mind the hypocrisy of outward semblance. I resemble a Christian, but I'm not sure if everything is right on the inside. We can talk a great talk, but there's more value in walking the walk than talking the talk. Notice fatness. It means richness. It means the best part of anything. It means the richest production, fatness. In 1 Samuel, I have several of these, I'm just gonna read them off quickly. 1 Samuel chapter two in verse 29, you find where there's a problem in Eli's house and God says, wherefore kick ye up my sacrifice and my offering which I've commanded in my habitation and honorest thy sons above me to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people. Good Christians oftentimes compromise because now it's their children. And here, Eli, it was his children serving about in the tabernacle, you know, and it's about me and mine. They were stealing from God and using it for their own benefit to make themselves fat, to make themselves richest, to make themselves have the best portions. In Nehemiah, the book of Nehemiah, you find in chapter nine, verse 25, notice he says this, they took strong cities and a fat land and possessed houses full of all goods, wells digged, vineyards, olive yurts, fruit trees in abundance. So they did eat and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in thy great goodness. We talk about a fat land, a prosperous land. In Proverbs chapter 11 and verse number 25, the liberal soul, not liberal as leftists, not liberal as socialists, but a blessed soul, the soul of blessing. The liberal soul shall be made fat. The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall be watered also himself again. Compassion, we'll also receive compassion, joy, and security, goes along with those. In Proverbs chapter 13, in verse number four, you find the soul of the sluggard desireth in half nothing, but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat, a fat soul. In Proverbs chapter 15, in verse number 30, you find it written, the light of the eyes rejoiceth the heart and a good report maketh the bones fat. And then you find, again, these are fat bones versus broken bones. There's so much to this. In Psalm 51, you find a Psalm of David. I know. If you stay with me, you won't have a problem understanding this. If you go to sleep and come back in about five minutes, you're going to miss it and say, what? Psalm 51 is a Psalm of David. I want you to notice that in that Psalm, David said in verse one, have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. He admitted his sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin as ever before thee, verse three. Verse six, behold, thou desires truth. In the inward parts, that's what we're talking about. Jesus said, you bunch of hypocrites, you look holy on the outside, but on the inside, you stink. Yeah. Behold, thou desires truth in the inward parts and in the hidden part, thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Verse eight, make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou has broken may rejoice. What happens when you have broken bones? You can't use that limb. In those days, they didn't have a cast to put on you. You know, they tied you up with string and sticks. If you broke your arm, it's useless until it heals. Break your leg, it's useless. And it may not grow back properly and you may have a limp or you may have a gimp after that to begin with. And David writes about the broken bones. In other words, his whole strength is gone. Bones, the very foundation of a physical body. You cannot stand up unless you have strong bones, healthy bones. I have a grandson, old Cade over there, been gimping around now for months. He found out he had a knee problem. It's been there for a couple of years or more. And when he started using it, it really hurt, a lot of pain. He couldn't use that joint really bad. And so he's had surgery and had that finally had to have that fixed and prayerfully it's going to be all right. He's going to be running and jumping and carrying on crazy once he gets everything well. But prime example you if your bones are not healthy your bones are not strong. You cannot live to your fullest physical potential. It's over. Now we talk about the spiritual aspect of that, in the spiritual being. And that's what Isaiah is writing and God is saying, Isaiah 58 and 11, I will make thy bones fat, not your physical bones. Your spiritual bones. The very foundation of the spiritual individual is his strength with God and his ability to trust God and rely upon God and at the same time be happy in all those areas. The good, the bad, the ugly, the distress, the storms, the abundance, the poverty. No matter what comes, when they have fatness of bones, you're able to rely upon God and just keep on watching. as he delivers. That's where David got. David sinned. You know David sinned. He sinned against God and he said, He said, verse eight, make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. What happened? He got beside God. He got away from God and God literally shut off his spiritual help and his spiritual stamina and his spiritual strength was gone. The bones that you broke, not literally, spiritually. because of his sin. It could just be the sin of just not trusting God completely. hide thy face from my sins, blot out all my iniquities, create in me a clean heart, O God, renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. When you have fatness of bones, there is joy and contentment in your spiritual life, even though you may be in the valley. You may be in the valley right now. There can still be joy and contentment because God's made your bones fat, your spiritual bones. Remember that fatness, richness, the best part of a thing. Sometimes the best part about being in the valley is you meet God face to face. Sometimes the best part about being in the storm is Jesus comes walking up to you like nothing's happening and says, if you trust me, I will take you all the way through because we're going to the other side. My goodness, those disciples learned that that night. Oftentimes Christians get in this pouting mood, this criticizing mood, this complaining mood because of the tradition they've heard from mother or father or others and they don't know what they're talking about. Pharisees, Sadducees didn't know what they were talking about. They were standing face to face with the anointed Messiah and they never recognized him because their spiritual heart was not right with God. Christian, you gotta have your heart right with God if you plan to come out the other side of the storm. You gotta have your heart right with God. Your sin confessed and your gaze focused upon God Almighty, looking to Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. Oh, David knew about that. Fat bones, Proverbs 15 and 30, he said, and a good report maketh fat bones. A good report rejoices my heart. A good report from God encourages me and puts fat on my bones, my spiritual bones, and helps me to be rich in the fellowship of Almighty God. Proverbs 28, I want you to notice. I have to bring this to a close sometime. Proverbs 28, 25, he says literally, he that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife. There you go. But he that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be made fat. Let's read it again. But he that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be made fat. God said, if you remember all the things I told you, Isaiah 58, six through 10, if you remember all of these people have compassion and mercy and have love and joy in your heart, I'm talking about those who are already Christians. I'm not talking about in order to become a Christian. The child of God, he said, then will I guide you continuously and I will bring your soul, I will cause your soul to flourish in the severest droughts and I will make your bones fat. That means a relationship, fellowship with God, a happiness, a joy, a peace, a contentment. You might lose everything you have, but you can laugh in the face of it because you still have God. He's still on your side. He that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be made fat. It means literally the riches of God. Walking with God, the joy, the love, the security, the friendship of personally being with Him on a daily basis, being made fat, a Christian has Remember when Jesus went to Samaria in John chapter four, and the disciples went to find groceries to bring back, and they came running back, and Jesus had already talked to the woman at the well, and they said, Master, we have food. We need to eat now. You need to eat. He said, look, I have food that you know not of. They said, did somebody feed you? Did somebody else feed? You know, a Christian has food that the world knows not of. Right? And if you're not strong on the inside, when these problems come, the troubles come, and the storms come, and all the things come, maybe the money gets low, or you lost your job, or your spouse is about to leave you, or whatever's going on, if you can't look to God for your help and your peace, you're not much Christian. Like the Pharisees and Sadducees on a great day, I can carry my umbrella and I can praise God and I can wear my hat and I can look pretty and I can act the part and put the Bible under my arm and go to church and sing praises. Can you still do the same thing when everything's gone? That's the key. Because when everything's gone and you're still trusting God, but the rest of my sermon is about being steadfast, trusting him, standing your ground, being strong in Jesus. Ephesians chapter six, verse 10 says, be strong in the Lord. Anybody can be weak. It doesn't take anything to be weak, mealy mouth. It takes a good child of God. when things start getting tough to turn and look to God and say you're in control. You're in control. Like Job said even though you slay me I'm still going to trust you still going to trust you no matter what I'm waiting for you. Our spiritual strength like David oftentimes is made frail because of the sin that's in our lives. But you find, you find a greatness in the Lord. Sometimes abundance in earthly things makes poverty in heavenly things. You know, believe me, Mark chapter 8 and verse 36 says, what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Well, preacher, that's talking to a lost man. Well, it might very well be, but it applies to a saved man as well. What shall it profit you if you gain the whole world and you lose your fellowship with God over sin or distrust, and you panic or are stricken every time some little problem comes along? Sometimes abundance and earthly things make poverty and heavenly things. External richness and strength are often the signs of weakness in the inner man. But fatness here is to be upon the man's hardest and most necessary part of his frame, his bones, his bones. The man is really built up when his bones, the solid pillars of the house of his manhood have been strengthened. Vigor has been put into his constitution where it was most required. His bones have been renovated and made strong. Oh, somebody said, it's a grand thing when the soul is built up and strong in spiritual health When the spiritual bones are made fat, do you know what it means? It's when you can take a promise of God that's applied with power and authority. God said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Is that a promise? Yeah. How many of you can rely on that? All of us can rely on that. Give and it shall be given unto you. Oh, I can rely on that. Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be open. That means don't sit on your laurels in a circle in the floor and pray to God for deliverance. Get up, go out, and seek what God's will might be while you are praying. Ask and it shall be given. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be open. It's when you can take a promise and apply it with power and you can feed on it. When you can take a precept of God and feel the strength, vouchsafe to go and fulfill it. When you turn to God's purpose and degree and rejoice in them. Seeing that you have a fair portion therein. It's turning to God's testimonies. as a Christian and saying, that's for me. If I believe it, I know I can trust it because God said it. No need for you to roll around in the muck in the mire. God has a plan for you. Wait upon God's plan. Wow. When the bones are weak, the person is weak as to their full potential. Give me five more minutes. I told you about Gage's knee and his surgery. He has no strength, has to walk on crutches. He can't put weight on that knee for so many weeks. It's been a pain, but it's for his good. Spiritually speaking, you have Christians like that. You have Christians who can't put all their weight on their spiritual frame because it will not stand. They're leaning upon it because it's frail. It's weak. It's weak because of sin in their life. It's weak because they're not completely trusting God. It's weak because when God brings the storms of life and the valleys in the life for you, you think those are things that are happening to you instead of things that are happening for you. God brings those so that you can grow, your faith can grow when you see the deliverance so that the next time something comes, you'll have faith to fall back on, you'll have experience to fall back on. But some Christians just seem to roll around in this stuff and they go by tradition and other avenues of life rather than the Word of God and their bones never grow and their bones never set. There's no strength in them so that every time a new experience and a new trial comes, they're right back where they started. It's panic and it's, oh me, oh my, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? Well, you poor soul, I feel sorry for you if you're like that. Many Christians have no strength at all. They have to go on crutches from week to week. I'm going back to church today. I hope the preacher's got something that'll meet my need today, and God gives a word, and we're all right for maybe almost a whole week, unless Satan comes and tempts us again, and then we're right back where we started, and frail and weak and back on crutches. The apostle Paul exhorted the weak Christians to follow him, and I don't have time to give this to you. 1 Corinthians 16, 13. Philippians chapter one and Philippians chapter three says, stand fast, be steadfast in the Lord. And it says, it's an evidence, your steadfastness in the Lord, I'm paraphrasing, your steadfastness in the Lord is an evident token of destruction to your adversaries because you stood strong in the midst of the trial, you stood strong, your faith and trust in the Lord, no matter what came your way, instead of panicking and running and trying to get away, you stood your ground in the Lord, you stood strong and firm, and it was a token to the adversaries who were trying to panic you and get you away from trusting God. It is an evident token to your adversaries of their destruction and perdition. Every time you make it through a trial, you've sent notice to those little demonic imps that your day's coming, Bucky. Your day's coming. And you're going to suffer forever and ever in a bottleness pit. Your day's coming. Leave me alone. Go away. I'm under the blood of Jesus. You can't bother me anymore. I'm closing. Listen. I would to God that we could get out of a state of spiritual sickness and may our bones grow fat that is strong and able to bear up under the weight so that we may be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, Ephesians 6, 10. In Isaiah 58, 11, he said, I will be a continuous guide to you. I will cause your soul to flourish in the severest of droughts, and I will make your bones fat. It means there is health spiritually when unbelief is gone. Unbelief will hinder you every day and every moment of every day. There is vigor present, fat of your bones. There's vigor here. There's no lukewarmness in serving and believing God. I can trust him. I can believe him. I shall believe him no matter what. There's spiritual growth here because your bones are growing fat. There's inward satisfaction here because Christian is perfectly happy, always rejoicing. He is not lean with fretting. but fat with joy. The more one studies the world and understands the world and the direction of it, the more one is convinced that Christian joy is after all Christian strength. Christian joy is Christian strength. Here's my conclusion. I will give you fatness of bone. spiritual strength and stamina. You remember the disciples said, Lord, increase our faith and teach us how to pray. Everybody has to learn how this leaning on Jesus and trusting him for everything works in their own lives. We all have to have that experience in our worst moments, in the fear, the doubt, the worry, And God comes through and we're able to say, next time, I'll know. Next time, I won't worry. Next time, I won't doubt Him. Man, listen. I tried to sell my home in Arkansas after we moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. I put a for sale sign in the yard the day I left. We lived in a small town, rural area. Agriculture was the main commodity. And at that particular day and time, everything was going down except the cost of doing business was going up. And farmers were going out of business. And things were bleak and black in that little hometown. And a year later, I'm still trying to sell the house. I've spent all my savings. I cashed in my life insurance. policies and made the payments on the house for a year and now I'm bankrupt. Now I have nothing left but I don't want the house to be foreclosed on because everybody in town knew that I started preaching and I didn't want it to be a slam on God's name. And I pray, God, I don't know what else to do. I'm out of money. I'm out of savings. I'm out of everything. I don't want this to go back. I don't want it to go, but not because of me, but because of you. They know I'm a preacher now. It's going to look bad if I don't pay my debt. God help me. I wrote a letter to the bank, explained my position and told them what was going on. This is Friday. Monday they're going to foreclose on it at the bank. Friday night I got a phone call from up in Michigan. And an old couple said, we're from Hazen, we have relatives in Hazen, and we were buying, saw your house for sale, and we'd like to buy it. What are you asking for? And I told them, they said, well, we have that much cash, but we don't wanna spend all of our cash. You're gonna have to come down. I said, can't come down on the price, that's a bottom line. They said, okay, thank you, hung up. Saturday morning, they called back and they said, We've decided we'll go ahead and take that. Can you meet us in Hazen Monday morning to close this deal? I said, you betcha. Man, I did my happy dance after that was over. How many of you have a happy dance? Let me say, don't lie, tell me. I did my happy dance. Woo, there was some hooping and shouting going on in that house. I said, God came through. You know, I had almost given up. In fact, I would be less than honest. I gave up. I said, it's going back. Saturday morning, before the Monday they foreclosed, God brought a buyer. I said, I've learned my lesson. God's never late and not to give up on God. You people need to learn the lesson. You can't learn it from my experience. You have to learn it from your own. God's never late and it's never time to give up on God. You're trusting him. You're trusting the greatest person in your life. You're trusting him. What's impossible with God? Absolutely nothing. God has a rhyme and a reason for everything that happens. You trusting God, if your heart is right with him and you're not like the Pharisees and Sadducees that outwardly I'm religious, outwardly I'm so pious, outwardly I'm so godly, but you got the inside right with God, then you can depend on God. You can claim the fact that he's going to help you and he shall. I've seen so many things happen in answer to prayer, and I've seen so many things over the last 44 years of ministry that God has done miraculously, and I'm not even talking about all the miraculous things. I'm talking about the common, everyday, ordinary things that you would say God answered that prayer. I close. Listen very carefully. Doubting, and fearing cut the very foundations of a Christian's power, as it were, your bones. As David said, you broke my bones. Doubting and fearing cut the very foundations of Christian's power. Strong faith is that which wins the victory, while unbelief drives us, deprives us of all hope of conquest. And unbelief lays us rolling in the mire beneath the feet of our own very weakest foe. Our own very weakest adversary, our foe, gets the advantage on us if we give in to unbelief, if we give in to fear, if we give in to doubting, if we give in to anxiety. Our foes have won the battle very easily with our help. You want fat bones? You want strength, spiritually speaking? Confess your sins. Stand fast in the Lord. Rely on him. Even when the good, the bad, the ugly happens in life, keep looking to him, casting your all. Lord, I'm depending on you. Lord, I'm trusting you. Help me, help this situation. Lord, I'm in your corner. I know you're in mine. You're my God. And even though you take everything away, as happened to Job, I still would trust you. Even though you take my life or my health, Lord, I still would trust you. The apostle Peter had it right when Jesus said unto him, who do men say that I am? He said, thou art the Christ, the Son of God. And he said, flesh and blood have not revealed it unto you, Simon bore Jonah. And then he went on and he said to them in the beginning, he said, will you also go away when all of his disciples had left? Hundreds had left. Jesus turned and went the other way. He said, will you also go? Peter had the most profound answer. Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the answer. You're the one. You're the only one. Where else can we go but to the Lord? Father, thank you for the word.