Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is Getting to Know Your Bible, a program dedicated
to the proclaiming of the good News of Jesus Christ.
Here's Billy Lambert.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, I'm Billy Lambert. I am the regular speaker on
Getting to Know Your Bible, and I want to welcome
you today. This may be the very first time that
you have seen this telecast. I want you to know
that the thing that we emphasize on getting to Know
your Bible is a word of God. The Bible is
(00:46):
the greatest book that has ever been written. Many years ago,
there were those that wrote books that thought they would
replace the Bible. That's what Thomas Paine thought when he
wrote The Age of Reason. But the Bible continues to
live after century. Jesus said, heaven and earth shall pass away,
but my Word shall not pass away. So on getting
(01:07):
to Know your Bible, we're teaching from the timeless Word
of God. The Bible is God's book, the greatest book
that has ever been written. And today we're going to
be opening up the pages of the Word of God
and delivering a message to you from God's book. Today
we're going to be seeing a one of our classics
(01:29):
that is a production of one of our telecasts from
time in the past, and we want you to stay tuned.
We're going to be offering a free Bible Correspondence course
today and we will see information on the screen as
to how you can receive that course. And so we
want to pause at this time.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
To help you in your study of the Bible. We
want to send you this Bible Correspondence course. This course
is non denominational, it's based on the Bible, it's conducted
by mail, and it's free to receive this course. Right
to Getting to Know Your Bible po Box three one four, Summerdale,
Alabama three six five eight zero or call toll free
(02:10):
one eight seven seven seven one one five two one four.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
It is a genuine pleasure to be with you today
on getting to Know your Bible. I'd like to welcome
you to the telecast today. We may have those watching
today for the first time, and may I give you
a special welcome. We have those that watch every time
we're on the air, and we thank you so very
much for your interest in the study of the Bible
(02:39):
and your encouragement in the preaching of God's Word. Now,
today on our telecast, we want to address a topic
that I believe would touch the lives of all of
us at some particular point in time, the need to
have strength. We want to talk about strength for living,
(03:02):
strength for living. I hope that you'll stay tuned. The
Book of Isaiah is one of the major prophets of
the Old Testament, and the Book of Isaiah is a
Messianic prophet. That is, he made certain prophecies about the
Lord Jesus Christ. But today, rather than looking at those prophecies,
(03:26):
I want us to turn to the fortieth chapter of
Isaiah and the last verse in that chapter, verse thirty one.
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall
run and not be weary, and they shall walk and
(03:51):
not faint. At the time that this was being written,
God's people were in a very bad state. They were
in captivity, they were depressed, away from home. They needed
(04:11):
some encouragement, and God has a word of encouragement for
them in this passage. But it's a word of encouragement
for us as well. I dare say, there's not an
individual watching the telecast right now, what at some time
in your life you've been without strength, You felt so weak,
(04:36):
so vulnerable. Well, I believe this is a passage that
will help you every day of your life. And I'll
have to confess it's my favorite Old Testament Verse Isaiah forty,
verse thirty one. They that wait upon the Lord shall
(04:56):
renew their strength. I read the story about an incident
that happened at the Battle of Shiloh. The troops were
down by the river and one of the gun carriages
got stuck in the mud. And as they were trying
to get it out, there was an itinerant preacher there
(05:17):
and and he came over to the man trying to get
the gun carriage out, and they were pushing and shoving
and pulling, and he thought this was an opportune time
for him to speak a good word for the Lord.
You know. Solomon said, there's a time to speak, there's
a time to be silent. This may have been one
of those times to be silent. So he said to
(05:39):
the man trying to get the gun carriage out of
the mud, he said, do you know who died for
you on the cross? That man stopped minute looked at
this preacher and he said, don't ask many reddels. Can't
you see I'm stuck in the mud. And I have
an idea that there are many offics that sometimes feel
as though where sort of stuck in the mud. What
(06:02):
do you do in times like that? Well, this is
your verse today. I want us to look at it
and look at it line by line, phrase by phrase. Notice,
first of all, in this passage, Isaiah says, but they
that weigh up on the Lord? What does that really mean?
To wait upon the Lord? Some translations have they that
(06:26):
hope in the Lord? They that hope in the Lord.
And the word the Hebrew word that is translated wait
suggests something that is twisted, not as twisted as in
being crooked, but as certain chords that are twisted and
tied together to give you strength and power. They that
(06:50):
hope in the Lord. I think this passage all, this
part of the passage also suggests patience. You see, if
you wait, you wait on the Lord. There have been
to the doctor, and you go over and you register,
and you sit down. Where do you sit down in
the waiting room? You see in the waiting room, And
(07:12):
I can tell you for certain, I've been in many doctors' offices.
You have to have patience to sit down and wait
for the doctor. We need to have patience with God.
You know, the American people buying large, very impatient people.
You get out on the highway and there's always at
least one driver who gets so impatient. They hoff the horn,
(07:33):
they flash the lights, they whizz around everyone because they're
in such a big hurry, and actually if they're probably
not going anywhere, but they're impatient. You go to the
hospital and there you mash a button on the elevator
to go, say, to the third floor. Doesn't happen. All
of a sudden, someone else sees the button's been mashed,
(07:55):
but they go up and do it again because they
think if they mash the button it's going to over
and just like that for them. You see, we want
it to happen, and we want it to happen right now.
As one man prayed, Lord give me patience, and please, Lord,
give it to me right now. We've got to learn
to wait on the Lord. You've got to learn to
(08:15):
be patient because God's time table is not the same
as ours. God's operating on his timetable, and hence we've
got to learn to wait on the Lord. When it
says wait on the Lord. I think that also suggests
to us that we have trust in the Lord, that
(08:36):
we trust him. You're not going to wait on someone
unless you have a great deal of trust in them.
And we trust the Lord with all of our heart.
Solomon said, a lean not on your own understanding in
all of your ways. Acknowledge him and he'll direct your past.
You see, when you start leaning on your own understanding,
(08:56):
then you're going to feel so weak and so stressed
out about life. We need to start waiting on the Lord.
Psalam's chapter forty six and verse ten says, wait on
the Lord, Wait on the Lord. We need to learn
to be patient, We need to learn to trust him.
But also when he says wait on the Lord, underlying
(09:18):
every bit of that is this suggestion to us that
the God of Heaven is a great God. And if
you look in Isaiah chapter forty and verse eleven, you
will learn that God is great in his gentleness. He
shall feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather
(09:40):
the lambs with his arms and carry them in his bosom,
and shall gently lead those that are with young. God
is a great God, and we need to wait on
that God who is great in his gentleness, and he's
going to deal with us with great gentleness. But God
that is also great in his power. Look in the
(10:02):
very next verse, Who's measured the waters in the hall
of his hand, meeted out heaven with the span comprehended
the dust of the earth and the measure weighed, the
mountains in scales, and the heels in the balance. That's
a question. Who is it that made everything in the
universe as it is? Who is it that put the sun,
(10:23):
the moon, and the stars and their places in the heavens?
Who is it that created the earth as it is done,
has been done with precision. That's only one answer to that,
and that's God. God is great in his power. But
then he's great in his knowledge. Look in verse thirteen.
Who had directed the spirit of the Lord of Being
(10:43):
his counselor has taught him? You see, you don't teach God.
God teaches you. He's great in his knowledge. And there
is anything about man that God does not know. Bible
even says, has the very hairs of your head, no
one if he has the hairs of your head numbered,
there isn't anything else that he doesn't know about you.
(11:06):
And he knows the needs that we have. But God
is greater than the nations, notice down in verse fifteen.
But the nations are as a drop of a bucket.
In other words, when you think about the nations of
the world, they're no more than a drop that's put
into a bucket. And then he says that the isles
(11:26):
are a very little thing. All of the islands of
the world are nothing in compared to the greatness of
our God. God is great, and so we need to
trust him, be patient with him. We need to lean
on him, wait on the Lord. They that wait on
the Lord. And then he says, they that wait on
(11:48):
the Lord shall renew their strength, renew their strength. You know,
there is a time when all of us have feelings
of weakness. We may feel absolutely exhausted. And that doesn't
(12:15):
know any age boundary. For example, I want you to
notice this down in verse forty twenty eight. Hast thou
not known and have you not heard that the everlasting God,
the Lord, the Creed, or the ends of their earth faints. Not.
God doesn't grow weary, neither is weary. There is no
(12:35):
searching of his understanding. And then notice verse twenty nine.
He gives power to the faint. God is the one
who gives power to those who are fainting, and to
them that have no might, he increases strength. Well, what
about young people. You know, they think they are indestructible,
(12:58):
but they hurt sometimes and they don't want you to
know it, and they need strength. Notice he says, even
the youth shall fate and be weary, and the young
men shall utterly fall. And after saying all that, he says,
but those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
You know, people can become weak physically. I've seen people
(13:23):
weak physically, and sometimes they have become weak physically because
of a lack of taking care of their bodies. They
become weak physically because of the lack of exercise. Sometimes
become weak physically because of an illness. God will help us.
(13:45):
Sometimes we become emotionally weak, that is emotionally exhaustive. If
you've been through some traumatic experience in your life, it
just absolutely leaves you wiped out mentally. So we can
be weak in that way. But another way in which
(14:06):
we can be weak is spiritually spiritual weakness. And those
that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They
can be strong again spiritually. There was some spiritual weakness
in the church at Corinth and Paul wrote about it
in the eleventh chapter of First Corinth, as many are
weak and sickly among you, and not a few sleep.
(14:29):
And there was a reason for their weakness and their sickness,
their spiritual illness. And so God is the one who
gives us strength. If we won't strength, then we have
to go to the source of power. And the source
of power is not self. The source of power is
(14:52):
not drugs, The source of power is not alcohol. The
source of power is not any other thing except God himself.
The Lord, Jesus Christ, and the Heavenly Father are the
sources of our strength. In Philippians four thirteen posts that
(15:13):
I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
You want to get plugged into the power, you want
to be strong to face the challenges of life. You
(15:33):
get in the right relationship with Jesus Christ. And if
you believe that Jesus Christ is God's Son, and if
you're the individual who's reached that point in his or
her life, they're willing to turn away from the old
life of sin. And then if you're willing to acknowledge
(15:54):
that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the Living God,
with your mouth, encourage you, as a penitent confessing believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ, to allow some servant to
God to baptize you into Christ for the remission of
your sins. On the day of Pentecost, the people asked
(16:14):
what shall we do? And the answer that was given
by the apostle Peter, who was Insidella, was an inspired
a man. He said, repent and be baptized every one
of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the
remission of sins. Folks, if you've never done that, get
(16:36):
plugged into the power. The Lord will forgive you of
your sins, and he will be the source of strength
for your life. Paul had a thorn in the flesh.
Some think that foreign was recurring headaches. Some think that
he had epilepsy. Some think that he was a cranky
old bachelor. Some think that he had been married and
(16:56):
now he's a divorcee. All kinds of ideas about what
his thorn was. The fact is, we don't know, but
one thing I do know. He prayed for the removal
of it. Three times. He approached the throne of God
for the removal of that foreign And here was God's answer.
My grace is sufficient for you, Paul. My strength is
(17:18):
made perfect in weakness. You see in Paul's weakness. God
was going to demonstrate his strength to help Paul. And
I know that he will help to strengthen you. Those
that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. And
then Isaiah said, they will mount up with wings as eagles,
(17:44):
rise up on eagles wings as it were. I remember
being in the airport in Memphis one time and I
was going to be flying from Memphis to Mobile, Alabama.
It was snowy, and I had some misgivings about getting
on a plane when it was taking off in the
midst of snow, but then I also wanted to be home.
(18:09):
I got on the plane and as we were taking off, oh,
it was really peppering down the snow. And we went
up through the clouds, those snow clouds, and of course,
if you've flown, you know that there's going to be
a little bumpy part going up through those clouds. And
(18:30):
we got up above those clouds. Guess what, the sun
was shining from that point all the way to Mobile, Alabama.
The sun was shining. Once you rise up above the clouds.
(18:51):
And God is the one who helped us mount up
with wings as eagles. You see, we can rise above
the circumstances of life. We don't have to be content
with the life of medio, of just a mediocrity. We
don't have to be content with the status quo. We
(19:14):
can rise to a higher level of living. We can
rise up above the world. As a matter of fact,
the Bible tells us that we should, Paul says, be
not conformed to this world. Phillip's translation reads, do not
allow the world to squeeze you into its mole. We
(19:35):
can rise above it. We don't have to think like
the world. We don't have to talk like the world.
We don't have to dress like the world. We don't
have to act like the world. We don't have to
have the habits that people have that are in the world.
You see, we can rise above it. That's a difficult
lesson for some to learn. But we can, with the
(19:57):
strength that God gives us, rise up above the world
system around us that's calculated to destroy our souls. We
can rise up above the cloud of discouragement. There's not
a person living today. What some point in your life
get discouraged. Here's a young man plays football. They lose
(20:20):
the game. He comes home, brother and dad realize that
he's so discouraged because they lost the game. What he's
really discouraged about is because of a bad play he made,
they lost the game. He is so down and out,
he is so discouraged. Here's a man who was in
(20:40):
line to receive a promotion at work, but someone else
got the promotion instead of here. He comes home and
his wife says, what's wrong, honey, Oh, nothing, and she
can tell that he's depressed, he's upset, And finally he
lets her know, I didn't get the promotion that I
thought I was to get, and I am so very discouraged.
(21:04):
And here's a man who's a preacher of the Gospel,
and he's been preaching for twenty five or thirty years,
but he's not been seeing any results from the preaching
that he's been doing. He's been pouring his heart out
to the best of his ability, to the best of
his knowledge. He's been preaching the truth of God, but
he's now so discouraged. I want you to know that
(21:26):
we can rise above the discouragement that it comes our way.
You see, we don't need to look back, We need
to start looking ahead, and we can also rise above
trouble trouble. We don't have to be content to all
(21:47):
the trouble around us. Ours is a troubled world, But folks,
let's rise up above it. The Lord is my refuge.
The Lord is my strength. He is a very present
help in time time of trouble Psalms forty six and
verse one. Don't we serve an awesome God? A great God?
(22:08):
They that wait upon the Lord shall knew their strength.
They shall mount up. They shall mount up with wings
as eagles. And then he said they shall run and
(22:28):
not be weary. When I was about thirty four or
thirty five years of old age, I was preaching in
a gospel meeting in Macon, Georgia, and they had a
young man preaching for them, was a little younger than himself,
(22:50):
and every day he got out and ran ten miles
during his lunch hour. All I got to thinking about it,
If he can run ten miles, I ought to be
able to run one. And so I had a pair
of old tennis shoes with me, put them on, and
(23:11):
I walked what I perceived to be a mile away
from the motel where I was staying. I turned around
and I started jogging. I got back to the motel.
My face was red, I was persuapt, perspiring, and the
manager said to me, you do this every day? I said,
I was so out of breath I could hardly talk
(23:33):
to him. And I said, no, not every day. This
was the first day. But I started doing it every day,
And for the next ten years, I ran every day
wherever I was, whatever country I might have been here,
I'd still go and I would get out and run
until I ruined my knees and the doctor said, you
(23:55):
have to quit. But one thing I learned as a
runner that you can run to the point you think
you're so exhausted you can't go anymore. But if you'll
put forth just a little bit more effort, it seems
as though you break through some kind of a barrier,
(24:18):
some of it referred to as a runner's high, and
then you feel like you could run for the rest
of the day. I experience that. You see, God is
the one who will give us the power and the
strength to run the life that we live. And the
Christian race had not become weary. I think perhaps here
(24:42):
he's talking about just the routine of our lives. We
just need to keep going on and never give up. Gentleman.
Jim Corby was a prize fighter and he had a motto.
And his motto was just one more round. When you
(25:05):
feel like you've gone as far as you can go,
just say to yourself, with God's help, I can go
just one more round. You see, God will give us
the strength, and he will give us the help to
run and not be weary. And then he says we
(25:29):
will walk and will not faint. Now, some suggest that
the running part may refer to the time when we're younger,
and the walking part may refer to the time when
we get older. And that may be well the case.
That may be well what Isaiah had in mind that
as we get older we can walk. We may not
(25:52):
be running, but we can walk and we will not faint.
You know, some people faint, what will that is? They
lose heart in life. The reason some consider termination of
their lives is because they've just lost heart. They've lost
the desire to live. And if you are that case today,
(26:13):
let me urge you to consider the fact that God
gives you the power to have a reason for living.
There's a purpose for living. You say, well, how can
I keep from losing heart. Prayer, prayer, prayers, not just
some mental gymnastics. In Luke eighteen and one, Jesus said,
(26:35):
men are all ways to pray and not to faint,
having a persevering spirit about us. Be not We're in
well doing, for in due season they shall reap if
they faint. Not. You see, we just need to have
that attitude. I'm not going to quit. I'm going to
(26:55):
go on and on. You see, they that wait upon
the Lord shall renew their stream, that they shall mount
up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not
be where they should walk, and not faint. Don't ever
ever give up. I read a store about Beethoven, who
was a great composer, and he was told that he
(27:17):
was going death. Now what's he going to do? Is
he going to just have a call mental collapse because
he's now going death? Is he going to give up?
Here was his attitude. Then I'll take life by the throat,
and with the help of God, we can take life
by the throat as it were. Don't ever give up.
(27:37):
I'd encourage you to give your life to Christ today
until we meet again. May the Lord bless you and
keep you. It's my prayer.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Getting to Know Your Bible has been presented by Churches
of Christ. If you have a question about the church,
or if you would like the location of a Church
of Christ near you, or to receive the free Bible
course right to getting to Know your Bible, peelbox three
one four, Summerdale, Alabama three six five eight zero or
call one eight seven seven seven one one five two
(28:07):
one four Join us next time forgetting to know your Bible.
This is Getting to Know Your Bible, a program dedicated
to the proclaiming of the good News of Jesus Christ.
Here's Billy Lambert.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, I'm Billy Lambert. I am the regular speaker on
Getting to Know Your Bible, and I want to welcome
you today. This may be the very first time that
you have seen this telecast. I want you to know
that the thing that we emphasize on getting to Know
your Bible is a word of God. The Bible is
(00:46):
the greatest book that has ever been written. Many years ago,
there were those that wrote books that thought they would
replace the Bible. That's what Thomas Paine thought when he
wrote The Age of Reason. But the Bible continues to
live after century. Jesus said, heaven and earth shall pass away,
but my Word shall not pass away. So on getting
(01:07):
to Know your Bible, we're teaching from the timeless Word
of God. The Bible is God's book, the greatest book
that has ever been written. And today we're going to
be opening up the pages of the Word of God
and delivering a message to you from God's book. Today
we're going to be seeing a one of our classics
(01:29):
that is a production of one of our telecasts from
time in the past, and we want you to stay tuned.
We're going to be offering a free Bible Correspondence course
today and we will see information on the screen as
to how you can receive that course. And so we
want to pause at this time.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
To help you in your study of the Bible. We
want to send you this Bible Correspondence course. This course
is non denominational, it's based on the Bible, it's conducted
by mail, and it's free to receive this course. Right
to Getting to Know Your Bible po Box three one four, Summerdale,
Alabama three six five eight zero or call toll free
(02:10):
one eight seven seven seven one one five two one four.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
It is a genuine pleasure to be with you today
on getting to Know your Bible. I'd like to welcome
you to the telecast today. We may have those watching
today for the first time, and may I give you
a special welcome. We have those that watch every time
we're on the air, and we thank you so very
much for your interest in the study of the Bible
(02:39):
and your encouragement in the preaching of God's Word. Now,
today on our telecast, we want to address a topic
that I believe would touch the lives of all of
us at some particular point in time, the need to
have strength. We want to talk about strength for living,
(03:02):
strength for living. I hope that you'll stay tuned. The
Book of Isaiah is one of the major prophets of
the Old Testament, and the Book of Isaiah is a
Messianic prophet. That is, he made certain prophecies about the
Lord Jesus Christ. But today, rather than looking at those prophecies,
(03:26):
I want us to turn to the fortieth chapter of
Isaiah and the last verse in that chapter, verse thirty one.
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall
run and not be weary, and they shall walk and
(03:51):
not faint. At the time that this was being written,
God's people were in a very bad state. They were
in captivity, they were depressed, away from home. They needed
(04:11):
some encouragement, and God has a word of encouragement for
them in this passage. But it's a word of encouragement
for us as well. I dare say, there's not an
individual watching the telecast right now, what at some time
in your life you've been without strength, You felt so weak,
(04:36):
so vulnerable. Well, I believe this is a passage that
will help you every day of your life. And I'll
have to confess it's my favorite Old Testament Verse Isaiah forty,
verse thirty one. They that wait upon the Lord shall
(04:56):
renew their strength. I read the story about an incident
that happened at the Battle of Shiloh. The troops were
down by the river and one of the gun carriages
got stuck in the mud. And as they were trying
to get it out, there was an itinerant preacher there
(05:17):
and and he came over to the man trying to get
the gun carriage out, and they were pushing and shoving
and pulling, and he thought this was an opportune time
for him to speak a good word for the Lord.
You know. Solomon said, there's a time to speak, there's
a time to be silent. This may have been one
of those times to be silent. So he said to
(05:39):
the man trying to get the gun carriage out of
the mud, he said, do you know who died for
you on the cross? That man stopped minute looked at
this preacher and he said, don't ask many reddels. Can't
you see I'm stuck in the mud. And I have
an idea that there are many offics that sometimes feel
as though where sort of stuck in the mud. What
(06:02):
do you do in times like that? Well, this is
your verse today. I want us to look at it
and look at it line by line, phrase by phrase. Notice,
first of all, in this passage, Isaiah says, but they
that weigh up on the Lord? What does that really mean?
To wait upon the Lord? Some translations have they that
(06:26):
hope in the Lord? They that hope in the Lord.
And the word the Hebrew word that is translated wait
suggests something that is twisted, not as twisted as in
being crooked, but as certain chords that are twisted and
tied together to give you strength and power. They that
(06:50):
hope in the Lord. I think this passage all, this
part of the passage also suggests patience. You see, if
you wait, you wait on the Lord. There have been
to the doctor, and you go over and you register,
and you sit down. Where do you sit down in
the waiting room? You see in the waiting room, And
(07:12):
I can tell you for certain, I've been in many doctors' offices.
You have to have patience to sit down and wait
for the doctor. We need to have patience with God.
You know, the American people buying large, very impatient people.
You get out on the highway and there's always at
least one driver who gets so impatient. They hoff the horn,
(07:33):
they flash the lights, they whizz around everyone because they're
in such a big hurry, and actually if they're probably
not going anywhere, but they're impatient. You go to the
hospital and there you mash a button on the elevator
to go, say, to the third floor. Doesn't happen. All
of a sudden, someone else sees the button's been mashed,
(07:55):
but they go up and do it again because they
think if they mash the button it's going to over
and just like that for them. You see, we want
it to happen, and we want it to happen right now.
As one man prayed, Lord give me patience, and please, Lord,
give it to me right now. We've got to learn
to wait on the Lord. You've got to learn to
(08:15):
be patient because God's time table is not the same
as ours. God's operating on his timetable, and hence we've
got to learn to wait on the Lord. When it
says wait on the Lord. I think that also suggests
to us that we have trust in the Lord, that
(08:36):
we trust him. You're not going to wait on someone
unless you have a great deal of trust in them.
And we trust the Lord with all of our heart.
Solomon said, a lean not on your own understanding in
all of your ways. Acknowledge him and he'll direct your past.
You see, when you start leaning on your own understanding,
(08:56):
then you're going to feel so weak and so stressed
out about life. We need to start waiting on the Lord.
Psalam's chapter forty six and verse ten says, wait on
the Lord, Wait on the Lord. We need to learn
to be patient, We need to learn to trust him.
But also when he says wait on the Lord, underlying
(09:18):
every bit of that is this suggestion to us that
the God of Heaven is a great God. And if
you look in Isaiah chapter forty and verse eleven, you
will learn that God is great in his gentleness. He
shall feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather
(09:40):
the lambs with his arms and carry them in his bosom,
and shall gently lead those that are with young. God
is a great God, and we need to wait on
that God who is great in his gentleness, and he's
going to deal with us with great gentleness. But God
that is also great in his power. Look in the
(10:02):
very next verse, Who's measured the waters in the hall
of his hand, meeted out heaven with the span comprehended
the dust of the earth and the measure weighed, the
mountains in scales, and the heels in the balance. That's
a question. Who is it that made everything in the
universe as it is? Who is it that put the sun,
(10:23):
the moon, and the stars and their places in the heavens?
Who is it that created the earth as it is done,
has been done with precision. That's only one answer to that,
and that's God. God is great in his power. But
then he's great in his knowledge. Look in verse thirteen.
Who had directed the spirit of the Lord of Being
(10:43):
his counselor has taught him? You see, you don't teach God.
God teaches you. He's great in his knowledge. And there
is anything about man that God does not know. Bible
even says, has the very hairs of your head, no
one if he has the hairs of your head numbered,
there isn't anything else that he doesn't know about you.
(11:06):
And he knows the needs that we have. But God
is greater than the nations, notice down in verse fifteen.
But the nations are as a drop of a bucket.
In other words, when you think about the nations of
the world, they're no more than a drop that's put
into a bucket. And then he says that the isles
(11:26):
are a very little thing. All of the islands of
the world are nothing in compared to the greatness of
our God. God is great, and so we need to
trust him, be patient with him. We need to lean
on him, wait on the Lord. They that wait on
the Lord. And then he says, they that wait on
(11:48):
the Lord shall renew their strength, renew their strength. You know,
there is a time when all of us have feelings
of weakness. We may feel absolutely exhausted. And that doesn't
(12:15):
know any age boundary. For example, I want you to
notice this down in verse forty twenty eight. Hast thou
not known and have you not heard that the everlasting God,
the Lord, the Creed, or the ends of their earth faints. Not.
God doesn't grow weary, neither is weary. There is no
(12:35):
searching of his understanding. And then notice verse twenty nine.
He gives power to the faint. God is the one
who gives power to those who are fainting, and to
them that have no might, he increases strength. Well, what
about young people. You know, they think they are indestructible,
(12:58):
but they hurt sometimes and they don't want you to
know it, and they need strength. Notice he says, even
the youth shall fate and be weary, and the young
men shall utterly fall. And after saying all that, he says,
but those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
You know, people can become weak physically. I've seen people
(13:23):
weak physically, and sometimes they have become weak physically because
of a lack of taking care of their bodies. They
become weak physically because of the lack of exercise. Sometimes
become weak physically because of an illness. God will help us.
(13:45):
Sometimes we become emotionally weak, that is emotionally exhaustive. If
you've been through some traumatic experience in your life, it
just absolutely leaves you wiped out mentally. So we can
be weak in that way. But another way in which
(14:06):
we can be weak is spiritually spiritual weakness. And those
that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They
can be strong again spiritually. There was some spiritual weakness
in the church at Corinth and Paul wrote about it
in the eleventh chapter of First Corinth, as many are
weak and sickly among you, and not a few sleep.
(14:29):
And there was a reason for their weakness and their sickness,
their spiritual illness. And so God is the one who
gives us strength. If we won't strength, then we have
to go to the source of power. And the source
of power is not self. The source of power is
(14:52):
not drugs, The source of power is not alcohol. The
source of power is not any other thing except God himself.
The Lord, Jesus Christ, and the Heavenly Father are the
sources of our strength. In Philippians four thirteen posts that
(15:13):
I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
You want to get plugged into the power, you want
to be strong to face the challenges of life. You
(15:33):
get in the right relationship with Jesus Christ. And if
you believe that Jesus Christ is God's Son, and if
you're the individual who's reached that point in his or
her life, they're willing to turn away from the old
life of sin. And then if you're willing to acknowledge
(15:54):
that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the Living God,
with your mouth, encourage you, as a penitent confessing believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ, to allow some servant to
God to baptize you into Christ for the remission of
your sins. On the day of Pentecost, the people asked
(16:14):
what shall we do? And the answer that was given
by the apostle Peter, who was Insidella, was an inspired
a man. He said, repent and be baptized every one
of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the
remission of sins. Folks, if you've never done that, get
(16:36):
plugged into the power. The Lord will forgive you of
your sins, and he will be the source of strength
for your life. Paul had a thorn in the flesh.
Some think that foreign was recurring headaches. Some think that
he had epilepsy. Some think that he was a cranky
old bachelor. Some think that he had been married and
(16:56):
now he's a divorcee. All kinds of ideas about what
his thorn was. The fact is, we don't know, but
one thing I do know. He prayed for the removal
of it. Three times. He approached the throne of God
for the removal of that foreign And here was God's answer.
My grace is sufficient for you, Paul. My strength is
(17:18):
made perfect in weakness. You see in Paul's weakness. God
was going to demonstrate his strength to help Paul. And
I know that he will help to strengthen you. Those
that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. And
then Isaiah said, they will mount up with wings as eagles,
(17:44):
rise up on eagles wings as it were. I remember
being in the airport in Memphis one time and I
was going to be flying from Memphis to Mobile, Alabama.
It was snowy, and I had some misgivings about getting
on a plane when it was taking off in the
midst of snow, but then I also wanted to be home.
(18:09):
I got on the plane and as we were taking off, oh,
it was really peppering down the snow. And we went
up through the clouds, those snow clouds, and of course,
if you've flown, you know that there's going to be
a little bumpy part going up through those clouds. And
(18:30):
we got up above those clouds. Guess what, the sun
was shining from that point all the way to Mobile, Alabama.
The sun was shining. Once you rise up above the clouds.
(18:51):
And God is the one who helped us mount up
with wings as eagles. You see, we can rise above
the circumstances of life. We don't have to be content
with the life of medio, of just a mediocrity. We
don't have to be content with the status quo. We
(19:14):
can rise to a higher level of living. We can
rise up above the world. As a matter of fact,
the Bible tells us that we should, Paul says, be
not conformed to this world. Phillip's translation reads, do not
allow the world to squeeze you into its mole. We
(19:35):
can rise above it. We don't have to think like
the world. We don't have to talk like the world.
We don't have to dress like the world. We don't
have to act like the world. We don't have to
have the habits that people have that are in the world.
You see, we can rise above it. That's a difficult
lesson for some to learn. But we can, with the
(19:57):
strength that God gives us, rise up above the world
system around us that's calculated to destroy our souls. We
can rise up above the cloud of discouragement. There's not
a person living today. What some point in your life
get discouraged. Here's a young man plays football. They lose
(20:20):
the game. He comes home, brother and dad realize that
he's so discouraged because they lost the game. What he's
really discouraged about is because of a bad play he made,
they lost the game. He is so down and out,
he is so discouraged. Here's a man who was in
(20:40):
line to receive a promotion at work, but someone else
got the promotion instead of here. He comes home and
his wife says, what's wrong, honey, Oh, nothing, and she
can tell that he's depressed, he's upset, And finally he
lets her know, I didn't get the promotion that I
thought I was to get, and I am so very discouraged.
(21:04):
And here's a man who's a preacher of the Gospel,
and he's been preaching for twenty five or thirty years,
but he's not been seeing any results from the preaching
that he's been doing. He's been pouring his heart out
to the best of his ability, to the best of
his knowledge. He's been preaching the truth of God, but
he's now so discouraged. I want you to know that
(21:26):
we can rise above the discouragement that it comes our way.
You see, we don't need to look back, We need
to start looking ahead, and we can also rise above
trouble trouble. We don't have to be content to all
(21:47):
the trouble around us. Ours is a troubled world, But folks,
let's rise up above it. The Lord is my refuge.
The Lord is my strength. He is a very present
help in time time of trouble Psalms forty six and
verse one. Don't we serve an awesome God? A great God?
(22:08):
They that wait upon the Lord shall knew their strength.
They shall mount up. They shall mount up with wings
as eagles. And then he said they shall run and
(22:28):
not be weary. When I was about thirty four or
thirty five years of old age, I was preaching in
a gospel meeting in Macon, Georgia, and they had a
young man preaching for them, was a little younger than himself,
(22:50):
and every day he got out and ran ten miles
during his lunch hour. All I got to thinking about it,
If he can run ten miles, I ought to be
able to run one. And so I had a pair
of old tennis shoes with me, put them on, and
(23:11):
I walked what I perceived to be a mile away
from the motel where I was staying. I turned around
and I started jogging. I got back to the motel.
My face was red, I was persuapt, perspiring, and the
manager said to me, you do this every day? I said,
I was so out of breath I could hardly talk
(23:33):
to him. And I said, no, not every day. This
was the first day. But I started doing it every day,
And for the next ten years, I ran every day
wherever I was, whatever country I might have been here,
I'd still go and I would get out and run
until I ruined my knees and the doctor said, you
(23:55):
have to quit. But one thing I learned as a
runner that you can run to the point you think
you're so exhausted you can't go anymore. But if you'll
put forth just a little bit more effort, it seems
as though you break through some kind of a barrier,
(24:18):
some of it referred to as a runner's high, and
then you feel like you could run for the rest
of the day. I experience that. You see, God is
the one who will give us the power and the
strength to run the life that we live. And the
Christian race had not become weary. I think perhaps here
(24:42):
he's talking about just the routine of our lives. We
just need to keep going on and never give up. Gentleman.
Jim Corby was a prize fighter and he had a motto.
And his motto was just one more round. When you
(25:05):
feel like you've gone as far as you can go,
just say to yourself, with God's help, I can go
just one more round. You see, God will give us
the strength, and he will give us the help to
run and not be weary. And then he says we
(25:29):
will walk and will not faint. Now, some suggest that
the running part may refer to the time when we're younger,
and the walking part may refer to the time when
we get older. And that may be well the case.
That may be well what Isaiah had in mind that
as we get older we can walk. We may not
(25:52):
be running, but we can walk and we will not faint.
You know, some people faint, what will that is? They
lose heart in life. The reason some consider termination of
their lives is because they've just lost heart. They've lost
the desire to live. And if you are that case today,
(26:13):
let me urge you to consider the fact that God
gives you the power to have a reason for living.
There's a purpose for living. You say, well, how can
I keep from losing heart. Prayer, prayer, prayers, not just
some mental gymnastics. In Luke eighteen and one, Jesus said,
(26:35):
men are all ways to pray and not to faint,
having a persevering spirit about us. Be not We're in
well doing, for in due season they shall reap if
they faint. Not. You see, we just need to have
that attitude. I'm not going to quit. I'm going to
(26:55):
go on and on. You see, they that wait upon
the Lord shall renew their stream, that they shall mount
up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not
be where they should walk, and not faint. Don't ever
ever give up. I read a store about Beethoven, who
was a great composer, and he was told that he
(27:17):
was going death. Now what's he going to do? Is
he going to just have a call mental collapse because
he's now going death? Is he going to give up?
Here was his attitude. Then I'll take life by the throat,
and with the help of God, we can take life
by the throat as it were. Don't ever give up.
(27:37):
I'd encourage you to give your life to Christ today
until we meet again. May the Lord bless you and
keep you. It's my prayer.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Getting to Know Your Bible has been presented by Churches
of Christ. If you have a question about the church,
or if you would like the location of a Church
of Christ near you, or to receive the free Bible
course right to getting to Know your Bible, peelbox three
one four, Summerdale, Alabama three six five eight zero or
call one eight seven seven seven one one five two
(28:07):
one four Join us next time forgetting to know your Bible.
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