Moving Forward Under God's Power

Well, brethren, I again certainly want to ask for your involvement in the upcoming conference that we're going to have. I know several of us are attending it, and yet I hope that all of you are involved with this conference in spirit. I hope that all of you are involved, and certainly as Mr. Keener very correctly stated in our opening prayer, obviously he's thought about it because he's able to talk about it so easily. And all of us need to be asking God for His inspiration, for His unity, for His harmony, and for the power that we all need in order to be able to make the decisions that need to be made and then be able to go forward as we continue to do the work of God. And as we do that, I wanted to focus on something today that I think in some ways you might think is fairly common, probably very simple, really. And yet it's something that I've been thinking a lot about lately because whenever we think of our own ability, our own power, our own strength, I don't really come up with a lot of greatness whenever I analyze myself. I tend to want to look to God. I want to look to how much power, how much authority, how much ability does God have? And whenever He tells us, brethren, I've not given you a spirit of fear, but I've given you a spirit of power, a spirit of love, which we talked about last weekend, talking about how it is that love is the way that God wants us to live. But He's given us a spirit of power, a spirit of love, and a spirit of a sound mind. He wants us to be able to make sound decisions. And of course, for us to be able to benefit from that, for us to be able to utilize what God has provided, we have to have a close, intimate, warm, loving, sharing relationship with our Father in heaven. See, all of us, I am very confident to say that all of you are a praying group of people. You all know you're supposed to pray. You all know that that's kind of expected, if you're going to be a Christian, that you will learn to have a prayer life that is vibrant. But I know that that can wander. We can wander back and forth with our fervency and with our effectiveness. And sometimes, when we're in distress, we find it difficult to even pray to God at all. And I know that throughout the last several weeks, we have had a certain level of test and trial. And I think that God has been encouraging us to bend our knees, bend our knees and to draw closer to Him, and develop a closer, more intimate relationship with our Father. Jesus talked about this in John 6 that you're very familiar with. In John 6, verse 5, He gives an entire section here, John 6, verse 5, down through verse 15. He actually says a number of things about prayer.

He mentions several things that we ought to avoid. He says, don't pray to be seen.

Don't pray in just a repetitious manner. He gives a pattern for how we might want to talk about different things before God. He finalizes that in verse 14 and 15, about realizing that a part of our prayer is to repent. To repent and to ask God to forgive us. And as we do, as we ask for His forgiveness, that He also fuel us with the ability to forgive others. To be able to be forgiving. In Matthew 6, verse 14, if you forgive others, your Father will forgive you. If you don't forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. So He says it's not just an outside thing. It is really a very important thing. But here in Matthew 6, verse 9, is what I want to focus on today. And in some ways, I think this is what we might say the trunk of the tree. You know, every tree you have a main trunk, you have pretty main branches, you've got some smaller branches, you've got some lesser twigs, you've ultimately got leaves. And we can think about all the issues that we can consider here regarding the church and regarding our own spiritual lives. And yet, the trunk of the tree in regard to our prayer life is mentioned here in Matthew 6, verse 9. Jesus said, pray in this way. And so He was giving a pattern. He wasn't saying something that should be repeated in a vain repetition, although I don't think it's wrong for us to keep this in mind and to keep these things in the forefront of our mind. But what does chapter 6, verse 9 point out? He said to pray, and this is the way the Son of God, our Lord and our Master, our ruler and our King, this is the way that He approached His heavenly Father.

He said, our Father, some of the translations say, our Father which art in heaven. Mine doesn't say that. I don't think the New King James says that. It just says, our Father in heaven.

And then what does it say?

How lo be thy name.

You know, that's a very brief statement. One that we often, whenever we pray, we have probably a common way in which we address God. Father, Heavenly Father, Almighty God, Eternal Creator, all the different words and ways that we commonly get into a habit of approaching God. But what I want to point out is that I think it's important if we're going to have a close and intimate relationship with God, that we truly are hallowing His name whenever we bend our knees, whenever we bow our head to pray to God that we are hallowing the name of the great God. And that we are doing that by not just saying the words, but by envisioning the throne of God. Envisioning what it is to approach the most, the power-spinner of the universe, because that's what we're doing. You know, we do it commonly and we can do it without even thinking. You know, I can probably even say the words and not even really think about them.

And yet, I think we should think about them. We should envision who it is we're addressing. We should envision the throne of the great Creator God. And we should think about, you know, how it is that we have the privilege, we have the blessing of being able to come before, you know, the most powerful throne in the universe.

And sometimes we take that for granted. Sometimes we don't consider that. I'd like for us to look back in Revelation, because in Revelation chapter 4 and chapter 1, we have a couple of good chapters. And sometimes when I'm praying, and if I feel like I'm not as effective as I should be or as I want to be, or sometimes I just need to be sure or want to be close to God, I want to read some of the things that He says about His throne.

And of course, here in chapter 4, this is a very vivid description of the throne of God. Now, where this throne is, I would assume it's way beyond the North Star somewhere. We have reference to the throne of God being in the North. You know, that we can tell North here on the Earth. The North Star seems North to me as you look into the sky. But how far away the throne of God is, I don't have any idea. You know, I just marvel at the pictures that come back from the Hubble Telescope today.

We've got a news telescope that's going to be sent up in a couple of years. That is, if we last that long. If we make it the next few years, they've got a new, better, more sophisticated, better-camarid satellite or whatever they're sending up there, to be able to transmit information back here to the Earth. But even right now, right now, they're able to get transmission of pictures of galaxies that are so expansive, that are so much bigger than our tiny, little, Milky Way galaxy.

And then God is way beyond that. I saw a report the other day, and it was talking about the Hubble sending back, or at least some people were writing an article about information that they had gotten back from the Hubble. And they were saying that, well, it looks like we're seeing something that's further away and farther out there than any of the galaxies that we have ever identified before.

And, of course, all they can do is kind of see the light that is coming from these stars and the planets and the different systems that are there. But they said, well, this appears, and I don't know how they would calculate this.

I have no clue how it really is calibrated at all. But when it talks about, you know, we're seeing light. Light from a star, light from some type of a something out there that is over 13 billion light years away. Now, I can't understand that at all. I don't have any idea what that means. I just know that they are looking into the expanses of the universe and are seeing that whatever is out there, and, of course, whether they believe there's a great God out there like all of us do, all of us believe that God is there, wherever His throne is, and that that's far, far away.

But He's very concerned. He's very concerned about what's going on here with His little children, because that's the way He looks at us. We have some little children here, and that's fabulous. That's always wonderful to be able to have our young kids here, and yet that's the way God looks at us. He looks at us as young kids, because He's been around for a while.

He's been around for eternity in the past, and He exists today, and He's going to be around for eternity in the future. So it's important for us to realize that whenever we pray for help, whenever we pray for God to empower us, whenever we pray for Him to give us the love of God, for giving us a sound mind, giving us guidance and direction, and we need to know who we're addressing. Here in Revelation 4, John was given a glimpse into the throne of God.

This was a vision that he saw. It was something he was told to write down. And of course, that's important. It's important for us to be able to rehearse this.

He says in verse 2, "...and once I was in the Spirit, and there in heaven was a throne, and one was seated on that throne, and the one seated there looks like Jasper and Carnelian." Now, I don't know what Jasper or Carnelian looks like, and your version may say something else as far as what type of stone would be described there. But we're going to get a glimpse into the throne of God as you go forward. He says, "...one was seated on that throne, and around the throne was a rainbow that looks like an emerald." So again, I'm having to guess that would be a green emerald. At least, that's the only kind of emerald. I know them. Perhaps there are other colors. But, you know, a throne that has a beautiful rainbow over it. And it says, "...around the throne are twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones are twenty-four elders, dressed in white robes with golden crowns on their heads.

And coming from the throne are flashes of lightning and rumbling and peals of thunder.

And in front of the throne burn seven flaming torches, which are the seven spirits of God. And in front of the throne there's also something like a crystalline sea, a sea of glass, like crystal. So we start to get a picture of what the throne of God is like.

And here this throne, and a being on this throne who is glorified, who is powerful, who is radiant, and who is surrounded by spirit beings, surrounded by those who worship Him, as we're going to see. A crystalline sea certainly sounds like it would be very bright and shiny. It would be very beautiful. You go on to read here, around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind. The first living creature is like a lion, the second like an ox, the third like a human, the fourth like an eagle.

And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings and full of eyes all around and inside.

It's hard to envision what a spirit being of that type looks like. This is describing spirit beings that are there at the throne of God. And it says that these living creatures, day and night, without singing, or excuse me, without ceasing, they sing holy, holy, holy.

Lord God Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come. See, what a life! What a life that these living beings have!

See, these appear again to be spirit beings, spirits that have been created. And again, I don't know exactly how to describe them any different than what is written here.

And this seems kind of unusual to have all these eyes and to have different kind of what would appear to be different faces on different ones and wings. And yet, what they're doing is very clear.

You know, they're respecting the great God. They continually say, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. And whenever the living creatures, verse 9, give glory and honor and thanks to the one who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall before the one who is seated on the throne and worship that one who lives forever and ever, and they cast their crowns before the throne. Again singing, You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For You created all things, and by Your will they exist. And they were created.

See, that's a fabulous chapter to read, even at the beginning of our prayer.

To be able to, in a sense, kind of envision who it is that we're addressing when we say our Father in heaven. Our Father in heaven, hallowed. Hallowed be Thy name. Back in chapter 1, you've got a little more description. We know that Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the Father. He's our High Priest. We know He has resumed the role in the Godhead that He had before He came to this earth. He's there as our High Priest. He's there as our Savior. He's there as our Redeemer. He's there as our Mediator.

He's described here in verse 13 of Revelation 1, I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest.

And his head and hair are white as wool and white as snow. And we can look outside anymore and see a blanket of snow over the earth.

That's kind of fading today with 40-degree temperatures, 50-degree temperatures yesterday. Start seeing some of the snow subside, but we've had some blankets of snow all over everything. And whenever you get some sun shining on that, then maybe we get a little glimpse, a little glimpse of what the radiance is that surrounds the throne of God.

And it says that Christ's head and hair are white like wool, his eyes are like flames of fire or feet like burnished brass refined in the furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters.

See, I think it's good for us to envision the throne of God whenever we come before the Creator of the universe. And if we need to rehearse those verses, those chapters, to be able to get that in our mind, well, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. That's why we have it written down. We have it written down in that way. And I think it helps us be able to acknowledge just what these angelic beings are also acknowledging.

That you are worthy of glory, you are worthy of honor, you are worthy of thanks.

See, that's what we actually see these angelic beings doing.

Now, how can that help us when we pray to God, to our Father in heaven, how we can hallow His name? Whenever I think about that and I want to draw close to God, we're told in James 4, verse 7 and 8, to draw close to God, and God will draw close to us. And so we can make that effort. We can approach the throne of God, and we can envision what it is that God says He's like, and who it is that surrounds His throne, and how they continually worship Him. And whenever I get that in my mind, I start thinking about, and some of you will remember, some of you may not be aware of, but we used to have a booklet. I think the booklet today that is very similar to the one I'm thinking of is the one today called Does God Exist? Because it's talking about God, and it's talking about how God exists, and in what realm He is in, and how you can prove the existence of God. But I'm thinking back to a booklet of 30-40 years ago called Seven Proofs That God Exist. I think some of you would remember that particular book. And if you remember that, well then there were seven things that were listed, and they were discussed and described about God, and how this helps prove the existence of God. And I I memorize those at one time. I keep them in mind. I think it's good for us to even be able to rehearse those. And I know even the order that they were in back at that time, and in that booklet. And I've kind of rearranged the order because it makes a little more sense to me to have a little different order. But I'd like to focus on each one of those seven proofs of the existence of God to help us all be able to remember. To remember just who it is we're addressing when we come before our Father and when we hallow His name. The first one that I want to mention, and maybe it is one that it is kind of the one that's out of line, as I recall them in the past. But the first one is that the great God is the designer. He's a designer of absolutely everything. He's a developer and the designer of the entire spiritual creation.

And then beyond that, the designer and the developer of the physical creation.

And of course, none of us, absolutely none of us, can be oblivious to God's ability to design and create something that is just unbelievably marvelous. You know, just the fact that you can see me up here is an example of God's design. The fact that you can hear, the fact that I can hear what I'm saying over this PA system. Whenever you look at your hands, this is a marvelous deal here. This is not something many even different creatures have. God chose to give humans this type of a five-fingered hand and a thumb over here opposite to those four fingers.

Just bending that should cause us to think about it. Of course, sometimes I'm doing that, but man, how come that won't tip? Because that sometimes is the case. Cleo's over there trying to lift his arm like this, trying to get his shoulder to work. And of course, he's reminded that, well, God designed this. And of course, even the shoulder, actually the shoulder joint and the knee joint are unbelievably marvelous creations. And yet, think of the intricacy and the design just in our physical body. You know, that's always just marvelous. It's created just a marvel in my mind because there are so many things. And I know all of you think of things on your own. You think of things that stand out to you. That would be an example of God being the great designer. I'd like for us to look back to Ezekiel 28, because here in Ezekiel 28, even before you were created, even before this earth was created, even before anything, maybe even this galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy. See, our solar system is just a spot in the galaxy of the Milky Way, and the Milky Way galaxy is a tiny little one. Among all the other galaxies is so much greater and beyond us. You know, and God is in way beyond that. You know, it's hard to even describe how it is that God sits in relationship to us, but He looks at us as His little children. He's not just looking at us as we might as we're up in an airplane and we look down on the ground and we can see things moving around. They look like ants. You know, He has to look at us and see just tiny little specks of sand, probably even less than that, and yet He is very concerned about what's going on in our mind, what's going on in our thinking, what's going on in our actions, what's going on in our heart. He's very intricately involved in that. But here you find back in Ezekiel 28, this is talking about a great archangel.

A great archangel that God created, and from what we read in Job, we find that the angelic creation was created before. Before the physical creation, because it talks about the sons of God shouting for joy whenever God brought into existence the physical creation. And so even before that, God had created the angelic realm, and He had actually set order in that angelic realm where there were angels and there were archangels. Lucifer, being one of the three of Lucifer, Gabriel, and Michael, they had been given extraordinary power and ability. But apparently, he created 24 elders, and he created living creatures. And you see him describing Sarah, and then Carabin. God created a spirit world long before He even created something physical.

It says in verse 13 about Lucifer, you were in Eden, the garden of God, and every precious stone was your covering. In the last part of verse 3, on the day that you were created, they were prepared. With an anointed care of starting, and I placed you, you were on the holy mountain of God. You walked among the stones of fire, and you were blameless in your ways.

From the day that you were created until iniquity was found in you, and the abundance of your trade, you were filled with violence, and you sinned, and so I cast you as profane from the mountain of God.

Verse 17, it says, your heart was proud because of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor, and I cast you to the ground. Here God is talking about the resistance, the rebellion that Lucifer led when he opposed God. You are familiar with Isaiah 14, and it's described there as well. And yet what I want to point out in this section, because here it does describe the way that Lucifer went about undermining, the way that he went about creating doubt in the minds of the angelic beings, that he was given responsibility to serve.

It would appear that a third of those angels were under his responsibility or authority, and yet he was able to turn them against the great God, against the great Creator. He was able to convince them that, well, the Creator, the one who made us, the one who shaped us, the one who fashioned us, doesn't have any idea what we are doing. Now he convinced them of that, and so they followed him in a resistance, in a rebellion. And of course, we all know that that same spirit works in this world today. Creating strife, creating quarrels, creating divisions, and certainly as we see over in the Middle East right now, creates just chaos, that type of spirit that Satan injects into the world. But what I'm pointing out here in this section is just the fact that this fabulous angelic being didn't exist at one point. He was a created being. He was brought into being by the great God that you call Father. See, we call God our Father, our Heavenly Father, but He brought into existence the angelic realm even before He created what we now know as this physical universe and this physical earth.

And of course, later, He brought this earth into existence. He allowed the angels to live there on the earth that a rebellion occurred. And of course, the earth became chaotic. It became in chaos. And what we read in Genesis chapter 3, or 1, 2, and 3, the creation or re-creation story, is that God had to reform it. He had to reshape it. He had to refashion this earth in order to place men here on the earth. But I think it's fabulous to think about that the great designer, the great developer and designer of all the spiritual and the physical creation is who we're addressing when we become before our Heavenly Father.

What a privilege! What a fabulous privilege and blessing to be able to come before this fabulous Being, and of course, to come before His Son at His right hand, who is, as we read in Revelation 1, in a glorified state. He's awaiting the time He's going to return to the earth and stop the fighting and the warfare that's taking place here on this earth. And He's awaiting, at that point, we're going to have a role to play. We're going to have been tested and tried. We're going to be shaped and refined. And at that time, we're going to be given opportunity to serve. Opportunity to serve far greater than we have today. Often we think of service as something we do right now. And that's something that's true and that we should be doing. But we're going to have greater opportunities to serve, even as we look into the future, as we look into the world tomorrow. But I think it's fabulous to think of God as our designer and our Creator. Here in Isaiah 45, Isaiah has actually a lot of statements, numerous statements here, that I think are just fabulous to be able to focus on. But here in Isaiah 45, this chapter talks about God using Cyrus. And so, he was using a physical being in order to perform a task that he wanted done here in the past. But down here in the middle part of this chapter, it talks about the great designer. In verse 9, it says, Woe to you who strive with your Maker, earthen vessels striving with the potter. Does the clay say to the one who fashions it, what are you making? Or your work has no handles? I know that translation is a little different than what you're reading. But it's pointing out, you know, this human creation, we're made out of clay, we're made out of dust. Do we have the ability or do we have the prerogative to ask God, you know, why did you create me the way you have? He really wants us to simply thank him, to simply give him glory, give him honor, give him thanks. He goes on to say in verse 11, Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, our Maker, will you question me about my children, about how I've chosen to create these physical beings? Or will you command me concerning the work of my hands? He says in verse 12, I made the earth and I created mankind. I created the human realm and placed it upon the earth. It was my hands that stretched out the heavens and I commanded all of their hosts. Down in verse 18, it says, Thus says the Lord who created the heavens, he is God. Thus says the Lord who formed the earth and who made it, he established it, he did not create it in chaos, he formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord and there is no other.

See, the one we call our Heavenly Father, the one whose name we hallow, is the one who created the physical universe that we know and as he points out, I didn't create it in chaos, it became chaotic with the angelic rebellion. But then I reshaped it, I refashioned it, and I placed men on the earth. I shaped it in such a way that the earth is the right distance from the sun and the moon is the right distance from the earth. And so everything works together in such intricacy and such complexity. Why should you question how I'm choosing to work with you? This is what he's stating. It's amazing to see how orderly the great Creator God is. So I think it's fascinating to think not only about God as our Creator or our Designer, but also as we've already mentioned, our Creator. He's the one who created the physical creation. We see that in the book of Job. You go to the next one. It's the life giver. He's the one who was the life giver.

And of course, we read in Genesis 2 about how God breathed into Adam the breath of life.

It's in Genesis 2, verse 7, He breathed into Adam the breath of life and he became a living soul.

He was able to take the dust of the ground. He didn't take a rock, so none of us have an excuse for a terribly hard head. He took dust. You know, it's very malleable, very pliable. He took the dust of the ground and then he created. He formed and fashioned a man.

He said that that man is in my image, in my likeness.

And yet it says it breathed into that man the breath of life. See, every day we wake up.

You know, sometimes I have a hard time sleeping, so I'm on and off all night, awaking. But every day I wake up, I want to think about, you know, God breathed into me the breath of life. He formed me out of dust. And He breathed into me the breath of life. And He wants me to use that life, as I think He points out about His angelic beings. He wants me to use that life to honor Him, to worship Him, to praise Him, to glorify Him. That's why He gives us the breath of life. It's amazing here when you look over in Job 34. Job 34 is an interesting chapter because Elihu is talking about the justice of God. He's talking about how just God is. And he says in chapter 34 of Job, in verse 12 of a truth, God will not do wickedly and the Almighty will not pervert justice. See, Job was claiming that God isn't there, God isn't working with me correctly. He's not providing the access that I deserve to Him. That's what Job was complaining about. And Elihu was having to tell him, well, no, look, God does everything correctly. Whatever He does, it's right. And He is just. And He is orderly. And he goes on to say in verse 13, Who gave Him charge over the earth? Who laid on Him the whole world?

See, nobody did that. God just was the Creator. He was the One who designed and created the physical creation around us. And it says in verse 14, If He should take back His Spirit to Himself, if He should withdraw the breath from human beings. Right now, there are, I don't know, six, probably more than six, between six and seven billion people on earth. I don't know if that is the most people that have ever lived, but that would seem like it might be likely. I don't know that, as you look back over the years, that there would have been that many people on earth.

But what if God were to extract the breath of life from six and a half billion people?

Well, it says that God would take back His Spirit to Himself, gather to Himself His breath, then all flesh would perish together, and all mortals would simply return to dust.

See, when we're talking to our Heavenly Father, we're talking to a being who has control of life. We're talking to a being who's concerned about how He's working with us, how He is our life-giver, how He is our Law-giver. See, being our Law-giver is another one of the proofs of God's existence.

Does God have the authority to tell me how to live? Well, He clearly does. In Romans 8, you find that the carnal mind doesn't like to be told how to live. See, it says that the carnal mind is hostile toward God. See, that hostility is acquired as we grow in this world, as we're affected by Satan's wrong influence, by we interact with that influence in the world. And in Romans 8, in verse 7, it talks about how the carnal mind is hostile, its enmity toward God.

And yet, of course, what we have to recognize is that God says, I have the authority to tell you what the law is. I have the authority to give you my commands. If we look in Isaiah 48, Isaiah 48, verse 17, Isaiah 48, verse 17, it says, Thus says the Lord your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, I am the Lord your God. Isaiah 48, verse 17, I am the Lord your God who teaches you for your own good.

I am the Lord your God who leads you in the way that you should go.

Oh, that you would pay attention to my commandments. Then your prosperity would be like a river in your success like the waves of the sea. It has got to have the authority to give us his law and to tell us, this is the way I want you to live. This is the way I want you to love. This is the way I want you to interact with me. This is the way I want you to honor and give thanks to me, just as the angelic realm who are respectful toward God, just as that part of the realm that he created continually worship him and honor him with their lives. Another one of those proofs of God's existence was that he was a sustainer of life. See, he did that, and he has done that over the last 6,000 years. He's had to interview a few times. We know that during the flood, when most of mankind were wiped out, God sustained physical life on the earth. He did that with Noah, and with his wife, and with his sons and their wives. He made a transition there, but he's sustained life. If we back up a few pages here to Isaiah 57, this is a verse again that I think I've read to you before, but it's just absolutely fabulous to see what God says. Verse 15 of Isaiah 57, Thus says the high and lofty one, The one who inhabits eternity, The one whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and in the holy place, And I also dwell with those who are contrite and humble in spirit.

See, that helps us know where we want to be. That helps us know what kind of attitude, what kind of approach does God want us to have. He says, I abide with the contrite and the humble in order to revive the spirit of the humble, in order to revive the heart of the contrite. See, He's there to sustain us. He's there to empower us. He's there to lift us up as we are in need. We back up to chapter 41.

Chapter 41 in verse 9, about the middle of that verse, He starts saying, You are my servant, and I have chosen you and not cast you off. Do not fear, for I am with you.

Do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my victorious right hand. Now, if we ever want a powerful right hand, I suggest the one we want is the one being extended right here. Now, the one who's going to be able to pick us up, the one who's going to be able to empower, the one who's going to be able to uplift us, He mentions this again in verse 13, For I, the Lord your God, I hold your right hand. It is I who say to you, do not fear, I will help you. See, our sustainer God is not way off somewhere where we can't reach Him.

You know, it's very clear that He has accessibility to His creation, and as His creation, as His created being, as His called out ones, as He's chosen to intervene in your mind, in your heart, in your life, and He's very interested in sustaining you with His right hand. And I have to say that regarding the church. He's very interested in sustaining and empowering, uplifting us with the right hand of the great God who has all power and all access to be able to do whatever He pleases. Another one of the proofs of His existence was the fact that He fulfills prophecy, and I know that that is something that maybe different ones of us have thought about in different ways in the past. I know I was certainly impressed whenever I first read the last part of Genesis, to know that the people of Israel existed on the earth today. You know, to learn that the descendants of Israel, of Jacob, are grouped together in a great nation, in a great commonwealth of nations. You know, that was a prediction that He had made long ago. And what we found very clearly evident, at least for me, in the mid-1900s. Something that was quite clear, and even more emphatic that He said in Daniel, that I'm able to not only tell you what's going to happen, Daniel, which He did in saying that these different empires were going to exist, but He said, I'll even tell you the dream so that you can tell the king and save your life, because He wants to know what the dream was. Which was ridiculous for Him to do that, but it was something that He asked, and so God provided it.

But see, God was able to do that, and of course the last part of that prophecy is that He's going to send a stone that's not confined to human ability that will crush the other nations of the earth and will set up a kingdom that will exist forever. That's what we're yearning for. That's what we're waiting for. The fulfiller of prophecy is the one who is able to declare an outcome of something before it even occurs. Isaiah 42. Let's turn over another page. This is actually a chapter that appears to be describing what Jesus did as the servant of God. But down in verse 6, He says, I am the Lord and I've called you in righteousness. I've taken you by the hand and kept you. I've given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations to open the eyes that are blind to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison. Those who sit in darkness, I am the Lord. That is my name. My glory I give to no other nor my praise to idols. See. See in verse 9, the former things have come to pass. New things I now declare and before they spring forth, I tell you what they are. I tell you of them. See, He's able to predict the future. He's able to, because He's in control of the entire plan of salvation and how it is that He's going to bring a new beginning to this earth, because that's what He's going to do. He's going to bring Christ back. He's going to restore things to an order that will be so much better and so much greater than anything that any of us have ever known. And of course, He's offered us the privilege and the honor of being a part of that plan. Of course, the last one of the proofs of God's existence, I think for any single one of us, is just simply that we all know and each of us would have a different story to tell about this, about God hearing and about God answering our prayers. See, that's something that is very personal and is very individual. You know, many of us can cite or recall things where He performed miracles in healing or miracles in helping us. I recall one direct incident where God kept me from falling down over a cliff into the bottom of a pit. I know He did. Otherwise, I would have been down in the bottom of the pit. But somehow, I was crushed up against the side of the wall. You know, that happened when I was fairly young. And that's not something you forget. That's not something that you can ignore. And of course, we look at Psalm 69. We've got numerous examples here in the book of Psalms where David continually cries out to the Creator, Help me! Help me! Help me! He's always asking for help. He's in trouble. He's in distress.

Actually, you find, I think, probably more than anything, David does praise God. He does thank God. He does give Him honor. But many times, he's explaining how he's in trouble. He's crying. He's in need. And yet, here in chapter 69, in verse 29, he says, I'm lowly, and I'm in pain. See, that's the way some of us are sometimes.

I'm lowly, and I'm in pain. Let your salvation, O God, protect me. I'll praise the name of God with a song, and I'll magnify that name with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox or bull with hooves and horns. See, God didn't want sacrifices. He didn't want another bull or another turtledove. What He wanted was a human being like David, who also knew that God existed and who knew how powerful He was in helping Him overcome a bear and a lion and later Goliath and Saul, all of the obstacles that God had helped Him with. He says, I want to praise your name. I want to magnify that name with thanksgiving. It says in verse 32, Let the oppressed see it and be glad. You who seek God, let your hearts revive, for the Lord hears the needy, and He does not despise His own that are in bonds. See, He won't let us down. He knows. He has the power to be able to lift us up and help us. But we want to come to Him. We want to praise His name. We want, as we come before God, to hallow the name of God. And I go over this simply to remind you, because I know none of this is new to any of you, but it is something that I... it helps me, it refreshes me to think about how powerful and how awesome the Creator God really is.

And here in Isaiah 40, now this is, of course, what we are asking God for even now.

Even now, as we go forward with the work that God has given us to do with the development and the growth that He is causing to occur in each and every one of us individually and personally, He wants us to be looking to Him and to be just eternally thankful for the endless power that He extends to us. Here in verse 28 of Isaiah 40, He says, The Lord is the everlasting God. He is the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint and He strengthens the powerless. Even youth will faint and be weary and the young will fall exhausted, but those who wait upon the eternal, those who wait for the Lord, shall renew their strength and they shall mount up with wings like eagles and they shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Now this is a statement describing the fact that the great eternal God, our heavenly Father, the one who is our designer and our Creator, our Lawgiver and our Lifegiver, our Sustainer and the one who fulfills prophecy and hears our prayers, is able to uplift us and to empower us, no matter what the odds. He's able to do that. He's able, and I think what He wants us to do is simply be reminded.

Be reminded, as Jesus pointed out in His model that He gave us, that when we come to God, that we envision how awesome, how powerful, how wonderful He is. And that whenever we bend our knees, bow our head, whenever we address our Father, our Father in heaven, our heavenly Father, that we do that by hallowing His name, realizing who we're talking to, realizing that He knows everything about me. He knows when my speech stumbles during my prayer. We have inferences in Romans where it appears that He knows what I'm saying, even if I can't get it out.

And that's the same for all of us. And so we have everything to be thankful for, everything to be grateful for, and so I simply encourage all of you, as you pray to God, to truly hallow the name of our heavenly Father.