Well, we are thankful that we can continue in the presence of the Lord today. It is wonderful to be able to remember the Lord at His table—His death and resurrection for us. And we are thankful, too, that He has given us His Word.
We want to continue this morning in the Word of God to find encouragement and hope in these times of trouble. We are thankful that He has provided that for us.
Lord, we are thankful for the fullness of the provision of life that we have in You. Lord, as we come now, we come in a great spirit of dependence upon Your Holy Spirit to speak to us in a way that could really meet us in the hour that we are living in.
These are not normal days. We find ourselves in a really abnormal time where everything is changing. But we are thankful, Lord, that as we come to the One, we have a solid and sure foundation. We are coming to the One who never changes, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
That is the hope. That is the encouragement. That is the comfort we have as we come and look off unto You. In Jesus’ name, amen.
As we consider the Lord’s Word this morning, this is not going to be a comprehensive word concerning everything that is going on during this day and time. But there is one thing in particular that the Lord touched my heart with, and this is what I really want to focus on this morning during our brief time together.
We are thankful that last time, as we were together, we considered this matter of God being faithful. In that God is faithful, we looked at the precious fact that He is with us—the great assurance He gives us all throughout Scripture: “I am with you.”
As we think about this in our family lives, in normal life together, I always think of a mother and child. When that child at night perhaps has a nightmare, or something happens to that child, then the mother runs in and grabs the child. I am sorry, dads, but you are never the one that does it. The mother goes in and grabs that child.
What does she have to say? The mother says, “I am with you,” and that child is comforted. She does not have to give long explanations or explain circumstances, but she says, “I am with you.” As that mother wraps her loving arms around that child, that child is comforted and settles down.
In the days we are living in, that is what the Lord is doing for us. He is reassuring us of the fact: “I am with you. My loving arms are around you. They are holding you. They are carrying you through the midst of everything that is going on.”
As we continue through this, we need to have that settled within our hearts and know the foundation we have. Everybody is telling us things are going to get worse before they get better. But we are thankful that we have the One who carries us through whatever storms of life we are in.
One thing I do believe is that this is not the end. I simply believe that what we are going through right now is what is called a sign of the times. This is a sign of the times.
Why do we have signs? We have signs because the Lord is preparing us. He is giving us a precursor of what is ahead.
When you think of road signs out there on the highway, what are they for? They are to prepare us for something ahead. There is a curve ahead. You need to reduce speed ahead. There is an accident ahead, and on and on. You make adjustments in your driving because of that.
In this time, as the Lord is giving us this sign, He is calling us to make adjustments in our lifestyle—that we not just be going on autopilot, on cruise control, but that, in His great grace, we would allow the Holy Spirit to touch us in a way that would bring us into that spirit of knowing Him and really allowing Him to guide us through this.
The thing that we know is that the Lord is doing all of this to get our attention, just like those road signs are trying to get our attention. The Lord is doing this to get our attention.
Why is He trying to get our attention? He is trying to get our attention because He loves us. He knows what is ahead. He knows everything that is coming.
In His great love, He is telling us, “I want you to wake up. I want you to be aware that there are some things ahead that you might not be prepared for in the condition you are in. But I want to take this opportunity to bring you back to Myself so that I can work within your life in a way that would really bring forth the fullness of what I am desiring.”
The Scripture that came to my heart is from 2 Corinthians 11:3:
But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness,
your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.
The phrase I am looking at there is that we do not want to be those who have been led astray from the simplicity and purity of our devotion to Christ.
As we look at this Christian life, the Lord is continually drawing us back to the simplicity and purity of a life with Him. We love to make things complicated. Theologians love to make doctrines complicated, and even as natural men, we always think that if something is more complicated, it is better.
In Christ, there is a simplicity. We looked at that simplicity last time when He says, “I am with you.” How much simpler can there be than that? What a wonderful fact, and what assurance that gives.
Even as you think about the days we are living in with COVID-19, many are looking for sophisticated, complicated answers. “How do we keep ourselves? What do we have to do?” There is fear and all of that.
But actually, there are pretty simple answers in that too. You just stay away from each other and wash your hands. We love to get so complicated about things, but there is basic simplicity. If everybody would stay away from each other for a season, wash our hands, and have good sanitary habits, a lot of this would be going away, and we would make our way through this.
But we get away from that simplicity, and our souls become anxious. We feel like we have to find an answer. We have to find this. We have to find that. But the Lord is saying, “No, come back to Me.”
We find all throughout Scripture, and really all throughout life, that the answer in every type of crisis is our Lord Jesus Christ.
As you look throughout Scripture, whenever there is a time of crisis, what are the writers of the various letters in the New Testament doing? They bring you back to Christ.
We know the letter to the Hebrews was written at a time of crisis. What was the focus there? “Consider Jesus,” looking off unto Jesus, fixing our eyes upon Him in the midst of that crisis. That is what He was calling us back to.
As you look at 2 Timothy, Paul, in the midst of writing his last letter before his departure, was crying out, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead,” bringing them back to Him.
Then we see, too, in the book of Revelation, what the Lord is calling us to. What is the book of Revelation? It is the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a revelation. It is getting our eyes upon Him and beholding the Lamb throughout that book.
That is the confidence we have. As we look to Him, we see that He is the answer.
There are so many questions today swirling around: “What is going on? How do I do this? What should I do? I do not understand this. I need to do this. I mean, what is happening?” On and on, we have questions and questions. But to each answer we find in life, there is our Lord Jesus Christ, the I AM.
Brief network interruption.
All right, we just had a little network trouble there. We see how all of these things are trying to disrupt everything in this day and time.
We find in Scripture how Christ is the answer to everything. In that letter to the Hebrews, there was a great crisis, but we see how the Lord drew our hearts back: “Consider Jesus,” looking off unto Jesus. He is the answer.
As you look at the book of Revelation, what is it a revelation of? It is a revelation of Jesus Christ in the end days. What does He want us to be looking at? He wants us to be looking at our Lord Jesus Christ.
We can get distracted by many other things, but He is always bringing us back to Him.
We have so many questions in this day and time. “What do I do? I do not know what to do. I am afraid. I am fearful. Should I do this? Should I do that?”
We are thankful that our Lord Jesus, the I AM, is the answer to every situation that we find ourselves in. We do not know what to do, but He promises us throughout Scripture:
It is a returning to Him, and the Holy Spirit wants to reveal to us more and more in these days that He is to be our all in all.
At times like this, we find ourselves looking for many answers. We have questions here, questions there, and we are looking, looking, looking. Oftentimes, if you are looking for an answer, you will not find an answer, because He wants us to look to Him. He will be that answer.
If we are looking for an answer, we can almost miss Him at times. But if we consider turning back and looking at Him, then He will show us the answer, or all of a sudden the question we had seems to fade away in the light of His glory and grace.
Praise God for that provision that we have in Him.
As we said last time, we looked at Him as the I AM. In that, we see how He wants us to know that He is with us. Because He is the I AM, there is another aspect of Him that He wants us to know which brings us great comfort.
He desires that we would know: “I AM, that I am the Lord.” He wants us to know that He is the Lord.
Sometimes we use these phrases so often that they do not mean much to us, but He simply wants to be Lord of our life. He has this desire.
Do we ask the question: Do we know Him as Lord of our life? Do we know Him—Jesus Christ Himself—not just things about Him? Do we know Him, not just with head knowledge, but in a real-life, intimate, personal relationship with Him, experiencing the reality of His life in us?
That is what He is calling us to, because that is where the encouragement is. The greatest comfort we have, the greatest encouragement we have, is having it settled in our heart that Jesus Christ is Lord.
He is ruling over all things. He is the Master. He has everything in control. We do not understand things, and they look out of control, but if we know Him as Lord, if we know Him as Master, if we know Him as in control of our life, if we see His character and His nature, then we come into that place of real comfort.
We do not know what is going on, but we know whom we have believed in, and He is able to keep us.
We saw this last week in Isaiah 43. We looked at it briefly last week concerning the I AM being with us. If we look quickly at Isaiah 43 again, in verse 2:
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee;
and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee:
when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned;
neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
There is great comfort there.
For I am the Lord thy God.
There is one little word in there that caught my attention. It would have been very easy for Him to say, “I am the Lord God.” But what does He say? “I am the Lord your God.”
Put your name in there: “I am the Lord. I am Max’s Lord.” Praise God for that, brothers and sisters.
He is not just some abstract, omnipresent One who is out there. In a very personal way, He is your Lord. He desires to manifest that lordship, because there is a great battle in this day and time over who is lord of your life.
As we were looking there at Isaiah 43, we see how there is always a battle over who is lord of our life. The Lord has always had this desire within His heart to be Lord of our life.
If we go back even to the beginning, when the Lord was leading the people of Israel out of Egypt, turn to Exodus 6, starting in verse 6:
Say therefore unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord,
and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians,
and I will rid you out of their bondage,
and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm,
and with great judgments.
Praise God for what He has brought us out of. Praise God for the provision we have. Actually, this is what we remembered at the table this morning: this so-great salvation, this redemption we have.
Then, if you look at verse 7, not only has He brought us out, but He is bringing us in:
And I will take you to me for a people,
and I will be to you a God:
and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God,
which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
In Exodus 6:8, He says:
And I will bring you in unto the land,
concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob;
and I will give it you for an heritage:
I am the Lord.
As you look at verse 6, you see what He has brought us out of. If you look at verse 8, you see what He wants to bring us into. Both begin and end with the phrase, “I am the Lord.”
But, to me, the key verse here is verse 7, sandwiched between those two precious verses. What is really upon God’s heart?
And I will take you to me for a people,
and I will be to you a God:
and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God.
Praise God for this relationship we have been brought into. Some translations, when speaking about the special people we are, say that we are His special treasure. Praise God for that.
Again, it is God’s heart that we would know in a real, experiential, living way that He is Lord, that He is Master, that He has dominion over everything, and that He is in absolute control in the midst of the chaos of this day—in the midst of the chaos of our life.
We are thankful for the great salvation we have in Him. All through Scripture, this has been His burden: that we would simply know Him as Lord and allow Him, in a living way, to be Lord of our life.
Think of the book of Judges. In our daily devotions, we just finished reading Judges, and I am always glad after I finish reading Judges, because when I read Judges, I feel polluted.
But praise God, there is a phrase in Judges where it says that there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. That so typifies the days we are living in.
But brothers and sisters, in reality, there was a King in Israel. There was a Lord over Israel. The problem was not with the Lord. The problem was that the people did not know Him as Lord.
He has a simple desire to bring them back to know Him as Lord. This is what He is calling us to in this day and time, when everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes. He wants us to return to that place of knowing Him and allowing our lives to show forth the excellency of who He is.
Praise God, brothers and sisters. That is a place of comfort. That is a place of assurance that we have. If we have it settled within our hearts and lives that He is Lord, that He is in control, then the things we see going on around us do not shake us as much.
We are still shaken in this day and time because we are flesh and blood, but they do not rattle us as much because our foundation—our anchor—holds within the veil.
We have so many pictures throughout Scripture of this reality. Even when the people of Israel were in captivity, the Lord raised up a prophet. He raised up Ezekiel.
Now, as soon as I mention Ezekiel, most people are already going to tune out. When we think of Ezekiel, we think of a prophet during a time of crisis. He lived in Babylon, among the exiles there. He had been taken prisoner. But the Lord used him to send out a wake-up call, a call to repentance for the people of God, that they would return to that proper relationship with Him.
We often think of the book of Ezekiel as so complex and as a great mystery. But the Lord was using it to awaken His people.
If you turn to Ezekiel 1, most people do not even make it through the first chapter. All of a sudden, we start to see these living beings flying around, burning coals, flashing lights, wheels swirling, and eyes going everywhere—all sorts of things going on. We say, “This is too much,” and flip over to the next book. We get over to Daniel, and we are thankful.
But in Ezekiel, actually, there is a very simple message that the Lord desires to show us. It is contained really in three phrases that the Lord uses in the book of Ezekiel:
Praise God for that.
When we look at these three phrases, we see the encouraging word the Lord sent to people in declension and captivity. He was crying out to Ezekiel, “You, son of man.” That speaks to our frailty, our humanity, and our utter failure.
We are sons of Adam. In ourselves, we have nothing to offer. But praise God, we have been brought into Him.
He refers to Ezekiel and says, “You, son of man, if you will simply know that I am the Lord, you will see My glory.”
Brothers and sisters, it is not based on us. We are sons of man in ourselves. Praise God, we have been brought into Him, but in ourselves we have nothing to offer. Yet He says, “If you will surrender your life and know that I am Lord, you will see My glory.”
Often in Ezekiel, we think of the chapter on dry bones. Why is He breathing life into those bones, into those sinews, into those bones? He says, “That you may know that I am the Lord.”
That is what it is about. That is what He is crying out to us in this day and time. Really, throughout our Christian life, that is what He is crying out for.
If you look in the New Testament at the Sermon on the Mount, what is the whole essence of the Sermon on the Mount? Who is lord of your life? He desires that we would know that He is Lord. We cannot serve two masters, but we would know Him as our Master. He is the Lord.
How does all that apply to us today? One of the ways that the Lord is using this COVID-19 crisis is to wake us up and get our attention.
It is interesting that in the New Testament He uses this word, “Awake, O sleeper.” Which letter is that in? Which church was that written to? Initially, we would think that the cry for a church to wake up from sleeping would be directed to the Corinthians that we have been studying. They need to wake up.
But it was actually written to the church in Ephesus, a church that we often think had the most revelation. The Lord was so free to reveal His full heart, His purpose, and everything to them. But if we look at Ephesians 5:14, He is crying out to them:
Awake, thou that sleepest,
and arise from the dead,
and Christ shall shine upon thee.
Brothers and sisters, He is calling us to wake up unto Him. What is waking up? It is becoming conscious of Him. It is waking up so that the light of the Holy Spirit can shine within us, that He could touch those areas of our lives where He is not Lord.
He is doing this because He loves us. He loves us so much. He is calling us to wake up in this hour, put off the things that are not of Him, and put on Christ.
He knows what is ahead of us. In His love, at various times, He allows these crises, He shakes us, and He says, “Look, there is a crisis ahead. I am sending these signs. Wake up. There are some areas in your life that maybe you need to repent of. You need to reconsider some things. You need to yield to Him in a fuller and greater way.”
All He is trying to do is bring us back to that intimate, personal relationship with Him.
It is a waking up to see Him and not be distracted by the complexity, compromise, and things of this world that would really draw us away from Him.
We are thankful that, as you look throughout Scripture at times of crisis, there is also a little phrase the Lord uses as He calls to us. I am using Scriptures from various places to see the comprehensiveness of the Lord’s call to us.
As you look back in the Psalms, David, that great psalm writer, gives us Psalm 46. In Psalm 46:10, in the midst of crisis, what is the Lord saying to us?
If you look at the title to this psalm, God is the refuge of His people. Verse 1 speaks of Him being a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear.
But as we are going through this, what does the Lord cry out to us? He simply says:
Be still, and know that I am God.
Be still. Pause. Let go. Cease striving.
One of the things right now is that we are alone a lot. Let us not confuse being alone with being still. We can be alone and still be very anxious. He wants us to say, “Be still, O my soul. Be still, and know that I am God.”
Come back to that. Consider Him. Meditate upon Him. Really allow Him to bring us into this realm of all that He is doing.
There is a basic question we have as we consider this matter of Him being Lord of our life. As the light shines in upon us, the Lord would ask us a simple question: “Am I enough? Am I enough for you, or do you need something else?”
As we are shut in now, as we are set apart, are we really allowing the Lord to come in and set us free from many other things?
What can occur is that we go through the normalness of life and the busyness of life, and we can start becoming dependent on other things other than the Lord. Some of these can be good things, but we can become dependent on things other than He Himself.
What He is doing now in this shaking is shaking the things that are not of Him so that what is of Him will remain. But we have to remember that it is His hand of love that is doing the shaking. It is His hand that is calling us to Himself.
We look at this and say, “Okay, what is our security these days?” We get found out pretty quickly. Do we fret and worry when the stock market loses thirty percent? Everybody’s retirement plan, whatever your portfolio has—you just lost thirty percent. There were billions and billions of dollars lost upon this earth in the last month.
How does that make you feel? Can you sleep at night? Are you fretting? Are you worrying? Or is the Lord our provider, our refuge, our strength?
Or do we start hoarding things? “I need this. I need that.” Why are we hoarding things? For our own security and comfort?
Is our comfort in having two hundred rolls of toilet paper, or is our comfort in knowing the Lord? These are little things in life through which He shakes us and brings us back: “Oh, I want Him to be Lord of my life.” Praise God.
As we look at our own personal life, perhaps in the busyness of life, our daily life with Him—that life of devotion, that life of really having that relationship with Him—has slipped a little bit. He is calling us now to a time of repenting and renewing that intimate relationship we have with Him.
I think most of us see how we get caught up in things, and at the end of the day we say, “Oh, I wish I had done this. I wish I had had this time.” But this is a time when we have this opportunity, and we should seize it.
We should really consider the Word of God because we are seeking answers in this day and time.
I love Psalm 119:130:
The entrance of thy words giveth light;
it giveth understanding unto the simple.
This is what we are looking for in this day and time: light. But are we in that place of simplicity where we can hear His Word? As that light shines in, do we even recognize it?
Sometimes the answer is right in front of our eyes in various things, and we do not even see it because we are thinking of something else. Praise God.
At times, we can also allow subtle little sins, or even big ones, to settle within our life, and we start to become comfortable with them. As the Holy Spirit shines light, He is wanting to touch us and bring us back by repentance to that place of not only simplicity, but purity in Him.
Why is He desiring that purity? Because Proverbs 3:32 says that His secret counsel is with the upright, or that He is intimate with the upright.
He desires to show His secret counsel to us. He desires that intimate relationship of sharing His heart. But are we those who are in an upright position, so that we can even hear Him?
This is the time for us personally to get our relationships right with Him.
Think about families. Do we see the blessing of being set apart at a time like this? We received a note from a family, and they put it far better than I could. I am just going to read a text from this particular family. I think it typifies this very beautifully:
This pause from all outside activities, from shuttling kids to school and extracurricular activities and lots of other stuff, has been a great help to us. As a family, we have enjoyed quiet times together to read the Bible, sing, and pray every morning. Then we get to school—all the kids at home. We have put in gardens, gone for walks, and done lots of hiking together. This crisis has been a blessing for our family.
What a precious testimony. Would we redeem the time?
We need to pray for families because they are under pressure. There is a lot of pressure out there. But praise God, we can pray for them and stand for one another in this.
Even in our life together, in our assembly life, it is an abnormal time. Most people now are meeting by Zoom. We have lost that personal blessing of being together with one another.
How are we doing?
Now listen carefully to what I am saying. We do not know what the future holds, and I am speaking far beyond the next few months. I am speaking of years ahead, if the Lord delays. What if we cannot meet together? How will we do?
We are fortunate that even in this country we can use Zoom. There are many countries that cannot meet via Zoom. But as individuals have a personal relationship with the Lord through their families—perhaps through two or three brothers and sisters being together—they are able to go on because they have that personal relationship with Him.
Unconsciously, we can become overly dependent in an unhealthy way—overly dependent upon our brothers and sisters, upon conferences.
We are not going to have the Christian Family Conference this year. How is your life going to be? Obviously, we are sad. Most of us would testify of the great riches we have received from that conference and the blessing. But how does that impact your life? Are you going to be able to go on?
“Oh, I do not have the family conference. I cannot go on.” No. We still have the Lord. We are not having a conference, but we have Him.
There is a subtlety there, so please understand what I am saying. Subtly, many of these things can become a substitute for our personal relationship with knowing Him as Lord of our life. These things can become a crutch to us, and we can think we are doing better than we are.
When I am speaking of a crutch, I do not know how many have had knee surgeries or ankle surgeries, and afterwards you are using crutches. After a few days on the crutches, all of a sudden you think you are doing pretty good. You say, “Oh, I do not need the crutches anymore.”
You put the crutches aside, take a couple of steps, and realize you are not where you thought you were. You still need those crutches.
Brothers and sisters, let us not use these crutches. Let us allow the Lord to bring us into that right place where we can see where we are in Him. We can kid ourselves. We can use crutches and think we are somewhere we are not.
But this is a precious opportunity we have, brothers and sisters, to really come into having this relationship with Him.
Obviously, it is great when we can be together. It is wonderful when we gather in person for the Lord’s table. Zoom meetings make it even more precious. The anticipation of being back together is wonderful. It is wonderful when we can be together for prayer, share a meal, have a cup of coffee, or have people over to our house.
But there is no guarantee of that, brothers and sisters, in the future. We do not know what the future holds.
Right now, what is going on in this time of crisis is really an opportunity for allowing the Lord to meet us, train us, equip us, refine us, and purify us in a way that we would be prepared for tomorrow.
This is a training exercise.
It is like when I was in the military. You had basic training, but then there were other types of advanced training. If we were going out on night operations, you had to learn about various night-vision goggles and things like this. There was a whole different kind of training for what lay ahead.
This is a training exercise for us—in our individual lives, in our family lives, and in our assembly life together.
Are we those who are learning of Him, that He is Lord of our life in whatever circumstance we find ourselves in? How do we see Him in this time? How do we really see Him?
It is in that stillness and quietness of returning to Him, beholding Him, and allowing Him to speak into our lives. May we not resist Him, but may we really be surrendering to Him.
Obviously, there are many very tragic and sad things occurring. Many people are dying—over twelve hundred yesterday just in the United States. We continue to pray for God’s mercy and great grace in the midst of this.
As it says in Habakkuk 3:2:
In wrath remember mercy.
We are crying out for the mercy of God.
But may we also see it as a blessing from the Lord. It is His voice of love calling us back to Himself. He sang the most beautiful love song at Calvary, and He is calling us back to Himself.
May we be those who have an ear to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches in this hour—hearing His voice and, in that hearing, redeeming the time.
May we redeem the time to strengthen our individual lives in Him, to get to know Him in a greater way, and to strengthen our families. May our families really know Him as Lord in a way they have never known before.
May we, as assemblies, know that He is Lord of our lives in such a way that the gospel would flow out in fullness around this country and around our neighborhoods. May the Lord prepare us for what might be ahead, particularly if we cannot meet together.
Praise God. He is the Lord. He is on the throne, and the heavens do rule.
We are thankful that He is a loving, great heavenly Father. He is full of tender mercies and lovingkindness. He desires that none would perish. May our lives reflect that daily, and may there be the testimony of the reality of His life lived out in us.
Brothers and sisters, the greatest comfort and the greatest encouragement we have is knowing that He is Lord of our life. He desires that you would know: “I am Lord of your life.”
Paul had this desire: “That I might know Him.” Praise God.
That we may know Him,
Wonderful Lord;
that we may know Him,
Wonderful Lord.To know the power of His great resurrection,
and join in fellowship with that of His suffering;
and in that, being made conformable to His death,
that we may know Him,
Wonderful Lord.
Lord, You are a wonderful Lord. We are thankful for Your cry for us to return to You, for us to know You as Lord.
We want to be those who are offering ourselves unto You in a very fresh way. In these days, may we take this opportunity to let You touch those parts of our lives where we are handling things and You are not. We want You to be Lord of every aspect of our life.
We want to be those who are given to You, that the testimony—not just of our lips, but of our life—would be that Jesus Christ is Lord of our life.
In Thy name we pray. Amen.